The human race now stands on the brink of a historic transformation, with new eyes, new ears, new minds, and new hearts emerging from the cosmic drama of human evolution.
As an embryo becomes a baby, we are now becoming a new, more spiritualized version of ourselves. We are growing mystical wings as we evolve, as any species does, in the direction that supports our survival. We are moving toward a universal compassion because, if we do not, we will cause our own extinction. Each of us is now participating in a collective quantum leap forward, in which our species will experience a fundamentally new chapter in human history.
An all-encompassing task
Fundamental change is not a casual occurrence. We cannot casually commit to the process of spiritual transformation. It's not enough to say, ‘Oh, I think I'll be a mystic this year.' Mysticism is not a trend. Our entire being is called to the task, for the journey from density to light involves every aspect of who we are. Every issue becomes a spiritual one. Whether we are angry at the dry cleaners because they've ruined our favourite sweater, upset with a friend who has broken a promise, or frightened at the diagnosis of cancer in the breast of a best friend; whether we're worried about the state of our marriage, looking for a new job, or anxious about nuclear bombs and terrorists in our midst, we are taking the mystical journey as a way of transforming the world by transforming ourselves. We're asking not for the world to change, but for the lens through which we view it to change. For what we see anew becomes anew.
Our magic wand
Each of us carries, in the depths of our consciousness, a boxful of mystical tools. And central to our tool kit is the magical wand. A wand is not just silliness from children's literature. Fairy tales are rife with archetypal truths that teach not only children, but open-minded adults as well, deep and fundamental truths about the nature of reality. A wand is a medium of power, not just for wizards, but also for you and me. A wand is essentially a principle, an intention, a focused thought. When focused thought is negative, it creates ill. And when focused thought is loving and enlightened, it creates miraculous breakthroughs. A mystical wand is the illumined power that emanates from a mind that is married to the heart.
Be proactive
Most of us love, to be sure. Yet far too often our love is passive; we must be proactive in our love, in order for it to change our lives. First, we must outgrow the myth of neutrality. For in fact there is no neutral thought; all thought leads to love or to its absence. One who is not committed to love is surrendered to that which opposes it, opening up the door to fear as surely as one who consciously welcomes that fear.
There is so much love in the human heart, yet hatred threatens the planet. And why? Because it is more committed than love. In the words of philosopher Edmund Burke, ‘The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.' Indeed, the forces of fear in this world are more disciplined, more courageous in a perverse kind of way, than are the forces of love. For hatred, as we know all too well, has no problem announcing itself and its intentions to the world. Our response cannot just be that we oppose hate; our response must be that we love the world. Then and only then will love triumph: when the children of God don't just feel love, but express love.
Our task then is to harness the energies of love – to actualize its enormous power in practical and meaningful ways. Love too must announce its intentions for the world, with all the passion borne of a compassionate heart. We are a species that has everything, yet what we lack is what only we can give: conviction. It is the conviction to love that gives birth to miracles.
In the words of the French philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, ‘One day, after we have mastered the winds and the waves, gravity and the tides, we will harness for God the energies of love. And then, for the second time in human history, mankind will have discovered fire.'
Everything is a spiritual opportunity
And that is how we will use our wands, directing the power of their fiery glow to the darkened areas of human existence. Everything we encounter throughout the day is a spiritual opportunity, if we approach it with love. Every moment challenges us to rise to our highest: to choose strength over weakness, forgiveness over blame, faith over faithlessness, and love over fear. In choosing love, we are choosing to be healed from the forces that would hold us back. Love heals the world by healing our minds, for that which is healed on the level of consciousness is healed on the level of ultimate Cause.
There is another way
The world will change when we change. We are living at a time when our technological power has so vastly outdistanced our spiritual progress that we are threatened by the prospect of global catastrophe. And yet there is within us the knowledge – etched on every human heart – that indeed there is a power beyond the mortal mind, which can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And if ever there was a time to humble ourselves, atoning for the arrogance of human will, it is now. There is a ripple of rising consciousness among the peoples of the earth today, as we consider the possibility that there might be a better way – a way the mechanical, rationalistic, technological left brain cannot access – which offers us hope that the mortal mind cannot.
There is another way of knowing, another way of living, and another way of loving on this earth. This ‘other way' is a realm that is full of magic and miracles. It is a world more real than what we see around us. It is the realm from which we have come, and to which all of us long to return. ‘As to me,’ wrote Walt Whitman, ‘I know of nothing else but miracles.’ Everything but miracles, in time, will dissolve in the presence of love.
Imagine
Our imagination is the womb out of which a new world will be born. Think of every situation in your life as being ripe for new birth. See luminous energy emerging from your heart, extending outward to touch all things. Cast the light over your childhood home. Cast it over your physical body. Cast it over warring nations. Cast it over the entire planet. Cast it over the people you love. Cast it over the people you judge. Feel now a bolt of energy coming over you as you extend this light. Avoid the temptation to invalidate this image. It's not an idle fantasy, for the light is real.
Now allow the light to flood your body, your blood, your bones. Allow it to illuminate your mind, your emotions, your relationships, your career. Congratulations. You have picked up your wand and begun to use it.
Our choice to stand within a field of infinite possibility is our greatest power in any situation. Changing our mental perspective is much like changing the lens on a camera. In the Bible it is written, ‘Be still and know I am.’ That moment of stillness is when our mental lens has a chance to refocus. And there, in a moment of sacred connection with all life, we know that only love is real. In the midst of war, we can quietly and powerfully know that peace is our natural state. In the midst of sickness, we can quietly and powerfully know that health is our natural state. To ‘know that I am' is to know, and affirm, that only God's universe is Real. This may mean we repudiate the testimony of our physical senses, or even of our logical minds. This repudiation is a ‘positive denial' of the so-called ‘realities' of a darkened world. As we stand firmly within a point of light – though darkness might be all around us – the darkness begins to dissolve into the nothingness from whence it came.
The attention we pay to the nature of our thinking, therefore, is the most powerful attention we can pay. Our spiritual victory lies in rising above the mental forces of fear and limitation, using our wands to purify our thought forms, thus attaining the power to heal and be healed. Such is humanity's next step: our spiritual task, our power, and our destiny.
From Everyday Grace, copyright 2002 by Marianne Williamson, published in the UK in 2003 by Transworld.
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