Talks

Transcript:

DATE: 19830116

TITLE: THE GREAT PROMISE

I’d like to read to you an article which I wrote many, many years ago. This magazine is dated May, 1958. It was published in “The Vision Magazine.” It’s entitled, “Unfoldment”:

Each soul, whether he does so consciously or unconsciously, looks for the coming of a miracle within his own life. His hope is eternal that one day God, or luck, or circumstance– whichever label he chooses to put upon his chosen deity–will reach forth and, with a magic wand, touch him upon the shoulder thereby transforming him into the creature of his dreams and changing his whole existence. He does not realize that the manifestation of the miracle lies within his own grasp–nay, within his own being.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” said St. Paul.

Faith then is the first ingredient necessary to bring forth the miracle–a strong, unshakable faith which places its full attention upon its objective and never for one moment waivers in its purpose.

The objective should, of course, be God alone.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all of these things shall be added unto you,” Jesus admonished and gave men the key to “The Secret Place of the Most High” when He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.”

The pattern begins to unfold as the veils of ignorance are removed from before our vision enabling us to see more clearly. We now realize that the driving urge within each man to seek relief from want and suffering and to find perennial happiness is actually his subconscious memory of his lost paradise in the bliss of God he once enjoyed. We are aware, too, that through the misuse of his own will, he fell from that high estate. The urge to regain this bliss becomes paramount in his being–in fact, it is his one religion which he seeks to express in many and varied forms according to his past karma and his present state of spiritual consciousness.

Man does not start in the first grade of school today and graduate from the university tomorrow. Rather, he progresses one step at a time. He studies the lessons, takes the tests and passes the examinations necessary to qualify him for the next grade. During this stage his attention is centered upon himself and his own effort of accomplishment. When he has graduated from elementary school he is ready for the university of higher knowledge. His vision becomes broader and more universal in character as he learns to relate his own existence with that of the rest of the world around him. Finally he is ready to matriculate from college. The big day arrives when he receives the diploma which will proclaim to the world that he is a fully accredited student. Having attained this prize, most students are content to sally forth and labor at that level, choosing the profession which is closest to their hearts. However, a few, recognizing the need for higher learning, persist in their endeavor to conquer greater heights and more distant lands. These attain their “Master’s” degree having become specialists in their chosen field.

Just so is man’s spiritual evolution. In the dawn of his understanding he turns his face toward God and walks with stumbling footsteps along the path which is as yet dimly lighted. He has been in utter darkness having tried to satisfy his inherent need for peace and bliss through the medium of the senses and has found himself suspended, like a marionette on a string, between the dual forces of good and evil. In his extremity he cries out, “Oh, my God, have mercy upon me.” It is at this very instant that the grace of God descends upon him awaking him from his dream of separation.

Eagerly he searches everywhere seeking, at first outside of himself, the God whom he has at last acknowledged. His seeking follows the path and takes the form which best satisfies his need for the moment and he pursues it adamantly to the exclusion of all else until he has learned the lessons, taken the tests and passed the examination of that particular grade in life. Having qualified himself for the next step, he moves upward, ever seeking the brighter light of understanding. As the delicate tendrils of his faith grow stronger he seeks to express himself through ever widening horizons until, one by one, the sheaths of darkness disappear and he is ready to look into the mirror of his own soul.

It is then that God in His infinite mercy takes human form and appears as the Guru, the Master, the Christ, who leads the soul from darkness into the light. Gently and carefully he nurtures the child on the path, directing him to seek the “Pearl of wisdom” within the “Temple of the Living God.” He teaches us that the venture which takes us on the journey of self-knowledge and self-mastery is the most fascinating adventure in the world because within man is a miniature universe with which it is his great privilege to become acquainted. Meditation is the ship which carries him on his journey to new and beautiful places. Concentration and willpower act as the rudder which steers the ship and the devotee’s flame of love, devotion and worship provide the fuel to propel his ship through the waters of delusion until his boat comes to rest on the shores of God’s infinite wisdom and bliss.

As his love and attention become anchored in the Guru his faith increases to the point where it becomes unspoken prayer which goes on building power until the thought of God takes hold of his consciousness, automatically forcing him to repeat His sacred name.

With His name ever upon his lips man is filled with the love and the bliss of His presence. The ecstacy of his communion with Him creates the overpowering desire to surrender himself and everything he possesses to the one Beloved who is at once the cause and result of his being.

Realizing, at long last, that he carries “Heaven” within his own body temple–that within is all light, wisdom, love, beauty and perfection–he surrenders his life at the feet of God. As gradually he sheds his human consciousness and replaces it with the cosmic consciousness of God he begins to manifest this perfection inwardly and outwardly until he is consumed in the flame of His light and love. Who can describe the bliss felt through communion with God? One must experience it to know what it is like and after one has had the experience, still it remains indescribable, a secret covenant with the Infinite Beloved hidden in the inner sanctuary of the soul.

 

I’d like to read to you this morning from St. Matthew, Chapter 8 beginning with Verse 1:

1. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
2. And, behold, there came a leper and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
3. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
4. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
5. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,
6. And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
7. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
8. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
9. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say unto this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
10. When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
11. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
12. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
13. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
14. And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever.
15. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.

And going to Verse 10, Chapter 9, it says:

1. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
2. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
3. But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
4. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
5. Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?
6. And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then they shall fast.
7. No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.

As you know, I’m almost totally blind, so it is very difficult for me to see, and so I seem to be a little mixed up in the Bible here, but what I wanted to end this reading with was this: “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and then all things shall be added unto you.”

The subject for my sermon this morning is, “The Great Promise.” That which I have just quoted to you is the greatest promise of all time: Seek ye first God and His kingdom, and then all of the other things shall be added unto you.” [paraphrased from Matthew 22:37] Just imagine that. If you seek God first, (and Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is to be found within) then all of the other things that your heart desires, everything that is necessary for your well‑being, will be given unto you.

