To be able to provide something for our world that brings blessing and transformation, there is the requirement to be able to bring practical competence while retaining a transcendent perspective. There are situations to be managed, resources to be stewarded and people to be encompassed, while retaining a constant awareness of a larger context. It’s possible to be sucked into the intensity or urgency of some situations and consequently lose a broader, more holistic perspective. While much can be accomplished when the drama is high and the adrenaline is flowing, if a connection between the physical capacities that are so engaged and the stable core of who we really are is lost, the long-term outcome is never creative.

The other extreme of not engaging at all is equally ineffective. While there is a place for the ascetic and the hermit and the monasteries and the convents, that’s not where my life belongs. I’m a practical man and I have something to do in the earth, even though there are times when the thought of spending my life in solitude in a log cabin next to a stream in a forest somewhere seems very appealing! My innate sense of purpose doesn’t allow that option.

Living a spiritually practical life means that a balance is maintained, there is space for meditation, contemplation, inner nurturing, whatever might assist us to ensure that our connection with Source is always intact and that our thoughts and actions always come from that place. But it is as important that there be practical people on earth that can allow a new world to emerge in practical ways.

We have an Emissary class called “Practical Spirituality,” which provides insight and experience of what it means to be effective as a spiritually awakened being in the physical world. There is a biblical quote that speaks about being in the world but not of it. Humanity is a critical part of the mechanism by which the cosmic design emerges accurately in the world, and this calls for a level of practicality that is founded in spiritual awareness. We might call that Spiritual Practicality. There is a critical need in this day for competent, spiritually aligned people, those that bring leadership that is enlightened and enlivened by Love. The full presence and power of the spirit of God brings healing and brings order at all levels, and it needs us to be able to function effectively in our worlds and for each one to bring that power in our own unique way.

Rudolph Steiner wrote this poem that I believe describes very well what I’m speaking about:

Seek the truly practical material life
But seek it in such a way that it does not numb you
To the spirit that works within it.

Seek the Spirit, but not out of spiritual lust or spiritual egoism;
Seek it rather because you wish to become selfless
In the practical life of the material world.

Apply the ancient principle:
Spirit is never without matter, matter is never without Spirit!

And say to yourselves:
We will do everything material in the light of the Spirit
And will seek the light of the Spirit in such a way
That it enkindles warmth in us for our practical deeds.

I believe these words illustrate the true function of man on earth: spiritually present, bringing the power and order of Spirit into the world in practical, creative ways.

As we approach the end of 2012 and remain cognizant of the power that we each have to bring creative change, and as we honor the natural cosmic cycles as they pertain to this planet and to humanity as a whole, we can welcome and help to shape a year that’s full of possibility.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Spiritual Practicality

There is no greater gift than having an awareness of one’s true identity and purpose and knowing that it is a part of the greater unfolding cosmic design. Once we have been introduced to that reality, the knowledge doesn’t go away. Things may happen in our lives that can obscure and cover up the truth and dim our assurance so that, at a conscious level, we forget who we really are, but there is that deeper part of us that can never forget again.

The poet Hafiz has a way of describing what happens when we do forget, and extends a playful but powerful invitation to return again to true self-awareness in this poem:

I Know the Way You Can Get

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love’s
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For I am a sweet old vagabond
With an infinite leaking barrel of Light and Laughter and Truth
That the Beloved has tied to my back.
Dear ones, indeed, 
Please bring your heart near me,
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!

(from I Heard God Laughing—Renderings of Hafiz/ translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

What is it that determines the nature of what we create in our lives and that is reflected in the world around us? It’s our state of consciousness. If we allow that consciousness to be dominated by a limited, distorted human nature because we have forgotten the reality of who we are, then our worlds will reflect a limited, distorted state too. A totally different world emerges when we bring our full cosmic stature into expression.

Hafiz speaks of the need to “keep remembering God.” If we do really remember the truth of the presence of God, then we remember who we are and what it is that’s ours to bring through the expression of that presence. The one I Am doesn’t forget but the capacities of mind and heart sometimes need reminding who and what they were created to express. The times when we gather together to consider these things are good opportunities to remind ourselves and each other to partake of the “infinite leaking barrel of Light and Laughter and Truth” that Hafiz describes. It seems so much easier and much more inviting when put like that!

The invitation we bring to our worlds does carry some urgency in these days. It is also one that is welcoming and inviting, that is clearly based in love. Awakening to the truth of Being is exciting and enlivening and irresistible. It is the greatest gift that we could offer.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

The Gift of Awareness

Because the capacities and lives of humanity in general have been used for other purposes, usually bringing self-serving human consciousness, there has developed a high degree of familiarity with this aberrant behavior, so that it is seen as normal and the awareness and experience of true function has been lost. But things happen in all our lives. We may meet someone or face a situation that brings to our remembrance the fact that there is another way to live and be in our lives that is more true to who we really are and what we are really here to do. This can bring a state of confusion in thought and feeling and a state of unease in our bodies as we try to come to terms with the apparent conflict between those identities—one who brings consciousness based in earthly awareness and one who brings the consciousness of Source, cosmic consciousness.

