Harmony in the Sea of Spirit

No doubt you have noticed the wonderful people, projects and programs rising into consciousness to help us deal with these challenging times. Over just the past year in America, Eckhart Tolle’s visions of A New Earth seeded spiritual awakening in millions of people watching “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Former Vice-President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless work on the causes of and solutions to global warming, and now a brilliant young president, Barack Obama, will walk the moral, ethical and spiritual high road to socioeconomic parity, global dialogue and world peace .

These are exciting times indeed! Between 2001 and 2005, the number of Cultural Creatives—people who read at least 25 books a year on personal growth , green ecology, sustainable living and spirituality—increased from one-fifth to one-fourth of the U.S. adult population. Today, hundreds of millions of people across the world are participating in a global shift of consciousness.

Signs of this collective effort are springing up in the U.S. and abroad. Several years ago in America, spiritual leader Marianne Williamson stood up to demand a cabinet-level Department of Peace that will make peace an organizing principle in families , institutions and government; this movement is steadily gaining momentum. The World Oneness Campaign founded by Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God, is teaching social systems the concept of oneness, acquired by deep study with continual reference to the Source so that life is a constant prayer of connecting with inner divinity.

Deepak Chopra’s Alliance for A New Humanity networks organizations seeking to bring about a global change of heart. HeartMath’s Global Coherence Initiative asks people to pray peace , and its Global Coherence Monitoring System will measure the effect of personal coherence on the earth’s electromagnetic field, the protective ionosphere.

While peace ambassador James Twyman trains spiritual peacemakers, quantum physicist John Hagelin compiles hundreds of studies demonstrating that group meditation reduces violence in the immediate area: The greater the number of meditators, the more powerful the peace.

The number of Cultural Creatives is exponentially increasing as the science of spirituality explodes into books , art, film, music and scientific organizations like The HeartMath Institute, The Mind and Life Institute and The Institute of Noetic Sciences. The World Puja Network is spreading the good news in a global internet broadcasting system that taps the wisdom of spiritual visionaries to raise global consciousness.

Nothing on earth can stem this powerful tide of global transformation if we open our hearts wide enough to receive it and calmly surf the winds and waves of change. The great Hindu teacher, Paramahansa Yogananda, tells us how: “Quiet the outgoing restlessness and turn the mind within. Harmonize your thoughts and desires with the self-fulfilling realities you already possess in your soul. Then you will see the underlying harmony in your life and in all nature.”

To deepen into this underlying harmony, try this body-mind coherence technique developed by HeartMath ( www.heartmath.org ). Place both hands over your heart and for 20 seconds sit still and notice how you feel. Still focusing on your heart, spend the next 20 seconds appreciating a person, place or scene in nature. To further expand your state of awareness, send feelings of care and compassion to people across the planet. Emerging from this meditation , notice your sense of peace and oneness.

This mind-calming meditation neutralizes the rising stress in the earth’s magnetic field and connects us with the sea of light that quantum pioneers call the Zero Point Field and religion calls the Holy Spirit. The open, peaceful heart receiving this Light transmits lucidity to the brain, health to the body, love to the spirit and peace to the earth.

We are at a crossroads in our evolution, a pivotal moment in which we may boldly walk forward into a bright new reality. It is up to each of us to co-create a more peaceful, humane and enlightened world. With the proper ideal, or guiding aspiration, prayer and meditation will gradually “spiritualize” us, as Edgar Cayce put it, to bring about inner and outer change. But you can speed it up with compassionate service to others. If you want love, love yourself, connect with the divine love in you, and send it out to others. Find in yourself what you wish to receive and then give it. Peace and prosperity begin within. So will the global shift, as we resonate it into the world.

While change brings challenges, it is also true that the greatest need attracts the greatest light. We will experience tremendous amounts of inflowing light in the days ahead. Wherever you live, immerse your political leaders, capital and nation in this radiant white light and see the earth balanced, free and whole. Expect great light in your own life, too, as quiet steals over the earth and leaves your mind and heart to each other’s company. Both will unite and be lifted into the Whole.

Here is a profound path to the wisdom and peace of the open heart. Sit in a quiet place and relax your mind and body. When you feel quiet and focused, pick up pen and paper and ask your heart what it is feeling and why. It will tell you, and so will your body, mind and soul. Give each aspect a voice and provide what it needs to feel peaceful and strong.

Communing with the deeper, core self and its Source keeps the heart attuned to what is unchanging and eternal. To a planet in peril, we can give no greater gift than the peace of the open, flowing heart. We have been waiting for this time and it has patiently waited for us.

What is the nature of this change? That is up to you and your open heart.

“The winds of grace are always blowing," said Ramakrishna, "but you have to raise the sail.”