Course Corrections

There are moments in our lives that may seem unimportant at the time but their significance is realized later. Sometimes we have an intuitive understanding even at that moment but the “gravity” of it still needs to creep in over time. I am a little hesitant to share this particular story because it may seem unimportant and shallow at first but it was a moment of deep meaning and change for me. I am about to expose myself in a way that makes me feel just a bit uncomfortable but this at the same time makes it seem more important that I do.

After my father died I was left with the responsibility of bringing his work to the world. I did not feel there was anyone else that could or would accomplish this. The family as a whole has been behind me all the way and in my absence I am sure one of them would have taken up this mantle, but at the time it did seem that if this was going to happen, it would have to be me. I took the responsibility very seriously.

At the same time, I was trying to find an appropriate business in which I could invest so that we could make a living and support our family. My wife does not work outside the home and with little recent business experience it is difficult for her to find work that is not mundane, or earn a wage that makes the sacrifices we would have to endure worthwhile. There was some money from his estate and we were trying to find the best way to use this to change our circumstances. It was difficult for other reasons as well. We don’t drink, and have not for 9 years now, so buying a bar would not work even though I would like to have an outlet like that for my music. We don’t believe in eating meat so there was no sandwich shop, etc. I have left behind so much of the common interests of people that we struggled to find something we could do that would be popular enough to make money, but that we could believe in and not feel we were pedaling poison.

One day I was driving down the road listening to a motivational speaker named Jeffery Combs. We had met at a seminar and shared some conversation. I had given him a copy of Book I in my father’s trilogy and he had given me this CD. He was talking about wealth and success and those sorts of things and he said that sometimes we come across a situation where there is little or no risk, little or no “down side” and everything possible on the “up side”. It’s very rare but when you come across that you have got to go “all in”.

I realized that what my father had left behind really represented the “work” I needed to do, whether it ever made a dime to support my family or not. I would not be pushing sugar or some other addiction. I would not be compromising any principal in order to make a dollar. It was something I had set myself to and intended to do. Part of the issue with starting a business was that it would be an all consuming pursuit, especially at the outset and I did not want to be a prisoner to it because I had all of this other work to do.

I began to cry, and remember saying “OK dad, I’m in”. In with both feet, no matter what the results might be. I was using his money to complete his work, and it has become mine. It has cost a fortune but it was not a mistake. The work itself and the commitment have had a profound effect on my life. I have had moments of pain when I felt I had made a mistake in committing the resources, because I have not really gotten these books to the world… yet. It was just impatience.

I realize that if it takes the rest of my life, I can’t stop anyway, so how was starting a mistake? I do not compromise my ethics for money. I will not change my work for the lack of it. It was a profound lesson in detachment. Dad told me once that the sun doesn’t whine or complain when clouds get in the way and its rays are not enjoyed by anyone. It simply shines because that is its nature. He also said if these books were perchance never read that represented a mechanism for him to work on himself and had thus served a purpose anyway. They, along with the rest of the teachings to which I have now exposed myself, have changed my life in ways I could never have anticipated including its overall direction.

Sometimes when we take that leap of faith we think we know where it will lead and just hope we succeed in getting there. Sometimes success comes in the form of course corrections we can’t foresee.

Force and Form

When the light shines forth and men gain in understanding of the true nature of themselves and their surroundings we will come to the realization that we are all expressions of the same life force. This force is not the form which we initially feel is our being. It is using that form in order to express its being. Gaining knowledge and understanding of this essential truth will naturally and gradually move the focus of our awareness (our purest expression of that essence) from the form to the underlying life force.

In our infancy our consciousness inhabits a very small world in its appearance. We have little awareness of anything outside of our families. We have little influence even within the small confines in which we find ourselves. Later, as we grow in our capacities to understand and interact our sphere of influence increases and we realize we are a part of a world much larger than we had understood. That whole world was always out there but we were unaware. We become associated with a group or community and a school with friends. In the best of circumstances we begin to include those other environing associates in our thinking and planning.

For many people the group never grows beyond that small community and for some they will only treat their family members well and the rest of humanity remains “outside the wire” so to speak and left to fend for themselves while the individual fights against the world in order to protect and care for that small group.

