Messengers of Unity

Welcome, beloved ones, to Sunday Satsang and to your own life which proceeds in ever-increasing degrees towards expansion and wholeness.

I know that very often in the day to day activity of life it may be difficult to see expansion. It may be difficult to see wholeness. What is needed in order to realize that this is taking place is trust and also the understanding of what it means to be a soul.

All of life is intentional. All of life is purposeful. You came here to the Earth as a soul with a purpose. You came with the purpose of experiencing yourself, your own consciousness, which is at the same time a portion of the one Consciousness that holds everything within itself. You came here to experience yourself. So, it makes sense, then, that everything that you’re doing, everything that you’re experiencing, is furthering that purpose. You could say that everything you’re doing, everything you’re experiencing, whether it’s bad or good, up or down, is bringing you into a deeper awareness of who you are.  Who you are as a distinct consciousness, and who you are as part of everything else.

All of life is intentional. All of life is purposeful. You came here to the Earth as a soul with a purpose. You came with the purpose of experiencing yourself, your own consciousness, which is at the same time a portion of the one Consciousness that holds everything within itself.

For most of us, we haven’t fully arrived in that place of the ‘everything else,’ the place of knowing that you and I are one. We use the words. We express the concept. But we don’t necessarily have the experience. We have the movement of our heart towards kindness, towards compassion, towards empathy, but ‘you and I are one’ goes beyond any such feeling. One could say that it’s more of a substance, a physical-energetic property of Creation itself. It’s not just an emotion, although it is that, too. So, because we came here to do this, and if you have the trust or inner knowing that what I’m sharing is true, then, we need to ask ourselves: How are we manifesting that soul-purpose, that Oneness in our everyday life?

Those of us who have a meditation practice, when it is going in a direction of opening, which means when it has a certain fullness to it, not dryness, have the experience of identity that goes beyond individual thought. It moves into the domain of unity with all. And for each person it would be a different experience as to how that is perceived. Nevertheless, meditation of different kinds will take you out of the separateness of your own mental and emotional process, into the greater awareness of Awareness. The greater awareness of the unified Awareness that is all there is. But we don’t all have that as a practice, nor do we need to. Every person is their own path. And for some, the path of meditation as an ongoing large section of life is uniquely chosen because of its capacity to unfold all that needs to take place in the way of spiritual progress. There are other ways of moving forward, however, and the one that I’m describing to you here is about you in your own life. How do you practice unity? How do you see it? How do you not see it? How do you reject it?

Unity is a practice. It’s not just a word. It involves dis-identifying with all the feelings, attitudes, motivations, and beliefs that create separation. If we observe, and I hope you do, to the thoughts that you have that go through your mind constantly during the day, you will notice that many of those thoughts are not about joining with others but about separating from them. Many of them are about judgment, or criticism, or fear. In order to create a loving human family in a state of greater unity, this interior level of awareness is the level of operation that we need to be at.

Our outer life is also important — what we do with individuals or groups of people. Do we invite them to the table where Divine food is being offered and welcome them into the human family, or do we not? Such welcoming is key. It is implicit in how we are. Within this outer dimension, however, it can also happen that one can be engaged in social and political activism, and yet still have a barrier in one’s own inner life to the creation of unity.

I ask you to make of this exploration a personal project, not just a concept. The personal project is to see what you’re ready for, and what you’re ready to give of your attention, your effort, and your dedication to eliminate those negative thoughts, feelings, motivations, and beliefs that are clearly not going in the direction of creating a loving human family.

Prayer is important. Asking is important. Receiving light to illuminate your consciousness so that you see not only what you’re believing but why you’re believing it is very important. This is because thoughts are repetitive and you can be involved with a repetitive cycle of criticism, judgment, or self-judgment and feel that it’s just going on and on without any way to interrupt it. Like a radio broadcast. But that won’t tell you why it’s going on. In order to know that, you need to go to a deeper level of understanding, because mostly what fuels thought are unconscious beliefs about yourself.

Ask the Divine to help you understand more of why you continue to be immersed in negative thinking. Have compassion, and let go of all blame toward yourself for not being further along. Both compassion and forgiveness are needed in order to proceed with this exploration.

Being judgmental about how far you’ve progressed is just another thought, often another negative thought. It is the ego moving into the domain of the spiritual. You can blame yourself for not progressing rapidly enough, spiritually speaking, or for any other limitation. We do that to ourselves all the time. We project success-failure outcomes onto our spiritual work, and then we just amplify the problem even more.

There’s a place of innocence that we need to carry tenderly within ourselves, because in that place of innocence judgment vanishes, and we’re willing to be open to the possibility of living in a friendly world, in a world that’s free of blame and judgment.

There’s a place of innocence that we need to carry tenderly within ourselves, because in that place of innocence judgment vanishes, and we’re willing to be open to the possibility of living in a friendly world, in a world that’s free of blame and judgment. A lot of the blame that we feel towards the world, towards other people, towards other groups, is being generated partly by what’s going on outside us, but mostly by our willingness to feel that blaming is a valid experience.

