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Yesterday afternoon I had the great pleasure of being at Royce Hall at UCLA for the University of Santa Monica Commencement Exercises and Celebration. These folks have a wonderful course in Spiritual Psychology to which I have steered more than one soul. And so there I was, or so I thought, to support my beautiful client in her latest accomplishment.

I had no idea that Barbara Marx Hubbard was to deliver the commencement address. If you notice, Ms Hubbard's Foundation for Conscious Evolution website, cocreation.org, is the very first link on my "Interest" page.

What a treat! Ms Hubbard spoke extemporaneously for at least 45 minutes on the subject of the Universal/Essential Self - making the case that we are at a critical time in the evolution of man. She pointed out that for millennia mankind has been coming into or firming-up what she called the "localized self" - this, the sense of self that feels "separate from" both the earth and others.

She was saying that this was an important and necessary achievement, but that we must now move to another level. This new "sense of self" must be universal in nature. It must break with the dualistic "me against you" thinking that has characterized our human history up until this point. She said, too, that the answers to the world's problems couldn’t be fixed with linear thinking, for linear thinking keeps us distinct from and afraid of each other.

Ms. Hubbard indicated that on 9/11 the world had an opportunity to come together in a non-linear way. She reminded us that there was enormous love and support ready to flow from all corners of the earth toward the United States, but that the way our administration reacted to the event, with anger and fear, we lost the opportunity to let love lead the earth to a greater sense of Oneness and belonging. Instead we created more fear and more anger.

I agree. On September 12th I wrote a letter to the New York Times saying virtually the same thing - asking for a universal and love-based approach, hoping that this might heal the terrible wound of that mind-boggling horrific event. Unfortunately, we did miss that opportunity.

But everyday, each one of us has a chance to approach life, each other, and ourselves from the position of "what is universal" and "what is essential" here. If we can gain greater awareness of and access to our essential selves, and relax our historical identification with our localized, fear-based egoic selves, we move one step closer to joy and true prosperity, and we nudge the world one step closer to a sustainable peace.