What is truth but the unity of all things? There is to be observed a common destiny in all of creation, a direction that is taking this universe irrespective of individual ambitions and desires, fate, as the ancients called it. But they could only conceive of a sort of pre-programmed course that each life and thus the collective whole should follow. Truth is far more.

Is there not a consciousness among all people of good and evil? As soon as we recognize this consciousness must we not also recognize that not all agree as to what qualifies as good and what qualifies as evil? We go about our lives using these terms under the assumption that those around us will know what we mean, for in a given culture most people will generally agree on what is accepted as good and what is regarded as evil. The conflict comes when two cultures collide.

Sometimes this happens in a microcosm, that is, a smaller sample of culture. The family is a good example. Two people marry, combining their lives and futures and dreams and binding them to each other. What becomes apparent with time is that what one partner sees as ‘reasonable’ or even ‘good’ is not exactly the view of the other. Here we have two people who both agree that there is distinct good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, but do not agree exactly on what the distinction is.

The same is at work when two religions or countries rub shoulders. This is what we observe today in the conflict between the West and the Arab world. Not only is there a difference in values, but we have one side claiming to have divine appointment to kill masses of people, while the other sees this as unequivocal evil. What to think?

The irony is that both sides are expressing a common spirituality. The one who kills is acting in outrage over views and cultural practices that are grossly offensive to God, and thus immoral. The individual is seen not as the highest dignity to be spared at all expense. Rather God is seen as the only ultimate value and all else stands or falls based on how it measures up to this standard.

The other side has a foundational value for the protection of human life. This is the overarching and absolute. (The only exception to this is when the taking of human life should somehow prevent an even greater loss of life–a position hard to define and thus the cause of much debate.)

However the common spiritual truth to be observed is that there is a standard that is above the individual. We have in us a consciousness of something so much larger and more important than just the self. And yet it is often in looking deeper in the self that we become more aware of this spirituality.

Why is this? There is in each person the knowledge of their dependence on the greater spirit that is collectively in all of us; we are inextricably bound to one another in common destiny. But what is that destiny?

Who has achieved perfect harmony? Where is to be found supreme peace? There are many sages who teach us of the path to inner peace, and many of these achieve a great degree of outward calm. Have you?

To truly exist to the fullest, to live to the fullest, one must be in perfect harmony both with oneself and with the world. For when there is discord there is not absolute being. And when one truly is in harmony with absolute being then one is at peace, for then one is where one is created to be. A person can write of such things, for she knows it to be possible, that perfect harmony and unity with all of being is what is intended, and since she has experienced a glimpse at this purpose she can write as much for the benefit of others.

But is it completely realized in her life, and more importantly, in her relationships? For that is where the rubber meets the road.

There is a common knowledge of perfect being. It is there, we know it. We need look no farther than our own heart in those quiet moments. Why does life not seem perfect? Why are you not content with the pain you have experienced in this life? Why do you not rather conclude that this is the way things are meant to be, and so they must be good? Every bone in our body screams out against this conclusion, does it not? And for good reason! There is a void in your heart that is a divine appointment. It is by this space that everything in this world is judged as inadequate to fulfill. Nothing goes. Many things promise such a perfect fit at first; marriage, wealth, meditation, health, but after trying these things have you come to the end of your search and found your peace?

Some would tell us that it’s in ourselves. But is not the void in ourselves? How then can the peace that fills the void be in our selves? Many have been successful in giving us momentary relief of the cries of ache that come from this empty void by teaching us to be silent. This is indeed a good thing, to be silent. It is an essential character of the thing the experience that fills the void. So if one can for a moment shut out all else in life and be silent, then the void too can be almost unnoticeable.

But this is a cruel deception, for life is not sitting still. Life is relationships, and as soon as we get back to real life and rub noses with our fellow humans, the ache is back. So the experience that fills the void must also be a relationship, and a perfect one.

Is there then the power in us? There is certainly the indication of what should be, there is the voice that screams “Peace exists!” There is the groan of the heart that longs for that something, but it remains as yet elusive and out of reach.

Wretched selves that we are! Who will deliver us from these bodies of death? Pessimistic you say? You tell me. Is there eternal life to be seen. I don’t mean an idea of it that you cling to and hope to experience after you die. No, there certainly is that, but do you have the peace that is divine and essentially eternal in you? For it has spoken and its call has gone out to all humanity:

The perfect self has become a man and gives himself to you. The power that bore you into existence, the ultimate being, is not austere fate, but it is personal, it is love. We all are personal and act according to personal relationships, that human energy that works in us all is not from nothing, but from the personal and relational being that brought about the existence of all things. It is his calling card that you see in yourself every time you find that moment of solitude, when the rest of the world fades into the background.

But the calling card is not him! No, he has made himself known so that you may know him. Perfect harmony became a man and in his very body there was perfect peace between the eternal human consciousness and the divine knowledge that bore it.

This divine knowledge is not static; that is, it doesn’t just sit there and say “know me.” This perfect harmony is a relationship that gives of itself in love to the fullest.

This is the only way. Think of this: what you need is to be in harmony with all existence. You are finite. So it would not seem possible to make yourself, who are finite, to become in harmony with all existence and then experience absolute being.

But what if harmony is in the self. Not yourself, because in the discord of your soul you have lost the power to resurrect your own being. After all, is it not absurd to think of someone raising themselves from the dead? But not if one is already the absolute being, then he would be resurrection and life