When something as terrible as a huge natural disaster happens to so many people so suddenly, one of two reactions occurs: Either you feel the world is a terrible place where the innocent suffer and disaster awaits around the corneror you realize that this entire world show is designed to teach us love.

While we cant even begin to fathom the meaning of recent natural disasters, they are massive wakeup calls for the entire planet.

Natural disasters, like the Asian Tsunami, like Katrina, created waves within us to open up our hearts and respond as best we knew. We expressed it as best we could through prayers, through our pocketbook, and through sharing our deep concern. What it did for us was teach us love.

We realized that were all in this experience called life together and that when anyone suffers everyone feels the echo. We share a common humanity.

Disasters, unfortunately, are quite common on this planet-the constant slaughter of human beings for idealism, religion, and nationalism-but since they are often manmade we take sides and we lose touch with our compassion, our minds blinded by judgment, fear, and prejudice.

But with natural disasters, we have to face our humanity and its fickle nature without any buffers. The media images shook our habitual self-absorption and our innate narcissism.

Still judgment happened. People decided to blame God, politicians, authority figures or nature. People decided that it showed mismanagement and incompetence. Others became absorbed in scientific facts.

Nevertheless, hearts opened, money, rescue attempts, and prayers suddenly escalated. And for a brief moment, we began to feel like a single humanity; across the globe, we became one race, one country, and one people.

Our illusory boundaries melted as we gazed at video clips.

All of us can relate in one way to disaster, and when we saw it happen on such a large scale, it opened up our hearts.

When we learned to love, we learned to give, and when we learned to do what God would do if he were a human being, we learned who and what we are.

In the end, its all about love.

In loving, we become truly ourselves. We discover a power for good we never knew existed. And we discover that we are one consciousness existing in many bodies.

Natural disasters can open up our closed hearts.