When we look at the issues the world faces, we see spiritual issues behind them all. The tragic war in Israel and Gaza is at the forefront of global awareness today. It is so clear that there are enormous spiritual issues behind it. There is a sickness of the human spirit that has the capability of taking the actions that have been taken.

 

Emissaries of Divine Light are committed to seeing the spiritual issues of humankind for what they are and to providing an answer to them. 

 

I wrote to an Israeli friend to ask if she and her family were safe. Thankfully, they are. She had this comment regarding the war:

 

The locked-up traumas of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are rising out into the open to create a perfect storm. 

 

My friend is a psychologist and a very good one. I appreciate her insight, and it’s hard to deny that’s what’s happening. What is transpiring is terrible. And unless something dramatic happens, it seems to be headed to a far worse disaster. There are all the traumas of all the years, dating back to 4,000 years ago. All the traumas of all the years are coming out to play.

 

There is something else transpiring worth noting. What created the traumas in the first place? And what are the people involved in this conflict today doing about the trauma in their own experience and the trauma of others?

 

There is some level of experienced trauma for virtually all of us, worse for some than others. The question for anyone isn’t just the presence of past trauma. It is how we act in the face of trauma. 

 

There is an essential choice for us all. We can identify with our past trauma or the trauma of others. We can act out of our trauma, or out of sympathy for someone else’s. And what we know about people who do that is that the traumatized become the traumatizers. 

 

Pondering this terrible situation in Israel and Gaza, what do you imagine is the answer to the spiritual and the manifest crises? From both the perspective of faith and from the very practical consideration of what the parties involved might do to find peace and prosperity for their people, there is only one solution that I can imagine would make a real difference. 

 

Unconditional Love is thought to be an impossible, lofty goal by many. I’ve been told many times that it is unrealistic. But think of this situation. Think of it from the perspective of either side, Israeli or Palestinian. Is there any good way through this situation other than Unconditional Love?

 

I am talking now from a practical standpoint. I’m not speaking from the standpoint of spiritual principle. But from a very practical standpoint, can you imagine any good resolution to that problem other than Unconditional Love?

 

The unconditional part means that the actions of the other party do not determine my underlying attitude and intention. As long as it does, there is reaction—endless revenge and retaliation. There is no peace. The party who conditions their attitude and intention on the actions of the other earns the disrespect of the world.

 

Love is the creative power of the cosmos, known and expressed by a human being. It is an attitude of goodwill and the intention to uplift others. 

 

Unconditional Love manifests differently, depending on the situation. It doesn’t require anyone to be a doormat for the oppression of others. It doesn’t require anyone to be a victim. 

 

If you have a child acting one way, caring and loving for that child is doing one thing. And if they’re acting another way, caring and loving for them is something else. Success might elicit praise and misbehavior correction. But in each case, the motive might be the same—Unconditional Love.

 

Unconditional Love is care and understanding. It compels us to intercede in another person’s life where we can, to help them overcome any external challenges and transcend any internal limitations. It urges us to give another person a boost where we can and assist them to harmonize with what is most creative in their life to experience the greatest possible fulfillment.

 

Unconditional Love, if it’s to have meaning, includes intercession. We can’t think we love another and then do nothing. A parent has the responsibility to intercede in their child’s life all the time. A teacher has that same responsibility. As a teacher, the most misbehaving boy in my class was the one with whom I was most motivated to intercede to save him from himself and his self-sabotaging tendencies. 

 

Now, think of the Middle East. How else are the parties going to work their way out of the circumstance they find themselves in? If they resort to acting out of their trauma, they are sunk. 

 

It is inspiring to find the teaching of Unconditional Love in the origin story of both the Jewish and Muslim people. Abraham hears the voice of Spirit promising to him that his lineage will be a blessing to all families. 

 

It is easy to observe how something else has dominated world culture. The governing powers of society at every level—whether of nations, families, communities, or institutions—have not brought peace and goodwill on earth. In many instances, they have caused harm. 

 

We have words for that kind of governing power. Today, many people villainize hierarchy and patriarchy. Yet progressive thinkers describe the organization of the physical universe and human social systems as a holarchy comprised of holons. Theoretical physicist David Bohm defined a holon as a unit of organization that is simultaneously a whole of itself and a part of a larger whole. Bohm’s theory of holarchy describes how complex systems are organized hierarchically according to levels of increasing complexity.

 

Whatever the social structure, from families to nations, there is a pattern of relationships that is natural to the people involved. That pattern is formed by Universal Love. It is created by the intention and urge that Universal Love brings to us all. And it is formed by the vibration of Universal Love reverberating through any constellation of people, in much the same way that the reverberation of sound waves in sand creates new patterns in a cymatics experiment.

 

Universal Love is the cause of new patterns of culture. It is also the result. A culture motivated and powered by Universal Love brings it to the world.

 

There is a simplistic, worldly understanding of hierarchy that is repulsive. It is a form of human tyranny. Is there an enlightened hierarchy for us to manifest and experience that operates on a totally different basis? That is not acting out of trauma and is not traumatizing others? Call it what you will—enlightened hierarchy, holarchy, or something else—I don’t care. But surely, we need a creative basis for governance in our world. 

 

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. Human government based on trauma will rule the world until the ordering power of Universal Love comes to the fore in human experience.

 

For much of the world, the human hierarchy has been based on a patriarchy—but a patriarchy that has roots in trauma and that traumatizes the world at every level. It is not a patriarchy sourced in Universal Love.

 

Perhaps a matriarchy should accede to power. But on what basis? I’ve been in matriarchal contexts that weren’t happy situations. And besides, do we really want to ask women to face the powers of the world, as it is, alone?

 

I say we need an enlightened matriarchy and an equally enlightened patriarchy, born out of Universal Love, motivated by that Love, and manifesting it in the world. We need a matriarchy and a patriarchy where there is no competition, no vying for position, but a constellation of relationships that reverberates with the vibration of Universal Love.

 

This is the answer to the spiritual crisis we face in Israel and Gaza, and in the rest of the world. It is the answer to the spiritual crises we face in our families, communities, and nations. 

 

An enlightened patriarchy is formed by men who know themselves as kings. There is a difference between a prince and a king, using those words to name different states of spiritual maturity and health. 

 

There’s a difference between a patriarchy based on the prince and a patriarchy based on the king. The prince is immature, perhaps rebellious, looking for egoic power. The king is aligned with the hierarchy of the cosmos. The king comes not for himself. The king comes to bring the ordering power of Universal Love into his world.

 

And what of matriarchy? Enlightened matriarchy is not brought by the princess. The princess does not know how to bring true matriarchy. The princess is subject to vanity, envy, scrambling for place, and egoic attitudes and behavior. The queen loves her people, family, community, and nation. She loves her world. 

 

The queen brings a higher Love. For the queen, it’s not about herself. It’s about selfless service. The queen knows her place. She’s not struggling to be recognized or appointed. She is the queen, and she knows it.

 

What I’m saying is that there is a spiritually mature way to bring the governing power of the universe into this sphere of things. When we look out at the world, we don’t see that often. Where it is brought, it’s exceptional. 

 

How does the prince become a king? How does the princess become a queen? It happens when they are devoted to Source Reality, which exists at a level higher than the personality-based sense of self. Opening to the ordering power of Unconditional Love, it enters them, and they bring it to the world. 

 

Let us be so open that we are transformed. Let us be an enlightened hierarchy that brings Unconditional Love to the world.