Believe me, I know that that is true because many, many years ago my love for God and my Guru was so great that I gave up everything I had, in the material sense, and went to sit at the feet of a great Master in India, one who had himself loved God so greatly that he had become totally one with Him. There was nothing but God in that form. And strangely enough, this Indian Master put me through the Christian crucifixion, the “Mystical Crucifixion,” and my life has never again been the same. It was very, very difficult, and as I have told some of you before, this body died, actually, and had to arise again from the dead, and work its way back through all the worlds through which it had traveled, to be able to stand before you and speak to you as I do now.

It’s been a very difficult journey, and certainly the crucifixion hasn’t stopped through all the years. It is one thing after another. But there are so many parts of the human brain, the human being, the human body, that need purification, that God’s work is constantly going on.

Even after you have realized your oneness with Him, still you realize that you are only one cell in His body and that the vast universe is also He. So you go forth then, to explore your Greater Being, having discovered your oneness within Him, within your own universe. It is a never‑ending task. But also, because it is never‑ending, it is forever interesting. You never come to the point that you do when you are saturated with the things of the senses, when you can say, “That’s all. There isn’t any more. So what else is new?” because every moment of your life there is something new in God.

And when you have surrendered yourself to Him so completely that there exists nothing in your life, in your consciousness, in every part of you but your desire for oneness with the Lord and to listen to His voice, every moment, directing you so that only His will may be done, then you know that He walks with you, He talks with you. You are never alone.

The Lord is within you; it is this body-temple, which He made, in which He dwells, so wherever you go, you may sit down quietly, close your eyes, fix your full attention at the point between the eyebrows. “The light of the body is the eye; therefore, let thine eye be single and thy whole body shall be filled with light.” [paraphrased from Luke 11:34] That is another great promise.

Just think of the wonderful promises that the Lord has given us. But do we ever think of doing our part? No. We don’t. We are always complaining. We have pain, we have anger, we have this, we have that. We have a need of this or that or the other, and so we sit down briefly and say just a brief prayer, raise our eyes to the “heavens,” because in the orthodox faith we have been taught that God is in heaven and we always think of it as being the sky outside and that Christ will come a second time out of that heaven outside.

Everybody’s been looking for him for 2,000 years. But if he himself said that “the kingdom of heaven is within,” [paraphrased from Luke 17:20,21] and that he shall come “a second time out of the cloud of heaven,” [paraphrased from Matthew 24:30] then where in the world is he going to come from except out of the cloud of heaven in your own consciousness, your own being? And that is true because the day comes, if you persevere, when you will be lifted up and you will be given the vision of your own Christ.

As I have told you, when I went through this crucifixion experience I was lifted up. I saw my spine lit up like a Christmas tree. These are the “seven candlesticks,” the seven spinal centers in which the electrical force is centered in your being, and each center has jurisdiction over a certain part of your body. And then, at the last moment, I was lifted up still higher and I saw my own savior, my own Christ hanging on a cross, crucified within myself. And then I knew the truth, that my body was the cross, that my human ego was that which had kept me from the realization of my oneness with God, and that it was the human ego that had to die. It had to disappear in order that I might find my oneness with God, my oneness with the Christ, and feel the bliss of His wondrous and beautiful Presence.

I’ve been through many things since that time. This body, it seems, never ceases to go through something or other, but it is all for greater purification, greater enlightenment, always to teach me more lessons of endurance, of self‑surrender, of knowing that God is with me no matter what. Did he not say, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world?”

Now people today, all over, are looking for the world to end outside—through earthquakes, through fire, through whatever—but that is not what it means. It means the end of the worldly consciousness within yourself. When the world ends within you and you are totally God’s own, then you will know the true meaning of “the end of the world,” because the things of the senses fall off, their enticements fall away, and you find that you have no further interest in it, that all you want to do is serve your Lord with everything you have.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy mind, thy soul and thy strength,” [paraphrased from Matthew 22:37] and it means what it says: Everything must be given to the Lord. Not just this or that that you feel that you can do without, but every part of your being has to be given—all of your attachments to your friends, to your loved ones, to all of your possessions. Everything!

As I have told you, we sold all of our possessions in order that we might go and get our God‑realization. It was such a small price to pay. We gave up everything we had in order that we might take the journey, but the reward has been so rich. Even though this body has been through so much, still I count it as naught for the great blessings that the Lord has poured upon me.

And I wish that I could give to each one of you the feeling of oneness, of closeness that I feel with Him. I wish that I could instill in your minds, in your hearts, the desire to follow Him alone—not yourself, not your own desires, but only the Lord, because having Him you have everything.

If you are going to do this, there is work to be done. This great promise that God has given us—if ye “seek Him first, and the kingdom of heaven, then all of the other things shall be added unto you” [paraphrased from Matthew 6:33]—means exactly what it says. But in order to seek Him, we have to do some work. We have to clean our house.

There was a story told one time about a pilgrim that was climbing a mountain, and he climbed halfway up and he just couldn’t go any farther, and he lay there moaning.

All of a sudden, the Lord appeared to him and He said, “My son, what is the matter?”

And he said, “Oh, my Lord,” he said, “you must help me.” He said, “I have climbed this far up the mountain. I wanted so badly to go all the way and find You, but I am bogged down. I cannot go any further. I am tired. You must help me. You must take me the rest of the way.”

And the Lord said, “Well, what about your house?”

“Oh, I left that long ago.” said he.

He said, “Well, obviously it has not left you.” He said, “You must go and clean your house.”

And the man begged and pleaded with the Lord not to make him go back into that dreary house again and clean because he had always thought he kept a clean house.

But the Lord was adamant. He would not let him off. He said, “No, you must go down and clean your house.”

So the pilgrim, climbing up the hill, went down to his house and he entered the door. And as he looked around, thinking that he’d always kept his house very clean, he saw what the Lord meant. His house was not clean. There were cobwebs all over, there was dust all over, dirt in corners, and all the rest. So he got a broom and a mop and he started cleaning, and he cleaned and he cleaned. But when he’d lived in the house before, there were some doors that he hadn’t opened. He didn’t know what was inside. And he had told the Lord this on the mountain; he said, “There are some doors in my house that I haven’t even opened.”

