You have taken us up into Yourself.

You entered into death and rescued us from its grip. We have become one with You.

So, now, we live on the eighth day, with no evening.

In this eternal time, there is no tomorrow to anticipate, no yesterday to lament.

There is only Now.

How can we ever be separated from You, when our separation returns us to this path?

In eating Your flesh, we have become the Eternal Body. In drinking Your blood, we have Life.

Here, You, the Eternal One is unveiled.

We breathe Your breath, move with Your motion, and have our very existence in You.

You do not become part of us; we become part of You, for You are greater than us.

How can we distinguish between us and You?

It is impossible.

In loving one another, Your love is perfected in us.

Here’s an excerpt from this month’s Icon Mail Club letter describing the greatest mystery of all time:

In the fullness of time, the Logos, though equal with the Father, lowered himself below the angels1 and took on humanity so that we might be made God2.

The Word assumed His human form inside the Ever-Virgin’s womb. There, the Uncontainable is contained.

The One who sustains the cosmos by His very being is sustained by the blood of His Virgin Mother.

She imparts the Word His humanity, yet she is fashioned in His image.

This creature, full of grace3, feeds the Creator. She gives him life, yet He holds her very existence together. She nourishes Him who is the source of all nourishment.

And now the Virgin Mother gives birth to the Eternal One in the house of bread, Bethlehem.4

Sign up for the Icon Mail Club before December 27th to receive this month’s art print and read the full description of the image. Every month, you receive a print of one of my hand-painted icons, accompanied by a letter explaining the icon and a prayer card.

Starting at 8.88/month, or save 12% by paying yearly (7.77/month).

Join My Icon Mail Club

P.S.: Are you struggling to find the perfect Christmas gift for someone special? Surprise your loved one with a one-year subscription to the Icon Mail Club.

Each month, I send subscribers an exclusive print of one hand-painted icon from my studio directly to your doorstep. Current paid Becoming Antifragile subscribers will receive these prints automatically. Opt out if you prefer by replying to this email.

Why an icon mail club?

Icons (sacred/liturgical art) have existed in two main ways in history: for (i) veneration and (ii) didactic purposes.

This is because icons function on the level of intellect as opposed to the rational. Our intellect directly grasps truth as effortlessly as our eyes see the sunset.

It needs no words, no logical movements from proposition to proposition. Instead, our intellect immediately apprehends the reality before us. And this is why icons are important and powerful. Icons embed a thousand words without words using colour and composition. Through them, we meet the Beautiful, Eternal, the One where dualities are reconciled.

And so, I want to bring this tangibly to you through these exclusive prints of my hand-painted icons.

A prayer card and an explanation of the symbolic meaning within the icon accompany these prints. This is to help you deepen your understanding and faith.

I want the icons to encourage you to pause and prompt you toward contemplation and reflection. Think of it like a token of support in your ascent towards the mountain into the cloud of unknowing.

Limited seats

I’m limiting the seats to 50, as I want to ensure the best gets delivered to you. Most spots have been taken since announcing it on my Instagram. It’s first-come, first-served basis.

Join the Icon Club today by subscribing here. November prints ship out next week.

Peace,
IJ Makan

By the way, you can reserve an icon/sacred art commission spot for 2026 here.

Hear me, Creator of Souls, abandon me not in the darkness.

Even when my voice is broken, you are nearer to me than my own heart.

But now the wicked are encircling me. Their shadows looming like a winter storm.

They have taken my voice, leaving me with only the faint echo of my own breath.

The air has frozen now, heavy as lead, pressing down on my lungs. The cold suffocates the warmth of hope.

Yet in this desolate silence, a melody emerges.

This desert flute sings my prayers like the last embers of a dying fire.

It carries them to places untouched by human feet, beyond the valley of the shadow of death.

I pray not for the destruction of the wicked, but for their hearts.

May your justice strike like lightning.

Awakening from these ashes, a love that burns their frozen hearts.