When the light of the mind is increased through evolutionary development and the urge to study and ponder upon the information gathered the individual begins to realize that he is part of an increasingly larger group. Service of country through military service or public office may be the expression of this selflessness. Military service within the context of society is perceived as a noble and selfless act. This urge will eventually find expression in other service when the thought form we call our society is sufficiently altered by the awakening consciousness of the populace as a whole, but how does that happen?

It is brought about by the individual and collective efforts of those men and women of goodwill who surround the globe and find themselves in every single nation and community. As they learn and understand the world in these ever increasing circles of both influence and caring, it is their responsibility to that increasing perception of the whole to spread this newly gained knowledge to those around them who are increasingly able to understand and assimilate it.

When I realize that I am a part of a larger consciousness and my nature is pure energy, the form becomes less important. When I realize that my brother is the same as my self and in fact is my self, the form he inhabits is of no importance at all. It is not his identity. I focus on his identity as a soul and communicate soul to soul and then our forms no longer hinder.

The light of the intuition is like a flash of brilliance. It is a momentary access to an idea that is a part of the plan, embodying some aspect of the will of God. This is something we gain the ability to access by fostering communication with our higher self. The light of the soul is increased through right aspiration, study, service and meditation. When the light of the soul shines forth it is an indication that much work and service has already taken place. We are looking at a servant who has prepared and purified his various vehicles so that when this access is gained he is capable of understanding the form his service should take and strong enough to create it. His ability to then transmit this “new” information to his fellow man will determine its effectiveness along with their ability to grasp and interpret its meaning.

The shift will be in identification from the form to the life force within because we will better understand that life is the common thread within all forms. We will understand that consciousness is the expression of that life force and forms are the result of this process of conscious response and its creative efforts, and not the cause of anything. My body is a crystallized thought form created by my soul and my soul is an expression of a conscious fragment of the One Life. This gives me the potential through the re-identification of the focus of my consciousness to eventually gain access to the thoughts of the universal mind. To the highly developed consciousness there is no “ring pass not” and the more I am capable of perfecting its expression the closer I come to the One Life.

Where We Are Headed

We are, without a doubt within a period that will bring many changes to the way we live our lives and represents an example of the convergence of crisis and opportunity. I believe the objectives of the physical reconstruction of the world must include the following concepts, for we are expanding in our consciousness moment by moment and that expansion must be reflected in any successful realignment of the physical world. The world we see is, in every way, a product of conscious response to stimulus. That conscious response gets refined over time and the outward expression will become refined along with it. This is the true evolution. It is not the evolution of form, but the evolution of consciousness, which is obviously perceived in its outward expression.

Humanity is moving toward a better understanding of its own nature and the nature of the world it inhabits. The evolution of consciousness creates for itself a telos or direction toward more accurate expression of its divine nature. Only those experiments which yield movement in that direction are continued. In the human kingdom, this is movement toward the understanding of unity; the unity of all physical expression of the life force that is becoming better aware of its own nature through that physical expression. If this is in fact the direction that life is moving then the future societies will better express the need for an environment which will allow this development to flourish. “For the new construction of surroundings one should realize whither life is directed”.

If we are becoming aware of our unity with all men then they should be granted the same opportunity for growth which we declare for ourselves. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are granted by the US bill of rights but we are not so quick to grant those to all people until we establish our dominance and superiority. That kind of hypocrisy has to be eliminated. No man can be free until all men are free; but what is freedom? It, like everything else expresses itself on many levels. The freedom of self determination means nothing to someone who has no food. Free access to technology as a governing policy in a land without sufficient electrical power is worthless.

There are basic needs granted in the animal kingdom through its organization and integration with the plant kingdom that are the “right” of all animals. They include access to food and shelter and space to explore and experience. Human society as it has developed has banded together to create certain benefits of shared labor and specialization of trades that have made all of us better off in many ways. The problem is that these societies take away the free access to food and shelter at the same time. We are no longer hunter gatherers who can fend for ourselves and become dependent because of our specialization, on others in the group for the activities which are their specialty. This fact makes it incumbent upon the group to provide for those essentials which the group effectively takes away for the common good. Our common needs do go beyond just food and shelter. Shelter at this point includes energy. We also have a very real need for transportation. This and other aspects of life which we in the developed world take for granted have actually become necessities.

In order to create an environment where the survival instincts may fall away we must provide for those necessities in every land for every person. The resources of the world belong to all creatures. It is more than the environment that we live in; it is the organism of which we are a part. My brain has no more right to the use of my blood than my feet do, and I in the Western modernized world have no more right to the earth’s resources than a human being living is an undeveloped third world nation. Moreover, my use of those resources cannot negatively affect the other interdependent kingdoms of nature which have no voice in current decision making. We must protect them as we would protect parts of our own physical being.

We have become extremely adept at the preservation and repair of the human physical body, but only those with the economic resources can gain access. We do not treat all human beings the same way. As societies we have chosen to grant relative value to human life while we extol the absolute sanctity of all life. America must take care of Americans first, and we will have huge demonstrations against abortion while we neglect to even mention the 35,000 children who die each day due to starvation. Free and unfettered access to critical human need is the role of society and needs to be excluded from the “free enterprise system” which cares only about profit.

This means we free the human intellect from the driving concerns of survival. When a person has no need to worry about food or clothing, medical needs, shelter, and energy he is free to find a way in which he may express the true purpose of his soul. Some people will not aspire to great contribution and may find joy in what others consider to be the trivial. Every step on the path is equally is important as every other step. In the course of a life time or life times everyone will end up making a contribution which is appropriate to their particular level of consciousness. In our current system we are losing incalculable contributions from people who have no energy to spend on anything but pure survival. We occasionally hear a story about some unlikely hero who, but for some freak chance circumstance would have never been heard from.

There is a story I cannot verify, but will repeat for its symbolic value. It is about a boy who was hurt, I believe by falling in a hole on a farm. He was found and aided by a local peasant farmer and returned hurt but alive to his family which happened to be quite wealthy. The father of the injured boy offered the farmer a great gift that might be refused by some out of pride. He offered to take the farmer’s infant son in and raise him as his own in the wealthy home and provide for him a life and level of education the farmer could never have provided. The peasant farmer agreed, and we came to know the boy in his adulthood as one of the greatest leaders of western civilization. The potential existed in the boy, obviously, but if not for the event that brought his father into contact with the wealthy family we would perhaps never have experienced that leadership. Every day we are losing access to that kind of brilliance by having a great portion of our society living in fear for their lives and well being. Albert Einstein failed science and worked as a patent clerk. This boy could have more easily ended up in jail for theft of food or clothing had his circumstances not been changed.

If we raise the level of the living conditions of the poorest among us so that they have no worry about food and shelter, and we offer them free education so that they may better their own lives through struggle and challenge we lift the whole of society in unimaginable ways. There are some that would argue against such things because there are those who would simply take this aid and do nothing. That too is a stage and a step upon the path that is no better or worse than that of the true servant. It is something that must obviously be experienced by that soul at that time or it would not be happening. Barring the criminal mind, which too will fall by the wayside over time, the better you treat someone the better they will try to treat you and I think the appreciation of the masses of people who simply need a hand will show itself as an overwhelming counterbalance to any abuse.

I have, in my own life wished and worked for the time when I will be able to work full time as a servant of humanity without the financial concerns of everyday life taking my energy. We work full time just to keep the roof above our heads instead of spending our energy on constructive concerns and the betterment of humanity. The future society will not allow this waste of energy which enslaves the poor and builds the wealth of a few.

With free health care, comes free addiction counseling and detoxification treatment so that when an addict is ready there is help available. I have experienced the pain of knowing and feeling how far from the true expression of one’s nature you move when you are lost in life’s circumstance. There are many of those moments when an addict can be helped that are missed because there is no help available and a downward spiral that may have been stopped continues and perhaps leads to criminal behavior.

What we are talking about is freedom. Freedom of expression in that we become free to express the purpose of our soul, the reason we came into incarnation. If we have latent inside ourselves potentialities not yet realized, society’s role is to create that environment which will best draw forth or educe that potential. This is the real definition of education and it is the role every parent plays, for better or worse, in the lives of their children. I have heard the concept of the government as parents denigrated by some political factions, but maybe their parents were over controlling. The same people will tell you “it takes a village to raise a child” when it suits their ends. It does take a community to raise a community and that should be the goal.