Until peace has become an integrated part of me, until all old regrets have been dissolved in love and service, until I have learned to rest completely in a new consciousness of the Spirit, I shall remain where I am. Time, as we reckoned it, does not exist here. Consciousness has taken its place. By the degree of consciousness of the Spirit can we measure the extent of, the habitation of, varying states in our onward progress. To those still in the concept of time, this could take years. For me now, the state of consciousness of living Spirit and the serenity such consciousness works in my soul, is my present and my future in this Life Everlasting.
Deep within us, amid our differentiations as individuals and nations and species, is the desire for oneness. This holy longing is found not only in the human soul but in the soul of the universe, at the heart of everything that has being. We are not an exception to the universe. We are an expression of the universe. Our longings are a unique manifestation of the universe's longings. In listening to the depths of life, within our lives and within every life, we will hear the longings of the One that are deeper than the fears that divide us...There is no such thing as ultimate separation between one part of the universe and an-other, between the well-being of the human species and earth's other species, between the life of one nation and the rest of the world. We and all people, we and those who have gone before us, we and all creatures, we and the universe are traveling together in one river of life. We carry each other within us. And the universe carries us within itself.