We are on a most excellent adventure together as a community. It’s not all about community—it’s not for me; I suspect it isn’t for you. But we are here together in community with an opportunity. We have an opportunity whether or not we’re in a community such as this, but we are—in this community. And there’s an opportunity here, and I really appreciate the very down-to-earth ways we’ve been considering that together tonight, and the ways we’ve been getting real about that experience.

So I’m going to continue, and I’m going to talk, maybe in some instances, about your experience at Sunrise Ranch. But know that I’m only doing it because that’s where we are, and I’m actually speaking about something that’s larger than the place that we are. But we’re here.

So here’s what I want to ask of you: What is it that you want to have happen in your experience here at Sunrise Ranch? When you think of Sunrise Ranch and you think of what you would like it to be, what you would love it to become, when you think about your own experience here, when you think about your own life and what you want to be fulfilled in that life—and in some way, I assume, we all came here for that—what is that thing? Whatever it is, I would propose to you that it is in some way unique to you. There are going to be commonalities, but there’s something very specific for each one of us.

When you initially think about something like that, you might think of fairly mundane kinds of things, like nice scenery, nice people, or something you enjoy doing. But I would suggest that, for all of us, there’s something deeper behind whatever that is. There’s something that we’re looking for, and actually, in some way, something that we stand for that is important to us. And we are here to have an experience of that.

And here’s what I have had come blazingly into my own awareness of that for me that I would share with you. And it goes very simply like this: It’s up to you. Whatever that is, it’s up to you. It’s not that other people aren’t going to play a part. They are; we don’t live our lives alone. Nonetheless, you’re the one who is carrying that desire, that vision, and because it’s in your heart and your desire, it’s up to you.

It doesn’t really matter, in the larger scheme of things, what everybody else is doing about that. And I know, probably for all of us, there are times when it seems like it does. It doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter, because whatever anybody else is doing, the primary directive still applies. They’re doing well, they’re helping, they’re being nice; oh, they’re falling down on the job, they’re being an obstructionist. It’s up to you. It’s up to you.

It doesn’t really matter how well you think you’re doing at manifesting what you think you should be manifesting. On some days, if you’re like me, you probably think you’re doing a terrible job. If you’re like me, you probably think some days you just totally blew it and your opportunity is gone, that it’s never going to happen and that you really screwed it up. And still it’s up to you. You may be thinking that you’re doing great, that it’s all going swimmingly. And still, it’s up to you.

It all depends on you carrying forward that desire and that vision, and letting it burn bright in your mind and burn hot in your heart. And then it’s all up to you to express that, to bring it into the world and do the best job that you know how to do to let that live. You don’t really know where it’s going to lead. The project you’re working on might fail, for all you know. Sunrise Ranch could fold up. Your friends could leave you. The whole thing that you’re working on could belly-flop. And it doesn’t matter. You have no way of knowing all those things, but you can know it’s up to you. And there’s nothing else creative to do other than live a life where you accept that.

If you’re lucky enough to have that really hit you right between the eyes, that it’s up to you, what I believe you’ll find is that the things that worry you, the things that disappoint you, the things that cause anxiety, will become erased. They are erased when you get, right between the eyes, “It’s up to me. It’s up to me.” And all those things that you’ve been thinking about don’t really matter very much. I’m just going to accept that my life is all about it being up to me. My sacred mission in my life is up to me, and every moment of my life it’s up to me to embody that, to express it, to give it voice.

I find that all the different parts of me are part of fulfilling that sacred mission. I can’t do it just as some little corner of who I am. It takes all of me to fulfill that mission. And that mission is relevant to everything that I’m doing in my life.

I had this hit me, as I put it, right between the eyes the other morning. And I realized that that realization had saved my life as a young man of eighteen years old, when I was thinking about a lot of different things. And I met somebody in Martin Cecil, who pretty well looked me in the eye and told me it was up to me. I didn’t find Martin was a particularly encouraging man. I didn’t get a lot of slaps on the back or “Keep it up, Dave, you’re doing a good job.” I didn’t get told how to do it; I didn’t get told where to do it. I didn’t get told I was important. I didn’t get told I was a good guy. I just got told, “It’s up to you. Everything that’s in you, that you care about, everything you desire, it’s up to you.”

I had another dose of it the other morning. I flashed back on that time when I was eighteen and how Martin had a way of conveying that to me in my life. And it stayed with me through some pretty hefty disappointments, stayed with me through bad times, stayed with me when I didn’t know where things were going in my life, and in times when I didn’t know where things were going in the world right around me that I cared about deeply. It all just came back to “It’s up to you.”

In that little statement is the answer for humanity. Whatever you think about the way the world is going, whatever you think about the presidential inauguration, whatever you think about the state of the world, it’s up to you. And I would suggest to you, if you’re thinking of it any other way, it won’t go to a good place.

“It’s up to you” is really the foundation, the cornerstone, and the focal point for everything that Sunrise Ranch and Emissaries of Divine Light is about. Everything comes to focus there. Now, there is more to life than “It’s up to you.” There are all the other people, and there are all the thoughts you have about how you can be in this circumstance, how you can express yourself, how you can understand what’s happening intelligently so that you can do what you need to do. There’s more to life than “It’s up to you.” But everything else follows from “up to you,” and everything else gets empowered and lit up by a person who says, “It’s up to me.”