While that confused state can be extremely uncomfortable, it does provide an opportunity to make shifts towards a new, more accurate perspective and way of being. We realize that the understanding that we had back along the way, and maybe even just yesterday, may not serve us well today. So there are shifts needed in the way we see things, and we do have freedom of choice to make those shifts. But during the process of shifting attention from worldly consciousness to cosmic consciousness, experience can vacillate between the two, and even end up combining them as a way to assuage the discomfort that can be experienced while making those shifts.

I believe it is necessary for us to deliberately make adjustments to our habitual views of life and to issue an invitation to the people in our worlds to do the same. It is crucial in these days that there be those present who have moved beyond the stuck childish state of victimhood and smallness, so that divine consciousness can be effectively present in the body of humanity once again. The recent Pulse of Spirit, entitled “Cosmic Consciousness,” quoted the following words from David Karchere:

We are made to be a living temple for cosmic consciousness. The predicament for humanity as a whole and for individual human beings is that many other levels of awareness have gotten mixed up with cosmic consciousness within humanity, so that human consciousness is not free to know cosmic consciousness. There is a place of pure awareness within all people. Humanity is designed to witness the world from that place of pure awareness without reacting to what is seen emotionally and mentally; because reaction creates a condition in which the pure awareness of cosmic consciousness is mixed up with all the experiences that accompany reaction—worry, desire, fear, anger and shame. What a volatile combination! Cosmic power and reactionary human consciousness. In this condition, the place within humanity that should be reserved for pure awareness is a complex, confused state.

The responsibility rests with us all to develop right discernment, to make the shifts in our own perspectives. While there’s room for everything and everyone at some level in this creation, not everything or everyone fits everywhere. There is right placement in a pattern that continually evolves and changes. Are we in position to steward that? Are we allowing that design to come forth because we understand at a deeper level what’s happening and we do not mistranslate or personalize the energies that are moving in our internal or external landscape?

In the world today, with the best of intention, people often attempt to make things fit where they don’t. I enjoyed watching a movie recently called The Soloist. It’s a great depiction of misplaced good intention. It’s based on a true story of a journalist, played by Robert Downey, Jr., who happens upon a hobo in the streets of Los Angeles, played by Jamie Foxx, who’s playing on a violin that has only one string, and producing exquisite music. The story evolves where the journalist realizes that this man is a genius musician, and he becomes obsessed with ensuring that his music doesn’t get “wasted” on the streets of Los Angeles but that he should end up playing in front of people who could, after all, really appreciate his music and pay for it. It could also be the story that he is desperate to write for his newspaper.

The story doesn’t go too well for the journalist because it so happens that the musician is seriously mentally unbalanced. Whatever the journalist tries—moving him off the streets into an apartment, arranging tutoring and concerts—the musician always ends up back on the streets. There’s a beautiful scene where the musician is playing a cello at a shelter for the homeless. Many of the people there are mentally or emotionally troubled but, under the influence of the exquisite music emerging from the cello, all have quieted down and are responding to and enjoying the beautiful music. This is the scene that most strongly suggests where his talent is most impactful in his world and satisfying for him. He doesn’t belong on the big stages in front of sophisticated audiences.

To be true and effective stewards of our worlds, we need to embrace a higher level of consciousness and not assume that functioning from the same old place of complacency and habitual reactivity to our worlds will produce anything creative or purposeful.

There is a great difference between human consciousness and cosmic consciousness, and it’s important that we do not allow them to become confused in our capacities of heart and mind. There must be a clear distinction there, so that a clear space is held for that higher level of awareness. In Isaiah 55, there are the words:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8&9)

I believe that those words do not speak of separation between man and God as much as they speak of invitation to let God’s ways be our ways, to rise up into that perspective.

When we reside in that place, we can address human consciousness with kindness and compassion. The piece from Isaiah continues and carries the energy of the true relationship between divine consciousness and human consciousness:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.     (Isaiah 55:8–13)

This is the message that our capacities receive when our consciousness is in alignment with Source and this is the message that we rightly extend into our worlds. That is the primary purpose for our lives, and I’m privileged and glad to be joining you in the expression of that invitation in these days.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

A Place for Cosmic Perspective

Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder
help someone’s soul to heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.

Stay in the spiritual fire.
Let it cook you.

Be a well-baked loaf
and lord of the table.

Come and be served
to your brothers.

You have been a source of pain.
Now you’ll be the delight.

You have been an unsafe house.
Now you’ll be the One
who sees into the Invisible.

I said this, and a Voice came to my ear,
“if you become this, you will be That!”
Then Silence,….and now more Silence.
A mouth is not for talking.
A mouth is for tasting this Sweetness.

                        —Jalaluddin Rumi, Ode #3090 (translation by Coleman Barks)

Rumi’s poem suggests that the mouth is there to taste the sweetness of the creation. We can savor what comes to us as we receive it. There is a substantial harvest that is ours to receive and to bless. But what has been made really clear to me in the last few weeks is that there is yet a much greater harvest. We are responsible for planting and tending seeds that are ours to plant, that hold promise of a wonderful harvest to come. And there are many seeds being planted in the world all the time, creative impulses being given expression and manifestation. Some of those seeds give promise of a beautiful harvest, and some will yield a less-than-beautiful harvest. Nevertheless, the harvest that comes to us is ours to receive, to welcome and to bless.

I’d like to read some words that David Karchere wrote recently.

What will happen in the days to come will be no more than the vision we hold right now. We have no right to think that what will happen in the future will be greater than the truth we are perceiving and giving voice to now.

