I invite you to share a meditation together. In outer form, in many ways, it’ll be similar to what we’ve done in the past. It could sound like a sermon, I suppose. But to me, it’s something more than that. I could describe it as a meditation together. And in that meditation, a lived experience.

It will be a guided meditation in the sense that I’ll speak some words to carry us through it. You will be active on your side of things, very much involved in your own meditation as we go along here, around the subjects that I will be bringing forward.

I’d like to meditate with you on two great spiritual powers that are available to us as human beings.

The song we just heard, “Bring Him Home,” carries the vibration of home. Home is a spiritual power for each of us as a human being. That power is a gift. It is a gift to us to know in our life. The most central of gifts, when you think about it. What could be more central than the experience of home?

Home has, or can have, an outer dimension to it. It can be a house or a tent or a trailer. It could be many things. But the essence of what home is transcends the outer physical form of it. You can’t actually find home in a physical form unless you know it inside and bring it from inside to that place. We endow places we live with the qualities of home if we’re knowing it inside. It is a spiritual reality.

That word spiritual is a fill-in-the-blank kind of word. What do we mean by it?

Something that’s mystical can be evasive. And home is like that. Yes? We can be in a house that we call home and not feel at home. Where did it go? It’s a subtle matter, is it not? A subtle matter, a mystical matter. It can seem sometimes to be profoundly present, profoundly known. We can feel at home, and it doesn’t always have to be in a house.

I walked down the street this morning. It snowed here last night, probably not even an inch. But there was melting snow on the road. There was the glistening of the water on the black tar. The sun was hitting the road, coming off the reservoir, reflecting a blue sky. It was not exactly warm, but not exactly cold either. And I felt profoundly at home in this valley.

Other times, we could be lying in bed or wherever we may be, and where did home go? It is present, always available to be received and known. It’s something that’s given to us. Hopefully, our parents gave us some measure of home. But beyond our parents, there is “God on high,” as the lyrics to the song alluded to.

When I think of home, I think of a quality of Mother God. It’s the power that Mother God has to surround. And if you think about it, isn’t that what home is? Home is a surround. And if we let ourselves know it and experience it, we can allow ourselves to be surrounded from on high, loved from on high. To be known, it has to be received in the midst of whatever lack of a feeling of home a person might have. For that feeling to change, they have to turn to the source of home. Again, it’s mystical, it’s subtle.

I say turn, but where do you turn to? It is a spiritual turning and an opening to receive what is available to you. Always, always, always, if you turn, you know that you are loved; you are surrounded, if you’ll accept that surround.

In that surround, the seeds of Creation conceive new life, just as in the human womb of the mother. Life can continue to unfold within spiritual home. We can be nourished and grow. Our experience of life can thrive as we know home in that surround.

And then, something else happens as we’re knowing that for ourselves. We become that home for other people and the world. We’re endued with that power of home. We can take it wherever we go.

But thinking about it, doesn’t it go this way? You can’t somehow transplant home to make it available for another person. They have to come home. In that sense, you can’t give home to another person. You have to be home and another person can enter that home, just like you and I can enter that home. But you can’t force home on someone. You can’t transport it over to them.

And while we can travel the world, we cannot bring home to everybody in the sense of imparting it. No, that’s not the nature of how home works. Nobody can give us home. We have to come home to receive it where it is. We have to be at home to know it.

Realizing that home is constantly being given, this sounds like a contradiction. Yes, it’s constantly there, constantly being given. We receive it by stepping into it. And as hard as it is to see people who are homeless in a spiritual sense, we can’t change that for them except as we make home available, and they come home. That’s how home works.

It may seem like a hard law. You might feel the compassion that inspires you to make someone else feel at home. But they have to come home to receive it. We can be home. We can invite people to join us at home. But we can’t somehow break off a piece of it and give it away. That’s not how home works, and the wonder of it is that when someone harmonizes with how home does work, it’s absolutely dependable. It’s absolutely there, always. When you think of it, it is a great power to inherit for ourselves, to know for ourselves, and to share.

There’s an Emissary song written some years ago that speaks about going no more forth. Sounds biblical, but as far as I can tell it’s not from the Bible per se. But that’s the nature of home and how the experience of home is sustained. We as a human being live there and stop leaving it.

Some of us have traveling shoes, and a desire to get out and see the world. Are we leaving home as we do that? I hope not. I hope we are knowing home. We’re at home wherever we are. And wherever we are, we’re inviting people to be in that home with us, in that sense, going no more forth, traveling shoes or not.

