Being Centered in a Crashing World | Live Teaching

So Marshall Vian Summers has maintained a deep, ongoing connection with an unseen group of Spiritual Teachers for well over 40 years. There are now 20 books in publication as a result of this connection—all this to prepare humanity for the environmental, social, political and economic changes converging in the world, and for our world’s emergence and contact with a universe full of intelligent life that is vastly different from ourselves. And all of this can be found at NewMessage.org.

So today we have the opportunity to hear Marshall speak about an important topic—our own innate, deeper spiritual Mind called Knowledge, and how this Knowledge can guide and help us live successfully in a rapidly changing world.

So a quick overview of the format today: First we’ll hear Marshall give this teaching; then we’ll go to the live broadcast chat on Discord to share our thoughts and experiences around the two questions that will be posed; then we will return here to the same YouTube channel for a brief discussion by Marshall. So with that let us now hear from Marshall Vian Summers.

Marshall: Good. Welcome. I’m glad you could be with me here today. I’d like to share some things with you today that could be very impactful for you and very helpful as we face an ever increasingly difficult and disjointed world reality. And we’re going to need an inner compass, inner direction to really enable us to do that without falling prey to excessive fear, anxiety or fantasy or denial, which is very common with people around us and even within ourselves, frankly.

So I’d like to begin with this quote—this is the first of the first paragraph of the teaching.

To be intelligent means you are living in the moment and preparing for the future—the two fundamental aspects that require intelligence. You cannot do one without the other, for if you do not know how to be in the moment, you will not understand the signs of the world. If you do not prepare for the future, the world will overtake you, and you will be helpless and hopeless in its wake.

So let’s take a few moments and just be with this and this important message. It’s actually quite deep. Maybe read it again to yourself for a moment. Think about it.

Okay. We’ll leave it up for a while while I talk a little bit about it.

The idea of being intelligent is really important, and we only use a very small part of our intelligence—that’s what scientists and sociologists and researchers tell us. We may be using 10, 15, 20 percent of our intelligence. Well, where is the rest of that intelligence? Why is it not being accessed? Why do we not know what it is or how to find it? So we’re operating on a limited amount of resource here within ourselves to be able to navigate an ever increasingly difficult world, perhaps a more complex life.

So these two things I’d like to talk about for a moment: Living in the moment. We use the word living in the moment, not being in the moment. Being in the moment is momentary—it’s just for a moment. Living in the moment means that you are oriented to being present most of the time. Of course, you think about the future, you reflect upon the past—naturally, of course, and you should. But mostly, you’re paying attention to what is immediate, what is happening, what is happening around you, what is right in front of you, what is happening within you, where your mind is going—all these things. That’s called living in the moment, not just being in the moment. 

So that’s very important and that’s a pretty advanced state compared to where we start. And you don’t just be there; that’s a thing to acquire within yourself over time. That’s what spiritual practice is largely about. So living in the moment means you live there, you don’t just visit there. You’re not just there once in a while, you’re actually…that is your grounded being. Living in the moment.

And then there’s preparing for the future—something I don’t hear many people talk about, realistically. Preparing for the future. Because the future is going to be much more daunting than it is today—much more complicated, much more disruptive.

For those of you who are paying attention to the events of the world: changing climate; social conditions. Even if you’re only paying attention somewhat to them, they begin to tell you that the environment we live in is altering; it’s changing. It’s having a big impact on people, whether aware of these changes or not.

You know, you can look at how people drive cars. They seem more preoccupied, more agitated. Sometimes they’re more rude. They’re not very aware of people around them. They’re not letting you get into the lane. All these kinds of things you can see on a daily basis probably anywhere. People seem to be obsessed, concerned, grave, anxious, whether they’re aware of the cause of their anxiety or not. So we’re living in a mental environment of increasing stress, discord, alienation from each other. And this has a lot to do with the things I’ll be talking about today.

So preparing for the future. What kind of future are you preparing for? Nobody knows for sure, but the world is giving you signs and the progression of signs follows courses. Things don’t just happen out of the blue. There’s a progression of events that leads to outcomes, and if you follow those progression of events you know they’re going to lead to certain predictable outcomes. You won’t know when exactly, but that’s fine. But when you’re paying attention to these things, then it’s giving you a heads-up about what’s happening in the world and where the world may be going—in specific areas, certainly. Some people watch the economy. Some people watch the climate. Some people watch, you know, the investment world. I mean, when you’re watching you become more informed and hopefully you have gained a practical approach to these things.

But living in the moment and preparing for the future are actually much bigger than they might seem to be in the moment. Preparing for the future means that much of what you’re doing now is not just being in the moment. It is actually preparing for you where you feel you need to be, where you need to go and what you need to do. And this is a mark of intelligence because the intelligent creatures, in the hierarchy of nature, the more intelligent the creatures are, the more they prepare for the future. They know where to go in the winter. Maybe they seek caves if you’re a bear or, you know, they build their own nest. They build their own protection from the winter months if they don’t hibernate. Of course, birds [migrate].

So nature demonstrates this preparation for the future constantly, particularly at higher level of intelligence and beings—all creatures. But humanity is not that intelligent in this respect, and this is a great detriment because we seem unwilling or unable to deal with the future. The future is looking more problematic and so people just don’t want to go there. They don’t want to think about it. 

But they should be thinking about it because that’s where you’re going. You’re not going to be left behind. You’re going into the future. We’re all going into this future. And the future is giving us signs—signs in the moment. And when I say signs, I don’t mean explanations. Signs are just clues. You don’t go on a sign and that explains everything. The sign is a clue. If it’s a sign that is persistent, then it’s probably an important clue. If it’s something that just happens in the moment, well, okay. But if it’s persistent, it’s trying to get your attention and maybe you should start to think about it or look into it.

So the future is where we’re going. So what we want out of life or what we want to have in life or be in life is very much determined on that future because it’s going to happen in the future, and the future is not going to be like the past. That’s guaranteed. So all these things require a shift of emphasis, concentration, priority. And everyone, no matter what your circumstances in life, you need to be present for the moment and you need to be thinking about what you’re going to do to prepare for the future because everyone in the world is going to face a changing world, a changing climate—its vast impacts on economies, people, political stability, conflict, warfare. Everything.

You know, we’re not going to be at peace if we’re having to face change at this level. It’s going to be turbulent. It’s going to be disruptive. People are not going to be prepared for it, which means they’re going to act inappropriately or self-destructively or be destructive to others. This could be messy. And don’t think that, you know, you’re so unfortunate to be here at this time because, at least from my perspective, you were sent into the world to be here at this time. This is your time. You didn’t just wash up on the shore and say, “What’s happening now?” This is your time. 

And the more you become engaged with a deeper Intelligence within you, which I’ll be talking about, the more you’ll see the importance of knowing why you’re here. And that is not just you have to do something you don’t want to do, but that you actually have a destiny in being here. You don’t define it because you don’t know what it is yet, but it is a destiny. You have an engagement with the world and it’s destined to happen and it’s destined to happen under the very circumstances that are unfolding before us.

So a lot of people don’t want to look at the world, think of the world. They just want to be on their own; they want to do what they’re doing. But that’s not intelligent. It says here, to be intelligent you have to be in the moment, which is you’re dealing with what is around you, maybe even beyond you, and preparing for the future. If you’re not preparing for the future, well you’re going to be a victim of the future. 

