by Janice Dolley
“No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”.
2,500 years ago this was the teaching of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and then, 500 years later, Jesus the Christ gave us his vision of a transformed humanity and a world transformed through love. We know that change is a continuous daily process but if it is to be transformative change then we each need to transcend our yesterday self in some way and discover more courage, more compassion, more generosity towards all in our global family, human and other than human.
This change starts within our own minds as we embrace the oneness and deep interconnectedness of all life beyond the fragmented worldview we inherited at birth. We also need to change our hearts and extend our love to all, regardless of culture, creed or character. Then, and only then, can we treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated. This is quite a challenge, but this transformative change is already underway across the world. It was the scientist Rupert Sheldrake who first wrote of the morphic field, an invisible dimension subtly permeating this physical dimension through which thought and behaviour invisibly spreads. This idea is helping us to realise that, instead of us feeling insignificant as one relatively unknown individual, we can remind ourselves that it is the shift within each one of us that ripples through the field – and who can know which of us will be the proverbial 100th monkey!
I am writing this while staying at a pub in Somerset, accompanying one of my daughters who is on a professional training course in this area. Expecting the usual pub stuff and pub grub we have been delighted by the genuinely friendly staff caring for our every needs and the amazing conscious food provided; a small spot of conscious living in this lower cost end of the hospitality business. Each one of us can do likewise if each day we can remember the inner guidance of the indwelling Spirit and thus inspire and engage others to embrace more of their transpersonal selves, transcend previously held norms and participate in a global transformation in harmony with all life. As we do so we need to also transcend the prevailing dark agendas that see us as stepping towards transhumanism, programmed by artificial intelligence, and instead participate in a possible future that is aligned with the Supreme Creator’s vision of the role of humanity as stewards and co-creators rather than exploiters and destroyers of the wondrous life around us.
This is a call for the tremendous changes that are in line with the call that Jesus gave so long ago. This call is for us to shift the Earth from the rule of fear to a world ruled by love so that God’s kingdom on earth can become ‘as it is in heaven’ for which we have so long prayed; a new world in which people and ideas come together to harness the potentials that lie deep within us to fulfil the promise that ‘greater things than I do shall you do also’. When we grasp this then joy will dance within our living souls and we will know that heaven is not a place but a space of transformed being.