As rapid communication systems have increased in speed and capacity, a natural corollary has been greater accessibility to information that was previously concealed and the opportunity to disseminate it to all corners of the earth. With a single, effortless click on the computer keyboard, information that can have profound and far-reaching consequences becomes available to all. This demonstrates the force of information and naturally raises questions of discrimination and responsibility. Should a piece of information be dispersed widely and freely in the interest of the greater good?Or is the greater good better served by it remaining private and confidential? Are we to welcome the overall trend to disclosure as the harbinger of a new age of transparency based on “the right to know” and freedom of expression, or decry it as the end of privacy, trust and confidentiality?

There is much debate as to what should and what shouldn’t be revealed, what compromises individual privacy and safety, national and international security, and what undermines journalistic freedom. The motives behind acts of disclosure are sometimes indeterminable, and the immediate consequences of publication can cloud the issues disclosed and the long term view, but the debate as to what serves the greatest good for the greatest number is sharpening humanity’s discrimination, widening its perspective and deepening its sense of responsibility. All in all, whatever the rights and wrongs of each act of disclosure may be, we have moved into an era when “everything is being shouted from the rooftops”, leaving little choice other than to work with the crises that disclosures bring and we will need to adjust accordingly.

Now that the means to global disclosure exists, the number of disclosures, be they acts of service or subversion, are likely to increase if anything. So taking this for granted, how is the human family going to adapt to ever increasing exposure and where is this leading in the long run? Putting aside the rights and wrongs of each act of disclosure, from a greater perspective, could it be that this all part of a messy redemptive process where aspects of humanity’s subconscious are starting to rise to the surface of the racial consciousness for inspection? Is this process the essential precursor to powerful disclosures of a spiritual kind? History bears witness to the devastating effect that powerful religious truths and principles can have when impacting the impure psyche. Such truths can lead to misinterpretation, fanaticism and conflict due to the inability to assimilate and express them correctly. This explains why moral upheavals have to take place prior to enlightenment of any kind. Deep in the psyche of humanity such a healing process appears to be taking place.

In the Ageless Wisdom teachings an ancient healing law summarises it thus: “Perfection calls imperfection to the surface. Good drives evil always from the form of man in time and space.” This is not to place any discloser of information on a pedestal as an angel of redemption, for that requires completely pure unselfish motives and this is rare; many acts of disclosure are ill-judged and sometimes border on the anarchic. It is more the case that the discloser is simply a factor in a much greater process whereby facets of human consciousness are being unearthed for scrutiny and discarding where necessary prior to the reception and anchoring of higher, spiritual principles in the human race. The psychological phases of this healing process are crisis, tension and emergence. This can be seen in the following sequence of events – the crisis of disclosure engenders tension in a flurry of damage limitation exercises and deliberation as to what course of action must be taken to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. There is wide public outcry and debate and, imperceptible though it may be at the time, there emerges a slight shift in the sense of values towards the good, the beautiful and the true.

The Ageless Wisdom teaches that hidden spiritual truth is disclosed when the receiving consciousness resonates in harmony with it, but until that time it has to be withheld for the safety of the would-be recipient. Although all spiritual secrets will eventually be known, the timing has to be right. What to disclose and what to withhold, when to speak and when to remain silent is the skill in action to be acquired when sharing any kind of information with others. We live in a time when people are becoming more sensitive and intuitional, and if mass telepathy is accepted as an evolutionary possibility, what are the consequences of each being able to correctly sense if not actually read another’s thoughts? It is clear that our secret motives and intentions will become known and so we need to address our thoughts, speech and actions at source. This is achieved through the condition of harmlessness. As the ancient healing law earlier referred to continues: The method used by the Perfect One and that employed by Good is harmlessness.This is not negative but perfect poise, a completed point of view and divine understanding.”

As crises of disclosure come thick and fast, humanity must learn the lesson of harmlessness. For it is this quality that energises the discriminating mind and which will eventually lead us out of darkness into a radiant future. Disclosures of the higher, spiritual kind may then pour forth enabling humanity’s evolutionary potential to develop accordingly.