From the standpoint of spiritual awakening, there are two kinds of amnesia. And ultimately, we experience one or the other. The first kind of amnesia is spiritual amnesia, from which most of humanity suffers. It is a forgetting of what is real and beautiful and true. It is disconnection from the large reality of which we are a part. That is spiritual amnesia, and awakened people bring the remedy to that experience. Spiritual amnesia is cured by love and by no other means.

There is another kind of amnesia, which is natural amnesia. This is the amnesia that comes very naturally when there is a spiritual awakening and spiritual transmutation. The prophet Isaiah says this about natural amnesia: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” (Isaiah 65:17) A person with natural amnesia might say, “It’s not my frame of reference. I understand that the world is the way it is and that it is the frame of reference for many people, but it’s not mine. I’m living into a different reality.”

You will have some kind of amnesia, and it’s either going to be spiritual amnesia or it’s going to be natural amnesia, which is the amnesia of forgetting the ghosts of the past. It may take some personal work to dispel the ghosts of the past. If you’re enmeshed in those ghosts, there is something to do to get conscious of how you’re enmeshed in them. But what is the reason for attending to such things? To retell the old story yet one more time? Or are we getting conscious, so that we can bring the energy of love that dispels all that?

We are here to be fully present, living in reality. What do we find ourselves compelled to do when we are fully present? I think it comes down to this: We are here to love. So we find ourselves in the present and bringing the power of the universe into this present moment. We name that power as love. Whatever you name it, it is the power of all things, and there is tremendous power in all things. That is not just a happy spiritual idea. That is the reality of all of creation. Humanity has discovered that power through atomic fission. Atomic fission shows that within the atom there is an incredible power. Breaking up atomic structure and exploding the world is not a very good way to use that power, but atomic fission does demonstrate the fact that within all of being and within us is an incredible power. A name for that power is love. It is love that keeps atoms together and it is love that keeps us together.

One way or another, we are going to love. There is no other power with which to live than the power that’s within us and within all creation. Our choice is whether we are going to be conscious of how we are loving. We can bring that power in a very painful way that is dictated by our spiritual amnesia, and by the ghosts of our past. And if we’re living based on the ghosts of the past, that great power hasn’t stopped. It can’t stop. It’s still moving, but it’s moving through a consciousness that is rehashing the old story. And the more intensely the power of love moves through that old story, the more painful it is.

So we really don’t have a choice about whether we’re going to love. But we can love consciously. We can love in a way that is a present way, a being-here-now way. And then love moves differently. It’s not moving through a consciousness that is living out of an old story—it’s moving through a focused consciousness that is fully present now. Consciousness is then a vehicle through which love moves into the world.

So what is love doing? Love doesn’t bring fission in a person who is spiritually conscious. Where there is consciousness, love is bringing fusion. Love is building a body of itself through which it can express into the world. What do we think our individual human body is all about? Love built this body. The bonds of love hold this individual body together. And when love comes through one person consciously, it begins to create a body of love among people. It could be you and your honey—there is a body of love. It could be some number of people that have chosen consciously to come together and to build a body of love, however large or small. It could be a community, like Glen Ivy or like Sunrise Ranch, if the people in that community have come together consciously. A body of love is created in human experience because people are conscious and have chosen to love consciously and to be fully present.

Love operates differently when people choose to do that. One of the things that happens when you or I love consciously is that we have awareness and compassion for other people. We are not living out of the story of the past experience with that person or our experience with other people like this person, and all the unconscious ghosts of all that. We are present and consciously aware of what is happening with the people near us. That is the first step, and then there can be compassion.

Love is compassionate. Compassion means that I’m not just seeing this person from my perspective, how they are affecting me and how they look to me. I am walking in their shoes. I am seeing the world as they see it. I am reaching out with understanding—how it is for them, how it’s going for them, what is difficult for them, what their needs are, what there is growing in them. Is that too much to ask? Love does those things naturally. If you are with your honey, you are probably doing that for them. If you are really consciously in love with that one person, you are reaching out to them, you are thinking about how they are doing and how you can be of service to them, and how things are going for them. Love does that very naturally, and we do it in conscious relationship, not just with that special someone but with anybody.

These words come down to us through the annals of time: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) Am I my sister’s keeper? Am I responsible for the people that are around me? Love is responsible. In spiritual amnesia, a person cannot actually offer what is useful to the people around them. In natural amnesia, they can. Being conscious of love, being fully present, I can and naturally do bring a blessing to other people.

I understand that we cannot force a person to make a creative choice. There is free will in all of this, and we have to be willing to watch people suffer sometimes and watch people make bad choices. That is never easy. But still, someplace inside, I think we know we are responsible for that person, even when they make bad choices and even when they are suffering.

When we know that we are our brother’s keeper and we are our sister’s keeper, there is an envelope of love that extends from us to that other person. There is a surround for that other person, and there is a place for them to be, as far as we are concerned. They photograph the energetic picture of such things through Kirlian photography, so that you can see what the bioplasm looks like between two people. The image in my mind of what it looks like when I am my brother’s keeper, when I am my sister’s keeper, is that there is an envelope of love, a dome of love that is now surrounding us both. That envelope is made of the love within all things, and that love coming consciously through me.

That is one of the basic principles of offering attunement—the conscious ability to provide an envelope of love to the person who is with you. But this practice is not just relevant to an attunement session. It is relevant to every human interchange because what is happening energetically between you and another person is being determined by what is happening in your consciousness. And if you say that “it always goes like this,” you may have a story about your life that it always goes like this. And it may be your experience because you are always thinking about it that way; and if you thought about it differently it would go differently, because what you are creating is being born from your consciousness. If you are consciously aware of bringing an envelope of love to the people in your life, it will be there for them, and you will find yourself in a world created by love.

Now we have a core of love on earth through which love emanates into the world. That’s what I am about in my life and my service to other people. That’s what love is doing. Love is building a core of love on earth that radiates love into the world if we let it, if we are present, if we are conscious. We could say love is doing it, but then we could say, “This is what I am doing.” I’m building that core of love, that core of radiant energy that transforms and transmutes the world.