Robert recently decided to review all the hand-written notes that he accumulated over the years. It now amounted to over six hundred scribbled pages. He sometimes had problems reading his own handwriting and had to spend time deciphering certain passages. He started to think that it was high time to get more serious about setting up a logical table of contents with defined chapters and to start organizing and typing out his notes accordingly.
Although he kept insisting to his wife Ruth that he wasn’t overly obsessed about his pendulum explorations, he started considering the possibility of devoting more time to it. He was near retirement age and could make an early exit almost any time. He always enjoyed marketing and sales. But he also felt that after putting over thirty years into this well-paid job it was becoming less fulfilling every day. He did the math a few months ago and calculated that if he added his separation pay to his current savings, cashed in the shares he had accumulated at ACE Plastics and started collecting his pension he would have more than enough money to sustain the family’s present lifestyle. Besides, Ruth was five years younger and would probably want to continue her teaching career.
Both kids were financially independent. Simon was a respected and admired university professor with tenure, and Sarah had a solid career at an NGO dedicated to distributing aid to underprivileged children in third-world countries. He always encouraged his children to be as independent as possible and find ways and means to support themselves to the best of their abilities. And they certainly lived up to the challenge all their lives. They would certainly not be affected in any significant way if he decided to take the plunge and follow a different dream.
He knew that Bill was counting on him to keep going at ACE and would be quite disappointed if he decided to call it quits. But Robert had been mentoring Evelyn for the past year with his exit plan in the back of his mind. She was a young woman in her mid-thirties who showed a lot of promise and was just about ready to step up to become the VP of sales and marketing. He was ready to give Bill as much notice as he needed and provide even more intensive coaching and mentoring to Evelyn. He got along well with her and actually enjoyed passing on everything that he knew about marketing, strategic planning, client relationships, and building an accountable and performance-driven sales force. He felt that he could probably leave within six months if he so chose. In addition, with all the new apps on the market driven by algorithms and AI that provided useful data, it was a heck of a lot easier to manage the sales force.
On the other hand, what would he do, if after quitting, the pendulum digressed into some strange direction that took him out of his comfort zone? However, when looking back, at no time did he feel pressured or obsessed to the point that he couldn’t break free. His pendulum dialogue and analysis of the received information never led to any major discomfort. To test this, he regularly abstained from any contact for a period of time. When he took a break, he found that he experienced no overbearing compulsion to rush back. Ruth and he took their regular vacations and did a lot of traveling together. If anything, he saw himself doing more of the latter, especially during the summer months when Ruth would be on her two-month vacation break from school. Simon was always occupied at the university with research projects and teaching and came home only on a few weekends and holidays. During his short stays at home, Robert would try and spend as much time with him as possible. He never felt obliged to make the pendulum his overriding priority. This was also true with Sarah, although she sometimes prodded him to reveal more about his mysterious trip, as she called it. He obliged by revealing more snippets of information in readily digestible form.
As far as giving up his job, he was convinced that he could always find part-time employment somewhere. Or he could readily do some consulting or freelance work that would be liberating, enjoyable, and bring in some extra money. He hadn’t seriously discussed his retirement ideas with Ruth, but whenever he made some hints in that direction, she seemed to take it well. Besides, Ruth was absolutely unmaterialistic; a small downward adjustment in their income would not bother her much. The mortgage was paid off some five years ago and they had a comfortable home in a leafy suburban neighborhood.
It was satisfying to contemplate a quieter retirement with more time to pursue some interesting hobbies, cultural events, and travel. On the other hand, the pendulum was ostensibly leading to potential public exposure and possible involvement in a movement that led to ambitious societal transformation. But Robert saw this as a progressive, one-foot-at-a-time involvement with some go/no-go milestones. He thought that he could control this and always stop, reconsider, and decide whether he was willing to go further. Everything also depended on Ruth’s, and to some degree the children’s, continued support. He wasn’t going anywhere without her and it would be nice to have the kids on board. Actually, that reminded him that the pendulum revelations talked about the continuity of family connections through multiple lifetimes. So perhaps their own inner brains would find a way to recognize that truth.
This was another hook that motivated Robert to continue his pursuit. He was a strong believer in family bonds. He experienced this with his own parents and was committed to follow in their footsteps. The input from the pendulum just reinforced his own belief in the pre-eminence of the family and gave it additional leverage. He didn’t have any difficulties in seeing the possibility of family ties enduring through multiple lifetimes. He was eventually able to work out a more profound explanation for this. Because the Eternal Light’s essence is grounded in love, our first exposure when we reincarnate is to the love of the mother and then the rest of the family. While this holds true in the majority of cases, there are numerous exceptions where the newly born is shunned and rejected. But that’s to be expected to some degree. Our behaviors and values evolve over many life terms and each of us carries forward different levels of inner wisdom. When we re-enter the world, our encoded wisdom is challenged by the ignorance that prevails in a present term such as materialism, intolerance, prejudice, anger, violence, and other negative behavioral patterns. The test that we are subjected to in every life term is to dominate this ignorance in ourselves and our environment and subsequently act as models for others. This is how we can contribute to establishing a moral critical mass in synch with EL’s grand plan.
When Robert thought about this seemingly simplistic solution to humanity’s many problems, he was convinced that there already was a movement underway for more enlightened cooperation across national borders. One had to only look at the geopolitical scene to see proof of previously incompatible enemies forming successful economic, social, and cultural ties. The European Union is a prime example. War zones continue to affect certain parts of the globe, sowing terror and violence that kill and displace people from their war-ravaged homes. But nothing compares to the scale of the two European world wars in the first part of the twentieth century.
The same morally positive changes can be seen in human rights, acceptance of diversity, promotion of equality, and support of inclusion across racial, gender, cultural, and ethnic divides. We’re slowly finding that there are more factors that unite us than tear us apart. Yet there are always some sudden developments on the sociopolitical front that seem to yank us back to intolerance and xenophobia. However, there will always be that see-saw effect where ignorance and wisdom collide. It requires enlightened leadership and positive examples of ethical behavior at all levels of society. Unfortunately, there are no ideal political systems out there that can be held up as models for the whole world. Democratic systems presented a viable direction to establish justice and equality. Democracy certainly was an improvement over autocratic and imperialistic systems. However, it’s often corrupted by power-hungry individuals who would stoop to any means to safeguard their power. One has only to observe the great political divide between the two major parties in America to see how quickly democracy can be led astray by charismatic populists.
Robert saw that the solution was dependent on canceling out the historic predominance of past influencers like nationalism and dogmatic religious belief systems that separated us into different and opposing camps. It benefited only the corrupt elites who were at the top of their separate pyramids. We needed to see ourselves as planetary citizens with a common purpose and destiny. There’s nothing wrong with national, tribal, and religious allegiances as long as these groups can see and work toward the common good of all. This planetary cohesion was one of the most fundamental insights that Robert discovered from his pendulum sessions.