Talks

Transcript:

DATE: 19810311

TITLE: MS MARRIAGE WITH THE BELOVED

I have a funny that I’d love to share with you. John and Edith and I were talking one day not too long ago, and they reminded me that I had written them a letter about my experiences with trying to have my back taken care of on my last trip to Europe. And I didn’t believe all that I wrote afterwards, but every word of it was true. We all are so fortunate here to have Dr. John and his gentle way of treating us, and I thought, “If any of you think he isn’t gentle, then listen to this.

In the first place, I slipped when I was in the airport out here and put my back out completely, and I was just in agony. This was on the beginning of a three‑month trip. And so Dr. John was at the airport, and so he lay me across four seats and tried to give me an adjustment in front of God and everybody. And he really couldn’t very well take care of me, but he did the best he could and that. But I was still in trouble.

I said,

I really did myself in with that fall I took at the airport and have been having a real rough time getting around. My body has been tied up in knots, and the pain has been excruciating. I went to a Mr. Perry, an osteopath, in London, and he was good in his particular field, but I should have had another treatment in order for it to hold, but had to leave, so I couldn’t.

The osteopaths there are purely anatomy men, no medical training. They are similar to the older method chiropractors. Even the medical men do not have the title of “Doctor,” only the surgeons, and they are looked down upon as the men hanging on the fringe of the medical field. Strange.

This was written from Vienna, Austria: Today, I had an appointment with a Dr. Corbler, who was, I guess, an osteopath. Brother! Never in my life have I had such treatment. He had me undress, except for panties and stockings, no gown provided, and then stand. Then I was made to move my body from left to right, backward and forward. Then he punched all the sore places.

Next, I was asked to lie face down on the table, while he poked some more on the sore places, after which he called his nurse to help him get me into the most peculiar position I’ve ever been in. I don’t know whether or not my feet were wrapped around my head, while my body was contorted in the form of a snake while he pushed from one side.

To add insult to injury, he told me to relax. How in God’s teeth can anyone relax in a position like that? However, I summoned my best yoga techniques to my rescue and thereby saved myself from having my bones broken in little bits.

But there was more to come. I was then taken into another room and they put me under an electric massage machine for about 10 minutes, after which time a woman came in and massaged my body with her hands. What a workout! She was not gentle.

When she finished, she told me to get off the table (I could scarcely move by that time) and go into another room and get on another table. They wrapped a blanket around me, strapped my legs to a swinging board—the strap was so tight it impaired circulation—and then hoisted my body in the air until the weight rested on my shoulders. I was left that way for some time, I assumed for the purpose of stretching the spine. And then, after all feeling had ceased, I was lowered and unstrapped.

Next, the doctor came back and gave me a shot in each hip, the part that always feels like a boil about to erupt anyway. I don’t know what the shots were, but he assured me I would feel better by tomorrow. I live in hope.

Then finally, they put another type of electric machine gadget on my back, with wet sponges attached, and away we went again. By that time, I was too exhausted to care and I found that I had pain in places that I didn’t even know existed before.

Finally, I was released and told I could get dressed. When David, (David Ranney, that is) had called to make the appointment with the doctor, he was told it would cost 500 shillings, or $30, American money, for the first visit. They presented me with a bill for 1,002 shillings, which amounted to $60. When I objected, they said that the 500 shillings was just for the doctor. The treatments were all extra. Wow! I couldn’t afford any more of those.

I hope you will forgive me for rambling on this way, but I thought you might be interested in the details.

So just think what a boon we have in Dr. Dittman, by comparison. My sense of humor always has to come to the fore, you know, with all of these things. But it was just like that.  I’d never had treatment like that in my life.

I’d like to read to you this evening from the “Vision,” an article entitled “Love Shall Prevail,” by Swami Ramdas:

The power of love and harmony shall prevail in the end, either in the life of an individual or humanity at large. God or Truth must triumph over the evil forces that seek to dominate over human lives. However dark the prospects of the world harmony and peace appear to be, a clear vision of the future reveals the goal of world union and brotherhood as an inevitable consummation of the titanic struggle and strife through which mankind is passing. The glimpses of the Cosmic Spirit can be caught through all the apparent turmoil and chaos of the present day, so there is absolutely no reason to despair and apprehend that all will be lost.

India is the land of spirituality, a land which gave birth to saints and sages who have reached the peaks of Divine Consciousness, who have plunged deep into the mysteries of life and found the Immortal Source from which the worlds have come forth. Their spirit and message will check and put down the forces of the lower nature that have caused the present highly disturbed condition of the world. In fact, in all  the spheres of action, in all the modes and movements of nature, in all the turns the world’s affairs take, there is one sole Universal Power at work.

The individual gradually rises from the lower plains of existence, where he meets with conflict and discord, to the supreme state where he realizes spiritual harmony and peace. Just as it happens in the life of an individual, so in the life of the world a critical stage has come. A decided turn for a better order of things is bound to take place.

Humanity is guided by the Divine to consolidate all its various units into one federation founded upon freedom and equality. We may respect the power of love, and goodwill must triumph over the disruptive forces. Men have come to realize that the petty ambitions of life are the bane of world’s progress and evolution.

An insensate hunger for material power and glory has been the cause of widespread distress and misery in the world. It is rank pride, false prestige and sheer perversity that have stood in the way of unity of all nations of the earth. God’s light will dispel the present darkness.

He who watches with eyes that look into the future, having a heart enlightened with the light of Love Divine, and leavened with faith that stands unshaken amidst the most violent storms of life, knows that God’s will alone is supreme and it works always for good. Let us therefore face boldly the existing state of things and adapt ourselves with a composed heart to the great changes that are envisaged in the near future.

Change is the law of nature or the law of God. Let us ride on the crest of a new world wave that is rising to submerge all differences and create an atmosphere of peace and harmony.

Life is immortal. Life is glorious. Life is a positive expression of the Divine. Know that this is the truth about your life.

Let us shed our weaknesses and fears. Let us live nobly, taking a firm stand upon the consciousness of our immortality and act in such a way as to hasten the day of the liberation of humanity from the clutches of destructive forces. This is the mission of every human being. Let us wake up to it.

Let our individual interests, outlook and attachments transform into welfare of humanity, universal vision and equal love for all peoples on the earth. Nothing short of our elevation to this height can help the evolution of humanity to its spiritual heritage. Truly the salvation of an individual cannot be possible unless he identifies himself with the world consciousness, unless he realizes his oneness with all lives and beings. Hence, it behooves us to eradicate from our minds all thoughts of hate, jealousy and ill-will of every kind.

Let Divine love and peace have sway over us. Let us view all people in the world as the manifestations of the same Divinity. Let us always think, speak and act in terms not as mere individuals, not as communities, not as races and nations, but as members of the same world family, as children of the One Divine Parent, and as embodiments of the One Divine Power.

That gives us hope in these troubled times.

So many people ask me when this terrible thing is going to happen to us, when the earth is going to open up and swallow all of us. I don’t know. It opens up and swallows each one of us in its own way every day. But I don’t worry about it, as I’ve told you before, and, strangely enough, so many have moved here to be with me.

And I many times think it says in the Bible, “But for the elect no flesh shall be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” [paraphrased from Matthew 24:22-24] So, either we will have become the elect by that time, and we will live, or we all go down together. And if so, being together, why, we still arise again together. So we’ll always be together anyway, so what difference does it make?

Well, obviously togetherness is what we’re after.

Okay. The Bible reading tonight is from St. John, Chapter 2 beginning with Verse 1:

2 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:

2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.

3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

6 And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.

7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.

8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.

9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,

10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.

11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

The more I get into the esoteric nature of the Bible, the more wonderful it becomes because I realize that every single thing in here happens inside of us. It’s written on a historical basis, in parables if you will, so that man may understand in the outer sense that which happens within himself. But the more you get into it, the more you meditate and God reveals each little tiny thing to you, and verse by verse, chapter by chapter it unfolds, you realize the magnificence of this body.

I have chosen for my subject tonight, “Marriage with the Beloved.” Marriage is a holy state. It is holy in the human sense, if we make it that way. And, of course, the holiest of all marriages is our marriage with the Bridegroom, or Christ, who is to be found only within ourselves.

I think that people take marriage far too lightly these days. They do not try hard enough. They go into marriage wearing rose‑colored glasses, and as all of us know, today there is merely a contractual agreement from the outer sense and no spiritual marriage at all. That is so that you can try it out and if you don’t like it then you can go on to the next one. And that’s rather terrible to contemplate because really, when you stop to think about it, it is tearing down the whole social structure of man and putting him in a position of complete, and I mean complete—What is the word I want? Anyway, he doesn’t feel—lack of security, insecurity.

Think of the children that are born into this sort of a situation. Many times, one or the other leaves and the child has to be raised by one parent. And the parent has to go out and work, and the child is put around from pillar to post and he has no security whatsoever. Then we wonder why they go wrong, as we say, why they use drugs, why they drink, why they smoke, why they have sex at a very young age, and all the rest of it. We have forgotten the laws of God.

I want to read to you also from Romans, beginning the first chapter, beginning with Verse 15, where Paul says:

15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

I think that is pretty clear, and that takes care of homosexuality, it takes care of bisexuality, and applies to both men and women.

Marriage is a holy state, as I’ve said. It is a holy covenant, a holy sacrament. And when you stand before a priest, a minister, a rabbi, a swami, whatever their title might be, you take a vow to get along together until death shall you part. We have forgotten all about that today. The divorce courts are filled and the calendars are filled with people asking for a divorce.

There are exceptions to be made to every rule. And as I’ve said before, I don’t believe in two people staying together when they’re destroying each other, or, if there is adultery on one side or the other. Certainly, that is the one thing that is given as the reason where a man may lawfully get a divorce—only that one reason, and no other. And yet, I feel that that isn’t totally right either, because there are extenuating circumstances where one or the other, for some karmic reason, perhaps, or the two of them have come together and one or the other is actually, through whatever they’re doing, really killing the individual inch by inch. And so if they were separated, then they have the opportunity to go to God, to be God‑realized souls; whereas, if they stay together they will destroy each other, or one would be destroyed, and that is not right. And in here someplace, it says that once in a while make an exception. So I go always by what God tells me.

