The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision

by James Redfield

  “The Document discusses,” he said, “a few basic agreements that have to be reached before a template group can move forward, agreements that are key for this process to be effective. One is this: in no way should we think that the adherents of any one tradition should have to give up belief in the validity of their chosen way—only that they must seek to integrate the best of the rest.

  “And the other agreement is that no one should think of their path as the only way to Divine Connection. Remember, we all experienced this Breakthrough despite the different religious perspectives we brought with us. The Connection occurred because we were in the same place of willingness and need to open up to a greater Divine Consciousness.”

  What Wil had expressed was undeniable fact; we had all experienced the same breakthrough, and it meant that there were many paths, but only one direct experience. For a long moment, we all looked at one another again, the anticipation palpable. Then Wil smiled and looked down at the Document.

  “It says to begin,” he stated, “with a focus on the element of the God Experience that has most remained in memory.”

  We all just waited to see who would speak first. Then everyone’s eyes seem to fall on Coleman.

  “As a scientist,” Coleman finally said, “the first element for me of this Connection was a sense of overriding well-being and love, the feeling of having rejoined a lost part of myself, and of being cared for and protected.”

  Everyone was nodding in agreement.

  “How, then,” Wil said, “would the rest of you describe this love and belonging element of the God Connection?”

  “The Holy Spirit filled us,” Rachel replied.

  “Allah gave us his guidance,” Adjar commented.

  “God rewarded our work,” said Hira.

  Everyone looked at Tommy.

  “Spirit filled the world and it came alive!” he said with a power that surprised everyone.

  Coleman seemed to be thinking again. “Wait a minute. Those are religious descriptions. We need to speak more precisely about the actual experience of coming home to love, and discern which tradition emphasizes this the most.”

  Rachel was about ready to burst.

  “There is only one tradition,” she said, “that especially emphasizes Divine Love: Christianity. I know that the word love often sounds hollow, and we fall short in always expressing love. But we do believe that, if we humbly seek this experience, we can move into and feel what we felt on the mountain. We are lifted above our old lives, and all the mistakes we’ve made are transcended. We are made new and more whole.

  “To me, this experience felt like coming home, where we are finally free from all those things we wish we hadn’t done. There’s a sense that when we reach this Connection, we can start over.”

  No one spoke. We all knew she was right. The love and well-being we felt did feel like leaving the past behind.

  “We teach that anyone,” she continued, “who wants to come home and start over can find that experience. But it means refuting the idea of an eye for an eye. As we saw on Secret Mountain, at a higher consciousness, there’s no justification for a Cycle of Revenge, no possibility of it. The truth is that we have to allow everyone to have the ability to change, to be redeemed in the blink of an eye.”

  I couldn’t believe she was addressing the Cycle of Revenge. Colonel Peterson had said it couldn’t be overcome. Was there another tradition that refuted the Cycle of Revenge, even if they couldn’t live up to it?

  Finally, Adjar spoke. “I must admit that our tradition does not emphasize this element of love and forgiveness, not the way we experienced it. And our tradition too often does hold on to revenge and punishment as basic principles. In fact, I never understood forgiveness until our Breakthrough. But we do have parts of our tradition, such as the Sufis, who say essentially the same thing—they just do not receive much attention.”

  Several other people then commented on the little-known scriptures found within their traditions that likewise pointed to the same idea of love and transcending the past.

  “So,” Wil said, “do we agree that Christianity has the best emphasis on this element of the God Experience? An emphasis that the others, to be accurate in describing this experience, should integrate as well?”

  Tommy spoke up. “Native peoples have sometimes been focused on revenge and enemies. I agree that Christianity has the most emphasis.”

  “I agree as well,” Wil said. “Eastern thought speaks more in terms of bliss, but also has currents of teaching about love and reconciliation. But transformational love, in the Christian tradition, is the most accurate.”

  Everyone else was nodding in agreement.

  “Okay,” Wil continued. “But I have to raise a question we touched on earlier. Rachel, I’ll start with you. Can you acknowledge that people from other religions can reach this euphoric place from within their own tradition?”

  She looked at him with total honesty. “I have to admit I have always had a problem accepting that, primarily because of our scripture’s injunction that no one comes to God except through Christ. And I know others here have the same exclusive feeling about their own paths.”

  I looked around, sensing we had reached a roadblock. The main challenge to religious reconciliation had been put squarely on the table before us.

  Then an idea came to me, and without thinking I said, “But Rachel, you do believe that, at baptism, Christ reunited completely with God, right? And became equal with God in the doctrine of the Trinity?”

  She nodded.

  “Wouldn’t it make sense that if someone was sincerely searching for Divine Connection and really found it, even if they never knew of Christ, they would have passed along the same path of expanding consciousness that Christ demonstrated? And so would have gone through Christ in a way? Maybe that’s what the scriptures actually mean.”

  The group seemed stunned at my remark, and they all looked at Rachel.

