Beloveds, do not forsake yourselves. Do not give yourself over to gloom. When you feel hopeless and helpless, that is what you are doing. Surely you know that is not what you are meant for in this life on Earth.

Never mind about all the fault you find with the world. If you are distressed by the way the world misappropriates, change yourself. Do you think it is absurd for me to say that that’s how you change the world? I am suggesting that your thoughts are powerful. I am suggesting that when you feel gloom and doom, that is the message you send out to the world. I am suggesting that you are part of the world.

I do not ask you to pretend that the outer world lives up to its ideals. I am asking you to focus on how you look at the world, for that you can change in this moment.

Have you not pronounced the world guilty? Certainly, you have found much evidence to sentence the world. Also, certainly, you have found that pointing out the errors of the world doesn’t change it one whit.

What if the world were your child or student, how would you teach it? Not by pointing out all its faults. That may make you feel better for a while. That may help you set your mouth firm, and keep your feet stuck in the world right where they are while you affirm the world’s glaring faults, build strong scaffolding around its faults, give great attention to the world as it appears rather than what it can be.

You must see beyond all the accumulated evidence. You must rub your eyes and see beneath and beyond the tarnish. You do not need to prove the tarnish nor reiterate it. You do not have to point to the world’s tarnish and say: “Look. Look what a miscreant the world is.” What is the value? If pointing out errors uplifted the world, it would be perfect by now.

So then you must look at the world in better light. Shine your light on the world. There is much in the world that is untarnished. You, for instance. People make the world, and there are beautiful people. There are many like you who care. Have you counted them? Or have you perhaps been too busy counting off the failings of the world instead?

If you want a better world, and I know you do, then you must consider the beauty of the world. In so doing, you magnify the world’s beauty. You will magnify but not exaggerate. You will not be flaunting illusion. Beloveds, you will be removing delusion. You will be a pioneer who stakes his claim in the new world. You will start tilling the field and planting what you want to grow. You will not mind what the other settlers are doing. You will take care of your own vision, and it is through your vision that your fields get planted. Vision comes first. What you envision will follow.

If the acreage you live in has gone fallow, shall you point out its lack forever and a day? No, you will get up, and you will nourish the land. The yard you have may be small, but you won’t let that stop you from making it beautiful. That is how you inspire. You inspire by inspiring. And first you must inspire yourself. Certainly emphasizing the faults in the world does not inspire you nor anyone, and nor does it fill in the crevices.

Keep your eye on what is beautiful and heroic in the manifest world, and this is what you will manifest.