The wooden cross stands empty today, waiting.
It’s Good Friday – that somber pause in the Christian calendar when a man who spoke of nothing but love was betrayed, beaten, and left to die in the most public, humiliating way possible. And instead of cursing his tormentors, he asked that they be forgiven.
What kind of consciousness does that require?
I was raised Catholic. I’ve sat through countless masses, felt the weight of incense-heavy air, eaten the wafer, dipped it in wine. I’ve watched people bow to symbols of suffering, hoping for salvation. And while I no longer subscribe to any single religion, something about this story still stops me in my tracks.
Because perhaps Jesus wasn’t merely a mascot for organised religion. Perhaps he was awake.
Imagine a consciousness so expansive, so deeply tethered to Source – to God, to the sacred intelligence flowing through all existence – that he didn’t just preach love as an abstract concept. He embodied it. Even when facing betrayal. Even when they drove nails through his flesh.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Those aren’t the words of someone playing a religious role. Those are the words of someone who has dissolved the illusion of separation – who sees his tormentors not as enemies, but as confused expressions of the same divine consciousness he knew himself to be.
Ram Dass might say Jesus was a soul who had remembered who he really was. Alan Watts might suggest he was playing the role of divinity in human form – not as an exclusive miracle, but as a reminder of what’s possible for each of us.
Consider his teachings…The kingdom of heaven is within you. Love your neighbour as yourself. Be still and know. Don’t judge. Don’t fear. Where two or more gather, there I am.
These aren’t religious platitudes. They’re signposts to awakening.
A man who walked dusty roads, touched the untouchables, and saw divinity in the eyes of prostitutes and tax collectors. Who taught that true prayer happens not in grand displays but in quiet rooms. Who suggested that the mustard seed of awakening within us might grow into something that shelters everything.
The revolutionary aspect of Jesus wasn’t his claim to “exclusive” divinity – it was his insistence that this same divinity lives in everyone, waiting to be recognised.
So today, Good Friday, I’m not here to preach. I’m here to honour a man – like Buddha, like many awakened beings – who walked through suffering with a heart so open it changed the world.
And to remind us…
Every time we forgive instead of retaliate, every time we choose presence over reactivity, every time we soften in the face of pain – we activate that same sacred awareness that lived through him.
May this Easter be more than chocolate and long lunches. May it be a remembrance that the resurrection isn’t just a historical claim – it’s a metaphor for what happens when we die to our limited selves and awaken to what we truly are.
Connection. Stillness. Soul. Breaking bread with those we love. And remembering that divinity has never been confined to buildings of worship – it has always lived in the temple of our own being, waiting for us to become fully awake.
Happy Easter, fam. Let’s keep evolving – together.
Big Love,
Dino