“"Alex Walker, a member of the Findhorn Community, has written that this new epoch is likely to witness a rejection of the past: " … where differences have been emphasized, not only distinctions between groups within the human family and nature, body and soul, and masculine and feminine … We believe that the future will be largely concerned with rediscovering and rebuilding our connectedness to each other, to nature and to the unseen spiritual realms, so that we may become whole as individuals, as species, even as a planet."

But if science and religion are to partake of the infusion of cosmic energy, which we are told will kick-start this new stage of evolution, then they will have to assimilate the idea that man is no longer the centre of creation but an active, responsible participant in its development.

Mind, or consciousness, is the eternal part of man and it may well be that the Divine is pure Mind Energy. Our evolution, our future and the future of this planet may therefore depend on our willingness to bring into manifestation the very future we wish for ourselves.

The scientists who shared Einstein’s mystical sense of wonder never lost sight of this idea. The English physicist and astronomer Sir James Jeans (1877-1946) once stated, "The stream of human knowledge is impartially heading towards a non-mechanical reality. The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter. We are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of this realm."

If organized religion is to survive into the New Age, it cannot fossilize its teachings but must accept the idea that no single tradition has the monopoly on truth.

The New Age philosopher Alan watts once wrote, "Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide, it is positive un-faith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world." . . .

The Benedictine monk and mystic Bede Griffiths considered an appraisal of orthodox religion essential if we are to survive the coming crisis. " …The only way is to rediscover the perennial philosophy, the traditional wisdom, which is found in all ancient religions and especially in the great religions of the world. But those religions have in turn become fossilised and each have to be renewed … so that a cosmic, universal religion can emerge … This is the task for the coming centuries as the present world order emerges from the ashes of the old."

The credo of this new religion will be Unity. Not the bland unity of "One World" envisaged in the popular imagination, but an echo of the Unity of the universe, Unity in diversity, Unity in the underlying theme of the Ageless Wisdom.

"Between heaven and earth, there is a unity reflected, on the one hand in the real or supposed influence of the sun, stars and planets on the life of plants, animals and men and on the medicines derived from them, and, on the other hand, in the repetition of the structures from which sprang the notions of macrocosm and microcosm." (Paraclesus) . . .

The greatest threat to this vision of our development in the next century is our fear, our fear of change, fear of discovering a greater reality in which we would no longer be the centre of creation. As T.S. Eliot once remarked, "Human kind cannot bear much reality." ”
                                                                           

“"In the search for pure consciousness we have to eliminate any possible object. Schools of thought and of spirituality are founded with this aim in view. To reflect upon an object may indirectly give us a glimpse of how our consciousness operates, but it will not disclose to us the nature of consciousness. Pure consciousness is not reflective consciousness; it is thus not self-consciousness; it cannot be consciousness of consciousness. Where one sees nothing, understands nothing, there is the infinite. Pure consciousness is established in its own greatness or even not in it. It has no support; it is self-illuminating and self-illumined. Nothing can be its object.

The texts are emphatic. Though one does not understand — how can you understand the understander? — it is by understanding that you understand that you do not understand. The Upanishads are thoroughly consistent. There is no rhetoric here. These are sober statements: It is not understood by those who understand. It is understood by those who do not understand.

This Upanishad or instruction is to be taken literally, that is, as meaning what it says. Our nonunderstanding is real, and is certainly a nonunderstanding of it, Brahman, but nevertheless it is already a certain understanding, it is an understanding that we do not understand and thus it is included in the sum total of our imperfect understanding: "not understood by those who understand." But there is still more. Those who say that they know, certainly know, but they know only what they do know, which is very little. They truly know, but what they know is always the known, not the knower. The understanding of our ignorance is not the same thing as either infinite ignorance or blessed ignorance, which does not understand itself. They are doubly ignorant, for in addition they are conceited, thinking that their not-knowing is a superior form of knowledge. The Upanishads dismiss them altogether. In this realm there can be no pretense. The next point also is to be taken literally. "It is understood by those who do not understand," not by those who understand that they do not understand it. These latter are the truly ignorant (knowers of their own ignorance). It is understood, on the contrary, by those who really do not understand in such a way that they do not even understand that they do not understand, much less think that they understand. To understand one's own nonunderstanding is not true understanding; not to understand that one understands, that is, the nonunderstanding of the understander, is the true understanding. Innocence cannot be forged or feigned.

