THE CROSSROADS

Dear ones,

We know your hearts are heavy when you consider what is going on in the world around you. We are with you always, sheltering you with our love and showering grace upon you. We walk amongst you in human form, too, although you would not recognize us except by our actions or how you feel in our presence. But we are here, to share this journey with you, and you must know this so completely that you can feel our presence for yourself.

The world will be seeing angels and devils at the same time, depending on the "glasses" being worn by the viewer. Those who harbor hate, anger, and revenge within their own heart will see devils, evil, and enemies everywhere. Those who hold the heartfelt desire for love, compassion, and a better world will see angels there to help. What one sees is a reflection of what is within. It is the way the Creator gets to see Itself, reflected in Its creations.

This notion of good and evil had served to allow people to explore duality, and it has served well. Those notions are well established in the Earth's religions and moral codes. However, it is time to put those notions aside now, as they have been exhausted in their capacity to inform you.

Everything that is being put forth in the torrent of words that has flowed following the attacks has been a summary of all the knowledge and beliefs that were accumulated before that time. Nothing really new is being said. No new revelations are being brought forward. Only former responses, dressed up in new clothes. The body is the same underneath, and the responses are totally predictable, based on one's views as they existed before the attacks took place.

This is a very fertile time, with many opportunities. In one sense, it is a great summing up of all the knowledge and experience that has occurred throughout all the lives that have been lived across the history of the planet. If one looks upon Earth as a laboratory, in which many experiments have taken place, this could be considered the time when the results are written up and published. Everyone can then see what has been learned from the experiments, and those conclusions provide the foundation for wholly new experiments, as life and time move on.

In each of the exchanges taking place -- and there are so many now taking place -- one is presented with a choice of how to respond. Will you get sucked into the chaos? Will you sit there day after day, wringing your hands and reliving the scenes over and over? Will you stop living and be glued to the television set, instead? You have a choice. You can remain caught up in the dramas, passing along the latest bit of news or "proof" of this theory or that, or you can detach and let it go.

We are not saying to disregard the requests for help that come to you directly. We are not saying to not offer your prayers and love to others. We are talking about the way you feed your minds and emotions, the way you let yourself be used as a source of food for those who feed off YOUR emotions, for there are those who do that, as strange as it might seem.

It has been some time since we talked of the two polarities, and now it would be good to return to that topic. If you will recall, those of the STS [service to self] polarity are about gaining power over others. For them, there is never enough power, as the lack of love in their hearts leaves them so empty of feeling that they cannot ever have anything but the most fleeting of satisfactions. In some ways, even those who control the world's resources are among the most poverty- stricken: despite their great material wealth, they lead empty lives, built around the acquisition of things -- of inanimate and abstract things that can never give or return love -- and they promote death rather than life.

They may have the finest wines, the finest clothing, and live the life of kings, but they are also "slaves to their habit," insatiable in their need for more and more power, more and more of everything, a lonely existence indeed. These things do not bring them happiness. These things do not bring them joy or peace. They bring them cynicism rather than hope. They bring them bitterness rather than sweetness.

Their children are not free to follow their dreams. Their wives are picked because of the alliances they build, not for love. It is like the royal families in times past. They are rulers who must watch their gates, who must always be alert for those others who covet their position, who must always do things that serve their calculated ends. What pleasure is there in that? What freedom is there in that?

Therefore, the hardness of their hearts, their cynicism and contempt for the rest of the world, and the sterility of their lives leaves them empty, isolated, and bored. Business comes first, and the long walk toward the goal takes its toll, requires its own sacrifices, and leaves one more alone than before. The satisfaction of counting one's pile of money is hollow, indeed, and the simplest child who is free to play in a natural way is richer by far, in our way of measuring things.

All must play out, and if you but knew the extent to which these few have robbed the rest, you would be justifiably angry. They have robbed much more than just money and power and resources. They have robbed the world of hope, honesty, and so many of its potential joys. However, they did not get this way unaided. Every single person has contributed to their wealth and power by being part of the economic system.

If you would be free of that, if you would want to stop supporting the power elite, consider what would be required. You would have to supply all of your own needs, forever. You could never make a phone call, mail a letter, turn on your oven, or take part in any of the fruits of civilization -- libraries, entertainment, even your food and medicine, your homes and vehicles...

Think about it. Every day, in so many countless ways, you pay for things that are the fruits of other people's labor, with money. And they labor to get money to buy the things that they need for their lives, which were in turn produced by still other people's labor.

