The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [92]
“That’s it!” I yelled. “That’s what we’re feeling. It’s a Divine Presence!”
The sound of the words reverberated through everyone. Will and I looked at each other. That is what we had felt on Secret Mountain: the Presence of God as a tangible reality. This was the return the prophecies had been pointing toward all along, the final Alignment.
Thoughts raced through my mind over the magnitude of what was happening. It was not the idea of a presence, nor an abstract theory about a presence. It was an actual Presence: the Feeling Identity of the Divine—real and personal and with us at this very moment.
With that thought, my energy and consciousness began to soar, and I could detect the Presence increasing inside me. Time stood still. The Apocalyptics appeared frozen. I looked over at Wil again. He was nodding in excitement. Coleman was sending a text to Adjar and Hira telling them what we had discovered. Tommy and the others were awestruck.
As we glanced at one another, the energy increased more. We were recapturing together that final level of energy we had glimpsed in the wilderness of Sedona. Instantly, I sensed what the rest of the group was thinking. This was it: the Twelfth Insight and its Integration. We can open our consciousness enough to reach the actual Presence of the Divine, right here where it has always been waiting for us.
Spontaneously, we all fell into a Template of Agreement. I could feel our conclusion. All of the traditions hold that God is a real presence, but it has only been emphasized and really thought possible in the most esoteric religious teachings.
“Acknowledge the Presence in appreciation and the link will get stronger,” I heard Tommy whisper to the others. “This will connect our final template conclusion with all those in the world who are sensing this.”
No sooner had we done this than our energy soared even more.
“Now join with the higher souls of the Apocalyptics,” Tommy added, “and lift them into this new Connection with us.”
As we did so, the presence increased to another level, and its character changed. Now it was not only inside of us, it was also outside as well, manifesting as a perceptible wave of luminosity all around the mound area. Then it swept down toward the crowds in a wave that lit up the rocks as it went.
Down at the trails, we could see people reaching out to the soldiers again, pushing at the barricade lines, darting around the weapons aimed at them, and moving all at once, as though of one mind, up the trails.
Then, in a scene reminiscent of the fall of the old Soviet Union, the soldiers broke ranks and refused to fire, throwing down their weapons. Commanders stopped shouting orders, resigned to the inevitable. Some soldiers were actually joining the flow of people toward the summit.
Anish turned and looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to get it. Then his face hardened again.
“Blow the bomb!” he screamed.
“No,” I yelled. “Don’t you understand? It’s okay to reverse your life direction. You don’t have to push that button. You can change.”
The man with the detonator was hesitating, listening to me, not moving. So Anish suddenly charged him, grabbing at the device. It fell to the rocks. He hurled himself toward it, stretching out his arms to pick it up. But Joseph’s brother rushed up to block his grasp.
Then gunshots began to ring out as the two factions exchanged fire. Reacting swiftly, Joseph ran toward his brother and knocked him behind a boulder. Simultaneously, Wil lunged forward and hit me in full stride, also pushing me out of harm’s way. A single grenade exploded, covering us with smoke and dust.
When I could see, I realized most of the Apocalyptics had fled. Wil and Coleman were sitting beside me. We all just looked at one another, knowing how fortunate we had been that the bomb hadn’t detonated. Looking around, we saw that Anish and another extremist were seriously