"My objective in creating this arena in cyberspace is to pool the wisdom of an underground of intelligence. I do this in the belief that shifting our paradigm – from outer-direction to inner-focus – could be a function of an alignment in thought, and that this alignment can be produced by cross-connecting my comments and yours." -Suzanne Taylor, Founder of Mighty Companions-

"Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts...they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric..."
Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Conversation Develops:

As you take part in The Conversation, your edited remarks will be added here. Let us know what you think!

"In a society built on prevention, rather than retaliation, there would be very little crime. The few exceptions would be treated medically, as of unsound mind and body."
Nisargadatta

With this horrific juxtaposition of the war in Yugoslavia and the slaughter in Colorado, we watch the standard operating procedure of countries resorting to war reflected in the actions of individuals. War cannot be an option. No matter what. Then what to do? Ah, there's the rub. No one has an acceptable answer.

Every leader of thought should be involved in dealing with this question. Let us flow energy in this channel. As energy flows, we create the world. Get the energy flow right. There is no satisfactory way to deal with what is occurring in the current continuum. Everything violent escalates, no matter what. Next will be metal detectors in schools. Force will be met by force, until we end up wiping ourselves out. It is ironic now that we are blowing ourselves up instead of attending to the unavoidable challenges to our survival that are at hand, from environmental polluting to the impending end of the world as we know it thanks to Y2K.

So, what to do? Stop all warring. Help those refugees. Lavish resources on those hapless people who are us. It is a One Life. Americans are still dancing in the streets. On the TV news networks we see the tragic events of the day on the top of our screen, as we watch the Dow at the bottom of our screen going up, up, up. Clinton has just been on TV declaiming domestic violence, as he is dropping bombs across the seas. These graphic signals pulsing before our eyes are calling attention to contradictions so great that the center cannot hold. It is not business as usual. But what else are we to do?

This is a plea for a council of wise ones. It needs to be called at the highest level. Have the Dalai Lama, Prince Charles, Nelson Mandela, Gorbachev, Vaclav Havel, Sai Baba, Mother Meera, Robert Thurman, Charles Tart, Terence McKenna, Huston Smith, Margaret Wheatley, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Andy Weil, Ken Wilber, Carolyn Myss, Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and others with fine minds and open hearts come to the table. Have meetings of wise ones in every locality. Put wisdom to work. Unite the force of the good. When no old idea will do, put joint attention on coming up with something wholly new.

It is heartening to hear that a Website is inviting teens to talk. Yes. What is it like to be in a generational reality of so much hopelessness? We need to hear how it is for them, to drive home what needs to be done. This is council also, which is the only methodology that our thinking species has. We need to look to one another to reset the patterns that are so devastating to us all.

I have one last thought about these kids in Colorado, whose childhood is over. Their criteria for satisfaction will be different now, where service to the greater good would be their salvation. They are mightily challenged, but who knows if they have been chosen. Maybe a greatness will come from them that will prevent such things from happening again. Their tragedy has created a receptivity for all of us to take more care of one another. Perhaps feeling our union will be the blessing that comes from such deep despair.


Links to Related Writings on This Subject:

Arrest the Real Trenchcoat Mafia, by Michael R. Allen

FROM: Daniel Bushnell, 4/24/99

Thanks for your thought-provoking "e-column."

Granted, these are tough events that wrench all connected hearts. And of course we are motivated to reach out and question "why?" May there not be much deeper reasons than just surface insanity? Deep currents of unresolved thought and feeling and belief-patterns, that tug at the Soul of Earth itself? This might be plausible in the case of Yugoslavia, where the darkness is so widespread.

If so, perhaps the strongest medicine for change might be found in prayer, in transmutation on a group level, in invoking the Highest Light to shine in all corners, visible and otherwise. To link our minds with the One Mind and offer our hearts and life energies to bring in sufficient Grace to neutralize these dark seeds at a transpersonal level. All the while, of course, doing our best to alleviate suffering and teach compassion on a very human level.

Could Colorado be a case of evil thought currents finding a doorway left open by poor parenting and lack of nurturing? Or would you assume there are no accidents and all parts of this tragic event unfolded as planned?

How do you feel about the viewpoint of Arnold Patent, who said that "The only way all crime and violence will vanish from the earth is when there are no more victims" (or, belief-patterns or seeds that might invite a violent response)? It seems a harsh point of view – but is there truth in it? And if so, how do we as a group approach the transmutation of Earth's subconscious?

