Fresh Thinking, Inspiration, and Vision on the Process of Spiritual Transformation
Emissaries of Divine Light and Sunrise Ranch, its international headquarters, were created for people who want to live their lives consciously and responsibly in a coordinated way. Of course, what is far more common in this world are individuals who direct their actions independently, for their own benefit, and without respect to the creative process that is unfolding all around them. We know how that works. It’s called civilization, as we know it. It is the man-made world, and I’m not interested. I am interested in being directed by what is higher.
Here are some words from Chapter 2 of the Book of Acts:
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” (Acts 2:1,2)
They were all with one accord in one place. That’s what I’m interested in. There is one accord among us only as we each are in the holy place—a place in consciousness where we all thrive. When we live from there, our individuality doesn’t get in the way—it participates in a heavenly experience.
Last week, David Karchere created a slide show of Haiti for our enfoldment of that land and its people. While there was substantial tragedy as a result of the earthquake, we were encouraged to hold the vibrant beauty of this nation and its people in our consciousness, while holding them in an attunement current. I don’t know how many of you read the newspaper today or saw the television news, but a man was discovered alive after eleven days under the rubble. Do you think our radiant love to Haiti had anything to do with that? I’m not taking credit, but I’m also not denying the power of what went out because of what we did. Perhaps a mighty rushing wind moved when we shared that attunement current last week. This young man happened to be lucky enough to be stuck under a desk in a gift shop, so he ate candy and drank beer, and it kept him alive. But it’s not disconnected from what we did, as far as I’m concerned.
To be in one place in one accord—what a wonderful thing! Recently we were acknowledging that heaven and earth are aspects of one thing. What is happening on the earth is connected to a reality that we cannot see. When we are open to that invisible reality, which we refer to as heaven, we are in touch with a divine pattern that brings wisdom, blessing and power to our experience. And what manifests in earth is connected to what is in the heaven.
How do we want to live on earth? How do we want to create together, if not by maintaining a clear connection between heaven and earth? There are a lot of people, myself included, who go through a phase of thinking that if their personality would just get out of the way it could happen. They could then have a heavenly experience. But heaven and earth are connected for you and for me as we bring what is in the heaven in all its glory.
Recently, I was speaking about another belief people hold. “I might have a heavenly experience if all the people in the world who bugged me got out of the way.” The reality is that you have a heavenly experience as soon as you say you will. The truth is you don’t have to wait for something to make it possible, because it’s an internal experience. It’s in your hands, in your heart. The experience of being in one place, in one accord, takes people who acknowledge that and do something about it.
Sunrise Ranch and Emissaries of Divine Light are designed to be places where people are paying attention to how the unseen design manifests. If the design is a certain way in heaven, it is rightly the same way on earth. It doesn’t change because it manifests in form. If it does, it is no longer heaven in our experience. People spend an incredible amount of time and energy denying that fact. We may say we’re interested in the will of God and we are interested in being surrendered to it: “Thy will be done.” But when it comes to a human being allowing the design to manifest through his or her own life, you can often hear, or at least perceive, a big “No way!”
When a group of people gather together to be in one place with one accord, it may seem that a person is giving their power away when they follow another person’s lead. You may hear people saying, in essence, “I’ll do God’s will, but not yours.” But how would the pattern of invisible being in the heaven become manifest on earth? It has to come into form through people. As it does, should we not find how we play our parts in that manifestation? We have to be interested in saying yes to a design coming into form on earth through people, if we are to be of one accord, in one place. How do you feel about that? Do you think I’m telling you how you should be as a human being? “If you want to live on Sunrise Ranch, you’d better obey! If you want to be an Emissary of Divine Light, you have to do what you are told!” Do you think I’m saying that? Of course there are times when it is right to do what someone asks us to do. But here are the bigger questions: What is the spiritual intent in this matter? What is the big plan? What we are listening to? “Thy will” will be done only when everybody else stops bugging me?
Did you ever think the person who bugs you the most may be trying to show you how you’re not doing the will of God? That’s been my experience. Years ago I worked on a task and, after I finished what I thought was a decent job, I said, “That’s as good as I can do.” My friend, who was supervising the work, said, “Oh really?” I remember being furious. I felt really challenged. I realized after the fact that something was being called for in me by that “Oh really?” My friend was asking, “Is that’s all you expect of yourself? Is that all you think you’re capable of?” And while it hit me as someone telling me what to do, what they were saying was, “I see what you can do, and I know how this can work.” I know what it’s like to be able to practice my ability to surrender to something higher by surrendering to something that’s right in front of me, something that I believe is true.
