(Memorial Day)
If all the flags that are displayed from house to house today could be but an energy thread that ties all of us together in oneness – with compassion and understanding and love for all then we would be able to celebrate greatness in our country. Till then, we are a tattered symbol, mired in the selfish world of unawakened fools.
Have you seen my soul today,
It’s nowhere to be found?
I saw it last rolled in a ball,
As it scurried underground.
Have you seen my soul today,
Stripes colored true and through?
I thought I saw it then it’s gone,
Those hues no longer viewed.
Have you seen my soul today,
Waving to the crowd?
Its mission passion torn apart,
Its voice no longer loud.
Have you seen my soul today,
That topped the mighty spire?
With windblown threads kissed tops of heads,
And its message filled with fire.
I’ve lost my mighty soul today,
Its pain brought on by thus.
I’ve lost my mighty soul today,
It’s nothing more than dust.
But, if you find my darling soul,
Wherever it may be,
Let it know I wish it would
come back and conquer me.
I’m ready for the new unfurl,
The reason for my ride.
To hear voices raised in heartfelt praise,
A return to my soul’s full pride.
© 2017 Stefan Bright
This is the final installment of a repost from January 2010. Even in the world of pandemic survival, we find ourselves surrounded by ignorance, brought on by unenlightened power play. Time to wake up before the end crashes down on us.
Can we define leadership in this present-day world? Do we really have a clue what true leadership is all about after living years with such a muddled idea of the concept? We have become numb to it. We have lost the standard on which to base the value of greatness. It is not a moral standard that should be used as a value, for the human concept of morality lacks the most important ingredient – Authenticity. When we can reach deep within our soul for commitment to authenticity then we will have a new standard for living and value shall become a thing of the heart and great once more.
“…Another vision is coming. I’m seeing an old, old man… with long silver hair and dark skin. He’s sitting beside a fountain, in a garden. I can hear the splash of water. The woman I saw before is with me again. She’s laughing and talking. The words aren’t clear though. The old man is looking directly into my eyes like he’s actually seeing me right now. His eyes are the most unusual color, a kind of maroon. They’re fierce. Those eyes are eating into me… I have to look away.”
What are you doing in this place?
“That’s what I want to know! You tell me.”
Stop… Feel your space. You will know the answer to my question. Let it come.
“Oh my God. Yes. I do know. It’s coming to me like I’ve been here before. I am here because this man is my… my brother? It doesn’t make any sense; he’s not my brother. Still, I’m getting that he and I belong together somehow. How can this be? He’s so old, so different from me. I’ve never seen this place before.
“The scene is shifting to a forest. The man is there with me, but he is no longer looking at me. He’s just sitting, very still at the base of a huge tree. Wait. Shifting again. Holy cow! I’m high above the Earth, floating in space. Now I’m falling down… down toward a vast forest. Falling, falling. Stop! I’ve had enough falling in these things! I’m pulling out of this vision.”
All right. I can’t say I blame you. Just sit for a moment and relax. You were much more in control in this one, my friend. That’s real progress. This is something we can definitely use.
“Use for what? What do you mean something we can use?”
I have an idea for you. But I can’t tell you about it yet.
“Why not? Why are you still keeping me in the dark?”
It’s all about timing. I don’t want to hide things from you, but I must finish telling you about the transition times before it will fit. And besides, I thought you had decided not to believe this story anyway. I will tell you this: I am seeing that you and I will be working together on this project in a way I had not anticipated. For now, let me return to my account of the beginning of my species.
As I was saying, shortly after your time, people find themselves operating much less out of self-interest. The norms of society are changing rapidly. You find increasing sensitivity to others’ feelings. People begin to help each other more. This is not indiscriminate do-gooding; it is deliberately guided from Source—through the heart, joined with the mind, merged into appreciative awareness. It is buddhi, mana, and Atma at work again.
Not only has society at large suddenly become non-aggressive, it has become simultaneously much more intuitive and fearless. There are no longer walls of defensiveness and inflexible opinion! The absence of fear opens us to new approaches and fresh ideas. The leaders who emerge are profoundly connected to the deep psychological needs of the groups they are serving.
Each individual vigilan or human being has a calling, a destiny. Look around you now at the true leaders in your human world today. You can tell who they are and are not. There are many imposters. It is all about destiny. There are many whose egos want them to be leaders, but who are not, in reality; they are mistaken as to their own destiny. Sadly, their desire has been taken over by ego. These so-called leaders capture control of the populace through inauthentic means; they lead themselves and everyone else astray. Of course, this turns out to be beneficial in the end—confronting inauthenticity hastens the awakening.
