PP 297537/00068
PO Box 627
Caringbah NSW 1495
Tel: (02) 9540 2391
Fax: (02) 9524 0025
www.sydneygoodwill.org.au

No 186 / June 2002

Dear Friends,

In the active pace of our living in the world our consciousness can become tied to a specific physical location. When that happens a limited environment of demands and needs closes about us and we can become prey to the constant importuning of a myriad of separate demands on our time and energy. Not only is our sense of space reduced but we become the victim of the moment, living only through each moment in a disjointed string. At this point we have lost touch with the whole of what we are in space and time. Our scope narrows until we feel only the pain of its confinement. As the words in the song by Simon and Garfunkel put it: "A man gets tied up to the ground. He gives the world its saddest sound."

Yet we know, at least theoretically, that we live in an expanding universe and that all is in a constant movement of unfoldment. Physicists and astronomers are opening doors in human consciousness to a new perception of life and a whole new sense of our environment. They are finding the correspondences with and connotations of other dimensions of perception and understanding that have long been the prerogative of those whose consciousness dwells beyond the immediate and physical anchorage point. The immensity of understanding that every individual, as well as the whole of humanity, can embrace explains why we cannot easily resolve the specific border issues between territories, ideologies and religions.

There is a far greater hierarchy of being than the merely physically present. Self-centredness in an individual human becomes obvious as we become increasingly "universe-centred". Standing at the centre of that immensity we hold the universe within our conscious embrace. Who are we in that reality? The poet, William Blake, describes the experience:

"To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

As our consciousness grows and shifts it is constantly drawn towards the centre of an expanding "environment" or scope of being. It becomes, consciously, an integral part of that being and so has a more known, experienced and expressed relation with that whole. But that "whole" is also ever expanding in our awareness. The more we embrace, the more there is yet to relate within, and one sense of centre expands into another - wheels within wheels, worlds within worlds. The relationship exists because it is known and expressed mutually and reciprocally between the whole and the part, the part and the whole - but the reality is ever perceived from identification with the whole. The driving purpose is not the experience and perpetuation of the individual point of consciousness and understanding but the immersion of that part within the greater Life with its unfolding, co-ordinated expression through all dimensions and into the world. The Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul, tells us of our part in the unfolding process:

"There is on man's part a steadily growing responsiveness to an expanding environment, as for instance man's recognition of the distinction between nationalism and inter-nationalism. This responsiveness is naturally conditioned by human freewill, effective peculiarly in the timing process. He may learn rapidly and fast or he may go the slow way, but his state of consciousness remains one of a developing reaction to his environment, as registered by his consciousness, and in which he (stage by stage) becomes an integral factor. This integration into his environment, his absorption of its atmosphere and his potency in progression are all related to the fact that he is created to receive impression and that he possesses a mechanism of response to all the facets of the divine expression in manifestation. It is for that reason that the truly illumined man . . (is) referred to as 'the diamond souled' . . The theme of revelation runs throughout the entire evolutionary process; it must never be forgotten that step by step, stage by stage, expansion after expansion, initiation after initiation, the divine WHOLE is realised by man. . . The clearer and more deeply apprehending is his capacity to register the impression to which he is subjected and to which he is sensitive, the more easily will he reach those he must aid towards a wider and deeper insight."

It is the capacity of our humanity to leap ahead in great dynamic shifts that is both our strength and our area of challenge. Over fifty years ago now The Tibetan explained:

"The relation of the human centre to the hierarchical centre and the growing responsiveness of humanity to the 'Centre where the Will of God is known' . . is developing as the other senses of man and his apparatus of perception have developed. Humanity is, however, outstripping telepathic development in the rapid responsiveness of entire groups, and of human beings en masse, to group impression and to group impartation of ideas. The sudden response of groups and nations to mass ideologies has been both unexpected and difficult to handle wisely and constructively. It was not anticipated by Shamballa (the 'Centre where the Will of God is known') or the (Spiritual) Hierarchy that mass impression would develop more quickly than that of individual sensitivity, but it has happened that way. The individual within a group and working within a group is far more correctly sensitive than is the man struggling alone to render himself sensitive to impression."

So we have the challenging mix of an expansion in human capacity and at the same time the human absorption in the physical world of time and space. Man becomes tied to the legacy of the past and its definition centred in separate and specific locations in space when, in reality, the true being is universe-centred and its capacity cannot be bound by what is so much less than it is. The fanatic adherence to fundamentals rather than their source of inspiration holds man's consciousness on the edge and outside of reality rather than at its centre. The reality in the Middle East and all places of conflict is that human beings are fighting human beings. It is like cancer in the body when the body fights itself. The significance of the identification of so many immune system disorders and their effects such as AIDS is surely our imperative to dissolve the illusion that any part of our planetary whole should have exclusive rights in place of another. Taken to its logical conclusion such a course, like cancer, destroys the whole and every part in it - including the cancer itself.

The heart of humanity is great enough to hold all its parts as well as its place in the universe - and the heart is the centre of all relationship. Life's divine purpose can only work out through all its parts and through the relationship between them, not through any one to the exclusion of others. Human freewill can affect the timing but not the eventual outcome. It can save unnecessary pain and sorrow. The current issue is well defined in this excerpt from the ISTS News for April (from the international School for Transformation and Synthesis):

"Now the challenge is being played out in a very potent way in the Middle East, the seedbed of three of the world's great religions, and given a human face by both Palestinian suicide bombers and the Israeli decimation of West Bank cities such as Jenin. Humanity is being divinely pushed to leave behind its old hard lines, the black and white fundamentals which demand unquestioning adherence and fanatical martyrdom. It is being pushed to leave behind the belief that spiritual truth is tied to a geographical location and that living a spiritual life is dependent on proximity to traditional sacred sites. It is being called on to let go of an 'eye for an eye' and learn the way of forgiveness and true heart relating."

Let us respond to the call of the universe echoing through our relationship with it and let us thereby transform the relationships with one another and with our world. Therein lie our true being and its expression embracing all in its amazing diversity.