The world is so out of balance. People, after all, are dying of starvation while others are dying of obesity. It seems to me that more people care about winning the lottery than finding inner peace. More people care about who wins the Super Bowl than how much of the polar ice caps melt.

How did this state of affairs come about? This state of spiritual ignorance. A state of existence whose priorities are skewed from egoism and selfish considerations. How is it that we live in a world where disharmony, greed and selfishness are not even listed in DSM IV, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders?

I once co-wrote a play about a group of souls gathered together on the other side before taking birth. But these souls didn’t want to be born. Basically they were too afraid to experience the stresses of a human lifetime on this planet. As one character in the play said, “It’s polluted, it’s over populated, and it could blow up any minute.” But the characters eventually saw that life on Earth, even in this day and age, as an opportunity. The opportunity to be part of the human race at the dawn of a new humanity.

That was the first time I ever wrote or thought about a new humanity. And that was twenty five years ago. It seemed to me then that a new humanity as a living reality was far, far away.

But now I see it as eminent. Not because the world is improving but because it is disintegrating. If you have ever had a nightmare, you probably remember waking up in a panic. When I recently dreamed about being in the jaws of a tiger, I woke up before the dream was over out of sheer fright.

That’s what I see happening with the world today. I see it becoming such a frightening experience that people wake up, as they would from a nightmare. After all, just look what we have to contend with: war, global warming, rising oceans, droughts, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, financial collapse, terrorism, plague, and even a possible polar reversal.

Is it going to get worse? Of this I have no doubt. How could it not get worse with such disharmony so prevalent.

Don’t take my word for it. Edgar Cayce talked about it. So did Nostradamus. There are psychics in the world today who are putting their entire reputations on the line with similar visions of the future. Even Meher Baba talked about ¾ of the world being destroyed and a subsequent New Humanity developing.

A metaphor for this situation is a condemned building being torn down so that a new structure can be built in its place. It’s time to wake up before the wrecking ball comes through the wall.

But what does it mean to wake up, in the sense that I am using the word? It means to break free of the conditioned programming that runs our lives. It means to be able to make choices based on true perception rather than past habits. It means seeing that all of us are nothing but spiritual wayfarers trying to find our way to self-realization. It means, through spiritual experience, having access to deeper realities than is possible through mere intellect. It means loving for the sake of love. It means no more people dying of starvation or obesity.