It can be unpopular among some people to speak about the Divine as being above us. We don’t want to feel diminished as human beings. And certainly the Church has in many ways put down our humanity, calling people sinners. The Church has presented the grandeur of the Divine in contrast to the lowliness and awfulness of us. It’s said that the grand cathedrals of Europe were created to heighten that sense of the smallness of us and the grandness of God.

And yet we live in a reality that has many layers. There is the microcosm and the macrocosm; that summarizes it. Beyond that description, there are systems within systems within systems. Unfortunately, our culture has promoted the idea that we live in a universe of energy and matter that we can somehow scientifically describe. It describes the microcosm and the macrocosm in those terms. In the process of that, all too often, in a person’s awareness the reality of Being is lost, as if the universe we live in was just moving stuff. I think the interest in aliens is partly an attempt to find an antidote to that view of the universe. Is there intelligent life out there? I saw two UFOs—at least unidentified to me at the time—floating in the sky yesterday evening. This morning the press is reporting that they were weather balloons. I’m not believing them!

But do we need to have an alien encounter to believe that there is intelligent life out there? To know that this universe isn’t just dust, that it isn’t just energy and matter? That it is Being, that it is alive, that it is the expression of a Someone?

The reality is that we are part of that Someone of which the universe is an expression. As a human being, the realest thing about us is that we are a facet of that Someone who is creating everything. The reality of God is like the reality of humankind. E pluribus unum. Out of the many, one. There is a plurality of people in the body of humanity, and yet we are one race of people. There is a plurality within the One God of the Universe. The highest reality of a human being is part of that One God.

I don’t know if up is really the appropriate preposition to use in referring to the One God. For the Australians, would it be down? Up is a preposition related to earthly reality. And yet there are larger and larger systems and, related to that, also larger and larger realities of Being. And just as the larger systems hold all the smaller systems within them, just as you hold all your cells and your organs within you, and this solar system holds all the planets and all the heavenly bodies of the solar system, so we live our lives with the majesty of all of Being. And if we are a facet of all that, there is vastly more of Being that is beyond us, above us, larger than us, than that facet that we are. There are higher and higher orders of Creation and higher and higher orders of Being.

Yesterday I watched the funeral service for John McCain. It was a tribute to the character of a man who understood his life to be lived in service to his country. It was inspiring. And in being of service to his country, he was of service to the world.

How is it for you and for me? There are things I could name that I serve that are larger than me. I am in service to Sunrise Ranch. I am in service to Emissaries of Divine Light and the body of people that are emissaries of divine light. I’m in service to this world in which I live. But most of all, I am in service to the reality of Being that is so much larger than I am and that inspires in me love and devotion. That reality created this world, this earth, this planetary system.

What does it really mean to win? Or to be successful? Winning tends to carry the implication that somebody is losing. We’ve used another word: victory—not victory over someone else but the victory of life. Can you think of winning and giving everything into what winning would be for you, without thinking of hurting someone else or putting them down? It frees us up to totally go for it when we realize we are not competing with anyone else.

For me, the highest victory that I seek is victory for the higher reality that I serve, whose majesty is in all things and in all people. So it’s not exclusive. There is one thing to love which, in loving, you love all things. The reality of Being itself. We could use the word God. I did earlier. It is not my favorite word, really—it means so many weird things to people. But there is a reality of Being that is bigger than you and me, even bigger than all of us put together. That reality is awesome, majestic, noble; true and worthy. In serving that reality of Being, I find I am not put down, I’m not diminished. I am ennobled.

Sometimes when God is thought of, the idea is that God will do it. For Christians, that is thought of in terms of Jesus: “Jesus will save me” or “Jesus is coming.” I have a very different relationship with the One I serve. My attitude is “I will do it.” I am in service to that reality, and I came here in service to that reality. That reality can be here through me and through you, but depends on me and you to be here. And what is created must be created in and through me and in and through you.

The One I serve calls for my continuous full self emergence. That’s not just an internship program at Sunrise Ranch—it’s a calling to never stop, to never cease to be made new, to never cease to allow the reality of the spirit of who I am to come forth. That’s rebirth. Rebirth is self-expression. I am reborn in the expression of who I am. I am reborn as who I am comes out of me in expression and joins with you to create a new reality.

The victory I seek requires my self-expression. It requires my co-creation with anyone else who is interested and available to co-create with me. How about you? And when I contemplate my service to the higher reality I speak of, I do think of victory. I woke up this morning thinking, “I want to win so badly.” To want to win for yourself is narcissistic. The United States is falling prey to narcissism. But to want to win for the Divine is selfless service.

I’m not even sure what victory looks like, or what winning looks like, in the end—whatever that end would be. I have a sense that there is a natural cycle of victory and of winning for Sunrise Ranch and for Emissaries of Divine Light. I sense that for the whole world. Who knows what that looks like and what those cycles are? But I want to know that victory now. And whatever the cycle of victory is, I want to be here for that cycle, and I want to see that cycle all the way through to its rightful conclusion.

Sometimes we as human beings aren’t great finishers of things. And yet the world comes round right, things come alive and are reborn and are regenerative and fruitful for people who stay the course and see things through in their natural cycles. I’m not here to judge what that cycle is for anyone else, but I am here to be in my natural cycle.

I had a phone call this week with two women in Europe from Ubiquity University. I was on with Karen Boyett, and we were telling them about Sunrise Ranch, about Emissaries of Divine Light, and about a project we’re working on, Regeneration Earth. We were telling them about Full Self Emergence and our Primal Spirituality teachings. And they were excited. They were excited to offer Full Self Emergence as an independent study program for Ubiquity University in their graduate program. And likewise with Primal Spirituality.

It felt like a red-letter day in the fulfillment of work that we’ve been doing. I don’t know just what our relationship with Ubiquity University will come to. But there was the fulfillment of something that we have been building here in a particular cycle for at least fourteen years. Thank God we haven’t stopped, because this day would never have come if we had.

I believe there are cycles like that in all our lives. There are things to see through, things to complete. I’m not here to judge what that is for anyone else. Like anyone, I have ideas of what it might be for you, which I mostly keep to myself. Because what is really important is, for each of us, our own sense of our cycle and our own sense of staying with it, and our own passion for victory. I believe we all have that within us, even though the internal wiring that ignites passion for a person can come undone. If it does, the passion to live a fulfilling, sacred life wanes.

The wiring is the heart connection to a reality of Being that is far larger than human personality, but which nonetheless I have the supreme privilege of being a part of, as does anyone. And being a part of it, I have the supreme privilege of serving it and expressing it and sharing it, and allowing the creative power of it to come through, to the degree of my openness to let it happen. I believe that opportunity is open to anyone. I can’t imagine a higher calling or a greater privilege or a greater honor. It’s the one thing I know of that you can surrender to totally, and become totally free. And in serving this one thing, you have the privilege of serving all things and all people.