The world we've known is crumbling, and the many extremes are beating their war drums to rally support for where they want it to go next.

The question for awakening souls is not which side(s) to take, but whether there is another alternative that doesn't perpetuate the struggle and conflict we've come to know so well.

The answer is a resounding "YES!"

For a long while I've been saying we don't have to take sides in their battles. Of course there are merits to all positions in any conflict. But it doesn't mean we have to pick up the gauntlet, even after we've been whacked alongside the head with it. And trust me, that's going to happen when you tell them you aren't on their side. Those who want to fight live by the adage, "If they ain't with us, they're agin us!"

It will take a tremendous resolve to stand against the tide. Instinct will call you to arms, and your ingrained response patterns may incline you to fight. Still, the Golden Age of the New World is not about picking winners and losers, but rather rewriting the rules of the game of life so that everyone can win.

Each of us must find that vision seared in our souls of what we want the experience of life to be, and the kind of world that will be necessary in order to have it. This is why I speak so much about the inner voice -- it is key not only to traveling the spiritual path, but adding our contribution to the outer world in which we have been born.

Then we must shift out of the beliefs and practices that set us on our race to Armageddon, and into new ones that will better allow the new world to manifest. In short, the status quo must change, not by conflict but by expansion of consciousness and aligned action.

It isn't enough, though, to simply tap into it and then keep it to ourselves. Rather, it is but a piece in a greater mosaic, and we must look for ways to share it and see how it fits with the pieces of others while holding space for new ones yet to be brought forth.

Jumping into the fray of the competing extremes won't get it done. Neither will fighting to prove how right our view is or great the possibility we envision, for there is always the risk that our view is distorted by our own inner conditions and egoic blinders.

Therefore we will be challenged to relate what flows through us without burdening it with the expectations, judgments, and emotional charges that can impair our ability to fit it into the puzzle. Yet despite all these obstacles, do it we must. For if we don't even try, then that better tomorrow may die before it has a chance to be born, aborted by our own addiction to more of the same.

This is where conscious co-creation comes in, learning to work together free of the egoic distortions that now get in the way. But that is another subject for another day.

So let us instead focus on the question for today.

Where do you want to go? What is the destination you've set your sights on? What are the means by which you will get there? Will it be by picking up the sword and fighting to defeat those who oppose the way you see things, even as the world around you deteriorates into chaos and greater conflict? Or will it be by moving toward a new world where peace reigns regardless of individual differences or how righteous the cause that wants to drag you back into the wars of our outer world?

Your choice is crucial. One soul DOES make a difference, for it adds its weight to the collective consciousness and the momentum that moves it in one direction or another. It will either help the snowball of human conflict to keep rolling down the hill toward its own destruction, or pour energy into the manifestation of a new beginning for mankind.

Which way will you choose?