Crisis – part 4

Things that had been covered up, not known are coming to light, and that light is a shock, but it’s a necessary one and it brings revelation.


Robert: Welcome to Inner Sight. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way with new eyes. So, stay with us, and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Our theme for today is Crisis, part 4 and one of the aspects of the show will have to do with some of the lessons that may have been learned from September 11th. We have a thought in regard to that to start our show with, and in essence it’s a thought from the works of Alice Bailey: “For both nations and individuals, the first great crisis of spiritual awakening arises from conflict and selfishness.” Even though in prior shows we’ve been speaking about the effect of crisis on our lives and how very often we grow from crisis, we mature, we become stronger from crisis, and sometimes we even learn to empathize with other people and feel their pain, today we’re exploring the possibility that perhaps even groups of individuals as large as a nation may benefit from crisis and perhaps might derive a lot of learning experiences from going through difficult times. We touched on the world crisis in the first part of this series. Could we come back to that question again? Is the world as a whole going through a crisis? 

Sarah: I think it’s undeniable that the world is going through a crisis. We see elements of it displayed before our eyes every day when we watch the news and read the newspaper and just as we look around us. The crises, I think, for sensitive people seem so all pervasive that it’s almost overwhelming. It’s not just in one area of the world, but in so many parts. I think there’s a unifying factor that you could identify that links all these different crises together, and to me, it’s a crisis that’s leading to greater light. You could say it’s a crisis of revelation because when you consider what’s happening, a lot of it has to do with bringing buried, submerged truths to awareness. Things that had been covered up, not known, are coming to light, and that light is a shock, but it’s a necessary one and it brings revelation. The Bible said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” and if that’s true, then we are becoming free by learning what we are about and the state of the world. A lot of it, I think, has a connection to values and choices, perhaps made a long, long time ago. The writings of Alice Bailey said that “Humanity is subjected to crises of discrimination leading to right choice.” What that means is that at every juncture, at every fork in the road, we are forced to make choices and that we do so out of our conditioning values. Then we live with the aftermath of those choices, and I think that’s what the world is beginning to realize today. 

Dale: Yes, and also from the Bailey writings, I was reading just the other day that this is the time in world history that the inner guides, the inner spiritual Hierarchy has been waiting for — for eons actually — because humanity has reached a certain stage in its evolutionary consciousness where the mind is beginning to awaken. This is one of the subtle reasons why so much crisis is pervading the whole world at this time, because of the very activeness of the human mind, the creativeness, the capacity for idealisms of all kinds that are cropping up and are causing so much conflict and controversy in all parts of the world. So yes, I think the whole world is experiencing this kind of crisis. 

Sarah: So, you seem to be saying that these crises are happening because we’re ready for them. 

Dale: I think so. That’s maybe kind of a strange way of looking at it. 

Sarah: But it strikes me as right. 

Dale: It’s right because intellectually and mentally, we’re ready to face the mistakes of the past and to begin to move forward and correct those mistakes. 

Sarah: We don’t see a problem, we don’t see an error or a failing until we’re ready to acknowledge it and take responsibility for it. I think that’s a basic psychological principle. Until you’re ready for something, it stays buried below the threshold of consciousness. When you can bear it, when you can recognize it, look at it, take responsibility for it and correct it, then it comes up for recognition. So, you’re saying that humanity is actually at a fairly advanced stage to be able to endure all these crises and that’s what Alice Bailey wrote when she said that the Hierarchy, the spiritual guides of our planet, have waited for eons. We have finally reached a stage of maturation. So, as appalling as the world crisis is, it’s also, I think, a very hopeful sign that we’re ready to make corrections. 

Dale: We see these hopeful signs here and there in many countries of the world where people are beginning to make the corrections, they’re recognizing the mistakes that have been made and changes are being made and they are beginning to work it out. 

Robert: One issue that you brought forth last time, Sarah, was that there was a blessing in every crisis, and it’s up to us to search for that blessing and to see what the learning experience is for us and what’s to be gained from it. On a larger level, can you give us an example of countries that have gone through a crisis and have learned valuable lessons from their experience? 

