The Julie Gold song, “From a Distance”, made famous by Bette Midler:
“From a distance there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
It’s the voice of hope, it’s the voice of peace,
it’s the voice of every (hu)man.”

I often think of this song when I’m trying to get perspective on something, since every conflict resolves from a “big picture” context. When a fight is “up in your grill”, it’s natural to take a side and judge everything from that perspective. But when we can step back–all the way back–and fully perceive the energies and motivations for all sides, we realize the players in the conflict are all fighting for their own vision of peace and harmony. When we only focus on the minutiae of the conflict, we continue to fuel it.

Of course, there are always treacherous outliers, whose intent and machinations are purely nefarious, but these make up the tiniest of minority. And by standing back in favor of the Big Picture, these “evildoers” can be clearly seen for what they are. Yet they, too, are playing their part in the unfolding of a higher understanding, where compassion and love returns to re-establish the fundamental harmony inherent in Creation.

One of my favorite meditative books is Discovery of the Presence of God: Devotional Non-Duality, by David R. Hawkins. In it, Hawkins tells the story of his journey into cosmic consciousness, where, in retrospect, he remembered nothing except residing in the Infinite Self. This was despite running a very successful psychotherapy practice and teaching at a local university–of which he remembered nothing. It was all non-essential by comparison to his fully embodied, ecstatic state of non-duality. He didn’t remember what he had been doing–only recalling his ecstasy of being. His life simply “happened” around him, peacefully and harmoniously without any specific intentions or desires on his part.

In a state of non-duality, there are no “sides”. Each apparent division is simply the playing out of cause and effect–each “opposing” side expressing negative and positive poles within a single game. Who “wins” or “loses” is simply a subset of the overall game.

As a young man, I was ranting at my Shaman-teacher about evil global cabals manipulating societies, and she stopped me mid-rant: “You know, that evil cabal you speak of is the single most effective contributor to waking up humanity.” From that point on, I began to see evil in the world as the catalyst for the expression of liberty, justice and the basic goodness inherent in all people.

There is a misunderstanding in spiritual manifestation circles about “frequency” and “resonance”, whereby your life reflects back to you at the frequency you are broadcasting. For example, if you are in fear, your experience continues to reflect back fearful circumstances. It is the nature of our “mirror” universe. This property of life gets oversimplified to mean that whenever there is something “negative”, we must stop and switch to something positive, in essence resisting all negativity. This over-simplification has been dubbed “spiritual bypassing”, leading to “cancel culture” where any experience of conflict is blocked, effectively adding energy to the conflict.

This overlooks the basic nature of the Universe. By “vibrating” at the frequency of love, there is an allowance of all other states. “Bad” is simply not preferred, and “good” is desired. By allowing negative energies, there is a discharge and re-entrainment with the eternal background harmony. The harmony was there first and is the field within which chaos was created.

Chaotic energies, by necessity, expand harmonious energies because of the basic nature of Creation. The mythological Lucifer “fell from Grace” in rebellion against the harmonious whole, yet created a greater potential in the world for good to manifest.

When we get hung up on the negativity in the world, adding emotional reactions and blocking or cancelling all things “bad” we become agents of the conflict. By observing the chaos without resistance, and then choosing to find love, we amplify the goodness of not only our own life, but the lives of everyone. Resisting and fighting against what we see as evil, only feeds it energy. By observing it and seeing it as an expression within the field of love, we allow it to dissipate and eventually burn out for lack of contribution.

Consciousness advocate and savant, Teal Swan, teaches that our own negative thoughts are good; and by allowing those thoughts to float on by, we can observe where they came from–what they were a reaction to–and choose a preferred experience, now with a greater understanding of self.

The next verse of Ms. Gold’s “From A Distance” song, “God is watching us. God is watching us–from a distance.” When we can pull back from conflict to the Big Picture and see the necessity of both sides, we can join God from that distance.

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