The Transformation of Darkness
The Ten Lessons outlined in this book arose out of a vision. Although this vision was transmitted to me personally several years ago, I believe it does not belong solely to me, but to each and every one of us. It is a collective vision for our times and it speaks to the inherent knowing in our hearts.
In this vision, I am walking through the Valley of Death, a place of darkness and incredible pain. With each step I feel the burden of my personal history: the emotional wounds that prevent me from opening to love, the missed opportunities in life, and the broken promises. And with each step I feel the unbearable weight of humanity’s suffering: the tragedies and sicknesses that have plagued so many, and the terror of thousands of years of violence and war. I am overcome with despair and fall to the ground with a creeping coldness in my veins. Much as I struggle, I sink deeper into inertia and I know that death is close by.
As the final breath leaves my mouth, with all the strength I can muster, I find it in my heart to be grateful for the life I have been given so far. In this moment of gratitude there is a flicker of light in the distance and I am drawn towards it like a moth to a flame. I do not die but rise up to continue walking towards a golden staircase that has appeared before me. With each step I take, there is an incredible force that pulls me back towards the darkness of despair, and at the same time pulls me forward towards the hope of salvation. But neither of these options is a remedy for the pain I feel. So I choose instead to take one resolute step at a time, with absolute presence and complete surrender.
As I climb the staircase, I find that I become as naked and as innocent as a small child. And with nothing to hide, I arrive at the top and am surrounded by such a glorious light that I am convinced I have arrived at Heaven’s door … and I am ready for sweet oblivion in the arms of The Holy Father. But no sooner do I climb into His lap, than I merge with Him and I become Him. And from this place I experience the power of my Being. By my side appears The Holy Mother and I merge with Her and I become Her. And from this place I experience the compassion of my Unbounded Heart. From my womb springs a Golden Child and I experience my Divine Creative Potential. And from my breasts flows the Milk of Human Kindness that becomes the River of Life and repopulates the Valley of Death to become a Living Paradise on Earth.
What on earth could this vision mean? It took me several months to contemplate this experience. Then I understood that not only had I received an age-old wisdom that runs through all spiritual traditions, but that I had also tapped into a new evolutionary impulse that is unique to humanity’s current crisis. This new evolutionary impulse is the need to grow beyond our fear so that we can bring our love into a world that is crying out for a new way of living and being.
The Valley of Death represents the ‘dark night of the soul’. On a personal level, this may be a time in our lives when everything seems to be falling apart and we experience our own limitation and helplessness. Each of us may go through one or several ‘dark nights’ in order to shed an old skin and grow towards wholeness. Most often this is triggered by a specific, unexpected event that happens to us. But sometimes this darkness is a constant feature of our lives, especially if we have given in to the voice of doubt or despair. On a collective level, the Valley of Death refers to both the increased chaos and confusion of today’s world, and the rising threat of global destruction.
The journey that ensues, from the moment the light appears in the distance, is one that describes the transformation from the samsara of small-mind thinking to the liberation of unlimited being. It is the journey that each of us is called to take in times of personal upheaval, and the one we are called to make in each moment when we step onto the path of awakening. It also describes the transformation from a world of horror to a world of glory when we make the shift from a separation-based perspective to a unity-based perspective.
So many of us are faced with increasing challenges amidst intensely turbulent times. And so many of us are seeking a way through this pain. Some of us get the sense that something new is just around the corner … but we’re not sure whether we should be excited or afraid. Change is in the air … but we don’t know whether this is for the better or for the worse. The collective vision offers us a road map through tough times. It shows us how to walk through the darkness of fear, doubt, uncertainty, and pain towards the light of our true inner radiance. It shows us that this light has the power to transform our lives from suffering to joy, and the power to transform our world from terror to peace.
And it gives us step-by-step instructions on becoming an Agent of Change.
Becoming an Agent of Change
What do I mean by Agent of Change? I’m talking about someone who has the courage to take the steps to inner transformation. Someone who takes full responsibility for the experience of their life because they recognize that their outer world is always a reflection of their inner world. Someone who does what it takes to overcome self-limiting beliefs and to replace them with life-affirming choices, because they recognize that living from their highest potential is a gift to themselves and to others. And someone who dives deep inside to discover the truth of who they really are, because they recognize that only an awakened being can bring light to the world.
