Nejoud Al-Yagout

When we speak of racist or prejudiced people, we forget that we are talking about our ancestors, our parents - in some cases, a sister, a brother, a cousin. And most importantly: Ourselves. There is nothing wrong with harboring such thoughts. We all have them, swimming in our veins, dancing in our brains. They have been taught to us, conditioned within us, and this is nothing to be ashamed of if we ignore these thoughts and disbelieve in them.

People are always talking about the beauty of being a believer, but how majestic is it to be a disbeliever in our thoughts - a so-called infidel of the neurons that try to shape our perception, an apostate of the mental matrices of our psyche? So that if a homophobic thought arises, we smile and embrace our brothers and sisters; if a religiously-inspired phobic thought arises, we smile and embrace our brothers and sisters; if a gender-biased thought arises, we smile and embrace our brothers and sisters. That's what we came here for: To transcend divisiveness and remember our inter-connectedness.

What a boring planet it would be if we could not embrace diversity. All shades on the palette of consciousness are divine. All colors of the rainbow are stunning, shimmering strokes of genius on the canvas of love. All scriptures can teach us something about ascension. All of us have something to contribute, and this is what can help us unlearn all that we have learned, and approach life with awe and love for one another. It is about befriending the so-called other to realize we are the other. Most people think that racism is whites against non-whites, but whites face discrimination too. In many countries, the whites are blamed for all the world's disasters. People tend to forget the violent leaders in the Eastern Hemisphere who were anything but white! This is another example of conditioning. Violence has nothing to do with creed or race as history and the modern day teaches us.

So the next time we judge a person or ourselves for divisive inclinations or thoughts, let us remember, regardless of the hue of our own skin, we are merely believers in our mind chatter, and shift our focus to universal recovery. If a part of our body has cancer, we are considered a cancer patient; so if any one of us acts upon racism, it is something that is a part of our collective psyche, not just one faction, one sect, one individual. We have to work together instead of condemning one another. We are all in this together, and we need to take care of each other and see beyond skin color, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, sexual inclination, gender, social standing or financial status.

The hardest thing to do would be to recognize prejudices in our ideologies, our education systems, our interactions with others, and our own conditioning. This is difficult, because guess what? Our very structures will crumble as we navigate unknown terrain. But, sometimes we need to destroy our foundation to build a new one: More powerful, more sturdy, more inclusive. Sometimes we have to be willing to be an empty phoenix rising from the ashes of thoughts.

By Nejoud Al-Yagout