Atomic Reintegration

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Atomic Reintegration

    Bill Isaacs:  I was very struck by the audio of the chanting at the beginning of our hour. In some ways I felt that did it all. The penetrating beauty of Being opens the heart and allows Spirit to flow.

    We've had an experience over the last couple of days with a designer who has been helping us arrange various objects and furniture in our home, and it's been quite remarkable to watch him at work. While we have purchased some new things, a lot of what his artistry involves is envisioning how the objects and material that is already present could reveal a different order, a different quality of beauty. He'll look at a painting or a piece of furniture that we didn't particularly know what to do with, and he will find a place for it-and suddenly the entire room changes! And this has been happening so consistently that it's almost breathtaking. We're living literally in a new house energetically. I was thinking that the ability to see what's present invisibly, and to then find form or to allow the forms to appear is at the core of what is required. And what's enjoyable is to see how much ease there is in this, and how simple it is. It struck me that this is really the essence of what we're here to do.

    There's a line in the oldest part of the Bible: "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?" (Job 38:33). It's one of the few parts of that particular so-called divine examination in that section of Job where the right answer is yes. Our ambition is to be in position to perceive the invisible. The ordinances of heaven have not particularly emerged into form very clearly over the ages, primarily because there have not been human beings in position to allow that to happen. This is actually quite a vast subject. While there is a process of maturing and clarification of consciousness that's constantly ongoing, and each of us can say we're at work doing that, there is also something to deliver into the world. We are here to play an active role, which isn't so much achieved by frenetic activity, but by participating and articulating through living deeds and words-the ordinances of heaven.

    I just recently returned from a trip to Thailand where I had the privilege of meeting with a group of leaders in South Asia. Some of the people in this small, off-the-record gathering were advisors to prime ministers of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. The conversation was focused on the question: what would it take for this part of the world to become reintegrated? And it was quite remarkable to see their willingness to have a very genuine, vigorous, and enthusiastic exchange on this matter.

    There has been considerable trauma in this part of the world over the last sixty years. Without rehearsing the whole history of the region, in 1948 there was a rather awkward and complex attempt at a solution to some of the divisions between Hindu and Muslim people with the partition of Pakistan-something more or less imposed by Britain, which no one particularly felt good about. It seemed to be the best solution to some people at least, at the time. Yet it also then set off further divisions, leading in 1971 to a further separation between East and West Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh. There have been troubles basically, ever since. So to see active change, active attempts now to heal and to let go of traumatic history in people who represent the leadership of the countries in that particular region was quite something.

    What is even more interesting to me was that the conversation was essentially about letting go of the past and people's images and assumptions about each other as it related to economic development. Not everyone was prepared to simply move on, but many had a strong sense that "this is our moment," as one put it. They were comparing themselves to the Europeans and Americans and noticing that there is a great deal of debt and trouble-leading them to say "Maybe we're not so bad after all." But in the same breath they also acknowledged, "If we don't figure out how to get ourselves together, we'll be left behind."

    This is a part of the world where there is much beauty but also much apparent chaos, at least to the western eye. I think what's happening here is symbolic, representative of what's moving in many places-the surfacing of the understanding that some pattern of reintegration is required for all of us.

    Now this was being translated into mainly economic and political terms at the meeting. But it's very clear to many of these people that there are brothers, sisters, and close relations all through the region on either side of artificially drawn lines. For some time people have been making surreptitious connections-for instance, banned music from India and bootlegged copies of movies from India are played constantly in Pakistan. The music of the region, which carries the heart, is well connected in this part of the world.

    While there is much distortion and craziness in South Asia, as there is in many other places, there is also something more. Sixty years isn't a very long time, especially if one looks back, particularly in that part of the world, to the thousands of years of magic that have been present. There's a beautiful text from India that was written thousands of years ago, called the Bhagavad-Gita. In it Krishna, who represents Being, describes to Arjuna, who represents human awareness of Spirit, the beauty in all things. Here's a quote:

Gaze, then, thou Son of Pritha! I manifest for thee
Those hundred thousand thousand shapes that clothe my Mystery:
I show thee all my semblances, infinite, rich, divine,
My changeful hues, my countless forms. See! In this face of mine,
Wonders unnumbered, Indian Prince! Revealed to none save thee.
Behold! This is the Universe! - Look! What is live and dead
I gather all in one - in Me!

    Human memory doesn't seem to include the reality of Being, but it has been present all along, beautifully so in South Asia. So to see that part of the world finding a new integrative breeze blowing, unselfconsciously and deliberately, I felt to be quite significant. I thought it useful for us to be conscious of that.

    It's been said that that part of the world represents not the rational mind, but the subconscious-and without oversimplifying it, essences of the feminine. It's a very gentle and at times intense part of the world, and for those who are caught in rational patterns, quite transformative when they experience going there.

