When I talk to Christians or walk in a Christian church, I’m often asked when did I accept Jesus-Christ in my life? To which I respond, “Though I like Christianity, I don’t consider myself a Christian, I consider myself Universal.”
As soon as I finish the sentence, I get mostly the same reaction from everyone: pupils shift to the side then to the floor, they lift their eyes back up, frown, and ask: “what does that mean?”
Though I live by many Christian principles (belief in prayer, belief in a higher power, belief that spiritually we are pure love…), I also do my best to adopt many of the Eastern way of thinking, like Taoism and Buddhism. (The Tao-Te-Ching is actually one of my favorite, if not my favorite, spiritual books of all-time. When I need a ‘spiritual boost,’ I pick Stephen Mitchell’s version---love it, love it, love it!---) Meditation and living in the present resonate with me in a deep way. In addition, the fact that some of the eastern religions are based on ‘a way of being’ like the Zen mind, instead of dogma, I tend to gravitate towards them.
The reaction is typically followed by either more questions, a wall shooting up between the person and I, or the person simply walking away.
Now, I have nothing against Christians, I admire anyone who tries to better themselves the best way they can, and if Christianity can do this for you then more power to you. J, my partner, is Christian, and obviously, we get along very well…But even when I told her about my ‘universality’ she at first didn’t understand. “It doesn’t make sense, there has to be one set of principles which you are more inclined to than the other!”
Others need to ‘label’ us with something…anything…as if it would make them feel more at ease around us. At first I cringed at that, but when we understand where others are coming from it’s easier to not let it get to us.
What about you? Do you feel like others want to put you in a box? Am I the only ‘universal’ person out there?
My opinion is, I don’t have to label myself anything, the fact that I read Christian books doesn’t make me Christian. Just like reading a Buddhist book doesn’t make me Buddhist. The truth is, I learn from every one of them and I respect each one of those ways of living. Everyone’s spiritual experience is different, IMO, and I sure don’t believe that one person, or even a nation, holds the ultimate answer to the way we should live our lives.
The more I speak with people, the more I realize many of us are ‘Universals in the closet.’ As human beings, we want an end to the religious divisions in the world, in other words we want Global Peace.
If extraterrestrials looked at us from another planet, I’m sure they would shake their head, puzzled, wondering why these crazy humans are killing one another, destroying their own race…
The good news is though, the globalization of the internet broke boundaries, thus the way to Universality is, IMO, inevitable.
With Purpose, Passion, and Love,
Frédéric Byé
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