from Paul Ferrini's Keynote Address at the Seeds of Transformation Conference

"Consciousness on the planet is at a crossroads. We have reached the quantum moment when it is time for us all to wake up."

Time is ripe for change on planet earth and you and I are going to play an important role in bringing that change forward. God needs many helpers and you are being called to help in your unique way.
       Of course, being called is not always a comfortable process. Sometimes, we pull away and refuse to answer the call, hoping that it will go away.    Well, let me ask you, friends, has that called gone away? Or has it gotten louder?
I know that for me the call has intensified.
     A few months ago, as I was driving in my car to go south to Florida, my body was flooded by light and fire. I felt a burning all through my body. It started in my heart and spread through my arms and legs. It went permeated every cell in my body.  I expected it to go away, but it did not. It continued to burn and the burning continued to intensify. After a while, I realized I could not contain the energy. I had to share it with someone, anyone.
     I called a friend and asked her if she would be a guinea pig and allow me try to transmit the energy to her. I had no idea what would happen. To my amazement, she was able to feel in her own heart the same power that was in mine. This energy could not only be embodied. It could be transmitted.
     My friend Iyanla heard what I was up to and asked if I could share it with her. I told her "sure." Come out to Florida and I'll be happy to share it with you. "I can't," she said. I'm filming my show every day here in LA....Can't we do this by phone?"
     "I have no idea," I told her. "I'm just learning about all this. But I'm happy to try."
     So I asked her to lie down and get quiet and I allowed the energy to embody as I spoke to her over the phone. "I feel a tingling sensation all over, especially in my heart," she reported.
     "Great," I said. And that was that, I thought. But then she called back a few days later and said "I'm feeling low again...maybe I need another session." And I heard myself tell her "No you don't. You just need to go into your heart and reconnect with the energy. It's still there."
     A couple of days later, she called back and told me "I prayed into the energy and it came back. I felt that tingling all over."
   "That's great, " I told her. "Once you connect with the energy, it becomes your responsibility to stay connected and to keep your heart open so that the energy can embody through you and extend to others."
     Now, let me tell you a dream I had many years ago, when I first began working with the Christ energy. I was in a cave somewhere in the middle east. There were several figures in the cave wearing long brown robes with hoods covering their hair so that you could see only their faces. One of them rose up and began to approach me looking directly into my eyes. I looked into those eyes and I knew them. They were the eyes of Jesus.
     "You will heal," he told me "as I heal" and he made several gestures without speaking, pointing first to his third eye, then to his heart, and then extending his hands toward me. I understood immediately the meaning behind the gestures. The head represented the teaching of truth, which is simple and uncomplicated. "One must have a conviction about the absolute worthiness and innocence of the person, " he inferred. And then (as he pointed to his heart) "One must be open here. One must feel acceptance and compassion. It is a palpable energetic reality." And then, extending his hands, "This is how the energy of mind and heart triangulate and extend through the hands."
     The dream was a powerful one. I will never forget it. Indeed, I remembered the dream when the energy began to embody in me. And I realize that the time had come to begin the healing ministry he had called me to.
     Like all major events in my life, I didn't have to figure any of this out. It just happened. The energy itself told me that it was time.
     When I was fifteen my friend invited me to go to a Quaker meeting. I went reluctantly. I wasn't even sure that I believed in God. So I just sat there patiently waiting for the meeting to be over. And then my chair began to shake and my heart began to pound and not having any idea what was happening I felt myself rise to my feet and begin speaking words that spontaneously came into my mind. I guess I must have gone on for twenty minutes or so. I had no idea.
     After the service many people came up to me and told me how moving my sharing had been to them. I didn't know what they were talking about because I didn't remember anything I had said.
     All my life I have been a mouthpiece for my teachers. I can take no credit for anything that comes through. I exist simply to speak the words that are given to me.
   And so the process continues to this day. Only now it is not just about my connection to oneness. It is about our collective connection to it.  Consciousness on the planet is at a crossroads. We have reached the quantum moment when it is time for us all to wake up. These are times when the prophecies are to be fulfilled, not perhaps as the fundamentalists understand them, but fulfilled nonetheless.
     Earth is going through her collective crucifixion, her dark night of the soul, and we are along for the ride. Our choice is a simple one, we can respond in fear or we can respond in love, holding our fears and those of others with gentleness and compassion.
     And now, if you will permit me, I would like to share the message that was given to me last night for all of you sitting in this room.

