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THE ROAD TO PEACE
Peace will come (to the Earth), yet it can come sooner with each decision of each heart that releases its own fear and defensiveness, and seeks to place love at the center of all of its actions.
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Many of us have lost hope for the creation of peace in the world because we cannot yet see the way through conflict - not the conflicts that are momentary, but those that go on for years, decades, even centuries.
We have yet to discover that the road to peace lies within us. It is not based on strategies, or treaties, or military might. It is based on the single desire of the heart to override fear in the presence of love. Love for one's neighbor. Love for the Earth whose blood is shed with each embodiment whose blood is spilt. Love for the sacred life of God that permeates all beings. It is only this love that can bring peace to the world, for in a world of oneness, war and killing make no sense at all.
Where is this peace? Where is it in the world? It cannot yet be found in the world because forces that lead to the desire for power and dominance rather than love still hold sway, and these forces must be dismantled in order to see peace made manifest. But we each can seek to live in the peace of our deeper nature with ourselves and with others, abandoning judgment wherever it occurs, including toward ourselves; abandoning defensiveness wherever this occurs, knowing that firmness and defensiveness are not the same thing. Firmness involves standing for something, standing for principles of light and truth. Defensiveness involves standing against something, against the force of what one deems to be threatening or endangering.
We can be firm and peaceful at the same time, since what is held in Divine light can hold all truth together within itself. Yet this truth must be the truth of light which includes love. It cannot be the truth of our separation from others. It cannot be the truth of argument and anger. Light includes love and can be held in our hearts with firmness. Alignment with a higher truth that includes love can include peace.
Why, then, do we find such difficulty with this? We find difficulty when we are not able to align ourselves with this deeper principle of truth which is founded in love. When we seek to oppose something that feels wrong or harmful to us but do not know how to locate the love within ourselves that reconciles all, that holds all. Then, in order to prevent what we deem to be wrong, we counter-attack, we defend, we create pre-emptive strikes, we bare our power and our might. All these are the armaments of war, armaments taken up because we do not know how to align with light that contains love and peace and that holds all within itself.
Humanity has yet to discover this principle of self-affirmation that does not exclude any other, that does not prevent any other from the self-affirmation of their own right to exist. Extremism in any form runs the danger of eradicating another's right to self-affirmation, therefore extremism cannot be a practice that holds light. Our policies as well as our practices must be inclusive of the rights of all, of the souls of all, in order to align with light. They cannot exclude anyone from our all-encompassing love.
What if another wants to harm us? What do we do then? That 'other' needs to be helped to see that they need not be afraid of us. That we do not seek to take anything away from them but rather to help them realize their own goals. Such is the truth of reconciliation, but such reconciliation must be practiced from the heart. It cannot be an effective policy in an outer sense unless the heart is willing to hold within its own desires not only what accomplishes the goals of self, but what accomplishes the goals of others at the same time.
Where there is defensiveness, where there is hatred, where there is threat, there is an underlying fear of what could happen if one were to let go of these. This fear is preyed upon by negative forces that seek to inflame conflict and separation, and the way to remove their influence is by returning again and again to the desire of the heart to accomplish the goals of all, not just the goals of self.
Peace will come to the Earth as the heart expands in its capacity to love all, and as all become conscious of their relationship to the rest of life that exists as One. Peace will come, yet it can come sooner with each decision of each heart that releases its own fear and defensiveness, and seeks to place love at the center of all of its actions. This is the call for our time. It is the call of spiritual awakening that seeks to transform an entire planet into a planet of light and peace.
Related::
Seeking the Peace Within (from: "Conversations with Julie") (Listen)
The Practice of Peace (Listen)
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