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September 12, 2001
Once again the world has made it clear that our work is vital. Once again, we
are at a point where -- like never before -- we can not wait to learn and teach
emotional intelligence.
I have received messages from people around the world, and it is a tribute to our
shared vision and commitment that we are able to reach beyond ourselves and our
borders to seek an opportunity for learning and connection.
I am struck by the incredible challenge these events present for each of us to go
beyond ourselves, to go beyond our patterns and fears, and use our best selves. Is
this enough to make it clear that "business as usual" is not sufficient? That our
patterns and habits are NOT getting us what we most want? That we each can
contribute to making the future different, and to do so we must first step out of
the system we're in, step out of killing in thoughts, feelings, and actions, step
out of might and blame and victimization -- step out of recrimination and start
with endless compassion.
Truly I can not fathom the depth of pain of either the victims or the perpetrators
of these acts. And the truth is that I do not want to -- I do not want to "go there"
and engage in that level of hurt... which probably means I am not ready to mourn,
to learn, and to let go.
It is probably worth while for me to understand why I am not willing to let the
pain in -- and to truly see that by blocking it, I am holding onto it... at the same
time, it "feels" functional do so, and sometimes we just need to function.
I was thinking about how to write that message, then I got the letter below. So,
rather than reinventing the wheel, I am sharing the message below.
With love and optimism,
-Josh
ps. to those that have asked, with one exception, our teams
and families are all safe and home. The husband of the Chairman
of our Board is doing humanitarian work in Pakistan, so we are
worried about him -- but everyone has checked in and we're
moving forward with hope and commitment.
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Message from Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson,
James Twyman, James Redfield, Doreen Virtue, and Gordon Banta:
Dear friends around the world
The events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily lives,
whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life.
We search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our
individual and collective experience as we have created it-and we look earnestly
for ways in which we might recreate ourselves anew as a human species, so that
we will never treat each other this way again.
The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the highest level our most
extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are.
There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first comes
from love, the second from fear.
If we come from fear we may panic and do things-as individuals and as
nations-that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we will find
refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others.
This is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What you teach
at this time, through your every word and action right now, will remain as
indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose lives you touch, both
now, and for years to come.
We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment.
Let us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause.
Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will never
remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we will forever live
in fear of retribution from those within the human family who feel aggrieved,
and, likewise, seek retribution from them.
To us the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human lessons.
We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have not understood
the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have not been listening to God, and
because we have not, we watch ourselves do ungodly things.
The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. That is a
message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this truth is the only
cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is simple: Love, this and every
moment.
If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand why they
have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet negativity with
negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome?
These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. They are
questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. Failure to answer
them now could eliminate the need to answer them at all.
If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be experienced by
our children and our children's children, we will have to become spiritual
activists right here, right now, and cause that to happen. We must choose to be
at cause in the matter.
So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for insight and
for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask God on this day to show
us how to show up in the world in a way that will cause the world itself to
change. And join all those people around the world who are praying right now,
adding your Light to the Light that dispells all fear.
That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today. Today the
human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the beauty and the
wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and hatred - and the disparity
that inevitably causes it - in that part of the world which I touch?
Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence that is You.
What can you do TODAY...this very moment?
A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to experience,
provide for another.
Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience-in your own life, and in the
world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the source of that.
- If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.
- If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they are safe.
- If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help
another to better understand.
- If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger
of another.
- Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for guidance, for
help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and for assurance at this
hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for love.
We love you, and we send you our deepest thoughts of peace.
- Neale, Marianne, James, James, Doreen, and Gordon
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