Blaming separates. Blaming is on the surface of understanding. Blaming does not tell you why people act the way they do. It just tells you what you already know — that you don’t like the way certain things are happening. Whether they are behaviors of individuals or government policies, blaming just tells you what you don’t like. It doesn’t reveal its deeper source.

If you want to create a world that is different, you have to create the inner world that is different, because the alternative is that you perpetuate those very things that you’re trying to get rid of. You perpetuate them through the attitudes of rejection, blaming, dislike, et cetera.

The illumination of consciousness is part of our evolution. We have grown from the beginning of our time on Earth to know more and more about ourselves and about how human beings in general function. We know more physically. We know more mentally. We know more in terms of how the brain works. We know more emotionally, and we even know more spiritually, although that is still obscured by the gap between what we think we know and what we actually know. There is a big difference between the two. We can think we know something because we can use words about it. But knowing is not like that. Knowing is the experience. And the experience of unity is in many cases waiting to happen. The experience of being in love, of being unified with the wellbeing of all those others who we presently see as ‘other.’ That’s waiting to happen. And what will make that happen is the consciousness of the soul, your soul, everyone’s soul becoming more embodied on the physical plane.

You came here to help with this. You came here to participate in it. And so, I invite and encourage you to do this, to see what the obstructions are in relation to you experiencing love and oneness with others in your everyday life. There will be things that you object to that happen, and things that you want to change about people, about behavior, about attitudes, and about policies. We can go from the simplest level of something that’s a habit that you dislike in someone else or that you find intrusive, to the larger scale of feeling that government practices and policies are not helpful to you, to other human beings, or to the Earth.

Such unfoldment is taking place in each of us now. It bringing our collective consciousness into greater awareness of the values of the soul.

But what do we do once we reach that conclusion? That’s the place of choice. We try to look beyond the policies or things we dispute, to what lies underneath these, to something that connects everything together. And what might that be that connects everything together? It is the Divine humanity of each embodied being, a Divine humanity that is continually unfolding its inner nature with greater degrees of expression on the physical plane. This Divine humanity is given and cannot be changed by opinion, emotion, or belief. It is the place that we must hold faith with in order to seek and to find the goodness that lives within each human heart.

Such unfoldment is taking place in each of us now. It bringing our collective consciousness into greater awareness of the values of the soul.

I want you to see that as a possibility because you may feel that people are acting out of unconscious motives, and they are. But a great deal of what’s happening today is being brought about by this continual movement forward of self-revelation, of you to yourself and of the Oneness to itself. In this country our self-awareness is increasing, and we don’t necessarily like what we’re seeing. But we need to see it. And we need to see that the revelation of consciousness to itself is the way forward, and that we can participate with it and need to.

We don’t do that by creating more separation between ourselves and others. That is regressive, moving us backwards to a time in which one group is alienated from another group and is feeling threatened by that group, and there’s no way to find the way forward. That is a movement back in time. Instead, we need to ask:

“How is it possible to have things that you don’t like in other individuals and in the policies of a country, or in the practices of a global community?” (it can be at any level). “How can you dislike action, behavior, beliefs, policies, and still love the human being, the inner being, and still trust the Divine unfoldment of everything that’s happening? How?”

Isn’t that something that anybody who is moving to a greater depth, spiritually, is asking, today? Today, we’re involved with very marked differences between our beliefs and someone else’s beliefs. And there are many, many people who are very angry with each other because they think differently and they feel endangered by each other. Many people are going in that direction, but it’s not a good direction to go in. We need to be able to feel what needs to come into manifestation on a global level, on a national level, on an environmental level, on a social level, and on a racial level. We need to see all that’s missing, but without hatred, without contempt, without anger, and without blame, just with a sense of honesty and welcoming what’s being revealed that we haven’t been willing to see. We need to be messengers of unity in order to create unity.

Old habits are said to die hard. And there are other idiomatic expressions that we use about that. We become locked into a groove and find it difficult to do something new. So, isn’t that what this is all about, recognizing the way your beliefs are locking you into a habit of thinking, and deciding that it’s possible to do something different? Isn’t that what we are about today?

The movement of this time is pushing us into a confrontation with our habits of thinking and into the necessity of letting some of these habits of thought go, especially those having to do with control.

I have spoken to you before about the fact that the movement of our consciousness is being activated, today, by the coronavirus pandemic so that we have to have new ideas. We have to, because we’re in a reality that didn’t exist before, and we have to have new ways of coping with that reality, new ways of being with each other, new ways of spending our time, new ways of relating to the future, a future which in large measure we can’t predict. The movement of this time is pushing us into a confrontation with our habits of thinking and into the necessity of letting some of these habits of thought go, especially those having to do with control. In the past, we felt able to plan a future built out of our own desires so that we could say: “This is how it’s going to be.” But for most of us, today, we don’t have that control because there are other wider considerations, now, that are impinging on our personal decision-making.