I believe those words put the responsibility for what the future will be squarely where it belongs—in the hands of those who have accepted responsibility for being in position to receive the harvest. That harvest includes people—people’s hearts, people’s response, people’s questions, people’s ideas, people’s desire to collaborate, to co-create. There is a wealth waiting to be welcomed and received.

I love the phrase that is used in some of the Eastern philosophies, which speaks about a field of infinite possibilities. What is possible to us depends on the vision you and I hold. With a large enough vision, it’s all available.

But there are limitations to the vision that can be held in a self-preoccupied consciousness. Thank God for that, because imagine if self-preoccupied function had free access to an infinite field of possibilities! It does a pretty good job of causing havoc with what is available to it in its present state. I don’t think that it needs to be given any more power than it already has.

A consciousness that is yielded in humility to divine Source—which is in reality at the core of that consciousness, and actually created it in the first place—can hold an expansive vision that will allow the manifestation of that vision in the earth.

I discovered a quote the other day from Arnold Toynbee, a British historian who lived in the early 20^th century. He said: “Material power that is not counterbalanced by adequate spiritual power, that is, by love and wisdom, is a curse.” Spiritual power, brought into the world by those who know in humility that it’s theirs to bring and who have the wisdom to balance the material power that’s already present, can allow a shift to occur in the way humanity relates to that power.

But the invitation has to be extended broadly into the world, as the invitation was extended in this country recently through these words, which were the name of the recent Creative Field Conference in Cape Town: “South Africa: Your Destiny Is Calling.” Something wonderful was born through the Creative Field Conference and the Destiny Concert as a result. Surely the call is now “World, your destiny is calling. Humanity, your destiny is calling.” Who is it who will extend that invitation? We are the ones. We are the ones who have the vision of what is possible. We are the ones who have it to extend; it is the business that we are about together at this time. And we are ready and eager to welcome whatever might come back to us in response to that call.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Humanity, Your Destiny Is Calling

Do you feel that strong spiritual invitation in these days?—Come on back! Come on back. I hear myself issuing that invitation often to my capacities. Come on back! Through the sadness that I feel sometimes when I’m looking out into the world, the spirit deep within me expresses an appeal: Please come on back. Come on back into trust; come on back into the reality that is there if we just look past what seems to be so important.

There’s much conflict going on in the world today. Much of it is in the name of unity and democracy. But I’m wondering, what does democracy bring? All too often democracy means, to those who pursue it, the freedom to have your preferences, the freedom to make your choices on a personal basis. That seems to be ultimate freedom. I can carve out my piece of life out of the total pie and I can do with it what I like—and the more of it I can carve out, the better I’m doing. It seems like many lives are built on that—personal preferences, often at any cost. And we only have to look around the globe to see the ecological impact of economies born from democracy. It is the impact of human greed and the pursuit of personal preferences and greater and greater levels of comfort. It is not democracy, itself, that is the problem, and I don’t believe another political system would change the underlying issue. The issue is the consciousness that manifests through democracy.

The lack of trust in the abundance of the universe has brought humanity to a fairly sorry state. I don’t believe it is beyond redemption, but I do believe that something has to change in the consciousness of mankind. Something has to reunify the consciousness of humankind with the consciousness of the Creator because that was how humanity was made to be in the first place, and that is our destiny.

So there is that voice that calls humanity to come on back to the state of union with Source. It is a call to change the focus from pursuing personal preferences and attempting to carve out a life. Those approaches to life promote isolation, which in turn has us looking around for ways to ameliorate the loneliness and alienation that results. Maybe getting more stuff will help! Maybe that will bridge this chasm that I experience between myself and the rest of the world, or myself and the source of my own being. Let me fill it with yet more stuff. But that stuff is based on what I like.

The choices that we make, every one of us, create the life that we experience. And they impact the lives of others. The choices that we make collectively, as humanity, set a particular direction. The question is, upon what are those choices based? How do we see our lives and how do we see our purpose?

There are opportunities every day, and in fact in every moment of our lives, to put in practice a new conscious direction for our life. There are opportunities, personally, to “come back.” We can notice, as we live and work together with other people, how my preference will bump up against your preference. We can notice when they’re different, and when I’m determined to hold on to my preference and you’re determined to hold on to yours. And we can know what that way of living leads to: separation, isolation, and certainly not happiness, certainly not fulfillment. Catching ourselves “in the act,” we can choose to see the situation from a higher place. We can withdraw all the energy being expended to create, maintain and protect our personal preferences, based on an isolated experience.

Real change depends on this kind of practical action in the small events of our daily lives if there is to be new awareness and new perspective brought to the larger issues that humanity faces. If we can address what is happening personally, then we have the basis to address what is happening based on how we, as humanity, have isolated ourselves culturally, provincially and nationally—then sought to support and defend that isolation.

We don’t have to relinquish our unique way of being in the world. We, each one of us, have our piece to bring, which is very different to anyone else’s. And if we don’t bring the genuine article of what it is that’s ours to bring, then it’s missing, because no one else brings it. We don’t all have to be clones and all agree on every last thing. But if we want any sort of creative future, and if this planet is to have any sort of creative future, certainly while we as humanity are still around we have to listen and we have to express that voice that says, “Come on back.” Come on back into right relationship with the Creator, with your capacities, with your resources, with your world, with nature. Come on back into alignment.

