First appeared in Conscious Life, 4/99

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Troubadour At The Threshold

Imagine that you are wrestling with weighty matters of the soul. Your heart is heavy. You feel caught in a quagmire, living in a shadowland on the road to awakening.

Into your confusion steps a messenger. He looks deeply into your eyes and says lovingly, "You're ready!" And recognition floods your being with joy.

The messenger is musician, author and teacher James Twyman, also known as the Peace Troubadour, whose extraordinary experiences high in the mountains of war-torn Croatia in 1995 midwifed him as an ambassador for world peace. There, he was introduced to The Emissaries of Light, a secret mystical society whose members come from an ancient lineage of esoteric masters. The Emissaries claimed to be guardians of humanity whose role it was to hold the truth about our Divine nature until enough people remember who they really are.

After initiating Twyman, the Emissaries told him that this was the time we've all been waiting for-that we are now ready to become the Emissaries in our own lives. Twyman chronicled his adventures in a book, Emissary of Light: A Vision of Peace and has also released a CD which contains the peace prayers from the world's twelve major religions, set to music.

Twyman describes how the Emissaries performed a daily meditation from midnight till noon, always concluding with the chant, "Seek not peace here, but find it everywhere." This appears at first to be a paradox.

He explains, "We have a tendency to look for peace where it isn't, which is always outside ourselves. We look to the world to try and verify our experience. We think we need to change the elements of the world in order to find peace and joy and happiness, and when we have that sort of attitude, it's the surest way to never find peace, because the truth is that it's a choice we make within. When we seek peace where it really is, within, then a miracle happens, which is that we find it everywhere, even where a moment ago we couldn't find it at all."

This is how someone like Mother Theresa could live among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, yet experience herself as being in Heaven, he says-while someone else could be in Hawaii and never be able to find peace, because their internal world is in turmoil.

So, how do we get there from here?

Follow a simple spiritual law, counsels Twyman: if you want something, give it. "If it's peace you're seeking, give peace. If it's love that you think you lack, then give only love. Because the truth is, there is only one of us here. The illusion is that there's a separation between you and me. If I'm lacking peace, you're lacking peace. If I give you peace, then I receive that same peace. This is the Prayer of St. Francis and the Servant Prayer: 'For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in loving that we are loved.'"

Clearly, this is about getting out of our own way. Twyman offers a musical analogy. "An instrument never plays itself, it allows itself to be played. The Emissary teaching can be summed up in three words: surrender, trust and gratitude, which they called the essence of all spiritual traditions. First I let go, realizing that I don't have the answer. Trust is the experience of knowing there is an answer I can receive if I surrender and open myself up to that. Finally, at some point those two fuse and I find myself in a state of total gratitude. It's like the instrument surrendering to the master musician-that's when the music resounds."

A longtime student and teacher of A Course In Miracles, which says that there are only two emotions, love and fear, Twyman suggests that we can apply the Emissaries' and the Course's teachings to our burgeoning Y2K anxiety. "It's another opportunity to choose love or fear. So many people are looking at Y2K and using it as an excuse to feel the fear. The fact is the fear is there already. Y2K is giving us an opportunity to see that. And if we're able to release that fear, then it doesn't matter what happens, because we'll move past it without effort."

For an emissary of international renown, Twyman is refreshingly without ego. "An Emissary of Light is one who brings light. We each have our role to play, our own unique gifts that we use to bear that light. One is not better than another just because one is more public than another. It's like the characters in a play. One character may have more lines than the rest, but when the play is over and the costumes come off they're all the same."

Perhaps Twyman's dedication on his CD, Emissary of Light: Songs From The Peace Concerts, says it best: "Dedicated to the single extension of the Holiness of God (also known as you)."

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As a "midwife for the soul" Amara Rose offers life purpose coaching, talks, CDs, e-courses, playshops, and an inspirational monthly newsletter, "What Shines." Please visit LiveYourLight.com to learn more. Contact Amara at amara@liveyourlight.com, or call: 1-800-862-0157 within the USA.

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