And the Lord said, “You must open them. You must open them and go in and clean those rooms.”

So finally, cleaning the house, he got up enough courage to open the first door. And as he entered, there was a thin wraith of a man who was there, and the man cowered away from him. He was just shaking and shivering. And so the pilgrim up the hill said, “Oh, you poor thing.” And he went and put his arm around him, and he said, “Come with me. I shall comfort you.” He said, “There is nothing to fear. Come. We shall sup together and I will spend the night with you.”

So he took the wraith of a man out, had his arm around him, and spent the night with him. And then he brought him back the next day, finally, and the man was no longer shaking, so he left him in the room. But as he looked at him, gradually the man disappeared. And so the pilgrim heaved a sigh of relief and closed the door, for he had taken fear in his arms and he had found there was nothing to fear.

So he kept on cleaning; he kept on going. Then he opened the second door, and as he opened it, again he saw a wraith, not unlike the first one, and he was moaning on floor. “Oh, I feel so terrible. I hurt so much. I am in such pain. Help me! Help me.”

And again, the pilgrim up the hill went in and took the man in his arms, and he said, “Come.” He said, “I will sooth your fevered brow. I will help you to take away your pain. I will take you in my arms. Come with me.”

And so he took the man who was filled with pain in his arms and he left the room and he spent time with him. Finally, he brought him back. And the man’s face was more peaceful, and he left him in the room. And again, as he turned around to look, the man disappeared. And the pain had disappeared. So he realized that by opening the doors in his house and cleaning them out, that he’d cleaned out two things which had been very prevalent within him. The first was fear and the second was pain. And he thought, “What shall I meet at the next room, in the next door that I open?”

And as he went to open the third door, all of a sudden it was as though the whole house caught on fire and he was engulfed in a tremendous heat. And again, as he opened the door, he saw a man, not unlike himself, standing there filled with anger. And his anger was so great, his wrath was so great that it had brought forth this great fire, this great heat that he wanted to lash out with.

So again, he entered the room and he took the man by the hand and he led him away. And he sat with him and he soothed him and he calmed him down until he had found peace again. And then he took him back to the room. And as he left the room, again the man disappeared and the room became cool. And he thought to himself, “Isn’t that a remarkable thing that I have been carrying around these things in my house all of these years? Now I know what the Lord meant. He sent me on this journey to clean my house that I might get rid of fear, of pain, of anger, and all of the things that were so terrible with me.”

Then he thought, “I still have more doors.” and again the fear came just a little bit. But having conquered all of these other things, he decided that he would open the door. And as he opened the door, a writhing came in his body and he reached out sensuously. And he saw a form that was lying on a bed. It was half man and half woman, and it was holding out its arms, with lustful eyes: “Come. Take me in your arms. Experience me. Fill me with the delight that you know that I love so much.” And he fought as he had never fought before, because again this feeling of lust came over him and he wanted to expel the seed from his body. He wanted to satisfy this sense of lust. But he fought it with everything that he had.

Finally, he got up enough courage and he took the form in his arms and he carried it from the room. How long he was with it, nobody knew, and nobody knows to this day, but finally he came away and he was freed from it. Whatever he had done, he had rid himself of the desire to be with that form. So he walked out of that door and he left behind him lust.

So, he was congratulating himself that he had conquered all of these things when a thin wraith appeared before him, and he was filled with fear. And he thought, “Oh my God!” he said “I have forgotten all about death. Death also has to be conquered.” So he opened the last door and he walked bravely in, and he thought, “I must meet death face-to-face. I must take him in my arms. Only then shall my house be totally clean.”

So he opened the door and he went in, and there stood somebody. And he felt the ice-cold shivers go all over his body. He didn’t know what to do. Just then, he heard the warm voice of the Master, saying, “My son, lo, I am with you always. You have met all my tests, so come. I promised you that if you would clean your house, I should come myself and take you to the mountaintop. So come. I shall take you in my arms and together we shall ascend into the palace of the King.”

And so it was that the Master led the man up the mountain. And he went into the palace of the Lord, and he remained there in the bliss of His everlasting Presence forevermore.

That’s a beautiful story, and it tells what man must do if he is going to get the fulfillment of the great promise that if you seek God first, then all the rest of the things shall be added unto you, because gradually as you work with each one of the things that has caused you difficulty, if you will clean your house thoroughly until there’s nothing but purity within your body-temple, with your attention ever-fixed upon the Lord, He will come and He will lead you up the mountain into His castle of everlasting bliss.

It reminds me of a story I read many, many years ago about St. Anthony, who had left his home and all of his possessions and went to find the Lord. And he had to cross the desert, and many temptations came to him. He saw a great piece of gold, a great piece of silver, and so the worldly consciousness within him reached out, thinking how rich he would be if he could accumulate it, get all of these things and take them for his own. Then he met a Nubian girl in the desert, and she writhed and reached out her arms for him, and he had to resist the temptation of her body.

And so it went, until finally in order to get away from the devil and from temptation, he went into the crypts of the dead and he stayed there for many, many days. And the story went that the devil came and taunted him and tempted him in every guise that he knew how. But St. Anthony still hung on. All he had to eat was what the villagers brought him, which was a few crusts of bread every day.

Finally, the devil, not being able to overcome him, brought all of his devilkins in and they beat him, they scourged him with whips, and he fell unconscious on the floor.

Well, the villagers, coming up to bring him his daily bread that day, found him that way and took him—Thinking he was dead, they took him back to the village. But the desire for oneness with the Lord was so great that St. Anthony again regained consciousness and got up and returned to the crypts. And he knelt down. He raised his eyes to the heavens. He said, “My Lord, I’ve done everything I’ve known how. I have resisted every temptation. I pray to you night and day. Why do you not come to me? Why do you not come to me and bless me?”