So it goes on to say, these are the two fundamental aspects that require intelligence. You have to be intelligent to learn to be present in the moment—present, not just momentarily being in the present—and to prepare for the future wisely, which means you understand what’s in motion in the world. You understand the arenas you’re looking at, hopefully, and this is going to have a huge impact on what your future is going to be like. And in a free country you have more latitude in how you can shape your future or respond to your future. So this is very important.

It goes on to say, you cannot do one without the other, for if you do not know how to be in the moment you will not understand the signs of the world. You’re not paying attention.

Signs. Signs is what the world is demonstrating to you. It’s not just ideas about what you think the world is or what’s happening. The world is showing you things in an evidential way. So you won’t know what’s going on around you. You won’t know what’s shaping your future, you’re just going to be in the present and hope that everything stays together and the ship doesn’t sink or fall apart and a better president will make a difference or whatever it is that…how you secure your senses to deal with insecurity within yourself.

It goes on to say, If you do not prepare for the future, the world will overtake you, and you will be helpless and hopeless in its wake. That’s a pretty dramatic statement. It’s not like the future is going to be bumpy and you just might have a hard time. It’s pretty much saying it’s going to destroy your life. Maybe it won’t kill you, but it’s going to destroy the quality of your life, most assuredly. And that future will not provide the kind of opportunities and choices you may have today.

So, this a very powerful introduction to this very powerful teaching, and that’s why it has a dramatic title: Being Centered in a Crashing World. Well the world isn’t falling apart visibly, but our understanding of it and the stability of it is breaking down rapidly at every level. It’s not going to completely fall apart, but any degree of destabilization in the world will cause massive human suffering and conflict. So we’re not just talking about it’s an everything or nothing situation, it’s in degrees. It’s in degrees. 

Crashing world can look very crashing if your economy is falling apart and you can’t get a job. That can feel very crashing to you, even though the world looks the same and people look the same and cities are still here and countries are still here. So the word crashing is meant to evoke response in you, that it’s not stable, and that it can collapse in various degrees or even in severe degrees.

I want to read you this quote from another teaching in the New Message called, Preparing for the Greater Community. Greater Community means life in the universe. It’s the chapter called Developing Greater Honesty, and it says, Intelligence is the willingness, the desire and the ability to adapt and create. I’ll read it again. Intelligence is the willingness, the desire and the ability to adapt and create.

So there has to be willingness to deal with the future. You have to realize you need to deal with the future so you have a desire to do it. It’s not like you really want to. It may not be the thing that makes you feel better about your life, but you feel the need and so you have a desire to do it. And then you have to have the ability, and the ability requires preparation. In fact, all these things require preparation. Nobody’s ready for the future—are you kidding! If you knew what was really coming down the line…People aren’t ready. The experts aren’t ready.

So, readiness is really important and if you’re not ready then you will suffer the consequences because nature is really pretty unmerciful to the unprepared. Something big is going to happen and you don’t see it or know it, you’re not going to be in a good situation.

So there’s a Marine motto: adapt, improvise and create [conquer]. This is what the Marines landing on some foreign country in a war situation. This is their motto. Adapt. How do I adapt? How do I stay alive in this situation? What do I need to do to to protect myself? To maintain my functionality? 

Improvise means I’ve got to think of what to do, which may not be anything I’ve ever done before. That means improvise. Improvise isn’t what you know to do, it’s what you haven’t done or beyond the norms of what you do. And then from that you could begin to create a pathway or an opportunity or see an opportunity.

So dealing with an unstable world is a very serious matter and it should be approached seriously. If you don’t approach the world, then, well, you’ve got your back to it and you will not see things coming. You won’t see the signs of the world and you’re going to be in a very difficult situation.

The other part of this is watching your mind. And I know that’s a skill that has to be learned. Most people don’t really know how to watch their mind. The Buddhists practice it a lot, of course. It’s valuable because one of the things it teaches you is that who you are is not your mind. I mean, if you can watch your mind, who’s you watching your mind? Step back from your mind, watch its thoughts, its train of thoughts—images—the things that come up. You’ll see how chaotic it is, how stimulated it is by your environment—unproductively stimulated—and why you can’t focus on things very well and why you can’t keep yourself emotionally stable and why you feel battered by the world, even from things that happen remotely. If you want to feel battered, just watch the news every day. You’ll feel pretty battered.

So watching your mind is a skill that we practice in The Way of Knowledge. It begins to teach you by demonstration that really who you are is really not your mind—your personal mind—and that you have a deeper Mind within you and a deeper place from which you can watch your mind. And when you watch your mind, you’re not thinking, you’re watching. So who’s you who’s watching? 

See, you and your mind are not the same because you’re a spirit inhabiting a body. You’re watching what the intelligence of your body, or intelligence associated with your body, is doing, thinking, how it associates, how it decides. And you begin to learn a lot about your mind. And when you learn a lot about it, you can begin to direct it appropriately rather than have it run in a chaotic manner and you try to just go along with wherever it goes. That’s chaotic. 

So managing your mind is also a part of this, because to be living in the moment you have to be pretty focused—can’t be driven by thoughts and fears and desires and ambitions and fantasies. I mean, just, you can’t. Because you’re not going to be present and you won’t prepare for the future, because you won’t be thinking about it productively or realistically. So this is why I bring up the mental aspect of this. So let’s go on. 

The great storms of the world are coming, the Great Waves of change, the great upheaval. For humanity has sown the seeds of this for a very long time. You are standing at the cusp of a new world experience. It is not the end of the world, but a great transition to a different kind of world reality.

Spend a few minutes thinking about this. Think about each part of it. Every  part of it has something to say; even every part of a sentence here has something to say. And I’m going to spend some time going through that with you. Good. 

“Great storms of the world are coming.” Well, they’re already coming. We’re having great storms disrupting the climate of the world, creating massive damage. I mean, even so far in this year with all the fires that we…the damage and the cost of that is just phenomenal. And everybody who lives in this country is going to pay for it—gradually. So storms of the world are coming and they’re increasing. 

A heating world creates increasing intensity of storms, increasing aridity, increasing precipitation, increasing storms, winds, powers. I mean, everything gets amplified in a heating world. Apparently, this is what its demonstrated. It’s theoretically assessed long ago, but it is demonstrating that almost on a daily basis. This is a great upheaval. If the planet gets too hot, there are places in the world you can’t even live. So where do you take all the people in the Middle East who can no longer live there? Where are they going to go? Who wants to have them in their country? By that time every country is in crisis. So you’re not going to take 700 million people and distribute them around the world. 

A heating world will continue to heat. We can slow it down, and we should. But even so it’s going to have immense impact. It’s already having impact on the availability of water. All the great rivers in the world are in decline. Now. Heat is affecting not just intensity of all kinds of weather. If you look at the weather patterns and begin to learn a little bit about that, not that you’re a scientist, you can begin to see the cause and effect of what happens at the equator has a lot to do with what happens in North America. Okay? It’s basically understandable. In detail it’s not understandable unless you’re an expert. 