This poem is one of three reflections I wrote for Drew D. West’s Sunday Poems.

I had a wonderful time with family and friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in over 25 years. My own mother, I hadn’t seen in 10 years!

My recent visit was jam-packed with events and lots of functions. Didn’t get sick once… but when I returned, I was struck with a serious stomach bug, then a few days later I got hit with a staph infection on my leg.

So here are some highlights for you (I’ve blurred out people’s faces for privacy).

The views were incredible!

Imagine waking up to this view everyday. It was special.

I attended a Fashion Fall launch.

I spend most of the night talking philosophy, theology and the meaning of life with strangers… 😅

Yamaha RX100 was my mode of transport at 5000ft above sea level.

Between the ages of 18-20 I rode motorbikes. So it was satisfying to feel the wind against my face, the shifting of the gears.

Shooting a shotgun

We didn’t have earplugs, so I’m certain we did some damage to our eardrums.

Lots of army in the city streets and on remote roads.

It was strange seeing so many army patrols on the roads.

A beautiful new Catholic church is being built.

I had afternoon tea with the priest here.

My sister and her husband (newlywed), and my parents.

I’m very happy for her!

My father is picking guava from his tree.

There’s nothing like eating straight from the source.

My last coffee with family.

It was great to catch up with family after many many years.

My father gifted me ‘Josephus: The Complete Works’.

See you next week!

“Peniel,” I whisper.1

But how can man see the face of God and live?

This flight up the mountain is fraught with struggle. My youthful strength begins to fail the closer I draw towards the Light.

I’m breathless under the weight of Light. You permeated the air; with every inhalation, I see more. Yet my eyes cannot open to this blinding Light.

Your brilliance sears me.

Shall I give up now and turn back?

Not unless the Light banishes me into darkness forever. I do not seek transient glories—what are they but husk blowing in the wind?

I seek only to see the Pure Light, that which preserves this very cosmos.

And I would rather go blind than have eyes attuned to darkness.

Do you hear my cries? My hands are burning as I clutch the Light. My flesh is charred, and my hip is out of place.

But shall I let go now? I will not let go until you ask my name. You would have to set me aflame; even then, my ashes would cry out.

“What is your name?”

So I descend the mountain with a limp.

Awestruck and terrified, I cry out, “Peniel.”

Sunday Poems

Poems for Sunday, October 19, 2025

No Curtain Seperates After Jeremiah 31:27-34 Where is the Ark of the Covenant? It does not lie in a temple guarded by monks and priests. Do you not know that the Eternal has placed His law within us, inscribed not on stone but on our hearts. The ark is not a relic of the past to be sought out, but it resides in us. Ou…

Read more

6 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Drew D. West and IJ Makan

We are gazing into the mirror of wholeness, fully blind!

Tell me, how can we know our face unless we have seen a reflection of it? And how can we see a reflection without perceiving ourselves as another?

The very thing which gives us sight is hidden from us. No matter how hard we open our eyes, we cannot look at ourselves but can only see outward.

Is it not true, then, that only through this momentary splitting of ourselves, of seeing ourselves in a reflection, do our eyes see themselves for the first time? And through them, do we not come to understand the movements in our own faces?

When we see ourselves through a mirror, we realise that this separation is necessary for wholeness, but ultimately false.

So he who becomes two sees himself. And only through this duality can he gain wisdom.

But some of us cling to this division. We are possessed by blindness.

Only the blind hang onto this brief separation! And we know him to be a narcissist.

The narcissist stubbornly remains in duality, for he gets lost in his own eyes. Falsely believing the separation is real.

This is his hell, his prison of eternal division.

He will never know Wisdom. He will never enter Love.

Duality necessitates wholeness. But it exists only in the service of wholeness.

So, my friend, abandon this illusion. Embrace wholeness through duality.

Rest in the eternal One.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, as a church or religious community, send me an email.

I’m travelling internationally for a family wedding next week. I’ll be away for the three weeks. So expect only 1 more post between now and when I return early October.

