“Even This Shall Pass Away” a poem by Theodore Tilton was referred to me by one of my closest friends R. Sharma. Thank you for making me aware of this wonderful poem that has a similar theme to my own “How Rich Am I?”.

“What I Am” is a poem inspired by a multitude of sources including the Beatles “All You Need Is Love”, and in particular the series of books written by Neale Donald Walsch entitled “Conversations With God”. The poem’s most basic premise is that we are all pure love and that love is all there is. We are all the same – no more and no less than anyone else and until we begin to realize this basic truth human life can not progress. Some of you may ask how a Hitler or the harshest serial killer could be considered to be “pure love” but my answer to that question is the following adaptation of a famous story:

One day a teacher asked his class if they believed God existed. Not suprisingly most of the students raised their hands in the affirmative. The teacher ridiculed the believing students by then asking them if God did exist then why had he created evil i.e., rape, torture, murder, etc. The teacher went on to say that God could not exist because an almighty God would not have created such evil.

A lone student at the back of his class raised his hand and asked the teacher if he believed in darkness. The teacher replied, “Well, ofcourse!” “During the day it is light and during the night it is dark.”
“Darkness is a human construct”, corrected the student. “What we humans perceive to be darkness is really just an absence of light”. The student went on, “It is the same with the evil that you just referred to. There really is no such thing as evil but merely the absence of love.” “God did not create evil, humans have constructed the concept to explain an absence of love in the same way they created the constructs of light and dark.”

The student’s name was Albert Einstein.

Peace

Paul