Consider what is on the leading edge of the spiritual evolution of humanity, and where we have been to get here. Here is my abbreviated history of that evolution.

We have a limited record of ancient human civilization that was based on enlightened human consciousness. The record is left mostly in myth and legend, found in cultures around the world. That record reflects a transparent spirituality. We tend to take our history back to primitive man. Yet we also have a record of a paradisal state, not only in the Bible but in stories from cultures from every part of the world. There is limited archaeological record of enlightened culture. Nonetheless, remnants in stone such as the Great Pyramid of Giza and Stonehenge leave us wondering about the civilization that produced them.

For whatever reason, enlightened culture wasn’t sustained, and it gave way to a primitive and superstitious spirituality, appeasing angry gods. Those gods acted like petulant children as you read the myths and legends that reflect the beliefs about them. Human sacrifice was introduced as a way to gain favor with the gods who controlled natural forces.

The next step was monotheism, a monumental step in the evolution of humanity. It was a spiritual experiment that addressed the superstitious, primitive beliefs and brought a premise of oneness. The truth of oneness was experienced by the people who introduced it originally. But that original knowing was quickly turned into religious belief by those who followed them at the time, and by those who came after them. And then the beliefs were changed from the original teaching, sometimes for the political and economic advantage of those who promoted them.

With the advent of modern science, monotheistic belief has been sidelined, and even discarded by many since the era of Isaac Newton in the 17th century. The scientific method has placed great value on what can be observed and measured. In the process, anything that lies beyond the observable physical world has been subject to suspicion and seen as irrelevant, insignificant or unreal.

There has been the birth of a new spiritual awakening that has been accelerating over the past century. In the late decades of the 20th century, the New Age movement brought an explosion of spiritual ideas and practices in the Western world. There has been a flirtation with spiritual things. That flirtation has brought a feeling perception that is temporarily experienced by people, often interrupted by the worldly reality of the person’s life.

Living in that paradigm, what often happens for a person who is touching a spiritual experience in this way is that the fundamental context of their life remains in the observable dimensions of the physical world. So the person experiences themselves and the reality in which they’re living as being essentially physical, with flirtations with the spiritual. Where is the creative evolution of consciousness taking that experience? Certainly not back to some kind of monotheistic belief that doesn’t have a full engagement and knowing of the spiritual. And the traditional scientific approach denies the spiritual reality that the person is touching.

The scientific approach says that anything you can’t measure is irrelevant. But reflect on that for a minute. You would probably acknowledge that there is more to life than the physical plane of being. For starters, there is the mental plane and the emotional plane of our existence. But even at the physical level, how much of the physical plane do we actually see? We see the outer bits. If you look around you, you are not seeing the inner physical reality of the objects you are observing. You are only seeing the paint of the room in which you are sitting, not the sheetrock and the studs. If you are outside, you are looking at the bark of the tree, not the inner dimensions of the trunk.

If you look at another person, most often you are watching their clothes move. You might see their face and hair. Or if you are at the beach you are seeing more skin, but usually not all of it. You are not observing what is inside them, even at a physical level.

However, you are only seeing the outer layer of objects that are at an order of magnitude that we can relate to as human beings. Without a microscope, we cannot see the workings of the cell, the molecule or the atom. We see only the faintest evidences of nearby star systems in the night sky, and more remote stars and galaxies are beyond our awareness altogether.

All of this is just at the physical plane. The leading edge of humanity is perceiving a reality that is far larger than the physical realm itself. We definitely have at least some appreciation of this larger reality, generally speaking, as human beings. When you have a child, you see the outer shape of that baby, and they may be pretty or handsome. But when you are looking at them, you’re not just seeing the outer form. You’re seeing something else, and it’s not their brilliant intellect at that point. It’s not even the emotional dimension of the child, although that shows itself as they develop. You are perceiving something else, which is, as best I could name it, the Being of that child. And in looking at that child, you’re cherishing that Being—the magnitude, the significance, the importance of that reality, and the adorable nature of it. And so it is with the whole world in which we live. Within it is the beingness of it.

