Chicago Handouts | Gary Zukav Linda Francis Seat of the Soul Institute authentic power spiritual partnership

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The Most Dangerous Virus

Many people are speaking now and frequently about fear – of the political situation, unstable markets and weather, and now, a virus. Concern about the virus is now surpassing the other fears that frightened parts of our personalities put on inner display daily for us, if we are willing to look at (experience) them instead of distracting ourselves with food, work, sex, obsessions, and addictions. As we take these inner displays seriously and begin to explore them, a surprising discovery becomes observable, then noticeable, then unavoidable – the most invasive virus that we can experience today is fear. It is contagious, spreads quickly, and dangerous. It puts our ability to give the gifts that we were born to give at risk, and a life without giving them is a life of emotional pain, psychological pain, physical pain, every kind of pain.

There is no vaccine against fear, but there is a way to be healthy again if you become infected: Create authentic power. Frightened parts of your personality generate pain (you are infected when this happens) and loving parts of your personality relieve you of it when you cultivate them repeatedly (you become healthy again when this happens).

Think on this. Take precautions that you would take in any potentially dangerous circumstance, for example, handling very sharp knives in the kitchen, driving on the freeway, or trying to prove your self-worth by impressing others (pursuing external power). In the case of the virus, wash your hands often for at least twenty seconds (sing the alphabet song twice). Use your elbows or knuckles to avoid touching things with your hands, and keep your hands away from your face (viruses enter through mucus membranes including around your eyes). Bump elbows to greet one another instead of hugging. Use alcohol wipes (on the plane use them to clean arm rests, head rests, and trays).

Most important, do what is necessary to insure that you do not become infected with the truly dangerous virus of fear. If you allow it to grow in you, you will experience the very painful phenomenon of imploding under the fear of the collective. The physical virus is given to you to show you what is necessary to be physically healthy. This is symbolic, as is every experience in the Earth school. The destructive virus of fear is given to you to awaken you to what is necessary to move beyond fear permanently. This is far superior to what any vaccine can produce.

You can begin this process by enjoying yourself. That is a well-known and time-tested antidote to fear. Said another way, love is the only effective (and it is always effective) remedy to a life of fear.

Love,

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Love, Fear, and the Coronavirus

A new consciousness is being born, and an old consciousness is dying. The new consciousness shows us ourselves, the world, and the Universe in new ways. The old consciousness does not. Both coexist in us at this time.

For example, from the perspective of the old consciousness, the internet connects us. From the perspective of the new consciousness, the internet is a reflection in the physical world of our growing awareness of our connection. From the perspective of the old consciousness, the coronavirus is creating our fear. From the perspective of the new consciousness, our fear is creating the coronavirus! How can that happen? What does that mean?

Your consciousness contains fear when you experience anger, jealousy, overwhelm, or anxiety; when you feel superior and entitled or inferior and need to please; and when you are obsessed (winning, making a profit, or romantic love), compulsive (workaholism or perfectionism), or addicted (food, sex, drugs, alcohol). All these are experiences of fear. Your consciousness contains love when you feel gratitude, patience, contentment, or awe of the Universe. These are experiences of love.

In other words, from the perspective of the new consciousness the coronavirus is an enormous and dramatic reflection of the enormous fear in our collective consciousness. Where, then, is its counterpart – the equally enormous and dramatic reflection of the enormous love in our collective consciousness? You experience that counterpart – the enormous love in our collective consciousness – each time you reach toward another with love and open yourself to her or his love. Billions of us experience it in our loving, self-imposed isolations each time we find or devise new ways to connect with others – including others we do not know – with love instead of fear, to join them instead of separate ourselves from them, to explore our goodness, softness, and tenderness, and to experience the goodness, softness, and tenderness in them.

We all experience that enormous love each time we wash our hands with the intention to protect others from the virus as well as to protect ourselves from it. We all experience that love in a big way each time we care for the well-being of others as much as we care for our own. We all experience it every time we perform an action – any action – consciously with love instead of unconsciously with fear.

We do not need the coronavirus to show us this, but this what it is designed to show us.

Love,

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The Compassion Virus

The Compassion Virus is concurrently infecting the human species along with the Coronavirus. The more you know about it, the better.

