“There is none else besides Him.”

“If I’m not for me, who is for me?”

“There is none else besides me.”

What a way to live! To rise to a higher state of consciousness, that is. Whenever you want (need) to reach your “Higher Self,” simply repeat these words. You are calling on the Highest of the High, the Supreme Being of the Universe.

Particularly, when you’re faced with a decision. Call on that Goodness to “open” you to where ever the situation is developing and let the Energy dwell in the moment.

Got it?

Now kick it out. I mean it. Kick out God, Mother Earth, the Buddha or “my Beloved.” Go it alone. Make a decision with the Free Will that’s been granted you.

It’s only then that you become the person you always wanted to be, the altruistic one that places the interests of all others above your own. You make the right call, and you “bestow” a gift to humanity. You create compassion and Love that is never wasted, but passed from one person to another.

Kinda like those television commercials when the actor sees someone performing a kind deed for someone else — picking up a package someone dropped, pulling a person back to the pavement to prevent them from being struck by a bus. You pass it on, “pay it forward.” You know the one I’m talking about.

Now get this. It is when you make that decision, that you “increase” your spiritual level. You actually enlarge your capacity for more love and compassion. And, you’re following a teaching that is old as Adam and refined by an Abraham and the law-giver himself, Moses. Cool, huh?

Why kick out God?

Well, He could force you to be a good person. Or ply you with promises of great afterlife for your unselfish act. He is the great “Giver,” that Creator of ours. And He wants us to “receive” His benevolence.

But, some say the only way we can become closer to Him, is to “be” more “God-like,” that is, to make the type of decision the All Powerful One would be proud you made. Not that He needs us to make Him feel good. He’s good automatically, and I think He wants us to feel the same, to be “good” all the time.

Not holy-roller good! For Christ sake, we’re talking spiritual, not religious. I decide what I truly believe is the single act that would benefit all of humanity, despite its consequences to me. Or in spite of what I think the “fallout” could be.

Was driving home from breakfasting at the Philadelphia-area IKEA here in Conshohocken, PA, yesterday. Approached a car, where a white-haired gentlemen was closing his drivers’ side door while sitting behind the wheel. Chanted that little jingle, “There is none else besides Him,” followed up with “. . . none besides me.”

I chose to slow down and let the man feel secure from my on-coming car. I noticed that a young white-haired woman was crossing the street away from his car, so I remained stopped, patiently waiting for her to get to her car directly across the street.

Looking up, I took my foot off the brake and the car rolled forward, until I applied the brake again. There was an older white-haired lady walking in the middle of 5th Avenue, near St. Cosmos & Damien’s Church without a concern for any traffic behind her. I watched her stay in the middle of the road, taking some 10 steps before veering off to the side to a parked car. Waiting for her to open the door, I slowly drove past, waved, and felt I understood how this “None Besides Him” . . . “None Besides Me” thing really works.

I passed the test. The altruistic test that I had sub-consciously designed to undertake. Felt filled with, I don’t know, a low-level bliss that told me everything was right with the world. This practice really works at two levels. First, and foremost, for the people I try to “serve,” and secondly, and not really part of the equation, for myself. A residual benefit I neither sought or expected to gain.

Now let me try that with someone I find myself locked deep in argument with . . . If it works there, then maybe I’ll go to the Middle East, to Israel, to discuss love and compassion with a few opposing sides there.