The year of awakening from slumber is upon us, and many new things will happen that will create this awakening. Open your eyes, beloved ones, and see what we need to awaken to. It is to the preciousness of each day of life and our responsibility to be fully here within it. It is to the preciousness of each individual life, and our responsibility to preserve and uphold it.

You have heard the spiritual advice to “live as if each day were your last,” and this is the advice for the new year. Live as if the values that you hold most dear must no longer be hidden or concealed. Live as if you no longer are willing to believe that you do not make a difference to the fate of the world. Live as if your life matters and as if all of your words and actions matter.

Live as if the Earth is on fire, and we need to address the emergency of the time we are in.

The Climate Summit in November did not do this.

The calls for cease fire in Gaza for the last several months did not do this.

Live as if the house is on fire, for it is.

Waking from slumber is both a choice and a necessity. It is what we urgently need to do in relation to the climate crisis that is already changing the face of the Earth and our relationship to the rest of life. The Climate Summit of November did not produce the changes we need. It was not urgent enough.

Wake to the need to root out from your heart those places where anger and fear reside, especially fear. Those are the places that create separation, and the time is already upon us when the attitudes we hold that increase separation and decrease a caring for the well-being of all must not be tolerated.

Wake to the need to carry peace in your heart and an end to judgment. For the judgment you hold can lead to violent emotion, and violent emotion is often self-perpetuating, creating an absence of peace and love. Monitor this closely, for it is love that the world is in need of, and not violent emotion.

To create a world in which peace can manifest, we must think of the world we wish to leave to our children, and have enough hope so we can help to create that world. If you think this is not possible, it will not be possible. Instead of a generous gift to the future, we will bequeath the future a path of obstacles and a liability.

There have been many who have raised their voices about the killing in Gaza, many who have wept tears of sorrow and helplessness who wished to do more. We can do more, but we must do it together. We must institute a new ethic in our relations with each other that can then become the new ethic by which nations can also live. We are not there yet. We are not in the place of unconditional caring, but we are moving in that direction. We are beginning to see that unity is the only way forward. All other pathways lead backward.

There is a need now to awaken from the justifications we give ourselves for remaining distant from each other, the justifications that allow the global community to do the same thing, permitting massive inequality, and maintaining a world in which many have more than they need, and some have little with which to survive.

The time is here, and although we may have doubts about the possibility of unity with others who act and think differently from us, we need to awaken to the capacity of our own hearts to love all and not to focus on beliefs, but on beings.

This is the transition of this new time, one in which we recognize the being of each other and the oneness from which each has come. We are the world. We are the children of the Earth and of the Divine. We are the hope for the future and the legacy of the past. We are responsible for guarding the future and cannot do this while we are yet asleep.

2024 is the year of awakening from slumber. May the cobwebs of sleepiness be brushed from our eyes so that we may each see what we need to heal and where we need to walk to take our place more fully in life.

GurujiMa is the spiritual teacher for the Village of Light Ashram in Leverett. Many of her books can be found on amazon.com. The Village of Light Ashram holds gatherings each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and daily morning meditations that are available online. Visit lightomega.org/calendar for the ashram’s schedule of events.