All of a sudden a great light appeared in this crypt where he was kneeling, a great blazing light, and there stood the Lord, who said in a very soft, loving voice: “Anthony, did you not know that I was with you always?”

How beautiful that is, that all of a sudden if we would close our eyes and the things of the senses that bind us to the outer world, that the Lord is within us, He will come to us, He will bless us with the glory of His Presence.

So, we are still rather at the beginning of the new year. Many have written to me, many have told me that this year they truly made a resolution to change their lives, to do away with the things that have been holding them back; to meditate and do the various techniques which have been given to them, putting their full attention upon God, and to do everything that they were directed to do with all their hearts, their minds and their souls. And some of them are making great progress and I am very proud of them. At last they have come to the foot of the mountain. At last they have seen the vision that is at the top of the mountain and they want nothing more nor less than that, so they are willing to do everything they can, to give everything they are, everything they have, and put it at the feel of the Lord in order that they might realize their oneness with Him. If each and every one in this room would do that, what a tremendous group of souls.

I have worked with many of you for a long time, and I have learned about you and know you well. And I know that in this group there are some tremendous souls, just reaching out, longing, crying for God. But some of them have not had the courage to give up everything, to put their full attention upon God, because they let other things sidetrack them. There are rooms in their house with doors on which they have been afraid to open. So now, let us open the doors. Let us just go in and clean the rooms out and get rid of all of the things—the anger, the fear, the pain; the desire for the sensual; the desire for things, for possessions; the desire to be big, to be great. Only God is big. Only God is great.

In India, as all of you who have been with me a long time and who have read many of the Eastern books know, the devotee comes and bows at the feet of the Guru for one purpose alone: not to give homage to the individual, but to bow at the feet of God in the Guru, who is come to reveal to them that He is within them, and to take them by the hand and lead them, step by step, until they are able to open the door of heaven within their own beings. And you will see these people who give their all to God. Their faces are filled with light. I have seen such beautiful faces in India.

I talked with a priest once, and he was putting down all of the Hindu teachings, the Hindu masters. But these men have followed the way of the Christ. I have met some of the greats in India. And such beautiful souls; they’re filled with the love, the power, the light of God, and they have changed the lives of thousands. They have fed multitudes. They have raised the dead and healed the sick. I have had the very great privilege of sitting with these men, of speaking with them. What a tremendous privilege it was, believe me.

So I said to the priest, “You know, Father, I think you have totally the wrong picture.” I said, “In the ashram where I spent a year and a half,” I said, “there was nothing but love for God, and service. Right in the main prayer hall there was a huge picture of Jesus the Christ, and the Master sat in front of it as he talked to the multitudes that came to him, and it was beautiful to see.” They fed the poor. They waited on them and served everybody who came there.

I many times thought, as I lived in that ashram and saw the tremendous love for God that all of these people manifested, that instead of our sending missionaries over there, that perhaps we should have more from India come over here so they could teach us the true way of the cross and the Christ, because they’ve lived it every moment of the day. The prayer was ever on their lips, and they said it in the foreign language—Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram—which means “Victory to God, Victory to God.”

How little we know, in our ignorance. In the Western world, because somebody says the Name of God and pronounces it differently than we do, we call them heathens, heretics, infidels, and believe me, they are not. They are God-loving, God-fearing people filled with the desire to serve, to love.

I have never had such love poured up me. I have been to the homes of the poor. They had maybe a teaspoon or a cup of rice and they offered it to me, But because they had so little, I didn’t wish to deprive them of their little. And they cried, because they were trying to serve God in my form and I had refused to accept it. Finally, I realized what it was all about and so I took it, because this is the way they feel, that they gain religious merit by serving God in every form that comes to them. So I learned.

I didn’t hold my skirts aside because they were poor, and many of them lying on a bare cement sidewalk with hardly a stitch of clothes. I didn’t refuse their food. I went into their homes. I ate with them. I learned about what their religious beliefs were, their customs were, and I became one of them. I dressed like they did. And I saw God every place, and I thought, “Lord, how beautiful You are.”

No matter what garb You wear, what country I find myself in, there He is. And like the famous Mother Teresa, you get so, when you get to that state of consciousness, where every form that comes before you is your Lord, your Christ in human form, and so you can kneel down and you can worship that One.

And then somebody would come from the Western world and say, “Oh, isn’t this terrible that they do that? Isn’t it terrible that the masters accept that?” But they realize, the masters, that they are creating love and devotion for God in permitting the disciples to do that. It isn’t that they want personal glory. They have realized their oneness with God, and certainly their whole lives attest to that fact.

I stayed in the ashram, on— [I believe Mother is talking about Swami Ashokananda here] the greatest master I met, in 1968. I saw his total control over the animals, the wild animals. He had slept with the wild animals in caves. Snakes ran around the ashram freely, yet no one was ever bitten, no one was ever hurt. If you wanted to go outside the ashram compound, you had to get permission from him so that he could throw his protection around you a little bit farther. But everywhere I went, there was love, there was devotion, there was love for God.

And when you see these poor people with their great huge beautiful brown eyes, the little children with their arms like sticks and their stomachs sticking out because of lack of food, you see them sleeping on the bare cement sidewalks, and then you come back here and you see what we have, and yet how little we do to show our appreciation for all that the Lord has given us, it makes your heart  go out and you want to give everything you have and everything you are to help this suffering world so that such conditions don’t exist; that truly you may help to build a better world so that there may be peace on earth, goodwill toward all men; that you may see your Lord in every form that comes before you, in every incident in your life, because where is He not? He created this world. He’s the Carpenter of the universe.

He created your body, this body “not made with hands.” He is the Sole Indwelling Presence in your temple, which is your body. Your body is the cross upon which must be crucified the human ego, the “son of man,” that son of man who indulges in all the senses. And those senses must be purified; your house must be cleaned. And when that happens—when your house is clean, when your desire for union with God is so great, when you love Him with your whole heart and mind and soul and strength, as we are instructed to do; when you seek Him first—then everything you need will be added unto you.