I’ve had many couples who have come to me, who are living together without benefit of marriage, and most of them are now married. There are times when I make exceptions to this rule because I don’t feel inside, as God directs me, that they were meant for each other at all. And to ask them to get married under those circumstances, I feel would be totally wrong. So I counsel them. I tell them not to live together. I talk to them about the Ten Commandments and what has been said in this chapter, and we go on from there.

In most every case, it has worked out beautifully because when you have once attained the realization of your Oneness with God, then you have transcended all laws, I have told you many times. You become the manipulator of the law. You are no longer subject to it. And you go by the direction which God gives you inside of yourselves. And so because of these things that existed before, which have now changed, there are many, many beautiful people not only in this group but in other groups in other cities as well.

Marriage is a very important step. Many times you meet many people and are attracted to them, and in most cases, particularly today, there’s a physical attraction. But once in a while, once in a great while, perhaps, you meet somebody and you know instantly that you belong to that one; they belong to you. And you look at the reasons that man gets married: because he wants to belong to a person, and he wants to possess the person. This is true of both man and woman.

When you get married and you take what you call love, you feel that you belong together. You don’t want anybody interfering with that wonderful private relationship that you have. And so, you decide that you’re going to get married. So after a time, you see the little idiosyncrasies in each other and you don’t like some of them, because you haven’t ever lived together. No matter how long you’ve gone together, how closely you’ve been associated, you haven’t lived with a person, and many people reveal things about themselves after marriage that they never do before. And so you become unhappy, you become unfulfilled. But you’ve got to remember that each one comes with his own right of being, that no one has the right to take anyone’s liberty away from them.

Now, this doesn’t mean that it gives license to any individual to go out and commit adultery or to go with any other individual except for the wife or the husband, whichever the case may be. There must be fidelity if the marriage is to work out. And if you will each sit down and look at yourselves and decide what you can do to change that which is wrong within yourself—”Change yourself and you will change thousands,” as the Master said. And I’ve repeated it I don’t know how many times, perhaps thousands, but that is the truth.

And if you’ve come to the point where you’ve done everything you know how and still it isn’t working out, at that moment you have no place to go but up. So you say to God, “Well, Lord, I’ve done everything I know how, so if any change is to be made, then You must help me, You must make the change.”

And at that moment when you give up trying and doing things, then God comes in and He does the work. And you may come to a point, because you’ve been abused physically, mentally, emotionally, where you cannot take any more, and all of a sudden you just go inside of yourself and you surrender to God and something happens to you, and you come out of that experience totally different.

You have a wealth of love to give, whether you’re a man or a woman, and perhaps your love is not reciprocated. And so, that person misses so much when they don’t acknowledge the love of the individual they’re married to. They miss so much, because it’s given with all of the fullness of the heart in the beginning, if the marriage is what it should be. And they’ve missed a great deal.

But something happens to you, and you find that you have risen above the power to be hurt. You’ve risen above the power for anyone to influence your life and hold you in bondage. All of a sudden, without having moved out of where you are, you are free. You’ve escaped from your prison house. And you find that you can love and serve the person you’re married to impersonally, but not be affected by anything they think, say or do with regard to you. And that’s a very interesting thing.

Marriage, human marriage, is given to us for the purpose of growth. And if you will sit down and talk to each other sanely, not in anger, and then try to change yourselves—You don’t have to change yourself into the image of someone else, but if there are little things that don’t make too much difference, change! Be considerate of the other person. Think of how you would feel if you or someone were to talk to you, perhaps, as you talk to someone else sometimes. Each one has his own standard and he has his own feelings, and in the beginning the ego is very, very sensitive. It’s also very clinging. It’s very possessive and all.

The true marriage is that marriage where there is so perfect a love that there is also perfect trust, that you know that you can trust that person no matter where they are or who they are with because you know deep in your heart that their love is solely for you, in the human sense, and nothing can change it. And you feel a security. It’s a wonderful thing.

But marriage is given to you for the purpose of developing, and the human marriage is made after the marriage of the Divine: God the Father, God the Mother and God the Son. And just as in the spiritual marriage, so also in the human marriage there is a son or a child brought forth in many instances. But even if it isn’t brought out in the human sense, there comes a day when that Christ child must be born in each and every one of us, and that marriage must take place.

And that’s what it is talking about in here because the individual soul, when the love of God becomes so great that the soul reaches out in longing for its true mate, or Christ within itself, whether it be man or a woman, that one is lifted up and put into various spiritual experiences.

So many questions are asked. This journey of the soul is a strange one. There is this electrical coil at the base of the spine, and the energy contained within it, the electricity contained within it, the intelligence contained within it, is beyond belief. It is greater than anything that you can cognize or recognize in the outer sense. And you must remember that.

So, instead of abusing [?] this life force—spending it, depleting your body, getting rid of that sacred fluid within yourself—learn to retain it gradually, through the methods which have been taught you, so that you may have that coiled serpent, instead of going outward and downward, releasing substance from your body, that you may retain it and take it up the spine.

Now there are seven spinal centers. In the metaphysical sense, there are said to be 12 orifices or openings to the body. The Jewish religion and some of the other ancient religions talk about the “nine gateways of the body,” and of course that refers to the two eyes, the two ears, the two nostrils, the mouth, and the rectum and the genital organs, so that that makes nine. But there are three additional ones in the metaphysical sense, and one is the navel, and one is the medulla, through which the life force enters the body, and then there is the one through which this kundalini force, as it goes up the spine, goes through the brain and then is coiled on top of the head, as you see, as I’ve told you before, the pictures of the Mother Kali and the God Shiva.

The spine is called the Sushumna Passage. But this “serpent force” doesn’t start to really make an inroad on the experiences which the devotee goes through until the second center. And then it goes up, and there’s an Ida gland on the left (and it’s spelled I‑D‑A) and a Pingala on the right, (and that’s P‑I‑N‑G‑A‑L‑A.) These are two nerves. And the course of the kundalini follows up, and these nerves must come to the sixth center. And then they spread through the brain before the Sushumna current starts to rise in the spine. And then, when it has risen—when the individual soul has gone through the seven states of consciousness, or the seven worlds within themselves, all of which are described, the things that they meet, in parables again in Revelations—as it goes up each spinal center, you are taken into the hell of your own being and into the heaven of your own being.

Each one has a different number of petals in it, which are called lotus petals. And of course, the bottom ones are the four square, the four petals. And it goes up like this and you go through each one of these worlds. Each one has a different appearance as you see the spinal center, each one has different colors in it because it has different minerals, various things in it, and each one produces a different taste in the mouth. Now, not everybody goes through this. And close to the end of the first experience, you taste just like bitter almonds in your throat. That’s at the cervical center.

It is at that time, in my own experience, where I lost body-consciousness. And when I awakened, I found out that there was a male and female organ within myself, and that the “manna from heaven” was that substance which came down from the brain when the erect tongue was made to go into the throat and touch the certain little part in there that made this fluid come down. And that is the manna from heaven, and you can exist on it, subsist on it for days on end. Now this is the truth within your own being, and isn’t it wonderful that all of these things happen?

It is quite a battle, quite a journey, and of course when people go through these things, they’re asking questions constantly because they’re experiencing something within themselves that they have never experienced before. They’re driven to run wild, so to speak. They want to get away from the everyday life. They want to do strange things, because don’t forget that the good thief on the cross directs them to think of God, it gives them revelations, it acts as a magnet to take them to God, and the opposing force, the bad thief, is constantly putting obstacles in the way.

There are four main parts to the body, and that’s the brain, the heart, and the navel, and then the lower region. Now, this lower region, if you have lived as so many of the young people, and some of them not so young today, are living, gradually you lose your moral standards, and this fourth world doesn’t come into existence until after the death of the physical body. But this is really hell. It is the place of the dead, where the person exists but yet they are morally dead.

And some of these people come back with, they return with the consciousness, but they are evil, and yet they are morally dead and you cannot find God in them. And these are ones that have misused their powers. They have been into black magic, they have been into sorcery. They have indulged in sex to the degree, and in other things of the senses, to the degree that it has destroyed their whole spiritual being. It is not a good state to be in. And people better realize that they may live it up today, but there’s going to come a day when there’s going to be a payment for it, a payment for it.

Now, in Revelations it speaks of the body as being a cube. And amazingly enough, if you unfold that cube—unfold first the two flaps on the side and then take that from the top and bring it down—that cube is in the form of a cross. And again, the cross is the human body. And it tells about all of the different things that you meet: the dragons and the white horses, and the red horses and the red dragon. All the rest of these things have to do with certain nerves and currents within the body, and the unfoldment as the soul makes its spiritual journey up the spine and through all of the realms which it has created within its own being.

You have created your world within, and you will continue to be in trouble as long as you think, say and do the wrong things which it is told about that are against the law of God.

As I’ve said I don’t know how many times, you can change the laws of man but you can never change the laws of God. They are immutable! And yet, man today is totally disregarding them. We have it all over: in the newspapers, in the television, out in broad daylight. It’s terrible. I even read an article the other day where it told about a picture that is to be shown where the man and woman actually have intercourse and it is shown in the picture, the whole thing. What are they thinking of? It’s indecent. It’s ugly. It is everything that shouldn’t be, when man has within himself the power to rise above his humanness and to be gods on earth.

In Revelations, it tells about “I am the alpha and the omega.” And the word “alpha” is used for that one who is pure, who descends into heaven. [Delete “descends into heaven”]He is pure and he descends into matter. And the more he descends into matter, then he is called “Lucifer,” or the fallen morning star.

If you have God and the Christ within you, then the Satanic force is also there, and you have created him yourself. And yet, that Satanic force is believed in to such a degree in the outer sense that man, through the power of his mind, can actually see the form of what has been envisioned to him, put into his mind as Satan, appear before him, and many have done this.

It’s an amazing thing, but it is true. You have that mark of the beast within you. You have the number of the beast, which is 666. And I have explained to you before that this is the six spinal centers below the seventh, and the positive and negative forces, and each one of the three bodily jars are attached to the spine and these six centers. And then we have the “seven churches,” the “seven candlesticks,” and the lights within them. This is the universal current that is within every man. What a tremendous story this unfolds to be.

In the beginning, when you have lived in the human sense God knows for how many incarnations, and finally your eyes are raised to the hills and you feel within yourself the desire for union with your Infinite Beloved, then all of these tremendous things start to happen and your whole world changes. You go through the fire, believe me. You go into the hell of your own being. You go into the heaven of your own being eventually. But you will notice that at this wedding of Cana, first the man’s name was Jesus. And the mother of Jesus was there. “And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.”