INCUBATION PERIOD

The incubation period of the Compassion Virus may be quite long. Infection can occur months or years prior to the appearance of symptoms and even predate the birth of the infected individual. In these cases, infection is deemed to have occurred in another personality of the soul of the infected individual. Five-sensory diagnosis is impossible because souls and other personalities of them are undetectable to five sensory clinicians.

EARLY ONSET

Individuals in the early onset stage of the Compassion Virus appear asymptomatic. Physical symptomology is absent, however, internal nonphysical markers are self-identifiable by the infected individual. He or she begins to question why he or she performs certain actions apart from obvious benefits and detriments. Is it for the benefit of himself or herself or/and the benefit of others? At this stage the Compassion Virus becomes contagious.

ADVANCED SYMPTOMS

Advanced symptoms of the Compassion Virus include behavioral changes such as interest in the well-being of random others. These aberrant behaviors hinder accumulation of influence, ability to manipulate and control, acquisition of redundant houses, automobiles, clothing, and luxuries, and accomplishment of conventional aspirations. Infected individuals eventually exhibit compassion for everyone, including individuals they previously disliked, for example, greedy, exploitative, insensitive, rude, brutal, masochistic, and sadistic individuals. This serious and significant symptom signals the final stage in the progression of the Compassion Virus and indicates that it has taken control of the infected individual. At this stage the Compassion Virus is highly contagious.

RECOVERY PERIOD

There is no recovery from the Compassion Virus.

SUGGESTIONS

Examine yourself carefully for signs of the Compassion Virus. If you find any, take the following actions immediately:

1. Look at it with your eyes wide open. This is a potentially life-changing condition.
2. Cultivate it.
3. Treasure it.

Love,

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Coronavirus – Opportunity Or Obstacle

Corona usually refers to an aura (visible appearance) of plasma (ionized gas) around the sun. The coronavirus that is infecting humans for the first time (which is why we have no immunity) is covid-19. It is a type of coronavirus, just as “rose” is a type of flower. Yet covid-19 is a bloodless, lifeless term with no emotional relevance to human experience. That is why, in my opinion, we continue to call the virus that has infected us the coronavirus. We sense that it is intimately related to us humans.

As we become multisensory – able to perceive beyond the limitations of the five senses – we begin to see that everything around us is symbolic. The world is no longer random and meaningless. It is filled with meaning, and we can learn about ourselves from it. What can we learn about ourselves from the coronavirus?

The corona of the sun extends millions of miles into space and is hugely hotter than the visible surface of the sun. It is not detectable without instruments, except during a solar eclipse, but it is real and its effects upon the Earth are real. Is there an invisible part of us that extends far beyond what our five senses can detect and whose effects upon us are large and real? Yes. There are many, and we call one of them our collective consciousness.

We can detect the surface, so to speak, of our collective consciousness just as we can detect the visible surface of the sun (with dark sunglasses). For example, we say that the origins of our mythologies, religions, and cultures are contained in our collective consciousness. Everything about humanity is contained in it. The corona of our collective consciousness, so to speak, is that part of our collective consciousness that extends far beyond its surface, which means beyond what we can see in it (our mythologies, religions, and cultures) and is hugely more impactful. This is our love and our fear. They are huge parts of our collective consciousness, and they impact us greatly moment by moment. They are, metaphorically speaking, the corona of our collective consciousness.

The coronavirus is showing how large are the fear and love in our collective consciousness. We are beginning to recognize the fear in our collective consciousness as our fear. I am beginning to recognize it as my fear, and you are beginning to recognize it as your fear. At the same time, we are beginning to recognize the love in our collective consciousness as our love. I am beginning to recognize it as my love, and you are beginning to recognize it as your love.

Let your experiences of the coronavirus show you the intense, unbearable pain of your fear (and the fear in our collective consciousness) and the ineffable bliss of your love (and the love in our collective consciousness). We have so much to learn from the coronavirus, if we are open to learning.

And this is the beginning.