In 1968, when I came back from a trip in India, which was the greatest year of my life, what tremendous experiences I had in God. I didn’t have one penny to my name, not one red copper. And about a year ago when all of a sudden I realized that possibly I should have some personal property insurance on the things in my apartment, because I never thought about it before, (things have been given to me through the gratitude of the people that I work with, and their whole lives have been changed, until my house was so full of all the expressions of love that people have shown me that I thought I was going to have to knock out one wall and maybe get another apartment to put my things in) and when the final appraisal came on what had been given to me, (Remember, I didn’t have one penny to my name in 1968) my personal property was worth $50,000!

I don’t have any of the money, but that’s what my possessions are. So I have proven, in every sense of the word, that seeking God first, everything that I needed, and more, has been added unto me.

Even this past year, which has been so difficult, when I have had a heart attack, a stroke, I’m partially paralyzed, I don’t see—still the Lord is with me. Every moment of my life I am surrendered to Him. What else do I have to hang on to? Who else can I turn to? I get wonderful service from those I live with—the love, the service is beyond compare—but still I am living in this body-temple. I am totally aware of my limitations at the moment, and they are great, believe me, but still I am serving Him, I am loving Him. I am giving Him myself. Everything I am, everything I have, I give to Him to use as He sees fit. And I must trust in Him to make it possible for me to do whatever is His will for me, because I can’t do anything by myself, don’t you see?

So I beg of you: clean your houses, put your full attention upon Him, seek Him first, and then you will find that every word that I tell you is true. You will have the riches of heaven and the riches of earth. They will be piled upon you so greatly that you will not know what to do with them.

But the greatest thing of all is the knowledge of your oneness with the Lord, the Christ that is within you. You feel the bliss of His Presence. You are lifted up. You hear the sound, the Word of God, which is Om, which the Christians call Amen or Ah‑men. You hear it in your right ear as you listen carefully. And as you continue to listen to it, all of a sudden it envelops you. It takes over.

Keep the Name of God upon your lips. Keep your attention fixed forever upon Him and He will fill you with the bliss, the perfume, the glory of His Infinite Presence. God bless you.

 

Transcript:

DATE: 19810315

TITLE: MS YOU ARE THE ARCHITECT OF YOUR UNIVERSE

I’d like to read you this morning an article from “The Greatness of God,” by Charles L. Allen.

Here is one of the grandest verses in the Bible: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;” (Psalms, Chapter 8, beginning Verse 3.)

Have you ever wondered why God made the world so beautiful, so impressive, so big? Nobody knows how big the heavens are, with their millions, maybe billions of stars. God didn’t have to make it that big in order for the earth to exist.

Why did God make it so that every morning the glory of a sunrise would come over the earth, and every evening the quiet beauty of the sunset? He could have arranged it so the day would come and go in some less impressive manner.

Have you ever looked at a great mountain range and wondered why God made those high peaks? God could have left the mountains out of His creation. Mountains aren’t really good for anything. They can’t be cultivated, and beyond a certain point they don’t even grow trees. We do not need mountains in order to live on this earth.

I have flown across the trackless deserts of the west. As I looked at the endless miles of hot sand, I wondered why God made them that way. The deserts aren’t good for anything. No food can grow there. The few creatures who live there are worthless to mankind.

Most impressed am I when I look at the ocean. Nobody really knows how big the ocean is. In places, it is literally miles deep. It seems an awful waste. God could have fixed His creation so that rain could come without creating that vast reservoir of water. Why did He make the ocean?

God had a reason for making oceans, mountains, skies and deserts. He never wastes anything. The psalmist said, “When I consider Thy heavens.” The tragedy is that many people live amid God’s creation and never consider it.

A thoughtless person once said to Helen Keller, “Isn’t it awful to be blind?”

She replied, “Not half so bad as to have two good eyes and never see anything.”

And there are people who are content with a mighty small world; they never consider the heavens. They never really see anything big.

When you look into the face of the sky and consider something of its infinite size, you realize that no little God created it. He had to have big ideas and unlimited abilities. Truly, we come to realize our God is a great God. Realizing His greatness, we are not as afraid of what might happen in His world. Our troubles seem hard to bear, but nothing can defeat the will and purposes of the Eternal Father.

I have watched colossal storms roar across the mountains. Heavy clouds come thundering in and everything gets dark. You begin to wonder if the world isn’t going to be destroyed. Then the clouds break up, and you see the green mountainside bathed in sunlight and you know that if you wait out the storm, there will be sunlight again.

When we have trouble and everything seems lost, with a picture of the greatness of God in mind we gain courage and calmness. On the other hand, when the sun is shining and the breezes are gentle, we know it will not always remain so. Sooner or later it will cloud up and rain again, so we make preparations during the good weather for the bad that is sure to follow. Likewise, when we are blessed with a life that is smooth and good, we remember that we must be ready for the trouble that is sure to come. Realizing the greatness of God, our minds are stretched to take the long view of life, not living for just the moment but considering the whole.

We are in too big a hurry, and we run by far more than we catch up with. The Bible tells us, “Be still and know that I am God.” Beauty doesn’t shout. Loveliness is quiet. Our finest moods are not clamorous. The familiar appeals of the Divine are always in calm tones, a “still small voice.”

Here is the New Testament picture of Jesus: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.” The Divine is not obtrusive. He bursts in no one’s life unbidden. He is reserved and courteous.

This is from the book, “Fragile Moments.”

Our Bible reading this morning is Psalm 139:

139 O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

4 For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.

14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

20 For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.

21 Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

This morning, if I’m able to do it, I have chosen as my subject “You Are the Builder, the Architect of Your Universe.” And this is certainly true.

