Our True Identity

The Rt Rev Musonda Trevor Selwyn Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana, writes in a column for The Times online:

Elizabeth Gilbert in her magical book Eat Pray Love reminds us that the yogis say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We’re miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We have failed to recognise our deeper divine character. We don’t realise that, somewhere within us all, there exists a supreme self who is eternally at peace. That supreme self is our true identity, universal and divine.

Our problem is that we don’t know that we are one with God. Hence our preoccupation with labels we think define us: I’m a sinner, I’m a saint, I’m useless, I’m important, I am pretty, I am ugly, and so on. These are all labels, clothing, which cover our nakedness because we do not take cognisance of who we are. We are more than labels. To the extent that we believe these labels, we believe a lie.

Bishop Mwamba's full essay is online here: The spark of God within us.