Why icons?

I spent most of this summer painting icons.

Some people hate it when I say “painting” instead of “writing”. But the truth is, in English we have two verbs for two different actions: painting & writing. So it’s proper to say “painting” icons not “writing” icons.

Within the next few months/year, I plan on writing an explanation on why I’m personally painting icons, the incredible philosophical/theological principles underpinning iconography, the true implications of icons in the modern world, why the iconography tradition should be living not stagnant, and finally, the deep connection between Hindu and Christian iconography.

Scroll down to see some of the icons I’ve completed or am actively working on.

Now here are seven book recommendations for Fall 2025:

1. Parmindes - Plato

2. Chandogya Upanisad - Unknown

3. Gospel of John - St. John

4. Love's Ripening: Rumi on the heart's journey - Rumi

5. Beauty Spirit Matter: Icons in the modern world - Aidan Hart

6. Darshan: Seeing the divine image in India - Diana Eck

7. Life of Moses - Gregory Nyssa

I’ve certainly cited some of these works in my writing.

I just released a new episode after a 3-month break, have a listen.

A few of the icons I’m working on/completed this summer.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, as a church or religious community, send me an email.

From the candle-lit cavern, you laugh at those praying.

“Look at all these fools,” you tell me. “What has prayer ever done for them?”

Yet prayer is the incense at the mouth of the cave that calls you out.

My friend, what do you think prayer is? A wishing well at the subway station?

Do you not remember that prayer is the very thing that makes us human? Prayer awakens us to the dance. How have you woken up every day for sixty years and failed to see the eternal dance we are participating in?

Prayer is that which unites the dualities.

You will perform all the tricks from the New York Times bestsellers on habits and optimising your life, but prayer, you say, is for the weak-minded.

But look how feeble your mind is.

You swim in the lustful river, drink deeply from the fountain of greed, and care only about gaining power over your brother. Your desires are fraught with insecurities.

Who has a weak mind? The one who prays, or you who cannot break free from your attachments to this world?

You mistake knowledge for wisdom.

You are an earthworm.

Would you believe the earthworm that tells you the wind does not blow south because he does not sense it? Better for him to be eaten by the sparrow than to remain buried in the ground forever. At least he will taste flight by merging with the sparrow’s being.

So too through prayer you can soar out of the cave.

But you refuse to pray because there’s too much suffering? If prayer were effective, there would be no suffering. Prayer does not work, so the world is filled with suffering. This is your proclamation.

Is there a child conceived without the entangling of two opposites—father and mother?

Can you have flowers without seeds?

Is there rain without clouds?

This cosmos is eternal duality, twirling infinitely in the One. Here, there is no up without down. No happiness without suffering. No growth without struggle.

Prayer turns suffering into healing balm. There is no music without first craving the wood to make a flute.

But you know better than I that the bitter melon is medicine.

My friend, leave this cave through prayer. Turn away from the wall and towards the Sun.

Pray not with loud voices, in the chapels, or in the public square, so that others praise you for your holiness. For that will be your reward from this world of multiplicities.

Instead, hide in your rooms, shut the blinds, and pretend to be asleep so no one knows you are praying. And pray that heaven meets earth. For in this you will behold the cosmos twirling in the boundless Light, and will witness the eternal unfolding of the Sun’s meditation.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, as a church or religious community, send me an email.

Your embryonic conception guarantees your death. Your death defines your life. Before your parents conceived you, you were nowhere in this world. You lived unattached.

Yet now you cling to this fleeting world.

You are madly striving to build a bigger barn to store your harvest, but tonight is your last.

You cannot take any of your possessions beyond this breath. You can only take your love.

The greater your attachments to your possessions, the greater the pain. Clinging blinded you to Truth.

I see you weeping.

You are begging for one more chance to make it right.

“Please, let me return,” you cry. “I know what I have to do now.”

You’ve been here an eternity. The very things you avoided earlier, Silence and Light, overwhelm you now.

