I’m horrified when I look at the modern world — this picture we’ve created is full of madness. But worst of all is that it seems tomorrow will be no different. Perhaps what we’re witnessing is the story of humanity’s spiritual growth, that inexorable growth, which will necessarily be followed by change. And all the wars, the savage cruelty, the fanaticism and the aggression are all our teen phase, leading to either death or transformation.

A modern spiritual teacher, the German writer Eckhart Tolle, believes that we are now closer to that transformation than we’ve ever been. He and many of his followers are taking part in mindfulness seminars, the primary iteration of prayer in today’s world. Perhaps the challenge of our time is to tell yourself honestly who you are. The question of self-identification has always been one of our most important issues. And Tolle teaches us that the joy of being is the joy of awareness. We have the chance to leave behind this puberty period — this period of self-denial, self-destruction, and perpetual inaction — if only we can graduate from humanity’s cur- rent primary school status, challenging ourselves to step forward into the next stage — adult life — remembering that we can do more than merely receive knowledge. We can actually put it to use and pass it along.

St. Athanasius of Alexandria said, «God became man in order that man might become God.» Humanity’s path to maturity is to engage constantly in the process of attending to the power that is within each of us. Many people are speaking now about a time of «harvest»: a person should feel an undeniable longing to hear himself, to attain consciousness and a state of freedom at the same time.

Born into this world, we stand before the abyss, an endless void. For some, this is a source of fear, yet for others, it is a space for boundless creativity. The Creator has made us creators — we are here to paint masterpieces on this canvas of fate: to love, protect, save, invent — to live, in the end. This is a challenge that every living soul can and must respond to.