The liberation of the world rests on changing your beliefs. When an individual holds a strong conviction about something, they change the beliefs of those around them, and what once seemed impossible becomes a certainty.
The world each of us sees is a product of our beliefs. And one person’s beliefs are not separate from another’s. When someone begins to see or experience something different, they somehow “force” a change in another person’s beliefs; in other words, they change the way that person’s mind conceives—creates—external reality.
That is why salvation is always shared, as shared as all minds are joined. You might think you can hide your thoughts, but it is impossible, because whatever your words do not express, your gestures do: the way you act or refrain from acting.
Nothing is hidden from those who open their eyes, who begin to regard what is outside them as their own, who begin to consider what belongs to “others” an integral part of themselves.
When someone wants to see another person—that is, to understand them deeply—they can see them coming a mile away, because they have long since deciphered their intentions and deeper motivations. They will also understand where that person’s desires lead and, therefore, what consequences will follow. With all this, they will broadly understand the world the other person sees.
Those who see find an open, accessible book before them. And because they see, they understand; and because they understand, they stop condemning and attacking what they previously did not understand. That is why learning is an essential requirement for attaining peace.
For example, if someone wants to be the centre of attention, you know they will resort to every imaginable kind of clowning to achieve it. If someone wants to be the centre of attention, you know they need to compensate for an enormous sense of lack that demands to be seen, acknowledged, and appreciated by others. You also know that this excessive need reveals a lack of self-love.
Those who value themselves, meaning they feel loved and protected by themselves or by God, greatly diminish that need. This does not mean they dislike attention; it means attention does not dictate their behaviour or force them to put on a clown’s nose to obtain it. They accept it gratefully when it arises naturally.
Every person who chooses salvation leaves behind a series of ideas that cancel out or undo others belonging to the material world—ideas that once firmly sustained it and made it seem unchangeable. One of these is the perceived lack of love, over which all kinds of wars are fought, betrayals committed, jealousy and envy stirred, and what belongs to others coveted and attacked.
That idea creates a constant state of lack in the mind; and those who lack seek, seek desperately, and end up accepting absurdities born of their own desperation. Absurdities that continually chip away at them and wear them down, translating into constant unease. That unease then spreads and affects those around them.
For all these reasons, no individual decision exists in isolation. We are all part of an interconnected network whose members influence one another. There is absolutely nothing you do that does not affect someone else in some way, nor anything someone else does that does not affect you.
One person’s salvation is essential for another to see the world differently, to let go of limiting ideas and insubstantial problems, to release contradictions and absurdities, all of which destroy any sustained, lasting state of peace.
Clearly, peace in the world begins with peace within the individual. And that peace must be sustained and unwavering so that the world cannot shatter it, and so that it can become a catalyst for dissolving conflicts that make no sense whatsoever.
Ultimately, no conflict makes sense, because it is always possible for two people who were previously killing each other to begin helping one another. And the world is two multiplied many, many times.
We are one because our ideas influence one another and clash until they find peace and unity, which tune them to the same frequency. This already happens here, amid apparent separation and division; how much more so in God, a completely undivided state of mind, free of conflict.