There is a reality that is very difficult for people to get, probably because the ideas that surround it have been bandied about so loosely. That reality is oneness. The truth is that there is one universe, one creation, one Source, and one shared experience for all of humanity. A poem by Bulleh Shah says it this way:

One thread, one thread only!
Warp and woof, quill and shuttle,
countless cloths and colors,

a thousand hanks and skeins—
with ten thousand names
ten thousand places.

But there is one thread only.

(“One Thread,”by Bulleh Shah, English version by Ivan M. Granger)

I think that speaks very beautifully of the reality of this life and this creation, the reality of purpose, the reality of mission, the reality of relationship with God. We all have our parts to play in the state of the world by the choices we make and the preferences we hold on to, the attention we pay to whether the ways we live our lives give expression and support to the greater presence of God in the midst of the grander emerging design. We just have to remember that. If we do, and when we do, the voice is present in our world: Come on back. Come on back to the real state.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Come on Back

The world can change radically in an instant. We see radical, rapid change when we look out into our world and we see what’s happening in so many places. The recent tsunami that did so much damage in Japan was traveling over five hundred miles an hour. That brings about pretty quick change.

How do you see that change? The change that you see in the world and the change that you feel in your own capacities—how do you relate to those? How we relate to the creative process working in us and around us will have a substantial bearing on the outcome. Everything has a part to play and everything has a message to bring—can we discern that? Everyone has a part to play and everyone has their message to bring. How will we bring ours? From what part of us will we access the message that is ours to bring to our worlds, through everything that we do in our daily lives?

Everything we do carries our message, carries our intent, and carries our particular, specific and unique energy. When we gather together sharing that awareness, there is a force and a power in the world that can bring and steward radical change.

I’d like to read a poem—Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur.”

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out like shining from shook foil.
It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

That poem was written in the late 1800s. I wonder how this man would describe the world he would see if he was alive in these days. There has been radical change in the world since those times. In reading his words, his view of humankind’s impact on the world was clearly very negative and he sought some comfort in the fact that nature, at least, maintained a presence of something that was good and wholesome.

I have to ask, is it really only up to nature to do that, to embody something that’s whole and wholesome, holy in the world? Well, we know that that’s not so. We know that these capacities of ours, of body, mind and heart, are truly here for that purpose too—to bring wholesomeness, to bring wholeness, to bring holiness. In fact, I believe that the capacities of the whole of humanity were designed for that purpose. It seems that something’s gone a little astray. But when we look superficially, it’s unlikely that we see the full extent of what is really happening. On the surface, even when you look to nature, there seems to be a lot of destruction going on, things eating things, things destroying things. But that is a superficial take of what goes on in natural cycles, and the whole natural creative process might not be seen.

I think the same thing applies to our worlds: If we look superficially, if we just accept the drama that’s fed to us by the media, for instance—the very prevalent stories of doom and gloom—we could hold a predominantly negative view of what’s working out.

But I say, if we look a little deeper, with some understanding of how the creative process works, we can see something different working out. It’s that perspective that assists in bringing a creative outcome because we are here to steward that outcome in a creative way. That’s what we’re here to do: to allow the creative process to move freely through our capacities of body, mind, heart, so that God’s spirit may be present through us, in the earth, through all that is going on. Ultimately that applies to the whole of humanity.

I read an article recently by Lynne McTaggart (the author of a number of books, including The Field) on her Internet blog. It is called “Survival of the Fairest.” This is an excerpt from the article:

“The world as we know it is going down,” a Wall Street broker told reporters in September 2008, after Lehman Brothers collapsed and Morgan Stanley threatened to follow suit. It is the “end of capitalism as we know it,” declared filmmaker Michael Moore, when American auto giant General Motors filed for bankruptcy.

It is the end of our dependence on fossil fuel, announced President Barack Obama, about the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig explosion. It is the end of nature, wrote Bill McKibbin in his book of the same name. It is the end of oil, wrote journalist Paul Roberts in his book of the same name. It is the end of food because it is the end of oil, declared Roberts in his follow-up book. With various Japanese reactors poised for a meltdown, it is the end of nuclear power.

For those who take stock in the Mayan Long Count calendar and the apocalyptic significance of 2012, it is the beginning of the end of the world.

But the crises we face on many fronts are symptomatic of a deeper problem, with more potential repercussions than those of any single cataclysmic event. They are simply a measure of the vast disparity between our definition of ourselves and our truest essence.

For hundreds of years we have acted against nature by ignoring our essential connectedness and defining ourselves as separate from our world. We’ve reached the point where we can no longer live according to this false view of who we really are.

(View source)

While it doesn’t always appear to be so, in the face of all the factors and statistics that we get from those who are supposed to know these things, there is an alternative scenario. There is another way for things to work out: for those who know the truth, to see reality more clearly and to bring that clarity into their worlds. This morning we can see a whole lot more clearly through these Dome windows. Yesterday the glass panels that had become hazy over the years were replaced with new clear ones. There’s something beautifully symbolic about that—someone through their generosity of spirit, bringing greater clarity of vision for us all.

There is further clear evidence of generosity of spirit in the Dome this morning; you will have an opportunity to enjoy it for yourself in a moment. Two people have donated some additional components for our new sound system to make what was already a good system really great. When we bring generosity of spirit together with the power of God, there is an unstoppable power for restoration. Just listen to this!

