Dear Pogue,

Well you came out from under the covers for the last post and responded with four questions! Pogue was in the House!

On its own each question could fuel a book I’m thinking but lets give them a try here and now. Be rude not to, are we agreed?

Let’s start by reminding ourselves that the last letter was all about finding a spiritual solution to the worlds problems and this would commence with people’s hearts, meaning their thoughts, their attitudes, their belief patterns. No small thing, ehh? But that is exactly what it will take to change the world, save the enviroment, eradicate poverty, make skin colour irrelevant and all that good stuff that you and I and a few others long for.

So your first question is: “What do (I) mean by changing someones heart?”

Really good question. I guess I’m talking about a ‘make over’. It’s about what happens inside of us when we are faced with issues such as climate change, or rough sleepers, maybe different religious views or dare I say, matters of skin colour. You know the reaction on the inside is invariably what manifests on the outside or, if we have enough prescience to be able to surpress it, it becomes the thing that gnaws away at us on the inside and seeks to provoke reaction, bubbling away under the surface, an ever present force waiting to break out. And this, often referred to as the heart, is what needs changing. It needs to flip 180 degrees. It needs to respond in concern for others and the world, in empathy with a yearning to elleviate the hurt. When hearts are changed, well this becomes a natural reaction.

When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

Alexander Den Heijer

You know how GPS works? Well think of it as a GPS system on a boat that is currently steering the boat in a certain direction but when we reset the coordinates the boat turns about . If the boat is redirected manually the GPS will turn it back as soon as the manual intervention is over. The GPS must be reset for lasting change.

Can we change our own hearts? I’m thinking yes but it’s not easy. It would be an act of discipline. Of seeking out alternate knowledge to that which we have already consumed and doing so on a daily basis. It will take time to re-educate ourselves. Then even when we have walked the course we are like the alcoholic who is now 100 days dry but always conscious of the danger of falling back into the old ways.

Then I have come across those who have experienced an epiphany if you know what I mean? If I said a Damascus Road moment would that make sense? That moment in time when the Divine breaks into their lives and all bets are off, the system overloads and receives a complete reset. Like, they’re made new. On a smaller scale have you experienced a moment when something has just changed? Maybe a worry or a fear that suddenly becomes a confidence that all is OK? I call these ‘switch moments’, because it’s like a switch has been thrown. There was no light and then, PHOW, there’s light.

Then there’s a third way. Maybe there are more ways. But there’s a spiritual way. In the Baghavita Gita, Krishna says to Arjun:

Therefore, Arjun, always think of Me and do your duty. With mind and intellect dedicated to me you will doubtless come to me.

Chp 8.7

There can be a point when we see or question the world around us. The moment when we know the system is broken and…here’s the kicker…we choose to acknowledge this. We don’t turn our backs, stop up our ears and carry on as if nothing is wrong. At that very moment a change of heart begins as we see that something isn’t right. We turn away and face a different direction, the direction determining what happens next. The world needs change and the most obvious choice is resistance to those and that which we believe are at the root of the issue. But resistance inevitably leads to conflict and does nothing to bring about change.

Whatever you fight you strengthen, and what you resist persists.

Eckhart Tolle

Instead at the point of change the highest good is to be had by turning not only from the issue but from the world as a whole and becoming focused on the transcendent, God, or whatever name you choose. As said in our last letter the issues we resolve in this world by means of resistance will inevitably be temporary in nature. We can change the world by small degrees, temporarily. We resist a dictator, fight a war, suffering occurs until we prevail and win. We celebrate a great heroic act and…peace? No, another conflict commences, then another. Do you actually know how many years of peace there have been in the world in the last 2000 years? If you exclude so call minor conflict we have managed to sneak in a few but the number is incredibly small.

Here we are, unable to bring a lasting peace into the world, indeed a peace of any meaningful length, and we are thinking we’ll save the world from the looming ecological disaster. I really, REALLY, wish we could, but I’m not holding my breath.

If you really think the environment is less important than the economy try holding your breath while you count your money.

Anon

Pogue, take out my last letter and reread the first quote (you have kept it I hope!). The one where the Divine talks to the people, who happened to be Hebrew at that particular moment although that actually isn’t important (and we make it so). The Divine basically says, if you restore relationship between us the result will be the healing of your land. And why does God require healing of relationship prior to healing the land? Because until people have realigned with God centered values, until they walk in relationship, in a state of spiritual awareness they’ll continue on an ego fueled journey with values that militate against the common good, on an individual, corporate and national levels. Oh, there will be exceptions, there always are. They’ll be moments when hope is reignited but unfortunately history tells how short lived these moments are.

No, a higher consciousness must prevail amongst people and that will only come with a turn to Source, so called by some as opposed to God or the Great Spirit because of all that flows from here if we would receive it. In doing so we can collectively raise our consciousness, the by-product of which will be the lifting of our values allowing them to spill out into the world and…healing will begin. It all starts with a change of heart.

A change of heart at its purest is a change of consciousness. That’s the change that the world needs if there is to be a restoration and it needs to be collective, contagious, spreading out. Yes, on the path to this level of heart change there are many minor heart changes at a personal level, driven by conscience, but the world needs people who go all the way.

You asked, “What do I mean by a change of heart?” I have tried to answer. Did I get there? If you need further clarification then listen to the silence. Listen long, Listen hard. Silence is the language of the Great Spirit.

Next letter, how many hearts are needed to bring about change?

Yours, needing coffee after such a long post,

Wic