You are on your knees, the marble floor is flooded with your tears. This is not the first time you have been here. And you will return until you enter into Truth.

What is this Truth?

Recall the dandelion in your garden. And how the dandelion scatters her seeds in the wind through her death. Her acceptance of finite death granted her immortal life.

Listen: take death seriously, and you will find eternal life. Take life seriously, and you will lose eternal life.

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.1

Our death to self initiates us into immortality. So surrender yourself to love and find eternal life in the One.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email.

You’ll not find what you seek out there, in some other country or across the ocean.

You’ve travelled to Rome, to Varanasi, seeking the invisible door. You journeyed from Mecca to Jerusalem, yet found nothing.

Now, where will you go?

You’ve exhausted all the holy sites but stand empty-handed.

Oh, how you wish there were a map, but no map reveals this door. How can the unseen be seen with your feeble eyes?

Are you planning to hike the mountain or swim the ocean’s depths next?

What will you do when you’re standing before this door? Do you even have the key to open it if found?

Many have sought this liminal space through their religious fervour and spirituality. But missed it chasing outward forms instead. Without love, your fervour and spirituality are no different than standing before an open sewer, mistaking it for a botanical garden.

The invisible door is no less present in these holy sites than oxygen is in the air, for it permeates all places… not just the sacred. So what you seek in Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi lies where you stand now. The presence of God is presence itself.

Awaken your heart from its slumber. End your wandering. Don’t you see the invisible door is right here?

The key you’re missing is your heart.

Come closer.

Read what’s nailed on the wooden beam:

In you, I reside.

You are made in My image.

I have been seeking you all your life, My dearest.

I have prepared a banquet, my oxen and fatten calves have been slaughtered for you.

Come, feast with Me.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email.

With each battle won against the non-believers, your pride swells.

But doesn’t your faith call you to die to yourself first, to love sinners, to comfort the sick? So if you have died to yourself, who then is winning all these battles?

Are we not all made in the image of the Great Love?

Doesn’t the kingdom of heaven belong to the pure in heart, the humble, the merciful, the peacemakers?1

Logic cannot penetrate the doors of Love; you know that better than anyone. And you are aware these ancient languages cannot usher you into the cloud of Darkness where Moses met the I AM.2

Moses was commanded to remove his earthly sandals first. He had to shed his pride before touching holy ground. Why would it be any different for you?

Have you laid your head on the Beloved’s bosom? Eaten the bitter melon He slices for you at lunch? Tasted the Living Water He offers at the well?

What is the point of defending your faith if you haven’t met the One whom the Scriptures speak of?

Are you a sophist pretending to be a lover?

So what if you can recite Scripture, know the intricacies of the cosmological arguments, and chant the great hymns? But you have never sat at the Beloved’s feet nor touched his garment as He passed by. So then your knowledge is empty; a husk blowing in the storm.

Only one who has touched the Infinite Love can teach us of love. All others are mere pretenders.3

To know the One, you must shed your pride.

Or else when the time comes, you may stand before the One, boasting, “I defended you against unbelievers!" But do not be shocked if the Voice replies, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers!”4

Who is the true lover, then, my friend? Not the one who boasts of love untasted, but the one who dances in her Beloved's embrace. Who is the true friend? Not the one who counts each minute to exchange favours, but one who freely gives.

So sell your knowledge and buy humility.

Strip your clothes, leave your words behind, and see the Beloved’s face in your neighbour. To love them is to touch His heart.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email.

Now, drink from it. Is it salty?

Drink from the centre of the glass. Is it salty? From the bottom—is it still salty? Tell me, where exactly is the salt hiding in this water?

You cannot see it, but it permeates the whole water.

So Love is like that: hidden, yet ever-present within the whole cosmos.

Love is that which makes us alive. It binds us to each other. We cannot see love; it is invisible but sustains our very breath.

