For us as human beings, the structure of Reality ends up being the underlying structure of culture. There is cultural DNA that defines the world in which we live. There are junction points in human history where the structure of Reality changes, and that has profound implications for culture. Undoubtedly there are cosmic shifts—shifts that are not only human. And then those cosmic shifts enter human culture in one way or another.

I was inspired over the period of the Fourth of July. With so much going on in the United States, I wanted to refer back to the way the structure of Reality had changed at the birth of this nation, and how it was embodied in human culture.

Here are three quotations I found:

’Tis a Common Observation here that our Cause is the Cause of all Mankind; and that we are fighting for their Liberty in defending our own. ’Tis a glorious Task assign’d us by Providence; which has I trust given us Spirit and Virtue equal to it, and will at last crown it with Success.

                                    Benjamin Franklin

I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overriding Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.

                                     John Adams

The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave. 

                                    Samuel Adams

It’s clear, as I went back and read some of the commentary by the Founding Fathers of the United States, that they were tuned in to something, and they knew the significance of what was happening. They saw it in terms of time. James Wilson said that what was coming to issue was something that had been developing over six thousand years. They saw what they were doing as significant not only for America but for the whole world. They realized that America was not just doing something for itself, but for a shift in world culture. They were aware that they were participating in the changing structure of Reality.

Perhaps you have been involved in a creative field that came to a moment in which you knew Reality was shifting. I certainly have. In 1993, there was a gathering at Sunrise Ranch where the organizational structure of Emissaries of Divine Light was changing. We were creating one organization and transforming another one. We created the Emissary Congress. We were very aware that Reality was shifting, and we were shifting cultural and organizational reality the best we knew how.

There’s a sense of privilege and honor when we have the chance to be conscious of the DNA of culture that is evolving. As spiritually conscious people, we participate in what’s shifting around the globe. It is shifting. There are cosmic factors that are changing, and then there are cultural factors that are being affected. Most people are coping the best they can. They might have a glimmer of awareness as to what is changing. We have a chance to become conscious of the change, to be the change; to live the change, to know the underlying structure of Reality that’s shifting. Then we are not only being affected by it, we are the shifters.

For most people there are impediments to coming to a transcendent place of being the change and to bringing the new spiritual DNA into the culture. Perhaps the biggest impediment is a consciousness of victimhood. It is impossible to move into a consciousness of shifting Reality when you perceive yourself to be impacted by all the cultural and physical reality around you, caught up in the undertow of what’s changing instead of being the change.

That is a consciousness affected by oppression. Oppressed consciousness and oppressed people tend to see themselves as victims of the culture that they are in. And as long as they see themselves that way, they can rebel; but still, the very fact of having identified as a victim stops a person from moving outside that experience, no matter what they do.

The Founding Fathers didn’t identify themselves as victims. They thought they had been wronged, but that’s different from seeing yourself as a victim. They saw themselves as empowered people who had certain natural rights as human beings. They saw themselves as having a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And what is that, in its truest essence, other than the right to create?

There are doorways to go through to be someone who’s in touch with the very DNA of what’s holding the world together as it is, and then what’s shifting so a new world can be born. Personally, I am here to bring the new spiritual DNA into the world, and I believe that’s what we are here to do together. We are here to create culture that embodies the new structure of Reality that is emerging. We are here to be that. We are here to be a teaching and demonstration site for it, we say, at Sunrise Ranch. But Sunrise Ranch can’t be it if the individuals who live here are not themselves a teaching and demonstration site, individually and together.

I had a profound experience this past week of becoming extremely conscious about the underlying factors of the creative field I am in. I knew that Reality was changing, and with Keahi Ewa and Melissa Jacobs, we were right at the epicenter of it. How we showed up in that situation was everything. Just because of the circumstances, there were many people in the creative field we were addressing who weren’t a conscious part of addressing the field. But we were there for it, and how we were in that situation mattered greatly. Most of the other people who would be affected by what we were doing will never even find out about how the world changed that day. They’re not aware now. But the world changed. And there will be something that unfolds from that because the underlying structure of the field changed.

That experience is a mini-episode that’s representative of what’s happening on our planet today. Reality is changing. Very few people are right at the epicenter of that change, seeing and knowing what’s happening. Sure, you have some people with lots of money in smoke-filled rooms, manipulating the picture. Perhaps they think they’ve got a handle on it. Not really. Not in the long run. There are people who are conscious at the epicenter, knowing what is changing. These are people who are bringing the new.

It takes a certain kind of courage of thought to be there. Lazy thinking makes it impossible to come to the epicenter. Lazy thinking is victimhood thinking, usually. We have to move past victimhood thinking into Creation thinking to clearly stand at the epicenter. The unfolding structure of Reality then has a consciousness to move through to manifest itself in the world. That change has to start someplace. It doesn’t start all over the place all at once, as if there were some kind of wave without an epicenter of the shift that creates it. A tidal wave begins someplace. We’re that epicenter if we so choose to be conscious.

That has relevance for our own individual lives. And what we do in a spiritual program is relevant for us individually and personally; it’s relevant for our own individual well-being, our own peace, and our own personal creativity. But it’s also relevant for the culture in which we live. We are allowing a change to happen in ourselves, and then we’re experiencing a change together in how we are together. But it doesn’t stop there. We are bringing that change not only to our personal lives but into our public lives and into the world. We are changing the world. Are you up for that? That’s what some of us are up to. With friends around the world, that is what we are doing.

This organization and this community of people that is known as Emissaries of Divine Light is devoted to this: the spiritual regeneration of humanity under the inspiration of the spirit of God. That is our mission. But we’re not all alone as a community, and we’re not all alone as an organization. We have friends. There are awakening people around the world, and together we’re doing this. I’m doing this, and I’m not stopping. I think that’s the attitude that has to be present. If there’s not the we’re-not-stopping part, there are all the things that will stop us.

I’m proud to say that on the recent occasion I referenced, a few of us didn’t stop. We saw it through to the end on that day. We saw it through not only in action but in consciousness. We weren’t satisfied with halfway answers. We wanted the whole answer and the whole truth. We wanted to see the whole world that we were responsible for, not just part of it, and not just our own little biased perspective. We wanted to know the truth. We wanted to give birth to the truth that was waiting to be born. That takes an open, curious, courageous consciousness, with a soft and open heart. It takes a willingness to be at the epicenter of the change that creates the tidal wave—to be consciously aware of the shifting structure of Reality and to allow that to change human culture.