                                       MESSAGE FOR THE SEEDS OF TRANSFORMATION CONFERENCE

     We all know that there is an urgent need for a shift in consciousness on the planet. But that shift cannot be made in fear, nor can it be made by pretending that we are not afraid when we really are afraid.
     It can only be made by making friends with our fear and learning to hold it gently. Then, we become the savior, the bringer of love to our own experience. And that is the moment we become useful to God. That is the moment when we leave the ego agenda behind and become an instrument of love in a fearful world.
     These are powerful times... times when you and I are asked to step forward and be the love we have been reading about. Time to walk our talk, to put the books down, bring the energy of love into our hearts and become its embodiment.
     To do this we do not have to be perfect, totally healed or enlightened. That is the myth that holds us back!
     All that is required is that we accept ourselves as human beings….learning from our mistakes.... forgiving and asking for forgiveness.
     Our humanness does not condemn us. In fact, accepting our imperfections and that of others is a necessary requirement for us to step forward into our full empowerment.It's a requirement for learning how to trust in our higher power and our higher purpose. For we do not have to be perfect to be a messenger of God.
     The messenger does not have to have four PhDs or Divinity Degrees. She just needs to trust the truth that has been given to her and be willing to share it. She doesn’t even need to know where to go or what words to speak, because the divine energy within her will guide her footsteps and put the words into her mouth when she opens it.
     This Divine Presence that guides us is not the God that is separate from us but the God within our heart of hearts...It is our essence...It is not the God that judges or punishes us, but the God within that loves and accepts us without conditions.
It is the same God that spoke through Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Krishna.
     It is the God of love, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. It is the friend who is always with us.
     The friend….such an elegant term.... Rumi call Shams the Friend, and so do the Quakers address each other as friends, as equals.
     No, our humanity does not condemn us. It prepares us to accept our divinity by helping us cultivate compassion for ourselves and others.
For who is a Christ or Buddha but one who has experienced suffering and felt compassion for the pain of the human experience...only such a one can become a Christ... an anointed one.
     One who has never experienced suffering does not qualify. Even Gautama did not qualify until he passed through the gates of his palace and saw the squalor and misery of human experience.
|    One who has not felt pain, one who has not felt fear, one who has not suffered grief and despair, cannot experience the depth of love and compassion that a Christ or Buddha does.
     That is why god has a human face, that is why there is a Jesus, a Gautama, a Rumi ... That is why there is a you and an I.
     But how can we mention our own names along with names of these great masters? Because they have been where we are going. We are walking the path that bears their footprints.... Where they are now... we are going ...each one of us. We are on the road to spiritual mastery.
   "Who is the master?" you ask.
     He is not one who has conquered pain, but one who has suffered it, let it in, walked with it and allowed it to carve out a sanctuary in his heart.
She is not the one who denies fear or tries to make it go away, but the one who invites it in and holds it compassionately.
     "Who is the master?"
     He or she is not the one meditating on the mountain top, communing with the angels in the clouds, but the one facing the challenges of life with caring and compassion -- like Mother Theresa or Brother Toby... caring for the poor, the outcasts of society, the AIDs babies in the orphanages, the ones without food and shelter from the elements, the ones without hope and more pain than they can bear alone.
     They and others like them are not doing this to score brownie points in heaven. They are doing this because the greatest bliss, the most profound way to know God in the human experience is to serve our brother or sister.
     The master does not care about what you believe or espouse, she cares about what you do.Jesus told us we would know a tree by its fruits. What are the fruits of your experience?
     My friends: the time for a separate, individual spirituality is over. From this moment on we do not heal alone but together.
     The energy has shifted. The call has gone out and each one of you in one way or another has heard the call and knows that you have been asked to step forward to play your part in the atonement.
     But don't worry, don't freak out. It’s no big deal. It has nothing to do with your ego. It’s all about the surrender of that ego, the letting go of your unworthiness. For you are worthy and so is everyone else.
     Our healing and that of our brothers and sisters is one and the same. We are all in the process of shifting from fear to love and the love that we learn to give to ourselves spontaneously extends to others.
     There is no way to love others without first offering that unconditional love to yourself. There is no way to facilitate healing for others until you begin to heal the wounds in your own emotional body.
     You are not alone in that. This is the work all of us are engaged in.
     Many of us hold back, shy away from stepping forward into our life purpose because we feel we have to be totally healed, but that is not the case.
     The healing you have already done, you can extend to others.
     The door you have walked through, you can open for others. You do not need to make it happen... it happens by itself if you are willing.
     It all comes down to that....Are you willing?
     If so, you are ready. Please understand this simple message: You do not have to be ready to be willing. You merely have to be willing! If you are willing, the healing of self and others moves through you and you become an instrument of love. God will use you in the appropriate time and place.
     You cannot know what that is about. It is beyond your comprehension. Your job is just to show up. You may not know what to say, but when you show up the words will be given to you. You may not know where to go, but move your feet and the direction will become clear.
Human beings only have one authority and it is not the authority of their ego structure. Those who accept that authority are driven by fear. But that is a false authority.
   The time has come to make friends with our fear, to bring love to the wounded child in us, individually and collectively. As we do that, we come to know the only true authority within human consciousness and experience and that is the authority of love.
   No, not conditional love, but love without conditions. Not love for some at the expense of others. But love for all, now and in every moment.
   That alone can be trusted...anything less than that comes from fear and must be questioned.
   Do not make the mistake of turning your life over to an external authority because no one but you knows what you need in your heart of hearts. Only you know and that is the Holy Grail you must seek.
     But do not think that you will find it in the world. It cannot be found there. It can be found only in the inmost sanctuary where you and God come face to face.
     That is the place of the supreme mystery. It will always be a mystery. It can be experienced but it cannot easily be described.
     Lao Tzu said it clearly, "The truth that can be described is not the real truth." The real truth rests in your heart. No one else can take you to it. Your fear and the collective fear that surrounds you cannot take you there. Only love can lead you there.
     My friend Don told me that he spent his whole life waiting for his ship to come in. He finally realized it wasn't coming in. He gave up hope of any outside salvation and that is when everything shifted! That is when he became the ship he was waiting for. That is when he answered his own call for love.
     You and I are not unlike Don. We think we are unworthy. We think someone else will answer the call. But then we start hearing that unmistakable knock on the door and it keeps on knocking until we get up and pull the door open.
     Then we realize what we were most afraid of is exactly what we have been praying for all of our lives.
     It's ironic, is it not? You are the savior. You are the bringer of love. If you can bring it to yourself, you can bring it to all of Gods children. For all of God’s children are one and the same.
     All are asking for love and all, including everyone in this room, must answer the call.