(A recording was played of “Fanfare for the Common Man,” by Aaron Copeland.)

When the “common man,” you and I, bring fully our uncommon generosity of spirit, that aspect of the spirit of God that’s unique to each one of us, we have the presence of the Grandeur of God in our midst. Then the care and restoration of our beautiful planet, Mother Earth, is assured.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Bringing the Grandeur of God

My world seems to be awash with sport at this time. I’m sure you all know that here in South Africa we currently have a whole month of the soccer World Cup, and it’s quite a production. There’s something very wonderful that is happening in this country—many people coming together from all over the world, and many millions of other people aware and tuned in.

Sport is very powerful unifying force, and it can also be a powerful dividing force when teams and their supporters are in competition. Often when things don’t work well for one team and their supporters, that can lead to conflict with the winning team and their supporters. In the political arena people are drawn together in shared agreement about policies relative to governance of an area or country, but politics can also be divisive and can lead to major conflict in a country when there are strong political differences. A spirit of nationalism can be a unifying influence but can lead to conflict between countries. And so too with religion—shared beliefs can bring people closer together but create rifts between people of differing beliefs. War itself has been a unifying factor in the world over millennia but, at the same time, divisive and very destructive.

It’s clear that oneness and agreement based in those sorts of circumstances is temporary, because things evolve and change. Sports teams come and go, political parties rise and fall, nations prosper and decline. People can become disheartened or disillusioned with their religious beliefs. And of course the unifying factors that sometimes come with war, when the war is over and it’s back to business as usual, they don’t hold.

Maybe these various experiences of unity do give us a small taste of what might be possible as an ongoing experience if we were to base our oneness in something that was constant, something that was trustworthy. But the divisive forces in the world have been very strong, and right at the centre of those divisive forces are the solid structures in consciousness—the concepts and beliefs and prejudices that set people or groups of people aside from each other. These structures are usually accompanied by and sustained by powerful emotional energies.

I’d like to read a paragraph from this last week’s Pulse of Spirit that was called “The Grail Cup.” These are David Karchere’s words, which I believe have some bearing on this consideration. He said:

“Something has to happen in the underlying substance of our awareness, and there is no access to that without the engagement of a person’s emotional nature, because the usual state of human existence carries solid structures in consciousness where there ought to be liquid—rock-hard beliefs, rock-hard ways of being that will never change if something doesn’t happen in a person’s emotional body.”

So what is it that needs to happen in the underlying substance of our awareness? This week I read in the Bible Jesus’ words from the Gospel according to Mark, Chapter 12. At that time in history there was a lot of political and social turbulence in the country where Jesus was living, and there was also a lot of negative reaction from the political and religious leaders to Jesus’ increasing impact and influence on the common people of the area. The authorities were feeling threatened and were looking for ways to be rid of him.

“And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?

“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

“And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

These words describe what needs to be in place in the underlying substance of our consciousness. I know well the words that speak about “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” etc. But this time I gave a little more attention to the first part, which says, “Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” These were the first words that Jesus spoke in answer to the question that had been asked him about the First Commandment.

There’s something crucially important portrayed by the words “Hear, O Israel.” The first step to knowing the truth is to be able to hear it. And then, “The Lord our God is one Lord.” Not so much that there is just one God rather than many, but that oneness is the fundamental quality of God and His creation. I’d like to read a poem from Rumi, in which he describes this state of oneness.

All Are He

Consider the creatures as pure and limpid
water, within which shine the Attributes of the Almighty.
Their knowledge, their justice, their kindness—
all are stars of heaven reflected in flowing water.
Kings are a locus of manifestation of God’s
Kingliness, the learned a locus for His Knowledge.
Generations have passed, and this is a new
generation. The moon is the same, the water different.
Justice is the same justice, learning the same
learning, but peoples and nations have changed.
Generation upon generation has passed, oh
friend, but these Meanings are constant and everlasting.
The water in the stream has changed many
times, but the reflection of the moon and the stars remains the
same…
All pictured forms are reflections in the water
of the stream; when you rub your eyes, indeed, all are He.

Mathnawi VI: 3172-78, 83 / William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi

These are beautiful words that speak to the truth of unity and oneness in the Lord’s creation. I believe that this one factor is actually the one and only saving grace for humanity—the acceptance of oneness with God, with the All That Is, the essential, universal, unifying force of love. And then the expression of the spirit of truth is a natural outcome of that. There is something that endures. In Rumi’s poem, the water has changed many times but the stream remains constant.

I’d like to share another short Rumi poem, where he describes the state of unity and oneness in a different way and adds some clear instructions.

If ten lamps are present in one place,
each differs in form from another;
yet you can’t distinguish whose radiance is whose
when you focus on the light.
In the field of spirit there is no division;
no individuals exist.
Sweet is the oneness of the Friend with His friends.
Catch hold of spirit.
Help this headstrong self disintegrate;
that beneath it you may discover unity,
like a buried treasure.

Mathnawi I: 678-683/Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, Rumi: Daylight

True freedom and oneness are only to be found through the unifying power of love, not by finding agreement in shared concepts and beliefs. True freedom and oneness are not found in the soccer stadium or in the churches and synagogues and temples and mosques, without the unifying power of love being present in consciousness. When that spirit of oneness is accepted into experience and expression, true freedom and oneness can be found everywhere—no division, no individuals, just unique expressions of the One.

