¶DISCIPLINE
(Hatonn, August 14, 1983)
We would speak with you this evening about that which you may call discipline. Many and many are the sources and the messages which you may read or hear which are of an inspirational nature which express to you the perfection and the unity of the present moment. And many are the blissful moments that you may gain from taking in such beautiful and consoling thoughts. We would suggest that you make a practice of availing yourself of this idealism, this beauty, this vision of perfection and unity on a daily basis, not only through meditation but, insofar as you find it helpful, through inspirational works.
However, if you do seek truly, you will find that inspiration carries with it a mandate for action and it is that action which takes a discipline of the inner self. Such disciplines are not much understood in your culture. The discipline of the mind, the character, the personality is hardly recognized unless it bears substantial and obvious fruit in the social life and is, therefore, not much valued by the cultural web in which you find yourself experiencing the illusion at this time, However, without the discipline to take responsibility for what knowledge you have gained, you will find yourself on a treadmill and you will in the end be disillusioned, if you will excuse the pun, and you will consider that all the inspirational writings and speeches that you have heard are foolish and that there is no use in them.
When we speak to you of love and light and peace, we do not expect to do anything more than to inspire you to begin or to intensify your own efforts at seeking, that probing of the unknown which holds within it the treasure which you call the truth. And as you seek, you will find on your own a subjectively interwoven series of apparent truths. If you do not claim them as you discover them, they will escape you and you will have to discover them again and again and again. If you claim that which you know and begin the unending attempt to manifest within your being that which you have learned, then you shall proceed, and the penetration of the illusion which hides from you the true nature of love will be accelerated accordingly.
My friends, it is so easy to think that the feast, the love and the unity that you experience in moments of inspiration, will be a natural fruit of your attempting to manifest these qualities through your being. However, this is far from the truth. When you choose to seek the truth, you embark upon a very personal journey and one which will differ from person to person because of the unique nature of each being. Therefore, the first fruit of seeking may well be dissension. And the peace that you find will only be found at the end of a process of communication that may be very painful.
When you seek the truth, you are acting as a creature inspired by an ideal. You move according to the winds of your own particular needs and energies, and those closest to you, if they are also seeking, shall also be in motion. Perhaps you may look with dismay upon this first fruit of seeking and yet we say to you it is entirely necessary within third density to use the illusion in order to open communication to the level of spiritual verbalizations.
If you have a disagreement, count yourself blessed, for you may then use your manifested seeking to turn towards another self openly and fearlessly. Without seeking and grasping the principles of the discipline of the self, it is almost impossible to communicate clearly and with a minimum of bias. The chance to do so is precious indeed, and because success is so hard won, it is worth a great deal.
We come among you only as brothers and sisters and do not wish to add to your burdens. But we do challenge you to retain that fine sense of the ideal, that great seeking for the one original thought while gazing with a clear and careful eye upon each situation that seems to be quite out of keeping with all the effort and all the love you have given to that situation. Do not let your heart falter because there are great difficulties, minor disagreements, or poor feelings. Know that your third density is doing what you planned for it to do and now is your chance to use it wisely.
When you were a child, did your parents see fit to discipline you? How much more wise is your Higher Self which offers you disciplines? You are not weak to be patient or poor in heart to strive for cheerfulness. You are not failing your brother or your sister when you step back from a confrontation that would leave a brother on one side and a sister upon another and strive to reestablish by clear communication through dissension the final understanding that you are one being. If you have compassion, then you must seek discipline.
Take refreshment from all that you can. Drink deep in the glory and the beauty that is around you, but do not feel betrayed by apparent disharmony. Isn’t it just like you, each of you, seekers all, to plan for yourself some hard times, some rough knocks so that you might more clearly express your grasp of the truth and your penetration of all apparent separation? We give this instrument a vision it does not understand. This instrument sees the hammer descending upon the anvil and the rock breaking. We attempt to say to this instrument that that which is not tempered will break. Go through the fire of experience willingly, and be tempered a bit at a time, that with experience you may bend and learn and become stronger, and serve more and more that great ideal that you so cherish. On the surface the spiritual path seems poetic and dramatic and will attract many who will become weak-hearted. Know, my friends, that the spiritual path is for those who are tough and wish to become tougher. Perfect compassion involves an unbelievable personal discipline, for how in this great illusion can you naturally believe that all others are one with you?
¶THE WHIRLWIND
(Hatonn, November 1, 1981)
There was once a young woman whose talent with an instrument you call the violin was so great that all who knew her were aware that this young woman was truly remarkable. She had, in the early days of her childhood, been given a small instrument and had been given lessons by a teacher who was neither bad nor good, and this child prodigy learned so quickly that she soon out-stripped her teacher. There was no effort in her excellence. It flowed from her as a gift and it was as little thought of. As a young woman this entity had quickly achieved great fame and she traveled and played before great audiences and received applause and acclaim for this great gift which she had, yet she did not appreciate it, learn from it, nor think of it, for it had always been with her and there was no effort involved in her art.
One day she came to a city thinking that she was to play a certain violin concerto with the orchestra which had hired her. She was informed that her information was incorrect and that the orchestra had practiced a different piece, one which she did not know. It was a piece for a virtuoso and she had only hours to rehearse. The unfamiliar score stared at her like an enemy and she felt fear. She picked up her instrument and began to work as she had never worked. Each difficult place made her want to weep, for she had so little time to understand the music, so little time to understand the fingerings, so little time to grasp the scope and the feeling of the piece and to play the notes correctly. Much was expected of her by the audience which would surely come. Feverishly, desperately, she worked. Not once could she play the entire piece with no errors. The young woman’s time was up. She dressed; she came to the concert; she took her bows and stood before the full house.
