2
" Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.
It? I ast.
Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It.
But what do it look like? I ast.
Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose. She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate
at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.
Shug! I say.
Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going, and praise God by liking what you like.
God don't think it dirty? I ast.
Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love? and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing. Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr. ____s evil sort of shrink. But not altogether. Still, it is like Shug say, You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a'tall.
Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.
Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind,water, a big rock.
But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.
Amen "
― Alice Walker , The Color Purple
5
" Jesus in the Temple of God in Jerusalem
Matthew 21
12: AND JESUS WENT INTO THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND CAST OUT ALL THEM THAT SOLD AND BOUGHT IN THE TEMPLE, AND OVERTHROW THE TABLES OF THE MONEY-CHANGERS, AND THE SEATS OF THEM THAT SOLD DOVES
Rebellion is individual. It comes out of the truth of one being.
Revolutions are organized, but you can not organize a rebellion.
Revolutions becomes establishment, and then they fail.
Rebellion comes out of the truth and authenticity of one being's heart.
Revolution is organized and political, rebellion is spiritual.
A revolution is of the future, rebellion is here and now.
In revolution, you try to change others, in rebellion you change yourself.
Jesus is a rebel.
Christianity is the organized religion, which appeared after Jesus was murdered.
Christianity is established by the same establishment that Jesus rebelled against.
Jesus is a rebel, who lived out of his own love, truth and understanding.
AND HE SAID TO THEM, IT IS WRITTEN, MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED THE HOUSE OF PRAYER
Jesus entered the temple of God in Jerusalem, and saw that the temple had been destryed. It was not a house of prayer.
People were not meditating, people were not praying. The temple was no longer the abode of God.
Priests have always been against God. The talk about God, but they are basically against God. They do not teach truth.
The temple of God in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the priests.
Christianity is based on one simple word: love. But the result of Christianity is wars, murder and crusades.
The priests go on talking about love, but he does not live in love.
AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, IT IS WRITTEN, MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED THE HOUSE OF PRAYER; BUT YE HAVE MADE IT A DEN OF THIEVES
Jesus says that the temple of God, is not longer a house of prayer. It is a house of thieves.
AND WHEN HE WAS COME INTO THE TEMPLE, THE CHIEF PRIESTS AND THE ELDERS OF THE PEOPLE CAME UNTO HIM AS HE WAS TEACHING AND SAID, BY WHAT AUTHORITY DOES THOU THESE THINGS? AND WHO GAVE THEE THIS AUTHORITY?
Organized religion always asks about authority, status, as if truth needs some authority, some licensing from the outside.
The priests talks the language of the establishment, even while meeting a mystic like Jesus.
Truth arises from your own being, this is the inner authority.
Truth is born out of your own being.
The priests asks Jesus who has given him the authority to overthrow the tables of the money-changers? Who has given him the authority to change the rules of the temple?
But Jesus did not answer the priests. He remained silent.
Jesus is his own authority.
Jesus whole message is to be your own authority. You are not here to follow anybody.
You are here to be yourself.
Your life is yours. Your love is your inner being.
The priests wanted to arrest Jesus and throw him into prison, but they were afraid of the masses of people who listened to Jesus.
They had to wait for the right moment to arrest him.
The authentic mystic is always a danger to the priests and the organized religion.
When you can allow the yes to be born in you, there is no need to go to a temple.
Then God desends in you.
Whenever a man is ready, God finds him. "
― Swami Dhyan Giten
10
" Why, Tom - us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people - we go on.'
'We take a beatin' all the time.'
'I know.' Ma chuckled. 'Maybe that makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an' they die, an' their kids ain't no good, an' they die out. But, Tom, we keep a-comin'. Don' you fret none, Tom. A different time's comin'. "
― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath
