August 1, 2006

• Moving from war towards peace

• An appropriate sense of entitlement

• The role of karma and multiple lives in the spiritual continuum

You are each indeed blessed far beyond what can be measured. You are blessed with an open heart, with an open mind, and with a hunger to understand the life that you live and the life that you see around you. Vision of the spirit is truly what life is about. You are asked, you are challenged, you are cajoled, urged, nudged to understand what you see from within. It is not so important what the eyes behold, but what your soul embraces.

The world is in great chaos, but the world is accustomed to that chaos, not because it brings joy, but because it is in part a function of being human. The world has never been characterized as totally peaceful. There has always been strife. Before the emergence of human life there was turmoil, for there has always been a sense of entitlement, a sense of place, a sense of position.

Even plant life contains within it a sense of place. Several plants tend to dominate a particular space at the expense of others. The characteristic of entitlement, in this sense, is by no means limited to thinking animals. There is always a competition for location. This competition is natural, for out of that tension there is ultimately established an equilibrium. There is much you can learn from the plant world. Despite the competition for place in the plant world, there is a natural balance. There is an importance of each component of that competition.

Humanity is only recently aware of the importance of that balance to its own survival. Despite and because of the fluid evolution of proper balance through this competition, there is an order that ultimately prevails. This order is the natural course of all that has been created. Human beings are also a part of that natural order, but humans evolve in the establishment of such order by a different timetable. You as human beings are learning the benefit of coexisting with your environment, and it is a natural outgrowth that humans will learn the benefit of coexistence with one another. It is a long process in human terms, but the direction that is followed will definitely lead to the balance you all seek. It is the balance you call peace.

Will it be achieved in your own lifetimes? That we cannot assure, for you are part of a long continuum. Being in that continuum, each of you has a role you must play. It is as if your lives followed the phrase of “a chain being as strong as its weakest link”… society is as strong as its weakest link. Each of you is an important link in the evolution toward the peace that you seek. It is for each of you to do what you believe is the wish of God, and as your perceptions change, so must your actions. Actions that are not based on one’s perception of God are inappropriate and unwise. You cannot be expected to respond in a way which is better than your perception of God. The perception is what is most important.

Much suffering and agony have been caused because of perceptions of God. The list of wars that have taken place in the name of a perception of God staggers the imagination of all. The resolution of such misdirected effort can only be found through your inner vision, the vision of your soul. We can say absolutely that the vision of the soul is pure and is the only route to peace.

So how is it that human beings can transform themselves from being warlike to peace-loving? It can only be achieved by looking inward. It can only be achieved through a personal commitment to an honest, loving understanding of God. Any perception of God that leads towards exclusivity, power over others, domination, intolerance, is unworthy of the purpose for which you are given your soul.

How do you know when your inner vision is true? Your inner vision is clear when you are committed to understanding, to listening, to sharing, to loving, to being totally unselfish. All that you seek comes from such a vision. It is not a vision that is requiring deep intellectual pursuit. It is a vision based on a knowledge that has been given to every human being. You can choose to accept that knowledge and be guided by it. It is yours, it belongs to everyone. You can choose to hide from it and act guided by self- interest, but that knowledge, nevertheless, is there for every human being for the taking. There is no price, there is no cost, there is no sacrifice, there is no suffering that is required to connect to this knowledge, this inner view, the view of the spirit, the path of your soul.

You cannot expect to change the course of human events by acting alone. It is not for any one person to solve the crises that you see so clearly before you. It requires many people to look inward, to be committed, and to share lovingly and peacefully one’s perception of that view. Each of you does, however, make a difference. By saying you cannot change the course of humanity does not imply that you do not make a difference, but the direction of humanity in the pursuit of mutual understanding and respect and love is a collective effort, engaged in by many individuals over many lifetimes. If you do not commit yourselves to the pursuit of peace as individuals, you will never enable humankind to find what it is that you define as real peace. War will continue. If it is not one conflict, it becomes another, and that leads to other conflicts.

But despite this chain of seemingly endless battles, human beings are indeed moving closer to a peaceful state. In your concept of time, we can say the world is more peaceful now than it was a thousand years ago. It does not seem peaceful to you, but the progress of humanity knows no time frame. It knows only direction, and the direction of humanity is toward resolution, not conflict. The line to such resolution is not straight. There are side journeys and alternate paths, but the direction is unmistakable and is sustainable.

How can we say this to you so that you will believe? We say this because it is God’s intention that conflict be resolved into balance and order. That is the nature of all that exists. There is no element in God’s creation that is heading off in a direction contrary to God. There is no human being who is destined to move off in a direction contrary to God. It is in God’s loving design that all that is created is moving toward oneness. It is because of that common direction that we speak to you with absolute authority of the direction that humanity is pursuing.

Each of you individually has goals or objectives in your life, whether they be professional or personal or political. How you get there from where you are will differ, one individual from another, and for each of you, your path will seemingly take you in directions opposite what you think is right. We have often urged you to believe and to live accordingly to the fact that you are where you ought to be, and you are evolving as you must evolve, and you are receiving the vision that is necessary at the time. You can have faith in the direction of your lives.

You pray for resolution and you define that resolution in your own terms. If you pray for such resolution, be willing then to be open to God’s direction that will lead you to that goal. That direction may be different from what you anticipate, what you prefer, what may be comfortable for you. By praying for direction, you can be assured that you are being guided accordingly. By praying for peace and the resolution of conflict, you are assured that your own individual actions are appropriate for you and will contribute in their own way to the progression of humanity toward the goal of peace. You therefore belong most emphatically to the process and you must have faith that the goal will be achieved.

Do what you believe to be right. Do what reflects your view and understanding of God, and as you commit yourselves to those deeds, you always open to God’s indications of other directions to be followed. You are then assured of doing all that you can do to resolve this crisis.

Human beings are part of that continuum of humanity and they are part of the continuum of their own spiritual growth. Sometimes this continuum means that you must learn what has not yet been learned. The question of karma is raised. Karma has truth in it, but the truth is not that human beings are punished for what they have done, and therefore must live life again. The truth is that you are given life again to continue the learning process until you have learned what needs to be learned through the human experience. For those whose lives are not characterized as loving, they are given another opportunity to learn that lesson. It is not a punishment, it is not a paying back of some kind of moral debt. It is rather a blessing received to learn what must be learned.

That is the spiritual continuum that each of you shares, and it is directly parallel to the continuum that guides all of humanity toward the peace, the reconciliation that you all so fervently pray for. You are given your lives to learn. You are given your lives to become loving. You are given lives to eliminate a sense of entitlement and to acknowledge that God is absolutely a partner in all that you experience.

You wonder about this sense of entitlement and if it is indeed worthwhile when it results in balance, as is found in nature. Your sense of place, your sense of entitlement is only important when you acknowledge that you are essential to bringing God’s presence to the human experience. You have a sense of entitlement in that you feel you belong, but another part of that entitlement is allowing for others to belong. The entitlement that we caution against is an entitlement of exclusivity at the expense of other human beings, a sense of exclusivity at the expense of nature. You are not alone. You live in a complex world, and it is for each of you to acknowledge your own value in that complexity and to affirm the value of all else that belongs.

Your lives are gifts to you and they are gifts to others. Be joyful in the opportunities that accompany these deeply profound gifts! You are alive. You will always have life. Rejoice in the life! Rejoice in the light!

Amen.