When people touch their divine nature they may come to say, “I am not my mind; I am not my feelings; I am not my body.” There is a desire to quiet their capacities so they can pay attention to what’s true and hear the mighty rushing wind of Spirit. Learning how to quiet things down, while not turning them off, is vital if we are going to be spiritually conscious. If we invite someone to quiet their mind and say yes to that which is being asked of them, it is with the understanding that the person must think about whether or not what is being asked of them is worthy of their responsive attention. Because if you’re giving yourself, surrendered and willing to engage in something you haven’t thought through and determined was valuable, you are being foolish. You are not being foolish as a result of someone telling you what to do. What is foolish is doing something you haven’t thought through. If a person has disengaged their own thinking process, how can God’s will be done?
Give me someone who can hold a field of agreement and argue with me. Give me someone who can love a circumstance and the people in it, even when those people are aggravating them. Then the will of heaven has a chance to be revealed.
Human thoughts, feelings and actions are often totally contrary to the expressed intention to let spiritual things be fulfilled. People live in fear that they will be bad, or that others will, so they create all kinds of government and rules and ways of being, just to keep themselves and others in check. In the world the way it is, we are probably thankful that such things keep the worst impulses of human beings in line. But if we are acting out of fear, is the will of heaven being done?
Greed, too, comes into the picture. For many people, there is an overriding intention to make sure they have enough, and greed blots out an awareness of the invisible pattern of being that might otherwise have a chance to manifest. This is fear-based greed, and we have created a society where we can’t sustain ourselves very long because of all the things we think we need. We are afraid that if we don’t have them, we’ll fall apart.
There is an old Saturday Night Live skit with Steve Martin—“Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford.” The skit is about credit-card debt and not buying things if you don’t have the money to pay for them. The humor comes from Steve Martin, who is totally confused by the concept. He is used to buying something because he wants it, disconnected from the fact that he can’t pay for it. I know I’m speaking to a world where almost everybody I know has debt. This is not about judgment, for me. This is about allowing heavenly will to be done. Because if you’re living in fear and greed and creating more debt, how available are you to provide what’s true?
It seems to be a novel idea to buy something when we have the money. It requires that we pay attention to the substance we have generated and create with that. And it makes us think about how we can generate more of what we need to manifest something more. We generate the spiritual substance that lets us manifest more when, with others, we are in one place, with one accord, in a field of agreement where the power can move. That power moves from the invisible when we are an instrument of something far grander than our fear and greed. I know I’m repeating myself: that’s what Sunrise Ranch and Emissaries of Divine Light is all about.
Now this might seem like a lesson, but I’m saying out loud what’s moving in my heart. How able am I, are we, to deliver the design of heaven into the earth if I’m not living in one place spiritually with you, in one accord, in the spirit of what is true?
The experience of knowing, and finding someone else who knows, and holding that place of agreement, is different from talking about it. I can talk all day about the idea of gravitational force, but I don’t have to say much because you all already know it. It’s an integral part of our lives. There are things that we know, and it’s important to say that we know. We have to live what we know. And I’m not talking about pretending. I’m talking about not denying.
Oftentimes people have asked, so how do you know? How do you know this heavenly design? I’ve discovered I touch it every time I’m thankful or I express my love. We know that these are the keys to the kingdom but, on a realistic basis, what does that mean? Praise and thanksgiving create vision and connection. They create a clear space. When you clear a space, you see. You see how you fit—you see how you’re a part of that design; you see how it all makes sense. And then you choose to gravitate to people who also want that experience, who want to magnify it and hold a space for it and are willing to do things that might seem uncomfortable to the human capacity, because the human capacity has been disconnected. There are ways in which you almost have to force yourself to say yes, to surrender to something you trust, to experience the revelation of a trustworthy design, so that that which is untrue can pass away. It has to pass away.
If you cannot find someone you can agree with spiritually and say yes to, keep looking; because without it you will not have a fulfilled life. If you can’t find it here, why be here? This is not a request to leave. I want you all here. But we all have to find the way of doing this together so that the invisible pattern in the heaven is magnified on earth. So find it you must! This is not just personal to me. The truth of what I’m talking about is true, no matter who is standing here speaking and who is offering the opportunity to come into that experience. Surrender, and keep thinking. Keep your mind alert to what’s true for you, so that you can then magnify it.
What we did last week for Haiti, we can also do for the whole human experience. We can look at the mess and hold vibrational clarity so that what is real, what is possible, what is true can be magnified. Many of us recently participated in the Attunement Project experience, which offered the opportunity for that kind of magnification—offering love and blessing while holding a place of one accord.
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” Let that rushing mighty wind be heard through your capacity, and the heavenly design be revealed because we are present.