“Communication is a by-product of a highly developed consciousness. To the degree development of spirit exists, the ability to communicate, to listen and express adequately and appropriately also exists. To the degree development is still impaired, the ability to communicate is limited. So you see innumerable people who cannot and will not even try to put into words what they really feel and think. They are too proud, or they demand from others to be understood without having to labor to make themselves understood. For it does require some labor. The ability to communicate is an art that can and, indeed, must be learned by everyone. It contains good will. It contains a positive intentionality and a will to cooperate.

“It is no coincidence that one of the major by-products of modern technology is communication. Even though this level of communication applies to outer events only, it has a tremendous impact on inner levels of humanity. In the first place, it brings people much closer together. In former times the sense of separateness was much greater because the distance between people, the lack of communication, created illusions in the minds that others are intrinsically different, alien, and therefore enemies to be distrusted. Seeing others being so similar when it comes to the basics of living, dying, suffering, longing eliminates much of illusion, fear, and enmity. It contributes to the ever growing unity.

“Even knowing what is going on in the world has an impact on spiritual growth. The sense of isolation that people lived in in former times contributed to separateness. It made your world appear too vast to encompass it. One’s own tragedies seemed unique, hence the sense of brotherhood and sisterhood was totally lacking. Today even the least spiritually inclined individuals experience your entire planet in an entirely different way in which much that was strange and different no longer exists. Even knowing the events that happen right now in a different corner of this earth has an impact on the soul’s development. So you see, my friends, technology is not in opposition to spiritual development and to the spiritual life although it is often being used that way — or rather abused. Therefore it is often seen that way.

“This serves again as an example of how everything in the universe and on this earth is intrinsically an expression of divine will and creation and can and should serve the great plan. It cannot be different, for nothing can be created that does not have its roots in the world of spirit. All demonic manifestations can only be distortions and misuses of divine creation. They can never have been self-creative.

“Communication is a most important by-product of advanced spiritual states. On more subtle levels this ability has also greatly improved over the last decades. The event of psychological approaches has created a greater awareness of self and therefore a greater ability to explain oneself, to express oneself to others, and thereby to communicate. You must imagine how, before this particular influx, human beings were completely in the dark about themselves, their feelings, their needs, their true reactions, let alone those of others. It was therefore impossible to create a bridge with another person in a significant way. It is similar with children now. A child does not really know that it knows it is hurt, lonely, that it needs more love or attention or understanding. If this awareness were articulate in the child, it would be a relatively small step to convey these feelings to another person. Without communication, you live in the dark, in a fog of confusion with yourself, and isolated from others. The Christ spirit represents exactly the opposite. It means the great light of awareness, of articulation, and of brotherhood.

“Obviously this means primarily communication with self, with inner levels of being that were inaccessible before. This must always be the groundwork. For you cannot convey, explain, and communicate that which you do not even know. So a path such as the one I guide you on must always be primarily concerned with self-knowledge, self-exploration. But it must never stop there. This is only the preliminary phase. The next organic step is the learning of the great art of communication. This requires thought, intentionality, practice, self-observation. It means giving up the state of being only half awake in which you unthinkingly take for granted that others should know. It means taking the effort to explain, to reach out, to search through the mazes of misunderstanding — patiently, lovingly. Here, like in everything else, practice leads to an increasingly more spontaneous and automatic ability to be outwardly what you have been only secretly and inwardly to yourself before, and to communicate this to others.

“Just use your imagination, and think about the enormous difference this makes in human communication. How often do you believe someone is mean to you when, in reality, this other person fears you and erroneously uses a coldness or rejecting attitude as a defense. Knowing this removes your fear, your false pride, your anger and may enable you to meet this person in an entirely different way that, in turn, will dissolve his/her negative defense that alienates others. So you see how communication brings souls together instead of creating fearful and therefore hating walls between humans. Communication is an intrinsic part of the good life.

“This art not only consists of that you attempt to explain yourself. It most definitely also includes the how. If you explain yourself in a way that implies blame and accusation, you only create a bigger wall. But if you attempt to explain yourself by simply conveying your own feelings and needs, your impressions and assumptions, without insisting that they be the truth, in a questioning, open spirit, then a true understanding can be reached. Clarity, light, truth will be established. Love and brotherhood are being fostered through the art, and craft, of learning how to communicate.