The music which she had so feverishly practiced was jumbled in her head and yet she knew she must remember it. She had always made mistakes and yet she knew she must not, and all the faces looked expectantly towards her. The conductor lifted his baton and she played as she had never played before. If notes were missed they went by so quickly that the reviewer missed them, for the piece was played with passion and with feeling, and she went away knowing for the first time the experience of joy in her chosen part.
My friends, there are many, many times when in your experience those things about you flow easily. Gifts are given to you and you accept them thoughtlessly, for they are not hard-won. Then a whirlwind seems to hit you-a dilemma, a difficulty, an argument-and you begin to wonder why you must go through this experience. It is your chance for growth. In the situation where you are tried, where you are tested, you are also given a great opportunity and your response, no matter how flawed, will bring you joy if the response contains the best that you can give. It is good to experience the calm times, the quiet times, but to be taken by the whirlwind is a great privilege, one which is given to those in your illusion, that you may make the great choice to love and to be of service. How easy it is to be pleasant when there is no reason not to be. The world about you often seems to be calm. This is an illusion.
In your geographical location many are violent, many hungry, many in pain, many in the depths of sorrow and somehow you find your perceptions those of one led into a quiet cove. Use those times, my friends, in meditation, in appreciation of those things about you which you can so easily take for granted and when the whirlwind takes you, realize that this is most appropriate for those experiencing your density. This is the way that work is done within your understanding. This is the way your experience may be utilized to the utmost by your seeking consciousness. Know always that the whirlwind is of the Creator and it will place you safe once again in that quiet cove of calm where you may once again seek in meditation to understand and seek in the giving of yourself to express that understanding of love, for the whirlwind is the Creator.
Love is far beyond that which you think of as love. The characteristics of this great creative force include those characteristics of the whirlwind which ceaselessly beat against your life to aid you as you wish to be aided, to change you as you choose to change. Know trouble as your friend, for all things and all qualities are of the One Creator whose only wish for each is love. The ways of this love are many and varied, but all ways are love; all difficulties lead to calm, to light, to beauty. All the false images of your illusion lead to the one original thought which is the truth which you all seek.
¶SECURITY
(Latwii, June 12, 1983)
We do not mean to discourage you by suggesting that the concept which you call security is an illusion, but to seek that which does not exist is to chase the dream which evaporates upon the waking. Your illusion is constructed in such a way that that which you call security is often seen as a desirable goal and for those who seek such, there are most important lessons to be learned. For as we have previously stated, there are no mistakes; there is only learning. Within your illusion it would seem that if one could only pull together certain ingredients-the financial stability, the family and friends with secure and rewarding relationships, the recognition of peers, the path of traveling into the future which seems steady-then one could be secure. Yet, as the child upon the beach building the castle of sand, as one element is gathered for but a moment, another seems to slip away, as the waters of the illusion and the catalyst erode what seemed to be secure.
My friends, this is not an accident. As your attention becomes focused on those difficult situations, it becomes honed as the blade of a knife and becomes able to focus upon deeper and deeper aspects of the illusion, of the self, and of the journey through the illusion by the self. The catalyst of difficulty works as a file upon the blade, sharpening that attention that it might see deeper and cut further through the illusion to the center of the being of the self. The blade of the attention, then, reveals layer upon layer of the truer nature of the being. And each lesson is seen to contain two portions in polar reflection; that is, to know love, one may experience much anger; to know clarity there may be much confusion; to know patience, there may be much impatience. Therefore, when you are experiencing any of the polar emotions, look then in your meditations to the opposite which seeks to be known.
We feel that it is most helpful to suggest meditation for those times which are difficult. The limitation of the viewpoint is that which causes the distortion of the viewpoint to be experienced. If you can expand that point of viewing so that the unity of all creation is more available to your seeing, then you shall see with new eyes and those answers which have eluded you in your past shall appear to the new sight.
¶THE RAINBOW BEING
(Hatonn, October 25, 1981)
We speak of unity using water as a symbol because water is indeed a very appropriate symbol for the path that each of you, as drops of water, may understand himself to be taking as you seek the infinite sea of the creation. A drop of water may seem to be quite powerless and you as an individual may feel lacking or limited in some way in some situation. But water is continuous and is not separated from itself. It may fall in drops in service to the fruits of the earth, but as it gathers and moves towards the great oceans, does it not carve out mighty channels from sheer luck that men could not hew so well with all their might? Water is quiet, and yet when stirred can be the most mighty of avengers, changing physical landscapes in minutes. In your meditations, then, take each limitation and lack that you may feel that you have experienced, each disappointment that you feel in yourself or in others, and offer them up as drops of water, to see them dissolve in a pure, clear ocean of the Infinite Creator. Then, let the rainbow of sunlight, through this water, fill your heart and send you forth to serve the Creator, each in your own way and yet each a part of the great ocean of being. You are serving yourself, for all that you meet and all that you seek is yourself. If you love the ocean of the Creator, then, you will learn to love each drop of water, each apparently individualized portion of that ocean, yourself and all others, circumstances and times.
¶NOTES TO OUR READERS
Our thanks to those who transcribe our meditation tapes and make this newsletter possible.