What a power we have! There is a magnetic quality to home. It’s attractive. There’s a gravity to it, a pulling power so that when a person is open to it, interested in it, desirous of knowing that experience, they might perceive through their feeling realm that home is available. It is always available from the invisible presence of Mother God. But if you are knowing home, if I’m knowing home, it’s not only present in that abstract kind of way; the reality of it is right here. And there is an invitation from us to come home, come here, come to this place, be here, know this, be at home with me.

So that is one great spiritual power that’s available to us to know, to inherit, and then to allow to be operative through us. It is the principle upon which Sunrise Ranch operates. Sunrise Ranch is a physical home. So, we embody these spiritual principles in a physical manifestation. We have houses that are homes to us. We have places for people to stay. And God bless the physical manifestations. And yet, it is the spiritual reality of home that’s so powerful at Sunrise Ranch.

This was the very principle upon which the Ranch was founded—with the idea that if people could come into this home for some period of time, they could be renewed, they could grow, they could learn, they could expand, and eventually be born into another level of life expression, another level of the manifestation of who they are and what the next cycle in their life was meant to be. They could be reborn, you might say, born at another level, because they were held safe within this home.

This is the principle of the womb, which operates at many levels of human experience. At the biological level, this principle gives birth to children. But the principle of the womb is operative at all levels of human experience. And that is a central principle upon which Sunrise Ranch operates.

For us as friends around the world, it is an even more subtle matter, is it not? A little confusing for us sometimes. We’re living in a virtual world, whatever that is. We’re not actually physically together. Somehow it can be easier to grok if we’re all in a room together, in a house together, or at a place like Sunrise Ranch together. Our human minds and hearts can get that—we’re all home together.

It doesn’t always happen, by the way, when people are together physically. When we’re little squares on a TV screen, it’s harder for the human psyche to figure out that we’re holding home together around the world, and yet we are. This community of people is home. We’re holding the space of home—womb space, you might say—at this level of creative activity, a place for people to come, something that surrounds them.

We are creating a vibrational structure together that is the reality of home known by us and available to people.

Do you know you have the power to offer that surround? It is the power of consciousness. I’m aware that all the people on this call today are present and held within my consciousness. My consciousness is a womb that holds you all. It has that tremendous capacity.

My heart is a womb that holds you all within it. It has that power to hold the home for us all. I believe we all have that power. You have it for all the other people on this call.

It’s a piece of magic in consciousness, you might say. It’s a subtle thing. We have to teach our minds to perform this magic and, as I say, in virtual space it’s a little more complicated, a little more subtle. But we can do it; we’re made to do it. It’s natural to do it. It’s not just a matter of computer technology. It’s a matter of spiritual technology. And the names and faces on the screen, as well as the faces in the room here, help our consciousness have an awareness of who is in the home with us.

This is the Great Mother working through each of us. Did you know you have the power of the Great Mother within you? Men and women both?

I chose that song, “Bring Him Home,” partly because in the play it’s the message of a man calling home someone who is like a son to him.

That’s one of the ever-so-touching things about the song—the realization that a man has access to this power, just as a woman does. I say just as while, of course, we all do it differently. So, I don’t mean to propose some kind of equality or sameness. But still, men have that power. It’s beautiful to see a man activate that power within himself and let it work through him. And it’s a manly thing when a man does that.

There’s another power I want to speak to here this morning. This is the power of radiance. This is the radiant power of love shining. It is a light. It is a warmth.

This power does something more than surround. It radiates to them in and into them. To inherit this power, we have to receive it. How do you manifest a power you haven’t received? Can’t be done. The power has to be received so that you have the power.

How do we receive this radiant power? It’s received when the radiance of love shines into us. The warmth of love radiates into us. It isn’t deflected. It isn’t met with, Oh, of course, of course, of course…God is love. It isn’t met with I’m too worried about my world to be thinking about that. I’m too busy with what I’m about, too distracted with this or that. We have a Super Bowl on today.

It’s received because, again, a person turns to it. They find where it’s coming from in themselves. Something physical is easier to find. You can find the sun in the sky. But we have to find this radiance spiritually within ourselves—the nearness of it, the availability of it.