So you become brilliant when you know it’s up to you, because your little old mind just got a big old job. If you know it’s up to you, your mind just got an assignment to understand what’s happening and what you could offer into what’s happening that would be truly creative, that could fulfill the sacred mission that you’re here on earth to fulfill. You get truly brilliant when you accept that it’s up to you. You become empowered in your life.

Somebody asked me this morning if I was having a boring day. I think they were just making light of things. I said to the person, “You know, I really can’t remember the last time I was bored.” When you know it’s up to you, you’re not bored. You are inspired, you’re energized, you’re empowered. You’re actively fulfilling what you know to be true.

All of these things point to this cornerstone of what we’re about. The term we use for it is spiritual expression. Spiritual expression applies to what you do, so you can express the spirit of who you are, the spirit of what’s coming through you, in what you’re doing. And it applies to what you think because it motivates what you think and inspires and enlightens what you’re thinking. So it’s relevant to those things. It’s relevant to all phases of our life.

But what I want to put to you is that it’s also something in and of itself: that when you’re paying attention to the quality of spirit that you’re knowing for yourself, that you’re letting into yourself, and that you are expressing in your life, you are bringing the cornerstone of what your whole life is about and what all of life is about. In other words, when that one thing gets right, when in our human spirit we are becoming a lucid, clear, powerful, loving expression of the spiritual reality that’s behind us, everything else has a way of getting illuminated and sorting itself out.

What I want to put to you tonight for your own examination—because I don’t want anybody to accept this on faith because I said it and, more than that, I know you won’t! But what I want to put to you is there is no other way to figure out your life but that, and there’s no other way to figure out what’s happening on the planet than that. You cannot figure it all out mentally. You can’t have a belief about it that will fix it; you can’t have a philosophy that’s going to solve what’s happening on the planet today. There is no philosophy, there’s no belief, and there’s no idea that, of itself, is going to solve anything. I’m all for philosophy and ideas and beliefs, but it’s not going to solve it alone. And there’s nothing you can do, and there’s nothing I can do, to save this world, and there’s nothing I can do that, of itself, is going to make my life go well.

The focal point of what is going to make this world go well and make it creative—the fountainhead of that—is you, for you, saying, “Yes, it’s up to me,” and me, for me, saying, “It’s up to me.” And then it’s accepting that the central component of that is the quality of spirit that I’m knowing and expressing into my world and embodying. I can know that personally. And that’s where it starts: individually. I can be an instrument of that.

What matters more than the form in which it’s finding expression, or the brilliance of the things that I’m doing or the strength of them, what matters more is simply that I have accepted for myself that it’s up to me. And the spiritual nature that I’m knowing, the quality of that, is reflective of what I’ve accepted for myself.

If it is truly up to me, my life and my world is up to me, and my sacred mission is up to me, how do I fulfill it? I’ve already asserted that it’s the spiritual expression of a person that makes all the difference. But how do you change that for yourself? It doesn’t change because I somehow grind it out. My spiritual experience changes because I appeal to and access the large, vast resource of that within myself.

This suggests that I, as a human being, am opening up to that reality in myself to let it come through more and more powerfully, more and more clearly, more and more lucidly, and with more and more integrity in my own experience. And I’m looking to imbue all my relationships and everything I do and everything I think with that quality. It’s that intention, and the spiritual expression that follows from it, that is the cornerstone of everything.

It doesn’t work to somehow fly past that and hope that some belief in a spirituality beyond oneself is going to save the day. And I don’t care whose name you want to put on that, whether it’s Jesus or whether it’s the Pleiadeans or anybody else. In the experience of real spirituality, there’s no flying past “It’s up to me.” And nothing less than that will do, meaning that no lower level of human function, no thought, no belief, no action, of itself, is going to save the day. When we accept truly that it’s up to me, we begin to move into an experience of superconductivity.

Your desire and your vision and your sacred mission didn’t come from no place. It came from a reality that’s within you that wants to express through you, as you, into the world. So when you accept your sacred mission, you are accepting all of the wisdom, all of the truth of that and all of the power and love of that that is unique to you, and you’re opening yourself to connect with that in a way that’s uniquely yours, because what you’re connecting with is uniquely you. So you are setting yourself up for spiritual lucidity, coherence, brilliance—superconductivity.

So I pray for that at Sunrise Ranch. I pray for that with you and with us. And we have at least moments of it, do we not, where it just lights up among us and we feel the lucidity and the coherence of what we’re sharing? I say that happens because we are each being superconductive. We’re each embracing our own sacred mission and, to whatever degree, we’re each accepting, “Yes, it’s up to me.” When we’re doing that together, we get brilliant. We get powerful in a very easy way. We get intelligent together.

I like feeling intelligent by myself! But I much prefer really being intelligent together. We have great potential to be super-intelligent together—super lit up, super-loving, super-powerful. Not because we’re trying to, not because we’re flexing our muscles, but because we’ve gained lucidity, we’ve gained superconductivity.

We call this the Third Sacred School, the First Sacred School being physical in nature and the Second, mental. The Third Sacred School comes to focus in spiritual expression. It is the Sacred School of It’s up to you.

Here we are, coming to this point in the evolution of human consciousness and the evolution of spirituality that relies on these things. I’m putting forth to you the idea that without this, nothing works, and with this, everything works. We don’t need just this, but we need this: It’s up to you. And this that I’ve been speaking of allows it all to come into place for us individually and for us together—“us,” a little community of a hundred people here at Sunrise Ranch; and then “us,” people that we’re connected with; and then “us,” all of humankind.