There is a teaching, reduced down to a sentence, that was one of the first things I heard when I was exposed to people from Sunrise Ranch who were coming to my hometown in Westport, Connecticut.

I was going to high school at the time. I was politically active—I had led a march of 1,200 students from my high school for three miles to the central part of town to protest the Vietnam War. Along with a number of adults, I gave a speech to the students and thousands more.

I was well described as an “angry young man.” My rebellion wasn’t making me happy, as you might imagine, and my protest wasn’t really providing any solutions for the world or for my own life. Not long after the march, someone from Sunrise Ranch came to Westport and gave an evening talk that changed my life. They made this very simple statement: “You know what you express.”

The statement is an encouragement to take responsibility for what we are experiencing. At the time, I was blaming what I was experiencing on many other people. There were all the faculty and the administration of the high school, for starters. There was the president of the United States, and many others. The more things change, the more they stay the same. In this day there are people who are attributing their unhappiness to politics and to the established powers in the world as it is.

Last night at a party for staff of the Arise Festival, I spoke with Paul Bassis, who produces the event. Paul was saying that he is assessing what he needs to be about next in his life and how the Arise Festival will evolve to be a part of that. Like many people, he took the recent U.S. election as a wake-up call. Together we were appreciating that if things had gone a different way in the election, there might have been those who were content that things were going to get gradually better, and that there was a political solution achieved by the election. But with the way the election went, there are many people who are seeing very clearly that our political system the way it is will not provide the answers that the world needs.

This realization provides an opportunity to bring to people’s awareness that they know what they express. We all do. That’s true individually, and it is true collectively for us as humanity. We could look at the whole picture and say yes, we’re knowing what we’re expressing. We’re expressing something that has destructive elements in it. Allowed to continue and dominate in our global experience, those destructive elements could be disastrous for us as a race.

The word expression covers many things—the quality of what comes out of our mouth, the intention behind our actions, the tone with which we do things, the intelligence that we allow to direct what we are doing, the greater wisdom that we access—all those things create something in our world. If you are like most people, you are underestimating the degree to which what you are expressing is creating your world at all levels—the immediate bubble that you live in as well as the broader world in which you live: your community, your family, and your nation.

Our words are a pivotal factor in our expression. They bring meaning into the world; they bring creative intention. They can also bring the very vibration of Creation. Through our words we are setting Creation in motion.

In some cultures, words have been understood to possess magical qualities. “Abracadabra!” Our culture makes light of the word, but there is a sacred meaning to it that dates back to the ancients. Words set atmosphere, they carry creative power, and they create magic.

When we speak words that carry the power of Creation, we’re called upon to be true to those words and to what they set in motion. That’s what it means to be “a person of your word.” It means that things that you say are backed up over time in the living of your life; that they’re not just words—that the words are expressing something from your living that’s coming to focus in those words, and then the living that follows is true to what you have said.

Do you ever find yourself saying something true and strong and meaningful to somebody else, and then, in a moment shortly thereafter, find that you are called upon to be true to that word that you’ve spoken? To back it up and make it real?

There’s a great connection between the consistency of the little actions we take every day and our spoken word. We have the opportunity, through our pattern of expression and through our pattern of action, to set Creation free. We set free the forms of Creation around us. We also set free the very act of Creation through ourselves.

Our words and our actions are meant to carry the rhythms of life. Life does come in a sine wave, does it not? I know my life does. There are lulls and there are highs, there are intensities and there are quieter times. In all those times there’s the opportunity to bring Creation through what we express.

You can coast along in your life through times of less intensity and think that you are supremely spiritual. But if you blow a fuse when intensity rises, you can spoil the whole pattern of your own Creation. If, at a time of intensity, you don’t meet that moment and bring the intensity of Creation in your expression accurately and truly, then all the rest of what you’ve been up to can be put at risk. If you speak angry words, it can ruin a relationship. If you fail to carry through on a commitment, you can create distrust. If you do not meet the intensity of the circumstance with the intensity of creative expression, it can result in overwhelm from the world around you.

There are words from the Bible that address these issues. Religion has, in many cases, absconded with the profound spiritual teachings that have come down to us throughout the ages. I say “absconded” because somebody or some group of people often come along, pick up the words of an inspired spiritual teacher and give it their own limited, unenlightened interpretation. Then they claim it’s the literal translation of what was being said.

Can you imagine if those were your enlightened words and a spiritually unconscious person came along at some point and said that they knew what you were really trying to say, and that anybody who didn’t believe their interpretation, which was the “literal translation” of your words, was going to hell? In essence, that is what’s happened. I think we need to see it as it is if we are to access the great wealth of spiritual knowledge that’s available to us as humanity. If we can’t see through the veil of such claims about those precious core teachings that are so key to the future of humankind, we’ll never access the teachings themselves.

What I want to share here is from the opening chapter of John. Hopefully, it is possible to see through the shroud that religion has put over these words and hear the message that is relevant to our own expression.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

                                                                                      (John 1:1-4)

That was all about Jesus, yes? Did you see his name anywhere in these verses? “In the beginning was the Word.” In the beginning was the impulse of Creation coming from the Creator. What happens if we personalize this? Usually when we think of the personal, we think about “little old me”—the local self. We tend to think of ourselves as the human form into which we, as a spiritual Being, have incarnated. And we tend to relate what is happening in our life to that form and to manage our life in a way that’s all about that form. Yes, we are in a form, and it’s our form, apparently—our body, mind and heart—for which we can be grateful, and we have responsibility for the form itself and for its care and feeding. But we are that creative reality, the Creator who created our form and entered it. We are that Spirit that expresses through it.

