How to become fully human
Just as a seed cannot grow unless it dies, so we cannot become fully human unless we let go of selfishness.
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Hamster wheel of desire
We’re all chasing something. More power. More money. More status. More of everything.
Most of us are trapped on the hamster wheel, spinning so fast we can’t see the cage. Society whispers that the next big score will fill this insatiable desire for more. But it won’t.
The insatiable hunger runs deeper than material and transient gain. It’s a yearning for meaning, for connection to the Eternal, Unending, Unborn, Uncreated, the Subtle Essence of the cosmos. Only this can satiate our soul’s longing.
False beatitudes
Yet society casts a veil over our eyes. Be smarter, be richer, be powerful, it says. You’ll rise above the rest, a king among peasants, a fighter among the weak. It preaches its False Beatitudes. A twisted set of virtues that lead us astray.
Blessed are the arrogant, for they shall wield power.
Blessed are those who never mourn, for they shall seize joy.
Blessed are the strong, for they shall inherit the world.
Blessed are the rich, for they shall feast on pleasures.
Blessed are the merciless, for they shall crush their enemies.
Blessed are the corrupt, for they shall walk unburdened by conscience.
Blessed are the warmongers, for their wealth shall multiply.1
We invest so much of our time and energy into these False Beatitudes gaining power, joy, pleasures, and wealth, but at the cost of our souls.
A world blinded by “me”
Look at our world: War rages, genocides unfold, nature groans under exploitation, while we chase status in towering concrete jungles or escape to holiday homes in the Hamptons. All the while, our neighbour struggles to feed her child, and we turn away blinded by a culture that whispers, “It’s about me, me, me.”
We bask in our pride. We flaunt our destructive technologies by bombing hospitals and churches.
Why do we continue down this path? How can we be so blind? Because the rulers of this earthly kingdom don’t want us to become fully human. If we did, we’d see the true enemy isn’t out there, but within us—a breath away. We’d realise our neighbour is truly ourselves, living from another perspective. We’ll unveil this truth, and the truth will set us free.
If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.2
What is this “word”? Love.
Love as the way
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.3
To abide in love is to surrender the false self. The ‘you’ obsessed with society’s False Beatitudes, clutching grudges, trampling the weak, refusing forgiveness, hoarding possessions. This self must be buried in the dirt.
Just as a seed cannot grow unless it dies, so we cannot become fully human unless we let go of selfishness.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.4
A grain doesn’t become a stalk by staying whole. It cannot. It must break open. It must die to itself. St. Paul echoes this:
You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.5
This truth is woven into the cosmos—from dying stars to caterpillars to the smallest seed.
But if we cling to the false self—our ego, lust, anger, hatred—we’ll be stillborn. Christ warns:
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.6
Hate the false self. The one who feasts on the fruit of society’s tree of false promises.
Serpent vs. Christ
Remember the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a place of abundance?
In the middle is a tree bearing the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Hanging on that tree is a serpent. The serpent promises life to Adam and Eve if they eat the fruit. They eat, but through eating, they die—never becoming fully human.
So too we who feast on the False Beatitudes remain unformed. The serpent promises life but delivers death.
Contrast this with Christ.
Christ hangs on a tree. He promises life through death if his followers eat of his flesh and blood.
One is selfish, the other selfless.
Selfless love
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.7
The greatest love is to surrender your selfish existence for others. To love your neighbour as yourself. In that act, we participate in the Divine life.
And contact with this Great Love that transforms the natural into the supernatural.
When you give up your breath—your selfish existence—for love, you will attain everlasting life. You will become fully human. Christ didn’t come to condemn the world but to save the world.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.8
So only in the act of killing your false self daily do you give birth to your true self. When you love your neighbour as yourself. When you forgive your brother, your sister, your father, and your mother. When you overcome the lust in your heart for your neighbour’s wife. Then you have become human.
Love is not a philosopher’s debate or a doctrinal checklist. Rather, it’s the mother who forgives her child’s killer,9 the stranger who shares his meal, the people risking their lives to care for the sick during deadly epidemics.10
Becoming fully human
In doing so, you see your brother, sister, friend, stranger as yourself, made in the image of God. You cannot help but see that the stranger is you. You care for them not for reward, but because it’s the truest human act. The Taittiriya Upanisad sings it too:
And then he saw that Brahman [God] was joy: For from joy all beings have come, by joy they all live, and unto joy they all return.11
The Bhagavad Gita affirms that only in Love do we enter into the Divine:
By love he knows me in truth, who I am and what I am. And when he knows me in truth he enters into my Being.12
That’s it, my friend. Step off the hamster wheel. Love your neighbour today—not as a task, but as the truest human expression. Die to your vices daily. This is how we become fully human.
These things I command you, that you love one another.13
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Read the true beatitudes in Matthew 5.
John 8.
John 15.
John 12.
1 Corinthians 15.
John 12.
John 15.
John 3.
After her husband and two sons were murdered in India, Gladys Staines said, “I have forgiven the killers and have no bitterness, because forgiveness brings healing and our land needs healing from hatred and violence.” https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/forgiveness-heals-gladys/articleshow/196423.cms
St. Aloysius Gonzaga cared for the sick in hospitals, tending to their wounds and providing food. He ultimately contracted the disease and died at age 23.
Taittiriya Upanisad, 3.
Bhagavad Gita, 18.
John 15.