Session 868, from The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events "In larger terms, there are

really only scientific and religious men and women, however, and fields of science and religion would be meaningless without those individuals who believe in their positions. As those men and women enlarge their definitions of reality, the fields of science and religion must expand. You must be reckless in pursuit of the ideal - reckless enough to insist that each step you take along the way is worthy of that ideal. You will understand, if you are a practicing idealist, that you cannot kill in the name of peace, for if you do so your methods will automatically undermine your ideal. The sacredness of life and spirit are one and the same. You cannot condemn the body without ultimately condemning the soul. You cannot condemn the soul without ultimately condemning the body. I would like each of my readers to be a practicing idealist, and, if you are then you will automatically be tolerant of the beliefs of others. You will not be unkind in the pursuit of your own ideals. You will look upon the world with a sane compassion, with some humor, and you will look for man's basic good intent. You will find it. It has always been there. You will discover your own basic good intent, and see that it has always been behind all of your actions - even in those least fitted to the pursuit of your private ideals (with gentle irony)." The end does not justify the means. If you learn that lesson, then your good intent will allow you to act effectively and creatively in your private experience, and in your relationships with others. Your changed beliefs will affect the mental atmosphere of your nation and of the world. You must encounter the selves that you are now. Acknowledge your impulses. Explore their meanings. Rely upon yourselves. You will find far greater power, achievement, and virtue than you suppose. You are individuals, yet each of you forms a part of the world's reality. Consciously, you are usually aware only of your own thoughts, but those thoughts merge with the thoughts of all others in the world. You understand what television is. At other levels, however, you carry a picture of the world's news

that is 'picked up' by signals transmitted by the cells that compose all living matter. When you have an impulse to act, it is your own impulse, yet it is also a part of the world's action. In those terms, there are inner neurological-like systems that provide constant communication through all of the world's parts. If you accept the fact that man is basically a good creature, then you allow free, natural motions of your own psychic nature - and that nature springs from your impulses, and not in opposition to them." There is no event upon the face of the earth in which each of you has not played some part, however minute, because of the nature of your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations. There is no public act in which you are not in that same manner involved. You are intimately connected with all of the historic events of your time. To some extent you participated in putting a man on the moon, whether or not you had any connection at all with the physical occurrence itself. Your thoughts put a man on the moon as surely as any rocket did. You can become involved now in a new exploration, one in which man's civilizations and organizations change their course, reflecting his good intents and his ideals. You can do this by seeing to it that each step you personally take is 'ideally suited' to the ends you hope to achieve. You will see to it that your methods are ideal. If you do this, your life will automatically be provided with excitement, natural zest and creativity, and those characteristics will be reflected outward into the social, political, economic, and scientific worlds. This is a challenge more than worth the effort. It is a challenge that I hope each reader will accept. The practical idealist. When all is said and done, there is no other kind. I bid each of you success in that endeavor." ~ Seth