Now, all of your 12 powers or “disciples” are called into play when this marriage is going to take place between the soul and the Christ within him, who is the bridegroom.

3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

And he said to her,

….Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

because he knows that it isn’t time yet for this transition to take place within himself. And yet the mother (or the spirit of motherhood that comes within each one. It can be the Mary gland) knows that that must happen, so she tells the servants to do whatever he tells them to do.

And so, then there were “six waterpots of stone.” Again, we refer to the six spinal centers,

…after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.

7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.

8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.

And so when he tasted it, the water had been turned into wine.

Now, this tells about the transition between the human ego, which is likened unto water. When the Spirit, the real Spirit of God, starts to take place, then the transition takes place in the body. When the consciousness is released from the physical or the gross body of the five senses, then this “Baptism of Blood”—

So many of the orthodox Christians, particularly the Pentecostal, will say, “Have you been washed in the blood of Christ? Are you a true believer in Jesus? Have you been washed in the blood of Christ?” And they don’t even know what they are saying because this is an inner experience that comes to you when God lifts you up and puts you through it.

And in my own case, it came towards the end of the first experience, when I was in India, and I could hear the gurgling of the blood going in my veins as this transition took place. And the pain that accompanied it was beyond belief. And as I’ve told you before, it is said in India that there are very, very few people who ever go through the Baptism of Blood, and of the few who go through it, very few live to tell the tale. It is the most painful thing in the world. And as each circulatory tract is finished and the blood is transferred from the gross to the psychic or the astral body, then the navel is depressed. It is sewn up, so to speak. And you feel this very definitely, and it keeps on, and the pain continues, and you can hear all of this going on inside of yourself.

And I remember asking God, “Will it be very long now?” And He said, “No, not very long.” And I asked Him why my navel was being depressed like this, and He told me that at the time I was born, that my body was attached to my mother’s body in her womb by the umbilical cord, and at the time I was born the cord was cut. But that was the center of the nerve and blood supply. And it made sense. And it does, doesn’t it? It makes sense.

And so, when this transition takes place and the new birth is going to come into being, then this also has to happen. And the navel is depressed and it has to be sealed, so to speak, when the consciousness is transferred from the physical to the psychic or the astral body.

Now, when that happens, then your consciousness—you, what you call “you”—is transferred from that gross body and you are living in your astral or your psychic body.

As I’ve told you before, in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 10, it speaks of this where it says, “A fool’s heart is on his left.” [paraphrased from Ecclesiastes 10:2] That’s man in his gross-consciousness state. “And a wise man’s on his right.” [paraphrased from Ecclesiastes 10:2] So you’ve earned the right to that much wisdom then. And when that happens, then that which was water within you—transparent. Sometimes it’s been very muddy in the past.—is changed into wine, the wine of the Spirit.

And that is where the wedding takes place, where the “son of man,” Jesus, the son of man, has given up the ghost, given up the human ego. And then the marriage is going to take place with the Divine. And so the water—Then Jesus does whatever he does; he makes the supreme sacrifice and changes that which was human within himself to that which is Divine. It’s a tremendous thing!

But after you have gone through these three states, then there comes the time when the human death occurs. You go down into the hell or the subconscious of your own being. You experience the things that you have thought, said and done, not only in this incarnation but others. And then the time comes when the heart center is opened. The Gordian Knot, which is spoken of in metaphysical terms, unties itself in a very painful way. And then, the one who was dead, that which was Jesus, the son of man, arises out of the tomb of his humanness and goes forth to rise into the spiritual world.

And that is the birth of the Christ within you. But it is also the marriage of the human and the Divine. And that’s why the wedding feast, so that this can happen. And so, instead of having the two, eventually, if that one continues on—

And you must continue on. You cannot go backwards. You cannot fool with Mr. In-between. You must keep your mind on God and not go back and do the things that formerly interested your mind, your intellect, but you must keep your mind on God. You must use the techniques which were given to you, and spend the time—which many times you don’t want to spend. You want to be, again, attracted to the things of the world and the things that interested you before— and you must keep on disregarding those things, put your mind on God, and go the rest of the way.

Now I’ve told you about the Holy Eucharist that comes up to the throat, that seed which makes the journey from the brain, down through all of the source, [?] and goes again up the spine, and returns to Galilee. I’ve told you about this. And it comes to the cervical center, or the throat center.

Now, in my own case, as I’ve told you so many times, I’ve held that in my own hand. I’ve seen it. I know what it looks like. But there are those who go through that and they feel the sensation of this small seed or capsule, whatever it is that appears, this Christ within you, and they swallow it without having it come out of the throat into the mouth so that they can take it out in their hand and look at it. That doesn’t mean that they haven’t swallowed it and that they haven’t risen to that same height. God put me through all of this in a very graphic way so I could tell you the truth of it.

And then, the risen Christ goes through that sixth center. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody can go to the Father except through me,” through that state of Christ-consciousness. Then you go into this tremendous blazing light of God within yourself. Heaven is within your own being.

The marriage has taken place between the soul and God who is within him. And then he becomes the Omega, the Arisen One, again, and it’s beautiful and it’s wonderful. Then you are filled with the bliss, with the joy, with the happiness of God. And yet, depending on your destiny, many times having paid the price on your own cross you still continue to pay because you are packing a certain amount from the crosses of the many who follow with you to God.

Now, I’m teaching you the truth of what happens inside of yourself. And if you want to take this as being historical, that’s fine, but I tell you that everything that is in every scripture in the world is describing what happens within man himself. And the people, the names of the people, the cities, the waters, the powers, the animals, all the rest of it, in the outer sense, are used to express what happens within man. So if he wants to live in his animal nature, then he has to take the consequences. But why should he do that when he has the power to raise himself out of the deadness of darkness, and of matter, and his animal nature, and raise it into the heaven of his own being and become filled with the light and the love and the power and the intelligence of God. It is certainly a stupid thing to keep yourself in that lower [?]state. And if you try, you can do it.

There was a man once who was riding on a train, and he had been through a great many things. He had never gotten very far because he was always afraid. He was afraid he wasn’t going to be successful, he had a poor self‑image, he was afraid he couldn’t do this and people wouldn’t like him, and all the rest of it.

Well, he happened to go into the dining car and he was seated at the same table with a man who was a minister. (This younger man was about 35 years old.) The minister noticed that the young man was very, very disturbed, so he said to him, “You aren’t happy, are you, my son?”

He said, “No, I’m alright.” He said, “I’m a little disturbed.”

He said, “Well, would you like to discuss it with me?”

So the young man discussed with him all of his fears and everything. He said, “I’m just too afraid to go forth and do anything.”

And the man [the minister] said a very strange thing to him. He said, “You have not been afraid enough.”

Now, isn’t that a strange thing to say? “You have not been afraid enough.”

The young man said to him, “What do you mean?” He said, “I’ve lived in fear all my life.”

He said, “You have not been afraid enough,” he said, “to let go of all of the negative things in your life and reach out for all that is good.”

If you have sufficient fear of not reaching your goals, then something has to be done about it. You don’t have to live in that negative state, be so afraid that you won’t make what you want to out of your life, that you won’t attain your goals, that through the sheer fear of not making it, that you get busy and do it.

You’ve got to stay with it. You’ve got to make yourself a program. And if you slip back, you’ve got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get going again, and go and go and go, no matter how many times you fail or fall, until you make it. And this doesn’t take your humanness away from you.

Those of you who are with me, more perhaps than some others, know that my life is filled with fun. Sure, it’s the toughest job in the business because I am trying, with everything I have, to help each and every one of you to become perfect in God. So, I bear a part of your cross on my own back. And I try and I try, and you slip and you slip, and you are stubborn and you are stubborn. And then sometimes, I get the blame for it, and I think, “My God, why do I get in the middle of this?” because I work with every part of the individual.

I’m always involved in something. And yet, I get results by that very involvement. Where other gurus sit still and they speak about God, and the people come and bow their heads on their feet, and they listen and occasionally ask questions, and they go back, and it takes them the snail’s pace to get where they’re going, I get involved in every part of it. But it takes it out of me—physically, mentally, emotionally—to try to help you to do it. But I can’t pack the whole load on my own back. You have to do your part.

And it’s not just a sometime thing. I would like the consciousness of each and every one who is here to be firmly fixed upon God, and for them to think about Him every moment of their lives, regardless of where they are, what they’re talking about, or what they’re doing. And you can do it because there’s never a moment in my life, regardless of what I am thinking, saying or doing, that I am not conscious of God’s presence within me. And it’s because the human that was within me is John, the witness, witnessing what the arisen Christ is doing, and he does whatever is necessary for whoever stands or sits before me. And I’m always conscious of every thought, word and deed that goes forth, on that basis.

This is what God is doing. I’m not doing it; He’s doing it. But people misunderstand. They see me having fun. They see me cracking jokes and being hilarious sometimes, or some other ways, and they think, “Oh, well, she can’t be God‑realized or she wouldn’t be acting like that.”  They expect me to be holier-than-thou, sanctimonious, wear sackcloth and ashes—no makeup, you know; no permanent in my hair, and starve the body, and all that sort of thing. And I think, as I’ve told you many times, that that is dishonoring the Christ in this temple which is His.

I have the right to be myself, even as you do, and I am both human and Divine, even as you are. The only difference between us, (and that difference is fast disappearing because there are many who are going through spiritual experiences now) is that I know that I have realized my Oneness and you yet do not realize that you have a whole universe inside of yourself; that if you will only use your human marriage to help you to take you to the Divine, that you will have accomplished the purpose for which you are together, and not otherwise, because if each of you try, and each of you serve God in one another—if each of you is patient with one another, if you’d see the good points and not the faults—then the day will come when that love that you had, which was sort of a euphoric thing and seen through rose‑colored glasses, will become a vital living thing that will give you a richness of love and a richness of love in God that you have never even dreamed possible.

And you will feel fulfilled! You will do things together, but yet each of you will fulfill your own destiny. You will bring forth your own gifts, and you will complement each other. You don’t have to be alike in every way, because each one—sometimes the very difference makes all the difference. But stick with it. Hang in there, unless there is one of the reasons that I spoke of.

I may have told you this before, but I remember one girl that I met one time who was very disturbed mentally, and yet she wanted to be on the spiritual path. She was married to a man, and God told me that if she didn’t leave him, that he would kill her. And I told her this.

