The Eternal Moment

This is a time for rededication, it is a time to live up to your spiritual height. Do all you can to keep from negative excitements; rather be open to quiet, powerful faith. Indeed, it is through your silences that the flaming powers press. It is difficult with our limitations and the human scale to comprehend the majesty of the spiritual power within; it is a faculty to make the instant flaming, and these holy immeasurable powers are only trusted to you when you are universal, selfless. Lay down anxiety, lay down impatience, lay down frustration, clear the heart and seek first the kingdom of spirit within you.

I cannot tell you how to take yourself in hand for that mental and spiritual discipline is the part man himself must play in seeking the divine. But you can keep a retreat like a pool in the rapids, or, better yet, be like the iceberg which is seven-tenths underwater. When you learn that seven tenths of you must be still and calm and in control, while three-tenths of you is in active life— and not the other way around— you will have some conception of the grandeur of the attempt you are making.

It is like a remembrance of what is yours. May I say here that the mind cannot remember easily when it is full of criticism; you cannot afford to take umbrage, to have prejudices, nor hold in those violent human emotions which flare up in human contacts. Let them go and dwell in the source of all love; infinite love. You may have heard the word infinite before, but very often it has been pinched down into a meaningless term. But when you do get the savor of it, “love” following after, is revealed to you in its full sense. Then the power of God Omniscient becomes yours. Prepape yourselves to become sons of God, rise to your full height and live the most of your life in spirit while in the material world.

Say, “There is no measured time at this place, no future, neither is there a past. I am in the eternal moment, the limitless, infinite now. My Indwelling Spirit is deathless, immortal, and through it I am in touch with all wisdom, all beauty, all goodness. In this eternal now I rest sustained, supported, comforted.” All is contained in the present, eternal, moment.

See your appointed position in the great concept, in this eternal moment; for you are bigger than the limitless ocean, or the planet, or the planetary system, or things past or things to come. Carry in august stillness your soul as you are carried about by your body with all its weaknesses and tendencies that lead to oblivion. Awake to your eternal moment.

Restated from Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood • 1948

• • •

The hope of a better nation— a better world—
is bound up in the progress and enlightenment of the individual.

• • •

Tending Your Garden

IT IS DIFFICULT to fully understand what actually happens when you place a new thought, a sun-thought, in the galaxy of thoughts which makes up your identity; especially powerful ones as you might have been given. You do not take, as it were, a new concept in your hands, place it in the midst of the familiar galaxy and expect a sudden radiance, an immediate change; although we should not forget that instant revelation and realization have come to some of the great ones who have walked this way. No, like all good things this work begins humbly. It is like planting a seed that grows and grows for a time in the dark. Ideas that have been given you in your communions are in movement, and as they grow larger they push out into oblivion the older ideas which were foolish and out of proportion. This is difficult to put into words, but it may help you not to be too introspective.

When you meditate or abide in your quiet times of communion, you do not charge in and do something, like “I will now be good and move mountains by my act of faith.” No, you water your garden, and trust knowing these ideas are growing into a divine garden; the Indwelling Spirit does the work, not you; you merely water it. Do you see the comfort in that? I can tell you in simple language that a very gentle, calm, unemotional selfless, and patient attitude toward your spiritual growth is essential— such as all old gardeners know. We know that patience, hoeing, watering, weeding, and a certain order, a quiet rhythm, brings a birth of heavenly beauty.

How to do this in your particular and demanding tempo, is difficult; but, in simple language, here are some suggestions.

In the morning I sit down to breakfast and eat my food; it’s a voluntary action. I don’t think about what is happening, but strength is being given to me, life is being sustained, a great miracle has actually taken place. In the same way, our words and thoughts are transmuted, for the food we give our mind also becomes flesh as well as part of our identity as an individual. Our part is our acceptance or rejection, and what we accept becomes a growth of some kind in our garden. But let’s go further and see how we can use these everyday things to help us to greater awareness of the abiding Presence in our lives, to help us to dominion over our earth-consciousness. Let’s not only recognize that we find an analogy in our earthly life, but let’s use each thing that comes as a reminder.

In this rebirth into self-conscious realization of our godhood, take the common simple actions and make them follow the same law— but on a higher plane. I eat and drink in remembrance of him eternally alive in me; it is a profound communion and a great practical help. As you eat the bread of life spiritually with the bread materially, your inspiration will strengthen you for the day. As I said, this is a simple lesson, for what is needed is for you to keep in contact with the Spirit; to make the habit of doing so. And you will change by forming the habit of tenderness toward common things, the habit of communing and bringing down into everyday actions a spiritual grace.

Everything you touch, like the warmth of an open fire, is an outward and visible witness of the spiritual law. Water is the source of life; it is a spiritual symbol. Bathe in water as you would in spirit. Let the shock of it on your skin be a reminder of your contact with the invisible faith within you. Use your imagination and be like the great artists of all time, who took the humble, simple things close to them and transfigured them— and themselves. For spiritual awakening allies you to the great poets and artists. Such is the wonder and the grandeur of the spirit, its creative and transforming beauty.

Gradually these ideas, these thoughts that have entered through your spiritual heart will grow as involuntarily as the food you eat is taken care of without effort, and the inner you will manifest so gently that as you go into the world, your feet will be led to walk beside the watered garden of your own making. Illumine the common things, and you will fill your skies with stars. Go, seeking goodness, and you will find it; seek beauty, and it will be upon your face. Thus will you walk the glorious way, using the common elements of daily life as rods and staffs. Nothing is too small for your consideration and for your use.

So. Remember: “Do this in remembrance of me.” Do all things in remembrance of him— and remember your way into illumination.

