World Change Begins Within

MOST OF MY life I believed external forces — luck, God’s wrath, other people and social institutions — caused my victim circumstances. When I wanted to change my life or society, I thought external forces had to be changed first to make a better me, as well as a better world. Eventually, I evolved and become aware that the first thing I needed to change was myself, especially my ego self. I learned that I was the problem, but I was also the solution. If I’m filled with divine love and do what’s good for all, these powerful actions will also raise the collective consciousness of the world.

My parents had a secular view of life, and I shared their victim consciousness concerning the evasive force of luck. When I was 8 or 9 years old, my mother, brothers and I visited my grandmother’s apartment. I stood next to my mother in the kitchen listening to her talk to grandma, who was sitting on a maroon cushion that looked too large for a kitchen chair.

I asked, “Why is your cushion so big, Grandma?”

“It’s filled with horse manure. I’m sitting on it so I’ll have good luck for bingo tonight.”

“Are you going to take it to bingo?”

“Sure am. It’s going to win me a lot of money.”

“How did you get manure in it? Wasn’t it sloppy and stinky?”

“It’s dried manure, honey, but you have to make sure it’s horse manure and not from cows. I know another woman who does this, and she’s always lucky at bingo.”

Changing myself, the force of luck, or the external world seemed next to impossible for me. When I became a teenager and joined the Methodist church, I learned that God was wrathful, and that became another source of victimization.

I attended West Virginia Wesleyan College to be a minister and took a New Testament class that challenged my belief about the Bible being the actual written word of God. I learned that the inspired people who wrote the Bible used stories that had been told for some 70 years after the death of Jesus, and they also included their cultural beliefs, such as the subordination of women. This new information confused me, and it took me several years before I accepted the liberal interpretation of the Bible.

I changed from faith-based to evidence-based beliefs, and from salvation-based to social-based religion, because I wanted peace and justice to flourish here on earth. My social religious beliefs eventually expanded to include nonviolence as a way to change social institutions.

However, my focus of what needed to be changed was still directed outward, toward other people and social institutions, rather than inward toward myself.

To be with others who believed in nonviolence, I joined the Quakers after graduating from college. I admired early Quakers who based their pacifism on direct experience of the inner peace they found within. When I attended my first Quaker meeting, I was told by one of its members, “We no longer do that anymore. Our pacifist life is based more on reasoning and beliefs than inner experiences.” It was discouraging to hear him say that, but he was an honest Quaker.

After 10 years being a Quaker and trying to find the inner peace that allowed early Quakers to live their lives in peace, an inner feeling of emptiness prodded me to find another path. I wasn’t fully aware at the time that I had gone through a shift in consciousness. I started to realize that changing the world began first with me making changes within. Good-for-all social changes originate from within, rather than from without.

Influenced by my wife, I started reading Edgar Cayce and studied Eastern religions to find a way to directly experience the peace, love, joy and wisdom of oneness from within. I wanted to fill myself with these spiritual qualities. This desire led me to various Eastern groups that supported my desire to become responsible for changing myself and being more spiritual.

Eventually, I settled on a path of self-mastery to experience spiritual oneness and stopped seeking membership in religious groups. I wanted to consciously direct my destiny with love, as well as help change a world filled with ego conflicts, polarizations, intolerance, greed, fear and unhappiness.

Eckhart Tolle became my primary motivator for experiencing oneness. I began to fully realize that if I changed myself first and filled my life and relationships with the divine love flowing from within, my changed consciousness and its effect on the collective consciousness would help make the world a better place, too. If I truly lived with the creative power of love in my personal relationships, I would also help change the world.

The Kyron books by Lee Carroll also helped make me aware that I was very important in helping to raise the collective spiritual energy vibrations of the world. I began to realize that the spiritual level of the world was indeed improving. Scientific evidence, especially at the quantum level, confirmed that the power of thoughts and consciousness impacted the external world. I knew that by consciously changing my thoughts and feelings, and practicing visualizations to do loving acts, I could help change the world.

We all have this power of co-creating with the Divine, and when used consciously and for the good of all, it will create the Age of Love that souls have desired for centuries.

If you want to help change the world, start first by changing yourself to be a more loving person in all of your personal relationships. Ask the Divine, “What small step can I take today to be more loving?” Then commit yourself to listening to Divine guidance from within. World change definitely begins with me, and the world is in great need of all of our gifts of love.

For thousands of years, the message of love that Jesus and other highly evolved souls taught has not taken root in our consciousness and actions. It is now time for you to consciously choose and commit to the creative power of love to create a happier and more peaceful personal life, as well as to make the world a better place to live.

World change begins within you. Are you consciously co-creating more loving relationships to improve the collective consciousness?