The Pandemic: The Hour of God and a Prayer

May 12

“Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better…and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed, whether it be ecological, social, demographic or a general breakdown of civilization, will be unavoidable.” -Vaclav Havel, Playwright, Philosopher and former President of the Czech Republic

Patrizia Noreilli Bachelet in her book, “The Hidden Manna,” says,

“The Whore of Babylon is the consciousness of Materialism that reigns upon the Earth. She is the Whore that usurps the energies which should be channeled upward toward the higher ranges of consciousness. Yet the Earth has fallen under the sway of her power. The Great Whore is described as sitting upon many waters... a symbol of consciousness. It is she with whom the kings of the Earth have committed fornication. The kings are the political leaders of today and the global corporate oligarchs. They lie with the Whore collaborating in her pathological materialism. All during her rise, the world has slept, drunk with her wine and displaying her wealth. Babylon of our time is Sex and Money. She is the great scourge of our time which sucks dry the resources of the planet to satisfy the greed that is carrying the world to its doom.
But the hour of God draws near. Babylon the fornicating whore, the queen of money power must soon collapse under the weight of her wicked and destructive accumulated energy. And when the moment of her collapse arrives, it is sudden and quick. Up to the end she will appear triumphantly powerful, because she cannot see her own condition. The most prominent characteristic of the moment of her downfall is the apparent increase of her splendor and glory. The moment she is most secure in her victory is the moment of her furious collapse, for in one hour is thy judgment come.”

I know the language may seem a little strange…not the kind of stuff you may be used to reading…but I know that you know what it implies and what it means.

Robert Wilkinson, astrologer and cosmologist who is part of our work here at Truth Spring, said, “So, in this message of March 20, 2020, in the heart of the global pandemic, there have many gifted individuals who are able to see through the objective phenomena of life and see a greater unfolding of those invisible forces.”

The three individuals I mention above advocate a change in consciousness as the remedy for the global ills that eventually translate into difficulty for the individual. As we at Truth Spring believe, that change in consciousness will come by way of the individual, for the collective is a by-product, an effect of a critical mass of individuals. We think that the revolution to which Havel refers has already begun and like all societal changes, it begins with the destruction of the old way but the old way is not going gently into the night.

Slavery will make a stand. Prejudice will make a stand. Destroying democracy will make a stand before it recoils into the darkness from which it came. It is childish at this point in human history to recount the hundreds of thousands of lives that have been lost in the process of confronting those darknesses that serve as the evolutionary sandpaper of human life, gradually smoothing the edges from the agony of destruction into the acceptance of a different way of life.

The question is always, how much destruction is required to bring about change? Apparently, a lot. But let’s not get caught up in global affairs or the pandemic. Let’s get caught in your life and your unfolding and the amount of destruction you are going to require in order to change your mind. That’s really all that matters.

The plague of our modern era is not the virus but the consciousness or lack thereof that produced it. The two are inseparable and go hand-in-hand. Now, your mind can’t get this and sees no relationship between itself as an individual and the effect that playing out of darkness has on the millions across the globe. Because there is no one individual in the collective that can be blamed or who would take responsibility, then it could be stated that we are all to blame and we are all responsible for the forces of destruction that are unleashed on the planet, forcing each of us to take stock of our lives…and the lives of others. Our interest is the individual’s transformation, your transformation in the cosmic process of which you are a part. In fact, you are a necessity whether you are aware of it or not. Let’s go back to the mind.

The primitive human mind is the creator of duality and imprisonment in the sensory world. But don’t forget, it serves as a tool for the advancement of truth-consciousness in the evolutionary process. The individual blindly weaves his or her way through the maze of everyday life hoping to stumble upon and seize, possess, at last, the thing that can reverse that stumbling and create stability and safety.

This relationship of the seeking to the never finding is one of the keys to understanding your own individual process. It has a beginning process, creation, a middle process, preservation, and an ending process, death. Here, death can refer not just to physical death, but the death of all forms, from marriages to your car. If it is physical, it’s on the way out the door, whether that is your pet dog or your favorite pair of shoes.

To enhance one’s mental satisfaction that that process is being accomplished and that safety is being secured, the individual buys stuff. Some people buy a yacht. Some people buy a moped. But it’s all the same thing…it just looks different. The struggle to increase, own, and control in order to overcome the barriers that block the way to an individual’s sense of well-being occupies much of their time…got to get more, love, more money, more sex, and more God, the cornerstones of human life in the United States.

I frequently say that the purpose of the mind is to survive but it can form some very weird associations with that concept as it seeks control and mastery of the environment. You, too, have some pretty weird concepts around the issue of surviving, most of which, of course, are not real…but they feel real. This is the essence behind Darwin’s concept of the survival of the fittest. But of course, you will not survive because one day you will pass away and this constant contradiction of everyday life can cause you think in very short-term gain mentality.

