Paying attention has been a most important practice for my expansion. Fundamentally, it is a matter of paying attention to feelings. Although as we commonly understand it, I would say that we are paying attention to both our thoughts and our feelings.

Ultimately, we are divine. It is this fundamental awareness – knowing that this is the truth of who we are - that propels our discovery of self, the discovery of our divinity. As we pay attention, we allow ourselves to reveal that which defines us. And so in our lives, in our interactions and our relationships, it’s important to pay attention in very moment to what we are feeling. There are a great range of feelings and emotions that we express in life. And almost every single one of us experiences fear. Some more than others. The individual who has not revealed his divinity to himself still resides in fear. This may be a difficult reality to accept, but it is true. Fear is the cause of our ignorance.

Put very simply, people find it very difficult to accept their own individual magnificence. If you are truly divine – truly wise, brilliant, loving, compassionate, worthy of all abundance and fully aware of the same glorious divinity in all others – then you must accept that all that you have been, all that you have felt, thought and done, is part of that same magnificence. But how can this be so? For deep within our being we know we hold harsh judgments. Consider your feelings for the liar, the thief, the abuser, the rapist and the slayer. Consider your feelings for all those in our midst and in our history who manipulate others through depression, violence, denial of divinity, hoarding of wealth, exertion of control and profession of spiritual supremacy.

Your greatest fear is that you are as powerful and as magnificent as I say you are.

Everything that exists in this world is intimately connected to the totality of who you are. In your many life experiences, you have been each of these terribly wonderful things. It is only in your own minds that you judge them to be terrible. In truth, they are all wonderful. They all serve to enrich the individual - and humanity at large - in the knowledge of the full range of life experience upon this plane. How is it that God may know in his infinite wisdom all that resides within the heart of mankind? Because he has entered each of these hearts and understood. God is not the vengeful, judgmental, authoritarian deity that humankind has come to perceive. That is simply what God is understood to be from the perspective of the vast majority of humanity who have not yet opened up their hearts to experience compassion.

Humanity’s expansion into the full discovery of their divinity necessitates an embrace of all of mankind. For as you can begin to allow yourself to look upon all others with compassion, then you open yourself to embracing yourself with compassion. And the truth of the multiplicity of yourself is no less multifaceted than you perceive the diversity of humanity to be. Forgive yourself for your sadness, your grief, your loneliness, your anger, your aggression, your insensitivity, your recklessness, your misery, your suffering.

Your greatest fear is that you are as powerful and as magnificent as I say you are. For if this is so, then how is it that you could have said and done the things you have said and done in your life? How is this possible if you are divine in nature? And if it is true, then how can you possibly be forgiven for having been so unconscious about your true nature? How can you right your wrongs and atone for all of your dark thoughts and unloving actions?

It is important to understand this fundamental fear of which I write. You fear knowledge of your magnificence because it will lead you to look within and reveal to yourself everything that you are and have been that you would judge to be contrary to that magnificence. Because you experience life within a paradigm of right and wrong, good and bad, your fear is the great fear of self-judgment, of self-condemnation. I am here to tell you that judgment is a man-made construct. It resides within your holy texts because those portions of those texts were interpreted by your holy men at times when they were not pure in heart. Judgment, as you have come to know it, has no bearing on your eternal soul or on the question of suffering God’s wrath. There is no such thing as God’s wrath. So look within and allow all that you have judged in life to surface. For as you look within, these judgments will arise as secret judgments of self that you have held within your own heart. And these are now to be forgiven.

I will offer an illustration, an example that will help you to comprehend what I am conveying. Everyone’s experience will be unique, but I am using this illustration to express how one may face an opportunity for expansion and transformation. I will speak to you here as if you are the illustration I am narrating. Let us assume that you are discovering a deep-seeded resentment and anger towards those in your life who have held you down, restricted your freedom and silenced your voice. I will start by reminding you that this has all been your own creation. Somewhere in time you had an experience that imprinted you with a fear of expressing your truth or your freedom. Perhaps you were witness to the horrific slaying of a person dear to your heart, one who was outspoken and wise. This experience may have tragically shattered your faith in mankind resulting in lifetimes of fearing the result of your own freedom and outspokenness.

So look beyond the frustration you have of those in your life today who suppress you. Instead, bless them! For they are part of the brilliant orchestration of your own evolution. At the level of your capstone, you have deemed yourself worthy of being free – and you have recognized your readiness. And so you have welcomed these relationships into your life to serve as triggers for moving beyond lifetimes of self-diminishment, triggers that will cause you to recognize that you have had enough of your fear. As you look more honestly at your present experience of life, you come to see that you allowed these relationships to form and prevail. They were like a security blanket to you, providing you with the false sense of safety that you felt you needed. And as you now recognize that this is not who you choose to be anymore, that you wish to express your own truth, you wish to make your own choices in life, you wish to feel free, then keep in the forefront of your mind that those with whom you have felt anger and resentment are not the oppressors you have deemed them to be. They have simply carried out their roles in your brilliant play. You might even find that they have perceived their actions to be quite noble, taking care of someone who they felt was incapable of caring for themselves. So be careful not to hold them in contempt.