Everything in this world has speeded up so much. Man has devised so many things for his comfort, for his pleasure, to exercise and put forth his ego, that he has even left himself far behind. If you think of it, we give very, very little thought to God during the day. It’s not true of all, but it is true of most, and this whole world, as we see it today, is the result of it—the cataclysms, the earthquakes, the fires; people doing terrible things, destructive things—and they don’t stop to think that they are the architects of their own destiny, that truly every thought, every word, every action that goes forth from you is building your particular life, your particular destiny, and you cannot escape from it. We think to hide.

I was thinking this morning it’s an amazing thing when you go inside of yourself and commune with God, the thoughts that come to you, that all of a sudden unfold. And I was thinking how, in the beginning, God created all of the heavens and the earth and He planted all the seeds in the ground; He made the trees. And then He started building occupants for His creation, so we have the fish in the sea and the birds flying in the air. We have animals walking on the earth. We have the vegetables and the fruit growing from the earth, we have cattle, and all of these things are put there for man’s purpose, and He has dominion over all of them. But He made man, and He made man in His image and in His likeness. In God is all Perfection, all Beauty, all Wonder, all Love, all Light. All of the good things, the wonderful things, the beautiful things on this earth, God is. And He gave man the power to become the Sons of God. He’s the “firstborn of every creature.”

God is within you, and I tell you that there is nothing you could do, no place where you can go and hide what you do from God, because you carry Him with you, and somehow, regardless of how you try to cover it up, it is shouted from the hilltop.

And I was thinking about the fall of man. Here, man was made with all of this perfection, all of this beauty. He could do everything. He could have dominion over all things, use it! There was only one thing he couldn’t do, and that was to eat the fruit in the midst of the garden.

Now, that has to do with the sex force because we are a “tree,” we are a “house,” but we are also the “garden of the Lord.” We are a “temple,” we are the “cross,” we are the “robe,” we are the “burning bush.” We are all of these things. But God made us in complete and total innocence. But man chose to go against the will of God, and when he chose to do that, he fell from grace. He hid, and he’s been hiding within himself ever since.

We live in two worlds. We live within our hidden world, where we go places, we do things. We think we get away with it, and we hide it inside of ourselves, but on the outside we sometimes act like cherubs, like angels.

It’s amazing the things that I run across in my dealing with all the people. And don’t think that I’m holding myself up as a paragon of virtue because every human being has been through all of this, and will continue to do that and be that until he decides to put God first. But as you know, the rules and regulations I make are very, very few. We have almost no ritual because I want the full attention upon God. I have asked that there be no smoking, no drinking, and no drug abuse/usage. You can use it for medicinal purposes, when the doctor prescribes it, but not otherwise.

So people go on. All of them continue to come. To look at them and to see the way they live, you would think that they were doing everything just the way that they should be doing; and yet, somehow it comes out and you find that people whom you thought might do God the honor of giving up cigarettes, of giving up liquor, of not using drugs anymore, and perhaps getting their sex life in order and not indulging before marriage, and then trying to do everything they can to keep the marriage [indecipherable], haven’t been doing that at all. Some of them are chain-smokers. Some of them are drinking in private. Some of them—

Nobody is on drugs as far as I know at the present time, but it hasn’t been too long since some of them that have been with me for a long time were still indulging in drugs. And I had one case where an individual loved God very much, but they’d been on drugs, and when they went into this experience they again started in the drugs. It was pot, laced with heroin. For heaven’s sakes! And then I’m supposed to guide that one through all of these byways of the spiritual experience and see to it that they are helped to their God‑realization. No way can I be responsible for things like this!

When people continue to do things like this and pretend to be something else, they are what Jesus said. They are hypocrites. And they will never go anyplace. “For what does it profiteth a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” [paraphrased from Mark 8:36]

Everybody wants the utmost in life. They say they want God‑realization. And yet, how few are willing to pay all of the price? How few are willing to say, “Here am I, Lord. Take me. Do with me as you will?” That means total obedience. It means total surrender of everything that you are attached to in your senses, be it position, be it name, wealth, fame, the reward for your deeds, your family, anything!

You have to give up everything for God. But the amazing thing about it is that when you have given up everything in total surrender, the day comes, and not too far distant after you’ve done that, when you realize that you haven’t given up a thing except the things which have caused you trouble and worry and concern all of your life, which have kept you in bondage. And instead, because you have given up everything—that is, your attachment to it—you have everything more abundantly.

And it is high time that we realize that we can’t play games with God because God knows. He lives inside of us. He is that Life, that Intelligence, that Presence, that Power, that Will, that everything that is within us.

I would rather have somebody be honest with me, even though it may get them in trouble and it may hurt me, than to stand and look at me, like cherubs, and lie in my [sic] teeth. I will not respect them, believe me. And you try and you try and you try, over a long period of time; and when you haven’t gotten results, then you give up and you go to the ones that are really ready, willing and eager to go. Why should you waste your time on people that are constantly playing games, that are constantly playing hide‑and‑seek with you, with God, with everybody, and particularly with themselves?

So this thing that God showed me was that they fell from grace and they wanted to cover themselves. So we do fall from grace, and we cover ourselves with this outer ego. We are the Janus-faced God, with two sides to our face, one side the way we want to present it to the world—and therefore have their approbation, their respect, their love—and the other one is a face of darkness that we keep hidden deep inside of ourselves, deep inside.

We have to become everything that it says in the scriptures. And of all of the religions in the world, I think Christianity has gone backwards and has stood still for hundreds and hundreds of years because for some reason or other in the beginning, whoever had jurisdiction over it decided to make a new religion, to cover up the real Truth that was known long before Christ.