In contrast to the false leaders, the true leader balances the prerogatives of the individual with those of society. She or he represents the Source energy, the beneficence of universal integrity. Look alertly for these ones, and give them your commitment, your blessings, your appreciation. They are few in number—in my time as in yours. This has a purpose: Leaders are vectors around which many diverse followers must gather and move together. If there were too many leader types there would be too many different directions to follow at any given time.
“Well, I see many different directions in the world today —many religions, political systems, philosophies. Are there too many?”
Yes, relative to the needs of your people. There is much needless redundancy in human systems. The awakening is a revelation into the simplicity of the life force, of Conscious Evolution. All is simple, as I mentioned when we started these letters. The mind is a wonderful aid to exploration. But it does not possess the capacity to truly synthesize what it analyzes. It makes things much more complicated than they truly are.
In reality, many teachings in your time have identical messages, only with different words and different cultural overtones. Some redundancy is not a bad thing. That there are many avenues to truth is wonderful. It is always important though to realize that they do in fact lead to the same point. They are all empowered from the same Source.
As the new consciousness unfolds, thinking begins to simplify and slow down. We begin to take time to ponder and reflect. We discover that we do not need thinking nearly as much as we thought. Our new sensitivities allow us to replace thinking with feeling into space, as we say. Whenever we have a question, we go first into that space, for clarity and inspiration. After we enter that, we are able to engage the mind more efficiently, and then set things into action.
During the transition, this is happening spontaneously within each a person. However, our leaders and helpers are endowed with the greatest measures of this clarity. They demonstrate the path, through their example, and the people know when it is right.
The ponderous systems that composed the old societies are no longer of any interest to us. We abandon them quickly and they decompose in their tracks. We then begin building new systems to match our temperament. The ego-civilization has been so pervasive, that a huge vacuum is left in its wake. In many ways we have a blank canvas to work with. We come to understand that we have a great work of art to perform—at the scale of a whole species, a whole planet.
“Now, given all you’ve related to me about the new species, I’m left feeling very strange. It’s like a mixture of hope and disappointment. It’s good that humanity provided an important steppingstone to enlightenment. On the other hand, it’s sad that we couldn’t get it together ourselves, that we couldn’t work it out our own way. It seems like we got so close.”
I understand. You may think me insensitive to say this again right now. But that sadness comes out of ego and attachment to form. Attachment was one of the reasons humanity could not work it out. Remember, time had expired. If you had had another million years or so, humanity might have put ego in its place, but the pressures of your age were too intense. Your attachment to possessions had not abated. At the root of it, you were possessed by a desire to make up for the lack something you couldn’t name. You could never find it, not even in your grandest achievements. Yet it was something so essential and vital that its lack undermined every success of your lives.
“What was that thing we lacked?”
It was your true identity, your authentic being. You searched for it in every conquest, every new business venture, in every spiritual journey and every work of art or science. You sought it in careers and lovers, in money and property. But you couldn’t find it, not there, not anywhere! In the general course, perfecting the intellect had estranged you from your most vital inner intelligence.
In one way, you could say humanity was cursed; it was cut off from its own soul. However, in the larger scheme, the whole species was simply playing a part on the universal stage. You all played it remarkably well! I know this is no consolation to one who still feels pride in his species. There is nothing I can say to comfort your ego. I would not, even if I could. You needed, as you need now, to hasten into the time ahead.
“Harsh words, I think. But you’re right. I can see the ego part of me wanting to be something it cannot be. I can see that it wants to possess this quality you talk about, this freedom and insight. But it does not really want to be it, or to share it with anyone.
“But hold on. The future hasn’t really happened yet, no matter what you say. What if none of these predictions of yours comes true for us? What if we’re just left to our own resources and the genetic mutation doesn’t happen in my timeline, for whatever reason? In some ways that seems even more discouraging than the extinction.”
Then it will be all the more important for this message to be delivered. An alternate timeline, I admit, is a possibility. Then you would be left to struggle your way to awakening against the current of ego—a most daunting challenge. The reflections I’m giving you could stand you in good stead through that struggle as well.
Listen to yourself, my friend. You are seeing and putting your own ego in its place. You are noticing that aspect of your self that is not truly who you are. You are beginning to make the break. The very next step is to turn your gaze into the other consciousness in you. The sadness you feel about your race’s loss is actually a propellant into feeling the depths of that consciousness. This is a good sign. Let it be.
“What next step are you talking about? There is no next step for a little homo sapiens like myself. You’ve made your point about that very well.”
Ah, but there is a next step for you, señor. I have already mentioned it. You are participating in the transition, the mutation. Ancient messages have many layers of meaning. The perennial teaching, to look deeply within yourself, was not just a guide to meditation; it was a literal instruction for going into your own body, right down to the molecular level, into the genetic structure. This is still you, even at that microscopic level. You can effect profound changes within your own DNA merely with the intent to do so.