Money is only an agreed-upon means of exchange. It has no value in itself. And now that you have electronic communication, electronic storage of data, and the interconnection of the computers with one another across phone lines and satellites, all of your money isn't even necessary except on a local level. Everything is stored as ones and zeros in computers. Yours is a society built upon computers. Even in the most primitive regions, eventually money comes into play, and then if you trace it back to its source, there is a computer involved. So while you are angry at these people and their contempt for the rest of the world, you must also accept responsibility for giving them their power in the first place. It did not happen overnight. This move toward the centralization of power in the hands of the few has been going on for a long time -- a very long time, indeed.

One of the things that will come out of the chaos in these days is an opportunity to reflect on just about everything. You will notice that, as people struggle to come to grips with what is unfolding, they run into conflicts of logic. On the one hand, some of you feel that you should not go to war, and yet you also feel that the attack cannot just be allowed to go by without a response. You are caught between two conflicting desires within yourself. You desire to be free, to not support the system that deals in wars as a solution to problems, but you also want the comforts that that system gives you.

And even if you decided to go out into the wilderness somewhere and live off the land, what would that give you? Where would you go if you injured yourself? How would you survive? It is true that there are still some people on the Earth that live close to the land. Are they necessarily happy because of that, or are their lives just as filled with struggle as yours is? They spend nearly all of their time obtaining food or creating shelter or passing time through telling stories or performing rituals. They are not so different from you after all. You spend nearly all of your time "earning a living," and your stories just come in different forms -- videos, movies, television programs, books, newspapers, and magazines, and personal pages on the "Web." There is not really so much difference after all.

So where are we heading with this? It is simply this: until you are able to manifest your needs directly from the matrix of Source, you will never be free. You will always be participating in a struggle for life and there will always be some who have more power than others and use it to take advantage of others for their own benefit. Are they evil? Or are they just stuck in the same prison as you? Despite their wealth, they are just as enslaved as you are. None of you has true freedom.

We have come to a place in the unfolding where you will be presented with choices of a very different nature. It will no longer be about what you will wear today, or what you will make for dinner, or when to wash the dishes. These will be fundamental choices, a kind of "final exam," with little boxes to mark on a scoring sheet. When presented with events, will you choose to descend into the pit of anger and strife or will you choose to reach higher, to transcend your mundane existence and grab hold of the next rung on the ladder toward "heaven"?

We have called this Message "The Crossroads" because that represents the experience you have at this time. You will be presented with many "crossroads" in the days ahead. Which path will you choose? The one that leads downward into chaos and death or the one that leads upward into order and life?

We have already described the polarities in these terms: STS is a choice for entropy, chaos, and death. STO [service to others] is a choice for order (love is the ordering force, acting on the matrix of light that underlies all form) and for life. It affirms life. These two polarities are actually two opposing forces, and their respective outcomes are predictable if you can see them clearly enough. One spiral leads downward and one spiral leads upward. You will have the opportunity, over and over again, to choose in which direction you want to go -- the spiral upward or the spiral downward.

When you get caught up in ideas that there is an enemy -- and there is certainly enough evidence to work with for that idea -- you perpetuate the experience of being a victim. You choose the downward spiral. Are there people working in concert -- a conspiracy toward certain aims? Absolutely. But are you working in concert with others to create a new world, to assist the planet in her ascension? We hope so! Is that a conspiracy, too? Are you "conspiring" to bring about "Heaven on Earth"? We hope so! There is nothing inherently evil in working together with others toward particular aims.

Consider a gun. It is just a piece of metal, cast in a certain form and design. It can be used to pound in nails, as a paperweight, or as a lethal weapon. Its design is carefully crafted to be a lethal weapon, but it does not become that until someone picks it up and uses it that way.

So it is with all these ideas of "conspiracy" that are flying about at this time. If you would choose the upward spiral, you would leave those ideas behind, and not victimize yourself through them. If there are perpetrators, there are victims. Only if you wear the lenses that enable you to see the Creator wherever you look are you finally free of being a victim. Then and only then are you free of the system and from contributing toward its progress toward world domination -- power over others -- that is the hallmark of the STS polarity.

We are saying this to you with all seriousness. This is the crossroads you will face over and over again. Will you reach upward to realize your own divinity and dwell in "heaven" or will you succumb to the chaos and choose the road to "hell"? Those are the two choices before you. There are only two. How do you choose now and how will you choose the next time the choice presents?

Every time you have to choose how to respond to what is presenting will be another crossroads for you. You will find it easier over time, because you will have left the other choices behind, and as you discover that you prefer to continue in the direction in which you find peace, it will be easier to choose for that direction.

We leave you now in peace and honor and blessing. Amen, Adonoy Sabayoth.
We are the Hosts of Heaven.

Operation Terra
http://www.operationterra.com
September 18, 2001