“Oh no, no, no.”

He was a big 7‑footer. The very next day, he came and pushed the front door in like it was a match box, and took out after her. She went out the back door and over to the neighbor’s house. And [he] told her, each inch of the way, that he was going to kill her. She got rid of him.

Now these are cases that are unusual, and certainly you can’t suggest that somebody stay with somebody who is apt to take their life, or who tries to, or who does such terrible things to them that they are killing them inch by inch. To me, that would be a crime. It would be a sin to keep people like that together. But that is not so in the average marriage.

So, everything in the human marriage that happens is but a preparation for that Divine marriage, when you attend that wedding and the water within your being, the humanness within you, is changed into the wine of the Spirit and you will have found your Christhood. And when you realize your Oneness with God, then all the meanings gradually unfold, as God directs, within yourself. And you see, you can go through this whole book [the Bible] and you can liken it to everything that has happened within yourself, because you know, you were there.

It isn’t a faith through belief, but it is a specific and definite knowledge through experience. It is a thing that you have earned. You have earned the “pearl of great price” which sits in the midst of the thousand-petaled lotus of the brain, and your whole body is filled with light and you know indeed that you are in heaven.

 

Transcript:

DATE: 19810301

TITLE: THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

I’d like to read to you this morning from the “Vision” magazine, Swami Ramdas’ article entitled, “God, the One Refuge:”

No human being in this world can say that he has not the moments of acute depression, harrowing sense of loss, blankness of despair, and pangs of agony, suspense and utter grief. In these crucial moments he has sought a way of escape from the painful condition to which he is subjected. He looks for some hand strong enough to lift him out of his slough of despondency. His aching heart cries for help, but he receives no response from anywhere. His crest-fallen spirit sinks lower still. His so-called friends, relations, and fellow men in the world fail him. Who can then save him and grant him peace? Where is hope for him?

Then, like a flash, the words of saints and devotees of God rush into his mind. Yes! There is one great hope, there is one great refuge, there is one great saviour, and He is God. God is the Friend of the helpless and the shelter of the weak and the suffering. He is the Protector and Nourisher of the world. He is the most loving Parent of all beings and creatures.

You do not appeal to Him in vain. The instant you turn your face to Him and long to be folded in His almighty embrace, that instant He pours on you the soothing light of His infinite grace. Your heavy-laden heart is at once unloaded of its sorrow. Your mind is bathed in the nectar of peace. Your soul, like a bird set free, now sings a song of freedom and joy. You feel intuitively that you have now come under the protection of an All-powerful Being. You become conscious that He is ever with you, in you, about you, watching, guiding and guarding you with the most loving vigilance and care.

Such is the experience of many a saint and devotee of the past and the present. Such is the experience of Ramdas, who writes these lines. Really, there is no safer and surer refuge for a creature than the Supreme Lord of the universe.

Remember this Lord, and feel always humble and childlike before Him. Offer yourself entirely to Him and enjoy forever and ever the blessings of true peace and freedom. Love Him beyond all the things and objects. Hold Him as your All-in-all. He is to be found in your own heart.

And this is a little article that was written by Kipling, and it describes the ideal state of being:

Only the Master shall praise us

And only the Master shall blame

And no one shall work for money

And no one shall work for fame

But each for the joy of working

And each in his own separate star

Shall paint the thing as he sees it

For the God of things as they are.

I think that is perfectly beautiful.

Our Bible reading this morning is from John, Chapter 12, beginning with Verse 23:

23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.

24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

27 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

29 The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.

30 Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all me.

My subject this morning is “The Stairway to Heaven.” That stairway to heaven is to be found only within yourselves. In the exoteric teachings, for centuries, in all the face of the world, we find the people engrossed with the outer things. We find them engrossed in various forms of worship. And they use various objects—statues, perhaps; incense. They light candles. They have many things on which to concentrate their minds in order that they might, as they think, worship God. These things are wonderful in the beginning. You can go through these exercises, and in fixing your mind upon these things which represent a form of worship to you, you are able to take your minds away from the worldly things and to gradually place them upon God.

In the beginning, because of the way we have been taught—we have not been taught to go within and seek God who is the Sole Dweller in our beings—we look to all of the outer images. We look to the historical God. We look to the historical Christ, by whatever name he is called in the various religions of the world. We look everywhere outside of ourselves. We are even taught to look out into the outer heavens for the second coming of the Christ, and yet he himself said that the kingdom of heaven is within. And therefore, if that be so, as I have mentioned many times, the kingdom of heaven is to be found by man within himself, where is this second coming of the Christ to manifest itself except out of the cloud of heaven within your own being when you are sufficiently purified to receive him?

But there is much work to be done, and man, because of his involvement with the senses, would rather spend his time in visiting, in gossiping, in satisfying his desires. He goes out and he buys innumerable things, always to decorate his home, to decorate his own being, to satisfy his desire to do things, to have things, to possess things, and he forgets the tremendous treasure that is waiting for him to explore and to finally find if he will pick up his cross and follow the Christ. And that cross is his own body. And he will find this stored in the center of his own being. And that treasure that is stored there is so great that it is beyond human words to describe.

The Bible starts, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” But God the Absolute, in the absolute First-ness, shall we say, of not even being, existed within Himself. He was the Beyond, the First Cause. And we, in our human state of consciousness, think of everything in the relative state, everything in a state of duality; and yet, there is nothing but God in this whole universe.

He existed before creation, beyond creation, and that is called the First World, if you will, or the First Beyond Everything. It was a state of existence, and everything was contained within Himself. But He did not move. And then He moved, and He brought the Word into existence. He became the Deity whom men worship. He became the First Cause and He manifested that Cause as Light. And then He vibrated forth and He breathed into that form which He had created, and then life as we know it started to exist in all forms—this whole universe. It was merely an expression of that which was within Himself.

But though He was One in that manifested state, within Him were all of the separate logos or cells of His one body. And He expressed all of this in various forms. He breathed, into every part of this world, the life which had lain dormant within Himself. But man has created duality because he has separated himself in his consciousness from God. And so, because he thinks of God, then he thinks of himself as separate and that he must go back to God, he creates duality; whereas, everything there is, is only an expression of that One.

Now, there are four worlds, and the first world is the spiritual world. And that is the world of divine ideas, and that is called “the First Cause,” or that which becomes a body, so to speak. And the intelligence goes into that causal body and manifests forth as consciousness, as intelligence.

And then, as He expressed Himself farther into the world, He created a psychic body. And that psychic body has formed the same as this outer form of the whole universe and of ourselves individually. It can think, it can see, it can hear, it can smell, and so on, just as the physical body can. And then it projected forth and it became the gross body. So we have these bodies manifested in this world in all of creation.

But then, there is said to be a fourth body, and in Christian terminology we call it “hell,” or “Hades,” and that body comes into manifestation only after death. And it comes into manifestation only from those souls that have kept themselves in the lower states of consciousness, who have over‑indulged in sex, who have gone in for the lustful things of the world—for murder, for rape, for all of the things that will be destructive. And then man wonders why he cannot indulge in these things. And he is kept in a separate prison house, or, as we say, hell, and because of the terrible torture that he himself has brought upon himself through indulgence in the things of the flesh and in all of these things that are against the laws of God, he cries out in torment. He cries out in torment.

Now the brain is the higher part of your body, and that controls and governs the mind and the higher etheric breath. And the heart center controls the lower breath, the digestive organs, the lower part of the higher spiritual, shall we say. And then we have the navel, which has to do with the creative force in the universe, and then of course the coccygeal center, which has to do more with lust and with sex.

All of these things are there. And the world itself is divided into seven hierarchies, and we are the miniature part of that outer world, and we are complete in the microcosmic sense, just as complete as that outer universe. And we have all of that universe within ourselves.

There are seven steps in the outer universe and there are seven steps in our bodies, in our inner universe, and these seven steps are the seven spinal centers.

Now, coiled at the base of the universe as we know it—and that universe contains all of everything there is, all of the hierarchies, all of the stellar systems, everything there is—there is a coiled electrical force, or a serpent force, which goes out, in the universal sense, and furnishes light and energy and intelligence to all of the worlds. And in each man is that same serpent force which is spoken of in the Bible, which is coiled at the base of the spine. And the Hindus call it “the kundalini force.”

In the beginning when man’s animal nature is predominant within him, he indulges, as I have said, in all of the things of the senses. He is not interested in God. He is not interested in spiritual things. He is interested in the gross things of the world. And he expresses himself perhaps in dirty words, and we hear much of this going on today, these four‑letter words. We see people groveling in the sexual aspect of humanity. Everything that is gross, we see it coming into manifestation. And he thinks that this is the “in” thing to do, and it is not.

There is nothing wrong in being refined. There is nothing wrong in the beauty that is all around us, and that we can express from within ourselves and create that beauty in our own inner world.

Don’t forget that it says here, and it’s the last verse in this that I read you: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” The Christ is the intelligence. He is the life, the energy, the power, the everything in you, in every single man, but he is born the son of man, in the human state of consciousness, which in the beginning is the animal state of man. And that animal state must be transformed. And then he becomes a higher type of man, a human ego, one that one can be proud to know. But that is still in the human state, and that son of man, that spiritual part which is called the “son of man,” must be lifted up. It must be transformed before it can become the Christed One, the Son of God. And in order to do that, you have to take definite steps.

There is a story of a man who went to a great sage, and he asked him to teach him.

And he said, “Alright. I will give you something to do.” He said, “Take that lamp over there and light it.”

The man tried, and tried again, to light the lamp, but the lamp would not light. The wick would not burn. And the reason was because it was filled with water. So he said, “I cannot do it.”

The sage said to him, “Of course you cannot do it.” He said, “Now empty the lamp.” And he said, “Put in place of the water, oil.” He said, “Take the wick and squeeze the water out of it and then light it, and you will find that the lamp will burn.”

And so the man did this, each one of these things, and he lit the lamp and the lamp burned.

Now, the water designates your desire for worldly things, and as long as you have the desire for worldly things within yourself, your lamp cannot be lit with the Spirit of God.

