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A few years ago, when 9/11 happened, those of us with eyes to see were aware that the usual suspects would highlight this apparent attack in an effort to increase federal power and take away basic freedoms.
Unfortunately, ensuing events have proved even more horrific in this regard than any of us ever conceived. In fact, our treasured Bill of Rights has become history. Even after 9/11, we didn't think fascism could happen "in this country," but is has.
As a result, the words of those we speak with today carry not only themes of fear and confusion, but also a note of hopelessness. It seems to many that there is no answer to our questions, nothing we can do, no way that we can deal with current events in a spirit of Light and Grace.
But if our worldview does not "work" in today's world, then it is the view that's wrong, not the world. For we are the creators of our own reality. There is a way — there is a path toward peace and power, no matter how things look.
We offer what follows not as truth, but as what we have learned in our own spiritual journey. We describe here a path to inner peace and knowledge that remains clear and bright, even in the darkest night.
This sacred journey begins with the basic question so many are asking:
The First Sacred Flame: "What We Can Do?"
The first Sacred Flame upon the path to peace and power answers the question: "What can we do when there are no meaningful choices?" In explaining my answer to this question, I will begin with a story, a parable that the shaman Swift Deer likes to tell.
The Koan of the Sacred Warrior
A group of warriors have taken sacred vows to protect all children, no matter what sacrifice they must make in order to do so.
One day, when they are standing watch on the bluffs near their village, they see, coming into sight across the plains, an army arrayed against them. They prepare to fight, but as the army draws closer, they notice something that causes incredible, incurable confusion amongst them. For marching in the vanguard of the attack force are the enemy's own children.
How can these Sacred Warriors take action — or fail to act — without betraying their vows to protect all children?
At first, it seems as though there is no answer to the riddle posed by this story. But from a spiritual point of view, the answer is simple. For we can never know with our conscious, left-brain minds what actions will accomplish our deepest aims. No matter what the situation may be, at the level of rules and precepts and appearances there truly is no answer. Only Spirit knows what will be the most effective thing to do.
If we seek to accomplish our highest aims, we must intend to achieve the purpose we have sworn to accomplish, then connect with our Higher Consciousness to learn the appropriate step to take in any given moment. We cannot figure it out with our minds. As one spiritual wag used to comment, "It's not outfigurable." Knowing what to do cannot come from our left-brain consciousness. It can only come through inner guidance.
So the first Treasure of Knowledge along the path of our Sacred Journey is this:
If we seek to help, then our only job is to be in alignment and contact with the Higher Self, who speaks to us in our hearts. The answer to what is "right" comes from the heart, not the brain.
But how could there be an answer in the story we just told about the warriors and the children? How could even Spirit figure this one out?
It's true, in the Tale of the Sacred Warriors the most effective action is not apparent. That's the whole point.
But if we do believe in the ultimate good of All That Is, then we realize that no matter how impossible it may be for us to understand the greater reality in which events occur, we are never being presented with meaningless choices.
What if the children in the Tale of the Sacred Warriors agreed before this lifetime, at the Spirit level, to die in battle in order to create a teaching for the other beings involved — a teaching that will have the end result of changing the world, protecting perhaps millions or even billions of children yet unborn?
Even more to the point, what if the appropriate behavior involves hopping around on one foot and singing "Eleanor Rigby" at the top of your lungs? An apparently meaningless action has one incredible advantage: The enemy has NO PROGRAM to handle it. It is this kind of action that Don Juan is always coming up with in the Castaneda books, putting Carlos into impossible situations in order to get him to stop acting out of his left-brain belief systems.
Not everything is what it seems to the left-brain mind. The underlying Treasure of Knowledge is that we need to decide only what we seek — a world where all children are cherished and safe and have enough to eat, for example — and then trust that Spirit is always guiding us, from moment to moment, to this destination.
In today's world, this viewpoint is especially crucial. For if we are to reclaim our government, our freedom, and our own lives, each individual must realize that he or she is part of a huge team of others who are all dreaming the same dream. Only Spirit can coordinate the efforts of so many to achieve these goals.
If you know where you want to go and are paying attention to inner promptings, Spirit will guide every step of your way. You can never predict the consequences of even one small, seemingly unimportant action. Truly, "It's not outfigurable."
Trying to Change Minds: The Second Treasure
Many of us believe that feeling love and tolerance for our fellow man, for our friends and children, and even for terrorists, is the same thing as acting out of Love. But sometimes we do not act out of Love. If this distinction seems confusing, here's an illustration.