It seems that now, as always, the great agent of transmutation is LOVE. And when applied as a group, for the group, with strong focus and dynamic intent, miracles can and do occur!

FROM: George Snoddy, 4/24/99

Yes, the tragedy in Colorado is bad, but this is part of our evolution. This tragedy is a wake-up call to Americans. We've been getting quite a few of these in the last couple of years. We flaunt our Christianity to the world, wearing it on the outside as a badge of honor, but all the world knows we are the most violent society on the planet. We seem to be a mix of good and evil. We will bomb you into submission; then rebuild you.

As Gary Zukav says, we are evolving into beings of a higher order of logic and understanding, but the masses in this country just aren't there yet. The soul of America is sending messages to the external consciousness of America that we are violent and need to re-examine our core belief system. Our quest for external power and extreme materialism is poison to the soul. I agree with you that it is time for the wise ones to step forward, but we the people have to call for it and I don't hear us doing it yet. The politicians don't have a clue. One said, see, we need more security in schools. Another said we need more gun control. These are external fixes that don't deal with the real problem which is we are SICK in our souls.

We are a sick society and this tragedy is just a symptom of the disease. Doctors in this country practice medicine exactly the same way – let's bomb the virus out of existence with antibiotics. They even design these drugs like cluster bombs with time releases exactly the way we are bombing Kosovo. Disease should be treated with nutrition. We need to learn how to "nurture" the body with healthy food so it won't get sick. Nurture not bombs, love not hate.

For those of us who are perhaps a little more enlightened and would never do the things we see on television, perhaps this is a call for us to share our wisdom. Perhaps it is time for us to be more vocal. Personally, I will have an ad in the newspaper coming out next week advertising a "New Thought" study group teaching the wisdom of some of the people whom you mentioned in your piece.

I know I will get a lot of hate calls, especially from the church goers. Hate is the first response of those who still practice fear. I am going to teach love and enlightenment and how to start thinking like the creators we are instead of the fearful shadows we have been.

I have recently become more united with my soul, that holy child that I forgot about when I was four years old. I feel that this holy golden child is what we all need to remember. We became all the professions we see in America today, but we lost our souls. What gaineth a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul? My holy golden child soul came to this planet to teach love and to create Utopia. My external personality took over, however, and I lost consciousness for 40 years, but now I am awake. I have named my soul Utopia, for that is what I am – and what you are – and even what those two boys are who did that terrible thing. Too bad they allowed their runaway personalities to get out of hand, but it's just our alarm clock going off. Time to wake up.

May we all remember the light of our souls.

George Replies to Suzanne, 4/25/99

I wish I knew the answers to these questions: How? When? Where? I am currently looking for land here in Kentucky, but have not found exactly what I am looking for. Right now I am just taking it one day at a time and letting it unfold.

I believe that the system of this world hammers the innocence out of us and drives us out of our soul homes. We develop personality mechanisms to counter the pain around us and we get caught up in it and forget who we are. We start living false lives, but the emptiness makes us always look for completion. We look for others to complete us and they can't because the truth is, only we can complete ourselves. This is part of the teaching we need in our society to stop the madness we are seeing in our schools. The children are lost and they are telling us how lost and desperate they are. The industrialized world has turned us into hardened materialists instead of the warm, loving creatures of light we are within. I think we will build Utopian cities in the future, and hopefully people like you and I and others we know get to be pioneers.

Wanna hear a cosmic joke? One day I was searching within myself, praying, talking to myself, and I started to channel some information. I was told I was a bridge from one dispensation to the next. I knew this had to do with not accepting the world the way it is and changing it. A few days later I remembered my grandfather had named me after the ticket collector on a toll bridge between Ohio and Kentucky. Only a dysfunctional family like mine would name their child after a stranger, but I did at last get the cosmic joke.