  She looked at me for a long moment, then smiled. “Yes, I now think so, because after our experience, I think that Connecting is a matter of letting go and opening up to a greater consciousness. Therefore, I think you are correct, although it is belief and affirmation that gets us started.”

  Now Rachel’s gaze centered on Hira, as if to ask, Will you grant that your way is not the only way? That all other traditions can find love and redemption?

  “This whole discussion shakes me,” Hira said, returning her look. “Like all of you, I experienced an inner security and sense of being loved and cared for, in spite of every shortcoming. So I would have to say, in light of direct experience, my tradition must acknowledge that instant redemption can take place, and that people of other faiths can move into Connection with the one God.”

  She smiled, adding: “And the fact is, we have our own scriptures and prophets that have said much the same thing.”

  She stopped and glanced at Adjar, who was looking back at her in complete acceptance. We could all feel a thick wall, built during centuries of conflict, beginning to melt away.

  “I know your people have suffered, too,” Adjar said. “And I can give you your path. There is only one Divine Connection, and it is the same for us all no matter what path we choose, as long as it is loving and genuine.”

  For several minutes, we just looked at one another and felt the rising love and Connection.

  Finally, Wil said, “Now there is another element that we have remembered: the sense of personal and collective mission that we felt during our Breakthrough, an experience that led us to form this group. Which tradition most emphasizes the knowingness that we are here on Earth to do something important?”

  Immediately, Hira spoke up. “You’re talking about the Judaic tradition. We believe that to be in God’s Connection is to be given a work to do. The Connection with the Divine doesn’t give us just love and forgiveness. It also gives us a mission that we know in our hearts has to be done. I don’t know about the rest of you, but on the mountain, I experienc
ed the certain knowledge that there is a plan, and each of us is a part of it.”

  Everyone nodded, and several people noted that their traditions also had strong scriptures that gave importance to mission. They just weren’t emphasized enough.

  “So we agree,” Wil asked, “that the Judaic tradition is best at emphasizing the part of the Connection that is a realization of mission?”

  I could tell that the clarity about mission—reinforced as it was with our decision to create a Template of Agreement—was elevating our consciousness even more. We had now recaptured three elements of our Divine Connection: love and all that comes with it, Protection and redemption. And now mission. I could see the elevation on every face.

  “All we had to do,” Wil said, “in order to hold the Fifth and Sixth Integrations was to remember how these elements felt and to seek to come back to them if they were lost. If we lose this Connection of love, for instance, it’s because it has been replaced by one of the lower emotions. Seek to return to love, the primary emotion of Connection, and these other emotions will drop away. Then, once in love, Protection and mission come to us as well. The key going forward is to listen.”

  Wil put a special emphasis on the word listen, and I knew it was his way of hinting at the next Integration.

  “Do you know anything about the Seventh Integration?” I asked.

  Wil gave us a knowing look.

  “We haven’t found that part of the Document yet,” Wil said, “but I’d bet the Seventh is about discovering more of the Law of Connection. We have to find our full powers of intuition and realize it is how we are guided.”

  THE ART OF TUNING IN

  As the sun began to sink in the west, I suddenly felt the urge to walk down the hill past the pond to the rocky area that had earlier attracted me for some reason. Wil had ended our last session very abruptly—so quickly, in fact, that I had the eerie sense we might be leaving soon, and I wanted to see this part of the homestead while I still had the chance.

  As I walked, more thoughts about the Seventh Integration came to mind. The old Prophecy had predicted that, at some point, humanity would heighten its perception of those inner impressions long classified as intuitions, hunches, and so-called gut feelings. After years of emphasizing rational thought and logic during the dominance of the material and secular worldview, it predicted we would finally take seriously the treasure of information coming from the right hemisphere of the brain: the part that gave us a sense of knowing, without being aware exactly of how we knew.

  At this moment, I caught sight of a lone figure walking about two hundred yards to the left of me. It was Tommy, walking back toward the homestead. For an instant, I thought about turning around or yelling out to him, because I wanted to know more about the Mayan Calendar. Yet for some reason I kept walking, certain now that I came down here for a reason. I felt sure a Synchronicity was about to happen.

  After several minutes, I entered a sandy area dotted with prickly pear cacti next to a grove of large mesquite trees. Without warning, a man suddenly walked out of the mesquite. Peterson!

  I grimaced. This wasn’t what I was expecting.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “It’s serious.”

  He glanced up toward the house to make sure no one else was coming, and he urged me to follow him farther into the grove.

  “Do you know those extremists are still looking for you?” he said.

  “We were hoping they’d left,” I replied.

  “Some of them did, but they left a few to search for you. Do you know who these people are?”

  I nodded.

  He was shaking his head, worried. “It took us awhile to piece together what they’re trying to do. It’s exactly what I was talking about. They’re raising the stakes.”

  “What are you going to do about them?” I asked.

  He looked away. “I don’t know. What are you learning from this Document?”

