April/May 2004
Peace
Candidate Dennis Kucinich Vows to Stay in Race
Interview by Amy Goodman
Winds
of Change in Spain
William Rivers Pitt
"House
of Bush, House of Saud"
Interview with Craig Unger by Amy Goodman
"Seeds
of Deception"
Jeffrey Smith
Genetically
Engineered DNA Found in Traditional Seeds
New
Findings Show Health Hazards of Genetically Modified Crops
An
Evolutionary Conversatoin with Barbara Marx Hubbard
Alan Sasha Lithman
Making
A New Declaration of Independence
Michael J. Tamura
Empathic
Listening
Holley Humphrey
Intimacy
With Self and Others, Earth and Spirit
Loba
2004
State of the Universe Address
Swani Beyondananda
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
Making A New Declaration of Independence
By Michael J Tamura
Today, we are at war. We are not at the brink of some potentially life-annihilating world war—the world has been at war all along. Being born into the insane normalcy of a world constantly at war we never realized that we inherited this war. We learned to live with it and carry on the tradition. We learned early in our lives that it is all right to abuse one another and ourselves. We have been fighting, dividing all that is whole and beautiful so that we may conquer it and momentarily appease our fears. Wars rage within every aspect of our lives daily transforming our beautiful gardens into battlefronts: Our religion, race, nationality, economy, gender, sexuality, family and lifestyle. Yet, every time we engage in any kind of battle—any time any of us invests in violating another’s freedom to live, to learn and to grow into our fullness—we relinquish the whole of humanity’s divine birthright to peace.
Peace is not the absence of war. For what is peaceful about having fewer murders, drive-by shootings or terrorist bombings today? We may experience great relief that we recovered this kidnapped child alive or we helped that child eventually heal from the scars of early abuse, but are we truly at peace? Do we say that we are healthy because our face is free of blemishes while a cancer ravishes the rest of our body? If we are lulled into complacency because we have a good home, a loving family and a secure job and because a terrorist didn’t threaten our neighborhood, we set off the counter on a time bomb. And sooner or later, what we ignored as someone else’s malignancy devastates us in our own backyard. No, we can never find lasting peace by merely stopping a war. The question that stands before us today is not whether we are going to prevent war, but rather when and how we are going to choose peace.
There is no question in my mind that peace will prevail. It is already written in the Book of Life, that the destiny of humanity is peace everlasting. The choice that we must now make is whether we surrender with loving courage and willing-ness into the divine embrace of life eternal or in ignorance and fear we fight the war to end all wars. If we choose to fight such a war the suffering inflicted upon humanity everywhere would be of a magnitude, that in its aftermath, no survivor would wish to declare war ever again. Then, we would still need to begin the arduous process of rebuilding a broken world and healing our wounded spirit to pave our road to peace. So let us not take an unnecessary detour on our destiny to peace. Let us instead choose the healing of spirit and of our world.
What we need now to embark upon this path of healing is for each of us, as the one voice of humanity, to make a new Decla-ration of Independence. We must declare our independence, not from the oppression of despot kings, the illusory promises of communism or the malignancy of terrorism, but from the tyranny of our own ignorance. Only through our awareness can we know the eternal peace that comes with freedom. And the awareness of truth will set us free. Truth, however, is one, undivided; thus only a loving heart can discover it. Truth can never be found through a heart splintered with judgments, blame and hatred. If we are to heal the spirit of humanity we must cultivate a com-passionate and forgiving heart so that we may see God and know the truth of our existence.
We no longer have the luxury of believing that because we are not against Muslims or Jews or Christians or Buddhists that we are not warmongers. We cannot continue to dream that because we have not killed anyone that we are peacemakers. How many wars do we wage against our spirit daily as we cast blame against our inade-quacies, limitations and failures to measure up to arbitrary expectations? How often do we battle our divine heritage as we curse our physical, financial, familial or psychic conditions? Isn’t every atom of our existence made of the same God-Stuff? Until we are able to greet the Divine Spirit in every condition of existence and realize the gift of experience, we will not discover the peace living within us this very moment. War will never end from any cease-fire, but only from humanity experiencing the bliss of its Divine Existence.
That bliss is the power intrinsic to spirit. Those who seek bliss outside of their own being end up ever hungering for that power. Those who find the bliss within themselves are fulfilled. Never underestimate that power within you for within every individual is the power of the whole. Every vote counts. And we are not voting for a president or whether one political leader is better than another. The vote is this: To validate spirit or to invalidate it. The basic building block of the universe is a unit of our consciousness. What we see in the world is our collective consciousness made manifest. If we harbor wars within our own psyche, we produce war in the world. If we live in terror, we manifest terrorism around the globe. When we change our con-sciousness from one of invalidating or ignoring spirit to one of validation, we improve the conditions of our existence. The choice is always ours.
Today, each individual holds within his heart the swing-vote. One person does make a difference. Conditions of our daily existence—the weather, the economy, the job market—are becoming less and less predictable, more volatile. They rapidly reflect our changing votes: one moment we pray to God or meditate, the next moment we blame the government for our economic woes; one moment we lovingly care for a child and in the next moment we flog our neighbors with our resentment or prejudice. Ignorance fights blindly, yet with a unity of purpose: no matter what personal agendas the minions of darkness may hold, they all pledge their allegiance to invalidate the light of awareness, the only threat to their continuity. Thus, warmongers agree to a truce so that they can destroy their common enemy—the peacemakers. This unity of purpose is the only real power that the darkness of ignorance has had over those who pray for the light. If peace is to emerge from behind the shadow of ignorance, we who seek it must come together in an even greater unity of purpose. That unity will not be found in making others conform to our “better” ways or “right” ideals, but must be experienced individually as the oneness of our being. As we learn to respect and delight in the diversity of our ways and ideals, we must come to know the underlying oneness of our existence and source.
The time is now for each and every one of us to declare our independence in the oneness of spirit. We must realize the nature of spirit. That spirit is. That it is infinite, eternal and immortal. It is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. Let not the rumors of war, of economic ruin and of a reign of terror strip you of your right to know and to be true to your Divine Self. Tear yourself away from the hypnotic pull of myopic self-interests and turn your aware-ness to the whole that is the spirit of humanity. Claim your certainty in the One-ness that gives everything. Know the source of all miracles and the realization of all our dreams. Spirit is forever living, loving and true. Nothing can ever change that. When next the world tempts you with all that is more important in these challenging times, remember that.
Michael Tamura is the author of You Are the Answer: An Extraordinary Guide to Entering the Sacred Dance with Life and Fulfilling Your Soul Purpose, and is world-renowned for his wisdom as a spiritual teacher, healer and clairvoyant. Michael conducts spiritual self-healing seminars, lectures and retreats throughout the US and abroad, and can be reached at (530) 926-4976; tamuras@ix.netcom.com; 404 N. Mt. Shasta Blvd., PMB-138, Mt. Shasta, CA 96067; www.michaeltamura.com.