“What? You mean I can will myself to mutate into your species?”
In a word, yes. But remember, it is not your will that counts here. It is the will of Conscious Evolution! I sense that you are feeling its presence right now. You cannot change through your own separate volition. That was the ego’s way. It was not a way to get into the kingdom of heaven. As Christ told you, that kingdom is within. If you would go there, you must align your will with the deeper will. You must synchronize these wills until they truly become one. The universal microscopic and subatomic levels within you demonstrate the oneness and interconnectedness of the Cosmos—macrocosm to microcosm. When you know that this is so, you will enter the deepest reaches of your psyche and your body—and the changes will happen.
“Is there anything I can do to prepare for this? Can I study something, use some type of meditation technique, or follow some teacher?”
As I said before, the most powerful lever of change in consciousness is simple, pure noticing. Here is a way to begin: Look at yourself deeply, dearly and thoroughly. Look inward with no judgment. Let go of your mental focus and allow your being to fall within. Yes, falling is an important metaphor that you have encountered several times before. Don’t stop until you find the emptiness. It lies in the center of all space—past all the mental noise and clutter. It is filled with silence and stillness. It is no thing; it is the Void. Yet it is also who you really are—a pure formless point of consciousness. Out of this emptiness, you will know the peace that passes understanding. Within that space you will be recreating the universe.
“What is this Void?”
The Void is the ultimate reality. But curiously, it is not remote or inaccessible. It lives within the fabric of time, space and matter intimately. It is the matrix from which we come, to which we return and within which we live, move and have our being. It is the space in which we can find the Source.
“How can the Void be reality?”
In and of itself, the Void is nothing. It is the zero dimension. But out of this nothingness comes all creation, all things. As the threshold between the Void and the form world is consciously and energetically breached, creation happens. When we look at this happening and point to it, we are attributing qualities to it. It looks as though the qualities are emerging from the Void. But they are coming from the consciousness in us as it revisits the Void. Creation—beauty—then is always in the eye of the beholder.
Humans did not know, generally speaking, that they possessed this power. Isn’t it strange and ironic that the species which valued possessions so strongly would not recognize its own most precious possession—the power to create reality! Humans always saw reality as something outside themselves. They thought they could manipulate it, but not create it! When you realize this inherent power, everything changes. All your perspectives on the world change, and your genetic structure changes! Your sense of self transforms into an alignment with Source, as Self.
“I have had some deep spiritual experiences in my life, even a feeling of formlessness and bliss. Is that what you’re talking about, when you refer to Source? Do you think I have really been there?”
Of course you were. You know what you know. You need nothing from me to validate that. You were on the brink of the Void. I would guess you passed into it without knowing what was going on. When you came back to your senses, you were feeling the bliss that follows one out through the threshold. But the quality of feeling came from you, not the Void itself. This is creation again. The Void has no qualities; it is no thing.
“Why does the bliss go away? How might we live in that state all the time? Does your species live there?”
No. And there are good reasons for it. We know bliss at regular intervals—some of us more than others—as we reach profoundly within, during what you would call meditation. It is truly wonderful and invigorating, beyond description. But when one is enveloped in the Void, the world ends. We cannot be focused there, and be functioning in the world at the same time. At least not often.
“Speaking of functioning in the world, I’m having a problem. I can’t seem to stop being afraid. Fears, tiny and large, visit my mind regularly. You started to give me some advice on how to deal with that a while back. Could you offer a few more suggestions?”
Indeed. Remember, it is the ego’s job to remind you of all the things it wants you to fear. I said before, the only thing you need to do is notice. Notice these fears, do not run away from them. Do not fear the fears. Feel them, acutely and fully. They will not kill you! Running away from them is what kills you—the real you. Running away only generates additional anxiety, resistance and unconsciousness. Facing and accepting your fears defuses the ego. It is time for another word root here: ‘Notice’ derives from the Latin word notus or ‘known’. The task of awareness is to see and know, in the presence of the unknown.
The fears are good for you, strange as it might seem to hear this. They are goads toward consciousness. A prophet once said, the only spiritual teacher most people ever have is their own suffering. Noticing, accepting and using your fears can be a powerful motivation. The best news is that fear is not the only way to awaken! You can, with the impetus of higher consciousness, re-program your life! You can take back your power from the ego and its pain structure. You can notice what’s really going on. You can evolve—from wherever you find yourself—into the awakened being you so deeply, innately desire. That being desires you as much as you desire it.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert Lee Potter
Letters From 500 