This article appeared in the May 19, 2012 edition of The Austin American Statesman

“….take it”, Yogi Berra. We are fast approaching a fork in the road for the whole world. In his 1990 book Power Shift Alvin Toffler said: “For this is the dawn of the Powershift Era. We live at a moment when the entire structure of power that held the world together is now disintegrating. A radically different structure of power is taking form. And this is happening at every level of human society.” Things are changing, like it or not.

Our prophets of doom are all revved up for a coming catastrophe. And almost everyone you know has a private list of all the things that are wrong. And just to sweeten the load, we have divided ourselves into at least two major camps that have lost the ability to speak to each other. We have somehow created the most fearful time in our known history.

This fear-full, self-fulfilling prophesy does not take into account Free Will, the first law of the Universe. We are free at any time to change our minds and change our lives at superluminal speeds. Ask someone you know who decided on the deepest level to reject cancer’s power and experienced a sudden and permanent remission. In giving us Free Will, God gave us the moment-by-moment choice to express the deepest of our longings, and he built us so that our deepest longings are his Will.

The opportunity at this fork is that many of us are accepting the call to change our minds and rise above all the fear and negativity and see, explore and help others experience a bigger picture. This means living above the level where separations appear real, rising all the way up to where we see only one. ONE is EVERYTHING. Science seems to be seeing it most often. The very atoms that form the stars are the same atoms that form our bodies.

From this viewpoint we can derive a very simple rule: If something creates separation, it is moving in the wrong direction. If it creates inclusion, it moves us closer to God and our deepest desires and each other. Consciousness is knowing we are One and, because we are one with all, we cannot, on the deepest level, kill, eliminate or remove anyone or anything from the One, which is eternal. Loving our brother as ourselves is not just a good idea, it is the law.

Recently the Dali Lama said: “My religion is Kindness.” No labels, no doctrines, no rituals, no exclusions of any kind, no holy causes, just this: be kind to each other. The Master Jesus said it, as has every other Master whoever lived: Do to everyone, as you would have him or her do to you. This is the other side of the fork in the road we are approaching.

Now imagine what would happen if enough of us decided that Kindness really was the Great Way. Imagine a world without war, with enough food and water for all 7 billion of is. Imagine free energy, free education, free health care, housing for everyone. And each person with a true voice in the outcome. If we really believed in our universal Oneness, we would have no fear that someone could kill us. And having just celebrated Easter, we Christians have professed to believe death is not real.

Will this change ever occur? Yes. The fork in the road is here for that purpose. There is evidence that other civilizations, long lost, took actions that led to their destruction, and they got there by using their Free Will. We, with our 30,000 nuclear bombs and drones, could finish off the whole world in less than 24 hours. And you would really have to stretch the truth to believe that is what a loving God wants as an expression of His Will.

So the fork we can choose to take is the fork that leads to union with each other and with the whole universe. Is that Pie in the Sky? Yes! Apple Pie! Will we make the right choice? Yes! Who will lead us there? You and I will. Every time we choose Oneness over separation, we move ourselves one step closer to the union of Oneness that is our heart’s desire. The teachings of the Buddha can be summed up in three words: “Come and See.” Take that fork.