Love,

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Love In or Lock Down

Every action has an intention. Even not acting and not speaking are actions, and each has an intention. Your intention is the most important thing, not what you do. Your intention is why you do what you do. For example, imagine that you are hiking with a friend, and she suddenly pushes you violently off the trail. If she pushes you because she sees a rattlesnake, and she intends to keep you safe, her push comes from love. She cares about you. If she pushes you because she intends to keep herself safe, her push comes from fear. She cares about herself.

Imagine that we are all on a trail together. The trail is your life. Which kind of individual do you want to hike with – one who cares about you as well as herself or one who cares only about herself? The coronavirus is the sudden danger. The Individuals with you all take the same actions: they wash their hands, avoid touching their faces, keep “social” distance, and isolate themselves. However, some of them do these things to protect you as well as themselves. They wash their hands to protect you as well as themselves. They stay inside to protect you as well as themselves. They buy food for themselves, and they leave some for you. If they become infected, they suffer without a hand to hold theirs in order to protect you. If they need help, they get it to protect themselves and you. They are heroes. Their intention is love. Others do the same things to protect only themselves. They buy all that they can whenever they can. They go out whenever they choose. They are frightened. Their intention is fear.

Your isolation becomes a LOVE IN when you choose it because you care for others as well as yourself. It becomes a LOCK DOWN when you care only for yourself. The streets of our great cities and small towns are not always empty because of lockdowns. Myriad individuals in each are creating LOVE INs. Myriad individuals around the world are creating a global LOVE IN. Empty streets are one sign of it. Open hearts are another. Are you creating (and living in) a LOVE IN (these are sweet and compassionate) or a LOCK DOWN (these are bitter and cold)? Ask yourself each time you act or speak, “Is my intention love or fear? Will my deed or word create a LOVE IN or a LOCKDOWN?”

The choice is always yours.

Love,

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Coronavirus - The Heart of the Matter

All my life I have gone to the heart of the matter. When I graduated from college, I volunteered to fly fighters because I felt that was the heart of the Air Force. My eye sight prevented me, so I joined the Infantry because I felt that was the heart of the Army. Then I became a Green Beret officer because I felt that was the heart of the heart of the Army. When I wrote about quantum physics, I reached for the heart of this new discipline so I could write a book about it without scientific jargon and give non-scientists like me a clear and understandable explanation of it. That book won The American Book Award for Science, I believe, because it did exactly that.

I have come to see the heart of everything that we do and experience, individually and as a species, as consciousness. Our consciousness. My consciousness. Changing anything in the world, including myself, requires changing consciousness. The only place I can change consciousness is in myself.

Now I come to the coronavirus. Like everything I see around me, I see the coronavirus as symbolic. It has a lesson to teach me, and in my opinion, it has a lesson to teach us. The coronavirus is real in that it kills, the world economy is crippled, hundreds of millions have no work or shelter or comforting hand to hold theirs when they are ill. The most difficult is yet to come in economically undeveloped countries and collectives.

At the same time, the coronavirus shows me what fear in my consciousness – anger, jealousy, resentment, feelings of superiority and entitlement, feelings of inferiority and need to please, and every obsession, compulsion and addiction – has created in me: distance from others, incapacitation, and indifference. I see fear in my consciousness contributing to the massive global experience that comes to us as the coronavirus. I also see love in my consciousness – gratitude, appreciation, caring, patience, awe of the Universe – contributing to a new human species of unimaginable constructive potential. We contribute to it each time we choose love instead of fear.

The coronavirus offers each of us – all eight billion of us – opportunities to choose love instead of fear in the same context at the same time! For example, we choose love when we isolate ourselves in order to protect others as well as ourselves. We choose fear when we isolate ourselves to protect only ourselves. “Social” distance becomes loving distance when we create it to protect others as well as ourselves. It becomes fearful distance when we create it to protect only ourselves. We are in love when we wear a mask to protect others from the virus that may be in us. We are in fear when we wear it only to protect ourselves from the virus that may be in others. We choose love when we leave the last package of pasta on the shelf for someone else to buy. We choose love every time we make the needs of others as important to us as our own.

The coronavirus is unlike any event in our history. It calls us to participate in a new and different human species that creates consciously with love instead of unconsciously in fear. It invites us into the sunlight for the first time.

I hold this reality close in my heart every moment, and I offer it to you to hold as well.”

The choice is always yours.