If you come to the place where I live, Sunrise Ranch, yes, it’s the buildings; yes, it’s the pastures; yes, it’s the cows; yes, it’s the people you see. But Sunrise Ranch is so much more than the outer form of all those things. There’s the magnitude of Being that’s present at Sunrise Ranch, and it’s present through people. It is present within all of the physical forms—the elk, the deer, the hawks and meadowlarks; the red sandstone rocks and the granite boulders. There is what you can see, and there is what you sense within what you see. There is the beingness of all things that is amplified by the people who live here.

The shift from the traditional scientific view to a spiritual awareness that transcends the visible is a shift from a conviction in the significance, the permanence and reality of the surface, physical world in which we live, to a knowing of the significance, the permanence, the substantiality and reality of what we can’t see. It’s stepping into what we can’t see, which is the reality of Being that is us, that’s behind Sunrise Ranch, that’s behind this whole world. It’s stepping into that invisible reality, which is the reality of the Creator, and knowing that we are that Creator in our world. And then it’s being that Creator relative to our realm, our life, and all the people in it, and all the creative processes in it. I am that Creator who is entering my world. I’m not this human being who’s flirting with a spiritual experience.

And so what we have to present to the world—what, perhaps, you have to present to the world—is the magnitude, the majesty, the significance and the vastness of Being that we are in touch with, that we are knowing, that we have to bring into the world. That reality of Being is the Creator of all things, and the Creator that is the inner reality of all people.

In the hands of the Creator is the vastness of the power of love and the substantiality of that power. This is the power of Creation, after all. Where does it come from? It comes from the Creator Him- or Herself, the reality of Being, which is one throughout the cosmos. When you know your own creatorship, you’re calling on all of that power in your life. You’re calling all that into play in your life as you are going about all the tasks and activities of an everyday life.

When we know the reality of Being, we are calling on all of that reality, all of that love, all of that light—not as something superstitious, not as some kind of flirtation with spirituality, but out of our knowing of who we are and what we are doing on earth in human form. The energy that we’re sharing is connected to all energy. And we’re calling on the vastness of all of that in the living of our life.

The direction for Creation, the pattern of Creation, is also within us and within the universe, and available to us as human beings. Moving beyond a traditional scientific mindset that dismisses what can’t be observed and measured, and moving beyond a mere flirtation with spirituality, we are calling on that wisdom, the shape and pattern of Creation that we have the opportunity to allow to unfold in consciousness and unfold in our field. We are in touch with all of that. And what we find is that our human mechanism of thinking and feeling is designed to be this most remarkable communication and computing instrument, designed to take all the information, all the intelligence of the Creator, put it through this computer and communication instrument, and come out with the unfolding pattern of Creation for our field. Magnificent! We’re designed to do that individually and we’re designed to do it together.

This experience is not available to people who are overcome with a sense of victimhood. It is not an experience that is available to a person who is lost in a sense of powerlessness. Victimhood and powerlessness are experiences that are very natural to someone who confines themselves to the realm of physical effects. It is what happens unavoidably if we’re not coming into our world as a creator and as the Creator. What else would happen? There’s nothing else available to us. We are either the Creator, and knowing that of ourselves, or we are a victim, perhaps flirting with a spiritual experience, but nonetheless identified in the realm of effects.

So what’s necessary in all this? There’s something individual that is necessary. There is something for you and there’s something for me to do to take this step into our spirituality, so that we’re coming from the Invisible and then looking out at the visible world from there.

So there’s something individual for us to do, but then there is something for us to do together. I celebrate the great individuals down through history who have come and brought this message. In rare cases, there was a constellation of people around them who together provided an aperture into a larger reality. But for the most part, there have been solo voices down through history. And then, others may become inspired for a moment. But getting inspired for a moment is flirting with spirituality, which doesn’t bring us to an experience of being a creator.

It takes a field of consciousness held by a collective of people, and then ultimately it takes all of humanity to be the Creator. But it has to start someplace. Someone has to initiate the opening of that aperture. Having been opened by a single person, there have to be some number of us who become that aperture. The individual alone is woefully inadequate for the opening that is necessary for the Creator to enter this world in which we live. But without the individual, the larger movement of humanity is not possible.

