I and the Father are One

As we watch the horrors unfolding in Gaza, Ukraine, and in all too many parts of our world, we might draw much needed hope and inspiration from those who are risking their own lives to bring aid and advocate solutions to these conflicts and to other critical situations where lives are in danger. These aid workers are the beating heart of humanity and we can stand with them in full support.

Among the thousands of life-saving initiatives one example is the organisation in Syria called The White Helmets. An oscar-winning documentary about them made in 2016 (currently available on Netflix via YouTube: https://youtu.be/fQM6t1oSQkE) reveals the mighty yet humble heart at the centre of this and all such humanitarian groups. To the White Helmet volunteers, theirs is a ”sacred job”. They speak of saving souls rather than saving people. For them, saving someone’s child or sibling is to save their own child, brother or sister no matter what side they are on in the conflicts that ravaged the country until December last year. This is reflected in their motto: “To save a life is to save all of humanity.”

These brave souls are among the millions of workers and volunteers who identify with the soul in all through their hearts. They live this reality into being under the most extreme conditions. And they give us lighted glimpses of the new state of being towards which we are evolving. The Tibetan Master describes this:

(It) concerns …the relation of the self to the Self and of all selves to the all-inclusive SELF.  It involves the mystery of duality with which they are occupied, and the very moment that theory as to essential unity becomes definite realisation, then the realm of synthesis is entered.  For that type of realisation, language as we now have it has no words …  ‘Identification with’ is the phrase which approaches the closest to the initial idea, and until man has grasped his identical at-one-ness with even one human being, it is not possible for him even to think about it in any truly constructive manner…”
“(It is a) life-sharing process which takes place when an individual or a group knows actually and not simply theoretically that ‘there are no other selves.’…”
“It is connected with the circulation of that ‘life more abundantly’ to which the Christ referred when dealing with the true nature of His mission.  … He enunciated as best He could the extent of this realisation, in the words so familiar to Christians, ‘I and the Father are One.’” The Rays and the Initiations, page 172-3

This is reflected in Jesus’s prayer as recorded by St John:

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us… I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one… that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17: 21-26

We are now witnessing humanity beginning to manifest the answer to that prayer. Can we see the new world emerging as we see ourselves in one another so that “there are no other selves”?

The global media may remind us of all that is being destroyed, but the real picture has vaster and deeper dimensions. What we might call Christ consciousness is coming alive and active through the millions of human souls who seek to save, bring hope, and illumine the way for others. Among them are the truth-tellers who also risk their lives to call out the false rationalisations for the pain and suffering caused to so many.

There is a clear parting of ways manifesting. It is between the upward path of those who work to save, and those, still descending, who do harm through selfish ambition. As a race we are at a karmic tipping point – a point of stark contrast between the open heart expressing the love that flows throughout a shared identity, and those lost in the illusion of separation, pursuing their own gain at the expense of any and all. Collectively, we are going through an identity crisis.

But the tide of evolution is shifting as our sense of identity expands beyond the separate self. And thus, the divine Plan works out – through us. We are gradually coming to realise that separation is only an illusion. This truth is breaking through the illusory veils and is being announced and expressed through all who serve through the heart. The Agni Yoga teachings make clear the underlying law of “Oneness in infinite diversity”:

A great Oneness reigns in Cosmos as a powerful law. Only those who adhere to this law can verily take part in cosmic cooperation. The Oneness of substance in everything urges humanity to creativity. When the consciousness draws from the treasury of Space, the Cosmic Magnet is under tension. The manifested treasury contains the expression of the energy imbued by the Oneness. Therefore each seed of the spirit must feel this Oneness. Each seed of the spirit belongs to the Cosmic Oneness in which all cosmic creativeness is comprised. Humanity deprives itself in departing from this truth by setting up a law of separateness. Immutable is the law of the Oneness in infinite diversity!
Only by this law can one build, because when attraction is creating, the power that lies in the action is Oneness. The creativity of Cosmos is boundless through this Oneness!” Infinity II 48.

May we embody the spirit of oneness and bring it to life in our world. The poet, John Dunne, brought this reality home to us in these lines from Meditation XVII, known familiarly as “For whom the Bell Tolls”:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

                             John Dunne

 

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