Love,

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The Miracle Of The Coronavirus – Part 1

Creating authentic power requires distinguishing love from fear in yourself and choosing love no matter what is happening inside you or what is happening outside. Our evolution now requires us to create authentic power. The coronavirus is teaching us how to do that. The reality of the coronavirus is often lost in the fear of it (including denial). The reality of the coronavirus is that no one is immune to it, and it is extremely contagious. The mortality rate of the coronavirus is much lower than small pox or bubonic plague, yet it is a deadly threat. That reality demands that we bring our fears into our awareness so that we can choose responsibly between our fears on the one hand and love on the other. This is important because not only your health depends upon your choices, but also the health of others.

In other words, the coronavirus is the perfect teacher of responsibility. The coronavirus is contagious days before its symptoms appear in you. You do not know when you become infected! During that time you can infect others without knowing it and without them knowing it (because they do not know when they become infected, either), and they can (will) very quickly infect others and on and on and on and on. These are the things that make the coronavirus very dangerous. It is extremely contagious, everyone can unknowingly infect anyone else, and it can kill you. In other words, if you mindlessly endanger yourself, you mindlessly endanger others. If others recklessly endanger themselves, they recklessly endanger you. To echo Lakota wisdom, the health of one is the health of all, and the illness of one is the illness of all.

The coronavirus teaches us the most basic lesson about love and fear. To slow the spread of the coronavirus I must isolate myself from you and keep a distance. Yet these are behaviors of fear. How can I care for you and isolate myself from you at the same time? How can I love you and keep a distance from you at the same time? This is the contradiction that makes the coronavirus the perfect teacher of all that is truly valuable. There is only one alternative to all this. That is love.

Isolation requires me to proactively love you (there is no other way of loving), for example, calling on the phone, waving from a window, sending a text and more with the conscious intention of love. It requires you to proactively love me. Individuals in fear do not love accidentally. Love requires a conscious choice when fear is present.

Do you mindlessly distract yourself with food, television, or games in your isolation? With obsessions, compulsions, or addictions? Are they satisfying? These are the things that isolate you from yourself as well as from others. Do you look for things to do that are meaningful and rewarding? When you isolate yourself because you care about others, you make the big choice, the most important choice, the choice you were born to make. As you make it again and again, you move beyond the control of fear and into the territory of love, beyond the desert of emptiness and into the ocean of meaning. We were born to love one another. That is why it feels so good.

The coronavirus makes all this evident. It gives all eight billion of us opportunities to choose love instead of fear (to create authentic power) in the same context at the same time. It is the perfect gift for an emerging human species unlike any before. We are that species.

This is the miracle of the coronavirus.

Love,

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The Miracle Of The Coronavirus – Part 2

The longer we are isolated the more we want to be together. But we do not gather because we love the people we are isolating ourselves from. That is why we are isolating. So the coronavirus is showing us new ways to express our love, creative ways, ingenious ways, joyful ways that expand the bounds of cocreativity and redefine togetherness away from the five-sensory understanding as physical proximity to the multisensory experience that is far beyond that.

The coronavirus is showing us how shallow were so many of our relationships that we thought were deep. Before the coronavirus reshaped our lives, we exchanged countless hugs, blew countless air kisses, and smiled countless smiles without inner warmth. Now, in our isolation, we are beginning to see that togetherness is more than these things. When I was addicted to sex I thought it was the ultimate experience of togetherness until I realized that the women I was attracted to and who were attracted to me did not care about me any more than I cared about them, and I did not care about them. They were all replaceable to me, and I was replaceable to all of them.

Said more accurately, I was not able to distinguish love from fear, and so I thought that need was love and finding and having was love fulfilled. Now we are each, in our own way, beginning to see that many of the experiences we thought were love fulfilled were actually need fulfilled. When need is satisfied, it returns, often soon. We did not recognize this important clue that what we felt was more than it appeared to be. It was an insatiable need to fill an emptiness, to mask a deep pain that would not leave and would not lessen. That is the pain of powerlessness.