What’s more, the Creator that we are is universal. We are part of the Creator of all things. We truly are Universal Being. And yes, there’s an individualized aspect of Universal Being who has incarnated into these space suits of human flesh so that we could be on Planet Earth, but that individualized aspect is not separate from the universal. When we really see this, we see how we, as human beings, are typically wandering through earthly form as if it’s all about the forms themselves, living in a very local kind of way.

When we begin to wake up to a larger picture, we are thinking globally. We’re not just thinking about me and mine; we’re not just thinking about our family, our bodies, our culture, our organization. We’re going global. We are an expression of the Creator and we’re bringing the impulse of Creation. And when we’re expressing the creative impulse, we’re knowing that, and we’re knowing ourselves as the Creator.

Things look very different from that perspective. Yes, I’ve got this human form to take care of. I’ve got my family, my community, my culture, my nation, my organization. All those things are important. They are my forms. But I’m in position to see globally, to realize that what I am and who I am is manifesting in all people everywhere, and in all things everywhere. Because I have that perspective, I am now in position to come together with anyone, anywhere, for whatever creative reason there is. I’m not limited to my culture, my nationality, or my political party. I’m not limited to Sunrise Ranch or this organization for which I have responsibility, Emissaries of Divine Light. Anyone anywhere who comes together for a creative reason is a friend of mine and one with me.

As an expression of the Creator, I bring Creation in my word and in my expression. I bring the power of Creation. You don’t believe it? I manifested you, reading this Pulse of Spirit. And you manifested this moment. You are a creator. Your intention and your expression vibrated all of the people who are populating your life. Why are the circumstances of your life manifesting? You created it. You know what you express.

What does this process look like from the standpoint of you, the Creator? “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God,” with me, the Creator. My Word was with me. In the beginning the Word was with me, and the Word was God. Before it ever got expressed, before it ever came into the world, it was inherent in my Being. It comes from me, the Creator.

All things are being made by me, the Creator. And without me is not anything made that is made. Not just “little old me,” this form, David Karchere. Without me, the Creator, there’s nothing that’s made. It may be made through a human consciousness that doesn’t know who it is, that’s identified with the little old me, the local self, and therefore it may be made through a consciousness that is distorting the impulse of Creation and expressing it in an inaccurate way, and therefore knowing something that’s destructive. But it’s still getting made by me, the Creator, through limited human consciousness.

“In him was life.” In me is life. In you is life. Are you letting it out? It’s interesting to consider that animals can’t help themselves from being fully alive. Jane Anetrini and I strolled down the street this morning towards the reservoir to walk my dog, Malachi. I now have a cat, Moses, who we didn’t invite on the walk. But my friend recently got me a cat door that swings both ways. So I let Moses go in and out anytime he chooses. He explores the yard, which is a never-ending source of curiosity and interest for him. And I don’t have to change the litter box so often.

This morning, Moses noticed that we were walking the dog down the road to the reservoir, so he decided to come on along. He wouldn’t go down to the reservoir all by himself. But with us, he has the confidence. There we were, four happy travelers—two human beings, a dog and a cat.

Like many cats, Moses is fascinating to watch. He’s a noble creature who is so into being himself, a cat. He can’t help himself from being that. I don’t think he really worries about his beliefs or his bad habits. I don’t think he’s doing meditation in the morning—or maybe that’s what he’s doing when he is sprawled out on the back of the sofa. He’s just a cat and he can’t help but be a cat. Life comes through him in his catness.

Apparently, it’s different for us, as human beings. Through what’s happening in consciousness for us, we can get ourselves into all kinds of trouble. It would be silly to ask Moses if he is letting the life within him express freely. Not only would he not understand, he can’t do anything else. But apparently we can. We have this amazing ability to make ourselves miserable. Depression is rampant in our culture, and so is anxiety. We have an amazing ability to bring destruction into the world in which we live in a way that my cat can’t. And why? It’s because our expression relies on our consciousness as human beings. And so life coming through us, giving us life, depends on us to receive it and express it. If we don’t, anxiety goes up, depression goes up, stress goes up. Health goes down. Life goes down for us as human beings. We have the ability not only to make ourselves miserable but to make all the people around us miserable. We have even gained the ability to blow up the world with atomic bombs. My cat hasn’t.

Yet we have this wonderful ability to bring our Word, in which there is life. That ability requires consciousness, participating in the expression of life vigorously and with integrity through all the layers of our human expression.

I had an interchange with somebody yesterday. They were talking about all the emotion that was within them, and they were concerned that it could overwhelm them and take them down. I said, “That love in you is trying to heal you.” That creative power within you that wants to come out, that you may be fighting with and trying to repress and keep down while you manage your little local life, is trying to express through you to heal you, to bring you to wholeness as a human being. It is trying to come out into your world and make your world whole. It’s looking to come out with great intensity and great power. You need it, I need it, and the world needs it. How often do we as human beings save our intensity for things that we don’t like, for our reaction to the world around us, instead of giving our intensity and our passion to the expression of this wondrous creative power that’s within us?

I’ve been asking myself recently, how well am I using my words to bring that creative power, that love, that light, to other people? Am I just playing it safe? Or am I sharing the power of Creation, which is Universal Love?

The wisdom and power of the Creator is coming through us, individually and together, to whatever degree it is. There is something that we’re knowing because of it, and something we’re manifesting because of it. Let’s let both those things increase. Let’s let what we’re knowing and expressing increase. Let’s let the truthfulness of it increase. Let’s let the power and intensity and creativity of it increase. As we do, we find that what is manifesting in our world is increasingly reflecting the Creator that we are.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with us as the Creator, and the Word was the Creator. Good to acknowledge that about ourselves.