I don’t know if it’s the terrific thunderstorms in Colorado recently or the violence reported right here in Loveland, but I’m feeling apocalyptic today. Here are some definitions of the word apocalypse:

One of the Jewish and Christian writings of 200 B.C. to A.D. 150 marked by pseudonymity, symbolic imagery, and the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil and raises the righteous to life in a messianic kingdom.

A prophetic revelation.

Armageddon.

In a piece of black humor from the British comedian Russell Brand, he speaks about Armageddon. He makes the point that, for all people, we are headed for our own personal Armageddon—we’re not going to be here forever—so why should it be such a big deal if we experience it all together?

The origin of the word is from a Greek word meaning to uncover or disclose.

In 1988, at Sunrise Ranch, we produced a video that was entitled Apocalypse of Light. If the word apocalypse has meaning and relevance, it is of Light. There’s a light within us to come forth completely and entirely. That is true for us as individuals; we are called to that coming forth. It is true for us as humanity. We are headed for apocalypse.

There is a need for revelation. Most importantly, revelation of the glory that’s within every human being and within all Creation. Our creations as human beings don’t always look so glorious, and sometimes we are worried about the dark patterns that are within us. But deep within all of those patterns, there is something glorious, something of ultimate beauty that’s meant to come forth in the living of our life, something that brings life and health and well-being: the reality of the Light, the life source within us, the source of all Creation. Holy art Thou!—holy is that source.

But it’s not really possible to allow for that kind of revelation, that kind of apocalypse, without also lighting up all the atrocities and all of the corruption of the world in which we live. Fair enough, so far so good. But we really can’t light up the world around us without lighting up our own humanity and what’s really going on there.

That is the rub for virtually all people: that the coming forth of the Light within themselves means that there are things to look at and to deal with personally. It takes courage and commitment to allow the Light to come on so that we see what’s going on in our own experience and allow transmutation to occur by the Light.

That transmutation is of human karma, or what Rupert Sheldrake has spoken of more recently as the morphic field in which we are living as human beings. The morphic field is a field of habit. For each of us, we have a lifetime of habits, and those habits are in large measure inherited from the lifetimes of people who have gone before us.

Within that pattern of behavior there are ups and downs. At the worst, people are violently reactive to what’s happening around them. I suppose that is what happened in the murder that took place here in Loveland last week. But it doesn’t have to rise to the point of murder for people to be functioning in such a way that they are reacting to what is happening around them out of fear and hate, and they are actively pursuing some kind of action based in that. That is the worst of the habitual pattern in the morphic field.

But there is the best of the habitual pattern of ups and downs in people’s lives. They do wake up on a given morning and feel inspired, and the best of them starts to come out. They may feel their own generous spirit, and so they look to contribute in their life in a positive way. And what happens? That positive contribution, that generosity that is coming through the person, is expressing itself through the karma, through the morphic field in which they’ve been living their life and the morphic field in which all of humanity is living. So now you have this positive creative energy moving through habitual patterns of limited belief and reactive emotion that are engrained in human consciousness. So that even though the person may feel inspired and well-intentioned, their expression of themselves is creating destructive results. On a global scale, it is creating fracking, global warming, terrorism, and decimation of species. On an individual level, inspiration moving through the existing morphic field threatens physical, mental and emotional health, our relationships with other people and our very ability to truly create.

The picture I am painting is of a sine wave—the oscillation of human experience, with the ups and downs of a human life within the existing pattern of human karma.

So what is really required in this pattern? Apocalypse. There has to be a shining of the Light, and not only the aspiration to make a positive contribution but the commitment and the determination to deal with your own karma. Because if you do not, you are going to spend your life, no matter how well-intentioned and inspired you may be, expressing through that pattern of habit, and essentially doing it the way that you have been doing it all your life and that all those before you have been doing it.

Do not be deceived by the ups and downs of that pattern. Do not be deceived that on a good day, when you’re feeling happier and more willing to offer something, that now it’s all okay. In the karmic pattern as it is, there is darkness. We are not God-smart—awake to the opportunity to transmute our karma. So there is ignorance in that pattern. The Light is the Light of understanding. It’s the Light of Truth. In the karma there is darkness. So in expressing ourselves without illuminating that karma, we are expressing through its darkness, through that unknowing, and we are creating problems in our life. We are a cause for difficulty, whether that difficulty is very up-close and personal in our own health, in our own personal relations and in our own little personal world, or for all of us as humanity, for the whole world.