The pain of powerlessness is the pain not being chosen for the team. It is wanting to belong and not belonging, wanting to be loved and not feeling lovable, wanting to love and not feeling able to love, not wanting others to see you the way you see yourself or they would not want to be with you. It is feeling intrinsically defective, inherently flawed. All of us have the pain of powerlessness. When we do not recognize it as an internal dynamic, we experience it as caused by the world, and the remedy for it is to change the world. When consciousness of this dynamic is entirely lacking, the result is an irresistible hunger that will not cease. It is the hunger for meaning, for admiration, for understanding, for love disguised as hunger for food, shopping, alcohol, sex, and success, among many others.

These things come into focus in isolation. We long for others, not for what others can do for us or to us. We long for the closeness that is absent when we are absent from our lives. We see the value of others, and it is beyond all that we could have imagined. We see Italians singing to one another from balconies; Swiss villagers projecting flags of other countries onto a mountain, thanking all of us that we are with them in the world; we see New Yorkers filling the concrete canyons of their city with cheers for nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, hospital janitors, technicians, and all who have the courage to risk their lives for others; we see brave, bold, and beautiful individuals around the world of every culture and color risking their health and lives for the benefit of others, and we love them all. We see their beauty and strength, and we long to as courageous and compassionate.

We can be. We will be. When is for us to decide. They have made their decisions. Now we can make ours. The coronavirus is showing us all of this.

This is the miracle of the coronavirus.

Love,

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The Miracle Of The Coronavirus – Part 3

The coronavirus has sent us all home, so to speak, to assess and re-assess who we are, what we are doing, and why we are doing it. It has mandated a break for eight billion of us from our mindless, urgent, spot-light focus on the particulars of our lives and encouraged us to examine our lives with a flood-light, so to speak. It shows us the little things in our lives from a more accurate perspective. They are little things. Why then, do they appear so large, important, and immediate? Time in isolation allows us to explore these things, if we choose, yet there is no such thing as “isolation.”

All of us, all of Life, and everything we encounter, have encountered, and will encounter belongs to the Universe. They are the Universe. We belong to the Universe. We are the Universe. What is there to be “isolated” from? Can wet be isolated from water? “Time in isolation” is time with the Universe. Every time, anytime, anywhere is time with the Universe. The coronavirus is giving us opportunities to investigate this. If your experience at home includes children, that is time with the Universe. If it includes in-laws, that is time with the Universe. If you have no home to go to, that is time with the Universe also.

I asked a friend who had once been homeless to tell me his experience. “It was just God and me,” he said. Rituals bring your attention to the present moment – your never-ending “time with the Universe.” The coronavirus is bringing your attention to the ritual that is your life so that you can use it consciously, wisely, and lovingly.

The coronavirus is bringing us together. “Nonsense!” booms the intellect. That is the OPPOSITE of what you just proclaimed! We are NOT together when we are at home alone. The limits of the intellect are becoming visible to hundreds of millions of us as we become multisensory – able to perceive beyond the boundaries of the five senses. Our perceptions of ourselves, the world, and the Universe are changing forever. Our wisest clichés are becoming our realities, for example, “We are all in this together,” and, more accurately, “We are One.”

The coronavirus ignites our delight and our joy in our fellow students in the Earth school. We did not imagine how generous, creative, humorous, and loving they are, even in very difficult times. We did not imagine how generous, creative, humorous, and loving we are, even in very difficult times. Generosity, sharing, kindness, and love are appearing everywhere. This is one of my favorite examples: A state trooper stopped a car that was speeding. He asked the young driver for her ID, and then why she was there (her car had out of state licenses). She told him, “I am a doctor. I am volunteering at the hospital.” “Stay in the car,” he told her. When he returned, he handed her five masks that the State Police had issued to him. She cried. He left without identifying himself.

Aren’t we humans amazing? How many things like this have you heard about? How many have you seen? How many have you done?

This is the miracle of the coronavirus.

Love,

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The Coronavirus and Karma

The coronavirus is showing us the profound impacts of our choices. It is demolishing the fantasy that we are powerless and replacing it with a new experience of responsibility –responsibility for the well-being of others. It is here that the coronavirus reveals itself to be an exquisite creation of wisdom and compassion that is far beyond the capability of students in the Earth school, but not beyond their ability to understand.

