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

No 189 / September 2002

Dear Friends,

So often we hear explanations (or excuses) for unacceptable behaviour in words such as: "It's only human" or "We always have done and always will." These and other expressions are used like detour signs to turn the searchlight of our mind away from issues that require examination, thought and redress (or perhaps a bit of good, hard work!). Our creative energies are then siphoned off into issues of less concern and may even be turned back the way we have come sending us back to the past under the nostalgic illusion that "those were the good, old days". According to the same principle reasons, rationalisations and excuses are promulgated for current actions based on wrongs (real, imaginary or fabricated) from times long past. How can we carry the associated sense of human identity, implied in these attitudes, into the newly emerging world of the 21st century - this new world with its unfolding freedoms and with the growing global sense of human responsibility within the whole interconnected life of the planet?

Humanity's unique position between the animal and super-human kingdoms makes it the point of synthesis between different realms, their expressions and roles within the greater scheme. It is no wonder, perhaps, that we are masters of conflict and that our own role has been imbued with the energy described as "harmony through conflict". It is precisely the process of bringing things into conflict that clarifies the issues so that resolution and harmony can be brought about. The pitfalls, however, are where we fail to recognise what the conflict enables and, instead, become part of the rationalisation of one side or another. This partisanship stands in the way of the emerging truth of oneness.

Because of our racial, religious or cultural backgrounds we are already predisposed to sympathy with one side or another in every conflict. And here lies the great challenge and opportunity. We are also, because of our past immersion in the animal nature, predisposed to excuse recognisably outmoded standards of behaviour. Yet in the very recognition of them as unacceptable we have taken our place within the whole of life rather than as a partisan. Here, where we stand on every issue, is the point where the synthesis of our planetary life can express. In as much as we see the oneness of the world behind outer events so, to that degree, does synthesis express. The follow-through into world activity and organization will inevitably come, though delayed by time and space.

How often have we remarked on the events and realisations that eventually occurred long after those who initially envisaged them have left the physical plane of life? However, if our memory can go back to beyond our arrival into animal form, back to the initiatory spark, to the soul, impulsed by the purpose of spirit expressing in matter - then our identity and point of focus are vastly different to that circumscribed by the personality conditioned to the limitations of time and space. Those great visionaries and guides of the past have truly been elder brothers - not a race apart but one of us, and their presence, unlimited by time and space, still imbues the "human" identity, our identity. Their vision embraced us all and so ours can embrace theirs and can become immersed in the oneness we share which gave them birth and which enlivens our own existence.

The vision, the revelation, emerges as the illusory barriers in our human nature are destroyed and dissipated allowing truth, beauty and true purpose to flood through our being, our human being. As this happens we are reunited with our "elder brothers" who have, in fact, never left us. It is only we, or our immersion in the human/animal integration, who have separated ourselves, weaving our own cloak of glamour and illusion. The Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul, describes the problem we have created:
"One of the greatest impediments on the Path of Return and one for which man is distinctly responsible . . . are those animated forms which he has produced ever since the middle of the Atlantean root race when the mind factor began slowly to assume increasing importance . . . . A gigantic thought form hovers over the entire human family, built by men everywhere during the ages, energised by the insane desires and evil inclinations of all that is worst in man's nature, and kept alive by the promptings of his lower desires. This thought form has to be broken up and dissipated by man himself during the latter part of this round before the conclusion of the cycle . . . . Under the Law of Karma it has to be dissipated by those who have created it; the work of the Masters has to be carried on, therefore, indirectly, and must take the form of illuminating the sons of men in gradually increasing degree, so that they can see clearly this "Dweller on the Threshold" of the new life, and the antagonist who stands between the fourth kingdom of nature and the fifth."

It is these false barriers to truth and life that must be destroyed - not opposing sides in territorial or ideological conflicts. Instead of conflict then there remains decision and subsequent action in the world, emerging from a living oneness. Today we can see the tide of human feeling and emotion rolling over the shores of separative identity. It is a subtle but powerful force and those who explore its effects in terms only of past identifications have entirely missed the point and will require more conflict, more experience, before realisation rolls the shutters away from insight and intuition - but it will work out and is already doing so. Back in the 1940's the Tibetan wrote: "The unhappy past of all nations is today used as an alibi by those who do not choose to shoulder responsibility, or to sacrifice anything for the cause of humanity." He exhorts us to: "Refuse to be afraid of any results of right and positive action. Fear lies behind much of the dissenting attitudes today, and fear kills truth, hides the vision and arrests action. The great leader of the Christian era has warned us not to be afraid of those who kill the body, but to fear only those who seek to kill the soul."

The apparently insoluble conflicts in Ireland, Palestine and many other focus points are already following a vastly different course to what would have occurred (and did) only 60 or so years ago. The conflicts are not so clearly defined in external terms as the divisions are within our sense of identity. In a recent documentary about the "refusers" in the Israeli army it was shown that the army itself (from its most decorated, retired generals and experienced soldiers down through all ranks) is divided as to what should be fought for - safety within an interdependent world or blind resistance to all that stands in the way of an ancient identification with race, religion and place. These "refusers" (or refusniks) see that the one leads to a new and living world, the other to a downward spiralling path of destruction beginning with genocide. The concerns raised were ones of identity. They felt that the current course of the war in the occupied territory went counter to their sense of human dignity and being - and that was what was really being destroyed. Many of these have had the courage to speak and act from their understanding in the face of gaol sentences and other deprivations.

In this instance as in many others we can see the effects of the presence of all our "elder brothers" aligned with a new sense of human identity on the planes of human thought and feeling where clarifying light and force has been flooding those dimensions and dissolving the ancient barriers of false separation. This, we have been told, is to be looked for as the Christ reappears to inaugurate the new era.

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The second Festival in Leo will be celebrated at a meditation meeting at
8pm on Thursday 22 August, at the YWCA, 5-11 Wentworth Avenue, Sydney.
The keynote is: "I am That and That am I."

The Festival in Virgo will be celebrated at a meditation meeting at
8pm on Friday 20 September, at the same venue mentioned above.
The keynote is: "I am the Mother and the Child, I God, I matter am."

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Email List - If you would prefer to receive this Newsletter by email please let us know by post, fax or by emailing goodwill@sydneygoodwill.org.au and let us know your email address.
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Lucis Trust Visit - A quick note to let all friends and co-workers know that Sarah McKechnie of the Lucis Trust, New York, will be in Sydney on 16th and 17th October 2002 for evening meetings on those dates.