THE IMPERSONAL WORK

IN THIS Department will be included teachings and truths for more ad- vanced students, especially for those who have received the monthly lessons in the sixty-five issued Papers.

Some of our readers perhaps may not be able to grasp these truths, but we urge if so that they reserve them for future study and consid- eration, as they will contain matter of vital moment to the soul, when it is grown ready to receive and use it as intended.

PREPARATION FOR INNER WORK

“MY FATHER worketh hitherto and I work.” So said our Great Exemplar—“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” Let us in meditation ponder on how the Father works—“As above, so below.” In prayer and contemplation let us open ourselves wide to some perception of how the Father works. Let us imagine—image—how this may be. Pondering, dwelling, remaining in this awareness—the possibility of performing in miniature a similar creative function in our outer world of manifestation will dawn upon us. So we too may work together with the Father.

First let us begin with our own unregenerate nature, and then with our circumstances in home-life or in business. In these preparatory and purgative realms, let us create and outmanifest a miniature Kingdom of Heaven. Having been faithful over a few things, the door of opportunity will open whereby we may become rulers over many things, in the wider spheres of our com- munity, our country and the world. But none may hope for the wider dominion who has not first laboured faithfully and prayer- fully and to some extent begun to win the victory over his own composite nature, viz: his body, his emotions and his mind. Every student, no matter who he is, and indeed every master, no matter how high his attainment—must tread, or has already trodden the same path, and every step of this path without avoidance.

THE WAY OUT and WAY BEYOND Courses were prepared by their Writer with a deep insight born of the recognition that there was no safe, swift flight into an enduring Christ Con- sciousness. He recognized that many Students do suddenly and often rapidly gain transcendant glimpses of the worlds of Light, but that such glimpses can only be regained and safely retained when the outer instruments of body, emotions and mind are dis- ciplined and attuned to that high vibration by obedience, training and self-control. Otherwise the instrument of the outer man is more liable than not to become arrogant, self-deluded, or even to fall by the way. The advancing Student today has reached the place where he may gain the expansion of Soul Consciousness in full awareness in his outer mind. But this is only possible and only actually happens when discipline and training have been faith- fully undertaken and fruitfully accomplished.

The Disciple must unceasingly cleanse himself in all bodies of his manifestation—daily be alert to that which hinders the pass- age of pure Spirit—that which deflects pure wisdom through the devious channels of unconscious ignorance or imperfect judg- ment. He must recognize that it is easy to mistake a “zeal not according to knowledge” for the divine afflatus of Spirit.

He will learn that devotion and enthusiasm and zeal are not enough. He must KNOW HIMSELF, and detect in his personal make-up that which may misinterpret or distort or stain the white radiance of Infinite Truth. This is what is meant by surrender.

“Surprising is the result of an honest search for the hindrances to spiritual growth . . . Uproot in consciousness all impeding sub- stances, be they great or small, thus making life a progress from glory to glory.”

There are many ways in which Inner Work may be and is al- ready being accomplished, dependent on the extent to which the Disciple is coordinated with and obedient to the indwelling Christ. But right now there is, as never before, an urgent need that such workers, individually and collectively, should be “instant in prayer and meditation” for this trouble-wracked world.

As phases of the rapid change of alignment of forces on this earth present themselves, let the earnest Disciple first of all divest himself of all outer mind, opinions, or possible prejudices, laying these aside, as “the shoes from off his feet,” and so prepare to enter the Holy of Holies. Laying aside all vagrant thought or personal emotion of any kind, let him see himself as a radiating center of the Light which is the Life of men. Let him accept full-heartedly Jesus’ words “YE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.” Let him then turn towards the selected problem, knowing without a shadow of questioning that he, himself, is a beacon light shedding the Will, Wisdom and Love of God on the problem. Let him pour in all the vitality of his devotion, aspira- tion and love for humanity, knowing that where this Light of Truth enters there righteousness, justice and good will on earth are brought into manifestation and the phantoms of injustice, hatred, evil intent, vanish. Let him consider for a moment the power of mere physical light turned on in a dark room. Let him, by the use of his imagination, stir his faith and ardor in recogni- tion of the stupendous power available when the light of Spiritual Wisdom is turned on a problem. Let him realize that in a flash of thought, unknown and unseen, he may stand in the counsel chambers of the great of this earth, at-one with God. He may uphold every effort towards the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. However, let him remember that true and potent power lies alone in selfless love and in complete Imperson- ality which means that momentarily, at least, he must cease from judgment of right and wrong. He must stand above the pairs of opposites and allow the Light of Truth to make its own adjustments in the affairs of men.