It is with the discovery that pure consciousness is not self-consciousness that the discourse on Brahman starts. Brahman is not the object of consciousness, or even the subject. Brahman is pure consciousness. Our mahavakya can be rendered by simply saying that "consciousness is" or by affirming "there is consciousness." It is not said that consciousness is being or that being is consciousness. Pure consciousness has no support. Brahman is this nonsupport; Brahman is not a substance. Thus the understanding of Brahman does not allow for reflection, that is, for a second understanding of the understanding. If you really understand Brahman, you do not understand that you understand it (this would be a second awareness and by this very fact would furnish the proof that the first understanding of Brahman was not exhaustive). If you understand that you understand, then you do not understand Brahman, but only your own understanding (of it). Finally, if you do not understand (not if you pretend that you do not understand, but if you really do not understand), because there is nothing, no-thing to understand, then you really understand (Brahman). Needless to say, this is only absolutely true of Brahman. In any other instance we are no longer dealing with pure consciousness. Consciousness, then, is not a substance, but an action, an act. Brahman has no consciousness, and thus no self-consciousness. Brahman is consciousness.

This is the point to which this Great Saying leads us. From the bringing together of the epistemic and ontic questions effected by this mahavakya, there emerges a total vision of the universe.”       
                                                                           

“"Higher Mind

Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamization capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge . . . It is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spirit-born conceptual knowledge.

But here in this greater Thought there is no need of a seeking and self-critical ratiocination, no logical motion step by step towards a conclusion, no mechanism of expression or implied deductions and inferences, no building or deliberate concatenation of idea with idea in order to arrive at an ordered sum or outcome of knowledge . . .

This higher consciousness is a Knowledge formulating itself on a basis of self-existent all-awareness and manifesting some part of its integrality, a harmony of its significances put into thought-form. It can freely express itself in single ideas, but its most characteristic movement is a mass ideation, a system or totality of truth-seeing at a single view; the relations of idea with idea, of truth with truth are not established by logic but pre-exist and emerge already self-seen in the integral whole. There is an initiation into forms of an ever-present but till now inactive knowledge, not a system of conclusions from premises or data; this thought is a self-revelation of eternal Wisdom, not an acquired knowledge.

This is the Higher Mind in its aspect of cognition; but there is also the aspect of will, of dynamic effectuation of the Truth: here we find that this greater more brilliant Mind works always on the rest of the being, the mental will, the heart and its feelings, the life, the body, through the power of thought, through the idea-force. It seeks to purify through knowledge, to deliver through knowledge, to create by the innate power of knowledge.”       
                                                                           

“"As we approach the millennium from this beautiful, tender, fragile, magnificent place that is our home, we see various themes of our time emerging. These are an awareness of the interconnectedness of individual people, of communities, of species, and a growing sense of responsibility for life.

Recently there has been an explosion of knowledge from esoteric traditions that has never before been available so widely to the uninitiated. Age-old prophecies have decreed that the time to reveal these teachings is now. It is no accident, I believe. Anyone who has drawn to them has access, for example, to Native American ritual, esoteric mystical traditions of the East and West, sacred practices that lead to the contacting of a higher wisdom. It seems to be part of the evolution of the species in time of need, when the Earth is in danger of terminal pollution and deep fragmentation among her inhabitants.

I see the last half of the twentieth century as a time when Spirit and spiritual practices are coming out of the closet as reverence and responsibility are coming back into our lives. With the growing awareness of a mind-body-spirit interconncetedness, it is clear that a healthy body and an enriched mind are not enough. There is an imperative to connect deeply with a higher Power, with new kinds of family of choice, with one’s self in a deeply spiritual way. . . .

And there has been a shift in the American Zeitgeist, as well. From a self-directed frenzy of consumerism and reckless devouring of natural resources and throwaway relationships, we see a new imperative to connect, to find a deeper purpose in life.

As we move into the new millennium, the still small voice is becoming a mighty roar. We have more dedication, better tools, a deeper sense of how little time may be left and how to use it fully as we lurch toward yet another level in evolution — where we will achieve a true awareness of inteconnectedness, responsibility, and reverence.”       
                                                                           

“On the Threshold of Tomorrow

To speak of a global crisis is a cliché — nonetheless an obvious truth. Parents do not know what to say to their children; two-thirds of humanity are living an economically wretched life; and the other third suffers from depressions, ambitions, fears, and worse scourges. . . .

We have reached the bottom. And this may trigger a revelatory experience — if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. It is the revelation that the economic problem is not just economics, the political troubles not mere political corruption, the technological cancer not a sheer moral question (of a better use), the scientific quandries not only a scientific question, the ecological situation not solved by a better treatment of resources. More, not even the human problem is an exclusive human affair.

This revelation is the disclosure, on a higher spiral than previously, that we need to reestablish both a divine friendship with the cosmic and a cosmic awareness of the divine.

A comotheandric insight is emerging all over the world: We are all engaged in an adventure that concerns not only the human destiny, but the divine and cosmic dimensions of reality as well. Out of the darkness of our times, and at a price of an unimaginable amount of suffering, a new/old awareness is dawning upon us. It is our responsibility to live up to this challenge and to contribute to overcoming — not to denying — the prevalent two-dimensional view of reality — as if time and space were all that there is. We should awaken to our theanthropocosmic dignity.

I sum it all up suggesting that we should sit — not sleep — on the threshold!”