“No,” she said, “but he’s totally in control of this project. Another corporation is now involved; and they have these armed men. Feyman calls them operatives. I finally told him I was leaving, and that’s when he put me under guard. When I told him he would never get away with this, he just laughed. He bragged about having someone in the Forest Service working with him.”
“Where was he sending you?” Curtis asked.
Charlene shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“I don’t think he intended to let you live,” Curtis said. “Not after telling you all that.”
An anxious silence fell over the group.
“What I can’t understand,” Charlene said, “is why he’s here in this forest in the first place. What does he want with these energy locations?”
Curtis and I met eyes again, then he said, “He’s experimenting with a way of centralizing this energy source he’s found by focusing on the dimensional pathways in this valley. That’s why it’s so dangerous.”
I became aware that Charlene was staring at Maya and smiling. Maya returned the gaze with a warm expression.
“When I was at the falls,” Charlene said, “I moved through into the other dimension, and all these memories rushed in.” She looked at me. “After that, I was able to go back several times, even when I was under guard, yesterday.” She looked at me again. “That’s where I saw you…”
Charlene paused and looked back at the group. “I saw that we’re all here to stop this experiment, if we can remember everything.”
Maya was watching her closely. “You understood what we wanted to do during the battle with the soldiers, and supported us,” she said. “Even though you knew it couldn’t work.”
Charlene’s smile told me she had remembered.
“We’ve remembered most of what happened,” I said. “But so far we haven’t been able to recall how we planned to do it differently this time. Can you remember?”
Charlene shook her head. “Only parts of it. I know we have to identify our unconscious feelings toward one another before we can go on.” She looked into my eyes and paused. “This is all part of the Tenth Insight… only it hasn’t been written down anywhere yet. It’s coming in intuitively.”
I nodded. “We know.”
“Part of the Tenth is an extension of the Eighth. Only a group that’s operating fully in the Eighth Insight can accomplish this kind of higher clearing.”
“I’m not following you,” Curtis said.
“The Eighth is about knowing how to uplift others,” she continued, “knowing how to send energy by focusing on another’s beauty and higher-self wisdom. This process can raise the energy level and creativity of the group exponentially. Unfortunately, many groups have trouble uplifting each other in this manner, even though the individuals involved are able to do it at other times. This is especially true if the group is work-oriented, a group of employees, for instance, or people coming together to create a unique project of some kind, because so often these people have been together before, and old, past-life emotions come up and get in the way.
“We are thrown together with someone we have to work with, and we automatically dislike them, without really knowing why. Or perhaps we experience it the other way around: the person doesn’t like us, again for reasons we don’t understand. The emotions that come up might be jealousy, irritation, envy, resentment, bitterness, blame—any of these. What I intuited very clearly was that no group could reach its highest potential unless the participants seek to understand and work through these emotions.”
Maya leaned forward. “That’s exactly what we’ve been doing: working through the emotions that have come up, the resentments from when we were together before.”
“Were you shown your Birth Vision?” I asked.
“Yes,” Charlene replied. “But I couldn’t get any further. I didn’t have enough energy. All I saw was that groups were forming and that I was supposed to be here in this valley, in a group of seven.”
Presently the sound of another vehicle far to the north attracted our attention.
“We can’t stay here,” Curtis said. “We’re too exposed. Let’s go back to the cave.”
Charlene finished the last of the food and handed me the plate. Having no extra water, I placed it in my pack dirty and sat down again. Curtis slipped through the mouth of the cave and sat down across from me beside Maya, who smiled faintly at him. Charlene sat to my left. The operative had been left outside the cave, still bound and gagged.
“Is everything okay outside?” Charlene asked Curtis.
Curtis looked nervous. “I think so, but I heard some more sounds to the north. I think we need to stay in here until dark.”
For a moment we all just looked at each other, each of us obviously trying to raise our energy.
I looked at the others and told them about the process of reaching the World Vision I had seen with Feyman’s soul group. When I had concluded, I looked at Charlene and asked, “What else did you receive about this clearing process?”
“All I got,” Charlene replied, “was that the process. couldn’t begin until we come totally back to love.”
“That’s easy to say,” Curtis said. “The problem is doing it.”
We all looked at each other again, then simultaneously realized the energy was moving to Maya.
“The key is to acknowledge the emotion, to become fully conscious of the feeling, and then to share it honestly, no matter how awkward our attempts. This brings the emotion fully into present awareness and ultimately allows it to be relegated to the past, where it belongs. That’s why going through the sometimes long process of saying it, discussing it, putting it on the table, clears us, so that we’re able to return to a state of love, which is the highest emotion.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What about Charlene? There may be residual emotions toward her.” I looked at Maya. “I know you felt something.”
“Yes,” Maya replied. “But only positive feelings, a sense of gratitude. She stayed and tried to help…” Maya paused, studying Charlene’s face. “You tried to tell us something, something about the ancestors. But we didn’t listen.”
