They reached for their mobile phones and called their beloved, to say simply, “I love you”. No anger, incomprehension or blame at what was taking place. Only Love and the urgency of declaring it; because on this threshold there is only life, death and Love.
About the events of 11th September all are convinced of one thing: that the world is no longer the same place as it was. Many apparent certainties, yardsticks and parameters have been removed at a stroke. It is now ours to determine whether that day becomes for us a day of grief, the tombstone of our certainties; or a day of unveiling, opening up a far greater possibility for Mankind, of consciously stepping into the service of Love.
This is a new era and it is in this context that these multiple tragedies are to be viewed with largeness and clarity. In this new chapter in our evolution we are being shifted in our awareness of Reality and our relationship to It. 11th September 2001 was the day when the world woke up to the fact that this new chapter has already begun. At the same time, what this episode contains is not pre-fixed: it is in the making, at this moment, in the form of the choices that each person has to make.
These choices are reducible to a single choice from which no one can be excused; it is unavoidable. It is not a choice simply to be made by our elected leaders, because the playing field of this choice is not the global, geopolitical arena of exterior action. The real ground of choice is our own soul. We now have to choose to accept to become what and who we really are; or to refuse to change, to deny the grandeur of our reality. To stay the same is to remain with one’s own self idea, based upon otherness and separation, pride and fear; whereas to accept the change is to agree to be moved to an unlimited perspective founded upon Oneness of Existence and the unity of human consciousness. In this unity is to be found the reason why the choice of each person is of ultimate importance.
The opportunity offered to each of us is to be of service to Reality, to be of service to the Love that is the expressive movement of One Existence. Bulent Rauf, Consultant to the Beshara School from 1975-87, said, “real service is without the self being self-indulgent in serving people. It has to be completely without the mixation of the person into the service rendered. There was an example we used to use: if you find, in a very bad situation, a friend who needs a glass of water and you give him a glass of water, that’s not service; that is friendship. But if your enemy is on the ground and begs for a glass of water, and even before he begs, you give him a glass of water: that is service.”
Service is non-partisan and it makes no distinction between sectors and sections of humanity. Only such impartial service can adequately serve the unqualified Love of the Real and become Its heart, hands and feet here in this world. The Reality of Love is that there is only one need: the need for Oneness. When this is realised, we will all see the requirement to rebuild shattered ruins, re-house refugees and to love one’s enemy as oneself. As things are now, we are divided by our differences. Now is for building the bridges that will bring all humanity together under the banner of Universal Love. How can this come about? For Love it is not a difficult matter.
Many of those about to die in the multiple tragedies of 11th September were brought by those events to this immediate threshold of clear perception. On this doorstep, with no time for thought, was the certainty that they had only a few minutes to live; that these minutes had to be used wisely and exclusively for that which was truly essential. They reached for their mobile phones and called their beloved, to say simply, “I love you”. No anger, incomprehension or blame at what was taking place. Only Love and the urgency of declaring it; because on this threshold there is only life, death and Love. To die truly is to be stripped of irrelevancies and falsehood and to enter into our still centre with only that which belongs to it: affirmation and Love.
Death is a change of state, from this relative condition of existence that we call life into a state of delimited consciousness and which is the presence of Absolute Love. It is the Interior of everything and is with us always. It is our own interior, which was present before we were born and will be there when we die. It is the reality of our existence to which, if we are most blessed, we will awaken before we die; if not, when we die, when we cross over the doorstep into unconditioned Welcome.
Until we wake up to the Reality of Who, What and Where we are, it is for us to practise staying on the doorstep, as if we were about to die. Here there is only Love and Its affirmation; where all else, if there is anything else, is of very little consequence. There is no necessity of going back to ‘normal’ after these events. There is on the contrary the total requirement of stepping into service, towards the realisation of the Presence of Absolute Love, which even now holds all in Its own Being. This is the possibility for Mankind, which is offered to us now.