Fresh Thinking, Inspiration, and Vision on the Process of Spiritual Transformation

This planet Earth that we stand upon revolves around an invisible axis. As far as we know, there is no rod of iron or anything else running through the Earth, around which it is rotating. But there is an invisible axis. There is some wobble in that axis, but apparently not so much as to cause total chaos.

The central axis is obviously important for the life of Planet Earth. And so it is with us individually, and with us as the body of humanity. In a different way, we are meant not only to have an axis but to honor what is central to us and let it have meaning and application in our life. In turn, we are meant to be that for our world. Individually, our world does revolve around us, for better or for worse. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Planet Earth revolves around humanity as a whole.

So we are here to see and acknowledge and accept what is most central in our life, and let it be most central. That is experienced as a place of stillness and a place of quiet power. When we are in that place, we open ourselves to the wisdom that is at our core and it is easy to allow the flow of that wisdom to inform our lives.

It’s clear that humanity as a whole has gone wobbly. That is certainly apparent in the world at large, and one doesn’t have to look very far in one’s own immediate life to see that there is something wobbly for people all around. So much so, that the imbalanced state has come to be seen as the norm. Humanity has all kinds of ways of excusing the imbalanced experience. There are all kinds of justifications for what is wobbly for us and what is wobbly in our world. The truth is that in any moment, including this one, it is altogether possible to allow a process of refocusing in heart and mind, so that the invisible axis at our core may be present and operative in our life.

It does take a simple acknowledgment of personal wobbliness—a simple admission that I have lost focus in some way, if that is the case. What was most important to me, what deserved my greatest attention and my greatest love, has somehow become dim. It is not as out-front as it deserves to be in my life. And mentally or emotionally, or both, I have become distracted by chasing after something less than what deserved my greatest focus, or by trying to avoid what I have been afraid of. However it happened, what deserves my greatest service, my greatest love, doesn’t have that prime place in my life in the way that it should.

The religious word for that acknowledgment is repentance. From a religious standpoint, there can be all kinds of game-playing with repentance. There can be a great show of repentance and there can be great emotionality around it, and acts of seeming contrition. But if a person hasn’t taken the very simple step of recalling their first love and letting it be central in their life, all the supposed acts of repentance mean nothing. True repentance isn’t about walking around feeling bad. It isn’t about having a sorrowful expression. It is about the simple act of realizing that I have the opportunity now, in this moment, to be new and let what is most important to me be most central. I can let my life revolve around its innate, invisible axis.

For a group of people, it is useful to have leadership that assists with bringing focus for that group, whatever kind of group it is. I notice that in the context of Emissaries of Divine Light, we have what I consider to be a rather offhand way of referring to such a person as “the focus.” I say that all true focus is invisible. A person can remember the true invisible focus and let that be embodied in their life. But I say that no person is spiritual focus. Spiritual focus is invisible focus, by definition. For it to be real in human affairs, it takes people who allow what should be most central for them to be most central. When that is true, they provide the invisible axis for their world.

When personal focus is lost, things get very difficult. A person could lose a lot of things—they could lose their money, they could lose their house, they could lose their job—and if the focus of their life is present and strong for them, those things can be regained. But if a person loses the focus of their life, everything worthwhile in their life is put at risk because of that. And it is difficult for a person who has lost focus in their life to regain it, but it is most essential.

If we have in any way lost focus for our lives, what more important thing could there be for us to do than regain that for ourselves, so that we know, through and through, that what we are loving in our life, what we are serving in our life, what we are fulfilling in our life, in these relatively short years that we have, is that one thing that means the most to us, so that we are not living a distracted life?

The same is true for a body of people. If a body of people lose their focus, it is a long and hard road back to regain that. And just as it is for an individual, a body of people could lose a lot of things; but if their focus was present, those things could be restored.

That is the story of Job. We think of all Job’s woes, but of course there was a happy ending to the story because he didn’t lose his focus, he did not lose his integrity. So all the things that he lost could be restored. But if a person’s focus becomes dim, or if the focus of a body of people becomes dim, life becomes difficult and it is a long road back to regain what has been lost.

I want to celebrate the fact that this body of people that we speak of as Emissaries of Divine Light has walked this road. I also want to celebrate an event that is now a little over a year past. I believe it has relevance to this body of people, Emissaries of Divine Light, but it is also symbolic of an opportunity that is present for anyone. This event that I’m speaking of is a gathering of the international Trustee leadership of the Emissaries. A year ago in March, we met in the Chalet, up on Green Ridge at Sunrise Ranch. At the time, the events seemed to flow in the normal flow of circumstances. As it was put in the poem, the magic that occurred did not happen “so grandly or so biblically.” But what happened was wonderful, even though it was hard to see and appreciate the full significance of it at the time.

Easter celebrates the life and resurrection of Jesus. His life began with a humble event, with a birth in a lowly place, a manger. To me, that quality characterizes what happened a year ago. I would put it this way: simply, that Love showed itself in that container of the seven of us. Love was present, and Love could live freely and openly in our midst. That word Love is a name for what deserves to be central in anybody’s life—not just the affectionate kind of Love, though Love includes that. I mean Love, the power of the universe, Love which is the central axis for this Earth and which deserves to be the central axis of anybody’s life.

So I’m speaking of the power of Love from which is born all wisdom, and any wisdom. In fact, I’ve come to know there is no wisdom that is not born of Love. Any supposed wisdom that is not born of Love is human stupidity. How could anything good or wonderful come from a human life, or from the life of humanity, that didn’t spring from the universal spirit of Love?

When we allow that to be central in our life personally, we make the commitment that Love will have a place to live in me. It will be protected from anything that would corrupt it in my experience. I will honor that quality, that experience, that spirit, above all else. When a person makes that commitment for themselves, Love can live in them. And when a group of people make that simple pledge, Love shows itself in that group.
When Love is present and has a safe place to be among us, all the wonders that come from that can show themselves. We do become wise in what you might say are the ways of Love—not just the ways of affection, although that is included. But wise in how we let Love live in our life and create, uplift and buoy other people, bringing the power to change our world, the power to make new.

There can be many excuses for the loss of focus in our life and, with that, the loss of Love: “It isn’t important; it’s become irrelevant; life is pointless anyway.” Or “We’ve already arrived—isn’t it perfect?! We’re already there; it’s already done!” Meanwhile, the person is miserable if they have lost their focus. There are so many ways to explain away the loss of personal focus, to try to make it okay for oneself. We could do that personally and we could do it collectively. I would rather make the simple admission that there is something I love, above all else, and I will let that be supreme in my life and with other people.

I’d like to read a poem. It’s probably familiar, but deeply meaningful in the context in which I am speaking. It’s Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

What is the road less traveled by? For us, it is what opens up when we acknowledge that there is no possible way to create the things that we love most by human means. Human knowledge, human effort, human technology, human systems and organizations are good for something. I suppose you could say they’re good for worldly things. As Jesus put it, we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. But the things of ultimate value and meaning can only be allowed to live on their own terms—not by my terms, not by yours, not by ours together, not by any of the things that the world teaches. As smart as we might become in that regard, as strong and powerful as we might get in human terms, it would be to no avail ever when it comes to letting the reality of Love have a home on earth.

So I and we have taken the road less traveled by. I suppose that, by some human measure, we may not be successful. From the standpoint of Spirit, this is the only possible way to be successful, and in fact we are being successful. Success is something of this moment. It is something of life. Life by its very nature is successful. As what deserves to be the invisible axis of our life is in place, we know that and we experience that. It has meaning and application in our life when what deserves our greatest honor, our greatest love and our greatest service, is most central for us.