Beloved Students:

• May you be happy;
• May you know peace;
• May you have ease and a sense of well being;
• May love and kindness both heal and fill your body and your being;
• May you have the courage to reach your full potential in this lifetime.

May the words with which I began this lesson find a place of creative manifestation in your heart and your head. May you keep these words ever before you in the living of your daily life, and in your thoughts regarding all other sentient beings. May you strongly desire these gifts for everyone with whom you interact. May you actively engage in creatively seeing others living their lives in happiness, peace, ease, well being - filled with the fruits of love and kindness. May you particularly visualize these gifts richly coming to those with whom you have difficulty, or feel estrangement.

With the dawning of this, or any, New Year comes many fresh opportunities. While you may think you recognize this truth, I would ask you to dedicate some time this month to investigating the degree to which you embody this truth. You should be able to tell somewhat by the relative degree to which you have given up your apparent need to suffer. In truth, your mind is powerful enough to create a “reality” that is not dependent upon suffering and the current times are perhaps offering some serious challenges to the mind. In the wake of current events in Asia, you are likely quite focused on India Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and the other specific areas recently devastated by the tsunami that has changed the course of life for so many people. Today’s tally of lost human life stands at nearly 70,000 persons, and that number is likely to still increase some in the immediate days to follow. In the face of such massive suffering, how can you challenge your mind’s repeating patterns of suffering? Without denying the experiences of the world around you, can you transcend them in great and profound compassion?

Without ignoring the suffering of others, can you move your mind beyond suffering? If so, you will find that you can be of great service to those caught in the karmic web that plays out at both individual and collective levels. Can you face the current times with both the courage and compassion of a buddha? Is it possible to go free of suffering without feeling some personal guilt about all those who find themselves in conditions of profound suffering at this time? Can you, in fact, rise to a level where you have deep and compassionate understanding that your suffering - no matter how tiny - only increases theirs?

If you can compassionately behold the great suffering of so many, yet not allow your mind to be lulled into a stupor of passive guilt or apathetic helplessness, then you can become a beacon in a world fraught with dark and desperate upheaval. Do not ask to feel thus empowered, for such is asking too much. Ask rather that the suffering of others be allowed to flow through your rarefied and healed mind space, that it may be filtered clean from the dark despair that so many touch with these recent events.

Of course, each of you must prudently require yourself to be fully present for the catastrophic events to which the world now bears witness. Be thankful that you have been spared direct physical experience of the massive tsunami. But do not be fooled by the ego mind’s desire to put a “spin” on your condition that attempts to convince you (or others) that your karma is somehow more advanced than that of those who are now forced to suffer. Compassionately seek to understand how the events of the past few days must appear to them. Surely, the tsunami appears to have brought forth an “end of the world” experience to life as they have previously known it.

While you cannot know the profound grief and loss of each individual who so suffers now, you can recognize the meaninglessness of continuing to suffer through the cyclic patterns that rule both the individual and collective experiences of what it is to be human. You can elevate your consciousness to be One with the Lover of All That Is, and you can re-evaluate the suffering levels of your own experiencing that have driven your ego mind. You can not only know the “peace that passes understanding,” you can learn to embody it - not for yourself, but for all who cannot yet see beyond the compelling veil of suffering that besets them.

Because you have the knowledge that suffering comes from the mind, you have both the privilege and the responsibility to go beyond it. While I will not profess that this is an easy task, I will say that I know each of you has within you everything you need to do so. Do not try to determine why such things happen. Rather, rise up in your Buddha nature, your Christ consciousness, and bless this world with your presence; grace it with your deep dedication to cut through all levels of suffering. Many will cry out “Why, Lord?” Few will rise up in their inner Lordship (leaving their own petty levels of suffering) and stretch forth to be a part of the solution that ends suffering - a solution which is so profoundly needed at this time.

Indeed, the Age of Aquarius is upon you. I know that many of you are still trying to figure out just what that may mean. Of course, this fact is ultimately likely to mean different things to different people. However, most can see that this “Age” is starting off highly charged and will likely be an Age of profound manifestation. Of course, the arising manifestation is directly related to the power of collective thought. Many around you still believe in the need for war, and those beliefs (even if outdated) are, nonetheless, most powerful. Indeed, if people wage war upon the earth, it is likely there will be powerful repercussions.

Many of you are old enough to remember the TV commercials of some thirty years ago. One (an advertisement for a margarine which sought to get across the idea that you could not tell the difference in this particular product and butter) had a stately woman (who represented Mother Nature) appear at the end and say, “Oh - it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” This line was followed by a raccoon covering his eyes and a blast of thunder crashing in the background. Actually, the commercial was meant to be cute, but the point it managed to drive home is legitimate. When bombs explode on Gaia’s body; when her children cry out in terror as cities are laid ruin and sentient beings of all manner are compromised in their life path, we must ask if someone (or some government) is trying to fool Mother Nature. Perhaps those who are being fooled are actually the ones trying to trick Mother Nature into believing that humanity is (or ever can be) in control. Such is not only the height of arrogance, it is the height of foolishness.

Why? Because the collective ego mind (which orchestrates such ploys) is not real! It may seek to establish control over other sentient beings in many ways; but ultimately, it must dissolve into suffering, or be transcended. When you live in times of great suffering, know that your time is also one of great potential for transcendence. Clearly, no one of you can assuage the suffering of the entire world. Accept such as a fact, but do not use it as an excuse to climb into some cave of apathy or desperation. Use difficult times to be more than you might be in times that require less of you. Dedicate yourself to cutting through whatever your own personal levels of suffering may be, but do not compare your suffering with that of others. To do so is likely to send you into some cave of guilt and helplessness.

Clearly, each of you has before you a door that will take you somewhere. Where you actually go profoundly depends on what you let your mind “get away with,” as the American saying goes. Who is watching over your mind? Who is directing the flow of your awareness? Who is manifesting the world you perceive? These are the questions that ultimately produce the mind of a Buddha, so you might say they are the only questions worth asking.

Please join me this month in listening to A New Year, A New Mind, a lecture I gave in Denver on December 5th. May you find within the teaching a point upon which to anchor your mind, allowing you to know and demonstrate core strength and dignified stability at a time when your planet needs your strength. Walk in truth and kindness as you further create your journey into Reality.

Djwhal Khul