The Twelfth Insight: The Hour Of Decision Part 14

We were interrupted then by the sounds of more movement in the other room. Through the door I could see Love of Mountain and several others rolling back one of the Persian rugs and opening a huge trapdoor in the floor. She looked at Tommy, motioning for him to come help her.

Coleman and I both stood up.

"You know what they're doing, don't you?" Coleman said. "They're getting ready to go to the mountain."

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't know, and they don't seem to, either. But they're sure they have to go."

We were walking back toward them when Rachel abruptly appeared and grabbed my arm.

"I have to talk to you," she said forcefully, leading me into the sunroom and out a back door into a garden courtyard. The area was paved with flagstone and surrounded by thick hedges and flowering plants. The aroma of water lilies came from a small pond in the corner.

"Everyone's packing," I said. "What are they planning to do?"

"They're going to Sister Mountain," she replied. "Something's about to happen up there."

"How do you know?"

She looked at me seriously.

"I know quite a lot," she said. "If you weren't avoiding me, you might realize that!"

I just looked at her.

"Why are you avoiding me?" she pressed.

"Because I'm trying to stay in Alignment," I snapped, wanting to run back in the house.

She smiled and looked at me as if I was a child. "If you had just connected enough to really talk to me, you wouldn't be confused about this. Do you know why I'm here, why I'm trying to reach the real you? This isn't about anything romantic. It's about the Integrations.

"The Template of Agreement is not just for resolving the extreme polarization that's occurring in politics and religious ideology. It's also about bridging the myth and polarization that keep men and women apart."

She shook her head. "You know what I was taught as a child by my mother? That men and women are completely different animals, with a different outlook and language, and doomed forever to misunderstand and manipulate each other. She taught me to lie and control to get what I wanted from men, and as I tried to manipulate my way through one failed relations.h.i.+p after another, I grew to hate men for making me do that.

"And I hated my mother for not preventing the world from being that way. I quit speaking to her for years ... and then she died before I could get back home to talk to her."

She looked over at me and I tried to stay with her gaze.

"I know now," she said, "that it wasn't her fault. I wasn't the only one with this misunderstanding. We all play the game of s.e.x and security. You think you have to be in control so you limit your connection with me, or manipulate it in some way. But the fact is, this habit of closing off to some women is something you've probably always done.

"I bet you've never really opened up to any woman. You were busy manipulating, hoping to entice them into a relations.h.i.+p with you, or, on the other hand, dismissing them altogether if they didn't seem like a s.e.xual possibility. We're all stuck in not fully connecting with those of the opposite s.e.x-women using their s.e.xuality to manipulate men, men manipulating women to get s.e.x. But now, as we figure out how to really tune in to each other, we're on the verge of being able to blow past s.e.xual manipulation altogether."

I was watching her speak, struck by her open, authentic expression of all this. It was done with a deep soul Connection to me-yet it was a Connection that meant nothing more than that: deep Connection.

"How did you get so clear about this?" I asked spontaneously.

"My mother told me."

"I thought you said she died before you could speak to her."

"She did."

I just looked at her, thinking of the implications of her remark. And in that moment, I realized that my fear of connecting with her seemed to be fading.

"I'll tell you soon about my communication with my mother," Rachel went on. "But that's not what we need to be doing now. This distance between men and women has to be healed. For most of us, it's been romance or nothing when it comes to the opposite s.e.x. And we can't go forward into another elevation of consciousness until this changes.

"If a template group works at all, it's because it sets a new pattern by agreement and sends that energy out into the world, to help set a new cultural standard in the collective mind. So what you and I heal here and now influences the world in that way. We have to get back to where we were on Secret Mountain. We have to be souls to each other!"

She reached into a large satchel that she carried and pulled out about a dozen crumpled pages. "I don't know how much of the Eighth Integration you've read. But here it is."

I found a bench near the fountain and began to read where I had left off. It immediately held me spellbound.

To completely join minds, it said, we must intend Oneness, but we must also come back to a love state that totally transcends s.e.xual complexity. It named this emotion Agape.

I looked away for a moment and thought about the word. Agape was Greek, and it meant a particular kind of love: one of the soul for all of creation, but most particularly, a love for other people that is platonic in nature. Centering in this kind of love, the Doc.u.ment went on, even more than intending Oneness or Conscious Conversation, lifted those in interaction into their highest soul wisdom. Moreover, this elevation was multiplied many times when practiced by a group.

I put down the pages then and walked into the other room, finding Rachel standing in the doorway waiting for me. Our eyes met, and this time I just let myself go fully into her eyes, setting the intention for Oneness and opening to love.

Suddenly, I felt a perceptible movement in my heart, a surge of emotion that created an even greater centeredness and freedom from apprehension that I hadn't experienced since Secret Mountain. It was right, and totally in Alignment in every way, and never had to be defended. It was Agape.

In my peripheral vision, I noticed a few people in the other room looking at us, but I remained focused on Rachel. She rushed up to me and turned me in the other direction to face the windows that overlooked the courtyard.

"Look how beautiful it is outside," she said. "Remember how the world looked on Secret Mountain? We're truly working our way back there with each Integration. The next step is opening our senses fully to the way the world really looks when we're all connected together in a state of love."

