I would like to speak to you today about some of the changes that are taking place around the world at this time. There is a lot of concern about the future; and rightly so, because changes are happening. Some of these changes may impact us personally: our family, our friends, people in our neighborhoods. Changes like this bring with them fears and uncertainties.

There are things that may help us put all this into perspective. These things will not mitigate the effects, necessarily, of changes that occur and affect you on a personal basis -- but they can help us put what's going on around the world into a larger perspective.

You understand that everything experienced is a choice. There are, therefore, choices made on a collective level to create the change that is taking place around the world. There will continue to be economic changes that affect people greatly. There will continue to be fears and uncertainties that surround these changes. Both the change itself and the fears and uncertainties are part of a global collective choice.

At the same time, what's coming out of the other side of all this change and surrounding fear is a new way of thinking -- a new way of relating with one another.

What we have built over the past 50 to 100 years is a culture that exists in its separation; in other words, it is a culture that exemplifies the isolationist aspects of living in physical reality. There are many of us, though, who have felt like something is missing, like something needs to change. We felt a lack, a disconnection from ourselves and from one another.

Life on this planet wasn't always like this. Once upon a time people lived in close connection with one another, in close connection with the Earth and with animals, with plants. And that time is coming again. It won't be exactly as it was before -- we have technologies available to us that are so different from how things were 500 and 1000 years ago. So we won't return to a more primitive way of life. What will happen is that we will learn to rely upon one another. We will learn to help one another. There are so many of us out there now who are looking for ways to increase the connection that we feel with one another. We are looking for ways to help people -- to help others live lives that are more joyful, more prosperous, more connected.

This is what I see happening. Any change brings pain with it as well. When we separate from the old way of doing things there is a pain of that separation, but when we know what's ahead it can help alleviate that pain and uncertainty. This is what I hope to do for you now. Again, we know our world is changing -- we can feel it! We see it happening around us. But when we know also that one of the end results of all this change will be a closer connection with one another as people -- and that we as humans have chosen this collectively -- it does make things easier.

I do not mean to belittle the pain of what people might experience on an individual basis. I understand how difficult this will be for many of us. But in looking ahead to our future as a planet and as a species, I also see the wonderful joy and connection that will be a result of all change and upheaval of today. And it is this joy and connection that we will experience on a personal and a global level.

And so be it.