So we are living in an evolutionary time in history. Evolutionary. Think about that. Evolution is usually thought of as a gradual, broadspectrum kind of change that happens over millennia and even longer periods of time. We’re even living an evolutionary moment, which is not a moment. But it is a very much narrower stretch of time—decades, century—that would produce massive change. It’s a great turning point for humanity and a very dangerous one, a very uncertain one. You have some certainty about it but when and how it will occur. But if you don’t prepare for it you’re going to be a victim of it. If a nation doesn’t prepare for it, it will suffer immensely, might even crash—even a rich nation. 

So these are the great movements of the world that are going on now that have mostly been stimulated by putting too much atmospheric gasses into the atmosphere, heating up the planet. When that happens, the planet’s weather changes. Then it changes where you can plant food. It changes lots of things sequentially and ultimately. We’ve been through hot and cold eras in the planet’s evolution, so we have some notion of what a hot planet does and what it can do in extremity. So this isn’t an entirely new phenomenon for us; in terms of natural history, it’s a repeating phenomenon. It’s just accelerating at an immensely rapid time. And we’re fueling it even further every year. 

So, great storms are coming, great environmental storms, great economic storms. Who’s going to pay for these environmental storms? The cost of food, access to water, transportation of all kinds? Everything’s escalating even at this moment in response to the very changes that have already happened. It’s not just people are getting greedier. No.There is greed but not at this level. 

So the cost of living is going up, far outpacing your salary. So you’re going to be living in a declining sense of economic welfare, economic benefit. So this is an evolutionary time. We’re in it. We’re probably in the early stages of it where we’re in it. It’s not going to stop. 

The climate has been changing for 800 years on a large scale. It goes hot and cold, hot and cold and hot, but basically it’s becoming drier, hotter and so forth, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. This is what drove the Anasazi…collapsed their civilization, was severe and prolonged aridity. This has been the destruction of nations. 

So we’re living in this incredible time. It’s an incredible time to be here, I mean, if you got the nerve and the heart for it. It’s a time of immense opportunity for contribution. The needs of humanity will escalate beyond what anybody can even imagine. So, I’m not being dire and extremist or negative in what I’m telling you. This is just connecting the dots, basically. You know, the planet warms up by three degrees celsius. I mean, what would happen? What do you think would happen? Think about it. Three degrees celsius, not very much. Right? It’s not just that it gets slightly hotter, it changes the weather around the world. Now it doesn’t rain in California for two years or it rains incessantly. Now a category four storm becomes a category six storm. It’s a hurricane and just basically levels everything. That’s an amplified situation. Heat is an amplifier; we know that. It’s being demonstrated. 

So I’m not being dire and cynical here. I’m just saying this is the future we’re facing. And if you don’t prepare for it, you don’t get centered in it, it’s going to really devastate you, either psychologically, emotionally or even practically. 

Now this is an evolutionary moment, but it’s more than moments; it’s decades. But it’s a pivotal time in the history of humanity, a far-reaching time of change. It could be natural, self-induced or both. In this case both. We’re heating up the planet. Now the planet’s heating itself because of the natural cycles we have changed. So even if we didn’t pollute anything more, it’s going to continue to heat itself for quite a while, not like we’re doing now but for quite a while. So I’m not a climate scientist. You don’t have to be a climate scientist to understand these things. You just have to pay attention. And not try to think, “Oh, it’s all about this secret government or it’s conspiracy or all this nonsense.” It’s planet Earth talking to you. Signs of the world. 

And people don’t pay attention and things happen. And they blame each other or other people or other countries or God or whatever. So these events require awareness, vision, adaptation. So adaptation is the big key word here. If we don’t adapt, it’s going to be pretty catastrophic on an individual and collective level. So this teaching is about adaptation. And where are you going to find the inner strength and power to do that? And how are you going to navigate a world that’s going to become increasingly disorderly, hazardous and scary? 

So adaptation requires for many people in the world who live really at the edge of survivability or near it, it’s a problem of survival. I mean, they don’t have a government that can provide endless resources for them should their crops fail or rivers dry up. I mean, they have nowhere to go. And when you go out in the world and see how people are actually living, their threshold of survivability is really not that far from them. I mean, they may not die but they may have nothing. They may fall into abject poverty, which most nations in the world can’t really deal with. And for the people who have more wealth, a more stable government, more resources, it’s the adaptation requires the desire to thrive.

So since I’m talking to the second group mostly right now—thrive. If the world is in dire straits and you’re barely dealing with it, you cannot thrive; you cannot create. You probably can’t become a real contributor because you’re under too much duress. So you can’t thrive. I don’t mean thrive in a good way. I don’t mean you just get richer but you thrive, you open up, you become stronger. If you become a bigger person, a greater person, that’s what I mean by thrive. 

So most of the world doesn’t even have the opportunity to thrive because they don’t have the resource foundation to do that, or the economic or political stability or religious freedom to do that. So adaptation is a keyword. 

And now I’d like to say a few things about the environment. I’ve listed here five environments. I don’t have a slide for this but you can hear me. The New Message says environment is the most important thing. The most important? Now for some people it’s important but not the most important. And for some people it’s not even on their list. “Oh, the environment, weather, who cares! Get an umbrella. Stay out of the rain.” 

So the natural environment is the source of all other levels of environment, because even a democracy cannot function in a condition of depleting resources and lack of natural abundance. Our political system, which I support, cannot survive without the abundance of resources and a stable climate. The cost of adaptation of the government will defeat its ability to really function any way that we can recognize. And that process is really in motion already. So you have the natural environment, which is kind of the stage for everything to happen. Because if your natural environment can’t support civilization, civilization doesn’t happen or dies. 

Then you have political environment, which very much has its own dynamics. But it, too, is dependent upon the available resources and a stable climate. 

Then you have the economic environment, which affects the political environment. Of course, that’s affecting all of us in terms of whether we have work, the affordability of goods and services and can our communities even function. 

Then you have a social environment, which can break down between people as groups fight each other over resources or issues. Look at the political landscape in the United States. It’s just so polarized, it’s pathetic. It’s a wonder that the two parties can even get anything done. So that’s in crisis mode. 

And then you have a technological environment, which is kind of its own reality; it’s morphing, it’s evolving. But even that is dependent upon everything above it. 

So when it says the environment—the natural environment—is the most important thing, you don’t have to agree with me. Many people don’t because they don’t see it. They don’t see the relationship between all these environments on that natural environment. And there’s no matter of technology that’s going to resolve a collapse in the natural environment. You don’t have all the money in the world to do it. You certainly don’t have the human will to do it now. So the natural environment is the most important thing. 

This comes from the New Message teaching. I was a doubtful when I first read that. I said: Wow. Really? I know it’s important, but that important? But I’ve been sitting with it for the last 25 years, and I’m seeing that it is the foundation for everything else. And as I mentioned, democracy as you know it is dependent upon stable resources and a stable environment. Without that, the government will have to take ever greater control of all the functions of society, increasingly, just to prevent chaos. 

So, to face and adapt these challenges requires a greater intelligence. And we’re going to talk about that now.

Therefore, God must prepare you by giving you steps to take to find this deeper strength and power that represents the immortal part of yourself that is not corrupted by the world, that is not terrified by the world, that is not even influenced by the world. It is the source of your strength, your courage and your integrity. It is also the source of your love, your compassion and your forgiveness.

While your mind struggles to understand, the deeper part of you already knows. It knows enough for you to take the next step that has been waiting for you.