For a moment I took in the beauty. But part of me didn't want to go there yet. All I wanted was to experience this level of Agape again.

I turned around to face Rachel.

I wanted to ask her another question, but the power of the eyes staring at us from the other room was drawing me to them. Everyone was crowded into the doorway looking at the two of us, including Coleman, who was jumping up and down near the back, waving the pages of the Doc.u.ment he held in one hand.

I returned their gazes with the same deep Agape I had projected toward Rachel, and without paying the slightest attention to who was male or female. The energy level and Agape with the group exploded within me even more. They all seemed delighted.

"Wow," I said out loud.

Rachel came around, stood beside me, and looked at the others.

"Every time," she said, "that someone integrates Agape for the first time, it creates a ripple of heightened love in everyone around them, like heat in a greenhouse-or a conversion experience in a crowded country church."

OPENING TO PERCEPTION.

For twenty minutes, I walked around and talked with everyone I had met in the group. All of them took time for me, even as they hurried to pack. Most spoke English, but they also easily and spontaneously interpreted for each other as a matter of course.

Together, they reflected a rich cross section of life in the region, from bakers to teachers to engineers, and represented most of the known traditions and sects. To a person, they had experienced a Breakthrough Connection in their own way and were proceeding through the Integrations one by one. As we talked, I realized we were becoming a larger template group.

In fact, many voiced that Agape between people was primarily a concept that had grown out of Western, Judeo-Christian thought. But those in other traditions pointed out that their histories were also full of icons that emphasized the importance of soul love. I myself was aware of a concept in Eastern thought, from Jainism, called Ahimsa, which, if not considered academically identical, was the same in practice. We finally agreed that while most traditions pointed to this level of Connection in some way, the Christian and Eastern religions seem to give it the most emphasis.

At one point, I looked at my phone and found Wil had texted, saying that he had arrived safely and had experienced the Eighth Integration with a smaller group in Cairo. Hira had also communicated, saying much the same thing. She had found another template group of her own in Jerusalem. Both she and Wil had come to the same agreement about the Eighth Integration as those of us here.

Soon after, Adjar texted as if on cue. He, too, agreed with our conclusions, and took the time to express the difficulty his tradition seemed to have with Agape love, especially between men and women who were not married. He mentioned some minority views in this regard that he thought would now be getting more attention.

I sat down by myself to think for a moment, still high from the Oneness and Agape that had elevated us. The honesty and wisdom of Rachel, I knew, had changed me dramatically, and I knew I would never experience conversations with women in the same way again.

Of equal impact was the summary of the Mayan Calendar Tommy had provided. While he didn't finish telling me about the predicted last Step in Creation, I understood even more why he had earlier called the Calendar a prophecy. The remaining last Step in Creation was thought to be a coming wave of Divine creation, one that was meant to somehow move us toward this more ideal world so many were sensing.

I began, then, to notice people walking around the house looking at the paintings and plants in a particular way. Some of them went out to the sunroom and stared at the hazy sunset through the gla.s.s. After a while, I realized they were trying to see more beauty. This made perfect sense. The group here seemed to have completed the Eighth Integration and was moving on to the Ninth.

The observation brought back the memories of the search for the Ninth Insight of the old Prophecy. Back then, the old Prophecy found in Peru had predicted that one day we would begin to see the world as immensely beautiful and even light-filled.

I was now sitting on the arm of a chair in the great room, and Coleman came in and sat on the sofa across from me, as if he had something to say.

"Some of the people in this group," he said, "have already begun to integrate the Ninth. They're pretty far along."

He looked at me as though he expected I would pick up on his next statement.

I nodded. "And the Doc.u.ment is talking about a practical way to sustain the experience."

"That's right! And some of them are scientists! They think that opening to perception is built into the structure of our brains, just like the rest of the jumps in consciousness we've experienced. They now believe every step is archetypal and, in a sense, a higher kind of Alignment that we're called to maintain."

That jolted me. A group of scientists were a.s.serting this, based on the similarity of spiritual experience for all of us! I wondered suddenly just how widespread this perception was becoming.

"That's why," Coleman continued, "groups are the best way to proceed now, because as one person in the group gets it, others see the new consciousness and feel it, and pretty soon everyone has fired up that part of his or her brain. This way, it all gets proven to oneself very quickly. It's the process behind the idea of a positive contagion of consciousness.

"The Doc.u.ment," he continued, "says that to see more beauty is to get closer to the consciousness that exists in Heaven. There, people know how to use the power of Agape with everyone, especially those locked in ideologies. The Doc.u.ment says to reach those in fear and anger we have to do what they do in the Afterlife.

"It says the Ninth Integration is an important step toward doing that. It gets us closer to a heavenly level of consciousness. This is the secret of reaching those in fear and anger. We have to be able to lift them toward this state."

"How do we do that?" I asked.

He shrugged.

I noticed then that he had a folder with him. "You have the Doc.u.ment?"

"Part of it," he said. "Want to read it?"