And so the wick, that had to have the water squeezed out of it, denotes renunciation of worldly things. What does this renunciation mean? Does it mean that you have to give up all of the things which you have been used to enjoying all of your lives? Does it mean you have to give up your clothes, your possessions, your houses, your family, all of these things? No. It means you have to give up your attachment to them. And until you are willing to give up that attachment and not be possessed by them, you cannot make any spiritual progress. But when you do, you can be in the world—live in it, enjoy it to the utmost—and yet not be of it.

And when you reach that point where you are willing to dedicate every part of your life, your being, your possessions, all of those that you call dear, to God—to let go and let God—then and then alone will this great light manifest itself within your being. And you will find that in giving up everything that you held dear, that you gave up nothing except that which was your own in the beginning and which will remain your own forevermore, to use but not to abuse—that you have attained freedom and not bondage; that you have become the son, the daughter of the freewoman and you have been released from the bondswoman, that of the human within yourself which kept you in captivity.

And as the light burns then, it brings on the third quality, which is wisdom. All of these things the master taught. “This,” he said, “that is all you need. Now go forth and live, and you will find that you are God.”

What a wonderful story, and it is true. We are God in human form. The Christ that we have worshipped for 2,000 years as existing in only one body, is that universal Christ-consciousness—energy, power, beauty, glory, everything; peace—that first emanated from the Deity which we call God. And when He first manifested Himself, He became God the Father, or Spirit, and He projected Himself into the womb of the nature which He has created, and brought forth a form. And that was the Word which took on the form of flesh in the whole universe, not just in one man.

But from time to time, down through the ages, when the world is full of sin, of darkness, of corruption, and men’s minds and hearts are without any thought, any feeling of God, then God sends what is called an incarnation, or an avatar, as the Hindus express it—one who is a direct descent from God Himself, to bring forth the light of Truth into the world and to change the consciousness of men, and to complete the cycle which has gone out from Himself to the very bottom of darkness and bring it back into the light of consciousness, understanding, brilliance; where men may not even need to create in the way that they do outwardly now, but that they can create with thought. They can create forms. They can impregnate into the womb of all creation that which they want to see manifested.

And I have told you before of sitting at the feet of this great Master, Maharaj Swami Ashokananda, and having him tell me that in the olden days, the stories came, were handed down, in India, of men who had truly manifested themselves as being one with God. And it was not necessary for them to have a physical union with a woman in order to create a child; but rather, they would think a thought and the pregnancy took place. They would reach over and touch her on the forehead or on the breast, and the woman would be impregnated and would bring forth a wonderful spiritual child.

Now, to people who are bound in the senses, who see nothing wrong in constantly indulging in things of the physical nature, this is an absolutely abhorrent idea and they think of what they give up in the way of sensation. But I would like to mention to these people that what they are depriving themselves of in the way of the feeling of the bliss of God is so much greater, in every sense of the word, that there is absolutely no words in the human sense that can be used to describe the difference because when you are truly lifted up, when you have actually picked up your cross, which is your body, and you have followed the Christ (which means to emulate him in every detail, to climb your ladder to heaven, the stairway to heaven within yourself through the seven spinal centers,) as this kundalini force rises and it hits every center it experiences that which goes on in that particular world within yourself, and it becomes a part of that. It tastes it, so to speak. And then it rises above it, and goes to the next one, and it unfolds another world within yourself.

And this all happens within, not without. You are dimly conscious of the outer world, but you are engrossed in that experience which God Himself has catapulted you into because He knows that finally your mind has turned to Him, your heart has opened up to receive only His love; that you are sick of all of this duality and what you’ve put yourselves through. And believe me, we put ourselves through it. Nobody does it to us.

But there’s one saving grace: that no matter what you have done, that God is ready to forgive us, each and every one of us. He forgives us. And whatever we have done in the past—and it is said that it takes a million years for man’s consciousness to evolve from the time he went out from God until he returns totally to the bosom of God—you go through many lives, many experiences, and finally reach that state of oneness or perfection.

And so, it happens within yourself that you go through these seven worlds, or seven spinal centers, until finally you escape from the body, the object that you were manifesting in, and you become that which you were before creation. And that is called the “death state,” which Jesus the Christ is said to have experienced.

And these avatars, these Christs—and they are called by different names only because the people speak a different language. But they are speaking of the same One Father God, the same thing One Christ-consciousness, Power, Intelligence, Joy, Beauty, everything. They speak of that same One in their own language. And because of our ignorance, we think that these people, who speak the name of God and of Christ in their own language, in their own words, are heathens, and it is not so. It is not so.

We are all God’s children. We are all a part of Him, all a part of creation, and man should not distinguish between men because of color, because of creed, because of caste, because all are the separate cells of His one body.

And when our consciousness is lifted up, we are filled with the bliss of His Infinite Presence. We have gone through all of these worlds. We have conquered them. We have become the great adventurer. We have gone on the great adventure of exploring what is within our own private microcosmic universe, and we have risen above it.

You don’t do that by paying attention to “Mr. In‑Between,” of becoming involved in visions, of astral travel, of levitation, of all of the things that man is so entranced with today—of psychic readings, of regressions into former incarnations.

Don’t forget that whenever you go to a regressionist, and that regression is successful, you bring into your present state of consciousness and awareness that which you were before and that which you have paid the price for, or haven’t paid the price for, and which God in His mercy has let lie dormant because He doesn’t want you to have to deal with it. Because how do you know what you were? How do you know what you did? You can’t all be William the Conquerors or all be Cleopatras, for goodness sakes. You know? And how many of them do we find around, that these couch-readers tell about? And what does it do? It enhances the human ego: “Oh, I was a great king.” “I was a great pharaoh.” “I was a great this or that or the other thing,” or, “I was a great saint.”

What difference does it make what you were? Whatever you were has become a part of what you are in your consciousness this very moment, and what you think, say and do this moment determines what all of your future, all of your tomorrows will be. And I clue you that if you want them to be good, then you’d better think positive thoughts. You’d better change your consciousness and your way of doing things, and your life, and your attachments to the things of the outside world. You can enjoy them but don’t be attached to them because every time you put forth an attachment to something or somebody, you give a part of yourself to that. And in order to reach the millennium, in order to reach the highest of that which you are capable of reaching within yourself, you have to draw all of the pieces of yourself back together and take it inside and lift it up.

Now, we worship Jesus the Christ in the orthodox sense as being the only begotten, the only manifested Son of God, and he came in a human body. And that he was great, there can be no doubt. He was the ultimate in the expression of divinity in man, but so was Krishna, so was the Buddha, so, it is said, was Confucius. And certainly there are millions of people today who worship Mohammed, Zoroaster, that down through the ages these great ones have come. And what difference by what name we call him? It is God made manifest.

And God is not so limited, so curtailed, that He can make only one. The only one that He made (and He did make that one) was the Universal Christ, that one who first expressed himself from the bosom of God, who became the “carpenter” of the universe and then lodged in every atom of creation which had expressed itself as being a part of God.

You have this whole world to explore within yourselves, all of the light forms. And don’t forget that you have created a universe within yourself, within yourself. Don’t forget that Jesus says here,

26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

You can become an heir with Christ. You can become equal to Christ; and yet, if you make that statement to an orthodox religionist, they will look at you in horror and think you are an angel of Satan. And yet, if they would only read what it says in here: “I of myself am nothing,” said the Christ. “I of myself am nothing. It is my Father who doeth the works.” [paraphrased from John 14:10] And “He who has seen me, has seen the Father [paraphrased from John 14:9] because the Father expresses in me, His son.” But He expresses in you, His son, His daughter, in everything that there is.

Let us universalize our minds and not limit the Christ. Let us see him spread all over space. Let us envision this great Light, this great Beauty, this great Power, and emulate that, make ourselves into that. Climb the spinal stairway to the heaven within your own being, and then transcend even that, into the so‑called death state. And then, when you return, you will become a lamp to light the way for many. This must come to every man at some time.

Another couple of verses out of the Bible: John, Chapter 3 beginning with Verse 14,

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

Now, Moses represents the law. In the parable, or in allegoric form, Moses received the Ten Commandments, which are called by different names but yet which are the Ten Commandments in every great religion of the world. And the law, then, finally went into operation and it lifted up this kundalini force or this serpent force (which is an electrical force coiled at the base of every man’s spine) in the wilderness. And we are a wilderness, believe me, and there are the wild animals of our desires roaming this wilderness. And it is through this that the son of man must go.

And don’t forget that the more you indulge in the things of the senses, the more you are going to have to endure and go through, which you have caused yourself, when the time comes when God knows you’re ready. And He is the only one that knows, because He is within you and He knows when your heart is with Him, when every part of your being longs, reaches out, aches for union with Him and you cry for Him and you’re willing to give up everything and even to die for Him.

And isn’t it an amazing thing that the orthodox Christians say, “Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior?” And if you say, “Yes,” then you go into this euphoric state and you are supposed to be saved. Saved from what? Saved from what? You have not made any effort, and yet it says in the Bible that salvation is the “pearl of great price,” and it must be paid not vicariously by one man, the Christ, who lived 2,000 years ago, but by the Christ within you, the savior within you, because that is the spiritual part of the human: the savior, the son of man. And that one must be lifted up into Divine Consciousness until he becomes the Christed One, the Son of God.

Then from Chapter 8, Verse 28:

…when ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he,

And get this:

…that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

When you come to the point where you are ready to please God alone, and not yourself, you will have arrived at the beginning of climbing your ladder, your stairway, your spiritual stairway, into the heaven within your own being.

You have such a beautiful world. You have all gifts there. You have wisdom, you have power, you have bliss, you have joy, you have beauty, you have light, you have peace, all waiting for you if you will but let go of the things of the senses and reach out for the things of the Spirit. Eat of the meat of the Spirit, drink of the wine of the Spirit, and don’t be satisfied with anything less until you reach your goal, which is the millennium, and which is the destiny of every single man, and which is the only purpose for which he came.

He’s not put here to satisfy his senses. He is put here with senses, true, and they must be used, because in order to exist we have to think, see, hear, smell, taste, feel. And all that we experience then is related to the brain and becomes a part of our conscious mind and our memory storehouse, and even if we don’t consciously remember it, it’s in there because we have put it there. It’s like making a phonograph record, and the needle keeps on going, and winding and winding and winding until you dissolve into light and there is no needle, there is no record, there is no music, there is no sound. There is the Stillness.