So again, I give you some moments to read this for yourself; think about it a little bit. 

Okay. So I’ll say a few things about this that I see. I think what stands out for me is the immortal part of yourself, because if it’s immortal it’s probably connected to God, but only God knows how to prepare you to engage with it fully. Because we’re at the receiving end; we don’t even know what Knowledge is. We think Knowledge is, “Oh well, a way to get more of what I want.” That’s not what Knowledge is. 

God must prepare you by giving you the steps to take to find this deeper strength and power that represents the immortal part of you. 

That part of you is not corrupted by the world, which means it’s not worldly. It’s not terrified by the world because nothing can threaten it. It’s not even influenced by the world because what does it need from the world? But it needs something from the world because it’s engaged with you and your purpose in being here. It lives within you. It’s not somebody else’s Knowledge. I mean, this is about Knowledge in you—something very deep, that experience its effects, sometimes. 

Sometimes you have insights that are kind of rare and interesting. You have premonitions that you either follow or you don’t follow. Sometimes you get signs that seem to come from nowhere that could be important or prove to be important. 

So Knowledge is active in you. But if your mind is completely cluttered up and overtaken—the surface of your mind—by the world, then you can’t hear it, you can’t feel it, you can’t know it and you can’t act upon it. You’re too taken up, too engaged or overwhelmed; I mean, reasonably overwhelmed. If you have to work 12 hours a day to get food for that day, you’re overwhelmed. And most people in the world are overwhelmed by their circumstances—legitimately.

But people in the rich world who have all the opportunities in the world to develop this process are just caught up on their own desires and fantasies and problems and issues. So they’re they’re intoxicated or they’re they’re full of desire. And when desire fails you, then you have anger and revenge. 

So all those things become in play now. But the fact is, the surface of our mind is the mind we’ve accumulated since the day we were born, enables us to be here, teaches us how to communicate, gives us a personality or a state of being, which is part of ourselves temporarily to be able to function here and participate here, even for a higher purpose. So “the immortal part of you”? This tells you a lot about what this Knowledge is right here and why it is important.

“The source of your strength”? Where are you going to get your strength, your courage? Where are you going to find your courage? I mean, I don’t mean false courage, I mean beating your chest courage, but like, “I’m going to take this on. I’m going to take my life on. It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to do it.” 

And your integrity, which means you’re not being siphoned off by competing or intrusive forces around you, be they human or extraterrestrial or whatever they may be. You’re not being compromised by your decisions or by other people. You know your own mind. Your mind is now functioning in a state of integrity which means you have one mind, not ten minds, and they’re all working together fairly harmoniously. That’s what integrity means. It’s also a source of your love, your compassion, your forgiveness. Without that, your love is probably shallow or circumstantial, your compassion may or may not exist and you have great deal of forgiving anybody or even yourself.

So this is a really important thing. I think it speaks for itself,. The whole teaching in The Way of Knowledge is about building your connection to Knowledge and taking the Steps to Knowledge, because until that your personal mind is the subject of the world, dominated by the world, dominated by what you want, what you fear and what’s overtaking you from the outside. So this is…you can’t do anything beneficial when you’re in that circumstance and you’re subject to all the chaotic events of the world. So you’re pretty helpless and hopeless and you don’t know how to get out of situations or stay out of them effectively to prevent yourself from being in bad situations.

For you must be centered in a crashing world. You must be strong. You must be purposeful. You must know where to give yourself and where to hold yourself back. You must be certain about who to be with and who not to be with despite any other possible attraction or intrigue that has gained control of your mind…

This talks about, you know, qualities within us, being strong and purposeful and also where to give, where you give yourself, what you give yourself to. So what you give yourself to demonstrates your values and your needs, however you perceive them.

And you must be certain in your relationships. If you’re not certain, don’t get in a relationship. Don’t get in a relationship because, well you should, or you could, or it might work out. That’s not intelligent. Again, we’re still talking about intelligence here, okay? Intelligence—certain about who to be with and who not to be with despite any other possible attraction or intrigue that has gained control of your mind. So if you’re not certain with who you are now then you got a problem.

Certainty is what you’re looking for. You don’t create it. It’s not about being adamant and determined, “I’m going to get what I want no matter what.” No. Certainty is an innate thing within you that shows you that what you’re doing is the right thing to do—may be full of problems, may not be working out—but it’s the right thing to do, or the right person to be with. And people don’t have the patience to wait for these things to happen and so they basically just capitulate over wealth, beauty and charm, or whatever it is the desire factor or what it contributes to their capitulation. And that’s what you see in most relationships today is a fairly capitulated state, many of them. And these relationships will not do well in a crashing world because neither the parties involved will probably be strong enough or united enough with each other to take really wise action that must be taken. Let’s go on.

It [Knowledge] lives within you today. It lives within everyone else. And it lives within all sentient beings and life in the whole universe. It is beyond the scriptures. It is beyond religious ideology and philosophy. It is the real power of Grace in your life.

Spend a few minutes with this. Grace means you have a relationship with something bigger than yourself that’s real, in this case, probably God, or some part of God’s creation that is pure and is…you can experience. “Beyond the scriptures”? Well, that will get people up in arms. “Beyond religious ideology and philosophy”? Yes, the real work of the Divine is beyond these things. It can happen through these things, if taught appropriately and understood correctly, but innately it’s there for everybody, no matter what religion you have or if you have no religion.

God’s plan is to save everyone, not just those who are devoutly committed to a religious philosophy or an ideology. Grace. Who owns Grace? No religious institution owns Grace. No person owns Grace. No world owns Grace. It must be something beyond all these things in the physical reality. It’s this Grace that will save you and guide you, if you prepare yourself for it, and allow this to take place over time. Let’s go on.

Finding Your Center in a Crashing World

You must find your center in a crashing world. You needed it yesterday. You needed it five years ago. You have always needed it. And now you’ll need it ever more importantly, for the things you depend upon or assume to be there for you may not be there for you.

Great Tribulation is coming to the world, not because God wills it but because humanity has set it in motion.

Let’s spend a few minutes with this. This is pretty important. The thing that stands out for me is “the things you depend on or assume to be there for you may not be there for you.” In a world of declining resources, I mean, things you’ve always enjoyed may not be there for you, or you may not be able to afford them or have access to them. So this is a consequence of great change that we have largely fostered on the world. God is not making this happen.

God has… humanity has set it in motion. You heat up the world and all these things begin to unfold over time, very complexly by the way. I don’t think anyone has a grasp of the Great Waves of change, entirely. There’s too many forces interacting, producing, some predictable and some things unpredictable. So this is the great time of human evolution. So everything about it is really big and consequential. What in your life is big and consequential?

Ask yourself, “Do I have anything in my life that’s really big and consequential, other than feeding myself and keeping a roof over my head and trying to take care of my children?” 

And so this is an important statement right here: And you must find your center in a crashing world or you will not fare well. It’s not having the right belief. It’s not believing in God the right way. It’s not having the right political associations. It’s not having the right assumptions. It’s not that you can see the future so clearly that you don’t need to worry about it. Or you, some people think, “Well, the world’s just going to crash. That’s going to be it so I don’t even think about it.” Well, that’s dumb. That’s not being prepared for a crashing world. 

