The Filter

All I knew this morning when I woke
Is I know something now, know something now I didn't before.
And all I've seen since eighteen hours ago
Is green eyes and freckles in your smile
In the back of my mind making me feel right

'Cause all I know is we said, "Hello."
And your eyes look like coming home
All I know is a simple name
Everything has changed
All I know is you held the door
You'll be mine and I'll be yours
All I know since yesterday is everything has changed

And all my walls stood tall painted blue
And I'll take them down, take them down and open up the door for you

And all I feel in my stomach is butterflies
The beautiful kind, making up for lost time,
Taking flight, making me feel right

I just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now
I just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now
I just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now
I just wanna know you, know you, know you

Come back and tell me why
I'm feeling like I've missed you all this time, oh, oh, oh.
And meet me there tonight
And let me know that it's not all in my mind.

All I know is we said, "Hello."
So dust off your highest hopes
All I know is pouring rain and everything has changed
All I know is a new found grace
All my days I'll know your face
All I know since yesterday is everything has changed

(Taylor Swift with Ed Sheeran, Everything has Changed)

Taylor Swift has fallen in love again, and somehow we are all happy that she did. We probably all remember the time when the sky opened for us and we saw something that perhaps few others did; but for us it was real and we always enjoy being reminded with a song like this one.

We spiritual folks understand that there is a mental filter at play that keeps other people from perceiving what is. We put the blame on the ego, the 'I', and claim that if well-meaning folks could only let go of their filter they would see the stuff we do. Charles Dickens expressed this transformation in the stingy and mean character of Scrooge who discovered love on Christmas.

Yet we spiritual folks also see things through pink glasses that "ordinary" folks just fail to perceive. Taylor Swift's new love or the faithful Hindu mother's vision of being impregnated by the Holy Spirit or the vision of her son as God Incarnation.  This "reality" may feel good, but this doesn't make it objectively true.  When James Stewart was told by an angel how life without him would have looked like in " It's a Wonderful Life",  he got so exuberant that he ran to his creditors and shouted, "Hoorah, I am going to jail!" They probably thought he had a little too much Christmas Punch.

Fact of the matter is we all wear filters, there are the pink glasses of the heart as well as the dark glasses of the ego. There is no wrong or right, only a world of your own making viewed by the ego or Heaven on earth tailored just for you by God. You have no right to criticize anyone, no way to correct any perception, just live your life instead and find out what you truly want: either you have a job to do that your soul longs for, or you enjoy Heaven on earth right here and now. Either way, never question the world that others filter out. The Hindus are right, the world we live in is nothing but an illusion, even though, it can be a pleasant one.