  I thought for a moment about whether to answer, then decided to just tell the truth. “The Document is describing a way to stop the escalation of violence.”

  “The templates,” he said.

  I was startled. “So you’re actually reading this thing.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “But do you understand what you’re reading? Did you see we were protected?”

  He chuckled. “I saw you were lucky. If we hadn’t come along, you wouldn’t have made it.”

  “I don’t think it was luck,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he pressed. “Listen to me. Things are accelerating, just like I said they would. Even with the action that’s been taken with Iran, nothing has changed. Iran is still working on nukes. We think they may already have the capability to give them to terrorists.”

  I looked at him hard. “I heard the Apocalyptics already have a plan to create a war.”

  He straightened his sunglasses. “I’m still hoping this crazy Document might give us another way out. As I told you, no one is going to like what we’ll have to do to stop this threat.”

  In that moment, I realized that contacting us and following the progress of the Document was something he was doing much more on his own than I had thought. And as we exchanged looks, I could also tell he knew I knew.

  “I’m way out on a limb here,” he said. “And we’re both running out of time.”

  He looked at me as though asking for more information. So I began to describe as best I could what the Breakthrough on the mountain felt like, and the idea that the Templates of Understanding could somehow create a wave of influence that might dispel the Apocalyptics’ intentions, although we didn’t fully understand how to do it yet.

  He shook his head, looking at me as though all was lost.

  “That’s what this Document is talking about, some crazy idea like that?”

  I knew how he felt. From the perspective of the secular worldview, it would seem illogical and silly. There was no way one could just read the words of the Document and understand, unless one had also encountered the experiences it was describing.

  “Listen,” I said, “I know it sounds crazy to you, but there’s an esoteric connection between people. It’s a real influence. If this catches on, it could work.”

  “Well,” he said, shaking his head, “keep looking. And you’d better do it quickly. I told you: measures are being taken domestically in every Western-leaning country to deal with this problem. And if the plans go forward, it will happen before anyone realizes it’s under way.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You act like you can just take over nations that have a long tradition of democracy.”

  He looked away. “Unfortunately, it’s not that hard, especially during difficult economic times. Look at Venezuela. All you have to do is get a majority of the population hooked on government subsidies, and then threaten to take them away. They’ll vote for the people who promise to take care of them, especially if you co-opt the world’s largest corporations at the same time and get them to buy media companies.

  “You just have to make both Left and Right think you’re doing it to support their ideology, then everyone looks the other way while you hide the power to do it in bills nobody reads, and gradually plant your own judges in key places. Once you nationalize the polling booths, the rest is easy. You just wait for the right time, the right emergency.”

  His certainty at being able to pull off such a ploy chilled me. He seemed to realize he’d said too much and quickly reached into a satchel and pulled out a large folder.

  “These are copies of the Seventh Integration,” he said, moving to leave.

  I reached out and took the folder. “Where are you getting these copies?”

  “This one was sent to the office of the CIA in Langley. Do you believe that? If you were releasing parts of a document like this, would you send one to them? I managed to get them forwarded to me through a friend before anyone upstairs noticed, then ran a full investigation. It went nowhere. We don’t have a clue w
ho’s distributing these translations.”

  He headed farther into the bushes. “You have five more days to give me some information I can use.”

  I hurried back to the house where I found Coleman, Adjar, and Hira gathered around Wil, already sensing something was wrong. Rushing up to them I rapidly relayed what Peterson had said, including that the extremists were still here, looking for us.

  “I think,” Wil said, “that we need to leave as soon as we can.”

  Adjar leaned in. “And go where? How will we know how to proceed until we find the Seventh Integration?”

  I lifted up the folder I had tucked under my arm, which surprised everyone.

  They grinned at me as if I had produced a miracle, and then each took a copy to read.

  “Where’s Tommy?” I asked Wil, still thinking the Mayan Calendar would shed more light on all this.

  “His mother sent a friend to bring him to her. She’s in Egypt.”

  “What? Why? Isn’t it dangerous there?”

  “I know the person she sent,” Wil said. “He’s reliable. He said Tommy was needed.”

  I stood up, feeling angry.

  Wil walked closer. “Look, Tommy is not an ordinary child. There’s another template group there that his mother is part of. Tommy’s been there with her many times before. He’ll be fine.”

  I nodded. “Where’s Rachel?”

  “She went with them.”

  I just looked at him, dumbfounded and slightly disoriented. Things were moving too fast.

  “Why would she do that?” I asked.

  “She felt that she had to. And there was no time to wait to say good-bye.”

  I wondered again why I hadn’t turned around and come back when I had seen Tommy. Yet if I had, I may not have seen Peterson and received the copies of the Seventh Integration. I knew all this was just more Synchronicity, moving us along, but I didn’t like it.

  Wil was looking at the pages.

  “Let’s get going,” he said. “We have to read this!”

  I nodded, sat down by my tent, and began reading. The Document opened by saying that, in this Integration, we would see how Synchronicity actually worked.