To know this love, we must embrace our neighbour as ourselves. To love them despite their faults. To forgive them in the midst of pain. To do these is to touch the Infinite Love within us both.

To live in this Love, we must abandon our hatred. So pray not for wealth, glory, honours, or pleasures. Pray instead that our lives may be worthy to be a note on the sheet music of Love.

For to be strummed once by the Musician is worth a thousand lifetimes. Nay, worth all of existence.

Yet, look at us. Destroying our surroundings, killing a life for profit, and starving a child to control ancient lands.

We think a note scratched on the ground will be played by the Musician. Oh, how foolish!

Do we not see that we are only harming ourselves? That our neighbour is not a stranger but a mirror? That we are the innocent children we kill in the womb for convenience? That we are the rivers we pollute for profit? That we are the children starving for food behind the wall?

Awake, my friend. And abandon this false division! Join instead in the chorus and become whole.

Tell me, can you separate the salt from the water without killing one of them?

“Of course, I can,” you say. “I’ll dry out the water in the sun to get the salt.”

But now you’ve killed the one to get the other.

Where there is division, there is death. Where there is wholeness, there is life.

What is wholeness if not continually seeking after Love? So let your soul become whole and fill it with Love.

As Chaitanya, the great Indian mystic, wrote:

I pray not for wealth, I pray not for honours, I pray not for pleasures, or even the joys of poetry. I only pray that during all my life I may have love: that I may have pure love to love Thee.1

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email.

Behold this clay bowl, my friend, moulded under the pressure of the Potter’s hands, baptised with water, spun on the wheel, then fired in His kiln.

Only through such surrender do you become His vessel.

There is no other way.

Show me clay made without water and I’ll show you a coin with only one side.

Show me a bowl formed without pressure and unkissed by the kiln, and I’ll show you a lover without her Beloved.

Clay must mix with water. Endure the potter’s hands. Remain on the wheel without flying off, and not shatter in the furnace.

When she has walked this path, then she can do what no unbaptized dirt can do. She can hold boiling water without melting. She can embrace freezing ice without shattering.

Yet you hesitate to become this clay, clinging to your pride.

You say you want to drink the living water, which gives life, but where is your bowl?

You are still unmixed, still dry dirt.

You will wash away and lose your mind if you try to drink this water.

The prideful never become clay bowls.

They think because they’ve felt the rain that they’ve been baptised. No. Rain does not submerge you—it only passes through you.

Only the humble will be submerged in a bucket filled with living water.

The Potter calls you to this path, if you will hear.

But how can you hear your calling if your ears are shut?

How many bowls have cracked in the furnace? Think of all the clay that never made it onto the wheel.

How can you know if you have the strength to endure?

This path is not for the weak, but neither is it for the strong. For the strong will refuse the water; the weak will run away.

So, then, you must surrender and become humble. Trust in the Potter. He will guide you.

I tell you this: you will be made into a bowl if you stop resisting. Let the Potter’s water baptise you, His fire refine you, and rise as a vessel of Love.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, a church or religious community, send me an email :)

If you’re new around here, welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays - where I share wisdom from history’s greatest minds.

We have reached the shore. Now we seek a bridge, a boat, a rope, a stranger to help us cross the water?

There is no bridge, no boat, no rope, no stranger to carry us. The only way is by surrendering.

But we’re hesitant, worried about jumping in because we can’t swim. That’s the least of our worries.

Our obstacle is not the water, it’s the weight of our pride.

Look at ourselves, we haven’t even taken off our golden earrings, or our diamond necklace, or stripped our clothes.

If we attempt to enter wearing these clothes and jewellery, they will keep us afloat and prevent us from drowning.

So we must enter the water completely naked.

To reach the depths where paradoxes unite, we must first surrender. Sink to the bottom. We must drown. For in drowning, we will learn to breathe without breath.

So, do not worry about losing your dignity because you’re naked. Remember, Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden because they realised their nakedness.

Do not fear the icy water’s shock nor the deep blue darkness. The cold will cleanse your worldliness. The darkness will open the eyes of your heart to see more clearly than ever.