The well-being of others requires our well-being. This is not a lofty, altruistic principle. The choice to disregard our health and well-being is one and the same choice to disregard the health and well-being of all others. It is one thing to recklessly, thoughtlessly, or childishly put your life at risk. I have done that. It is another to put the life of another or others at risk. I have done that also. You have the right to damage yourself. You have the right even to throw your life away. In other words, you have free will. You do not have the right to jeopardize the health of another. You do not have the right to take the life of another.

Ignorance is no defense against the Universal Law of Cause and effect – the immutable, unchallengeable, unbendable, unalterable Law of karma. What your intention causes in the experience of another you will also experience. If you have chosen in ignorance or defiance or any moment of powerless to take the life of another – the most painful of all painful intentions – you or another personality of your soul will experience another individual in ignorance, defiance, or another moment of powerlessness taking your life.

There is no escape from the Universal Law of Cause and Effect. Carelessly causing the death of another will cause you or another personality of your soul to experience the same from another. Powerlessness is distance from love. The more distant you are, the more powerless you are. The closer you are to love, the more powerful you are. When you become love, you become powerful without limit. You are incapable of harm, of distance, of judgment. You are free from fear. You are unlimited because love has no limits.

In the same way that you are free to disregard life you are free to honor and cherish it. That also creates karmic consequences – the consequences of giving to Life rather than taking from it. There is no pain more difficult to bear than the consequence of your own fear. There is no joy comparable to the consequences of your love. The coronavirus illuminates this reality. Consider what it is illuminating for you the next time you are with others. The coronavirus helps you see these things if you are open to seeing them.

The rest is up to you.

Love,

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Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Once there was only one ball, and it hypnotized us. It seemed to cause our joy and pain and our pleasure and misery. It seemed to cause everything, and everything depended upon it. That ball was the world.

Now another ball has appeared, and it has become the new star of the show. The show is human evolution. This new ball is our interior experiences. Previously we did not pay attention to them until they became too painful to ignore, for example, our rage, jealousy, or grief. We never thought about them in the context of our evolution. On the contrary, they hindered our ability to evolve – to manipulate and control ball one (the world). Now ball two (our interior experiences) is more important to our evolution than ball one!

A great transformation in human consciousness is underway. We are transforming from five-sensory humans that are limited to the perceptions of the five senses into multisensory humans whose perceptions are hugely more expansive and entirely different. Our evolution now requires each of us to consciously and wisely choose constructive intentions. Five-sensory humans think their actions create consequences. Multisensory humans see that their intentions create consequences. This is a game-changer.

What does that mean in terms of the coronavirus? Suppose, for example, that you are confined to a small space or even a large one, and you are miserable. You feel lonely, listless, or depressed. You have no job, your child is ill, or (and) you are angry at being told what to do. Five-sensory humans think that the world causes these experiences. Multisensory humans know that dynamics inside themselves cause these experiences when the world activates them. They see what five-sensory humans are not able to see. Until they change these interior dynamics, they will continue to produce painful emotions each time the world activates them. When the quarantine is lifted, your job returns, or your child becomes healthy, your difficult emotions will disappear, but the dynamics inside you that caused them will remain intact, and the world will continue to activate them until you change them.

Your issues are not between the world and you. They are between you and you. Plato, Buddha, and the Christ all fought their own demons and gained power from their decisions. All our great heroes did this. Could the Christ have gained the Glory that He did were He not tempted? Only you can choose a road that leads to health and love (power) or a road that leads to dis-ease and fear (powerlessness). When you focus on ball one (the world), you cannot do this. When you focus on ball two (your internal experiences), you give yourself the ability to choose between the constructive and destructive internal dynamics within you – between the joyful consequences of love and the painful consequences of fear.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Love,

Here are hand-outs that go with the talk

Click a link to bring up the handout and print as many copies as you want.

The Most Dangerous Virus

Love, Fear, and the Coronavirus

The Compassion Virus

Coronavirus – Opportunity Or Obstacle

Love In or Lock Down

Coronavirus - The Heart of the Matter

The Miracle Of The Coronavirus – Part 1

The Miracle Of The Coronavirus – Part 2

The Miracle Of The Coronavirus – Part 3

The Coronavirus and Karma

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

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Coronavirus Soul Thoughts