When the Path Seems Dark — Three Treasures to Light our Path

Much of the email that we have been receiving at the Spirit of Ma'at in the past few weeks has concerned itself with the idea that our government is pursuing war for reasons that have nothing to do with Osama bin Laden; that the World Trade Center crisis, if not actually planned by our leaders, is being used by them for other, ulterior purposes, one of them being to take away our Constitutional freedoms. These ideas seem to be on everyone's mind, and they are certainly of a nature to threaten our spiritual peace if anything can.

Here are the main charges that seem to be flooding our Inbox each day:

Insider trading on the stock exchange absolutely proves that a large group of people must have known ahead of time not only what was going to happen but which airlines would be involved.

None of the hijackers was on the airline passenger manifests. So how did the hijackers get on board? Were they hiding in the restrooms? Or what?

It is totally inconceivable that the second plane, that hit the Twin Tower, or the third one, that hit the Pentagon, could have made it past our domestic defense system.

George Bush, Sr., is a main player in a huge worldwide cartel that also includes bin Laden as a main player; Bush pere was CIA director, and bin Laden was trained by the CIA under his directorship.

The coalition that is pursuing the war on terrorism was actually formed a long time ago. Its intent? To make Afghanistan a safe and practical locale for oil-exploration, drilling, and a pipeline — something that was not possible under the Taliban.

Our media has been totally co-opted. Taken over. As in no-more-free-press. If you want to find out what's going on, you have to read the London Times or the Internet.

Although George W. Bush's speechwriters are using the word freedom in almost every sentence he utters, the administration is at the same time pushing through legislation that will turn America into a totalitarian state.

The numerology of the 9-11 attack demonstrates conclusively that it was conducted either by descendants of the same guys who built the pyramids and signed the Declaration of Independence, or by people (that is, the secret government) who understand high-level masonic sorcery and are sending a message to those guys.

All of this could be pretty scarey. The important thing to realize is that none of it really matters. What matters is that we are going through a difficult time, and that how we handle it — individually and as a world — has the potential to move ourselves and our entire planet into the Light, into a place where these kinds of threats will no longer exist.

We know that Love Is the Answer. But when we are lying awake, frightened of the future, how can we make these words real to us? How is Love the answer? How does this help? When we're actually feeling anger and fear, instead of Love, what good does it do to know that our feelings are somehow wrong? How can we make them right again? What does it look like when we're pursuing this sometimes elusive idea of Love?

We offer what follows not as truth, but simply as what we have learned of value in our own journey. It is for you to receive or not. These thoughts are simply the ones that have enabled us to make sense out of all of this seeming chaos, and it is our prayer that they may be of help to you, as well.

We present these thoughts in the form of a Sacred Journey that may lead us to a place of power — a place we can return to at will. For us, it is a path to inner peace, a path of knowledge that lights up our way even on the darkest night.

This path begins with the basic question so many are asking, certainly so for those of us here at the Spirit of Ma'at:

What Can I Do? The First Treasure
Let us begin our Sacred Journey with a story. It's one that Swift Deer likes to tell, and it's really a powerful koan — a riddle — about what to do when there are no meaningful choices available. Hear now the Tale of the Sacred Warriors:

A group of warriors have taken sacred vows to protect all children, no matter what sacrifice they must make in order to do so.

One day, when they are standing watch on the bluffs near their village, they see, coming into sight across the plains, an army arrayed against them. They prepare to fight.

But as the army draws closer, they see something else, something that causes incredible, incurable confusion amongst them. For marching in the vanguard of the attack force are the enemy's own children.

How can these Sacred Warriors take action — or fail to act — without betraying their vows?
At first, it seems as though there is no answer to the riddle posed by this story. But from a spiritual point of view, the answer is simple. For we can never know with our conscious, left-brain minds what actions will accomplish our deepest aims. No matter what the situation may be, at the level of rules and precepts and appearances there truly is no answer. Only Spirit knows what will be the most effective thing to do.

If we seek to accomplish our highest aims, we must connect with our Higher Consciousness, and allow Spirit to operate through us from moment to moment.

So the first Treasure of Knowledge along the path of our Sacred Journey is this:

We do not have to know what to do. We only need to know what we seek. Spirit will do the rest.
Does this mean that we are slaves to another level of reality, servitors of the Higher Self?

Not at all. In fact, it is Higher Self that is our servitor. Calling upon the Higher Self is kind of like having an expert chauffeur to drive our car, while we sit in the passenger seat and enjoy the scenery. The chauffeur knows where we want to go, and will take us there.

But how could there be an answer in the story we just told about the warriors and the children? How could even Spirit figure this one out?

It's true, in the Tale of the Sacred Warriors the most effective action is not apparent. That's the whole point.

