Happiness Is Your Birthright by Carlos Warter, M.D., Ph.D. What do you expect in the new millennium? Let’s look back. In the two hundred years following the Industrial Revolution, our connection to our soul was forgotten because people believed that the sacred was confined to old books, churches, and temples. We are now entering a time when this sacred information, no longer restricted to the privileged scholars or holy men, is available to everyone. This is a change that represents acceleration in our space-time continuum. Our explanations of the natural world, especially seen from quantum physics, have come to the same universal enigmas, which were once solely the domain of religion. For example, if we expect a particle of light to act like a wave, it does; if we expect a wave of light to act like a particle, it does. If we expect it to act like a point, it will accommodate this idea. How? The observer created the reality. In essence, observing the world necessarily changes our perceptions of it. The new millennium ushers in a new awareness, which could be called a spiritualization of culture. Over this century, we have existed in the comfort zone of science, which tends to deny faith and belief. We are being challenged to find a new meaning and purpose in our lives and bring about an honest, authentic, and new way of living. In every spiritual tradition I have studied, the shift into a new millennium has subtly announced a shift in rediscovering the sacred. There are numerous elements that show us we are in the midst of this shift: synchronicity and coincidences, the intensity of the energy flow of life, an acceleration of ideas and feelings, and a global economy that links the financial state of the world instantaneously. People sense that the world is on the brink of great change. We are in the genesis of the millennium, yet we have not found all the means to comprehend it. The entire population of our transforming world has one vital task: recovering the sacredness of life. During this time of change, we need to be cautious of identifying with one specific ideology. We comprehend that the longing for consciousness and reconnection with the soul belongs to many different traditions. The awakening of our soul and the consequent recovering of the sacred is our birthright as conscious human beings. We have probably all experienced, on more than one occasion, our true soul identity. There are as many paths to access this awareness as there are people on the planet. Laughter, prayer, music, lovemaking, the birth of a child, the passing of a loved one, a victory in sports, a defeat or success on the battlefield, or any of the experiences that we identify as crises are all doorways to transformation. We are in the genesis of the millennium, yet we have not found all the means to comprehend it. When these events occur in our life, we tend to embark on a search for our individual truth. Again, the search must not end by grasping a single ideology that intrigues us or seems to meet most of our needs. We need to connect and follow our own path completely, fully involving the heart. Therefore, this spiritual adventure does not have any formal guidelines. The mysteries of life guide us and give us correct timing for our actions. We need to learn patience, an important element in the larger context of the "big story" of our existence. In the "small story" of our existence, that of our ego — our frustrations, hopes, successes, and failures — we are constantly chasing an elusive sense of permanence. Thus we are all subject to our anxieties and conditioned by them. With this focus, we will never find the true meaning of our lives. However, this side of life does serve as a doorway for entering into the "big story." Love, light, tenderness, and wholeness are our destiny. We then live our daily life with greater harmony and peace. Essence is what our human existence is really all about. This is the first global culture in human history to be able to manifest the essential self into action. I am calling people to recognize their essence: to become part of a renaissance in which the psyche is unlocked and the human soul is breached so that the internal and the external become one. I believe that this era is the renaissance of renaissances. Essence is not about self-improvement or personal development. Essence is not just a state of mind. It is our very depth manifesting as an image before the mind's eye. Essence is so real that it transcends symbols or language. It is what guides us all the time. It is that inner voice we hear in the stillness. It is the love of life remembering its source. The recovery of the sacred takes us from a state of yearning, born of false identification with our third-dimensional everyday living, to our rebirth, wherein we re-identify with the landscape of our soul in a very real way. The reintroduction of the soul in our life means planting our roots in heaven and seeing our third-dimensional "small story" as mere circumstance. Developmental psychology is melancholic because it stays far from divine possibilities. Recovery of the sacred is the expansion, in love, from our roots in heaven to our manifestation in life. With this approach, I see healing taking place in a different way, a way that allows both the possibilities of human evolution and the rights and obligations that our people and our societies must embrace in order to become a society of souls. These rights and obligations include debts to parents and ancestors of humanity, to the ancient explorers of spiritual traditions of wisdom, to the natural order, and to various levels of divine agencies without which human existence would not be possible. Listen to your heart, heed its call to change, and prepare to look at the world as a newborn does, with wonder and excitement. Miracles are our birthright once we set our course for a soulful adventure. This is the genesis of the new millennium. Dr. Carlos Warter, M.D., Ph.D., renowned psychiatrist, psychotherapist, author, and expert speaker, will present a workshop on Happiness Is Your Birthright at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, 1155 E Broadway, on Sunday, November 14, from 6:00-9:00 p.m. The fee is $35. Dr. Warter’s latest book is called Who Do You Think You Are: The Healing Power of Your Sacred Self.