Sarah: Well, there are so many; one example that we are hearing about just now is Afghanistan, which has held its Loya Jirga, the gathering of the leaders of the various elements of Afghan society. They have come together and they have made a choice for their leader for the next two years, at which time they’ll have a general election, I think. If people have been reading about Afghanistan, they know that it’s a society of many different tribes and factions who don’t really have a sense of the common Afghanistan-ness of their shared experience. They really didn’t traditionally see themselves in that large a collective whole. So, the fact that they have agreed upon this leader, Hamid Karzai, and chosen him willingly with peace and without violence, I think that’s absolutely thrilling! It’s an example of crisis rightly handled. One of the people who had put himself forward for leadership was asked to step aside and he did. He said, “I know it’s a sacrifice, but it will help the larger common good.” That may seem like an obvious step to take, but not for those folks, from what I understand. So, that’s an example of a nation coming through crisis that’s very hopeful. Another example that strikes me as interesting is Germany, which reunified East and West Germany. That was an example of sacrifice, I think, because West Germany, as I understand it, had to absorb quite a lot of economic problems to merge with East Germany, which was a poorer, less thriving society economically. They might have said that culturally and socially, they had much to offer West Germany, but the economic factor was quite a hit that West Germany had to absorb. They did this to reunify their society and that’s an example again of crisis rightly handled. 

Dale: I think you can extend that all the way through Europe because Europe has been a battlefield for thousands of years. Armies have been traipsing across Europe for centuries, back and forth, fighting each other. Finally, after the end of World War II, they’ve begun to put their house in order. You can see that by stressing and emphasizing the need for building right human relations among the European countries, that they have come through this crisis, they’ve come through this period of stress, they’ve come through it on the other side and they’re building what to the spiritual Hierarchy is described as a model for the rest of the world. 

Sarah: You mean the European Union. 

Dale: The European Union has arisen from this great crisis in Europe and the common currency, the euro. These are definite signs that they have come through and emerged on the other side much better and they’ve been released from the conflicts of the past. 

Sarah: Another example would be Russia which in ‘91, I think it was, overthrew Communism. There was a tremendous crisis that that country’s been through. A lot of its republics became separate nations. It’s still feeling the pains of that tremendous transformation, and there have been a lot of problems. For many people, I think they would say their life isn’t as good now as it was under the old Communist regime, but it’s an example of a nation going through crisis that I really think, and I hope they believe, will come out on the other side, stronger and more integrated with the world. It takes a lot of bravery for people to go through a period like that. Another example is Mexico, which a year or two ago held elections that overthrew the party that had ruled for fifty, sixty or seventy years. Without violence, that party was put aside and a new political party took power. Those are some examples of crisis that may seem not incredibly dramatic, but they have consequences that are profound. 

Dale: Even our own country, the United States: we had our crisis development back in 1776 and 79. I recall reading about Ben Franklin at that time and some lady asked him in 1776, “Mr. Franklin, I understand we have a democracy,” and he said, “Yes, Madam, if we can make it work.” It wasn’t at all sure at that time whether this country would really emerge as a unified country, and of course it did. We’ve had our struggles ever since, but it’s an example of how we can make it work if we have the will to do it. 

Sarah: Crises are, I suppose, situations in which the end result is not at all clear. They are situations when everything is thrown up in the air and the pieces haven’t yet settled into new patterns. So, they’re terribly productive and creative even when they’re painful or confusing because it’s an opportunity, whether you’re talking about an individual, a group of people, or a nation to remake, redesign, rethink the future that they want. I suppose that’s why the writings of Alice Bailey say that they are “crises of discrimination leading to right choice.” It’s all about the choices that you’re willing to make—your ability to discern the higher from the lower and to choose the higher way, to know what that would be and quite often to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of the larger good. Our opening thought said that for nations and individuals, the first great crisis of spiritual awakening arises from conflict and selfishness. That’s the essence of crisis, the conflict that it stirs up and the selfishness that is evoked when you want to batten down the hatches and just lay low until it all passes over. It’s at that moment that you have to come out of your self-absorption and try to think in terms of the larger whole. 

Robert: Is the United States learning from its crisis on September 11th? I hope that there is something good that has been derived from it. There was so much tragedy involved. I’d like to see that perhaps there were some blessings in the monumental tragedy that we’ve all gone through. 

