The New Paradigm
vol. I, Number Five

I search for the essence of myself.
For I am but a small part of my greater soul.
Through the experiences I have chosen,
I am able to walk through many dimensions,
but now I find myself on Earth.
And I have been taught so many different versions
    of what is God.

I have embraced them as learning experiences,
and still I reach the point now where I have
    to find God for myself.
No-one can teach me God, for he either remains an enigma,
    or I become enlightened as to his reality.
However, the reality of God remains my own experience of him,
    and I cannot give it to another.

As I search, I look for God everywhere.
And I become aware that he is there
    in the smile of a friend,
    a gentle act of kindness,
    a compassionate remark,
    a loving embrace.
He is there in the fragrance of a flower,
    the warmth of the sunshine,
    the teasing action of a summer breeze
    and the playful ripple of water in a stream.

God is everywhere and in all things,
    and these things I understand.
But I will not truly know God,
until I can fully comprehend
that he is within me.

And then I will stop searching.

Karen Mills

Thank you, Karen. Your words strum the heart strings of us all, or I miss my guess.

Friends, Karen is Sue Fowler's Sister and doesn't have e-mail; so she's reading our communications over Sue's shoulder, as it were. Welcome to our circle, Karen, and thank you once again for your beautiful message from the heart.

Dear Harmon,

Thank you for your acknowledgment of my affirmation to be on the NEW PARADIGM List, and for the other articles by yourself and the other subscribers - the contents of which I salute unreservedly.

I feel it is necessary to articulate the idea that each of us enter into the state of Buddhahood when we realize that we are all part of one global family, and are moved with Compassion to share with others in whatever form it takes; and that each of us enter the early stages of Christhood when each of us - armed with the Buddhic quality of Compassion - identification with another person's problem/predicament - actually do something about it and become people of action - people of Love.

You will see that the two qualities of Compassion and Love are interwoven. Each of you are, therefore, expressing with real virtue - the Law of One - the I AM PRESENCE of the Godhead seed atom that is deep in everybody's heart when you become BUDDHA/CHRIST rolled into one by the simple action of showing Compassion and Love!!!!

Invoke within yourself the mantram: I AM CHRIST THAT I AM BUDDHA. As a Buddha oneself - a Buddha of 'immeasurable Compassion and Light of Infinite Christ', one will inevitably become Christ on one's path of return to the undifferentiated Source that is GOD.

Very aptly - FORTUNA ALLIANCE being a Buddhic/Christ vehicle of Compassion and Light - in the new Age of Aquarius - born this year on 23rd. January - so I understand - is here to push forward the frontiers of the new paradigm - the Law of One/the Power of One - that is in each of us - the ability to share and co-operate in a society where money is no longer an end in itself but just a means!!

Yours Sincerely,
Rupert Wontner

Thank you, Rupert. You know, I am constantly amazed - no, inspired is a better term - by how many different ways there are to express a single, fundamental core idea: the idea that in our evident "plurality" we are all nevertheless somehow One, and that each of us contains the essential "Spark of God," "Buddha Nature," "Christ Consciousness," "Divine Light" ... whatever you like to call "It;" and that "It," by whatever name, is essentially mysterious, inexplicable and at bottom, inexpressible. And yet, "It" is flawlessly expressed in everything we see, in everything we touch, in everything we say, or do, or think: in everything we are.

Yes, everything. That is a key element, I feel, of the "new paradigm" we are struggling to get hold of, internalize and bring into consciousness and practice in our lives. The "old paradigm" concerns itself (and us) with separation of the "bad" from the "good," the "this" from the "that," the "them" from the "us," the "sinners" from the "saints" ... and so forth. This track has occupied the human race for centuries on end with the ultimately futile task of trying to sift out what we "like" from what we "don't like," and husbanding the former and obliterating the latter. "New paradigm" awareness discloses that we have been on a fool's errand for lo, these many thousands of years; for there is nothing in Heaven or Earth about which we cannot find something both to admire and despise. Orange juice, for instance, is "good" to drink; but "bad" to put in, say, your automobile's fuel tank. And so on.

Sue made a remark a few weeks ago that has been revolving in my mind since then. "All the great 'seers' of the world," she wrote, "did not predict past the 21st century because they knew we would be here and it would be dependent on our development and remembrance of the truth of who we are that would make the difference."

Yes; it has taken us thousands of years, but we have finally come to the place where our "old paradigm" thought patterns are entirely "used up." We're at a dead end; no place to turn; backs against the sea; in a few words, we humans on planet Earth are in a very good position to make a "paradigm shift." Such a time may be terrifying and disorienting for sure, and surely many are experiencing it so at this very moment. But it is also a time of exhilaration and hope; a time for doors to open unexpectedly in what had seemed to be solid walls.