Know that you will feel like a volcano ready to erupt as you go through this significant expansion. Because you have been suppressing yourself for so long, perhaps many lifetimes, your new sense of freedom will bring about a reaction to the many restricting forces and individuals you have knit into your life. There will arise numerous situations that will reflect to you the truth of who you have been and you will feel a great energy rise within you that will express, ‘No more! Do not speak down to me anymore! Do not suppress me any longer! Let me speak! Let me say what it is I have to say! Let me make up my own mind! Stop treating me with such disregard and disrespect!’ I will advise you to allow this volcano to erupt. The energy that will spew forth will cleanse your being of all the stale forces of self-diminishment and the self-imposed forces of fear that have defined you for so long. And as this energy clears itself from your being, much else that has attached itself to this dynamic will also be cleared. You will release yourself of much of that which no longer defines you.

I will further advise you to be careful not to erupt violently. Remember: others are not to be judged here, in the same way that you are not to step into self-judgment and self-loathing for the lifetimes and lifetimes of such experiences that you have created. Forgive yourself in the moment for all that has been. And recognize that this is not who you are anymore. Forgive yourself quickly and gently. And then allow yourself to change. It will take time, as there is much to cleanse from your being. But be patient. So erupt as you must, but do not erupt with hostility. You will find yourself reacting to your old situations and relationships. But do so peacefully, boldly and clearly, taking time to calm yourself if necessary. Say what must be said. ‘I am not willing to be silenced anymore. I wish to make my choices for myself. Please don’t treat me in such and such a manner.’ And so on. Be calm and clear and persistent. And allow the energy of your erupting volcano to be behind these words. For as much as you are reinforcing to others that you are changed, more importantly you are reprogramming yourself in the new image of self you have discovered.

Remember that at this stage of your evolution, it is about you. So do not be too concerned with how others respond and react to your changes, that is theirs to deal with – as long as you are careful not to lash out and descend into judgment of others for how they have treated you. Be focused on your own magnificent discovery of self and continue to pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. Many of them will be new, so pay attention. And as I described, with your eruption will come a cleansing of more than you have even perceived.

You will realize that everything that you have been – regardless of how you may have perceived them in past judgments – is integral to the totality of you.

Know also that this energy of transformation will act as the energy of propulsion, propelling you to even more grand discoveries of self. Forgive yourself quickly, judge not yourself or others, pay attention to your thoughts and feelings, trust that your capstone is guiding your course and you will find yourself in a remarkable spiral of ever-expanding brilliance. This is the path to discovering your divinity.

A remarkable thing happens when you pay attention to the transformations in your life: You cease judgment. As you recognize that you can easily and immediately forgive yourself for all of your thoughts, feelings and behaviors that reflected only insignificance back to you, then you are left in a state of surrender. This is not an empty state. This is a state that is filled with trust and hope. And if you have seeded yourself with the awareness of what you truly are – a divine, creative being – then you can begin to truly grasp what it is to be that divine human being.

You will realize that everything that you have been – regardless of how you may have perceived them in past judgments – is integral to the totality of you. So your experiences as a tyrant, as a victim, as a beggar each are equally as important as your experiences as a lover, as a mystic and as a saint. And the same applies to your lifetimes as musicians, royalty, clergy, farmers, soldiers and prostitutes. Each has had its own wealth of experience that with open-hearted reflection can yield great wisdom. This is the essence of our purpose in expansion – to integrate the multiplicity of all the we have been and all that we have experienced into a wholeness of self.

Imagine, if you will, a state of wholeness, wisdom and amusement at knowing the full spectrum of all of life’s experience from the perspective of embracing your profound divine connection with both the source of all that is and every other life expression that emerges from our source. This state of being is the capstone of your pyramid. Now imagine living your life with your unique personality and humanity intact but also in complete residence of your capstone. How remarkable would your life be? Is this not a worthy goal? I tell you, it is. In this state, the full loving, compassionate, creative force that is you is seasoned with the wisdom of ages and experiences that transcend the finite. And you express as the magnificent divine being that you are, pursuing whatever creative impulses move through you and following a course in life that is consciously co-created between your divine capstone linked to source and the divine expression that is you in this lifetime. This is your ultimate purpose for being. This is the promise to humanity. This is the culmination of our common evolution. And this is the potential available to all in this remarkable age and time.