So people don’t, either they don’t have the capacity to deal with it, or they don’t take the time in energy to learn to deal with it or learn about it. You don’t just get the whole thing. You have to to learn about this. What’s going on in the world I need to know about that will impact my future? That’s a good approach. Lets go on.

Preparing For The New World

Do not seek pleasantries alone. Do not try to pad your life with sweet and wonderful things. You must prepare for a world that will be much more dangerous and difficult to navigate. You may dismiss this at your own risk, but the world is giving you the signs with each passing day—the signs of great change that is underway and greater change to come.

Take a few moments with this. I look at this and this is prophecy. This is what this is. This whole teaching is prophecy, telling you what’s out there you can’t see, what’s coming, the signs of it that you can see, how you have to regard it, what you’re going to have to do to include it in your range of responsibilities and awareness; and then, how can you prepare yourself for it practically, but also emotionally, psychologically?

People are falling apart psychologically before the storm even hits, feeling the effects of the storm. So, I mean, this is happening in a big way in our world right now. 

So, you can give yourself a little process here, you can ask yourself this question: What could be the impact of decline in environmental change on humanity in this century? What could be the impact of decline and environmental change on humanity in this century?

You can write it down, maybe. I’ll read it again: What could be the impact of decline and environmental change on humanity in this century? Take a few minutes and just see what comes into your mind. What ideas or thoughts, or whatever, anything. It doesn’t matter. There’s no right answer to this. It’s just what you see and feel. What could be the impact of decline and environmental change on humanity in this century?

So, you can take this question home with you and not try to answer it intellectually, philosophically. Just pose it and see what comes up, hopefully from a deeper place within you. Oh, people are full of answers. “I have an answer for that. I have an answer for that.”  No! This is not about having answers. There’s no answer to this except your deeper experience. It gives you a clue as to how you really feel about it, or what it really says to you, whether it confirms your ideas or not, whether it’s part of your religion or not.

So it’s indicating here that this is not the end times, but it is the end of the world as we know it, which is kind of the end times, but not total destruction, but something will alter the panorama of life to an extent that has never happened this fast or to this degree anytime we know of in history. But it has the power to completely change the face of the world and drive nations into desperation and conflict. So it’s a very big thing. 

And the last thing I’d like to say about this is something that this teaching does not deal with specifically, but which the New Message deals with in a very big way, and that’s the alien presence in the world today. And it says here, in one sentence, something that’s very, I think, defining.

The world is being interfered with from races from beyond who see the great opportunity to take control here without the use of force.

I, we don’t have a slide for this, I don’t think.

The world is being interfered with from races from beyond who see the great opportunity to take control here without the use of force.

“Without the use of force.” How would they do it? So, this is not…I’ve spoken on this a great deal in my broadcasts and so forth, but it, it’s just interjected here as kind of a, “Wow! What’s that?”, because that’s part of what’s going to shape the century and the future of humanity. And, though it looks scary at the beginning, you need to be with this. 

But what this does say, if it’s here with that purpose, you shouldn’t want anything from it or expect anything from it because if you do, it will seduce you and make you compliant with its will. It’s very powerful in the mental environment, very powerful at the level of persuasion. That’s it’s power, not military power. Advanced races in the universe don’t do military power. That’s just destructive.

But the power in the mental environment, the power to overtake, to dominate other people’s awareness, and that is the skills that these forces employ for their own purposes. They’re not demons. They’re not evil, in the sense that they are demonic. They’re just a competing force, called the competition species—part of nature, part of evolution.

This is why we’re in evolutionary time. Changing the world. Changing ourselves. Changing humanity. It’s evolutionary. So I won’t say more about this, but I’ve done a great deal of teaching on this subject so you can look into that.

[Being Unburdened]

Knowledge will teach you how to navigate the changing world. But first it must free you from the burden of your current conditions, mostly your mental and emotional conditions, which weigh upon you more heavily than almost anything else. You must free your mind so the power of your mind can be used purposely.

…by Knowledge or guided. Because if you’re taken up with yourself, you can’t really be guided. You only look for confirmation, or “Give me a miracle”, or “Show me what to do”, but you’re too you’re too disabled to really do anything. So Knowledge usually doesn’t respond to those kind of requests.

Knowledge will teach you how to navigate the changing world. What else is going to teach you how to do that? And if Knowledge is beyond the world, and not affected by it, not governed by fear, not governed by political ideology, or religious belief, wow. But first, it must free you from the burden of your current conditions, which is really more your mental, emotional conditions which is what got you in your outer conditions to begin with. 

You must free your mind so the power of your mind can be purposefully used or employed. Otherwise if you’re not, your personal mind is not who you are then it’s a great asset that’s either working against you are working for you. If it’s oppressing you, if it’s keeping you, you know, weighted and burdened, then your personal mind is not serving you. It’s not who you are. So for it to be of service to you, it has to work in concert with where you want it to go and see that it needs to go, and begin to unburden its own condition in any way you can, not by denying it or hiding it or burying it somewhere, but by dealing with it. And that way you free up psychic energy. You free up personal energy. Your mind becomes more free, more open, more accessible to deal with the here and now and what’s coming over the horizon.

So people just want to immediately go to Take me to the new reality; I want to be there. Well, you’re not there and you have to prepare for it anyway. A lot of people just want the outcome and don’t do the preparation. Well, the preparation is what enables the outcome. If you don’t prepare to become an inner directed person in the world, you won’t become an inner directed person in the world. You have might have ideas. You might think you are. I’ve met many people who think they’re directed and you look at their life and it’s like, Damn! 

And this begins in the unburdening to bring you to real thresholds of deciding who to be with in life, where to be with. It might change your notion of what your work should be. It can change all kinds of things fundamentally to make you more stable and secure for the future. Because if you’re in a marriage with certain, somebody who’s not going to face these things, you’re not going to face them. You know your marriage partner is your chief adviser, right?, chief influence. So relationships are very important. They are very significant in either enabling you or disabling you from doing what you really need, you know you need to do. 

“You will not be passive.” Okay.

Do not think you will be passive, sitting around waiting for messages, for you will be at work—working on your circumstances, correcting your behavior, setting things aside, taking things on, making important decisions and having to be responsible for the outcome of those decisions. There is no passivity here. You are not going to be led like a little child. For the world you are facing will be hazardous, and you must be very strong and very determined to deal with it.

Big wake up call here. 

Some people think when they learned about Knowledge in The Way of Knowledge, “I’m just going to wait for Knowledge to tell me what to do.” No. No. Knowledge is waiting for you to do something in a meaningful way and then it can possibly, if needed, aid you in doing that. But if you’re sitting, if you’re sitting static wherever you are, not going anywhere, doing anything, then Knowledge is waiting for you. You think you’re waiting for Knowledge. It’s waiting for you. Get up and do something. Do something about your life, your health, your circumstances. Do something. Life is about doing stuff. If you come here and don’t do what you need to do, then it was a waste. Certainly, you’ll never fulfill yourself or feel like you did the real things that mattered. 

So don’t be passive and think that God is going to guide you because God is not going to do anything for you except ignite you to do what you need to do for yourself, or to help other people. God is going to ignite you to do things, to see things in that way. God’s not going to take over the range of your life, the God of a billion, billion races and more in this galaxy and other galaxies.Your personal management is not a issue for God. People give up the reins: “Oh, God’s going to teach me. Jesus is going to teach me, help do this, do that, do that.” Well, you’re just on spiritual welfare and nothing happens in spiritual welfare.