Let us say that I have expressed to a friend that I think world prayer would solve the current world situation, and my friend responds, "I won't listen to this. You are a traitor to our country. This is not the time for love-everybody mysticism, we have to support our president. We have to get tough."
I might reply: "No, my friend, with all due respect, you are wrong. You are being duped by a secret government that wants us to give up our freedoms. Your anger is just what they want you to feel. What this situation needs is Love. People who think the way you do are going to cost us what little freedom we have left." If I say these words to my friend, I am not acting out of love. I am attacking my friend's ideas, and my friend will experience this as an attack upon himself. He will not be able to hear my words, only my criticism.
It's interesting that many of us will criticize our friends and family, and then turn around and try to understand and pray for the terrorists! It's easy to see why. We understand that we cannot change the minds of the terrorists. But we are thinking that if even good people support war, what chance do we have? We are thinking that at the very least, our friends and family should think as we do, otherwise we are all lost.
But if I tell my friend that what he is doing is wrong, am I not saying, "I want you to stop following your heart and follow mine"? When I say this to my friend, even though I love him, am I not judging my friend? Am I not failing to trust his ability to find the Light? Isn't my friend more likely to perceive the truth of love and compassion if I extend that love and compassion to my friend and his ideas, however wrong-headed I may think them?
If another is coming to us for help, and we feel qualified to offer that help, then it makes sense for us to suggest other ways of looking. But even then, we have to do it in a spirit of assistance, rather than correction. We have to offer help in the space of seeing and believing in the other's power to create. But when we simply criticize, all the other sees is our rejection. When we challenge an idea, we may simply make that idea more resistant to change.
Even Seth, that great ghostly sage, allowed that people who believe in doctors had better go to doctors. Equally so, if our friends believe in war, must they not go to war? Our only way to change others is to offer them an example that they may then wish to emulate. As Gandhi said, "You must BE the change you wish to see in the world."
So here is the second Treasure of Knowledge:
Unless we are asked for help, qualified to give it, and are receiving some kind of remuneration for this service, it is spiritually forbidden to try to change people's minds.
Whew! What a relief that is.
The need to change people's minds has been a great burden to us down through the ages. It's wonderful to realize that we can set this burden down beside our path now, and go on without it. Whether we are speaking to a friend who believes in war, or even a terrorist who believes in the political need to blow up innocent civilians, our response can now be the same to both: If that is the path your heart is telling you to follow, then go with my blessing. I have a different path, and I must follow my own heart. I do not judge you. I love you, no matter what path you choose."
When we try to change someone's mind, we are putting ourselves into the belief system that says we do not create our own reality, that we are not conscious co-creators with God. In order to change our world, we are trying to change other people, when it is ourselves, and only ourselves, that we need to change. In trying to force our position onto the other person, we are actually giving away our own creative power. And we get nothing in return.
The moment we so much as speak the blessing words, we go into a space of Oneness. And when we are in Oneness, we are now in communion with the greater aspect of the other person, which always lives in Oneness no matter what the logical mind is doing. By giving our blessing, we are changing not the mind but the heart. The moment we utter words of blessing, we will begin to understand that hatred, anger, war, struggle, cruelty — these things can no longer exist in our vibration.
For those of us who have trouble giving up the job of Trying to Change People's Minds, we can borrow part of a process from neurolinguistic programming and another from the new Access technology ([1]):
In your inner space of meditation, imagine that you are the personnel director of your own company, and summon before you that part of yourself that has been in charge of Trying to Change People's Minds. Say to that part something like this: "Well, we're eliminating your department. The job of Trying to Change People's Minds no longer exists. Thanks for all your efforts. We truly appreciate you, it's amazing how you've never forgotten, no matter what, to try to change people's minds. Now, perhaps you might try to remember what your job was before you came here. [Pause] And perhaps the job before that? [Pause] And before that? [Pause] What would you like your job to be in the future? Is it possible you might take on the job of BEING the change you wish to see in others?"
That's all. We don't have to decide for this part of ourself what it wants to do next, but we can offer those thoughts. In the space of Oneness and acceptance, we are tapping into Spirit. We don't have to control anything or anyone else. All will be well.
The Unprodigal Son: The Third Treasure
We all know the Parable of the Prodigal Son. A man has two sons. Upon coming of age, one stays home and the other one leaves. The one who stays home is the "good son" — he works hard and is obedient to his father. The one who leaves home is the "bad son" (prodigal meaning reckless, extravagant, wasteful) — he takes his inheritance with him and spends it all in riotous living.
