We are aware that we are living in a field of consciousness and culture that we share. This field does not contain just information. There is activating energy as well.

The field of consciousness and culture that is being born resides in the auric substance that we each know for ourselves and that we share in common. Auric substance carries the information and the vibrational energy of the field. When we awaken to it, we are honored to be consciously aware of the field for ourselves, to be keepers of our own field, and to be keepers of the field that we know together. As a keeper of the field we generate pneumaplasm, which is the auric substance of the field.

The substance we generate is the substance of conscious Creation that has great depth and great desire. The substance of consciousness—the substance we perceive through the human mind and heart—has deep, deep desire. Put simply, it is the desire to live. That desire goes so deep in any human being. And I’m not just talking about surviving. I am speaking of living a fulfilling life. This great will to live is what Viktor Frankl called the will to meaning.

In this field we share, there is a desire to create and to fulfill Creation in our lives. There’s a desire to come together, to love, to support each other, and to make a place for other people. There’s a deep desire to cherish what we share in common—a desire to see, acknowledge, honor and adore the preciousness of life itself that is present in another human being and that is present in our midst. The activation from above so easily engenders love and adoration in the open heart. This is the most natural thing in the world to us as human beings. It’s the most natural thing to love another human being, to protect another human being, to surround them, to care for them, and then to praise and uplift, appreciate, and harmonize with the beautiful truth that is coming through another.

The other day I was walking my puppy, Gracie, in the field across from my house at Sunrise Ranch. I could feel the substance of this valley and the heart of my community at Sunrise Ranch. And I could feel its longing to know itself in love, its longing to surround all of the people who enter this valley and all the people who live here. It is, at the same time, what we feel in our own hearts as an aching to be loved ourselves, and also the ache to love.

I read a profound book a few years back: Leadership and Self-Deception. It’s published by the Arbinger Institute. The book speaks about the human journey, and most particularly about leadership. It talks about self-deception as “being in the box.” And here’s what it describes as being in the box: it’s feeling the urge of your own substance to be kind, to give, to be generous, to really live, and then withholding it. The authors say that is being in the box. Because when you withhold the generous compulsion, it sets in motion a whole series of events in your world, and then all kinds of repercussions in your own psyche. If you hold back the compulsion to give of yourself, now you have to tell yourself a reason why you withheld it.

I didn’t give because of what this person did to me.

I didn’t give because I don’t have enough.

I didn’t give because I am weak and vulnerable.

I didn’t give because I am afraid.

I didn’t give because I don’t have enough to share.

And then you go into the box of belief in your own limitation.

In their consulting practice, The Arbinger Institute helps organizational leaders to come out of the box so that they can follow the natural impulse to live and to give. That impulse is innate for us as an individual and among us as human beings. But, quite clearly, the self-deception that puts someone in the box doesn’t just occur for organizational leaders. It happens in the prevailing human culture in which we’ve come to believe all the things we’ve told ourselves about why we are not living in oneness and in joy and in harmony and creativity, why we can’t come together and solve our common problems, why we can’t take care of the weakest among us.

And yet, in the process of reciting those reasons to ourselves and to anybody who will listen, we are not following out that creative urge that is in us even now, and within every human being on the face of the earth. That creative urge to really live is not just an individual urge. It is an urge within the human race as a whole for the thriving of our species and the thriving of this world.

We, as humanity, have come to believe something negative about the urge that is in us. And what do so many of the religions and spiritual teachings of the world tell us? They tell us that the urge deep within the human soul is wrong, and you have to contravene it with a cultural or religious moral structure, and your own thinking about the direction in your life. Because if you actually followed out that urge within you, you would be on a path of destruction that would ultimately condemn you to a life in hell after you die, or to reincarnation after reincarnation until you get it right. What a horrible error in understanding the human predicament!

The problem is not that the urge within us is wrong. The problem is that we—the human race as a whole—are not using our conscious thought and intuitive ability to discern the purest desire within that urge. Instead of thinking about the creative expression of the urge, we are cutting it off. And then substituting our own mentally concocted plans and ideas for the creation of a happier life.