Very often we think that being an Agent of Change means that we need to do something to make things better, that we need to campaign to save the world, fight the good cause, fix what is wrong, or banish the enemy. But all the fighting in the world will not bring us the change we desire. It only serves to perpetuate the same fear-based paradigm that got us into the mess in the first place. To be truly effective as an Agent of Change, we need to change our internal paradigm first – our thoughts, our feelings and our beliefs. In other words, we need to change how we respond to life. Our habitual self-protective and self-serving reactions aren’t working any more. We need a whole new approach.
An Agent of Change has the courage to choose a new way of being. It’s a radical shift in consciousness that comes from having the tenacity to walk through the internal landscape of darkness with an open heart. The new evolutionary impulse requires our participation. We cannot sit back and wait for salvation from Heaven. We are required to consciously collaborate in our own awakening by choosing to take the inner steps to transformation. And we are required to consciously collaborate in the planetary awakening of our times through getting excited by the potential of radical change for humanity.
One person at a time is how we change the world. When each of us awakens to the miracle of our own power, we shift from being victims of our lives to being conscious co-creators. When we awaken to the power within us, we come into alignment with the power of Creation and miracles happen. But in order to awaken this power, we need to activate an inner muscle that, when used over and over again, creates ripples of remembrance in our body-mind-soul, and plugs us into the field of infinite possibilities. It is here, in the invisible realm of miraculous power, that we can choose how we want to experience our life and our world.
The Miracle of Your True Power
There is a miraculous force that can transform your life from the inside out. This force is the power of I AM.
Beyond all definitions of who you think you are, is a luminous presence that is rooted in the eternity of Now. It is that part of you that is forever-lasting, unchanging, and as vast as the open sky. This presence is always at one with the power of Creation; it’s just that we often look for power outside of ourselves by chasing love, happiness, wealth and recognition from other people, things and situations. But the love, happiness, wealth and recognition we receive from outside is subject to the shifting sands of time … and so it comes and goes. In other words, what we gain we are also most likely to lose. All the treasures we seek are actually inside us, as part of our true divine nature. What we seek is what we are. And what we are is found by looking within.
The unchanging nature of our essential self – our I AM-ness – is available to us at all times. It is that part of us that is always at one with life as it unfolds within our own experience. It is that part of us that simply is. It is our Being-nature. Whatever happens in life, whatever the circumstances, we always have access to our Being-nature when we are anchored in the unfoldment of this moment as it is, rather than being lost in the turbulence of the thoughts in our heads.
The greatest power we have is this ability to shift from our heads to our Being-ness. It is a conscious choice that opens the door to everlasting happiness and freedom. When we make this choice, there is an alignment of our inner power with the power of the universe, and we come to know ourselves as co-creators of our reality. It is from this place that we can fulfil our divine destiny. It is from this place within ourselves that we can make all our dreams come true. True happiness and true freedom flow freely from our Being when we get ourselves out of the way.
When we are anchored in the truth of who we really are and not who we think we are, then all our actions will lead to peace, harmony, abundance and fulfilment. When we see through the unbounded clarity of our hearts instead of through the myopic perspective of the ego, then we act from our greatness instead of our smallness. Right Doing arises out of Right Being. The way through the darkness of our own fear, confusion and suffering is by shining the light of our presence on all that we think, feel, say and do. The way through the darkness of a world lost in greed, war and terror is to shine the light of our love on all that we see and hear.
The Ten Lessons outlined in the collective vision and presented in this book are a way of re-activating our true power by awakening us to our I AM-ness. Each lesson is based on a facet of our true radiant nature and activates a specific quality, or power, that creates inner and outer change. Put together, these ten qualities become like a jewel that expresses the magnificence of who we really are.
The transformation starts now … there is no time to waste! Your life is waiting for you to awaken and re-create yourself anew. The world is waiting for each of us to awaken and become Agents of Change in the shift to a new paradigm. We stand at a crossroads and it is up to each one of us to make a choice.
We either wake up and create a new world of harmony … or we continue to bury our heads in the sand and we fall into a world of unthinkable suffering. The future is in our hands.
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