The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [90]
Then Coleman shouted, “Look over at the mound!”
Anish was out among his group, shouting and gesturing dramatically with his arms. The men hurriedly began picking up their guns and strengthening their positions. From behind him, another man walked up hesitantly behind Anish. It was the round military general we had seen earlier.
“That’s my brother,” Joseph shouted. “I’ve been focusing on him. Help me!” Joseph took off over the edge of the outcropping and ran down the slope toward the mound.
Before I could react, I heard a gasp from Tommy’s mother. She was looking in the direction of the crowds down below again. More troops had arrived and were pushing people back down the slope. Several began firing their automatic weapons into the air. With each burst, I could feel our energy waning.
Again my phone rang with a text, and I looked at it quickly. It was Adjar saying that more soldiers had arrived there as well and were pushing everyone back. Seconds later, another text rang. It was Hira saying the same thing was happening in Jerusalem.
I looked back at the crowds and saw they were being pushed back even farther. Barricades were being set up. We were failing.
“Hold your energy,” I shouted, trying to focus.
Coleman grabbed my shoulders. “We aren’t strong enough! We haven’t yet regained the full consciousness we had on Secret Mountain! We need the Twelfth!”
Immediately, I thought about the point of Connection we’d experienced on Secret Mountain, and in a flash I seemed to feel it again. I looked at Coleman and his expression told me he was feeling the same thing. Tommy, obviously sensing it, too, rushed over.
“This is the Connection we had,” he yelled. “We have to hold this, build on it.”
As soon as Tommy made that statement, we couldn’t feel the point of Connection anymore. It had completely disappeared.
“What happened?” Tommy asked.
I was struggling to remember my earlier experience.
“Wait,” I stressed. “You can’t force it. You have to allow it or have faith in it or something.”
As soon as I spoke those words, we could feel it again, but it was still sporadic, appearing for a moment and then disappearing.
“There’s something we’re missing!” I yelled. “What is it?”
Then I remembered. At the height of the Connection on Secret Mountain we had experienced another emotion I had forgotten about: a soulful sense of appreciation.
I also remembered something I had thought at the time. Appreciation was the act of acknowledgment that locked in the Connection. Immediately, I felt the Connection more intensely, and as I did, the Agape began to increase in slow increments, almost to the level we had achieved on Secret Mountain but not quite. Tommy and Coleman had already sensed what I was doing and were gathering the others back into a circle with us, explaining how to hold the emotion of appreciation.
Then I knew something more. We were calling this phenomenon a point of Connection, but in actuality it was something else. Rachel had said not to get hung up on a name. We had to understand more about what we were feeling. I no sooner had that thought when an image of Wil down there with the Apocalyptics came to mind. And then another image came—one of the radio sitting on the briefcase. In a flash I understood. Wil hadn’t been nodding toward the radio, as I’d thought earlier. It was the briefcase he wanted me to see!
Down at the trails below, the shooting had stopped and the soldiers and the crowds were now in an uneasy stalemate, the people still pressing to go forward, the soldiers holding fast.
“I’ve got to go back down there,” I said to the others.
They voiced agreement, so without saying another word, I slid off the outcropping again and hurried down the slope, trying to hang on to the Connection. The others were right behind me. Coleman caught up with me and smiled as we jumped a wide crevice in the rock. When we approached the mound, we could see two men wrestling over a rifle and several more fighting twenty feet away. We avoided them and ran around to the side of the rocky protrusion.