“Be still and know that I am God,” it says in the 46th Psalm. Be still! So time should be spent in meditation, in communion with God within yourself. That should be the first thought in your mind each day, and the last in the evening. It should permeate every moment of your consciousness throughout the day. And you must know that whatever you do, that of yourself you can do nothing, even as Christ said, but that it is your Father who doeth the works. He feeds you the ideas, He feeds you the strength. He feeds you the will, the power to bring into manifestation everything that comes from you, and in truth you of yourself are nothing. Neither am I. It is my Father who doeth the works.

Do you think I can stand up here and speak to you, I who have never graduated from a school in my life, in the way that I do? The school of life that I have graduated from is the universe and the school of Spirit, and I paid the full price.

And these people who look at me askance and think I’m an angel of Satan because I don’t believe just the way they do—I do believe in the Christ with all my heart, my mind, my soul, to the extent that I gave my own personal life to Him to do with as He willed. I went through the state of death. I returned. I went through all of the experiences that are described in parables here so that I could return and tell you the Truth! Whether you believe it or not is your option, but I do tell you the Truth. And that is real love for Christ.

If you asked a so-called Christian, who says that he is absolutely a dedicated Christian, “Would you be willing to die for Christ?” (which is what is meant when you pick up your cross and follow him)— “Would you die for Him?”—you wouldn’t have very many takers. My love for him was so great that I did. And yet, some call me an angel of Satan because I don’t believe the way they do.

I can understand their point of view. It is their present state of consciousness. God is there because He’s everywhere equally present. I give them that right because they are where they are supposed to be, where God has placed them. And I do not blame them because they cannot understand where I am, where I have been, where I have come from.

But I want this for each and every one of you because, you see, what is there to fear? Having gone through all of that, still I stand before you. And the power that comes from me, the words that come from me, come not from myself but from Him who sent me, just as He sent you. And you have, and can become, anything that you see in me, and greater. Remember that Jesus said. “All of these works that I do, ye may do also. And even greater works than these that I do, ye may do.” [paraphrased from John 14:12] And I say the same things to you.

Many of you say to me in private conversations, “Oh, but look what you are.”

How do you think I got that way?

Somebody said the same thing to my own spiritual teacher one time: “But Master,” you know, “look what you are.”

He said, “Yes. But how do you think I got that way?”

He got that way by putting God before himself, by giving up his own lust, his own desires, and thinking about God alone, of acting for God alone.

In your jobs, in whatever you do; in your housework, in taking care of your children. In whatever work that you are involved in at the moment, know that God is doing it through the form which He created—He alone—and that you have the blessed privilege of being the witness to that which the Father does in you. And with everything that you do, do for Him alone, not for your little self, and the joy and the peace and the bliss and the power which will come to you is beyond my power to describe to you in human words because bliss is a thing that must be felt.

And do not mistake the “rapture,” or the ecstasy—which is the highest state of human development and which the exoteric Christian reaches out for when he thinks that the graves are going to open up and that all of these people are going to come forth when the second coming of the Christ comes—don’t concentrate on that rapture, but go through it. Pass it, and go through what is necessary, what God puts you through, in order to attain the ultimate: the bliss and the everlasting oneness, peace, glory of knowing that you are one with God in human form.

Reach out for it. Climb your ladder. Climb the seven steps and approach it with joy. Approach it with tears, if you wish, but approach it, because you do not know what you are depriving yourself of.

I work hard. The body becomes so-called “ill” at times; and yet, amazingly enough, every blessed time almost (maybe once in a while there’s a slight exception) nothing is wrong with this body.

Recently, I had a physical. My heart had been kicking up. And yet, the results came out that it was better than it was the last time. Now, how do you account for that? It is because God gives me certain things to work out in my body for all of those who follow with me. It isn’t something that I take on myself; He gives it to me. And I accept it willingly. And when you see me this way, don’t think, “Well, she should be perfect.” I am what my Father makes me because I am totally surrendered to Him.

This body, I gave up long years ago to His service. I gave it to Him. I asked Him to take it and use it as He willed. And nobody took my free will away from me. It is my will to do only the will of my Father. And He may use every last shred of me—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually—to do His work, to try to help those who are still suffering and in darkness.

This is what I want. This is what I dedicate myself to. And you will see that if each one of you will pick up your cross and follow the Christ and dedicate yourself to Him with all of your heart, your mind and your soul, you will know what I mean. You will find the joy of giving. You will find the joy even of suffering for, not yourself anymore because you’ve paid the full price, but for others, in order that we may have a new world, a new life, a new everything—where there is peace, not only on earth but in the earth of your own being, and so that you can live suspended between the earth and the heaven, the human and the Divine, and not give up anything of either, but have the best: the peace, the wonder, the beauty, the glory of all, because it is one world, and that world is God.

I’d like to close by briefly reading you something which I think is entrancing. It’s entitled, “The Purple Dream.” And this was written way back in 1934 by a man who was with my Guru. And his name was James M. Warnack:

Once in a saffron twilight, a Purple Dream went searching for a soul to whom she might offer her friendship, and she saw a rich man in his counting house. And the man pleased her. And she hovered about him with joy in her eyes. But when he left the mart for his home, he took no wealth of thought nor gold of sympathy with him. And the Dream deserted him, for she saw that the shining treasure that his hands caressed was the symbol not of goodness but of greed.

And the Dream flew away to seek for one more worthy of her beauty, and she found a man that she thought she could love, for she watched him as he passed through the doors of a temple, whispering holy words from sacred books. But as he knelt at the altar, a shadow passed between him and the Dream, and entering the heart of the man at prayer, made murky all the red rivers in his veins. And the Dream passed on, for she could not dwell within a darkened mind.

A man of learning next she found, and thought to find a home within his heart. But soon, she saw that he was one whose knowledge of appearances had made him blind to the glories of the unseen.

On and on flew the Dream, hoping, ‘ere the night should fall, to find one spirit that would recognize and welcome her. Yet, no one seemed to know her, nor to want her, and she saw no one who made her heart rejoice.

The Purple Dream folded her rainbow-tinted wings for a brief rest before her contemplated return to the Mother of Dreams beyond the veil of time. Sitting alone beneath a magnolia tree, she suddenly beheld a little girl not far away, and the child was weeping because her doll had fallen to the ground and its tiny arms were broken. Gathering the doll in her arms, the little girl started homeward, pressing her baby to her breast and crying as though her heart would break.

And the Purple Dream took the star-bordered mantle of evening and wiped the tears from the eyes of the child, and she followed the little one home and lay by her side all the night.

And the child awoke with a smile in the morning, for the Dream had found her own.

Isn’t that beautiful?

You know, the world needs each and every one of us. The world is what we make it. The world is what we think it to be, so let us see it filled with the beauty, the wonder, the light of God. Let us think only positive thoughts and bring into the manifestation within our own lives the greatest dream of all: our union with God. And when you have that union, you are one with every single man, woman and child, every part of creation in all of this world and beyond.

Who would not want such a fate? And you wake up one morning and realize that all, all is your Self, that I AM THAT I AM—God, in human form.

 

Transcript:

DATE: 19810222

TITLE: MS THE POWER TO BECOME

I want to read to you this morning from the Vision Magazine, an article written by Swami Ramdas entitled “God Our Mainstay.”

If there is one who can always stand by us and on whom we can place complete reliance, that one is God alone. Usually a man depends upon so many persons and objects of life for help, relief, and security. Very often such a dependence results in sore disillusionment. At the moment of stress, trial and necessity, they all fail him. But he who looks to God and makes Him his sole friend, protector and guide can feel always safe, courageous and happy. It is the experience of many devotees that trust in God at the time of acute crisis in their life has brought them instant inner tranquility and outer relief. Such instances are common in the lives of the devotees chronicled in the scriptures of all faiths in the world. To such, God is the living reality. They feel His protecting hand. They realize His presence at all times. They live in the ecstasy of unbroken union with Him.

When ego is totally absent, when the mind has dissolved itself in the Divine Consciousness and all sense of duality and diversity has disappeared, it is now we know that God is the sole ruler seated in our hearts, wherefrom He inspires, leads, and controls all our mental, vital, and physical activities. It is now that we become absolutely fearless and remain ever free and cheerful, as the child does in the presence of its mother. Verily, God is infinitely more tender and loving than the physical mother. When you have once discovered your filial link in relationship with Him, what a wonderful change takes place in your life. How exalted, blissful, and peaceful you become. Your life now flows like the crystal, pure rippling river producing the music of eternity.

Reliance on God should not take a gross and material form. Dependence on Him means primarily inner strength, intrepidity, and assurance, for God dwells in us. He provides for all things. His will is supreme. It works always for the good of all. The heart of the devotee who has placed himself in the hands of God is therefore unruffled, serene, and perfectly at peace. And, like the summer sky, no clouds of cares and anxieties cross over it. This state is the one true achievement of life. It cannot be understood by mere hearing or reading about it. When your mind turns inward and loses itself in the infinity and immortality of your real being, then you will know the sublimity of this realization.

[pause]

Hmm. I just found it here. How nice.

Go into the world with eyes open to new beauty, with ears open to new sounds, with hands open to new needs, with minds open to new truth, with souls open to a new Spirit, and may the Lord go with you.

Our Bible reading this morning is one that you are all familiar with. We read it many, many times but it is always new, and it always has something new to offer. From the Gospel of John Chapter 1 beginning with verse 1.

	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
	The same was in the beginning with God.
	All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
	In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
	And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
	There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
	The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
	He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
	That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
	He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
	He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
	But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
	Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

This morning I would like to speak to you on the power to become. This chapter tells about it completely. I also want to read to you from a book that was published in 1910. It’s wonderful to get revelations from God. And they say that there are three ways that you can determine whether or not the revelations you receive are hallucinatory, figments of your imagination, or whether they are the real truth that comes from God.

One is that another God‑realized Soul verifies it. The other is that you find it in the scriptures or in some other way that is verifiable. And the third is that it becomes prophecy fulfilled.

This is a tremendous book. My daughter, Barbara, gave it or is loaning it to me to read. And it’s just full of wonderful truth and surprises. And it’s entitled “The Apocalypse Unsealed.” [by James M Pryse] It speaks first of the visible sensuous world. And the first one is “the perception of images.” The second one is “faith” and “psychic groping.” These first two are matters of “opinion” and “illusory knowledge.” The second is entitled “the intelligible, suprasensuous world.” This has to do with “philosophic reason and direct cognition.” And it has to do with “wisdom” and “true knowledge.”

