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

No 201/Setepmber 2003

Dear Friends,

We hear much about the so-called Age of Terror and desperate people feel driven to almost mindless acts of destruction - and yet there is such a growing "peace awareness" amongst thousands, even millions, of people in all lands around the globe that we might wonder how both these human contexts can exist at the same time. One is focussed on frustrated desire for its separate existence at the expense of any and all others and uses fear as its weapon. The other is based on an inclusive love of the whole and all the interdependent parts within it. In a sense one does not exist in consciousness until the other has been developed. Terrorism is not recognised as such until we have a better understanding of the reality of our world and that its continuance is based on peace as an organising principle - both for its future and for the means to get there.

The terrorist consciousness is being uncovered in all peoples, nations, governments and religious institutions. It rationalises its existence in a myriad of ways but all are based on a sense of the superior importance of certain people, races, locations, ideas or beliefs over all others - even to the point of seeing all else as expendable. This presumed superiority, although paradoxically it exists together with a sense of lack and a need to understand more, still excuses the exploitation or destruction of anything other than itself. Yet if we think it through, on the evidence of thousands of generations, when any part of the whole global system is destroyed it diminishes every other part within it.

The same rationalisation that "excuses" terrorism has in the past supported slavery and, although this has apparently been eliminated from most cultures, oppression of people still persists in more subtle forms such as enforced economic dependence thus leading to oppression through denial of the resources that should be shared by all. Our global resources belong ultimately to the permanent life of the planet and not to any temporary forms which tenant it.

Such matters are becoming clarified in the increased enlightenment pouring into human consciousness. This increase is both in intensity and scope - more and more of us think in larger terms and larger wholes. We have seen the one world in all its beauty as our shared home. We share the results of new exploration towards other neighbouring planets and other heavenly bodies in our shared space. On our Earth we are mutually concerned about such things as health and security. National boundaries are no longer inviolate as international and global confederations form to address what we increasingly recognise as planetary issues. More and more nations recognise that "domestic" and "foreign" policy are simply different areas of impact of the same life concerns shared by all.

The human family is moving inexorably towards a recognition and realisation of its oneness and towards the consequent expression of that integration in all that we do. Many concepts and values are being transformed into human-wide, planet-wide issues - loyalty (to values rather than specific forms), safety (of the whole rather than the exclusive part), health (interdependent wholeness), enfranchisement and representation (of all at the global level). We may have global terrorism but we also have a growing global realisation of what peace is and what it requires to bring it into fuller expression - based on conscious sharing of all resources to all parts of the global life.

The fear that something may be lost in this immersion in global realisation is a distortion of the truth by a consciousness still steeped in a sense of separation and need to compete for limited resources - limited in perception only. In fact this fear is unfounded because the preservation of any part of the wonderful diversity of life expression in the world can only be assured by the life of the whole system. Fear is what distorts, separates what is really whole and spirals us down into the desperate fight for "survival of the fittest" under the laws of evolution of the physical form. Yet human consciousness has arrived at a degree of spiritual awareness where we are becoming initiators on behalf of the whole. We are now capable of creating our future in line with divine intention as humanity becomes integrated and expanded to a point where we touch the divine vision for the planetary life and begin to act under the Law of Synthesis and of Destiny. Rather than succumbing to the ancient animal nature we are seeing the triumph of the essential spirit in all and a culmination of our purpose and destiny. Thus we point the way for the evolution of the other kingdoms.

Yet what subtle and beguiling faces fear wears, always coloured by a lack of something desired, for its other face is desire - desire for honour and recognition amongst colleagues, for reward by those in control of resources (whether material or so-called spiritual), for whatever we perceive as bringing pleasure and comfort rather than pain. So subtly has fear/desire been woven into the fabric of our life that we are still revealing where it binds us, we are still expanding our awareness in the light of the unfolding revelation of our oneness with the abundance of life through all its dimensions.

In the book, Leaves of Morya's Garden, we read: "We wish to speak of matters of great import. Do not lose yourselves in clouds of everyday dust." The energy and focus that has been channelled into the prison of the "everyday dust" can be magically freed in an instant of release as it goes on to say:

You can conquer and attain enlightenment,
But give Me your offering.
If you are afraid,
Give Me your fear.
If you are in doubt,
Give Me your doubt.
If you are angry,
Give Me your anger.
And if you give Me a handful of trivial objects,
I will accept these dusty playthings
and recast them in My Tower. . . .
Thus, I have accepted your fear and your doubt
and your anger - this is for Me.
And for you I give the path to the Light.
For I wish you to approach Me joyous and radiant
in the time of the Great Darkness-
before the New Dawn.

Through identification with all that is we release the petty illusions and glamours of the partial life. Then does the spirit of the whole flow freely through us and we are true Being. How differently does the world appear from that central yet expanded and all encompassing point of living. Then we are not giving up anything for something else, something external to our being, because we embrace all things. Then anything done for one is done for the whole. Sacrifice is no longer "giving up" or losing anything but returning it to its true place as belonging to the whole which we are in essence. If we give up comfort - it is not lost but transfigured into the bliss of the subtle dimensions where physical comfort has no relevance. If we give up recognition by peers or temporal authorities it is transfigured into the recognition of the One Life which knows us as itself. If we give up pleasure we are also released from the hold of pain - then joy, life and divine purpose are all that motivates our living.

Christ did not give up the form life for us so much as because He is us - identified with the whole of humanity and with the greater life. Identification with the life in all things makes every act an act on behalf of all. Only a consciousness under the illusion of separation experiences any loss, any giving up. Nothing is lost. Nothing dies. Only form changes through time as the One Life comes into expression.