Up to now, throughout recorded human history, and as evidenced by such fragments of prehistory as anthropologists have been able to dig out of the Earth for us to see, the human race has divided itself into separate families, tribes, nations and races. This has been natural enough, and in no way surprising; for to "us," whoever "we" may be, "they," over yonder, across the River, over the Mountains, beyond the Sea, are inevitably "strange," "mysterious," and "dangerous." "They" worship "strange gods," practice "unnatural rites," invoke "unholy powers." For "they" live "their" lives by other values than do "we." So it has been; and so we have warred and battled, and eventually fought one another to a standstill, practically destroying the Planet in the process.

Meanwhile, and more or less in spite of ourselves, we have been picking up valuable nuggets here and there along the way. In the 15th and 16th centuries we learned (or possibly rediscovered) how to navigate the world's oceans, and came gradually to at least the conceptual notion that our world is a single planet, which is part of a Solar System, of which there are evidently hundreds of millions in galaxies without number. The idea was pretty theoretical and didn't have much impact until just recently our Apollo Astronauts brought back color snapshots of Mother Earth, splendid and solitary as a sapphire on a velvet cushion, rising above the desolation of a Lunar landscape. Some may have imagined, but until then no human being, family, tribe, nation or race had ever actually seen such a sight before. Yet now there was no human being who could not say, "This - Planet - is my only home." We saw for the first time that our various habitations and homelands blend into one another in swirls of blue and green and white, and endless gradations of other tones. They are not slabs of pink here, yellow there, adjacent green or purple, delineated by dotted black lines. We saw instead how the Earth herself is a living, organic Being, even as are each of us who ride upon her breast among the stars.

That was good; but even better was when we began to actually communicate with one another - across the River, over the Mountains and beyond the Sea - facilitated by our cleaver technologies designed primarily for war, but put to other uses anyway. As we join in communication - as of course we are doing in this forum - we discover the fundamental kinship we share around the Planet. This is unspeakably empowering for all of us, and not only for those who express themselves. For we are seeing and experiencing hands-on how we are all made of the same "stuff" inside, are driven by the same questions, are seeking the same ideals, no matter how or if we express them.

And so it doesn't even matter a whole lot what we say to one another, as long as what we say comes from the heart, and is honestly and truly what we think at the moment. We are not having this conversation, after all, because any of us knows what we're talking about. Yet on some deeper level I believe every one of us knows exactly what we're talking about; and by so doing we are participating in a transforming alchemy by which we realize deep within ourselves, individually and together, our essential kinship and interrelatedness with one another, and with All Things. As we bring this knowledge to the surface of our consciousness we transform not only ourselves but the entire Planet and the human race at large; and we step into the next phase of our timeless adventure, into which the "old paradigm" seers and prophets could not penetrate.

There is, however, at least one crucial issue that we must grasp if we are to enter the "new paradigm" and leave the "old paradigm" behind. As Karen expressed it,

"No-one can teach me God, for he either remains an enigma,
    or I become enlightened as to his reality."

...or as Rupert put it, "I AM CHRIST THAT I AM BUDDHA."

The "old paradigm" which relentlessly separates "this" from "that" just as relentlessly separates "me" from "you" and "each" of "us" from "God / Christ / Buddha / Whatever." Many priesthoods in many lands and times have claimed (all falsely, in my quiet but unyielding opinion) to be the anointed intermediaries between gods and men. Such doctrines have yielded very little beyond endlessly repetitive wars.

Jesus of Nazareth, for instance, is quoted in John 14:6 as having said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." Well, this is just one man's opinion, but to me that is neither the Word of God, nor the Word of Christ, but the word of a priesthood of men whose intent was political control over their constituents. If my opinion offends anyone, I sincerely apologize; but I cannot believe that any man has, or ever had, an exclusive claim upon That which animates All Things. The God that dwelled in Jesus, and Muhammad, and Buddha, and Lao Tzu, and Zoroaster, and Socrates, and Albert Einstein ... dwells no less in you and me. If that is not true, then I have nothing further to say, for nothing in such a world will ever make the slightest sense to me. The doctrine of an exclusive priesthood as the necessary intermediary between God and Man is strictly "old paradigm" and has carried the human race to the very end of the road.

This is not anti- any religion or priesthood. Priesthoods have their place; but historically they have a track record of being prone to perpetuating their own self-interest over that of their constituents. And people have a track record of placing a reliance upon priesthoods that is unwarranted by performance. These tendencies lead incrementally to tyranny on the one hand, and slavery on the other: the vary situation that prevails in the world today.

The solution, again in my opinion, is not a crusade against priesthoods, but simply an awakened and purposeful withdrawal of power from those that have betrayed our trust. Fortuna Alliance® II is an example of a body of people in the process of withdrawing our power from the economic priesthoods that have betrayed our trust by corrupting the medium of exchange, the currency, to their own exclusive advantage. This is more powerful than I think most of us, or any of us, can imagine at this time. But it is only the beginning of what we might do. We needn't be angry, or resentful: only persistent, and aware.

Well, I guess I've said a mouthful; and I don't see any end in sight to what I could say, and probably will say bye and bye. But maybe this is enough for the moment.

Love & Light,

-- Harmon
J. Harmon Grahn