So I’m being very sober and direct about this because there’s a lot of things we need to unlearn or stop assuming that God is going to do all this stuff for us. I’m saying God’s not going to do anything for you, or you shouldn’t expect God to do anything for you. You’re going to do things, and as a result, other people may do things things that may help you. There may be consequences from you doing the things you need to do. I mean, we relate to each other on levels we don’t even know about. So if you’re doing the right thing that could ignite somebody else who you need to meet to do the right thing, and you might actually meet that person in the future. So this can happen at a level beyond our conscious awareness.

And also, give up the idea that you’re going to save the world because you’re not. You need to save yourself first so you can be of service to others, at least not save yourself—and I don’t mean ideologically because we’re not talking about that. You need to work on yourself so you can become a fully functional person who can be guided by your inner power and be of service in the world without being dogmatic or inflicting people with your religious or political views.

“God is not going to do things for you.” Wow, I’m sure I’ll get a lot of flack for this.

God is not going to do things for you. God is going to teach you how to do things for yourself and for others. God is not going to give you miracles. God is going to give you the steps to become powerful and certain and compassionate in a world of ever-growing discord. 

So be with us for a minute. I want you to get how powerful this is. This is very defining stuff. There’s nothing flighty or, you know, hard to get here. It’s not subtle; it’s very direct. Okay, I’m going to leave this with you, and this is a very important thing. And it’s the unburdening that must happen.

Before you can know what comes next, this unburdening must take place.

I’ve spoken of this a little bit. 

And it will take time. It does not happen overnight. In this, you must learn to follow without knowing what it looks like around the other side of the mountain. You must live without definitions for your future. You must live without many of the conclusions that you rely upon today, which will be hopeless in the times to come.

So this is the inner work that happens. I mean, without conclusions about the future? Well, there’s signs about the future. There’s high possibilities. Live without definitions? This is freeing up your mind to be able to open to a greater reality within you, which is the level of Knowledge, and a greater reality around you, which is really what spirituality is about.

Spirituality is not about, This teacher is going to save me or I’m going to become enlightened. It’s really about becoming fully alive within yourself—spiritually alive, awake—and to be of service in the world the way you were designed to be of service in the world because you have a design. It’s not what you think it is. But at a deep level, you have a design and a purpose for being here and a destiny for being here. You didn’t create it. You can’t define it. You really don’t know what it means, except it’s good to think about it.

This is challenging for us to stop thinking we’re our own god, or that we have all the answers, or our ideology, our philosophy really can make everything work. That’s a fool’s paradise. 

God has given you the power…“the eyes to see, the ears to hear, but these are not the eyes that you see with or the power or the ears that you hear with—not yet.” This is from the teaching.

“Returning to who you really are.”

Here you do not need to be so armored because your center is Knowledge. You have returned to yourself as you really are, not as the world has made you. And with this, the Power of Heaven can move through you, mysteriously. It is a perfect Plan. And it is come at just the right time.

This is the concluding verse or paragraph in Being Centered in a Crashing World. And this requires a lot of walk around because the power of Heaven is depending on you to do your part of it. And I want to share with you, this idea, which will seem probably pretty shocking to you if I haven’t shocked you already. The real equation is kind of an 80/20 equation. The 80 is you thinking, taking action, making decisions. The 20 is the power of Knowledge setting your true direction, correcting you when you go off course and supporting your overall health and well-being so that you can make the journey that you’re here to make—80/20. You think God would be 80. No, God is not going to manage your life. God has much more important things to do.

Or the reality of this world: this world is like a grain of sand on the beach as far as the eye can see if you really think about the possible expanse universe, which is delineated in numbers we don’t even understand that are so vast that nobody can even conceive of it.

We, our ground, you know, we may have our mind connected to Heaven but our boots are on the ground. And what we do here is what will determine if Knowledge can guide us or not. So our decisions, our actions, our relationships, our humility, our certainty, our truthfulness with ourself and others are all the platform that Knowledge can use. If those things are lacking, then Knowledge has to wait until you’re ready. And you may not be ready your whole life.

So I want to leave you with this thought that you have a greater purpose and destiny in the world. It’s not your creation, but you might have to really work for it. But to work for it what will unite you with yourself, what will clear your mind, what will strengthen your position in the world and enable you to have a future in the world where many people will not be able to see their future. Thank you.

[Discord discussion occurs, then back to the video]

Okay. So I’m here to listen to how you all responded to these questions.

[What came to mind for you when listening to Marshall’s teaching Being Centered in a Crashing World? Are there any steps you see you need to take to prepare for what you see coming over the horizon?]

Okay, well I’m looking at Meribeth’s question—this is from Discord chat—or statement; it’s actually a question: How will I act when things I currently depend upon are not there for me?

This is, I think we could take this in a more moderate picture. You’re not going to be, you know, your electricity is not going to be cut off and, you know, you’re not going to lose functionality. But I think we need to know that things are increasingly becoming either unaffordable to us or less available. And in the United States, we have resources coming in from all over the world. And when those systems of delivery are disrupted, then we’re going to see things disappearing from markets and other kinds of stores.

So we’re going to see things decline in the world around us. But our governments will attempt to around the world maintain power and food availability, although that could become very difficult in certain poorer countries. So this is going to be very, very concerning. But it’s predictable given the state of affairs and the things that are in motion today.

Marc said: “I’m struck by the level of responsibility that each person has in living The Way of Knowledge.” I am, too. But I also, when I think about that, I think about someone who’s wheelchair-bound or an older person, I think the core responsibility is responsibility for your own mind, that you should be the captain of your ship when it comes to your thinking and what you allow into your mind, what you don’t allow into your mind. You want to keep the mind open to certain things—but not all things, certainly—and be very discerning about what you take in and discriminating there. So even if you’re a person who can’t do much out in the world, you still have the responsibility to be really in charge of your mind. And when you step back from your mind, you gain a greater sense of the inner authority within you, which emerges from Knowledge within you, then you’re able to guide your mind, change your mind, direct your mind more effectively and even more compassionately.

People get very frustrated with their minds and even have a battle with their minds and feel a victim of their minds. But that’s because they haven’t learned how to take charge of their intelligence. And that’s a very gradual process; you don’t just do that overnight. 

When you take the Steps to Knowledge, studying Steps to Knowledge, it really teaches you how to think constructively around the wisdom that the Steps are providing for you. And it’s very compassionate in how it wants you to see your intellect. Your intellect is this marvelous feature of your being, marvelous communication reality and intelligence that you have. And if it’s being wasted on little things and addictions and poor relationships and poor self-esteem and anger and frustration with world, then you have this remarkable communication device that is your mouthpiece to the world just being misused or misdelegated. So the more you take control of that and direct your thoughts, which you will have the increasing ability to do that, then your mind begins to work in concert with your deeper Intelligence. And that’s where the two minds come together. And that’s when you are really operating in sync with yourself—these two minds together—because the personal mind knows nothing about your permanence, knows nothing about higher authority. You can have grand thoughts. You can have grand beliefs. But really, it’s here to function in the world. It’s your vehicle for being in the world, and for that it should be respected. It should be well taken care of, and it should be utilized as part of your overall plan to function here successfully.