I leaned toward Charlene. “Were you killed too?”
Maya answered for her. “No, she wasn’t killed. She had gone to try to appeal to the soldiers one more time.”
“That’s right,” Charlene said. “But they were gone.”
Maya asked, “Who else feels something toward Charlene?”
“I don’t feel anything,” Curtis said.
“What about you, Charlene?” I asked. “What do you feel toward us?”
Her gaze swept across each member of the group. “There don’t seem to be any residual feelings toward Curtis,” she said. “And everything is positive toward Maya.” Her eyes settled on mine. “Toward you I think I feel a bit of resentment.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you were so practical and detached. You were this independent man who wasn’t about to get involved if the timing wasn’t perfect.”
“Charlene,” I said, “I’d already sacrificed myself for these Insights as a monk. I felt it would have been useless.”
My protests seemed to irritate her and she looked away.
Maya reached over and touched me. “Your comment was defensive. When you respond that way, the other person doesn’t feel heard. The emotion she harbors then lingers in her mind because she continues to think of ways to make you understand, to convince you. Or it goes unconscious and then there’s ill feeling that dulls the energy between you two. Either way the emotion remains a problem, getting in the way. I suggest you acknowledge how she could be feeling that.”
I looked at Charlene. “Oh, I do. I wish that I had helped. Maybe I could have done something, if I had had the courage.”
Charlene nodded and smiled.
“How about you?” Maya asked, looking at me. “What do you feel toward Charlene?”
“I guess I feel some guilt,” I said. “No
t so much guilt about the war, but about now, this situation. I had been withdrawn for several months. I think if I had talked to you immediately after returning from Peru, maybe we could have stopped the experiment earlier and none of this would be happening.”
No one replied.
“Are there any other feelings?” Maya asked.
We only looked at each other.
At this point, under Maya’s direction, each of us focused on connecting inside, with building as much energy as we could. As I focused on the beauty around me, a wave of love swept through my body. The muted color of the cave walls and floor began to brighten and glow. Each person’s face began to appear more energized. A chill ran up my spine.
“Now,” Maya said, “we’re ready to figure out what we intended to do this time.” She again appeared to be in deep thought. “I… I knew this was going to happen,” she said finally. “This was part of my Birth Vision. I was to lead the amplification process. We didn’t know how to do this when we tried to stop the war on the Native Americans.”
As she spoke, I noticed a movement behind her against the cave wall. At first I thought it was a reflection of light, but then I detected a deep shade of green exactly like the one I witnessed earlier, when observing Maya’s soul group. As I struggled to focus on the foot-square blob of light, it swelled into a full holographic scene, receding into the wall itself, full of fuzzy, humanlike forms. I glanced at the others; no one seemed to see the image except me.
This, I knew, was Maya’s soul group, and as soon as I had this realization, I began to receive an inflow of intuitive information. I could see her Birth Vision again, her higher intention of being born to her particular family, her mother’s illness, the resulting interest in medicine, particularly the mind/body connection, and now this gathering. I clearly heard that “no group can reach its full creative power until it consciously clears and then amplifies its energy.”
“Once free of the emotions,” Maya was now saying, “a group can more easily move past power struggles and dramas and find its full creativity. But we have to do it consciously by finding a higher-self expression in every face.”
Curtis’ blank look provoked more explanation. “As the Eighth Insight reveals,” Maya continued, “if we look closely at another person’s face, we can cut through any facades, or ego defenses, that may be present, and find the individual’s authentic expression, his or her real self. Ordinarily most people don’t know what to focus on when talking to another. Should it be the eyes? It’s hard to focus on both. So which one? Or should it be on the feature that most stands out, such as the nose or mouth?
“In truth, we are called upon to focus on the whole of the face, which with its uniqueness of light and shadow and alignment of features is much like an inkblot. But within this collection of features, one can find an authentic expression, the soul shining forth. When we focus in love, love energy is sent to this higher-self aspect of the person, and the person will seem to change before our eyes as his or her greater capabilities shift into place.
“All great teachers have always sent this kind of energy toward their students. That’s why they were great teachers. But the effect is even greater with groups who interact this way with every member, because as each person sends the others energy, all of the members rise to a new level of wisdom which has more energy at its disposal, and this greater energy is then sent back to everyone else in what becomes an amplification effect.”
I watched Maya, attempting to find her higher expression. No longer did she appear tired, or reluctant in any way. Instead, her features revealed a certainty and genius she had not expressed before. I glanced toward the others and saw that they were similarly focused on Maya. When I looked at her again, I noticed that she seemed to be taking on the green hue of her soul group. She was not only picking up on their knowledge; she seemed to be moving into a kind of harmony with them.
Maya had stopped speaking and was taking a deep breath. I could feel the energy shifting away from her.
