One of the more amazing and beautiful aspects of internet is that it is becoming the most powerful tool ever to spread ideas instantaneously worldwide, including a growing sense of one world consciousness and our oneness with all life. Little by little, it is assisting us go beyond the old, tired dualistic vision of the world and to spread ever more widely and rapidly the non dualist consciousness that we are all linked ‘for better or for worse’ to borrow an expression from the traditional Anglican marriage liturgy.
All for one and one for all
More and more we are witnessing how ever growing numbers of people are developing an awareness that we are linked in a manner that goes far beyond anything we ever dreamed of. The prophet Isaiah foresaw this with uncanny sharpness 2500 years ago. Describing the ‘good deeds’ of the spiritually enlightened individual in what is nothing else than a remarkable programme of social justice he then says of that person: ‘Then your light shall break forth as the dawn and your healing will quickly appear.’ (Isaiah 58:8, New International version). In other words, our healing depends on the healing of the world.
In this exciting new vision, every progress I make for myself, I make for the whole world. Every polio or cancer patient who overcomes his or her disease through active participation in the healing process helps all others afflicted with the same disease on the whole planet. Every time you replace hatred with love, overcome your nagging desire for the umteenth ‘last’ drink, replace your usual biting retort to your companion with silence or – why not – kindness, you are helping all those on the planet struggling with the same challenge, be it in an infinitesimal manner. As the old spiritual goes, ‘an inch, an inch, an inching along’ – which drop of water constituting an ocean is unimportant? The longest mile is made up of many inches, and each one brings us closer home, brings us closer, as a race and as individuals, to the realization that, whatever the present aggressive material appearances to the contrary, there is only one infinite Mind running the show. We are all motivated by the same infinite Love that gave birth to us all; we are joined by the same universal consciousness. As Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her great classic on spiritual healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, : ‘The divine understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness.’
We can all be agents of positive change
My death row inmate friend and teacher Roger McGowen has been 25 years on death row Texas for a crime we know he never committed. Every progress he makes towards forgiving his jailors helps all the other innocents on death row USA and elsewhere worldwide to step closer towards forgiveness. Every Anita Moorjani who writes about their NDE (near death experience) with a powerful vision of divine love and everlasting life helps people all round the world overcome their fear of punishment and death.
Every single one of us can become an agent of positive change by focusing thought in a certain manner. I will illustrate this by two examples. The first one is striving for win-win solutions in every single area of one’s life. The old, fatigued win-lose model which has dominated so much of human existence in so many areas, especially the economy, will have to disappear for us to survive as a race. The world is far too interconnected to be able to survive on the basis of the paleolithic, Darwinian model of relations. In every single area of our lives, each of us can start striving for win-win relations, from the use of our time to spending money, adjusting our schedules so that they work out for every member of the family or colleagues at work to our respect for the environment. In societies that are so dominated by money, tithing for instance can be a most exciting and even fun method of managing money in a win-win manner.
An easy way to uplift world consciousness
One of the simplest and easiest manners of uplifting world consciousness is the practice of blessing. There is hardly a moment in life during which it is not possible to bless. In the street, on the bus or underground, at work, at home with your companion or family, your silent blessings will uplift and heal. The minute I see someone who is suffering, I start blessing them – which uplifts the person concerned but also prevents me passively accepting their condition as something I can’t do anything about. Some time ago, I undertook a trip on the train. I left my bag on the seat and went to the toilet just a few feet away. When I returned less than two minutes later, no bag! I immediately started blessing the person involved until I got back my peace of mind and a good feeling for the individual who had stolen the bag. Two days later, a person who had a small shop close to the station phoned me to say he had found the bag on a dump close by and he even drove all the way to my home far out of Geneva to bring it back to me. Blessing works – but the most important thing for me was not retrieving a bag (although it contained some important papers) but keeping a loving vision of my neighbour.
We live in a very disconnected world where large numbers of our contemporaries feel completely powerless when contemplating the challenges facing the human race. The practice described above offers extraordinary encouragement to every single individual who wishes to undertake something meaningful to help create a saner world.
Every single progress we make, we make for the whole world – because you are me and I am you.
© 2012 by Pierre Pradervand.
