Bursting with the Joy of the Unknown

We may not often realise how deeply anchored we can be in the “way things are” until a crisis shakes us loose from old moorings and strips away the encrustation of barnacles from our little vessel so it may sail into the ocean of life. In such times – even if only temporarily – we can be reduced to our essence, our essential being, which responds to vaster and more pervasive forces and the priorities that arise spontaneously through the heart.

The media bring us news of the many crises throughout our world and the human heart’s rising to meet the need of the moment. Here we are experiencing bushfires, in Indonesia earthquakes, in India floods, and in the Middle East endless wars. With widespread man-made crises, climate extremes, and natural disasters, our whole world appears to be undergoing a critical transition – something new is being born from its substance, from the same living matter as the old and yet carrying us forward into a very different plane of living. This new “something” has been conceived in the heart of humanity, is growing into a completely new form of expression and will ultimately separate from its pre-birth confinement to create a new civilisation and culture, driven by the heart and soul of its people.

We may know all too well how the critical mind perceives and communicates: it assesses the visible, material form of things but it is now time to explore how the heart knows and communicates the more subtle being we are. This is new territory where words alone, burdened by past associations, may not convey new dimensions of meaning unless we employ them to express our shared living experience. Merle Stubbs explained this challenge:

As we enter this new phase of human growth in consciousness we are challenged to find words to define and interpret the new state of being. We endeavour to press words into service that have previously conveyed ideas of past methods and acceptances. We meet an impasse. We recognize that the past has followed a process of spiritual unfoldment whereas we now face a new process wherein perception and interpretation are simultaneous. We are identified with that which we have contacted.” Merle Stubbs – Journey of a Lifetime, page 50

Much inspiring teaching has been made available through the written word but how deeply has the Life which inspired it been able to penetrate through into our very being and its living experience, into our thinking, feeling and acting? We know there are subtle layers of meaning, significance and being behind every outer form. And just as we know the potential and promise of a baby forming in its mother’s womb, so we can already sense the new Era of the Soul gestating in the womb of time. It is drawing on the sustenance of all that will nourish its growth until it is sufficiently formed to burst forth into the world – there to inspire joy and wonder at the power of Life to spread its Light in the world through such pure, innocent and vulnerable beingness. The poet, Rabindranath Tagore, takes us through words into the wordless experience of that joy:

Light, my light, the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life;
the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love;
the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light.
Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.

Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling,
and gladness without measure.
The heaven’s river has drowned its banks
and the flood of joy is abroad.Rabindranath Tagore

We, the children of the Mother of the World, are readying for our birth into the Kingdom of Souls. We are becoming more sensitive to what may not yet be visible to us though we increasingly know its Presence. The more we sense that Presence, the more we turn to it and are drawn towards it. And that magnetic pull can carry us through the painful transition of birth and then sustain us on into the vast, open freedom and supportive love of the plane of the Soul. The Agni Yoga writings unveil to us the Mother of the Word:

…The symbol of the Mother of the World, giving form and purpose to the entire Breath of Cosmos, transforming the kernel into incalculable manifestations, crowns our Earth with beauty. The Mother of the World is the great creative force in our being. Infinity I, 38

…Let the things of everyday life vanish, but let the country of the future be embodied in thought. And what cleanses the spirit more thoroughly than the thoughts about the welfare of others? And what tempers the armor of steadfastness better than the wish to lead others to Light? And what weaves a better smile than a desire to see the very last child laughing? I urge you to think thus about the future, to place daily a pearl into the necklace of the Mother of the World. And so, concisely and simply think how to adorn the Hearth of the World.” Illumination, III:III:10

Everything in nature reminds us of the underlying currents of the great Life in which we live and move and have our being. The rhythmic cycles of its creative forces generate the seasons and the movement of night into day. They ignite the regular breathing that sustains the heartbeat in each and every body, the cyclic growth of plants, and the symbiotic exchange between kingdoms. They fire the pulse that reverberates through the to and fro of the interconnections that enliven the expansion of the Soul through the world. The Tibetan Master reminds us that:

Any moment or climax of decision on the part of the Lord of the World institutes new law and brings into play new energies. Laws are only the unalterable conditions brought about by the activity, the orientation and the emanated decisive thoughts of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, just as the activities, the orientation and the thinking of a human being carry the cells and the atoms of his body along the line of his wishes. Energies are but the rhythm of His breathing and the results of the systolic and the diastolic action of His heart. From these energies we cannot escape, but—in a mysterious and peculiar manner—the planetary Logos directs them or withholds them to suit the recognised planetary needs of the period.” Discipleship in the New Age II, page 62

This great Life bears an intention which pervades its manifest body, the world, and expresses through us. Our gradually expanding consciousness may apprehend it initially through pain and suffering as we come to the limits of desired experience. Yet this experience also opens us more widely to the world, to the whole human heart, and thence to those Enlightened Ones who have progressed through earth experience to dwell in the Heart Centre of the world. They have penetrated into the subtle nature of the world, its Soul, which is then revealed through Their Radiance so that we too may find our way into the eternal Being behind the changing seasons of its outer expression. They guide wherever there is a resonant and receptive heart. Under their beneficent influence we come to know that life and consciousness are eternal streams in whose mighty tide we flow onward into our place within a sacred planet, a mighty expression of divinity embracing all souls, fragments of its one Soul, within its great Heart.

The world may appear turbulent and uncertain. Time seems to be speeding up, yet day and night still have the same number of hours. What we are experiencing is perhaps the quickening of the human soul as it begins to animate the personality forms spread through karmic streams around our world. From a small and partial view it is an uncertain and unsettling time. From the view of the One Life we share, realisations of the greater reality are rising to the surface, becoming clear in a new and greater light, and are spurring us into a new civilisation founded in the Oneness we share.

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