If the Christ consciousness were to re-manifest in the physical plane once again as Jesus or the Buddha, very few of us would be recognised as Christians or Buddhists. Worshipping Jesus and praying to him does not make us Christian anymore than lighting incense and chanting to the Buddha makes us Buddhist.

The basic tenet of both religions is to love God (Source of all being) with your heart, mind and spirit, and your brothers and sisters as yourself. How many of us have condoned, if not taken part in, killing our brothers and sisters in war, revolution or discrimination? Of course, we justify our actions by putting duty, loyalty and love of country before our love of God. And we feel pretty good about it.

Recently, a church refused to marry a young couple because they had lived together for two years. Did the young couple not love each other as themselves? Of course they did. Did the church love the couple as themselves? Of course not. So who was ignorant of the basic laws? The church was. Upon those two laws all else depends.

The controversy over contraceptives is totally irrelevant. Bringing children into an already over-populated part of the word, where poverty, disease and malnutrition are prevalent is a violation of nature, and of the earth. If it causes more suffering it is a violation of God.

Most people do not love their brothers and sisters and this manifests as corruption, crime and violence in business, government and society. When will we personally begin to see the Spirit of God in all things? Murder and violence is not an absence of God, but a denial of it.

How do we love God? God is in all things; so if we love the surf, we are loving God. If we love the sun because it sustains life on our planet and brings us light and warmth, we are loving God. If we love the moon because it reflects the light and keeps our part of the planet free from total darkness, we are loving God. To love the earth is to love God. We cannot love God in its totality because it is All That Is and more than the sum of all its parts. The mind cannot encompass the enormity of that creative energy that we call 'God'. We are in the age of enlightenment and expanding our consciousness until we become so realised that we can no longer fail to see the manifestation of God in all things.

The essence of true love is kindness. We used to call it 'caritas' or charity, but we've lost the spirit of the word. So if we want to love our brothers and sisters as ourself all we have to do is be kind.

Now, that isn't too hard, is it?