This world is governed, at present, by a host of unconscious forces whose unseen influences — acting upon a mind asleep to itself and the presence (and real purpose) of these forces — cause us to act against ourselves, our own best interests, and in so doing, leave us with little choice but to act against our “neighbor”… be this the person on the street we don’t know other than through judging him or her, or even against family members we purportedly love.

This divided state of self is incapable of reconciling itself. The ensuing conflict creates pain that, in turn, creates confusion; confusion drives the cycle of conflict; and relentless conflict crushes the possibility of love.

All spiritual healing begins with learning forgiveness; and to forgive others (and ourselves) begins, strangely enough, with discovering our own helplessness in the face of these forces that turn us inside out at will.

But we have with us another order of being that is to these dark forces what the light of the sun is to the night it replaces so effortlessly. Our task, the work of any who would be free, is to awaken to this possibility by fully exploring the impossibility of “lighting our own way,” i.e., possessing ourselves through popular means: power, possessions, and blaming others for our failure to make real an imagined self.

There is a way; there is a Love and Light that can make even the darkest night dawn into whole a new day.