“How can your loneliness be assuaged unless you establish bridges with others? How can you ever lose your fear of people unless you truly expose the misconception that others want to be your enemy? And that cannot be achieved unless you go through the trouble of exploring yourself sufficiently so that you know what it is you really feel. How often do you believe what you feel is not at all what is really going on in you. And then you need to take the apparent risk of explaining yourself even if this can rarely be done in one simple stroke. It means a continuous dialogue full of good will and being willing to shed pride and your stake in being blaming. This is what communication means on an emotional level. And this will increasingly establish the great oneness among all human beings. It will increasingly remove fear and hate — hence war on large and small scales. In other words, this will contribute to bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.

“But there is yet a deeper level of communication at work of which you know nothing. This is a level that is still very obscure but that will reveal itself as clearly as those other levels I have now discussed, once you focus your attention and awareness to it. All interaction between human beings somehow conspires to contribute to the final aim: reconciliation, oneness, brotherhood, love, understanding, truth. Thus the most negative interaction between individuals serves this purpose in the final analysis.

“When two entities — individual or collective ones — are involved in a negative interaction and even if this interaction has a most undesirable result at the moment, a deeper purpose is being fulfilled. The higher self of both entities is always at work. It is not that the higher self has created the negative interaction per se. It is that what already exists is being used for the purpose of dissolving it. This dissolution and transformation of negative material could not possibly take place unless there is an outright manifestation. Even if the involved entities are totally in the dark about the part they themselves play in this interaction and are still on the level of self-righteous one-sidedness, a higher purpose is served nevertheless. How much more so when entities recognize the total truth of the interaction that may be hidden from their immediate view.

“So you can see, my friends, that underneath the lower self exchange, there simultaneously also exists a higher self exchange between the same entities in question. This is a very important new thought for you to contemplate. Just imagine: two people (or groups of people) are at war on the surface. They hate and accuse each other. They even wish each other the worst and want to harm each other. At the same time, on a deeper level, these entities agree. They know what occurs on the surface serves the common good, serves truth and love, serves their unity although their surface levels know nothing of this.

“When you work on this path profoundly to come to the truth of the issue when two of you are at odds with each other, you often experience a wonderful conciliation in which love unites the same two individuals who hated and accused each other before. You witness what I explained just now. On your earth sphere, in this dimension, the manifestation of conciliation happens in sequential time: first the hate, then the search for truth, then love and unity. On the deeper level of being, these sequences do not exist. The truth, love, and unity exist all the while.

“It is important for you to take this new vision into account. It will help you to perceive that there is no situation, no matter how hopelessly confused and negative it may appear, that does not simultaneously harbor its inner truth, love, and unity. Your understanding this fact will accelerate the conciliations on the level of sequential time so that enmity/search/truth/love/unity follow each other in ever quicker succession.

“Never forget, love, union with God and other people, is the result of communication. And communication is a result of serious effort, commitment to use your attention, your effort, your energies, to make yourself understood in the best possible way and to understand the other. For both purposes, you need to empty your mind of all preconceived ideas your lower self has a stake in retaining. You need to put aside enmity and distrust. You need to listen deeply and openly. You need to convince the other of your good will for the truth. You need to summon the maturity to realize that others do not know what you mean, feel, think, and want. You need to explain yourself on the deepest, most sincere way possible. In that way, there is no problem between you and others that cannot be resolved. What strength and self-esteem will grow from this, my friends!

“But you do need to sacrifice your pride, your stubbornness, your pleasure in having a case, your fear of finding out that you are wrong and bad. All this must be put aside. In that way you will greatly contribute to the ever growing flow of communication in your era that is unprecedented as compared to previous times. In that way you help herald an important aspect of the Christ consciousness — within yourself and others. You then truly become a servant of God’s plan. Desist from the temptation to keep yourself locked up in isolation and resentment. Equally desist from the temptation to accuse and to blame. Make yourself neutral, at least temporarily until you have the chance of finding out what the truth is. Do not fear this truth. It will be so liberating, it will let you off the hook of secret self-accusation as much as it will let others off the hook of your accusations although you may well find imperfections in both. However, these imperfections will have a new connotation that will free you of hurt and shame as well as of the need to put hurt and shame on others. “(PL #257)