The first of these degrees covers the whole field of the inductive physical sciences, which are concerned with investigating the phenomena of external nature; the second degree embraces exoteric religion and all phases of blind belief; and these two degrees pertaining to the phrenic or lower mind comprise all the knowledge available to those whose consciousness does not transcend the illusions of the material world. The third degree relates to speculative philosophy, which seeks to arrive at first principles by the effort of pure reason; the fourth degree is the direct apprehension of truth by the lucid mind independently of any reasoning process; and these two degrees, pertaining to the noetic or higher mind, represent the field of knowledge open to those whose consciousness rises to the world of spiritual reality. Elsewhere, Plato speaks of the mantic state, which he describes as a kind of madness produced “by a divine release from the ordinary ways of men.”

(I’m sure that all of you know that when we use the word exoteric, we are speaking of that which is outside of ourselves and when we speak of the esoteric, it is that which is to be found within ourselves, within our own hearts, within our own consciousness – Mother)

The exoteric scientist and religionist rely on the physical senses, the psychic emotions, and the intellectual faculties as these are in the present stage of human evolution; and while the scientist somewhat enlarges the scope of the senses by employing the telescope, the microscope, and other mechanical devices, the religionist puts his trust in the mutilated (and I want you to look at that word “mutilated”) records of suppositional revelations received from the remote past. But the esotericist, refusing to be confined within the narrow limits of the senses and the mental faculties, and recognizing that the gnostic powers of the soul are hopelessly hampered and obscured by its imperfect instrument, the physical body, devotes himself to what may be termed intensive self‑evolution, the conquest and utilization of all the forces and faculties that lie latent in that fontal essence within himself which is the primary source of all the elements and powers of his being, of all that he is, has been, and will be. By gaining conscious control of the hidden potencies which are the proximate cause of his individual evolution, he seeks to traverse in a comparatively brief period of time the path leading to spiritual illumination and liberation from terrestrial bondage, rushing forward, as it were, toward that goal which the human race as a whole, advancing in an almost imperceptible rate of progress, will reach only after eons of time. His effort is not so much to know as to become; and herein lies the tremendous import of the Delphic inscription: “Know Thyself,” which is the keynote of esotericism. For the esotericist understands that true self‑knowledge can be attained only through self‑development of the highest possible sense of the term, a development which begins with introspection and the awakening of creative and regenerative forces which now slumber in man’s inner protoplasmic nature, like the vivific potency in the ovum, and which when roused into activity transform him ultimately into a divine being bodied in a deathless ethereal form of ineffable beauty. This process of transcendental self‑conquest, the giving birth to oneself as a spiritual being, evolving from the concealed essence of one’s own embryonic nature a self‑luminous immortal body, is the sole subject-matter of the Apocalypse, as it is also the burden of the four Evangels; but, whereas in his Evangel, Ionnes has been content to follow the form of statement found in the three Synoptics, in the Apocalypse he has given an almost complete outline of the psycho-physiological process of regeneration or, as he calls it in his Evangel, the birth “from above.”

Now we have discussed many times this tremendous change which takes place in each one who has the courage to be a soldier of God, who has the courage to pick up his cross and follow Him even unto death in order that he might become His disciple. We shy away from this word called “death,” but there is no such thing as death. There is only a state of change, a deeper sleep; the putting aside the old garment and putting on a new one. You wake to the dawn of a new incarnation, a new life. And you proceed from where you left off the night before or the life before. And it goes on and on until your body becomes completely filled with the light of God where you are lifted up above all of duality where you live in that immortal state and you have earned that crown of eternal life. You think that that is impossible? Not at all. It is the most possible thing in the world.

There are many in this group that have been going through spiritual experiences. I understand what they go through. It is not easy. They are misunderstood because it is a strange experience when the soul is lifted up by God, and you are drawn into the inner realm of your being. And you are made to do strange things because don’t forget that you are on the battlefield between the two forces, which are forever at war within you.

That magnetic force, the good thief, which is eternally trying to take you to the realization of your Oneness with God and the bad thief that is trying to keep you in the world of the senses. You do many strange things. You may appear strange. People feel strange around people who are going through this experience.

And when they go through this so‑called death state, they’re still able afterwards to function in the human body because they arise from the dead so to speak, in their consciousness but just like you go to a funeral and you stand before a corpse or you sit in the congregation and the casket is up in front of you, you have a strange feeling about death.

And that is because you do not understand it because there is absolutely nothing to fear. There is a world beyond this world just like this world, only it is a light world. And it is a beautiful world. It has places in it just as we have hospitals and prisons. And we have all of the good places.

And for those of the elite we have special places like kings, queens, and sometimes saints, although usually they stay in the lowliest places. It depends on where they are and what their environmental training has been. They have these same things in the upper world. God gives us life, and He alone has the power to take that life from us.

There is much going on now in the way of conversation about euthanasia: whether or not one, if he is in tremendous pain, has the right to say that he doesn’t want to live anymore, has control over his life. In one way he does because he has free will. But if he does such a thing, then he must realize that in taking his own life he has committed a terrible…the worst sin in fact if you want to call it a sin against God, against life itself. So, he must go back to the beginning of his humanness, and that’s why we have abortions. That’s why we have miscarriages.

That’s why we have mothers who long for children and don’t have them because perhaps in another lifetime their acts brought this particular thing upon them. And so they want another chance. And these chances have to be taken time after time after time until finally you come to the same state. And you face the same decision that you had to face when you decided to do away with what you call your life, but you cannot kill life, you see, because God is eternal. And He is life. He is life. He is intelligence. He is power. His is the only presence in the world. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. So, in the beginning we have God as pure Spirit, and then He manifested Himself as God the Father. And He married God the Mother in the form of nature. He projected His spirit into the womb of nature. And in Him was life and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not because as humans we comprehend not because of the false training that we have had, that we are truly God in human form. That it is His light, His life, His intelligence—everything—His power and His will that motivates us and enables us to live in this world.

Then there was a man sent from God whose name was John. Now in the human ego consciousness when man starts to develop on the spiritual path, he starts to get premonitions. Sometimes he has hunches as we call them. He knows something is going to happen or that it isn’t going to happen. He has some fear within himself, and so this is called intuition.

And John the Baptist came to teach us about intuition. Don’t forget that Jesus said that the Bible was written in parables, and behind each parable is a kernel of truth. And when you have graduated into the higher realms of the spiritual world, then that truth is revealed to you.

So, that which came in the beginning to baptize you was that intuitive force, that still small voice which comes and which goes. The same came for a witness to bear witness of a life that all men through Him might believe. It says that John the Baptist was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which lighteth every man that comes into the world.

What is that light? That is the Christ in you, and you will remember that he said that he was not worthy to touch the feet of the Christ. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. Jesus was the carpenter of the universe.

And, He lived in the body, not only of one man, who lived two thousand years ago, but He lives in the bodies of every single one who is present, and not present, the world over. He came unto his own, and His own received Him not.

He is within you, and you don’t realize He is there, because your mind has been so definitely programmed to realize, and to know that there was only one Son of God, Jesus, the Christ, who was born two thousand years ago. Don’t forget he was born the son of man. He became the Christed one, the newborn in God, only after the crucifixion. So, that’s when we should be celebrating his birth, when that first Christ consciousness is born within each and every one of you.

But, as many as received him, and this denies what we have been taught, in the exoteric sense, but, as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the Sons of God, even to them, that believe on his name. That is definite proof that he was saying, I am not the only one.

To all who receive this Christ consciousness, to them is given the power to become the Sons of God. And, it says, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Because, that second birth that everyone speaks of in the exoteric sense, happens within yourselves.

You have the most tremendous power that is in existence within you, because that power is the power of God. It can move mountains. It can change your life overnight, if you will only take hold of it, and dedicate yourselves totally to God. If God is everything there is, where is He not.

And, again, as I have said many times before, if God created the world, and nothing was created except by Him, then where does Satan come in, except as a figment of man’s imagination. It is pure delusion. Yet, we have given him form, and substance, through our very faith, our belief in him, which should be given only to God. I do not believe in concentrating on sin, on hellfire, and damnation, and the devil. I do not believe in concentrating on the mark of the beast, on evil. I believe in concentrating upon God alone. God alone.

My form, as a form of every spiritual teacher, is here only to serve God, and God in you. It is not to be deified, in no way. Whatever comes to me in that way, I give to Him, because, He is the sole everything of my being.

And, I can tell you, that if you will seek Him first, above all things, that all the desires of your heart that you ever had, will be taken care of. You will be lifted up into the Heaven of your own being. Because, did he not say that God, and the Kingdom of Heaven, are within? And, that he would come a second time, out of the cloud of Heaven, within your own consciousness. That happens, not outside. It may happen, because to God all things are possible. And, when it speaks of all the earthquakes, man has given, what is in the exoteric sense in the Bible, such power.

The belief in it is so strong that it is happening. But he, man, has made it happen through the destructive uses that he has made of the power within himself. He has discovered the atom bomb, and has exploded it in the bowels of the earth, in the water, in the ocean, in the sky. And, then he wonders why the air which he breathes is contaminated.

He throws his debris in the river, and he wonders why the rivers are no longer sparkling with fresh water. And, he is drinking water now that is not fit to drink, because it has to be doctored so much to take care of the vile things that men put in it. Man has brought this upon himself. He has built a cloud around this hemisphere and the sun literally can’t get through, nor can the fresh air that we use to breathe. Can it be changed? Is it too late? No, not if each and every one of you put God first.

It is very interesting to me to speak to people about God, especially in close encounters. Because, some hang on every word, they are so tuned in. And, whenever I speak to them, when I say I, I am using that perpendicular pronoun, which is God within myself, because, I am merely the witness of what he says, thinks, and does, through this form which he made. Some are entranced, and they are lifted up. And, some of them cry, and others cannot keep their attention fixed.

When the day comes when you can sit before a spiritual teacher, and be so engrossed in listening about the truth of God, that nothing can deter you, and you feel upset, or something upsets you, then you have arrived at the beginning of the ladder on which you can climb to get your own God‑realization.

You have the power of wit. You have the power of speech. You have the power to see. You have the power to hear. You have the power to taste. You have the power to feel. All of these powers, you have within yourselves, and you must think, “What can I do to make my life better?”

