Richard Chamberlain’s autobiography

I’m currently reading Richard Chamberlain’s autobiography, “Shattered Love”. He’s the actor from “Dr Kildare” television series, and was also in “The Thorn Birds” and “Shogun”, two mini-series. In it he come out as being gay. He writes very well and is very spiritual. He had a terrible childhood but has overcome that and made his way through life. There’s a couple of paragraphs I want to leave here for all people to read, not just people who are gay or lesbian, but all people who struggle with their self image. He writes:

“In our culture, status – our state or condition in the eyes of others, our relative rank in the heirarchy of prestige – is perhaps the most fundamental preoccupation. I bought society’s values and foolishly linked my well-being to the status conferred by “success” and celebrity. If I could get enough applause from enough people, my fears would disappera and I’d suddenly be just fine inside, happy as a lark, free as a bee.

“In hitching my happiness to the slippery star of status like so many of us do, I failed to see the madness in my method. My well-being was completely dependent on the good opinion of others who could give it or take it away at will. I was giving my power, literally my self, away to the crowd.

“I indulged in the popular illusion that one human being can have greater intrinsic value than another. The truth is that each of us is a unique, necessary, and incomparable aspect of spirit. Each life is a sacred part of the creative design and dynamic structure of life, of God. Given that truth (the ultimate wholeness of life), the illusion of “relative rank in the heirarchy of prestige” is totally irrelevant; it simply doesn’t exist.

“Human beings (and rocks and trees for that matter) are not touched by divinity; we don’t merely contain a divine spark within our otherwise sinful selves. Each of us is the divine, experiencing and learning and doing whatever we’re doing each moment. It seems to me foolish to imagine that one aspect of the divine is intrinsically better or worse, higher or lower, than another. The drugged-out prostitute, the movie star, the potentate, and the archangel are all God itself exploring, creating, being, and learning. There is nothing but “God”.

“This premise in no way negates appreciating and striving for excellence, goodness, and compassion. Nor does it nullify aversion to brutality, harmfulness, greed, and such. It does not contradict our need for law and order, or even our appreciation of elites in all disciplines. It simply means that the hidden mud bricks that anonymously support the glorious gilt dome are, in the grand scheme of things, no less important or prestigious than the dome itself. It means that before I feel superior to the grubby homeless person I’m walkin by, I’d better remind myself that I have no way of knowing why God has become and is experiencing life as that down-and-out being. I may just walk by, or I may offer money, or I may attempt to find shelter for this homeless guy. But even though I’m obviously better off than he is, the divine in me is no better than the divine in him.

“Shattered Love: a memoir” by Richard Chamberlain; published by Regan Books; ISBN 0-06-008743-9