But let us consider that we do believe in the ultimate good of All That Is. So we must acknowledge that a loving God would not present us with tragic and meaningless choices. So perhaps we simply don't understand the greater reality within which the one we face is happening.

What if the children in the Tale of the Sacred Warriors agreed before this lifetime, at the Spirit level, to die in battle in order to create a teaching for the other beings involved — a teaching that will have the end result of changing the world, protecting perhaps thousands or even millions of children yet unborn?

And notice that protecting the children might not always mean protecting their "lives" — life is an unending upward spiral. The highest path for any being at any given time might just be that of going on to the next level, rather than staying here on Earth.

Or what if the "children" marching toward the Sacred Warriors are actually fierce pygmies who go around murdering and torturing people, getting away with it because they only look like children?

Not everything is what it seems to the left-brain mind. The underlying Treasure of Knowledge is that we need to decide only what we seek — a world where all children are cherished and safe and have enough to eat, for example — and then trust that Spirit is always guiding us, from moment to moment, to this destination.

Trying to Change Minds: The Second Treasure
Many of us believe that feeling love and tolerance for our fellow man, for our friends and children, and even for terrorists, is the same thing as acting out of Love. But sometimes we do not act out of Love. If this distinction seems confusing, here's an illustration.

Let us say that I have expressed to a friend that I think world prayer would solve the current world situation, and my friend responds, "I won't listen to this. You are a traitor to our country. This is not the time for love-everybody mysticism, we have to support our president. We have to fight these guys. We can't let them get away with this."

What if I reply, "No, my friend, with all due respect, you are wrong. You are being duped by a secret government that wants us to give up our freedoms. Your anger is just what they want you to feel. What this situation needs is Love. People who think the way you do are going to cost us what little freedom we have left."

Do we have the fortitude to ask ourselves why we are so willing to pray for the terrorists, but not for those friends and family who want to fight back and do not trust in the power of the Light?

If I tell my friend that what he is doing is wrong, am I not saying, "I want you to stop following your heart and follow mine"? When I say this to my friend, even though I love him, am I not judging my friend? Can this be called an act of Love?

Even Seth, that great ghostly sage, allowed that people who believe in doctors had better go to doctors. Equally so, if our friends believe in war, must they not go to war?

So here is the second Treasure of Knowledge:

Changing the world does not involve changing a single person's mind about anything at all.
Whew! What a relief that is.

The need to change people's minds has been a great burden to us down through the ages. It's wonderful to realize that we can set this burden down beside our path now, and go on without it. Whether we are speaking to a friend who believes in war, or even a terrorist who believes in the political need to blow up innocent civilians, our response can now be the same to both:

If that is the path your heart is telling you to follow, then you must follow it. I have a different path, and so I must follow my own heart. But I do not judge your path. I love you, no matter what you choose. You have my blessing.
When we try to change someone's mind, we are putting ourselves into the belief system that says we do not create our own reality, that we are not conscious co-creators with God. We are trying to change the other person because we do not believe in our own power to move mountains. In trying to convey our position to the other person, we are actually conveying to them our own creative power. And we get nothing in return.

The moment we so much as speak the blessing words, we go into a space of Oneness. And when we are in Oneness, we are now in communion with the 90 percent of the other person that also lives in Oneness. By giving our blessing, we are changing not the mind but the heart. The moment we utter words of blessing, we will begin to understand that hatred, anger, war, struggle, cruelty — these things can no longer exist in our vibration.

For those of us who have trouble giving up the job of Trying to Change People's Minds, we can borrow part of a process from neurolinguistic programming and another from the new Access technology ([1]):

In your inner space of meditation, imagine that you are the personnel director of your own company, and summon before you that part of yourself that has been in charge of the job of Trying to Change People's Minds. Say to that part something like this: "Well, we're eliminating your department. The job of Trying to Change People's Minds no longer exists. Thanks for all your efforts. We truly appreciate you, it's amazing how you've never forgotten, no matter what, to try to change people's minds. Now we just want you to be happy. So perhaps you might try to remember what your job was before you came here. [Pause] And perhaps the job before that? [Pause] And before that? [Pause] What would you like your job to be in the future?"
That's all. We don't have to decide for this part of ourself what it wants to do next. In the space of Oneness and acceptance that we are offering, we are tapping into Spirit. We can relax. We don't have to control anything. All will be well.

In the future, if we ever find that a part of ourself is feeling the need to change someone's mind, we can do this process again.

The Unprodigal Son: The Third Treasure
We are indebted to Robert Fritz, best-selling author of The Path of Least Resistance, for this amazing re-interpretation of the biblical story of the prodigal son. It contains a treasure of truly great price.