We don’t need our minds to cut off this creative urge to live. We need our minds to understand the purest essence of that urge. And then to find the ways to give it creative expression in our life. Not to invent our own life, apart from that urge. Is this not what is happening for people? And even if their best-laid plans come true, it’s not a fulfillment of the urge. And so, it’s empty.

The urge has within it the fulfillment of a human life. Why not tap into that urge and let it express itself naturally through us as human beings? I’m not talking about being blind or thoughtless as to how we give expression to the urge. Of course, we need our minds, but our minds are not there to substitute for the urge. Our minds are there to see and understand the urge, to tune in to it and go deeper and deeper to the core of it. And then have the courage to live, and the courage to do what is perhaps the most courageous thing a human being could do, which is to love another person. We could start with one. And then find all the ways that we are here to love humanity in the living of our life and in the giving of our gift; all the ways that we’re here to fulfill the urge.

We have that opportunity in community. It is a learning process. Personally, I’ve spent most of my adult life in intentional community. It wasn’t really that intentional for me. It wasn’t as if I said to myself, I want to spend most of my life in intentional community, although I had an interest in it. But it has ended up that way. I have found that there is an intensified opportunity in community to fulfill these things.

This creative urge comes in so many ways. How great is the urge to encourage another person? How great is that urge to just tell them, I believe in you. You can do it! Come on! We care about you. You’re loved here. You’re part of this community. You are loved just because you are a human being. You are loved, you are included. You’re part of this team, this family. And none of us are perfect, but we are all loved. It’s the most natural thing in the world to communicate such things to other people.

Have you ever listened to people on high-achieving football teams talk about their team? It might be after a Super Bowl or some other important game. When I listen to the coach or the players and the depth of love for the other members of the team, expressed explicitly and overtly, it bowls me over. Sometimes it comes out like this:

I just did it for these guys. We are family here.

Here are these big, brawny guys, in their shoulder pads and helmets, talking about a great love for each other. And this is on a very high-achieving football team.

We may not care too much about high achievement in football. My point is that the desire for high achievement is no excuse for cutting off the urge of kindness and love that’s within us. In fact, exactly the opposite: we are high achievers when we love. When we get out of the box—whatever box we might be in—and we get out from under all the excuses for why we can’t do the most natural thing in the world, we become a loving, high-achieving, joyful community.

College football coach Bobby Dodd said this:

Either love your players or get out of coaching.

Tom Coughlin was a professional football coach. He was known for bringing strong discipline, though he softened his coaching methods over the years. He said this:

Championships are won by teams who love one another, who enjoy and respect one another and play for and support one another.

If football players and coaches can talk about love, I think we can too. And not only talk about it but live it. I’m not talking about trying to do something we don’t want to do. So often, on a Sunday morning someplace—or some other time—someone exhorts the audience to do something they don’t want to do. But we don’t need firing up when it comes to this urge within us. We are already fired up. We just need to take the lid off. We already have the urge. When we stop cutting it off and stop excusing why we’re not acting on it, it’s there, driving us. Our fulfillment is in that. And then there are a million ways to be of service to other people, and a million ways to fulfill the urge that’s present in the field.

What is our answer to all the disillusioning things that are happening in our world today? This experiment in the God Field we are creating. We are creating a field that’s resonating with high vibration. How high? Higher than yesterday; but not yet nearly where we can take it. Where could we take it in this field?

This field is not separate from the larger human culture. Some people are disappointed when they begin to build a resonant field with others and they don’t experience immediate perfection. They are not seeing that what they are experiencing is perfection. It’s just that it is part of the entire field of human consciousness and culture. So, what is transpiring in their immediate field is interacting with the whole field and changing it. I’ve learned not to impose my idea of perfection on my immediate field. I am here to change the whole field.

As awake human beings, we didn’t come here to fit into every last thing that’s going on in the culture around us. We are bringing the essence of the culture of tomorrow. Let’s let our immediate world re-constellate around that essence, so that the culture of tomorrow can become the culture of today. I didn’t come this far to settle for anything less than that, and I don’t believe you did either.

Feel the urge to live. Feel the urge to thrive, to love, to come together. Feel the pure desire within the urge. Let it move deeply through you. Let it change your world. Let it change the world.