Do not worry about losing your possessions; you swim to where treasures never decay. Where thieves cannot enter and steal.

So strip naked.

Shed your ego and vanity.

Give up your heart, and exchange it for the Eternal. How else will you receive an immortal heart that beats to the rhythm of heaven?

Drown now.

Swallow the living water, let it fill up your lungs!

Drink this water and you will never thirst. It will become a spring of water within.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email :)

If you’re new around here, welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays - where I share wisdom from history’s greatest minds.

What’s the point of having feet if they bleed, you tell me. What’s the point of trying to run if I always veer from the path, you say?

Who told you that you’d be walking on feathers?

Who told you the path would be straight?

You bleed because your feet are touching the earth, my friend. Don’t be ashamed of these scars. They make you more precious. They weave your story. They make you whole. You are kintsugi.1

Only when you’ve bled do you learn to bandage your wounds. And in learning this, you can now heal others.

The path is not straight because it doesn't exist! It only becomes a path when you walk on it.

Look around you.

Don’t you realise that your voice is the instrument through which the flowers, the birds, the rivers, the earth, and the stars sing the praises of Love?

Too often we forget this, burdened by our doubts and shame. Afraid that others would see our scars. We’d rather crawl in the mud, wallowing in our shame, because we feel unworthy to walk or even look up.

We think we’re useless, dirty, and ugly, falsely believing that because we sinned yesterday, Love has abandoned us. If only we could see that Love surrounds us now, in our brokenness, in our suffering, then we’d laugh and shed tears of joy.

Love is not simply waiting for us, but running towards us like the father in the parable of the prodigal son.

But while [the son] was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.2

So too Love runs to us, embracing us in our muddiness. We are encircled in Love. We only have to open our eyes.

You know that our bodily existence whispers this truth? We exist because our parents made love. Our very conception—the genesis of our humaness—is formed in the unity of two opposites: man and woman.

This truth of our origin echoes across the cosmos.

And when we consider the fullness of reality, we are struck with this verse:

For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.3

We live, breathe, and move in Love. There is no other.

So, you could swim to the deepest ocean, climb the highest mountain, and attempt to hide your face from Love because you feel unworthy. But I’ll tell you, wherever you go, Love awaits.

It could be the furthest, darkest regions of space or the deepest cave in your heart. There, you will find Love running towards you, throwing His arms around you, kissing you endlessly.

And when you open your eyes, you will see the banquet.

Hear this, my friend: Your golden scars make you precious to Love. They are reminding you that you are loved until the end of time.

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email :)

When did you last smell an unblossomed rose? When did the bee ever collect pollen from a sealed bud?

There is no scent without bursting forth. There is no beauty without blooming. So too we are like unblossomed roses in the garden, holding back our love for others, clinging to our lusts, fearing the light of the Sun.

We refuse to bloom for fear of dying. Oh, the silliness of wasting our breath on ourselves, on our ego, on our insatiable attachment to this worldliness.

So long as the rose bud refuses to burst forth, it will never become a true rose. It will never be picked by the Gardener to be made into perfume. It will never produce a fragrance.

If we cling to our selfishness, competing against our neighbour, hoarding all our love for ourselves, we trap ourselves in a prison. A prison where we don’t realise we’re living in the garden. All because we’ve shut ourselves in, fearing the radiant light.

We can never be free if the Sun doesn’t cast light onto our petals. For it is only through the scorching light of the Sun—its purifying radiance—that our attachments and vices are burnt away. Leaving behind only what is true. To be unattached to the extremes: honour and disdain, wealth and poverty, glory and anguish.

This is freedom.

This is the beginning of wisdom.

In this garden, an eternal melody hums, swaying our existence to its divine rhythm. It’s the same music that guides a zygote to a fetus, a seed to a tree, a nebula to a star.

The Musician is playing this melody for us.