We all know the Parable of the Prodigal Son. A man has two sons. Upon coming of age, one stays home and the other one leaves. The one who stays home is the "good son" — he works hard and is obedient to his father. The one who leaves home is the "bad son" (prodigal meaning reckless, extravagant, wasteful) — he takes his inheritance with him and spends it all in riotous living.

One day, the prodigal son, poor and lonely, with no place else to turn, comes home. And the father is overjoyed. He prepares a great banquet and celebration. The son he thought lost has been found. The child he thought dead is alive!

But here's where the story takes its strange turn. For now, the "good son," who was previously aligned with his father, is enraged. He has stayed home, "paid his dues," helped his father on the farm, been obedient. How dare his father show more rejoicing for this profligate offspring than he ever showed for the one who stayed home?

Robert Fritz's stunning insight involves the meaning of this parable where a father and his "bad son" are reunited, and it is the "good son" who goes out of alignment with his Source.

Most people assume that it is their prodigal side — their indiscretions, failings, compromises, lies, dishonesty, opportunistic behavior, selfishness, hatreds, prejudices, jealousies, pettiness, greed, egotism, laziness, destructiveness, negativity, and rebelliousness — that keeps them from reuniting with what is highest in them, their source.

On the contrary, the immediate natural tendency of the prodigal part of yourself is to want to return "home" to your source and be realigned with it.

It is not your prodigal side that prevents you from forgiving yourself but the "good," responsive part of you that rejects your innately strong longing to be one with yourself.[2]
Wow! This is an earth-shaking revelation. It explains everything. It explains fundamentalism. It explains religious persecution. It explains all self-righteousness. It shows us exactly why most wars have been fought in God's name.

Once we see this, and most of us can see it right away, we must ask, "Why?" Realizing that the father and the two sons are all parts of our Self, why is it that the "bad" part is the one that comes home and the "good" part goes out of alignment with Source?

It is, Fritz tells us, because the good son "assumed that if he did all of the 'right things' and adhered to the 'right standards' and followed the 'right precepts,' he would be rewarded by his father. He was shocked to see his brother, who had not followed the 'right path,' being welcomed, honored, and celebrated."

And now we come to the secret center of this amazing parable, the truth we must acknowledge. If we have been following our path of joy, then life itself will have been our reward. Then we, too, will rejoice at the return of a brother who was lost and now is found, a brother we thought dead who is alive!

As Jesus said, "Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Our Source asks nothing of us. Our Father clothes and feeds us because He loves us.

We have made bargains with the universe, Fritz tells us. We have said, "I will do this, and I expect that in return." But the Universe has made no such agreement with us. The Universe has said to us, Follow your joy, and all will be well.

"If the good son had been righteous because he wanted to be, rather than for the reward he expected from his father," Fritz says, "his actions would have been their own reward. The parable implies, however, that the good son was good for an ulterior motive. . . . [The] good son did what he thought he had to do, not what he truly wanted to do."

And so we come to the Third Treasure of Knowledge:
We may release ourselves from all of our vows, all of our decisions, all of our agreements, all of our missions and jobs and everything we think God wants of us. At any moment we choose, the past is over and we are truly free.
"Your life source strives for expression through you," Fritz says. "This is analogous to the great power of the unconditional love that the father had for both the prodigal son and the good son. The natural tendency of this power is to be fully expressed, so the longing of the father in the parable is the longing of unconditional love for its fullest expression. Since this love is unconditional, it demands nothing in return."

And if that's true, then when we look out upon a world where terrorists seek to slaughter innocent people, where secret governments seek to enslave civilization itself, we are simply out-picturing the prison that exists within our own mind. When we remove ourselves from the prison of all of our vows, all of our agreements, all of our beliefs in what we have to do to be "good" and what others have to do to be "good" — when we simply follow our path of joy and trust where it will lead us, then the prisons we see outside of ourselves will disappear. For outside of our own minds, they never existed. The deepest truth of evil is that outside of our own minds, it does not exist.

In an exercise much like the one where you basically fired the part of yourself that had the job of Trying to Change People's Minds, you might think about staging an inner drama where you realign with your source in the story of the prodigal son.

Let there be a sumptuous banquet, with all good things to eat and drink. Let there be much merriment, with dancing and rejoicing and song.

Be glad. Be like unto your Father. Know that the beloved child of your youth who went astray has now returned. The Sacred Journey now is ended.

Welcome your brother home.

Footnotes

Access is a new healing technology that we have started working with recently and found to be very powerful. We will have an article about this in our magazine soon. Access works energetically, depolarizing our patterns at the source and freeing our energy up from past decisions of all kinds. For more information, visit their website at AccessRaz.com.

All of Robert Fritz's quotes in this article are from his book The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life (May 1989) Fawcett Books. Fritz gives lectures and workshops worldwide. For more information visit his website at RobertFritz.com.