“Hear, O Israel”—hear, O world—“The Lord our God is one Lord.” We can accept and surrender to the commandment to hear, to really hear and know that the Lord our God is one Lord, and His creation is one with Him. Then we can extend that message through our hearts and minds and physical capacities. We can extend that commandment in our living, that the whole world might be One again, to the Glory of God.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

True Unity in the One

(Previn Hudetz offered preservice music on piano. Carol Travis welcomed the stations online. Will Omega played his Native American double flute.)

My wife, Ruth, and I are here to attend the Trustee sessions that are under way at the moment, and we’ll be moving into the Open Sessions later on in the week. On our way from South Africa, traveling via England, we attended another couple of gatherings. First was a weekend with our Emissary friends from around Europe, and then a couple of days attending the Spiritual Leadership Forum in London. When Ruth and I get back home, within a day we’ll be attending yet another gathering of about two hundred people, called “Free Wheeling,” which is a gathering of diverse people who come together every year for a few days to celebrate ecological awareness and share concerns and care for the earth and various aspects of sustainable energy and water management.

So I was caused to ponder: All these gatherings—my life at this time seems to be full of gatherings. It feels like there is some deeper meaning for this phenomenon of people getting together to do something. What does it mean for me to be moving from one gathering to another? Is there a larger purpose than was obvious from the stated intent of each individual event?

Each gathering had its own particular purpose and intention. Our meeting with Ruth, myself and David Karchere in England with our Emissary friends had to do with a further exploration of what it means to be Emissaries, to bring a greater magnification of spirit through being together and to discover new creative collective potential into the future. A common interest and a common purpose in spirit is a powerful thing to celebrate and continue exploring.

After that excellent time with our friends, we moved on to be with the people in London who had responded to Tessa Maskell’s invitation to the Spiritual Leadership Forum, many of whom we hadn’t met before. But again, with a strong shared purpose, a strong field of agreement that we felt almost immediately as we gathered together for the two days, things settled very quickly into a vibrant, radiant, pregnant atmosphere. We started without any fixed agenda and we discovered what it was that was ours to do as we continued moving into the time. It was really exciting—new friends, new connections, different perspectives, new emerging awareness of what it was that we could do together with people outside of an Emissary context. It’s a reminder that there are many people out there who are providing something of healing and blessing in their worlds, and to support and be supported by them is very empowering for all concerned.

Then, moving into our Trustee gathering here at Sunrise Ranch, with no pre-established agenda, bringing open hearts and minds through which spirit might indicate purpose and opportunity, we soon started discovering what it was that we could most usefully be considering and exploring together. So far, it has been a profoundly creative and loving time. And, of course, the Open Sessions are yet to show themselves—I’m excited by that prospect; and then on to being with friends in South Africa.

There are many different types of gatherings that happen in the world, many apparent reasons for people either gathering together geographically or agreeing to be in some sort of shared purpose together. I’m thinking of the world of politics being one of them; sports is another very obvious one. People gather in the thousands and tens of thousands to enjoy and either celebrate or mourn together the winning or the losing side, whichever one they’ve chosen to relate to. There’s national identity; borders are created to say, “This is where we live and that is where you live; this is our identity, and that’s your identity, on the other side of that border.”

There’s the purpose of worship together, such as here this morning in the Dome and in countless other places in our world—people gathering to magnify and honor spirit in their particular ways. Maybe on the other end of the spectrum, war—people gathering together on the battlefield to assert their will by force on another gathering of people. Then there are virtual gatherings. I’m aware that this evening many of us will be enjoying watching the Academy Awards. I don’t know how many millions of viewers that draws around the world every year, but I know it’s substantial; a very large number of people share this time together in what might be called a virtual gathering.

So each gathering that we can see happening in our worlds has its apparent purpose and intent. Each one with its own unique venue, such as, for us this morning, this beautiful Dome—always beautifully prepared and decorated, a fitting place to worship together. I have no doubt that the venue for the Oscars tonight will be very glitzy and will have been carefully prepared and would have cost probably a lot of money to put together. In our two gatherings in England, the venues that we found ourselves in were relatively simple; with the touch of a candle and a green bough or a flower, something was set that said, “This is a special place.” And again, on the other end of the spectrum, places like the battlefields of Afghanistan and the borders of Pakistan are venues for that particular choice of human action.

I remember the first line of one of our Emissary songs: “Holiness to the Lord, come gather in His Name.” We extend that invitation into our worlds, particularly on a Sunday morning. I’m extending that invitation right now to those in this Dome and to those online. Many of you I know already; we have been associated for many years and, because of that, we share a common language and understanding. So I trust that we understand what I’m referring to when I use the words His Name. But there are others in our world who are open to the impulse of spirit in this moment that might not share the same understanding. So I’d like to use this poem that David Karchere wrote to describe this One in whose name we gather, so that others beyond the Emissary context might not be excluded from this experience.

I am the voice of Being,
Speaking in human hearts and minds.

I am the living Word,
Creative vibration born in the highest heaven.

I am the sacred presence
Which lives at the heart of all creation.

I have more faces than there are rocks in the desert,
Or stones on the ocean beach.

I have been here many lifetimes
Through all history and before.

I am born again with each baby who comes into the world,
With each inspired thought,
Every longing for home.
And I am present with each one as they leave.