I had an interesting conversation recently with Matt, who works in the garden at Sunrise Ranch. He was saying that he believes in round-table leadership. The origin of the term dates back to a table which, according to legend, was created by Merlin, and received by King Arthur as part of the dowry he received upon marrying Guinevere. Today, we speak of round-table discussions and round-table leadership. The idea, in ancient times and today, is that everyone at the table has an equal status. Nancy Kline, who writes and teaches about thinking, cites equality as one of the ten components that are necessary for good creative thinking among a group of people.

I am the kind of person who doesn’t like to settle for what seems to me to be a partial truth. And so, in this conversation with Matt, I said to him, You know, even at the Round Table, there was a High King. And it’s true, if you read the story. There was a Round Table. But Arthur is the High King. There may be other kings at the Round Table, but there’s a High King. And by the way, who was it who invited the other kings to the Round Table? Right? Somebody had to invite the other kings to the Round Table; they didn’t all just kind of wander in one day.

My point was this: For every collective endeavor, someone had to initiate it. If you have a family, somebody had to start that family. If there is a circle of people called together for whatever purpose, someone has to call that circle. Someone has to care for its function. Someone has to keep it on track.

All my experience with groups of people tells me that there has to be both circle and focus. To the degree that either are missing, the group is dysfunctional. If a group of people has focus without a strong circle of people around that focus, the group inevitably breaks down; it doesn’t work. If you are trying to lead any kind of organization or culture of people simply on the basis of your inspiration and direction of them, with no collective function, the potential of that group is very limited.

If you try to have a totally circular function in a group of people, where everybody is equal and there’s no focus of anything, that circle will devolve into chaos, and instead of spiraling up into greater creativity, it will spiral down the drain.

Would you board a ship without a captain and an officer’s crew? I’m not getting on that ship! At the same time, try to get on a ship and go someplace over the ocean if it’s just the captain who’s trying to make the whole thing go—it’s not going to work. Actually, the whole ship is operated by the whole crew, and even the command and control functions of the ship are not just held by the captain. It’s like the captain is not even steering the ship. There is a helmsman, there is a navigator and a pilot.

At the round table, what is the role of the High King? It is to create the circle. The role of the captain of the ship is to get all the crew on board and functional. Any leader who’s not doing the same in the context of their own field isn’t worth the name.

These are dynamics that apply not only to ancient times or to contemporary organizations. These dynamics are vital to our spiritual evolution today. They are vital if we are to do something more than flirt with our spirituality and enter into an experience of our own creatorship.

So what’s your next step? What would make the magnitude and the majesty of what is inside you become real for you? What would have to happen for you so that you feel the power of universal love at your hand? Not because you’re some kind of human magician but because, in all humility, you come to know yourself as the Creator who has love to bring. And what would it take for you to know fully that you have the wisdom of the Creator, the wisdom of the universe, as it applies to the world in which you live, at your hand, that you could trust, that could be operational through your thinking and applicable to every situation that you’re in?

We have to come into the knowing of the magnitude and the significance of that, the truth of it, the reality of it, if we’re not to be subject to little thinking and little feeling, to petty things and being defined as a petty person who is ruled by those petty things. We are not that—you are not that and I am not that. We are magnificent beings. And out of the magnificence of the truth of the Being that we are comes Creation. That is the magnificence of the world in which we live. We’re not just dealing with stuff and energy. This whole Creation is born out of the magnificence of Being. It’s all alive. It’s all alive and beautiful because it’s born out of Being. It is not just a “something”—it’s a “someone” in expression. You are a someone, and that One who you and I are is a Being of majesty and magnitude and power and light.

I’m not just buttering you up—I’m telling you the truth. I’m not just trying to make you feel good—I’m declaring what the truth is, and I’m telling you that anything else is a lie. And if we believe a lie, we act out of a lie. If we believe we’re petty, we act petty. You’re not petty. None of us are. We are magnificent Beings.