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To Those Who Have Surveyed the Summits of the World:
The happiness that one feels when the flow of one's energy is toward the straightforward purpose is an expression of universal harmony. As men seek to understand their own being, they must see that God has implanted his purpose within them as within nature. Each seed bears after its kind, each creature expresses according to its own inherent pattern. As man is a free agent, he should also hold understanding of the meaning of freedom in his exercise of free will.
Each man's culture is dominated by the patterns that lie deep within his subconscious being. Frequently men say that they do not understand themselves. They do not know why they act as they do. It is not possible for them to open the doorway of consciousness, to roam the corridors of memory and see each habit in its development, and then to weed out each undesirable thought. There is a better way, and that way is the saturation of the consciousness with the flame of cosmic worth.
The old statement "Our God is a consuming fire"1 is a source of great comfort to those who understand it, for the divine image is truly ablaze with benign activity. The pulsations, or risings, of the sacred fire, in all of their naturalness, convey the essence of the higher consciousness. These deactivate all malintent that may be locked within the subconscious world of the individual, and they create and re-create in his total consciousness the most outstanding designs2 reflecting cosmic law. Such patterns enable the individual who accepts them and uses the higher consciousness they convey to be completely free and yet to remain under the dominion of his Divine Self.
This so-called overshadowing of the human consciousness by the Divine, when it is accompanied by the correct use of the flames of God, will magnetize the sense of reality that in the innocence of childhood was realized by many men embodied on earth today. The passing of the flames through one's consciousness above and below, that is, in the conscious and subconscious minds, is a ritual that has been practiced for centuries by devotees of the mind of God.
We trust that you will understand that each Pearl in our series is intended as a specific for one of the forms of the universal disease of unhappiness. For through creating in consciousness a correct understanding of the self and then outlining methods of overcoming the undesirable qualities that have been inextricably conjoined with the self, the symptoms of unhappiness can be alleviated.
We plead, then, for a return to that state of holy innocence which has no need to defend itself against a host of enemies. It is not that we would deactivate those defenses that are necessary to the maintenance of one's spiritual life or the protection of one's family. But we ask you to set them aside temporarily during your periods of study in order that your consciousness may enter once again into the happy state it once knew before its nature was warped by the opinions and verdicts of men that are based on a hard view of the world and its people.
Ask yourselves why men have developed this hard view. Our answer in part would be, What they have received many of them have also given out. Yet not all. Those who have given harshness to the world and then have received it as recompense are often the first to chafe at the bit of their own energy as it returns for redemption.
They want to be free from responsibility. They want to feel that they have the privilege of damaging other parts of life and of expressing an immense dislike of the very life principles - such as the quality of mercy - which in moments of stress they expect to assuage their own existence. What they think to accomplish by stressing their own importance through destroying the self-respect of others remains a mystery to many.
By contrast, the great teachers who have walked the earth have again and again showed men how to live. Their instructions have been simple. They have taught men not to hate but to love. These admonishments were for the most part accepted by those who heard them; yet when the first tests came, it was as though they had never been schooled in the righteousness of God. Struck with self-righteous indignation at the ignorant acts of untutored souls, they hurled wounding arrows from the bow of emotion and then stepped gingerly over the bodies of those whom they felled. Such reactions are unnecessary in the life of the man of God. He can walk the earth and maintain not only a graceful dignity and God-control, but also the correct attitude toward every part of life.
Attitude is all-important, for it is like a screen through which the ingredients of life are pressed. What comes out as the individual's life is molded by his attitude. Therefore it is utterly important that every follower of truth understand the folly of patterning his life after human conduct. Instead he should recognize the peace that passeth understanding3 which comes when he kisses the hands and feet of the law of God as his saviour. For the law leads men to life eternal. The law frees the consciousness from the dregs of darkness that have taken hold of it.
We dare not eliminate the tares without realizing that if we do so prematurely, we may also uproot the benign and helpful aspects of human nature.4 The safest way is the way of using the flames of God, but the knowledge of just what the flames are is seldom realized by men; and when we speak of them they are often puzzled.5 Let us say again, then, that there is a natural order and universe and there is a spiritual order and universe. The glory of the terrestrial is one, and the glory of the celestial is another.6 The flames of God are of the spiritual order; and these, by the grace of God, penetrate the natural order with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.7
The experiences of the devotee who loves the truth enough to search it out will help him to understand that the qualities of God are inherent within the spiritual order and that although these qualities penetrate the material order, they do not originate in it. It is in the correct understanding of Matter in its relationship to Spirit, therefore, that men become enlightened.8 To understand oneself as a spiritual-material being is to apprehend one's relationship to others. To understand the need to purify one's consciousness insofar as it has taken on a limited, self-centered view of existence is to apprehend one's relationship to Life as a whole.
The reception of the consciousness of God as though one's physical form, one's mind, and one's consciousness were wholly permeated by the fire [energy] of creation will produce in one's total being the Godly estate that is desired. It is this estate which, when harbored within, casts out the darkening proclivities of the mortal consciousness and replaces them by the stern yet joyous awareness, the vital yet penetrating hope of the infinite mind of God as it descends into the finite world.
After all, it is the Christ mind that is the divine armor against the insidious forces that lurk within the individual's `electronic belt'. This so-called belt is positioned in the aura of the individual around the lower portion of the physical form; it extends from the waist to beneath the feet, somewhat in the shape of a large kettledrum, and contains the aggregate records of his negative human thoughts and feelings.
Man is transported out of the confines of his mortal sense into spiritual realms of thought when he contacts the vital flames of the very essence of the Creator's consciousness. The desire to be transported out of the realm of the ordinary is tantamount to invocation; but when men also express a willingness to be decontaminated of all undesirable qualities, they open the floodgates of their consciousness to the light, which then rushes in to expurgate all unwanted vibratory actions.
Beneath the surface calm there lies within the consciousness of men much that is undesirable, much that represents the polarization of imperfection during near and distant epochs of personal history. To cast out the enemy within by invoking the sacred fire is a necessary process. When this is done, transmutation takes place and the energies that have been imprisoned in matrices of imperfect thought and feeling are released. Immediately after having been dislodged from the electronic belt and purified by the flames of God, these energies ascend to the causal body of man which is the repository of all good that has ever been externalized by the individual.
Just as the electronic belt bears the record of human infamy, so the causal body bears witness to all true creativity. The causal body, then, is of the spiritual order and universe and the electronic belt is of the natural order and universe. The glory of the celestial body is in the overcoming of the body terrestrial. In the words of Saint Paul: "It [the terrestrial body] is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."9
The wisdom of God "is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits."10 The tenderness of the Divine is a boon of great comfort, and the faith which men express in a childlike manner assists them in finding freedom from the darkness that hides in the self. May wisdom lead you into light and light into God-happiness.
[The preceding text is taken from the book version, Understanding Yourself.]