The pattern goes like this: We become inspired and we express ourselves through the karma; we get bad results, and then we get angry and reactive about those results, and then we are down into the lower part of the cycle, into the reactive, fearful, hateful part on an active basis. Hanging around there long enough, we decide to be good and then we rise up into the other part of the cycle and get inspired and want to contribute, and then have another bad experience, and crash! We go down again.

We do need to become God-smart. That happens with apocalypse, with, as the word does imply, a falling apart of the pattern as it’s been in our life. Ultimately, a falling apart of our karma so that we can get real with ourselves, so we can get real with other people, so that we’re out of the business of faking it and trying to put on a good face on our good days. We become real. Apocalypse is about being real. It’s about finally, finally, finally, at this point in our life, whatever that point is, being honest with ourselves and with other people. Finally, at this point in humanity’s journey, we’re coming to that place where everything in us is begging for that kind of honesty, that kind of realness, where we just can’t fake it anymore.

We are choosing that realness when, facing results in our life that we don’t like, we consciously choose unconditional Love. We choose to shine the Light.

Truth is the Light that emanates from the source of Creation. It contains the pattern of the universe as it is looking to manifest in our life. The Truth has been pictured as a sword, mostly because humanity is afraid of the Light. It would illuminate our darkness.

So, generally speaking, human beings are afraid to turn to the Light. It seems to be this looming blade that’s going to devastate us if we were to really admit what is happening for us, if we were to really see, if we were to accept the guidance of God in our life—if I can use that word God without invoking all kinds of religious concept.

So the God within you and the God within me has this huge problem. We think the Light that comes from within us is a threatening thing. We see it as a sword that is coming to us blade-first. But that raises the question, who are we? Are we that part of our defended humanity, that part of our karma that doesn’t want to be devastated by the Light? Are we that morphic field of humanity that we have inherited and then contributed to dutifully, that is fearful of being penetrated by the Light?

Or is the truth of who we are an aspect of that God who is shining the Light? Should we—all of humanity—not be holding the hilt of that sword? At which point the symbol loses much of its value. It ceases to be a sword once we’ve grabbed ahold of the hilt of it. We are just in a place of being an apocalypse ourselves. I am feeling apocalyptic today—how about you?

If you are guiding other people in their life process in whatever way—if they are a friend or a lover, or maybe somebody who works for you, maybe just somebody you met, somebody who’s coming to you for some kind of guidance—it is very likely that your challenge is to get them to take ahold of the hilt of the sword that’s in their life. There is a sword there. There is something they don’t want to look at, there is something they don’t want to see and that they’re afraid of. So they are looking away. They are dodging it. And in some cases, they may think that you are the one holding that sword.

So your job becomes to help that person to re-identify with who they are.

No, you’re not that person who’s being threatened by life and by the Light of Truth. You’re not the morphic field, filled with hate and reaction and fear, that has been passed down through ages. You are an aspect of that God that’s within all people and within all of Creation. You are a creator-Being who brings the Light, who shines the Light, who has nothing to lose.

That would be a wonderful way to wake up each morning. I am grateful, and I have nothing to lose. The great God of all Creation has nothing to lose.

So all humanity needs an apocalypse. In fact, each of us is already experiencing apocalypse. We can experience only the part of it that’s usually associated with Armageddon—that is the devastation of the karmic pattern as it is. It looks like we are all headed for that, one way or another. Or, we can experience the apocalypse of Light. The coming forth of who we are as a creator-Being, the coming forth of humanity, the coming forth of One Love that’s present in all people. When there is revelation because of the One Love and the One Light that’s present in all people, there is the coming forth of the One God that is present in all people. Again, we can fill that word God with religious concept. I am talking about the reality of Being in you and the reality of Being in me, which is one. It takes an apocalypse to realize that.

We can be a living, walking apocalypse.