"Prepare the Way for the Lord"

I received a beautiful comment on YouTube about this video, which I would like to share and answer here.

Comment:

Beloved Mikael, I have a hard time with "the Lord". I sense old patriarchal energy and collective woundedness that have caused a lot of harm. This calls for divine redemption. In my experience, God and Goddess are ONE on a very high level. This is wonderful and opens up a completely new perspective on LOVE. Greetings from the heart!

My Answer:

"Yes, I understand. That's exactly why I chose this title: because we humans carry these wounds you write about within us and therefore can no longer feel the actual, deeply helpful meaning. Basically, we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Of course there is neither a male nor a female God. There is no God at all as a person or as a being of any kind. That which animates this world and that which we are is impersonal, unlimited, has neither name nor form.

But we are human beings, and we humans experience and understand best emotionally. Abstract things do not help us. And that is why it is easier for us humans to surrender to a guru or a "Lord" than to an abstract, non-experiential idea. The guru and the "Lord" are completely unimportant. It is the devotion, the surrender that matters. And surrender is all the easier for us humans the more concretely we can experience the object of our surrender.

Of course, no guru is God. No one can be God, because God, that which the Indians describe so beautifully with the impersonal word "Paramatma", is unlimited and everywhere. No Jesus can be God, no Lord. But by surrendering to a person, we experience God within us. That, and that alone, is the point.

A long time ago, people worshipped nature. Some primitive peoples still do today. Nature is everywhere. It is the most "unconcrete" form of surrender. Later, people began to worship gods, which made surrender easier for them. surrender became more intense and effective. Then many gods eventually became one god, and again surrender became easier and more intense. Through a guru (or "Lord"), this God becomes even more concrete and surrender becomes even easier.

Of course, the guru, the Jesus, the Lord is not the divine, the person who surrenders knows that. It is all about surrender. Through it, the ego is destroyed and the path to the divine is cleared. And when this happens, the "object of surrender", the guru, the Lord, the Jesus, whether female or male, is no longer needed. One experiences God within oneself. Swamiji says: "I make your own soul your guru". The "Lord" is a kind of aid for a short time, nothing more, but a very effective one.

Today, people's ego is bigger than ever, and the capacity for surrender has almost completely disappeared, because surrender is the last thing the ego allows. "Surrender" is something suspicious for most people. Of course, people's surrender and trust have been abused time and again. Of course, most gurus and "masters" are nothing but charlatans and egocentrics. That is all true. Nevertheless, the path of surrender is the only path. Nevertheless, we love. Nevertheless, we trust. Nevertheless, we set out again and again. And that is a miracle.

There may be people who no longer need this, I cannot judge that. In any case, I experience in my life that my surrender, which was always completely unplanned and spontaneous, is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. I am so infinitely grateful for this: that I am able to do this in a world that no longer knows surrender. I have long since become my own master, I have long since felt God within me, but the surrender to the Master and to the Guru remains, becomes ever purer and deeper, and it helps me more and more on this path on which my own ego is always waiting to return. It purifies me anew every day.

The title of the video is a quotation from the Bible: "Prepare the way of the Lord". I wouldn't use the word "Lord" myself because, as you say, it is loaded. But if we allow the old hurt to keep us from walking the path of surrender, we only make the hurt bigger. I made the video because I know people who have become incapable of surrendering to the master or guru they have because they carry these ancient hurts that you write about. The pain is so great that they cannot recognize the redemption that stands before them. It was for these people that I made the video, and it was for these people that I chose the title.

Dhyan Mikael"