The War – within or without?

The last book in the Bible, Revelation, can speak to us in many different ways. One way is to apply its concepts to our developing spiritual consciousness. This is what I wrote in my book The Soul’s Secret Unveiled in the Book of Revelation

“The number of the troops of cavalry was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. And this was how I saw the horses in my vision: the riders wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulphur, and the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulphur issued from their mouths.” Rev 9:16,17

“This is a mighty vision of war. Is this war taking place within us? In twice ten thousand times ten thousand ways? How many of our daily encounters produce a war within our being? The horse with the lion’s head issuing fire, smoke and sulphur from its mouth can be an image of the way we can respond to others, and the way they can respond to us. Even if we don’t express our disagreement, we can think it. What is it within us that can’t bear being wrong in the face of the other person being right? Why do we become so indignant? And why do we want everyone to agree with us? John notes that the mighty power, exousia, issuing from the mouth and the tail causes wounds.

We carry many wounds don’t we? There is so much disagreement in the world, which never seems to abate. Those who have the most powerful influence, especially in government, set such a bad example. For instance, they discuss how to deal with bullying in schools while they themselves continually bully each other in their so-called parliamentary debate. Fire, smoke and sulphur issue so easily from people’s mouths today. When we are surrounded by this behaviour it can easily influence our own. This air of disagreement is everywhere while at the same time we yearn to be with those who agree with us. In this very unsettling environment we expect agreement to come from outside us when all the while we don’t see that it must come from within us.

The only way to experience this state of ‘agreement’ is to experience our ‘I’. From the perspective of the human ‘I’ all the ideas that approach us in this world are for our consideration. None of these ideas need to be rejected as wrong, but can be used to continually weigh up our own ideas. Of course, at the same time, it is important to recognise that every idea that enters our consciousness is from the past. Even ideas we thought of a second ago are from the past. We can only embrace the present and the future if we remain open to new ideas. Unless we do this there is an unsettling war going on within us.” Kristina Kaine