George Replies to Suzanne, 4/29/99

Thank you for your beautiful words. I agree with you completely. We can never get it until we realize that we are it. Getting the story right as you said means understanding that the external personality is like a junkie always looking for the next fix. The personality is a temporary structure that will one day be laid aside but whose memories will live on forever in the mind of the Soul. I feel like I am still only partially awake, aware of the soul and its agendas, yet like you I still long to be with others who also "get it" to some degree. There are many of us on the planet now who are starting to wake up but they are still far too few. When I talk to those who are still pushing forward inside their external personalities I want so desperately to help them get it but they have to grow to this awareness just like we did. I am starting to be more open about my spirituality now though because I realized if we in fact are just a little more awake then others then it is our duty to share openly with whoever will listen but being respectful, of course, of their beliefs. Here in the heart of the bible belt, I have suffered much with my belief in Christian Reincarnation. Now I am ready to be even more open, avoiding those who are happy in their Baptist churches but appealing to those who are perhaps sitting in their homes, feeling alone, like me.

I am still searching for land suitable for sustaining a small cluster of "new thought" believers. The idea is kind of scary because you know how we humans are, volatile, always blowing up at each other and ruining our chances of success. I therefore want to find people who are somewhat enlightened who can live together in peace.

George replies to Suzanne, 5/7/99:

I was born here in Kentucky, and there was a time when I was not so different as most of the religious folks here. Now I am like a fish out of water, so we'll just have to wait and see what develops. I do feel a desire to connect with others of "like vibration," so I may have to move at some point. I am thinking about going to Mt. Shasta to spend a week with Gary Zukav and friends in July/Aug. I hope to get my batteries charged. For now I will have to sustain myself with communications with people such as you.

I agree with you, I need to find very enlightened people to be with. I guess I was compromising when I said "somewhat" enlightened. I have wanted to meet very enlightened people for years but for some reason it never happens. I think that my soul has put me in seclusion perhaps to force me to look internally instead of externally for a teacher. I know I have made slow progress over the last few years but I have grown through it all.

FROM: Kynthia, 4/27/99

Suzanne, I welcomed your message and agree its time for another option. I confess though, that I was shocked that you put Prince Charles in this group of conscious beings. I had to resist the temptation to stop reading right there.

I do believe this is a crisis of spirit and welcome our Unity.

Kynthia replies to Suzanne, 5/11/99:

I've heard rumors of sinister participation from the royal family for a New World Order (a wisdom council for the world could place him exactly where he wants to be) and. Also David Icke is convinced that the royal family is not what they appear to be and definitely not to be trusted (you can listen to him on Jeff Rense's Real Audio archives. I can't confirm any of this from personal observation, however. On a personal note, I always felt the way Prince Charles handled himself with Diana was FAR from enlightened. While I do not condemn him for human weaknesses, nevertheless these qualities are in no way wise or admirable. He degraded his position and put himself ahead of the well being of his children. The only information I ever see on him is sleazy gossip. I never hear of any humanitarian efforts. I could simply be uninformed, I honestly don't think he's developed that side. There are those that say the royal family is bound by some strange code where they must balance an evil deed with a good one – more soap opera. It would be refreshing to see another side of him.

I was also repulsed to see Charles 's name in the same sentence with Sai Baba, the Dalai Lama, Mother Meera. We are all of the Divine Fabric, yes, but are we all Conscious of it? NO!

As for Sai Baba, He is beyond a "great thinker," no longer trapped in the illusions of the mortal mind, so I really don't even imagine Him as part of a discussion, but rather the Listener and Witness for the Human Heart and The Conscious Avatar able to play with Lela for the Divine Play.

I see all these events as the catalyst to awaken Our One Heart. So whether it's the slaughter of innocent refugees or high school children, there is a larger picture in which they are redeemed, and important players are so necessary for us to be motivated to take action. God Bless them all. I am not suggesting that the victims of these tragedies are pawns, but rather willing martyrs before they enter this life, knowing that their sacrifice will bring about the greater good and ultimate PEACE for all. It is our grief over the loss of these loved ones that is such a powerful flame for transformation.

FROM: Ilene Cummings, 4/27/99

Thank you Suzanne....yes, call a council of thinkers. Include Andrew Harvey PLEASE, although Mother Meera would throw a fit. My heart is heavy for the two boys who enjoined the slaughter also. And yes, what mixed messages we send young people. Yes, teens have always been lonely and anxious, it is part of teen hood. However, NEVER have teens had the visual representation of evil shoved into their faces everyday. Oh, yes, a call to the table!!!!! What are some of those folks you mentioned saying? I trust they are looking for answers and able to use their celebrity to foster something constructive.