The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (23 page)

Curtis smiled and his eyes brightened. The image of his soul group swelled behind him. “These displaced people will survive
by learning to live intuitively and synchronistically,” he said. “We all have to understand: there’s no going back. We’re
already living in the information age. Everyone will have to educate themselves the best they can, become an expert in some
niche, so that they can be in the right place to advise someone else or perform some other service. The more technical the
automation becomes, and the more quickly the world changes, the more we need information from just the right person arriving
in our lives at just the right time. You don’t need a formal education to do that; just a niche you’ve created for yourself
through self-education.

“Yet, for this flow to be optimally established, across the economy, the stated purposes of business must shift into higher
awareness. Our guiding intuitions become most clear when we approach business from an evolutionary perspective. Our questions
must change. Instead of asking what product or service I can develop to make the most money, we’re beginning to ask, ‘What
can I produce that liberates and informs and makes the world a better place, yet also preserves a delicate environmental balance?’

“A new code of ethics is being added to the equation of free
enterprise. We have to come awake wherever we are and ask, ‘What are we creating and does it consciously serve the overall
purpose for which technology was invented in the first place: to make everyday subsistence easier, so that the prevailing
orientation of life can shift from mere survival and comfort to the interchange of pure spiritual information?’ Each of us
has to see that we have a part in the evolution toward lower and lower subsistence costs, until finally the basic means of
survival is virtually free.

“We can move toward a truly enlightened capitalism if, instead of charging as much as the market will bear, we follow a new
business ethic based on lowering our prices a specified percentage as a conscious statement of where we want the economy to
go. This would be the business equivalent of engaging in the Ninth Insight force of tithing.”

Charlene turned to face him, her face luminous. “I understand what you’re saying. You mean, if all businesses reduce prices
ten percent, then everyone’s cost of living, including the raw materials and supplies to the businesses themselves, will also
go down.”

“That’s right, although some prices might go up temporarily as everyone takes into account the true cost of waste disposal
and other environmental effects. Overall, though, prices will systematically decline.”

“Doesn’t this process already happen at times,” I asked, “as a result of market forces?”

“Of course,” he replied, “but it can be accelerated if we do it consciously—although as the Ninth Insight predicts, this process
will be greatly enhanced by the discovery of a very inexpensive energy source. It appears as if Feyman has done that. But
the
energy has to be made available in the most inexpensive way possible if it is to have its most liberating impact.”

As he spoke, he seemed to grow more inspired. Turning, he looked straight into my eyes. “This is the economic idea I came
here wanting to contribute,” he said. “I’ve never seen it so clearly. That’s why I wanted to have the life experiences I’ve
had; I wanted to be prepared for delivering this message.”

“Do you really think enough people will reduce prices to make a difference?” Maya asked. “Especially if it takes money out
of their own pockets? That seems to fly in the face of human nature.”

Curtis didn’t answer. Instead he looked at me, along with the others, as if I had the answer. For a moment I was silent, feeling
the energy shift.

“Curtis is right,” I said finally. “We’ll do it anyway, even though we may give up some personal profit in the short run.
None of this makes any sense at all until we grasp the Ninth and Tenth Insights. If one believes that life is just a matter
of personal survival in an essentially meaningless and unfriendly world, then it makes perfect sense to focus all one’s wits
on living as comfortably as possible and seeing to it that one’s children have the same opportunities. But if one grasps the
first nine Insights and sees life as a spiritual evolution, with spiritual responsibilities, then our view completely changes.

“And once we begin to understand the Tenth, then we see the birth process from the perspective of the Afterlife, and we realize
that we’re all here to bring the Earth dimension into alignment with the Heavenly sphere. Besides, opportunity and success
are very mysterious processes, and if we operate our economic life in the flow of the overall plan, we synchronistically meet
all
the other people who are doing the same thing, and suddenly prosperity opens up for us.

“We’ll do it,” I continued, “because individually that’s where the intuition and coincidences will take us. We’ll remember
more about our Birth Visions and it will become clear that we intended to make a certain contribution to the world. And most
important, we’ll know that if we don’t follow this intuition, not only will the magic coincidences and the sense of inspiration
and aliveness stop, but eventually we may have to look at our actions in an Afterlife Review. We’ll have to face our failure.”

I stopped abruptly, noticing that Charlene and Maya were both staring wide-eyed at the space behind me. Reflexively I turned
around; there was the hazy outline of my own soul group, dozens of individuals fading into the distance, again as though the
walls of the cave weren’t there.

“What are all of you looking at?” Curtis asked.

“It’s his soul group,” Charlene said. “I saw these groups when I was at the falls.”

“I’ve seen a group behind both Maya and Curtis,” I said.

Maya twisted around and looked at the space behind her. The group there flickered once, then came fully into focus.

“I don’t see anything,” Curtis said. “Where are they?”

Maya continued to stare, obviously seeing all of the groups. “They’re helping us, aren’t they? They can give us the vision
we’re looking for.”

As soon as she made that comment, all of the groups moved away from us dramatically and became less clear.

“What happened?” Maya asked.

“It’s your expectation,” I said. “If you look to them for your energy, as a replacement for your own inner connection to divine
energy, they leave. They won’t allow a dependence. The same thing happened to me.”

Charlene gave me a nod of agreement. “It happened to me too. They’re like family. We’re connected to them in thought, but
we have to sustain our own connection with the divine source beyond them before we can link to them and pick up on what they
know, which is really your own higher memory.”

“They hold the memory for us?” Maya asked.