I am the voice of Being,
The sacred presence of the One Who Dwells.

I call all people,
All lands,
All kingdoms,
To my spirit.

I invite all hearts to melt,
All consciousness to turn
To face me and know me as I am.

I am heard by the innocent,
By the open hearted,
By the one who is not too proud,
Nor too humble to see my face.

I am heard by those who know
That human effort,
Human belief,
Human feeling
Alone is futile.

And that all understanding,
All compassion,
All power,
And life itself
Abide in me.

I am your voice,
And the true voice of every man,
Every woman,
Of all human being.

Hear me,
Know me,
Embrace my spirit,
Your spirit, now.
Be me in human flesh.

I am the voice of Being,
The sacred presence of the Living God.

I trust that if there was any doubt about who we were referring to before we heard those words, it’s really clear now. So I pose this question: What if the true purpose of all gathering, anywhere, was really to come in the name of spirit, whatever the apparent intent might seem to be? And what if the ultimate venue for the gathering of humankind was this whole planet? It really doesn’t take much to see it that way, but it does take something. It takes a change in consciousness: how we choose to see what we do, what we create, where we create it, and what the consequences of our creations are.

So in this gathering right here, right now—some of it virtual across the telephone lines and some of it in person right here in this Dome—there is an invitation that we can extend to all people, who are doing things in all kinds of different names, to finally realize what it’s actually really all about, whatever it is that is chosen to be the function. We can do that, and I believe we must do that, because this is what we are about as Emissaries of Divine Light: It is extending the invitation, in many different ways, but particularly by the way we live our own lives, to see and accept that it is all the Lord’s. Any business, any endeavor is all about the Lord’s business, no matter what shape it might take, no matter what form it seems to have. It is all the Lord’s.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Come Gather In His Name

I think it’s a good thing when we come up to something that’s new, something that’s other than our well-known, well-worn expectations, something that surprises us.

What are the possibilities that are available to us in this moment, in this room, for creation, that might surprise us? Possibilities that we might miss if we weren’t open to what is actually present. I often wonder how much I miss because I’m so busy or because I’m so preoccupied with the way I’m feeling today, and numerous other distractions. There are all these opportunities that are just passing me by, wasted and lost forever.

In the song that initiated our service, there was an invitation to leave our cares at the window and leave our thoughts at the door. We should be so lucky if all it took to do that was to be given a pebble that represented the cares and thoughts and being offered a receptacle in which we could leave it at the door, as we were when we entered this room. And yet maybe it is as easy as that. Maybe life is always asking us to leave our cares, give some space to what is present now, because cares are normally about something that we think has happened in the past, or is going to happen in the future. But what’s the opportunity in this moment? It often takes deliberate action to clear a space so that we can be fully present, available to what’s happening now, what life is offering right now. What is that bird telling us if we would but listen? What that shaft of sunlight is pointing to? What are the more subtle levels of awareness saying to us?

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to enter sacred space and really experience the sacredness of that space if our consciousness is full of worries and thoughts. There is a level of mastery to be developed around the management of what goes on in heart and mind. Mastery is not just for the “masters,” whether they’re ascended or otherwise; it’s not just for a few special people. There is mastery around thoughts and feelings to be worked by all of us. Who’s in charge here? Because if the one I truly am is not in charge, then these energies run rampant, thoughts and feelings creating chaos all over the place, and I’m blinded to what it is that’s mine to see and do in the moment.

I have some sadness about how often there’s forgetfulness in myself of the fact that I am a creator-being, and denial of the fact that the world as I see it is the way it is because I’ve created it that way. If the capacities of heart and mind are not in masterful hands, then they will cloud and distort how I see things, and therefore how I do things. When I look out into my world, there is plenty of evidence of such a lack of such mastery.

So which do I choose, of all the available possibilities, to be the truth now? If there’s no space for a new possibility in a capacity crammed with old beliefs and habits, making a choice will be futile. How sad for us to maintain constraint on our perspectives and our vision for what is possible in this way. This is a serious consideration, because the future of our world rests on our ability to allow something fresh to emerge—what has been described as re-creation in consciousness.

There’s no need to fear the vacuum that might be left when mind and heart have been cleared—life will gladly and joyfully provide a trustworthy flow of what’s required in the moment, every moment. We can trust that there will be the right thing at the right time if we just create a space.

Many of us in this room have recently been engaged in a seminar called Journey into the Fire. When we get tired enough of the seemingly endless circuit of old habits and beliefs and they are clearly not serving us anymore, it takes some internal energy, some heat, to dissolve them. Nothing less than stepping into the fire of purification will really do the job! This is the symbolic experience that the seminar offers.

It can take considerable intensity and often it’s not that easy to do it by ourselves. Often the best of intentions need more energy from us to implement than we can find for ourselves. I believe there’s a passion required for that to happen and that there are people on hand to assist, and processes available to access that energy. If I’m tired enough of how it’s been, if I’m tired enough of how it keeps on going, there’s a way.

Here is a powerful poem by David Whyte, which speaks to the experience of the intensity of transformation. It’s called “Fire in the Earth:”

reminder of fire in the dusty earth.
He never recovered
his complicated way of loving again

and was free to love in the same way
he felt the fire licking at his heels loved him.
As if the lion earth could roar

and take him in one movement.
Every step he took
from there was carefully placed.