But we can’t hear this melody because we are deafened by worldly chains. We cling to the shadows as if they are real.

How then do we cast the deafness from our ears? How then do we peel these scales from our hearts?

My friend, we do this by blooming without fear of dying to our selfishness and stretching out our petals to bask in the light of the Sun.

For when the rose blooms, she is pressed into perfume. She gives up her breath in the embrace of the Gardener’s hands. There, she becomes one with all the roses to produce fragrance. She no longer defines herself by her otherness, her character, her achievements, her status.

Nothing can harm her because she’s slain her ego and walks in humility.

She sees the Truth: There’s no distinction between her and her neighbour.

So open your petals to the Sun. Offer yourself to the Gardner; dance to the Musician's tune; love your neighbour as yourself, and become one with the Eternal. Then you’ll behold the cosmos twirling in the boundless light. Witnessing the swirling eternal dance and the unfolding of this divine meditation. This is the unfurling of the rose. This is where meaning is found.

My featured interview on ‘Behold’

Thanks to the Salt + Light Media crew for telling stories of hope to the world. If you’re unable to view the video, watch it on my Instagram

If you’d like to commission sacred/liturgical art for personal devotion, church or religious community, send me an email.

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If you’re new around here, welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays - where I share wisdom from history’s greatest minds.

We are like fish dying of thirst in an ocean. We seek meaning yet remain parched. We swim to the bottom, still we cannot find the water to quench our thirst.

We climb the highest mountains, retreat to caves, and perform rituals to find our Beloved. We pray day and night, asking for a sign. We want to believe we are loved, but how can we when society, with its materialism and scepticism, proclaims there is no Beloved, only pure coincidence?

Must we then die of thirst in this ocean because we cannot see the water?

But how can you die when the water you seek surrounds you, when your very breath is possible because of it? Don’t you know that a Tuna must continuously swim to push water into its gills to breathe?

Ah, the embarrassment in finally apprehending that you are swimming because of the very water you seek.

My friend, we must open our eyes.

We’re kicking and screaming at the front door of Love. We want to enter this house of Love.

We’re pleading, “Let us in! We cannot go on any longer.”

“We’re exhausted.”

Then the door flings open. Our hearts rejoice. We expect a grand hall, but see the outside—the flowers, the trees, the birds, the insects.

Oh, we were inside this whole time.

The Beloved is not out there on mountains, within caves, or in rituals. No one can give you the Beloved. You have to find and know Him for yourself. The further you travel to find the Beloved, the harder He is to reach.

Thus the wise person knows without travelling, understands without seeing, accomplishes without acting.1

Listen closely, your very breath speaks to you of the Beloved. Each inhalation, each exhalation sings with the cosmos and participates in the eternal dance.

But we’re too caught up in our vanities we lose sight of this truth. So then we ask questions like, “Does the Beloved think about me?” And go on to wonder if we’re just random combinations of dirt floating in the cosmos with no purpose.

Ask yourself: Do you think about yourself?

Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn't ask such questions. If you think of yourself, know that the Beloved is always thinking about you.

The Beloved is closer to you than your own breath. So does He think about you? He is living in you. You breathe and move because of Him.

You are the image of the Beloved.2

The silence you avoid through countless distractions is where He is waiting. Patiently. Longingly. Calling you with each breath you take.

So drink deeply of this everlasting water.

Pause, breathe, and see the Beloved in the silence, in your neighbour, in sacred places, in nature.

Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.3

P.S. For the summer, I’m focusing on my liturgical art projects, so I will be doing only one episode per month for the podcast. If you’d like to commission sacred art, send me an email. With that said, I’ll still be writing weekly on Substack. So see you next week!

You can support my mission of reviving beauty and wisdom by checking out the podcast, sharing this essay with a friend, or upgrading to a paid subscription on Substack.

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If you’re new around here, welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays - where I share wisdom from history’s greatest minds.