I can compromise myself and my integrity now but what I get will be pretty sweet. The problem is that short-term gain thinking produces long-term loss results. But so what? At least, I got it for a while, the mind says.

But only a greater and continued expansion of personal mastery that comes by way of the realization of love, of one’s true self, can anything be permanent. There are, indeed, things that death cannot snatch from you. For these are the eternal factors of the process: love, unity, acceptance, joy and many more.

On a daily basis, you are forced to put your britches on, head out into the world and try to figure out how to accomplish that survival. When phenomenon like the pandemic strike, you are forced not just to admit mentally but to experience physically and emotionally, that there are forces beyond your control and that cooperation with others expands not just your ability to survive but increases the ability of humanity to survive. In the midst of these disasters, the seeds of consciousness are sown. Now, when the threat of the event is removed, most people go right back to what they doing before.

For others, a spiritual path appears; a spiritual path that has been predetermined in the disaster from the beginning because it is often only through loss that the human being will assess his or her life.  This is the contradictory nature of b… — For others, a spiritual path appears; a spiritual path that has been predetermined in the disaster from the beginning because it is often only through loss that the human being will assess his or her life. This is the contradictory nature of being comfortable. When you are comfortable, you fall asleep. When you are under threat, you wake up.

But here, in the throes of the global pandemic, you see that your life is intertwined with theirs and theirs with yours. The confrontation of spirit and matter is underway. Is the seizing of, the controlling of, the attempt to get yours at the expense of others having theirs the most efficient way to ensure your survival? No. In fact, it ensures you won’t. The law of reciprocity is always in effect. Those who take must be taken from.

It is not conceivable to the limited, primitive mind that it could possess all that it needs by giving it all away. The mind sees no reality in the giving away of the very thing in which it is has invested its hopes of surviving. What sense does that make? But remember, the processes of creation, preservation and destruction are embedded in the process and the harder you try to hold on, the worse it gets. Evolution, material and spiritual, is demanding that the old make way for the new. The human mind does the exact opposite.

So, a significant barrier is presented to the individual…do I take care of me or do I take care of them? Is it possible that in taking care of them, I do take care of me? And in managing both my horizontal and my vertical, where can I find common ground? For the fusion of you with others is demanded. But a dose of realism is needed here, so, it would be safe to say that until the individual has acquired at least a certain sense of stability in his or her own life, it is difficult to consider that he or she would consider the needs of others.

I understand and when I have worked with a person who has very few resources, I am not having this kind of conversation with them…we talk about surviving and how to put food on the table. The current circumstances allow you to see just how close you or anybody else could be to the very same thing happening to them.

But, let’s consider a scenario where the individual needs have been met and the opportunity for consciousness to expand is at its optimal. Here, the individual can move from the I to the We, from the mine to the ours. One does not give up one’s individuality and path, it is that one’s path is now fused with something larger, something grander, a more unified perception of oneself and others. Can you proceed without risking your balance and level of equilibrium and security and survival? Well, of course, you can.

Of course, you’re aware that many people do not do that and the mentality of scarcity controls their minds, their bodies, and their emotions throughout their life. Enough isn’t enough. I’ve got to get more. This is what the balance of the horizontal and the vertical is all about. If one of your worlds is not fed, it atrophies and dies. But, it a balance of the two worlds. The spiritual does not forsake the material.

The insistence of the mind that its safety can only be found through the acquisition of the material world is also the very basis of its anxieties, worries, and unique sufferings that no drug can fix and no religion can heal. Because the evolutionary process demands change, if you are not going to consciously deal with your issues and change, the universe will do it for you. And I am sure you have noticed that there are reversals of fortune around the world every day. It’s happening right now as you listen to this.

So, we come to a wonderful opportunity at this intersection. The acquisition of the material and trying to figure out how to keep it disguises a lot of the fear that lurks beneath it. Making sure you get yours at the expense of others getting theirs is a common ploy of the mind, particularly in times of crisis. But somehow this mutual devouring must change…but you can’t change the collective, you can’t change others, you can only change yourself.

I want to emphasize that progress is made at the level of mind and not the level of doing. Just being willing to change your mind is perhaps the first step. Now, this is going to open up the discussion of one of the most powerful techniques you can employ in your development, called surrender, which I will discuss at another time but being willing to change your mind is necessary.

Growth, expansion, enlargement of your world doesn’t just have to take place through the process of consuming. For the physical, this is all it knows. The physical knows nothing about giving; it only knows about taking and receiving. It’s an exchange of stuff, of material goods.

For the spiritual, it aches to give to others, to share with others for in the material world, that is one of the most prevalent opportunities it has because so many have so little. This is an exchange of spirit, of being. And in the balancing of your horizontal and vertical worlds, it is this balance of giving as being as valuable as receiving that creates the balance. But when the mind imposes relentlessly the act of consummation on your life and your force, it will exhaust itself and fall prey to the very forces that it was trying to avoid through the act of consuming…fear, uncertainty, scarcity, etc. But it is a balance.