Everything he said mattered as if he knew
the constant witness of the ground
and remembered his own face in the dust

the moment before revelation.
Since then thousands have felt
the same immobile tongue with which he tried to speak.

Like the moment you too saw, for the first time,
your own house turned to ashes.
Everything consumed so the road could open again.

Your entire presence in your eyes
and the world turning slowly
into a single branch of flame.

There’s only one question left: Will we? Do we desire newness and freshness enough to take that step into the fire?

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

The Passion to Dissolve the Old

It’s a deep pleasure as well to be continually discovering that the divine design is in fact an intelligent design. The universe is an intelligent entity. I’ve been reading a number of books recently which, in scientific terms, are beginning to come up with proof to this end, and I have to admit to some pleasure in reading these things. It’s not that I don’t already know that this is the case, and it’s not as if I need scientific proof. But there is some pleasure in celebrating the fact that others are awakening to this in their own way.

I’m also increasingly aware in these days that the emerging design on this planet includes what I might call a “steadying presence,” a body of people who have awakened to, and accepted responsibility for, providing a stabilizing influence through the choices they make, moment by moment. In my case, and from what I observe in my friends and in my world, it’s not a flawless thing. There are some slips that happen in the provision of stability, in the quality of presence and in the remembering of who I am. But the divine design is an intelligent design, and there are reminders. There are challenges; there are circumstances that clearly need my steady hand. And there are friends who provide those reminders, often when they’re most needed.

What I have referred to as the steadying presence was referred to by T. S. Eliot, in his poem “Burnt Norton,” when he described most beautifully “the still point of the turning world.” This still point is universally present in the very largest dimensions, and in the very smallest. The still point of our turning world, this beautiful planet, at a conscious, deliberate level, is provided by the presence of God emerging through the capacity of consciousness of those who have chosen to let it be so. Certainly, at a personal level, there is plenty to be steadied in my internal and external worlds at this time, starting with my own capacities.

I woke up this morning with a thought running through my mind, and it was a simple question: “Will the center hold?” Will my center hold? In the midst of the circumstances, the moment-by-moment challenges and opportunities that come, sometimes in intense ways, will my center hold? Will our collective center hold?

I have wondered if we here in Johannesburg, South Africa, at High View Gardens, really understood what it was that we were setting in motion and what we were undertaking when we visioned and declared this place a center for transformation. It takes something to begin to consciously and deliberately provide a space for transformation. What it most importantly takes is a steadying influence, a safe place held in such a way that allows and promotes transformation to happen. The primary place is in the capacities of mind and heart of those who have accepted that responsibility and continue to discover what it means to provide that in this place and, beyond that, into our larger worlds. Something was set in motion by just setting that intent, and we continue to discover the implications.

When we look out on our world, it’s a given that there is no way that we can hold all the details of everything that’s going on, provide a steadying influence for all of that at a specific, conscious level. There’s just too much happening. Certainly my mind is not capable of encompassing all of what’s going on in my world at the level of form and circumstance. I guess the point is that it doesn’t have to. If I accept the requirement to provide a stable core for my world, and accept the same requirement collectively with my friends here at High View Gardens and my friends on this line, then I and we must allow heaven to be present. That’s what’s required: just ensure that heaven is present in my experience and in expression into my world.

I have to admit that, at times, my attention does get taken up with the forms of my world, to the exclusion of an experience and expression of heaven. Sometimes it all seems to be too much; and anxiety, and even despair, creeps in. How can I deal with it all? How can I possibly provide what’s needed? How can I understand what it is that’s mine to bring? And sometimes I really don’t know.

I was paging through a small poetry book that I rediscovered on my bookshelf, called The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu. He had these words to say:

The surest test if a man be sane
Is if he accepts life whole, as it is,
Without needing by measure or touch to understand
The measureless untouchable source
Of its images,
The measureless untouchable source
Of its substances,
The source which, while it appears dark emptiness,
Brims with a quick force
Farthest away
And yet nearest at hand
From oldest time unto this day,
Charging its images with origin:
What more need I know of the origin
Than this?

So, in the very clear invitation contained in the words of a recent “Pulse of Spirit” meditation, it’s a matter of heaven received without condition. Martin Exeter, in that excerpted service, said human consciousness is meant to be open to the invisible heaven of truth. This is what Lao Tzu was referring to in his poem—the measureless. This consciousness is not designed to hold fixed opinions and assumptions, and certainly not to understand everything at the earthly level. It is designed to be open to receiving heaven and all that that brings of healing, blessing and creativity. The truth is accepted and revealed as there is the openness to receive heaven into consciousness.

Certainly, reaction to what I deem to be wrong in my circumstances and in my world does not bring what’s right, and certainly doesn’t fix what’s wrong. Only openness to the truth brings what’s required.

In David Karchere’s words of a recent meditation, he said, “It takes courage to say what comes from the divine. It takes more courage to act on it.” So, in these days, that courage is required to make the choices to be open and available to the spirit of God, to the heaven that is all around us and, when we allow it to be, all the way through us. It does take courage. I believe that courage is present in these days; and, because of that, there is transformation, firstly in consciousness and then evident in our worlds. There is the emergence of a new world because there are those on hand to steward its coming.

So it’s a pleasure to share these thoughts and energies that are moving through my heart and mind at this time.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

The Steadying Presence of a Stable Core