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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I once knew a man, an accomplished medical doctor—one of the finest in town. He lived licentiously, chasing women and wealth. Always angry. Filled with hatred. He spat at anything spiritual. Calling it a waste of time.

He laughed when I attended church. He mocked me for praying at meals.

An atheist without calling himself one.

He thought the spiritual life was for idiots who were weak and couldn’t face the world. Only fools stuck in a bygone world believed in God. These dimwits think praying, meditating, fasting, exercising virtues matter.

Then, a few years ago, on his deathbed, he turned to God. Regretting many of his decisions in life.

This man is not unique. He’s the norm. Many of us are like him in more ways than we want to admit.

Our hearts carry hatred, lust and unforgiveness. We deceive ourselves thinking these make us stronger, antifragile. Like Nietzsche, we believe only the weak cling to God and practice virtue. So, we must reject anything spiritual.

I’ve noticed something. The more learned a person is, the more they scorn the spiritual life. Professors, doctors, lawyers, tech execs tell me: “You think spirituality matters. I don’t. I believe in science and reason.”

But there’s a place where rationality can never climb. It’s the most important mountain. The mountain of paradox.

When the paradoxes of life reveal themselves to us: suffering and bliss, death and life, mortal and immortal, no advanced degrees, wealth, fame, or power can reconcile the paradoxes. Only one thing can.

When the inevitable strikes—terminal cancer, a spouse’s death, a child’s tragic loss—we instinctively turn to the spiritual life. Regretting we hadn’t done so sooner.

The truth is: hate, anger, and unforgiveness only make us fragile and trapped. Without the spiritual life, a life lived in love, we’re stuck in this cycle of samsara—the endless cycle of rebirth and death. And samsara takes place in our own mind. For this reason, we read:

Let one therefore keep the mind pure, for what a man thinks that he becomes: this is a mystery of Eternity.1

I’m writing this because you and I will die. It could be tomorrow, in 25 years or 50 years. No matter what the Silicon Valley CEOs tell you.2 There’s no cure for death.

Our whole life is practice for dying well. But we can’t die well if we don’t know how to live, my friend.

Only the spiritual life teaches us how to die.

And in learning how to die, we learn how to live. In learning how to live, we gain immortality.

You see, there is no immortality without death.

This is why it's so important not to ignore your spiritual life.

The spiritual life is dying to our false self every day. In the realisation that our neighbour is ourselves. Even the one we despise.

As Jesus Christ taught:

Love your neighbour as yourself.3

But to do this, we must first love God with all our mind, heart and soul. In so doing, we participate in the Divine. By participating, we realise the eternal truth. That our existence, the very existence of this cosmos, is here and now because God is in all things.

We read in Colossians:

And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.4

Uddalaka Aruni taught his son, Svetakatu, this truth.

Svetakatu returned home filled with egoic pride after 12 years studying the Vedas. Aruni saw his arrogance:

Svetaketu, my boy, you seem to have a great opinion of yourself, you think you are learned, and you are proud. Have you asked for that knowledge whereby what is not heard is heard, what is not thought is thought, and what is not known is known?5

He’s asking Svetakatu if he attained that wisdom whereby knowing this one Truth, all things are known? Just as by knowing a piece of gold all that is gold is known. Or by knowing a piece of clay all that is clay is known.

Through nine parables, Uddalaka showed him the eternal truth:

Believe me, my son, an invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe. That is Reality. That is Atman. Thou Art That.6

Svetakatu finally learns this eternal wisdom. That multiplicities are contained in the One. That our lives are the microcosm of the macrocosm. That the cosmos exists out of the fullness of Love, and our lives are to mirror this great Love.

Our spiritual life is our path to immortality. And we walk this path through love. Ignore it, and we’ll lie on our deathbed like the doctor whispering regrets.

Don’t wait, my friend. Die now, and you will never die.

You can support my mission of reviving beauty and wisdom by checking out the podcast, sharing this essay with a friend, or upgrading to a paid subscription on Substack.

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Thank you to all those who are supporting my work!