Life will bleed you dry by giving too much and life will destroy you if you take too much. It is a balance.

Your struggle, as you are well aware, is made easier for, you through your relationships with others…others who love you, who care about you and their struggle is made easier through their relationship with you. This example of mutual give and take in the micro must become the model for the macro, for the collective. You are at your best when you see yourself in the eyes of another. When the divided mind experiences even but for a moment, the unity perception that the well-being of the one is the well-being of the all and the well-being of the all is the well-being of the one, a new path has begun.

Besides, what does saving yourself matter when there are those still left on the field of battle? To be rich by enriching others, to be loved by loving others, to be heard by listening, to be secure by securing others…the unified perception may, at last, be ignited. As a side note, I think there comes a point in this process when the consciousness takes over and it is all the person can do because it is the only reality the person can see.

I have had this experience with my wife, my best friend, Terry. In the process of being in love with her, I ended up being possessed by her, so complete was it that it became the only thing that mattered to me. Being possessed by another person in my language means that you are in joyful and willing service to that person. Your heart aches to provide it and the aching cannot be fulfilled except through your associations and relationships with others.

Love can know itself but it cannot experience itself until it gives itself to another or to a people or to a nation or to a world and that experience cannot be taken from you, even by death. To give oneself to the ideals of love, freedom, justice, harmony, equality…this consciousness resolves the duality, resolves the meaninglessness, and resolves the very issue of existence itself. But the content of all material form, including the pandemic, otherwise known as the horizontal, cannot be understood until you understand the context from it originates. Until that time comes, you are left on the battlefield of suffering and fear having to rely on your own resources and skills, and being hammered by your mind because no matter what it tries, it cannot reconcile the fate in which it finds itself.

The reconciliation and the understanding will come from the journey into consciousness, into the understanding that everything is being minutely controlled and that a greater consciousness is pressing on the old one at hand, displacing the old consciousness to make room for the new.

This is another favorite quote of mine from Aurobindo that would become known as the hour of God:

“There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labor goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God’s bounty. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction. In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.”

It is a call to the journey of consciousness, the context, of the rising above your mind, the content. It is the journey to joy.

I would like to end this message with another quote from Patrizia Noreilli-Bachelet with a prayer that appears in her book, “The New Way”:

“I pray for a new way to come about, a way that will cause the barriers between nations and between individuals to fall away, —that we may come to the realization of a new way.
I pray for peace and harmony and good will—above all, good will—among men. I pray for the emergence of a greater understanding and a breakthrough in the attitude of division, be this either political, social or religious. May all men be brought to the realization that they are members of the one planetary family, regardless of colour or creed, regardless of wealth or poverty.
I pray for prosperity, that each man and woman and child may have what is necessary to live in decency in this world, so that their passage on this planet will be a joy and signify a progress, —a spiritual and a material rise.
May each man come to enjoy the possibility of moving about as he wishes over the Earth, as his one home and the one home of all his brethren; and to express himself as he may like; and to know freedom in all things. But may this freedom be only for the expression of the highest part of himself. May all the ugliness of the old man fall away.
May the whole Earth come to realize the one goal, and to understand that no matter how contradictory the appearances may be, each of us is here for the realization of the One Goal: to help the Earth to realize herself, though her ways are many and appear each one to offer a resistance to the other. Yet this resistance is merely to create the conditions needed for the realization, the all-embracing Realization.
Let each person see the cause within himself for the suffering and the agony of his Earth. Let him understand that the division in his being is productive of a division within his society. Let him heal this division, and then come to the new way in the collective body—that of true collaboration in a life of harmony, of positive growth, and of all that is true and good and real.
May all the forms of religion fall away—anything that seeks to pull this new light into the ways of the past: there is a way that is not religious, —may this be revealed.
May the new light shine forth with a brilliance such as has rarely been seen in the history of the Earth, and may this be as a magnet which draws people to it and fills them with the thirst for Truth, and grant them the power to express this Truth in all the ways of life.
May we not seek miracles—let us rather have realization. This is the solid way. Let us not see visions or lights or etheric forms...let us BE light, let us SEE IN UNDERSTANDING, let us be the ‘new seeing’
Let the new way of Love manifest, the real way that carries in it a power of transformation. Though we may not recognize it as Love, let it BE, in spite of us. Let Power indeed lend itself to Love, and these two will carry us forward on the glorious new way. Let each man and woman and child be touched by THE NEW WAY OF POWER AND LOVE.
But let us truly move forward to the New: let us not call the Old the New. Let the New come forth in spite of ourselves.
May the Power of Harmony, the Power of Truth and the Power of Love manifest, and may we become each day the purer instruments for this integral realization.”