There is one great thing that you can do, and that is to learn how to go into deep meditation within yourselves, not just to pray on an extraneous basis, just like you hear in some of the churches when they say, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name, Thy kingdom come, and so on. And you can scarcely determine what the words are. Do you think that those prayers reach God? No way. No way. You have to praise Him in the silence. Be still, and know that I am God. Be still, and know that I am God.

I remember a story that I read. It was way back in 1934. It was written by a man who had been in prison. He had committed some terrible crime, but there was a great soul in the prison who changed this man’s life.

And he took on a new name. And he took the name, Star Daily. Now many times I’ve wondered if it wasn’t because he’d been taught that method of mediation, of looking for that spiritual eye, that single eye in the center of his forehead, and that he saw that star, daily. And anyway, he became very famous throughout the United States, and he wrote many books and gave many lectures.

But there’s one story that I remember reading that he told about a dream that he had had three times a year for four consecutive years. And then he had it in April of the fifth year, and don’t forget that this was long before the atom bomb was discovered, and used.

And he said that it was as though, he wasn’t on earth but he was in another realm, which of course he is now, and he was floating above the earth and as he looked down upon it he saw a tremendous desert waste. There didn’t seem to be anything growing on that waste.

And as he looked in the distance, he saw a group of people running. It was like a dark cloud in itself, or vapor. And they kept running and running, and looking fearfully behind them. And as they passed where he was floating above them, he looked back and he saw another dark cloud coming and overtaking them, covering them totally so that he saw nothing.

Finally, the cloud disappeared into the distance. As he looked again, he saw that there were many lying on the earth. But also he saw, here and there, bodies sitting in full lotus posture, in absolute stillness.

And these were the ones he said whom God told him had conquered the desire to breathe. My Guru many times said breathlessness is deathlessness. Breath is the cord which ties the soul to the body, by a very simple technique, which most of you have been taught.

It is in the Ecclesiastes, in the Old Testament. You learn to watch your breath. And as you become aware of the fact that you are breathing, at first rapidly perhaps, but not in any way trying to control it; just watch the fact that you are breathing. Become aware of it. Your breath gradually slows down until you are not breathing at all. And that stops all the functioning in your body. And you sit in a state of suspended animation. Nothing that happens above you or around you, in the sense of the atomic bomb or any power like it, can harm you.

Now, what about the earthquakes? Certainly, we’re experiencing them all over the world. It seems that the time has come. There’s been a book published, “We are the Earthquake Generation” and was published previously and since the Mount St. Helen eruption there is a new book with that included in it. It’s a very fascinating book.

Now, you can be filled with fear at all that’s happening or you can rush to God on the wings of prayer and meditation and these, securing Him, no matter what happens or where you are. And don’t forget that wherever you run, God is. Wherever you run, whatever your fate is is going to keep up with you, take up with you. And this is proven time after time. A whole airplane full of people crashes, and one person is saved out of that airplane full of people. Why? It wasn’t his time to go.

So we can’t run. We have to stay and face reality. And we have the power and the peace and the trust and the faith in God to do that, if we will only use it. Let us stop wasting our time. Let us use this tremendous power that God has given us within ourselves to learn how to truly live.

I don’t teach a religion, although it is said that religion is to teach you how to contact God; with a few, simple techniques that I give you, you might call it that. But we go beyond religion. We don’t concentrate on anything but God. We set our human goals for one purpose alone. And that is that we may bring forth the special gifts that God has given us. “Let us make something beautiful for God” as Mother Teresa says. And her life is a living example of that.

Let us be willing to give not just one moment or one hour of our lives a week, or two hours. But let us give Him every moment of our lives as He has given it to us, in conscious union with Him, in conscious communion with Him. Realize that to Him is given all power over Heaven and Earth, if you will only contact that Christ within yourself. He is wonderful. He is beautiful. He is all that exists in all this world. And all that seems evil is only delusion.

We can always find excuses not to do what we should. But if we will sit down and examine ourselves, then use our will power instead of “I won’t do this and I won’t do that.” You can use that constructively, too if you refuse to have what’s offered to you sometimes and resist so‑called temptation. But if you do succumb to temptation remember that you have written your own law upon your own forehead, with your own hand.

And for every action there’s an opposite and equal reaction. And so for every wrong thing that you think, say or do, you are going to pay for it. And nobody has done it to you. You have done it to yourselves, because you have refused to put God first. You do not realize the beauty, the truth, the wonder of living in God.

You punish yourselves. Sometimes you stay in a situation that is unbearable to you. It destroys you, and yet you have the power to move out of it, to begin a new life, if you only will. What it takes is faith and trust; not in things, not in people but in that Supreme Power of the universe and in the Christ in you. Every day surround yourself with His beauty, His wonder, His light.

Feel His peace. Open your heart to His love. That is the cave where you may go and worship Him. And you may go into the mountain of your own being. The thing that Jesus did when He went up into the mountain to pray. He went into that mountain of higher consciousness, in order that he might contact God and find out from that source of all things what to give to His people. He fed the multitudes with a few loaves of bread and a few fishes. He changed water into wine. Do you think that he did these things literally? They can be done.

When I was in India I heard the story about Swami Ramdas whose article I read you this morning, about his taking a trip one time on a train and when he reached his destination there were thousands of people there to greet this holy man.

Somebody gave him a big bag of rock candy. He took one bite and he passed it around. And it went from hand to hand and all the multitudes of people that had come to meet him and returned to him was some candy in the bag. Now how do you account for that? I have seen many miracles in my journeys to India.

Things that are seemingly unbelievable, but believe me I have seen them and I have gone back a second time to make sure that I wasn’t fostering any delusion within myself. You have such power within yourself to use things, to do things, to use your will constructively, to make of yourself supermen, to be examples for the world.

Just think if each of you were to contact just one person and through the tremendous light that shone within your own being, you could inspire that individual to seek God first within himself and to bring him into the fold. Soon we would have an army of people and would you suffer from it? No, you would gain. You would gain because you had reached out. You had been a witness for Christ. You had given of that tremendous love which you will find within your own heart, within your own, beats to somebody else. And just because you don’t have the whole ocean alongside of you from which to dip your cup, you have only a small stream, don’t fail to fill that cup with whatever you have, because in doing so, your own cup of water will grow. It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful and it’s what it says in here.

But as many as received, how many really want to receive Him? The reason they don’t, many times, when they change from the exoteric to the esoteric, is because they have fear within themselves and that’s natural, it’s understandable, because you don’t know what to expect and when you’re told that you must die for Christ, because to pick up your cross and follow him with your cross, which is your body, is to emulate him in every detail.

What dies is the human ego, the son of man. That false part of yourself which keeps your consciousness bound in the senses. And what springs forth? What rises from the grave of this so-called death, is the Christ in you, the little one, the new one in God.

And just as it takes three days or three separate periods of time, to descend into the hell or the subconscious mind of your own being, so also it takes three days or three separate experiences to ascend into the Heaven of your own being. And you do not become the fully Christed One, heir with Christ, One with God until you have conquered the ten subtle qualities of the mind in which are held the memories of that which the senses enjoyed.

So, you must keep on until you go through that sixth center which is the center of Christ consciousness. You have seven spinal centers. The sixth is that center of Christ consciousness. I am the way, the truth and the light. Nobody can go to the Father except through me, through that state of consciousness, then you go to the Father.

That One who created all things including the Christ and don’t forget that he himself says, I of myself am nothing. And yet we worship him and forget the Father God. It is my Father who doeth the works. He put forth His Christ consciousness, His Christ power, His Christ intelligence, His Christ will, His Christ everything. It is that which is in every atom of space and in every form that walks the Earth.

And until we realize that, until we find that within ourselves, until we have the courage to give up the things that destroy us, the people, the associations that destroy us, the habits that destroy us and put our attention on God and be what we should, obeying His commandments, we will not ever get out of our troubled situation. And we will still go on wandering in the dark; one minute up, one minute down, one minute filled with joy and happiness because something that we want has been given to us and the next minute down in the dumps because it has been taken away from us. And that will continue as long as you are in a human state of consciousness. It will continue from now until eternity. It will never get better until you change and only you, with God’s help, can do that.

Any spiritual teacher, who stands before you can inspire you, can give you the truth of their own experience. They can give you all that they have, but you are the one who has to take what they give and take it inside of yourself and make it work. And you start in by letting go of the thoughts, of the things that you want to get rid of and putting your mind on God and the things that you want to attain in Him.

Start seeing the good in people. Stop talking about them. We have the power of speech and that little cannon ball, the tongue can do more damage in five seconds than an atom bomb. It can destroy a life, a reputation. There isn’t a person on this earth that hasn’t had some sort of a sin and that sin as I’ve told you many times, do you know it’s just one thing to me, and that’s separation from God.

That idea of separation from God contains all the sins in the world, every one of them. And if you could accept, I and my Father are one this moment, equally with that idea that you have accepted of your separation from God, you would have it made but you won’t do it. You won’t permit yourself to do that. You hang on to the things of the senses. You cause yourself worry and torture and this is valuable time that could be spent in raising yourselves into something that is superhuman. You could walk the earth a child of God. completely heir with Christ. And only those who have eyes to see can tell what you have become, because you wear the same body, you have the same habit patterns of dress, of make‑up, of eating, whatever.

Maybe there have been some changes, but by and large you look the same and only those who have eyes to see can tell that you have really died to the world. The world has ended within you. The volcanoes have erupted, the earthquakes have happened, the floods have come within your own being and destroyed all of those forms that you have built in your consciousness, because you’ve built a whole universe within yourself. And so when the Christ arises within you, the graves within yourself open up and those who are meant to, will come forth, and this will be a new Heaven and a new Earth.

Not on the outside, but first within yourself, because everything happens within first and is projected outward. And God proved that when He was and then He created the heavens and the earth and all of the things in it. I would like to ask you to remember to use this power for your own highest good, to start from this moment on to think only of God and how you might serve Him.

Serve Him in everyone you meet. Love all of the good things in that person. See good in them even when you can’t see good in them. And praise even the littlest thing when you can praise them. And you will find that their hearts will open up, that they are sick. The greatest sickness in the world is a desire to be loved and not receiving it. And people search for it everywhere in the human sense.

Seldom do they really find what they’re looking for. But I tell you, if you will go within yourself and find union with that bridegroom who is the Christ in you, you will know love such as you have never dreamed of in this world. And that love will guide you, it will sustain you, it will provide every single need that you have, now and forever after.