It can help to have someone come along and show us—introduce us to the nearness of this reality and the availability of it. Here it is, it’s right here. Can you feel it? Can you feel that vibration? Turn to that. If ever you’re not feeling it, this is what it feels like. Learn how to alter your orientation so that you are facing the shining of this inner radiance.

So, a person can help us with that. But ultimately, we train our own capacity to receive that shining, to receive that warmth, that light. We face the sun in that sense. Face that shining. Ooh, I can feel it full-on, on my face.

That’s how it feels physically. That’s how it felt this morning as I walked in the sun. I can feel it fully on my face, spiritually. I’m not moving here. I’m just going to receive that warmth, that love, and I’m going to let it shine on me, as deep down as it wants to go and as much as I can receive it. I’m going to let it in. I’m going to let it in to all the unloved parts of myself, the parts of myself that feel whatever shame or lack, or discouragement. I am going to let it in. That was the message of the song from the Broadway Musical Hair: “Let the Sunshine In.”

If you let it in unreservedly, all the way down to your toes, it’s shining in you and it’s beginning to shine through you. If it’s shining through you, it is no particular effort to share that shining with people. It’s not like you have to somehow shine a light in their face or attempt to penetrate people with light. It’s just shining. It’s there. It’s available.

Somebody could hold it off, look the other way, not pay attention, or not receive it. That’s totally on them. But it’s available through us unreservedly without concern for results.

Both these powers, when they’re operating through us, are available effortlessly. It’s not like we have to say, I’m going to have to shine my light on this person; I’m shining love to them. It’s not quite like that. Not that we’re unconscious of the process; but nonetheless, it’s just happening. It’s happening in and through us and because it is, it’s available. We’re living in a reality that is a reality of knowing these powers. Knowing that they’re operating in and through us, and that we’re making them available. It is in that sense effortless.

There is a conscious part of it all. Even though it is effortless, that doesn’t mean it’s unconscious. We are consciously staying open, consciously receiving, and perhaps noticing a human tendency not to receive, to look away—to be too busy, too preoccupied, too absorbed with emotions and attitudes that ultimately get down to something fearful. And so, the conscious part is noticing those human tendencies that are probably somewhere in almost all of us and simply self-correcting. Coming back. Let it in. Let it in. Let it continue. Let it grow and let it out. Just keep letting it out.

And what are those attitudes, those thoughts, and feelings that can come in and shut it down? They can become familiar. Oh, yeah, there’s that. I’m not doing that. I’m letting these powers of radiance and surround move through.

How about us together as a body of people who are conscious about these things? Our powers grow as we let them. And our collective powers are far greater than our individual powers, even though the collective power totally depends on the individual powers. We don’t fall into some kind of collective ability without the individual experience.

We practice personally. We practice and practice and practice. In that individual practice, we find others who are likewise practicing. And then we find that there is something we come into together—a collective capacity that is far greater than the individual. So, we have a collective capacity to surround the world in which we live and the people in it.

There are special issues that arise in the togetherness of this—whatever issues we have about joining with other people to accomplish something spiritually. There is the With them? reaction. And so, there’s something to transcend in all of that—the human bits that make us different, and whatever dysfunctionality that is still present in yourself and other people.

I think we probably all agree we’re not grand masters at this yet. We are not walking bodhisattvas of all this, and yet we’re doing it. And if you are doing it, truly, I’m interested in being with you in that doing. And if there’s some dysfunctionality, we may have to address it and become more functional. That’s not a reason to stop. So, if you’re willing to keep going, I’m willing to keep going, so that we can do this together and inherit a greater power together, leaving behind whatever dysfunctionality there might be.

Victimhood can play into this. People have a terrible way of claiming victimhood in this whole process. Did you ever notice that in others or in yourself? I’ve been victimized by this process. I’ve tried and I got victimized, somehow taken advantage of, let down by others, and became disillusioned. All my heroes never claimed victimhood.

I happened to watch for the first time the movie The Passion of the Christ last night. If anybody could have claimed victimhood, it would have been Jesus. And he didn’t. He claimed victory. None of my heroes claim victimhood. My heroes claim victory.

The victory is in bringing these powers of spirit to the world, even while we are in the learning process, so that we inherit these powers fully as an individual and together. And we’re not claiming we are bodhisattvas. We’re just doing the work. Bringing the power for real. Bringing home for real. Bringing the radiance and warmth of love into the world. We’re not passing out awards, atta-boys, or pats on the back. We’re just doing it. Good to do it with you.