So I have a lot of respect for the personal mind if it can be misdirected, redirected I should say, if be redirected and used for this higher purpose, then it really fulfills its purpose in being this great asset that we all have. So I like that Marc brought that up.

Carol brought up this thing about connectedness and responsibility. Yeah, that’s very interesting. If you’re doing the right thing, it seems to have impact on people you don’t even know or don’t even meet. So we are only operating in a narrow bandwidth of reality, but we are functioning as larger beings in a much larger bandwidth, or set of bandwidths in reality. So if you do something that’s really correct, it can have an impact on someone around the world you’ve never met, would know nothing about; that’s very possible. This is why each person who begins to regain your own strength and integrity does have an impact—some, not on the whole world, certainly—but on some individuals in the world for which they might be truly directed. We have connections from the past that exist even in our relationships with people in the world today that we don’t even know about.

So part of our own mind, our deeper Mind, is a mystery to explore. And it has many different levels of intelligence and relationships that would never be discernible if you are living on the surface of your mind.

One of the things I wanted to emphasize today that this teaching really emphasizes is it’s what you do that really matters and why you do it, how you do it and why you do it. I think realization gets much too much credit. Realization looks like it’s monumentally important. But I think realization is only important if it leads to a different kind of action or greater action or a greater approach to life. So in the end it’s about what you do and why you do it. 

We’re living in a reality of action. This is not our heavenly state where being is the fundamental activity. Here, acting or taking action is the fundamental responsibility and it’s what we’re really here to do effectively. We have to be connected to Heaven but we’re not living like we’re in Heaven. We’re living in a very different kind of hazard, in a very hazardous state actually. 

For people who have lived in relative degrees of comfort in the past, you may not have that comfort in the future. And so this will be a real difficult threshold to take, and many people won’t consider it. But we have to be really stronger than we are today. Life is moving the way it’s moving. It’s not happening on our terms. In fact, reality almost never happens on our terms. On our terms is how we define it, how we utilize it, whether it’s meaningful to us or not. But reality at this level is reshaping the world, in this case climate-wise, from our own actions and activities. But the movement of things, the movement of life into our world from beyond, wow, that’s destiny.

And before humanity can become a strong and united race, it’s going to have to contend with competition from beyond. And this is the one important positive that I really want to emphasize. This isn’t some tragedy and we’re going to be overtaken and destroyed. That’s possible. But the thing that is going to unite humanity and elevate humanity and make us become wise stewards of this world—which we’re not currently—will be having to deal with Intervention and competition from beyond. I can’t see anything else. It’s not the level of religion, ideology, governance, philosophy, anything else, that can unite humanity effectively beyond what I’m speaking of here today.

So that’s another thing to think about that the Intervention itself, though very dangerous, maybe those dangerous thing ever happened to us, is the one thing that unite a fractured humanity in its own defense. 

And God does what works. And the universe happens, not on our terms. You’re not going to enter the universe on our terms. You might be able to survive on your terms . We will have to defend our planet in the future on our terms, that’s true. But that’s a united humanity. It’s not where we are now.

So these things have huge dimensions to them. And they’re not just to be thought of as just ideas. They’re really whole pathways to go down to explore and consider. And we’re being called to think about very bigger things today. I mean, we have the capacity, all of us, to consider some of these things, not just the things of the day, not just the events of the hour, not just, you know, politics in the moment or what’s going on today, but bigger things that have to do with future and destiny and to think with an open mind. 

You’re not here to just have answers. You’re here to explore something. The big answers are never obvious at the beginning, in my experience. They’re the result of taking a journey of discovery. And a journey of discovery has many steps. And you don’t operate on conclusions. You operate on questions or premises. And that’s how scientific exploration is carried out. And that’s how I think any intellectual inquiry is carried out. You don’t stop with the answer. You go with the question and the question takes you somewhere you would probably never go yourself. This is how new discovery is occurred in my view. 

Yeah the Christine Hartley Bruce Lee quote: “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” Well, yes we must do. But doing requires courage and determination. And if you haven’t done much in your life over a period of time, it can be very hard to get yourself going. You build up inertia over time if you sit in one place and do the same thing over and over again. So to do something new requires some kind of inner prompting, inner activity, inner determination and consistency that you’re going to do something new and stay with it. So it’s a challenge, but I think we need challenge right now. We need to kind of challenge that will make us stronger and more united because everyone in the world is facing the same outcome regarding Intervention. 

No nation is going to succeed in the face of this, so…And regarding a failing world, I mean, we’re all going to pay the consequence of that if we don’t unite to counteract that. So the forces that seem to be breaking us down are also the very forces that can unite us if we can learn to respond to them correctly and appropriately, yeah.

Well, I want to say that a journey is a journey. This is a journey. This is not just having an answer or you picked up some ideas and you locked on to them. This is a learning process of discovering something bigger and exploring it and taking time to do that. And I suggest you don’t discuss this with your friends. People love to talk about big things. But it’s something you have to take within yourself and prompt within yourself. And maybe if you have a trusted companion or a trusted friend who’s also a deep thinker and wants to explore this together, that’s good. But I wouldn’t bring this up in conversation, often be shot down or misconstrued or taken to a very inadequate level.

So this is a kind of thing you take on within yourself and find, if you can, find people to share it with. We have a network of people who are exploring these things and you can find a place to share with them. So that’s a very big thing to take on. You’ll have a lot of questions that can’t be answered and shouldn’t be answered prematurely. So exploration is exploration. You go to find out what’s there, not thinking you know what’s there and you want to prove it; that’s not expiration, really. 

So this is a very noble, important thing to do. Not everyone’s going to do it, of course. But the growing numbers of people who can take on these kinds of questions, the better will be the outcome for them and for all of us.

I want to again say this 80/20 principle that I brought up, I think it was actually kind of shocking to me—it’s not in the Revelation—but that we have to do most of the work because the work redeems us. The work empowers us. The work makes us strong. You don’t get strong by just having an understanding or just having a theory or thinking in big terms. That’s not going to be the kind of strength. It could be promising as an outset, but you’re still going to have to do the work.

And the work involves learning things you’ve never learned, facing things you’ve never faced, and approaching that with an open mind but also with a discerning mind. And the Allies of Humanity Briefings teaches us how to approach this with the right questions. Don’t expect that anyone who comes to the world promising salvation to humanity is an ally, or is here to help you, because no one should be involved in our world. Because if they tried to help you, they’d take over the whole place. If that happened they would dismantle all the mechanisms over time of human authority and governance. So be very careful. This is…the universe is a hazardous environment in terms of the mental environment aspect.

So I was thinking the other day about people letting other voices in your mind, and I recommend you never let a foreign, unknown voice in your mind unless you know who it is, have a certain sense of confidence or assurance that this is the proper thing to do. You open yourself the mental environment like that, that is not wise. That is not appropriate. No one has access to your mind. But if an inappropriate force wants access and they gain access, you’ll have more difficulty getting rid of them, whereas they could have been denied at the outset very forcibly.

So you have to maintain the integrity of your mind and not let it be an open source for anything else or anyone else. And you don’t have to be fearful. It’s just being responsible. You don’t let anybody into your house, right? Nobody can just walk in and say, “I’m here. I’m here to take residence” or “I’m here to be with you” or “this is my house, not your house.” These are the kinds of things you mention is telling people: “This is our house, not your house.” What?