It is said that India is the cradle of all religions, and they had the Truth long before that Truth was ever put into words in the scriptures. And the word of Truth was handed down by the seers, by the sages, the men of realization, to those whom they knew were ready and would take what they gave them and do something about it, and change themselves and their own lives. But they felt that because not everybody was ready, they would cover up that Truth and they would write in story form. They would write a fable; they would write a parable. And if you were smart enough, intelligent enough, you could pierce beyond the outer and you could see the moral, the Truth of what was really being told. And the amazing thing was that it was the history, the story of the evolution of every man from the human to the Divine, (in our own case, the Old Testament and the New Testament) what the son of man does. He had his concubines, he had many wives, and he did many things. And he killed and he slaughtered, and he came to think that if he were to slaughter animals, like a goat or a lamb or whatever, as an offering to God, that this would grant him virtue, that it would grant him something wonderful in heaven.

Well, the goats and the lambs, the sheep, are within us, and the greatest of all is the “Lamb of God,” which we call the Christ, which the Hindus call Krishna, and which all of the Buddhists call Buddha—the Supreme, the Pure Intelligence.

But what have we done with all of it? What have we done with it? Don’t you realize that with every thought, every word, every action that comes forth from you, that you are building your future, your destiny? You reach out for all of the things that will bring you fame, money, the satisfaction of your desires, to put yourself forth in your gifts, and do you stop to thank the Maker, the Giver of all of these things? In most cases, no.

You don’t put Him first. He is not on your mind the first thing when you get up in the morning. You do not get up early enough to communion with Him. You do not go to bed early enough, so that you are too tired to commune with Him. You don’t take time out in the day to realize that He is there, that He has provided the sun and the moon and the stars. He has provided your job, He’s provided the clothes that you wear on your back, He’s provided the food that you put in your mouth, He has provided your loved ones.

He also provides your difficulties because you yourself have made them and you are co‑architect with God. And any difficulties that you have, you have made for yourself because of your disobedience to God’s laws.

When I say “you,” I am including myself in all of this. We have all done it. But as I say, only when you feel God’s love in your heart, when your love for Him is greater than love for yourself, or for anyone or for anything on this earth that you could possess or call your own, then He comes and He lifts you up, and the change starts.

But nobody wants to pay the price: “Oh, I don’t want to go through that.” But do you realize that there comes a day when you have to go through that? Because that is the sole reason you were put on this earth, to fulfill your destiny of realizing that you are God in human form, to become one with Him! You already are, but you have to realize it. And until you do that, things will never shape up. You will continue to have trouble, you will continue to do without, you will continue to find hatred and love sleeping together, side by side. It is inevitable because you have built the foundation for your own life, your own place where you live in the world, and stick by stick, brick by brick, bits of cement by bits of cement, or bits of mud or straw for your thatched roof, whatever, you have built it in your own house. And until you decide to do some remodeling, nothing is going to happen.

I would suggest that you make a blueprint of how you want to remodel your life and the house in which you live, and that you stick by that, and that you do not stop until you have it completed. And if you have an old ugly house filled with the sin of separation from God, filled with all of the poisons that you put into your system, that you clean it out and you make something beautiful for God.

I don’t know if I can remember the total story, but I have told it before, about a very wealthy man who took his wife and his servant to a master, asking that all of them become his disciples. So the master went inside of himself for a few moments and communed with God, and he came out and he said, “Well, we shall see. I would like to give all of you a test. I’m going to give each of you a banana, and I want you to go someplace where you are completely hidden from God and eat it, and then return to me. And the one that satisfies my test will be the one that I will accept as a disciple.”

So they thought that was very easy. The servant took his banana and he went in a closet and ate it. The closet door was closed. He was in total darkness. Surely, God couldn’t see him there. And the man went out and he found a house which was vacant. He went inside. There was no one around. He looked outside, all over the woods that surrounded it; He was not there. No one was there. So he ate his banana.

Both returned to the master, and the master said, “Oh my. Have you found a place where you can hide from God so easily?”

“Oh yes.” They were sure they hadn’t been seen.

But time passed, and the woman, the wife of the man, had not returned. They waited for her all day long. Finally, toward evening, she returned—weary, bedraggled, absolutely exhausted, and her banana still in her hand. And she said, “I am sorry, my lord. I went all over, but no place could I find where God could not see me.” She said, “I went into a house, but I felt His Presence there. I went into a closet,” and she said, “still, in the darkness of the closet I found His light. I went into the forest and I could feel His Presence all around me, and I could hear Him chirping from the birds. I could hear the rustle of the leaves. I could hear His life in every part of creation. I saw His sun which He had created, shining down upon me. I could feel the breezes. Everything, every place I went, God was there. I could not hide from Him. So I have returned to you to tell you that I have failed.”

So the master took her hand and looked at her with great love. He said, “My child, you alone have met the test.” And he turned to her husband and to the servant and he said, “You may take her as your spiritual teacher, your guru, because she alone knows that God is everywhere equally present.”

And so it is. You cannot hide from Him.

Why do you not make God the foundation of your lives? Why do you not stop the quarreling, the bickering, the hatred, the gossip, the putting yourself forth, the feeling put down if somebody doesn’t do everything just the way you think they should in order to make you comfortable and happy? Why do you think that your way is always right and everybody else is wrong, putting the blame on someone else when you have so much work to do within yourselves? Why?

If everybody were to look just to the building of their own temple, the house of the Lord, and make it into a thing of wonder and beauty, then all of the tomorrows would turn out beautifully. You would find success, but you would not be attached to it at all.

I found another Bible passage, from Jeremiah:

23 Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?

24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.

And this is true. There is no place we can go and hide from God, not any place. And it is said that the Guru is God that has come in human form to make you realize who and what you are in God; to take you out of the little self, the deceitful, the “vile creature,” as the human ego is called, into the wonder and the beauty of your Christhood.

There was once a saint who was so wonderful, so beautiful, that God flowed from him just as the stars give light and the flowers give fragrance from their being. If there was one thing about him that you could really pin down, it was that constantly he gave and he forgave. So the angels, seeing that he was the way he was, couldn’t quite understand it, but they thought so highly of him that they wanted to come to earth and give him a miracle. They wanted to find out what he wanted. So they appeared to him and they started praising him for all his works.

He said, “But I have done nothing.”