EARTH SICKNESS

IT MAY be perceived that what we call the Earth, is but a great mass of consciousness, consisting of every phase of being, from the mineral state of consciousness, up through the animal and human, on into the etheric, astral and mental states.

Everyone who has done any thinking knows that what makes the mineral state is its slowed-down and very dense vibration; the animal a more quickened and forceful vibration; the human a higher and a “self conscious” vibration. While water, fire, air, the etheric, astral and mental states, all have their own distinctive vibration, each definitely in evidence on its own plane of con- sciousness.

Science has admitted that minerals have life, and their chemical reactions to each other indicate they have intelligence, which of course is evidence of consciousness. Therefore we can see that the consciousness that is in all the different kingdoms of matter that comprise our Mother Earth is inextricably interrelated; in fact, it is the same consciousness merely active on its different planes of expression—mineral, vegetable, animal, human, etc.

It can be likened to the consciousness of man, whose con- sciousness, as we have shown, is really the soul of man; but it acts by directing the life expression of the minerals in the bones and teeth; of the vegetable nature in the nails, hair, eyes and ligaments; and of the animal nature in the flesh and blood by directing the life expression of all of them through the human mind—the soul’s outer reflection.

Can we say that the soul of the Earth does not act in a similar manner? Let us show you how it must so act. First let us realize that the Earth, and all that is a part of it, is an entity, just as a man is an entity. That means the physical part of the Earth must be the body of that entity, and that the humanity upon it must be its brain. The soul of the entity must then direct the life expression of all the different elements in its body through the soul’s outer reflection, the mind of humanity.

Therefore, whatever is the dominant consciousness in the mind of humanity is bound to affect and influence the consciousness of the cells in different parts of the Earth’s body; even as the dominant consciousness in a man’s mind is bound to affect and influence the consciousness of the cells in the different organs of his body. “As a man thinks, so is he,” applies as well to what humanity as a whole thinks.

It is generally known by Truth students, metaphysicians, and by many doctors, that thinking untrue thoughts about life, one’s self, God and things in general, feeding those thoughts with fear, worries, anger, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, condemnation, etc., or, in other words, thoughts and feelings always centered around self, wholly regardless of others’ feelings, inevitably cause in- harmony, sickness or disease of one kind or another in some part of the body, as well as in the general condition of the one so thinking.

In like manner must such thinking on the part of the bulk of humanity result in inharmony, sickness or disease in one form or another in some part of its body—the Earth.

There is no question but what our old Mother Earth has been very sick during the past quarter of a century. What with the great war of 1914-18, the numerous earthquakes, volcanic erup- tions, tornadoes, and now this great depression which she is feeling, it seems as if she has come down so low that the crisis of the disease has been reached. And nearly all her doctors fear for her recovery.

It is not difficult to trace in the different symptoms what the disease is, from which she is suffering. What was the great war but the breaking out in great festering sores of the bad blood caused by the poison of selfishness and greed eating its way into her most vital organs—the various nations. What are the earth- quakes but the quakings of her soul at the evil thinking and actions of her humanity caused by its ungoverned selfishness? What are the volcanic eruptions but the poison of selfishness accumulating in enormous carbuncles and then bursting through earth’s nature trying to free itself of this poison? Are not tornadoes the forces of the unbridled passions of certain sections of humanity running amuck? And what is this depression but the soul’s giving up all hope of life—of recovery, apparently thinking the Spirit is about to depart because of such universal selfishness, and that Spiritual death must result?

But it remains to be seen what will be the outcome. Even as in the case of a man, sickness in humanity is caused by the battle between the forces of good and evil ever struggling for possession of the soul of the consciousness. And we know that good always prevails in the end.

Therefore those who have eyes to see, look not at the symptoms or what appears in the outer, except to determine how near the disease has run its course, knowing that the Life within is doing everything possible to throw off the impurities that have been be- fouling Its expression.

And they also know that Life is now being aided by certain faculties of the soul of humanity or certain Groups of powerful Spiritual Workers—that are now able consciously to co-operate with the Life within, and that will soon rid the consciousness, which means the whole earth body, forever, of all hindering influences.

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