    Recently a well-known figure passed away-Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. It turns out that this rather complex individual sought as best as he knew how to integrate some of the factors that were present in South Asia into the technical culture that he grew up in. At one point in a biography recently written by Walter Isaacson, Jobs says the following, describing his visit to India when he was in his early twenties:

    "Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don't use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That's had a big impact on my work. Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways not. That's the power of intuition and experiential wisdom."

    Jobs goes on to describe how he learned to allow his mind to be quiet and discover the power of his own intuition. He says that "there was room to hear more subtle things, and that's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could before." Understanding these things, he brought that awareness to his work as the leader of Apple.

    This willingness to let the factors integrate in oneself is perhaps part of the key that we have known has been missing, that is emerging now in so many in so many places. The question for me is, what does that mean, what does that look like in each of our experience? One of the things that was very striking about our designer was his willingness to simply be quiet, to look for a connection, and then let things flow together. I found the same thing happening in Thailand in our meetings. There were all kinds of surface complexities present. The secret, it seemed to me, in the situation I was in (and in each of our circumstances) was to look for what people are hungry to let happen-for what's already present-and to let things be rearranged according to the inherent design. It is not that one forces it. We can provide a focus for the process and then witness and appreciate it. I found it quite possible to both joke with people about the factors that didn't quite fit, while at the same time emphasizing and respecting and honoring the passion in those present. And as a result, things moved together very beautifully.

    There is an ease in the underlying order of things. The human mind makes out that the difficulties that we face are intractable, impossible to overcome. The truth is, they're not. As we heard a couple of weeks ago: Never underestimate the power of spiritual expression-the ability to express essences and allow that to rearrange the form. The experience when that's the case is one of great enjoyment and momentum-inexorable and powerful momentum.

    I was thinking about how this relates to not just what I might do, or what needs to be clarified in myself, but what's present for anyone who is already moving with the one Tone of Being. "I am acting everywhere," one could say. We could say, "I am acting consciously or increasingly consciously in some places." It becomes interesting to reflect on what that might mean. There is no need to organize or impose an order on what doesn't already exist in the emerging design, but one can witness it and appreciate it-the differentiation of Being manifesting itself through, for instance, all of our experience here.

    There is an increasing resilience I've been noticing, and an increasing potency and magic in this emergent process. If we think for a minute about the evolution of these changes over the many ages, there have obviously been moments of victory, but also moments of failure. Wisdom is to focus on the victories. Something has been coming together even in our most recent experience. The last few years give evidence of intensified momentum.

    I find myself asking the question, what does it mean to provide a focus of vibrational leadership in this day? Well it's obvious that there are shifts occurring, atomic changes at every level everywhere now, and increasing excitement in many quarters because of this, as well as distress. The question remains, for me, do I perceive the ordinances of heaven as they are emerging now? And there are whole new ranges emerging here and now.

    The breadth and range of our responsibility is far vaster than I think has been evident heretofore. I think this requires a new level of stability in ourselves. I find myself asking, is it the case that I am currently absolutely trustworthy? Is it the case that there is no factor of external disturbance of any kind that can interrupt my focus? If I'm honest, not quite yet. I suspect that until there is something absolute in that sense, until that's the case, the full momentum can't quite appear. I am very grateful to be in position to, as it were, put the squeeze on my own capacities, to let something intensify to the point where absolute trustworthiness is, in fact, present.

    The essence of leadership in this sense is invisible, and yet I'm sure we increasingly find ourselves called upon to deliver that reliable reality into the world. What becomes obvious also is that the so-called largeness of the human world isn't all that large at all. The wider perspective of Being easily encompasses it, and yet this obviously must be proved moment by moment.

    Something that was quite striking to me about Steve Jobs was the intensity of his passion for bringing something new into the world. His high voltage intensity didn't quite have (at least it appears so from the stories) the most mature container for manifesting intensity, so there were some unkind dimensions to his relationships with others. But bringing something historic and fundamentally different into the world does take some doing as we each know. I find myself asking the question, is the level of passion that I'm here to bring at full throttle, or am I still waiting for something or other to clarify? There is no other moment as we know, no other moment to deliver our own leadership, our own intensity and our own ability to perceive what is present invisibly and let it come into form.

    It's a remarkable thing to be in position to know these things and to carry the responsibility of consistently and absolutely delivering it into the world. I am able to act everywhere, but that's only the fact if I let the clarification of consciousness that's needed happen. There is an enormous reconnection, reintegration moving in the world now, with great power. It was very evident being in South Asia. There are enormous numbers of people there, but also enormous power-subconscious power and that will find its way into the true design as we each play our part. Krishna's voice is then my voice:

To be in position to let the wonders unnumbered appear wherever we are, is what we are here to do, and I feel increasingly in position to do that, in representation of the One we serve. I give great thanks for that.