Sarah: Well, it’s probably too early to say if we are learning. There’s a very interesting statement in the book Destiny of the Nations by Alice Bailey about the United States. We’ve talked in the past about the Seven Rays that govern and qualify human beings. They also apply to nations, and if our listeners remember, the second ray is the Ray of Love and Wisdom, and that is the energy that rules the United States on the level of the soul. It also rules Great Britain and Brazil on the level of the soul. These three countries are ruled by the energy of love and wisdom, and the writings of Alice Bailey said that the United States will be the custodian for the wisdom aspect in the immediate future. To me, if that is ever going to come about, it’s linked to how we respond to this crisis. I think a lot of people of goodwill realize that while what was done was horrible and the people who died were innocent victims, you have to look at the amount of hatred that was expressed on that day and wonder what might have evoked that hatred and the hatred that’s been expressed since then. Perhaps it has to do with the tendency of the U.S. to look so much within and to not feel identified enough with other nations. Its stand on the United Nations, for example, to not pay its dues, to refuse to sign treaties that every other developed nation has ratified, such as the Treaty for the International Court and the Rights of the Child. We have refused to sign those treaties. There is a loner stance that the U.S. has taken that does not earn us a great deal of goodwill. 

Dale: Yes, I agree with that. Being the only superpower of the world, we tend to think that we can go it alone and solve these problems on our own, but I think we’re finding out very quickly that we can’t. We’re just one nation in this world and we need all the other nations that will cooperate, especially in this whole battle with terrorism now. We can’t do it all by ourselves and we need the cooperation, and that’s a big lesson, I think, for the United States to learn. Speaking of September 11th, what came through on that very day, as we’ve mentioned before, was the tremendous outpouring of love that just kind of obliterated the hate that was shown by the act of terrorism itself. The outpouring of love from people all over the world, and especially from the people of this nation who expressed that great love aspect of the soul of this nation. I think that if we can just keep that in mind, keep in the forefront of our consciousness that that is an expression of our national soul, then that should guide us in all decisions that we make. 

Sarah: The U.S. has often been generous in the past; we think of the Marshall Plan after World War II. Europeans of a certain age still remember that generosity. I’ve wondered why we haven’t been able to maintain that same generosity. Was that inspired by the horrors of World War II, which we then forgot as time passed, and we again turned more and more inward? Again, we have this blow to snap us out of our self-absorption. 

Dale: Well, we’ve been quite generous in giving. The United States has been quite generous in giving aid, but it’s been qualified and the aid has been perhaps more to help corporate interests, military interests, so the giving is a little bit on the self-centred side. 

Sarah: And it still is. There was the recent conference of the World Bank in Monterey, Mexico, at which they tried to get all the nations to agree to donate point seven percent of their gross national product to foreign aid, and the U.S. would not come up even to that level which is so little of our huge national budget. There is selfishness that we need to take a look at, isolation, a sense of knowing what’s right for everybody else and wanting to impose our point of view on cultures that are drastically different. Nobody would like that, but the soul Ray of Love and Wisdom suggests that there is compassion that can be drawn on and generosity. I think this outcome that the U.S. will face really depends on people of goodwill making their own voices heard. There are people in every society that want to cling to the old pattern, the old ways and to not really change or adjust, and then there are those people, a smaller group, that do sense the soul of the nation and can help to bring that quality into expression. 

Dale: Yes, and I think that soul quality was expressed by the people — perhaps the government was a little slow on the uptake, but the people responded spontaneously and when it’s spontaneous, that’s a true soul quality coming through. 

Robert: Which do you think is more powerful, a crisis that an individual experiences or a group crisis? 

Sarah: I don’t know if you can make a firm distinction between the two. We are all part of a group; we’re a part of many groups. We live within a family, we live within a society, a nation, a continent, a planet. We belong to many groups, and yet the nature of the human being is to have such a strong sense of individual uniqueness. But really, we draw our very breath from the air that is shared with every other living thing on the planet. So, a group crisis, if anything, is even more profound, I think, than experiencing a personal crisis and I’ve been through both. I think that being part of a larger group crisis demands every bit of our resources to sustain the people we love. 

Dale: Well, yes, everybody in the world has gone through, or is going through, or will go through certain crises in their lives. But I think probably the greater impact is by way of the group because that’s the quality of life that we’re moving towards. This group relationship and group expression will become more and more prevalent as we move on in consciousness because that is moving on towards the soul, which is group conscious. 

Sarah: One of the things that was so noticeable on September 11th was the unity that it produced among all people, not only within America, but worldwide, and I think that’s something that we can really work to sustain—the sense of shared suffering and the shared connection. 

Robert: Yes, I agree. I think it’s really brought the nation together, that’s for sure. That’s about all the time we have for our discussion today. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with the world prayer called the Great Invocation to call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words. 

Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation

(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.) 

(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod) 

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