One day, the prodigal son, poor and lonely, with no place else to turn, comes home. And the father is overjoyed. He prepares a great banquet and celebration. The son he thought lost has been found. The child he thought dead is alive!
But here's where the story takes its strange turn. For now, the "good son," who had thought himself to be aligned with his father, is shocked and enraged. He has stayed home, "paid his dues," helped his father on the farm, been obedient. How dare his father show more rejoicing for this profligate offspring than he ever showed for the one who stayed home?
We are indebted to Robert Fritz, best-selling author of The Path of Least Resistance, for an amazing re-interpretation of these events. His stunning insight is that it is actually the good son who is out of alignment with the Father, his Source.
"Most people assume that it is their prodigal side — their indiscretions, failings, compromises, lies, dishonesty, opportunistic behavior, selfishness, hatreds, prejudices, jealousies, pettiness, greed, egotism, laziness, destructiveness, negativity, and rebelliousness — that keeps them from reuniting with what is highest in them, their source.
On the contrary, the immediate natural tendency of the prodigal part of yourself is to want to return 'home' to your source and be realigned with it.
It is not your prodigal side that prevents you from forgiving yourself but the 'good' ... part."[2]
Once we see this, and most of us can see it right away, we must ask, "Why?" Realizing that the father is our Higher Self or Source, and the two sons are polarities of the Self, why is it that the "bad" part of the Self is the one that comes home and the "good" part goes out of alignment with its Source?
It is, Fritz tells us, because the good son "assumed that if he did all of the 'right things' and adhered to the 'right standards' and followed the 'right precepts,' he would be rewarded by his father." The good son had an ulterior motive. "I will do this, and I expect that in return." Here we see the roots of all religious intolerance and its horrific consequences.
The secret center of this amazing parable is that when we follow our path of joy, eventually we will come back to the Source. And if we do what we do dogmatically, in the expectation of some future reward, rather than because we sense an inner rightness, we will be disappointed. Those who hate and persecute others for their religious convictions and beliefs, those who seek war, are really trying to make everyone else follow their own set of rules. They have sacrificed all their true, God-given desires to some hope of future reward, and wish to inflict this system upon everyone else. They cannot conceive that all this sacrifice is not necessary.
But as Jesus said, "Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Our Source asks nothing of us. Our Father clothes and feeds us because He loves us. Whether we are the good son or the prodigal son, we must eventually come "home" to the Father. Until then, we cannot receive the bounty that Spirit has prepared for us. But the point of this story is that the good son never does "come home" because he thinks he's been there all along!
"If the good son had been righteous because he wanted to be, rather than for the reward he expected from his father," Fritz says, "his actions would have been their own reward."
And so we come to the Third Treasure of Knowledge:
If we truly seek to help, then we may release ourselves from the prison of old vows, decisions, agreements, missions, jobs, and duties. Until we are free from this prison, we are not free to serve the world.
When we look out upon a world and see terrorists seeking to slaughter innocent people, or secret governments seeking to enslave civilization itself, we are simply out-picturing the prison that exists within our own mind. When we remove ourselves from the prison of all of our vows, all of our agreements, all of our beliefs in what we have to do to be "good" and what others have to do to be "good" — when we instead follow inner guidance and trust where it will lead us — then the prisons that seemed to be outside of ourselves will disappear. For outside of our own minds, they never existed. The deepest truth of evil is that outside of our own minds, it does not exist.
In an exercise much like the one where you basically fired the part of yourself that had the job of Trying to Change People's Minds, you might think about staging an inner drama where you realign with your source in the story of the prodigal son.
Let there be a sumptuous banquet, with all good things to eat and drink. Let there be much merriment, with dancing and rejoicing and song.
Be glad. Be like unto your Father. Know that part of yourself who went out of alignment with the Father has now returned. The Sacred Journey now is ended.
Welcome your Self home.
Footnotes
- Access is a new healing technology that we have started working with recently and found to be very powerful. Access works energetically, depolarizing our patterns at the source and freeing our energy up from past decisions of all kinds. For more information, visit their website at AccessRaz.com.
- All of Robert Fritz's quotes in this article are from his book The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life (May 1989) Fawcett Books. Fritz gives lectures and workshops worldwide. For more information visit his website at RobertFritz.com.
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