As I read, the Doc.u.ment spoke exactly to Coleman's point. Agape, it stated, was easy to accomplish with people who loved you back. It was more difficult with those who were more ideologically opposed. The only way to reach everyone, as Coleman had mentioned, was from an elevated position of consciousness closer to the Afterlife.

Suddenly, we began hearing more noise and movement behind us. All the others were no longer just talking and working. They were moving heavy packs and foodstuff out the door toward the vehicles.

Coleman and I looked at each other, and I was about to go back to reading when the thought came to me to check the phone for texts. I found a message from Adjar. A former insider with the Apocalyptics had told him the extremists knew we were in St. Katherine. They were planning to stop us from getting to the mountain.

"I guess that's why," Coleman said, "the people here are hurrying so. They must have already sensed danger. I'll go tell them what we found out."

Wanting to think about the situation, I nodded and watched him walk off. Neither Coleman nor I had experienced a premonition of trouble. So I tuned in to whether I could picture us going to the Mount. I easily saw the journey and felt it was the right thing to do, but when I attempted to visualize us making it all the way to the summit of the mountain, I couldn't. I tried again with no success.

Uh-oh, I thought, and dashed outside where everyone was gathering around the vehicles, obviously checking in with each other to see who had the best intuition going forward.

What happened next was one of those fast-paced moments of Synchronicity and intuition where everyone spoke at exactly the right time and with perfect clarity about the hunches they were receiving. And it was virtually unanimous. Everyone saw that we were right to head to the Mount, but once there, we should be very careful.

Suddenly, Rachel walked to the center of the group, eager to say something more.

"We can't let these threats," she said forcefully, "interrupt our progress with the Integrations. If we stay in Agape, we'll find a way to stop this danger. Remember where we are. The Ninth Integration says we have to use Agape to pull the Apocalyptics into a higher state and out of their ideology somehow."

There was silence, then Tommy added, "We will discover how to do that at the Mountain. The next step is to tune in to sacred nature, open our perception, and get closer to the spirit world. This ability has long been the emphasis of Native peoples. If we pay close attention, the Mountain will show us the way."

Most everyone agreed to go, despite the danger. But some didn't, feeling their paths took them elsewhere. They would hold us in prayer, they said, leaving twelve of us to load into three vehicles: Joseph's Toyota, Love of Mountain's Subaru, and an old Volvo belonging to one of the others. Coleman, Rachel, and I rode with Joseph.

The plan was to separate and meet at a specific location that Tommy's mother had suggested: the head of a little-known trail that led up the southeastern side of Mount Sinai. Love of Mountain had told us this route would still be guarded by Egyptian troops, but at least it would be less traveled. Because of the layout of the town, we would have to drive west and then south to hit the trail to Sinai.

The trip to the trailhead should have taken, at most, thirty minutes, but as we traveled, we ran into one traffic jam after another. Now we were waiting, again, in a long line of cars to make a turn.

"This little town has really filled up," Coleman said. "I looked up St. Katherine on the Internet before we got here. They average plenty of visitors to Mount Sinai over the course of a year, but nothing like these numbers. There must be an extra thousand people here."

I looked closely into the vehicles around us and at the pedestrians lining the streets. They all looked primarily Middle Eastern, but a good fourth of them were international, with lots of Europeans and North Americans among them.

"You think they're here because of the Doc.u.ment?" Rachel asked.

We all looked at one another.

"Maybe we should stop and ask some of them," I said.

"I don't think so," Coleman retorted. "We should get into the mountains as soon as we can."

All of us agreed, and we headed south, finally moving out of town and into a flat, rocky desert that was alive with small round plants and scrubby bushes that seemed to be glistening in the fading light.

Just like Sedona, I thought.

In twenty minutes, we were approaching the trailhead, and the reality of our situation was sinking in: we were about to scale a mountain in a foreign country without permission, facing a group of extremists who had already tried to kill us.

I shook my head, holding on to my energy level and reminding myself again that there was no choice. To have any chance of reaching the extremists, we had to get up this Mount and finish the Integrations.

"I have a brother who is a high-ranking officer in this region," Joseph said abruptly. "I wanted all of you to know, because he could possibly help us. He has been very extreme at times, but I've been trying to convince him of the Doc.u.ment's importance."

We all looked at one another, and for some reason I felt his brother would be instrumental in whatever happened on Sinai.

"I also know your friend Hira," he continued, "from when I lived in Jerusalem during my youth. My mother was Jewish, and she knew Hira's mother. We all studied end-times Prophecy in the Bible and the Torah. I think the most fascinating aspect of the prophetic literature, however, is that the prophecies of all three major religions seem to have the same structure. Each has an idea of a final conflict, or Armageddon. And each has the notion that a Divine Messiah figure is coming to establish an ideal, spiritual world."

I remembered what Tommy had told me. The next step of Creation of the Mayan Calendar also seemed to have a similar structure. What was Synchronicity trying to show us here?

"It's fascinating," Joseph went on. "And some of the traditions also agree that the same literal events must take place before Armageddon begins. The first event is that the Jews must return to the Holy Land, which has occurred. Then the rebuilding of David's temple in Jerusalem on the site of its old foundation must take place."