Restated from Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood 1948

• • •

The hope of a better nation— a better world—
is bound up in the progress and enlightenment of the individual.

• • •

Surrendering To Love

YOU HAVE UNDERTAKEN THE GREAT ADVENTURE of becoming sons of God, and you have to go through a sort of untangling to reach this place of communion and awareness. Be assured that your sole duty is to go within and dissolve by releasing the outer entanglements, to surrender appetites and forebodings.

The question of appetites is different for each one, both physical and mental; nor must there be resentment and the old sense of duty in the surrender; it is rather permitting a joyful conviction to grow that there is something infinitely more satisfying.

Of course thee will be conflicts. Who isn’t familiar with the reasonable— very reasonable— arguments that come rushing to justify the very human desires of the mind and body? They must be met with as much gentleness toward yourself as you would meet them when trying to help another, otherwise your instant rebellion will obstruct and delay you.

But in the true spirit of surrender, the giving up of everything that has become a burden is little effort and the reward is instant; all things in this state work for your good. And not the old idea of good which was a scourge; but the “goodness which is a rapture.”

Let your heart be at peace in this serene and healing place, for here the Christ will refresh you, here he will lift the heavy burden from your minds and in your hearts he will breathe renewed joy and quietude. Have faith in practice.

In spite of the teachings of Jesus we have been taught to hate evil, but that only justifies the more our complete satisfaction in criticism. In such emotional criticism of our friends and enemies we appear better people to ourselves. It is not the way.

Instead of freedom, we bind the consequences of poisonous hates and resentments to ourselves. We can turn from abstract evil without harm and with a sense of human righteousness. But the human does not hate evil disincarnate, he hates it in a person. Then we ask, “How can I love my enemies?” It would be plain hypocrisy to say we can, or must, do this in the ordinary sense of the word. But the true meaning will appear to you when we say that the outer you cannot love the outer you of another who lives and has his being in the ancient darkness of the race.

Instead, come within and while abiding in the conscious oneness with your inner self see and bless with understanding the inner you of that enemy whose outer you is struggling with the dark jungles of his journey, and by thus releasing him, forgiving him, giving him over, you help him on his way. This is loving your enemy, this is the brotherhood of man. And there is no sentimentality about it; for only by abiding in the Indwelling Spirit can you have this so-called human wisdom as well as the divine wisdom to deal with him according to his needs as well as your own.

You may have to put him in prison, but watch your heart in the matter, for out of it are the issues of life! In times of fierce antagonism realize that the enemy is angry thought; fill yourself, without thought of any person, with a sense of infinite love and peace, for thus are the negative things confounded and a table will be set before you in the presence of your enemies.

Give freely of the Spirit and judge not; be longsuffering and patient, for when you are kind with the kindness of the Spirit to those who are unregenerate, the act frees your own unregeneracy as well. Blessed is he that sees and understands and forgives. Forgive and be forgiven the trespasses, the darknesses, the things negative which terrify. They are forgotten in this high clear stillness. Love conquereth all things.

Restated from Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood • 1948

• • •

The hope of a better nation— a better world—
is bound up in the progress and enlightenment of the individual.

• • •

Evolutionary religion— the various religions of man— first provides the assurance of faith, and eventually the confirmation of conscience. The next, and progressive phase of the experience of religion, has to do with continuous spiritual growth— achieving an increasingly higher spiritual state. Revelatory religion provides the assurance of faith, plus the truth of a living experience in the realities of revelation. Increasingly in this progression the truths of revealed religion are expanded, and increasingly we come to know the truth of supreme values, divine goodness, universal relationships, eternal realities, and ultimate destinies.

Evolved religion rests wholly on faith. Revelation has the additional assurance of an expanded presentation of the truths of divinity and reality, and the still more valuable testimony of the actual experience which accumulates in consequence of the practical working union of the faith of evolution and the truth of revelation. Such a working union of human faith and divine truth constitutes the possession of a character clearly on the road to the actual acquirement of a spiritualizing personality.

Revelation unfailingly enlarges the ethical horizon of evolved religion, while it simultaneously and unfailingly expands the moral obligations of all prior revelations. But their are obligations consequent upon the illumination of epochal revelation. Revelation makes such a profound impression upon a person’s moral nature that they finally reach that place of mind and that attitude of soul where they freely conclude that they have no right not to believe in God.

The FACT of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of rational and average human beings. And this is the ONLY sense religion can be regarded as scientific, or even psychological. The proof that revelation is revelation, is this same fact of human experience: the fact that revelation synthesizes the apparently divergent sciences of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe philosophy— a coordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and religion— thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which answers the questionings of the mortal mind, which craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds, and on spirit.

Revelation compensates for the absence of a higher spiritual viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity in the comprehension of the reality and relationships of matter and spirit by the mediation of mind. But true revelation never renders science unnatural, religion unreasonable, or philosophy illogical.

Revelation is a compensation for the many frailties of an evolving philosophy. Theology deals with the intellectual content of religion; revelation deals with the philosophic aspects. Religious experience is the spiritual content of religion. Notwithstanding the mythologic vagaries and the psychologic illusions of the intellectual content of religion— the metaphysical assumptions of error, and the various techniques of self-deception, the political distortions and the socioeconomic perversions of the philosophic content of religion— the spiritual experience of personal religion remains genuine, and valid.

Reason, through the study of science, may lead one back through nature to a First Cause, but it still requires religious faith to transform the First Cause of science into a God of salvation; and revelation is further required for the actual validation of such a spiritual insight.

Finally, Revelation teaches us that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, we should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical, but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals, that the Indwelling Spirit dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for association in the finite mind that will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth— universal truth. The coordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character— the prerequisite for your personal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the worlds to come.