When you expand the circle of your love, you become an instrument of world peace

When the world around you is in turmoil, you may be confused as to where you should stand.

When social issues become polarized and politicized, people may demand to know, “Are you for us or against us?”

It is important to know that you need not become trapped in divisiveness. You can take a stand for unity.

The one thing to be against is the tendency to react in anger and hostility, to give vent to feelings of bias and prejudice. And the important thing to be for is the way of love.

You can be a positive onlooker. A referee or negotiator plays an important role in many disputes. It is not a passive or weak-willed function. His is a dynamic activity even though he takes no stand for or against. Anyone can become an arbiter of good feelings, a center of love.

Edwin Markham reveals a dynamic formula:

Expanding the Circle of Love

You may have been shut out by people; nations and ideologies may have erected barriers. But in the new age one must have the wit to draw a larger circle of love to include and bless persons and groups of persons.

If you are surrounded by any kind of conflict, don’t slip into the black-and-white concept of right and wrong. When you become judgmental, no matter what you say you stand for, you are on the side of the problem.

Instead, be an active onlooker.

Dissolve your concern in a time of quiet meditation, and then, in your mind’s eye, draw a circle around the whole scene, including yourself. All parties, all sides, will come into your sanctuary of consciousness. Here you will easily overwhelm them with a love that will dissolve differences and open the way to understanding communication …

The world needs the radiation of your love; but don’t delude yourself that the world needs your religion. Don’t become a proselytizer, a missionary zealot for Truth. The world needs unity, not theology. Many persons have accepted Truth through their emotions, and thus all your logic or scriptural or scientific authority will be of little avail.

It is useless to appeal to a person’s mind if his mind has had no part shaping the convictions to which he so tenaciously holds.

Becoming an Instrument of Love

Many … think that the practice of Truth is in passing out pamphlets on the street, or in crassly voicing metaphysical platitudes in a completely unreceptive conversational group. There is a better way. Be a “meta-missionary,” dealing with seeing things or people right instead of the misguided effort to set them right.

Certainly the message is universally needed. But as far as you are concerned the great need is to change your consciousness, dissolve your prejudices, and heal your fears.

The Truth is for you! It is a practical process by which you can achieve an effective life and at the same time become an effective instrument of love and harmony …

Become a center of love. You will become a positive influence in your community. But more important, you will be centered in a circle of protection.

In this awareness, no harm can befall you, for anyone coming into your space is lifted into the aura of your consciousness.

You can become a center of love. Enough centers of love in the city and around the nation will help to evoke wise actions by our government, and bring the unified support of the people. Enough centers of love around the world will build bridges of communication and peace.

Love is the answer.