They said, “Well, we feel that you have. We want to ask God to give you a miracle. Do you want to heal the sick?”

He said, “No. That is God’s prerogative. That is God’s prerogative.”

He said, “Do you want to lead men out of the darkness into the light, so that they will raise their eyes to the heavens?”

“No,” he said. “That is the work of the angels.”

So they said, “Do you want to be a model of patience so that all men of virtue, so that all men may know that God is within you, and thereby inspire them?”

“No,” he said. “I do not wish to do that because if I had that gift,” he said, “then they would think of me and not of God.” (What humility.)

So they said, “What do you want?”

“Well, if there’s one thing,” he said, “that I want, it is that God might give me grace. If I have God’s grace, do I not have everything?”

The angels still weren’t satisfied, so they went to God and they talked to Him about it. And God said “What does he want?”

“Well, he doesn’t want anything.”

He said, “Well, go back and ask him again.”

So they went back and they said, “If you do not tell us what miracle you want, a miracle will be forced upon you.”

So he said, “Alright. If I can have anything that I want, I would want that I would do a great deal of good without knowing anything about it.”

Now, what do you think of that? “I would do a great deal of good without anybody knowing anything about it.”

Still, the angels were not satisfied, so they decided that wherever he walked, when his shadow was behind him or on either side of him and he was not aware of it, that because he was as he was—so humble, so pure, so completely at one with God—that wherever he walked, that he would do good and his goodness was spread over the earth. So wherever the shadow of the saint fell, then arid deserts came into being and grass grew upon; dried-up streams were filled with water; children and men and women who were ill, were healed instantly. The grace of God descended upon them. Their whole lives were changed. And because of his unwillingness to be anything of himself, wanting only that God should be there and should be served, only He should be thought about, they even forgot his name, and they called him the Ghost, the Holy Ghost.

That’s beautiful. That is really beautiful—the Holy Ghost. Can you imagine, with the thoughts that are in your mind, and have been in the minds of all of us, with the deeds that we do, the words that we speak, if we had that total purity so greatly that wherever we went men would be healed and would lift their face of God? How wonderful it would be.

Is it not worthy, is it not worthwhile, to build a temple for God that way, to live a life in that temple that is pure, dedicated to Him alone; to give up all of the things that are harmful, that you have to cover up and hide and be deceitful about and lie about? Would it not be wonderful to be straight out, with no pretense, to have the courage to be your God-self, your Real Self, accountable to no man but only to God? Would you not feel a wonderful release from God?

You know, so many places in the Bible it speaks about the “fear of the Lord,” and people have taken that to be “afraid of Him.” But originally, that word meant, for fear, “awe- inspiring.” Awe-inspiring. God is so great that He inspires awe, not fear of Him, because He’s a loving Father. He wants to give us all of the good things of His heaven and of His earth, and instead, we have built a hell within His temple, and we never want to go to the heaven that we are assured is within ourselves.

If you put God first, if you give up all of the things that you are doing in secret, that you know very well are not for your good and in accordance with God’s law—if you clean out His temple, if you cast out the “money-changers,” the thought constantly of gain, of name, of fame, of money, and put instead only the thought of God, only the desire to serve Him—your whole lives will change, never to be the same again. Indeed, you will be gods, gods in human form, and how badly this is needed in this world at this present time—how badly.

When is it going to change? How is it going to change? How are we going to avert this terrible catastrophe that is all around us? We don’t have to wait for it; it’s happening if we do not change ourselves. Are we going to be swallowed up in the earth or are we going to be among those few that are so at one with God that they can sit in the half-lotus posture without breath, without being disturbed, without fear, with the mind completely withdrawn and absorbed upon God, and that the trouble will pass us by? And when it is all over, we will still be sitting, the forerunners of the new race, the “elect” that are going to build a new heaven and a new earth, not only on earth but in the earth of their own being.

Why do you think all of these things are happening? It is because man has so disobeyed the laws of God and of his own being that this is what is causing it. Man’s actions alone, inside and out, are causing all of the things that are upon us now. And they will never change until we change, until we sit down and make our blueprints, like the architect does, and decide how we are going to build a new temple for God. When we do that, we don’t need to have fear, we don’t need to worry.

I have no fear of death. I have been through it, and I am still here. And the wonderful thing is, you see, that God built my temple, your temple, this “temple not made with hands,” and He Himself is the Sole Dweller in it. And God cannot die, because He existed before He put forth life from Himself, before He created one thing, or expressed that which was within Himself is a better way of putting it. He existed, and He will exist for all eternity; otherwise, He could not be Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Everlasting, Eternal, and all the rest of it, which we are taught that He is.

Let’s wake up to what the Bible really says! Let us know that it is written in parables and let us know that we must get rid of this vile creature within ourselves and bring forth the living Christ.

Do you think you will be deprived? You will have so much wealth of the Spirit that any little thing that you need will be given to you just like that. [Mother snaps her fingers.] Ask me. I know. And yet, I want nothing but Him. I want nothing but to serve Him. He is my boss and I will do only what He directs me to do. I don’t care what anybody plans for me or wants me to do: Whatever my Lord says, that I will do. Whatever the cost to myself, I will do.

You cannot withdraw from life, but you must go forth and put forth the life of God. You must light your candle and put it on a hilltop so that every man passing by will see that light of God and reach out for it and try to light his own candle for the Lord. When you have accomplished that—and most of us have a long way to go, but yet nowhere because God is within us—when you have accomplished this, you will find that you live a life of wonder, of beauty, of fulfillment, that you will have everything you ever dreamed of, and more.

But as long as you keep yourself in bondage, then you will not respect yourself, and men will not respect you, and you will never reach your goal. And even that which you get, in the outer sense, will crumble before you because it will be eaten up in the world cataclysm that will take place. But the man of God will stand straight and tall, and regardless of whether the body goes or not, he will still live, he will still have a life. And that light will continue to shine and will take on a new form because it will be a light of the everlasting God who is within each of us and everywhere equally present.