“I’ve always known that groups could acquire a higher level of functioning,” Curtis said, “especially in work settings. But I haven’t been able to experience this until now… I know I came into this dimension to be involved in transforming business, and shifting our view of business creativity, so that we can ultimately utilize the new energy sources in the correct way and implement the Ninth Insight automation of production.”
He paused in thought, then said, “I mean, business is too often labeled as the greedy villain, out of control, with no conscience. And I guess it’s been exactly that in the past. But I’ve felt as though business, too, was moving into a spiritual awareness, and that we needed a new kind of business ethic.”
At that moment I saw another movement of light, directly behind Curtis. I watched for a few seconds, then realized I was seeing the formation of his soul group as well. As with Maya’s group, when I focused on the emerging image, I was again able to pick up on their collective knowledge. Curtis was born in the peak of the industrial revolution occurring just after World War II. Nuclear power had been the final triumph and shocking horror of the materialist worldview, and he had entered with a vision that technological advancement could now be made conscious and moved, in full awareness, toward its destined purpose.
“Only now,” Curtis said, “are we ready to understand how to evolve business and the resulting new technology in a conscious manner; all the measures are now in place. It’s not an accident that one of the most important statistical categories in economics is the productivity index: the record of how many goods and services are produced by each individual in our society. Productivity has steadily increased because of technological discoveries and the more expansive use of natural resources and energy. Through the years the individual has found ever- greater ways to create.”
As he spoke, a thought came to me. At first I decided to keep it to myself, but then everyone looked my way. “Doesn’t the environmental damage that economic growth is causing form a natural limit to business? We can’t go on like we have, because if we do, the environment will literally fall apart. Many of the fish in the ocean are already so polluted we can’t eat them. Cancer rates are increasing exponentially. Even the AMA says that pregnant women and children should not eat commercial vegetables because of the pesticide residue. If this keeps up, can you imagine what kind of world we’ll be leaving our children?”
As soon as I had said this, I recalled what Joel had said earlier about the collapse of the environment. I could feel my energy falling as I felt the same Fear.
Suddenly I was hit with a burst of energy, as each of the others stared in an effort to find my authentic expression again. I quickly reestablished my inner connection.
“You’re right,” Curtis said, “but our response to this problem is already occurring. We’ve been advancing technology with a kind of unconscious tunnel vision, forgetting that we’re here on an organic planet, an energy planet. But one of the most creative areas of business is the field of pollution control.
“Our problem has been trying to depend on government to police the polluters. Polluting has been against the law for a long time, but there will never be enough government regulation to prevent the illegal dumping of waste chemicals or the midnight venting of smokestacks. This polluting of the biosphere won’t completely stop until an alarmed citizenry pulls out their video recorders and takes it upon themselves to catch these people in the act. In a sense, business and the employees of business must regulate themselves.”
Maya leaned forward. “I see another problem with the way the economy is evolving. What about all the displaced workers who are losing their jobs as more of the economy is automated? How can they survive? We used to have a large middle class and now it is diminishing rapidly.”
Curtis smiled and his eyes brightened. The image of his soul group swelled behind him. “These displaced people will survive by learning to live intuitively and synchronistically,” he said. “We all have to u
nderstand: there’s no going back. We’re already living in the information age. Everyone will have to educate themselves the best they can, become an expert in some niche, so that they can be in the right place to advise someone else or perform some other service. The more technical the automation becomes, and the more quickly the world changes, the more we need information from just the right person arriving in our lives at just the right time. You don’t need a formal education to do that; just a niche you’ve created for yourself through self-education.
“Yet, for this flow to be optimally established, across the economy, the stated purposes of business must shift into higher awareness. Our guiding intuitions become most clear when we approach business from an evolutionary perspective. Our questions must change. Instead of asking what product or service I can develop to make the most money, we’re beginning to ask, ‘What can I produce that liberates and informs and makes the world a better place, yet also preserves a delicate environmental balance?’
“A new code of ethics is being added to the equation of free enterprise. We have to come awake wherever we are and ask, ‘What are we creating and does it consciously serve the overall purpose for which technology was invented in the first place: to make everyday subsistence easier, so that the prevailing orientation of life can shift from mere survival and comfort to the interchange of pure spiritual information?’ Each of us has to see that we have a part in the evolution toward lower and lower subsistence costs, until finally the basic means of survival is virtually free.
“We can move toward a truly enlightened capitalism if, instead of charging as much as the market will bear, we follow a new business ethic based on lowering our prices a specified percentage as a conscious statement of where we want the economy to go. This would be the business equivalent of engaging in the Ninth Insight force of tithing.”
Charlene turned to face him, her face luminous. “I understand what you’re saying. You mean, if all businesses reduce prices ten percent, then everyone’s cost of living, including the raw materials and supplies to the businesses themselves, will also go down.”