We Are Spirit
It turns out that what truly survives
is not merely the body.
Then—
what are we?
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We are not humans who occasionally have spiritual experiences.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Many years ago, when I first heard those words, I did not truly understand them.
I had heard them in many self-growth seminars.
I had seen them quoted in countless inspirational books.
They sounded beautiful. Deep. Wise.
But at that time, they were still only words to me.
It was not until many years later — after I finished rewriting “The Fire — Calling My Spirit Back” — that I finally experienced their meaning for myself.
That day, I was completely exhausted.
I lay on the couch, resting while listening to Caroline Myss talk about the story of David, the Navajo man.
The room was quiet.
I was so tired that even my thoughts had begun to slow down.
Eventually, I drifted into that half-awake, half-asleep state.
And in that space between waking and sleep, one word suddenly appeared in the video:
Forgiveness.
Caroline Myss said something that pierced deeply into my heart:
“Healing needs forgiveness.”
It happened in that single moment.
There was no thunder.
No vision.
Nothing dramatic happened.
And yet—
Something suddenly loosened inside me.
To this day, I still remember that feeling.
The weight that had been pressing against my chest suddenly disappeared.
The tightly clenched grievances suddenly relaxed.
The pain I had refused to release suddenly became quiet.
I felt a lightness I had never known before.
My sorrow disappeared.
My pressure disappeared.
It felt as though strength had suddenly returned to my entire being.
And most astonishing of all:
I felt surrounded by love.
And in that exact moment, the story of the Dallas hotel fire suddenly collapsed.
The people I had hated for so long—
the ones who had manipulated us, hurt us, nearly destroyed our lives—
suddenly, I felt nothing toward them.
Not suppression.
Not convincing myself.
Not forcing myself to let go.
The hatred itself had truly disappeared.
I was free.
The next day, during an audition, I found myself almost skipping all the way into the audition room.
The feeling was so strange.
Because the day before, I had been suffering so deeply I could barely breathe.
And now, suddenly, the entire world felt lighter.
What confused me most was this:
How did it happen?
Immediately, my scientific mind began trying to explain it.
Maybe it was accumulation.
Maybe quantitative change had finally become qualitative change.
Maybe my emotions had crossed some kind of threshold.
I analyzed it over and over again.
I searched endlessly for an answer.
But I could not find one.
Then, at one moment, I suddenly looked up.
And I saw it.
Hanging on the wall across from my desk was a massive painting.
It covered nearly three quarters of the wall.
My son, Jershi, had carefully painted the four letters of the word LOVE over and over again in different colors — red, blue, yellow, green.
From top to bottom.
From left to right.
Covering the entire canvas.
It did not preach.
It simply stood there — quiet, enormous, vibrant —
placing love before me.
Every day, as I sat at my desk, it had always been there.
But I had been in too much pain to truly see it.
And in that moment, I finally did.
And suddenly, I understood.
It was love.
Not theory.
Not philosophy.
Not technique.
Love.
I suddenly realized that our truest essence is love.
Spirituality is not an escape from humanity.
It is a return to our true nature.
Healing is not becoming someone else.
It is letting go of the things that pull us away from who we truly are.
When hatred leaves.
When fear loosens.
When pain is no longer held so tightly—
our true essence slowly begins to emerge.
And that essence is not darkness.
Not hatred.
Not harm.
It is love.
That day, for the first time, I truly understood what it meant to say:
“We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
Because in that moment, I did not feel that I had become another person.
There was no leap.
No transformation.
No becoming someone greater.
It was simply—
a return to who I had always been.
As though something that had always existed within me had finally awakened.
Only later did I understand:
Love is not merely an emotion.
It is a force.
It can help a person rise again from ruins.
It can help someone who was almost consumed by hatred call their spirit back home again.
And to this day, I still believe:
What I received that day was not only peace.
I received an energy born from love.
A healing born from love.
And it was from that day forward that I finally understood:
I am love.
I am energy.
I am spirit.
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