Written by: Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It seems true that all of us are mainly looking for love. In general, we are better at receiving it than we are at giving it. That continues to be true until we cross a threshold where the love we have received has so healed us that we suddenly find ourselves filled with great energy for loving others. This threshold can be reached through interaction with others over time and it can also be seeded in us by mystical experience. The result is expanded Universal Consciousness. Perhaps you have experienced this evolution yourself, or you know of others who have. Examples headline history. People like the Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Dorothy Day, and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.
Recently I have become aware of someone who can keep company with these standouts. His name is Gregory Boyle. He’s a Jesuit priest in Los Angeles and he leads an organization he founded thirty years ago called Homeboy Industries. I first became aware of him when I was given one of his books, “Tattoos on the Heart”, as a Christmas present. He exemplifies the love that is at the height of consciousness.
At the start of his time as a priest, Father Boyle whom I shall call Greg became pastor of a Jesuit Parish in the heart of gangland Los Angeles. He put the welcome mat out for gang members. Soon the church bell tower was filled with homies hanging out smoking. The staid members of his church revolted. There was a big meeting at which two of his lay leaders, both women, stood up to defend his policies explaining that what he was doing was exactly what Jesus would be doing. The surprising response was applause and Greg was off and running.
In his book, he speaks of having no other agenda than to offer a hospitable environment and a loving atmosphere to these young gang members. The results, built up over years, have been amazing. Like one homie who comes in complaining that he can’t seem to get a job. Tattooed across his forehead are the words “F--- the World.” Greg takes him in hand and after a while, there is a platoon of tattoo artists volunteering to remove tattoos so young kids like this can get on with their lives.
Greg is very sensitive to the suffering of these gang members and the wisdom of waiting until they are ready to open up. One young man had been in prison for 10 years and had clashed with Greg in his youth even drawing a gun on him at one point. After years pass he drops in unannounced and starts talking trash but soon calms down. He looks up at the ceiling and begins to tell Greg about the day his dad beat him with a pipe after promising that he would not hurt him. Soon tears are flowing, and he doubles over sobbing in his lap. Greg embraces and consoles him.
Much healing takes place through Greg’s simple, kind, steadfast presence to these homies who, underneath all their violence and bravado are just hurting kids. Greg knows that and his wisdom births love for even the most hostile seeming among them.
Each of us has the same capability as Greg. Few of us attain it. The one I call Spirit dwells in us, in each and every cell of our bodies and the invisible folds of our souls. The agenda of consciousness is to melt away the barriers between us and others until we have the same desires and capabilities that people like Greg have.
We do not need to lament our shortcomings here. Rather our process is to live patiently and peacefully with ourselves and others with hearts open to expansion and welcoming to the Light of Love that lives inside us.
There is a 14th-century Persian Sufi mystical poet named Hafiz. He has a message for us on this subject. It goes like this:
Don’t tell me, dear ones,
That what Hafiz says is not true.
For when the heart tastes its glorious destiny
And you awake to our constant need
For your love
God’s lute will beg
For your
Hands.
(from The Lute Will Beg “The Gift: Poems by Hafiz”, trans by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 235)
To join the adventure with Bill O’Brien, click on his digital business card at https://www.cardfly.io/billobrien A place of easy beginning is to click on his FB there and receive Wisdomkeepers for free.
Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Bill O'Brien has decades of experience helping individuals and groups expand their awareness of the capacities of their inner selves, and their full, or divine, potential. He utilizes a range of methods to expand consciousness, from meditation to self-knowledge techniques to guided imagery to shamanic healing methodologies such as Illumination and Soul Retrieval. With his Consciousness Coaching, experience is the touchstone. The goal is to draw up into conscious awareness the infinite contents of the individual unconscious. Bill spent twenty years in the Jesuit Order before launching out on the great adventure of the discovery of the Self. His Wisdomkeepers reach a worldwide audience. He is the author of "Wise Guyde: The First Forty-Five Columns" available on Amazon. His mission: is to feed the spiritual hunger of the world by healing and elevating human consciousness.