“Yes,” Charlene replied, looking directly at me. She started to say something else, then stopped herself, appearing to drift
off in thought. Then she said, “I’m beginning to understand, what I saw in the other dimension. In the Afterlife each of us
comes from a particular soul group, and these groups each have a particular angle or truth to offer the rest of humanity.”
She glanced at me. “For instance, you come from a group of facilitators. Do you know that? Souls that help evolve our philosophical
understanding of what life is about. Everyone who belongs to this particular soul group is always trying to find the best
and most comprehensive way of describing spiritual reality. You struggle with complex information, and because you’re so dense,
you keep pushing and exploring until you find a way to express it clearly.”

I looked at her askance, which made her burst out laughing.

“It’s a gift you have,” she said reassuringly.

Turning to Maya, she said, “And you, Maya, your soul group is oriented toward health and well-being. They think of themselves
as solidifiers of the physical dimension, keeping our cells operating optimally and full of energy, tracing and removing emotional
blocks before they manifest in disease.

“Curtis’ group is about transforming the use of technology, as well as our overall understanding of commerce. Throughout human
history this group has been working to spiritualize our
concepts of money and capitalism, to find the ideal conceptualization.”

She paused, and I could already see an image of light flickering behind her.

“What about you, Charlene?” I asked. “What is your group doing?”

“We’re journalists, researchers,” she replied, “working to help people appreciate and learn from each other. What journalism
is really all about is looking deeply at the life and beliefs of the people and organizations we cover, at their true substance
and higher expression, just the way we’re looking at each other now.”

I again remembered my conversation with Joel, specifically his jaded cynicism. “It’s hard to see journalists doing that,”
I said.

“We’re not,” she replied. “Not yet. But this is the ideal toward which the profession is evolving. This is our true destiny,
once we become more secure and break free from the old worldview in which we need to ‘win’ and bring energy and status our
way.

“It makes perfect sense why I wanted to be born to my family. They were all so inquisitive. I picked up on their excitement,
their need for information. That’s why I was a reporter for so long, and then joined the research firm. I wanted to help work
out the ethics of reporting and then come together with all of…” She drifted away again, staring at the floor of the cave,
then her eyes widened and she said, “I know how we’re bringing in the World Vision. As we remember our Birth Visions and integrate
them together as a group, we
merge
the power of our relative soul groups in the other dimension, which helps us remember even more, so we finally get to the
overall vision of the world.”

We all stared at her, puzzled.

“Look at the whole picture,” she explained. “Each person on Earth belongs to a soul group, and these soul groups represent
the various occupational groups that exist on the planet: medical people, lawyers, accountants, computer workers, farmers,
every field of human endeavor. Once people find their right work, the job that really fits them, then they are working with
other members of their soul group.

“As each of us wakes up and begins to remember our Birth Vision—why we’re here—the occupational groups to which we belong
come more into alignment with the members of our groups in the other dimension. As this happens, each occupational group on
Earth moves toward its true soul purpose, its role of service in human society.”

We all continued to be spellbound.

“It’s like with us journalists,” she continued. “Throughout history we have been the individuals most inquisitive about what
others in the culture were doing. And then a few centuries ago, we became conscious enough of ourselves to form a defined
occupation. Since then we’ve been busy broadening our use of the media, reaching more and more people with our newscasts,
that sort of thing. But like everyone else, we suffered from insecurity. We felt that to get attention and energy from the
rest of humanity we had to create increasingly more sensational stories, thinking that only negativity and violence sell.

“But that’s not our true role. Our spiritual role is to deepen and spiritualize our perception of other people. We see and
then communicate what the various soul groups, and individuals within these groups, are doing, and what they stand for, making
it easier for everyone to learn the truth others provide.

“It’s the same for every occupational group; we’re all awakening to our true message and purpose. And as this happens all
over the planet, we’re then able to go further. We can form close spiritual associations with people outside of our particular
soul
group, just the way we’re doing here. We all shared our Birth Visions and raised our vibration together, and that transforms
not only human society but the culture in the Afterlife as well.

“First, each of our soul groups comes closer into vibration with us on Earth and we with them, the two dimensions opening
into each other. Because of this closure, we can begin to have communication between the dimensions. We are able to see souls
in the Afterlife and pick up on their knowledge and memory more readily. That’s happening with increasing frequency on the
Earth.”

As Charlene was speaking, I noticed the soul groups behind each of us widening and spreading out until each touched the others,
forming a continuous circle around us. The convergence seemed to jolt me into an even higher awareness.

Charlene seemed to feel it too. She took a breath and then with emphasis continued. “The other thing that happens in the Afterlife
is that the groups themselves come closer into resonance with each other. That’s why the Earth is the primary focus of the
souls in Heaven. They can’t unite on their own. Over there, many soul groups remain fragmented and out of resonance with each
other because they live in an imaginary world of ideas that manifests instantly and disappears just as quickly, so reality
is always arbitrary. There is no natural world, no atomic structure, as we have here, that serves as a stable platform, a
background stage, that is common to all of us. We affect what happens on this stage, but ideas manifest much more slowly and
we must reach some agreement on what we want to happen in the future. It’s this agreement, this consensus, this unity of vision
on the Earth, that also pulls the soul groups together in the Afterlife dimension. That’s why the Earth dimension is deemed
so important. The
physical dimension is where the true unification of souls is taking place!

“And it’s this unification that’s behind the long historical journey that humans have been taking. The soul groups in the
Afterlife understand the World Vision, the vision of how the physical world can evolve and the dimensions can close, but this
can only be accomplished by individuals who are born into the physical, one at a time, hoping to move the consensus Earth
reality in that direction. The physical arena is the theater upon which evolution has been playing out for both dimensions,
and now we’re bringing it all into culmination as we remember consciously what’s going on.”