Thom Swain

PREFACE

 

The magnificence of Creation is overshadowed only by that which Creation is becoming. Whether disassociated elemental energies converging in deep space, or evolving freewill beings building civilizations – nothing’s what it’s going to be. The glorious Truth of the present moment is forever a prelude to that which will be. And what will be…always is…forever new.

As our civilization enters the beginning of a new millennium, how benefited we are by many material and technological advantages. Yet, consciously or not, we are also affected by adverse side effects of these same benefits. Exploding population growth, ecological deterioration, relentless and stress-filled competition are some of the more familiar. Many persons believe that an epochal worldwide crisis looms just ahead resulting from these effects.

As the associated pressures of fear, cynicism, indifference, and rage combine with the competitive personal motivations to ‘get ahead,’ inter-personal values seem less and less important. But is this truly so? The image/perception-makers of our world, i.e. media, government, industry, and commerce (and there are others) seem to predominately focus on and even exacerbate the divisive factors in our civilization. Surely, many of us have become conditioned participants of the effects created by these image makers. Is this how we as individuals and as society best evolve a civilization?

Beyond all these indirect and anxious perceptions of other people, please consider how you have fared within the majority of your directly inter-personal experiences. I believe that simmering within each of us is at least a latent belief in the goodness of others. My career and life avocation experiences have brought me in direct interaction with many tens of thousands of fellow human beings. I will tell you that the overwhelming majority of these people revealed to me an underlying goodness. When greeted with mutual, respectful, non-threatening pre-conceptions, the goodness in their hearts erupts into their words and actions. It is only when, frustrated by the endless compromises inherent within our very complex society, that ‘good hearts’ make poor choices. Harsh words, revengeful thoughts, and violence ensue. Such is the means by which fear and inequity are perpetuated in our communal lives.

If you somehow knew though that a supreme decision, a choice that only you could make, would uplift and forever elevate the course of human evolution away from fear and war, would you make that choice? I dare say most if not all reading this would answer “yes!” A fundamental premise of this book is that every human being has the potential to make such a decision. However, inter-personal competition is so ingrained in all levels of our culture that most individuals probably doubt that they could have such an influence by a decision they alone would make.

But this decision does not reveal itself to us in a context of any competitive relationships. Its full potential is only revealed in a context of non-competitive mutuality. But how difficult it is to find any relationship in the world these days that is not competitive to some degree! There is however, one such context, which is an unqualifiedly non-competitive relationship. That relationship exists within – in the inner being of all persons. It is a relationship based exclusively on a profoundly personal mutuality. This inner relationship is between each one of us and God; between God and each of us…His children. All human beings are children of God, but the realization of this Truth is a matter of personal choice.

The most important decision any of God’s children can make is to recognize the existence of this interior relationship with Him, this sublime mutuality that bridges man with Divinity. No one can force you to choose this realization. That is its mysterious nature; it must be freely chosen by each of us in order to fully realize what it implies. Nor can anyone stand between God and any of His children, for the Truth of this relationship is unassailable. Once the profundity of this Truth is embraced by us, the next issue we are confronted with is – so what are you going to do about this realization?

This book is about the Family of Man and its larger context within the Family of God. The only other relationship in human experience that approaches a similar level of intimacy as exists between each of us and God (at least ideally) is that which exists between human parent and child. Again, I speak here of the ideal, realizing that rampant sad conditions in this world are the very evidence of the absence of this ideal as a universal reality in the human parent/child relationship. Yet in its purest form, the love of a parent for the child is the nearest in human experience to unconditional love.

At the outset let me say that within this context, one ‘Family’ cannot be fully appreciated without correspondence to the other. The Family of Man and the Family of God are One.



Quoting Zao:

“How may I live this moment wise? How may I lead by action skilled, and beyond all doubt?”

“Standing calm, I raise the mighty lens of my Freewill. With this Tool I gather all Past Views and Future Visions, which bend the Light of Now. In focus, I aim these Rays upon my Path, for Illumination I will surly need. How clear this Light, how fair its Imaged View! Moving forward, It greets me in this Moment, while Reflected Rays shine from all Experience Past. They mix, entwine, these Destiny Beams, onward leading, as having truly served all my steps before!”

“They’ve lead me here – to be with you. Pause my Friend, my Brother, my Sister, and in this Light join with me. Let us proceed without a care, without regard…as Destiny arrives Forever New…again…and again…”