All right. So, there we are with habits being dismantled, broken into by the virus, by Covid-19, by the requirements of the situation. And we also have habits of thinking about racism being dismantled, broken into and being upturned because of revelations that have come forth through events that have happened, tragic events that we have been asked to bear witness to. Yes, the events were activators. But those events could have fallen into the black hole of our indifference. They have in the past. They could have fallen into the black hole of our blindness, of our not being willing to see what was going on with the treatment of a whole group of people of African-American descent, both past and present. And when I say this about African Americans, I want to say at the same time, we just haven’t caught up, yet, with the rest of those beings who have been discriminated against by us as a nation. We’re just dealing with the beginning level of this understanding of how far we need to travel in order to bring our principles into practice. We’ve used words about liberty and justice for all, very powerful words, but haven’t been able to put into practice what we hold to be most true. Nevertheless, the tragic events of this time have shaken loose our habits of thinking so that more white people, today, can say the word ‘race’ and feel something that makes sense to them, feel something that they can identify with because more is being exposed to our consciousness and we are readier for more to be exposed. This had not been present to such a degree before.

Put differently, one can say that the outer events we have recently lived through have catalyzed this shift, but the inner readiness emanating from the soul and the deeper layers of the heart is allowing us to think differently. We can be more transparent to ourselves, to our own prejudice, our own predisposition to believe certain things about people of color. The events and the shock of their recognition has fallen on the fertile soil of our consciousness, and we don’t know yet how things will turn out.  We’re still in the turmoil of trying to see what’s going to happen. But we do know that many people have responded in what seems to be unprecedented ways. White people, Caucasian people have responded in ways that seem new. In this way, the unfoldment of life that is a living manifestation of the Divine is bringing to our collective awareness the necessity of letting go of habits of thought. We didn’t ask for it because we didn’t know it was needed. It came to us and hit us over the head as a necessity, saying: “Change your ways of thinking. Change your ways of thinking.”

So, I’m asking you to look within at the place that you’re at in relation to holding on to patterns of thinking that separate you from others, and that for the most part involve blame or judgment. Blame of yourself, blame of others. Judgment of yourself, judgment of others.

How do you know when separation isn’t present any longer? It’s very simple. You feel love. You feel a desire to bless and to give. You feel a concern for the wellbeing of another.  Such love is not related to it being returned or reciprocated. You are feeling the Divine Love which is self-replenishing and independent of what someone else says or does. You may not feel loved by someone who is arguing with you, or critical of you, or rejecting of you. But this love is not dependent on that, nor is it addressed to that level of behavior. What I’m speaking of is on the level of the soul, the level that we are moving toward as a human family, the level we need to move toward. You are being asked to go to this level, to the Unity that underlies everything else.

In the same way that we are recognizing the indifference, neglect, and racism that has been part of our country’s history, we are also awakening to the need to take care of each other.

In the same way that we are recognizing the indifference, neglect, and racism that has been part of our country’s history, we are also awakening to the need to take care of each other. With respect to the virus pandemic, this calling is clear. Our habits of mind are being shaken loose because it’s time, and it’s time for you to let go of those aspects of your own thinking that separate you from the rest of life. You don’t have to do it all yourself. You can just ask that these habits and their root cause be revealed to you. You can just ask, and know that it does not have to happen all at once. But we are being called to take a greater level of responsibility, now, in all areas of word, thought, and deed. If you feel that some person you know is not worthy of love, or that some group that you know is not worthy of love, well, then you can’t ask the world to change its mind because you’re not changing your mind. You have to be willing to change your mind in similar ways to the way that you wish reality to be.

Today, reality is being restructured. We didn’t ask for it. We’re taking part in it because we have to, and on a soul level because we chose to be here on the Earth at this time. We’re doing it because we have a larger context in which to hold the changes that are needed, and we are trying to find within ourselves the fullness of response to become what is clearly being asked for.

Our bodies, minds, and emotions are being opened to the energies of transformation, and we do not yet know how this will unfold upon the Earth or within ourselves. The old beliefs that we have held as a human species are giving way, and we will see what needs to happen.  Yet, what needs to happen within your own life does not necessarily involve waiting. You are here to participate in this planetary shift, and just need to be conscious of what you’re dealing with and what kind of world you want to live in. You don’t have to wait for another catastrophe or another global event of great significance to propel you forward. You can pay attention, now, to what you’re doing in your own consciousness by holding onto the habits that you are used to.

People speak about revolution in many different ways, often in terms of how it can affect a change in social values. And we talk, especially today which is the day after July 4th, about the revolution we call the American Revolution that threw off the shackles of British control and established a Republic of independent colonies. But I tell you that whenever and wherever you decide to let go of a habit of thought that you have been holding onto because of what you aspire to that requires this letting go, you are creating a revolution inside yourself in terms of opening the doors wide to a new freedom and to a new way of relating to reality. Each habit that you willingly break because you feel it should be broken, each habit that you break because you want something better for your life, is a revolution inside you. Such an action also partakes of the miraculous and means that you are no longer defined by habit, but are defined by the thinking and the values of your soul.

In this light, I pray for all beings, that all may feel within themselves the greater truth of who they are as souls, and that all may have enough courage, clarity, and love to examine those places that are still creating separation, even while holding a different value that has to do with unity.

May this clinging to unity overcome all that stands in the way, supported by the choice of each embodied soul to live a life that is free and that partakes of the Divine.