So just use common sense and be strong about guarding your space, your mental space, because these forces are not going to…these forces are going to affect your mental space, predominantly. And you have to learn—you might not know how to do this—but you have to learn to be guarded and certainly not open the door to forces you don’t understand or haven’t learned to trust over time. So that would be my wise point on that. And it worries me that people are letting these voices in their mind indiscriminately and having conversations and opening themselves up, and oh my God, that’s not a good thing to do.

And do not be open to the universe. It’s far more hazardous than you realize. And you have to be wise and certain and compassionate to be there. But don’t just be compassionate because that’s unwise and unintelligent.

There’s a question here about having a sense and a feeling for what this center within you is. And that’s not something you’re just going to have immediately in full scope. It’s going to be based upon your memory of how you felt you’ve been guided in the past, what has come up from deep within you that proved to be effective and important, whether you followed it or not.

So we all have a history of these kind of events usually in our past; sometimes they’re very fleeting and very rare. But you need to approach this asking questions, not loaded questions but open questions, and allowing that response to come over time. May not happen in the moment—you can sit there for ten minutes and say, “Oh, nothing’s happening.” Well no, that’s not how this works. It’s like you deliver a request and it comes back to you at some point. And there’s reasons for that which are mysterious and I won’t go into them.

But you’re engaging in building a connection and you want to do it very purposefully. Don’t test Knowledge. Knowledge will not respect you for doing that. “I want to see what Knowledge knows”, and you give this kind of you know, how many acorns are in the tree, you know, and you’re going to get silence because you’re not being honest, you’re not being appropriate and you’re not engaging with this in the proper way. But you can have a question that you’re living with and propose that to Knowledge and ask that if there’s something I need to know or do about this, please inform me in whatever way I can be informed.

Some people are informed by thoughts and feelings, some by emotions. Some see signs. So people respond to this communication in different ways based on their mental, physical nature and their orientation. But it takes time to do this. You don’t get the secrets of the universe revealed to you right up front. What you do have is practical questions facing you in life that you want greater certainty about. And you can also read the revelation. It deals with many of the fundamental questions and even rare questions that people have about their future and destiny. So I invite you to explore that as well.

I asked people to consider: What could be the impact of decline and environmental change on humanity in the century? I think that’s an interesting question to post and go look at it once in a while and stay with it without trying to understand it or project your ideas upon it. Seeing is seeing. Seeing is not thinking. Seeing is seeing. So to see clearly you can’t be thinking. You actually have to part the curtains of your thinking to allow yourself to see. Otherwise, you’re just seeing yourself.

So this is a  practical thing to do. You might get some insights. It doesn’t mean they’re absolute or complete, but it might give you a feeling for the significance of the times we’re entering into. And don’t just take, “Well, it’s all going to be over” or “the aliens are going to take over” or you know, “it’s going to be World War Four, World War Five and it’s all…” That’s just being…what that says to me is you don’t want to look at this. You just want to wipe it off the screen you don’t even want to deal with it. 

Because the future is never what we think it is and it’s never certain and it’s never absolute about what happens and when it happens. But certain things are in motion and have high likelihood of happening, and that’s how you want to approach the future, not as absolutes, but as degree of probability—possibility and probability. The higher the probability, probably the more likely something like that will happen at some point.

And another point I want to emphasize, too, is that any greater journey requires preparation. And what I’m proposing here is a greater journey. You can have ideas. You can think you understand. But I mean understanding, what’s that? That’s a bunch of ideas you’ve assembled to make you think you know something when you don’t really know it.

So you have to prepare for things. You have to unlearn certain things to learn new things. You have to face things you didn’t know, be willing to learn things you didn’t know to have your thoughts and your ideas challenged. That’s good. That’s healthy. And this all comes before any achievement that’s why great achievement comes later, in most cases. 

You know, cures for great illnesses like cancer, that’s decades of work and exploration because you got to prove it. You just have an idea or a concept, you actually have to demonstrate it, find it, see it, demonstrate it, replicate it, do it. 

So we have to know that preparation is really the most important thing. Without that, you just have ideas and that’s not going to help you. You’ll never gain the strength to deal with a declining world based on ideas. You’ll fall away just as easily as the person next to you who doesn’t have those ideas. You still don’t have the core strength, the resilience, the inner certainty because it’s happening in a superficial level of your intelligence. This is the personal mind wanting to know ultimate things—never works. Or have ultimate vision into the future—never works.

So you have to know that your personal mind is a servant. Knowledge really is that greater Intelligence within you. And a servant must serve and be of service and be beneficial, as it’s meant to be, as it’s designed to be. Without a mind, you couldn’t be here and you couldn’t communicate. Maybe you could be here physically, but you couldn’t relate to anything. You couldn’t communicate anything. It would be miserable. So your mind is a precious asset not to be wasted on premature ideas, false beliefs.

So we also have things I didn’t mention today. You’re going to have people’s failure to respond, failure to prepare, being dependent on others or being dependent on authority figures to tell them what reality is. And some people are just—I mean, I’m compassionate—some people just can’t do that because of age or lack of education or just how they’ve lived their lives being dependent on other people.

But there’s enough people in the world who can do this and need to do this to make the real difference because what’s going to win the day for humanity is not the majority of humanity. It’s going to be a significant  number of people who have some power and influence in the world who can achieve something that wouldn’t be achieved otherwise. This is how it’s always been. And sometimes the public can get behind something that’s affecting them all. But normally the things that are discovered and enacted—for better or worse—are things that are produced and brought into being by smaller numbers of people who are very determined to their effort.

So don’t worry about everyone. This is about you. You’re the subject of your own experiment. Everyone…don’t put out the question, you’ll be instantly discouraged because you cannot save everyone. I don’t think anything can save everyone; has nothing to do with who you are and why you’re here. You’re not going to save everyone, so don’t become grandiose and don’t become too diminished either. Be a student of Knowledge. Let Knowledge be the master. Let you be the student who has to do all the work, and then you can make real progress.

Tyyne: [Marshall,] you shared so much today. I want to thank you for this very important teaching and discussion and your commentary on student comments in both the YouTube and the Discord chat, and for all the wisdom held in this very profound, the very profound passages you shared and your teaching on them; perhaps even—I think for myself and maybe for others—perhaps doing a deep reading of these passages, reading a single idea and being with that to penetrate its meaning more deeply.

And also to help us dive even more deeply into this topic there are a couple resources for us. There will also be more teachings from Marshall here on the Worldwide Community of the New Message YouTube channel. So I encourage you to subscribe here and get notifications and updates for upcoming teachings and more.

So the resources: the book, The New World–the Future of Humanity has 16 chapters that we can read and listen to. And as we read and listen to these chapters we’re actually hearing the voice of Revelation and it’s found at NewMessage.org/thenewworld. And the Revelation today that was based on the teaching Marshall gave, Being Centered in a Crashing World is a chapter in this book, The New World, and found at Newmessage.org/being centered.

So again. thank you so much, Marshall, for this teaching and for the entirety of the New Message. And to all of us here, thank you and take care until we see one another again at the next live stream teaching from Marshall Vian Summers. Thank you.