109. Association With Ordinary People Of Other Lands Draws These Lands Closer

When I was in the human flesh, people were also interested in what was developing in other lands. And the only source of this news was in traveling. I did experience many pleasant moments while associating with the passengers of the camel caravans, traveling via Nazareth around all the then-world of the Roman Empire. Since my very childhood I was lucky to have been able to associate with different people so much because very many conductors of caravans would come to my father, to his small blacksmith’s workshop for the repair of their broken belts with metal buckles or the camel harnesses. When there was a need, my father did work as both a carpenter and smith and even repaired the camel harnesses, belts, and various leather baskets.  

I remembered very well all the news from the other lands that I heard my father discuss with the visitors. I had a very strong desire to see these lands myself so that I could also experience that variety of life which had been experienced by the conductors of the caravans while traveling for weeks along the Mediterranean shore or further deep into the Roman Empire. I desired to participate in these conversations myself rather than merely to listen to what others were saying. And very early, I myself, started asking the visitors that which interested me. If my father was more interested in the safety of traveling, in how often caravans could be attacked and robbed of all the goods by robbers, meanwhile my interest preferably lay in the every day life experience of these people. I was thirsty to know the customs of different lands, in what manner people associated among themselves, what sort of life they lived daily, what interests they had every day. Therefore, I, myself, began to ask them these things more often. I was answered as a grown-up rather than as a child. However, they were scared by my questions about the religions of different lands, about the belief in God in these nations, since they were little interested in such things about other lands which did not match their own belief. Thus, even during their travels they could not see the life of these nations from within; they saw it only as much as they themselves would make contact with a different way of life in their own daily matters; and not more. Therefore, I began to feel an ever growing desire to experience the life of these nations from within, to feel with all my soul what these people’s daily life was like from within, what the spirit of their living was, rather than getting acquainted only with their outer life visible just to material eyes.             

Now that you have different means of broadcasting the news as well as such fast means of traveling, you can associate among yourselves more easily than in those times. And you can help those who cannot travel for different reasons. You can show these travels on television or online, you can describe them in newspapers and books, you can tell about them on radio so that as many people get to know each other as possible. However, you must do all this by participating in the everyday life experience in other lands yourselves rather than just looking on the surface like those travelers of caravans were doing. A tourist shall never see a life of any other nation if he associates only with a local guide and walks along those routes which are meant for excursions. Such travels do not provide the true taste of knowing another nation, it is similar to partaking of an unsalted food. You are eating it and feeling that something is missing to feel the fullness of all the taste.     

It is for this fullness of taste that I traveled around the remote lands of the Mediterranean and put out to sea visiting islands, and reaching Rome, Athens, and many other cities to live there and spend time with ordinary people so that through this association with them I could know such a life of theirs that cannot be seen just by material eyes in such a short time, however much they might desire it.  

And a better knowledge of others brings them closer to one another. While associating with common people you learn about others and even others learn about your land to which they might have never been and even maybe they will never have a chance to go. And then you begin to feel that you, even being alone, at this moment represent all of your land since others look upon you in such a way as if in your land all the people are similar to you.

Your present traveling is a search for impressions and entertainment while it must be a search for your own deeper understanding of man so that by expanding your knowledge you would be able to get closer to your brethren. And those who meet you in other countries look upon you as visitors from whom they might profit rather than upon their brethren.

Now the goal of tourism does not correspond to its true quality at all. For, instead of the knowledge of different cultures, and rather than drawing them closer, it is turned by selfish businessmen into a source of making profits.

And it is just due to the fact that you have not discovered the Father within you that you do not dare to change the direction of tourism from commerce to a means of rapprochement so that people rather than staying in luxurious hotels might stay with families, and together with these families they might participate in their daily lives, while in the evening they might gather together in one expanded common family in order to know each other better and share their experiences.

Now your interest is directed to buildings, to architectural structures of which you have heard or seen, to entertainment and relaxation while leaving the ordinary man and the flavor of his daily living from within, absolutely outside of your attention.

This type of tourism seems to you to be impossible, but in the future it will be widely spread throughout the planet. Just a search for outer glamor for one’s eyes and comfort for one’s material body in a different environment does not differ from your life in your own land where you also strive for only glamorous things on the surface. Therefore, this sort of tourism supplies you with plenty of impressions and pleasures but it does not build up your soul and does not allow you to discover your new brethren who dwell in a different ambience, entertain a different concept of the purpose and meaning of life as well as of God, and who even belong to a different race.     

And by your direct association within the family you might also expand the views of these families. And it would be absolutely irrelevant that you could not speak their language for it would be your open souls who would be speaking, and this language is common to all. You would understand fairly much by definite gestures and actions. Meanwhile, every day an interpreter would live with a different family so that at least for one day you could have a deeper association with the members of that family. And in the evening there would be held a joint gathering by one of the hosting families.

As long as this type of tourism does not exist, it seems to be unpopular, maybe even exhausting. However, the sooner it starts the more of you will desire to participate in it. You need just to transform yourselves. And this transformation is the only one – to discover the Father within so that you would consider all people, irrespective of where they live and their race, to be your brethren. And then you will begin to desire to know these brethren of yours, inhabiting other lands, by directly associating with them, with their families, and with their children, rather than through a bus window. And then you will begin to perceive ever more that they are also the children of the Father even as you are. They also have their love and pain, joy and sorrow; their every day problems and dreams. And then you will begin to look upon the shows which are currently imposed on you by television in a totally different way. You will begin to see and perceive that you have been poisoned by just shallow jokes, by an outer superficial glamor and a multitude of scenes of violence in both films and news programs or on the pages of newspapers and journals.