You Are the Entire Ocean in a Drop

While the impact of the current pandemic on human awareness has increased attention on our personal health, at the same time it has brought a realisation of our indivisible interconnectedness with all others and the planet as a whole. We seem to be poised between maintaining the wellbeing of a separate self at one level and, at another level, consciously sharing concern for the wellbeing of all other selves as the whole world works to contain the impact. It is as though at some deep subtle level the realisation is growing that:

… there is no identity apart from universality and no appreciation of the universal apart from the individual realization, and this realization of identification with both the part and the whole finds its point of tension in the will-to-be, which is qualified by the will-to-good and developed (from the consciousness angle) by the will-to-know.”
The Rays and the Initiations, page 106

The globally shared experience has expanded the conscious context of our sense of being from individual self to a sense of being part of the whole world, with its peoples and all the natural kingdoms. The greatest impact is this deeply anchored, living experience of the wholeness of our planetary world. As we think, feel and live consciously within that larger whole, our sense of self expands. We realise we are a responsible and active part of it. Each one of us can be a carrier of infection to millions of others but we can also be a bringer of care, nurturance and safe-guarding through the strands of interconnection which flow continually around the globe.

While current administrations focus on restoring our previous way of living, there is a growing realisation among many of us that the world is poised on the brink of irrevocable change. We are watching a mighty shift in human consciousness as administrative structures are redirected from reactive response to anticipatory, co-creative action to meet real, globally pervasive and all-encompassing need.

World situations seem to become increasingly surreal as we journey through this unprecedented shift: stock markets surge while businesses fail and growing numbers queue for unemployment assistance; party-goers celebrate one day and the next are in intensive care units; and while national borders close down, neighbours reach out to one another. Navigating these extremes in a largely unseen and unknown context of potential life-threatening infection has shifted us into a heightened level of sensitivity. We are becoming aware of the unseen currents of a greater life and beginning to realise something of what the Tibetan Master spoke of:

… all that IS is ever present. What we are concerned with is the constant awakening to that which eternally IS, and to what is ever present in the environment but of which the subject is unaware, owing to short-sightedness…
…The Kingdom of God is present on Earth today and forever has been, but only a few, relatively speaking, are aware of its signs and manifestations. The world of subtle phenomena (called formless, because unlike the physical phenomena with which we are so familiar) is ever with us and can be seen and contacted and proved as a field for experiment and experience and activity if the mechanism of perception is developed as it surely can be.”
Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, page 53

Apart from those courageous souls who are providing essential services, most of us are now either sequestered in our own homes or in quarantine facilities. The result is that the noise and pollution of modern industry has lessened and we have time to become open to our world’s natural beauty, now restoring itself, and to be more aware of what really matters – the joy of caring for one another. As large depersonalised systems break down, neighbours help neighbours both near and far, and we realise that we are uplifted and sustained when serving the common good.

And while our natural world becomes cleaner, clearer and restored to its true beauty, we have shifted gear into a more subtle world – a virtual context of telecommunication links and internet connections that enable our consciousness to transcend the material world and enter the electro-magnetic currents of sensitive thought and feeling that flow through and interconnect us all within the great Being embodied in our planet. The Tibetan Master points out that:

…there is no possible separateness in our manifested planetary life—or elsewhere for that matter, even beyond our planetary ring-pass-not. The concept of separateness, of individual isolation, is an illusion of the unillumined human mind. Everything—every form, every organism within all forms, all aspects of manifested life in every kingdom in nature—is intimately related each to each through the planetary etheric body (of which all etheric bodies are integral parts) which substands all that is. … the table at which you write, the flower you hold in your hand, the horse on which you ride, the man to whom you talk, are sharing with you the vast circulatory life of the planet as it streams into, through and out of every aspect of the form nature. The only differences which exist are those in consciousness, and peculiarly so in the consciousness of man … There is only the ONE LIFE, pouring through the mass of forms which, in their sum total, constitute our planet—as we know it.”
Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, page 148

Our conscious thought influences the currents of this Life. We can focus on what aids and uplifts as it flows through the responsive heart, or we can inhibit that life-flow with fear for our own wellbeing. There is choice in every moment of that great circulatory flow. And as we re-orient our lives to the greater need, the currents move more freely and a re-balancing of the planet’s resources begins to take place. We can become a saving force – more powerful than we may yet know – if we are attentive to the divine intention of the great Life that animates our world.

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