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To All Who See the Holy Spirit as the Bearer of Truth,
The truth that frees scatters the chaff of human reason, revealing the perfectly formed matrix of the Eternal God for every individualized life manifestation. Let the souls of men welcome, then, their much needed scourging as the balm of Gilead, as a sweet anointing, as the bearer of glad tidings; for, whereas humanity seek for earthly comfort, those mighty sinuous men, that we would call the heroes of love, have one and all recognized their strength as coming from the chastening of spiritual realms.
There are no worldly explanations for the many miracles occurring even now in the daily lives of men - miracles that speak of divine care and consideration for every part of life. Let us summon, then, the classic culture of the elder gods of the race, of the historical, spiritual progenitors who, acting under the unity of the Almighty, have been his hands and his feet, and the mouth of his counsels. When he wrote, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night,"1 the psalmist of old described these sponsors of mankind's divinity. To them the law of the Lord was revealed as a brilliant thread of truth whose presence, whether delicately intertwined or simply woven, could always be felt in the garment of the Lord.
We deal, then, with sensitivity. All men are not equally sensitive to the ministrations of the Holy Spirit; for all have not exercised their spiritual senses with diligence and gratitude for blessings felt but not seen. The natural unfoldment of the sevenfold temple of God-magnificence reveals the true being of man; twinkling as a diadem of reality and skillfully placed within the microcosm of the physical body, this temple is a starry doorway into the boundless reaches of cosmos. Man is not intended to be just an eye of perception or a compilation of senses fixed in space, gazing upon the panorama of universal existence. Man is intended to enter in to that spiritual experience that, in making him one with God, shows him the cosmic synthesis of truth and reality, blended by the Holy Spirit into the fabric of Allness.
Then man does not perceive the cloud: he is the cloud. Man is not just one cloud: he is all clouds everywhere, drifting in the movement of the Lord's Spirit. He is at once the tapestry and the living awareness of spiral nebulae, stars, worlds in birth and worlds awaiting rebirth in cycles ending. Man is terrestrial, he is also celestial. Man is earthy, he is also heavenly. The devotee sees the stairs leading to the stars as necessary for the ascent; but when they are no longer needed, he perceives them rolling up as a scroll, often leaving no trace of the ascending one or of his pathway. "Where are they gone?" men cry, when loved ones disappear from view. The scriptures reveal, "The wind bloweth where it listeth ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit."2
Therefore, as man develops the Christ consciousness, he finds his feelings of reality increasing in all that he does. He is not robbed of life because he gives himself to the Deity, to the Spirit of life; for each sweet surrender is a movement of cosmic gain as the soul joins the march of the legions of light in the rhythm of planetary progress. Does he die unto the world? The Christ in him is born and reborn each day. And with what skill the angelic hosts weave the threads of contact between cosmic and planetary realms, lowering ladders of light upon which a trusting humanity may safely climb and move swiftly through all astral densities to escape into the purity of the etheric realm.
Man's role as an instrument of the Holy Spirit should be clearly perceived as a spiritual responsibility to manage the energies of life entrusted to his care. The world of form certified, "as below," is also a world whose potential should be recognized as the perfection of the world "above"; for the microcosmic world of Matter, form, and substance in which man lives and moves and has his being is intended to be a schoolroom where the joy of self-mastery can be experienced. But true spiritual experience can come only through contact with the macrocosmic world of Spirit, and this interchange between the Macrocosm and the microcosm of man's being is dependent almost entirely upon the development of one's spiritual faculties.
The untested, untried chela, who sits upon the mountain place meditating upon the perfection of God, might descend from his lofty position into the world only to find that he would scarcely survive the first test that came his way. Now, we do not say that retreat is not sometimes necessary; but we do implore the students of the light to comprehend the fact that the tests of life are given to them in order that they might first overcome the world and then retire to the mountains under the starry radiance of God, preferring this place to all others.
As long as mankind are attached by desire to the things of the world, the things of the Holy Spirit may seem as foolishness unto them. But when, through the testing experiences of life, they come to realize the emptiness of the dream that is without God, the search becomes for them one that is valid. Each step attained is then recognized as a striving toward the perfect hope of God for every creature.
With what love, what all-enfolding love, God has surrounded the universe. Why is it, then, that humanity does not recognize that his spiritual senses, like the sharpest swords of the finest steel, must be kept untarnished and radiantly sharp? If the cutting edge is lost, if the senses of the Spirit become dulled through continual involvement in the psychic battle between human wills and human desires, how can humanity find their freedom?
Hence, when individuals first begin to hear of the masters of wisdom, doubt sometimes fills their hearts. They doubt the chelas of the light, and they even doubt the messengers through whom we would speak because doubt is locked within themselves. This state of affairs is understandable, and we do not punish humanity for their doubts; for they are punished enough by them. What we yearn to do is to bring the comfort of the Holy Spirit into the lives of all men, that they may experience for themselves the tender, joyous, yet powerful reality of God.
He is ever giving himself to man. The law clearly states, "As you give, so shall your receive," and it applies not alone to the great giver, who will ultimately receive all that he gives out, but to man as well who must also learn to give that he may receive. When men give themselves to God, they shoot the arrow of self into the airy radiance of the realm of fulfillment. And God will answer, for the call compels the answer. But if it seem to man, as in the old poem, that "I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth, I knew not where,"3 then so be it, for the answer is in the call; and the arrow of the call will not return void to man unless his call be lacking in faith or direction.
Because he has wandered so long from the reality of God, the very law of love demands that man become engrossed in the search until he find, point by point, the lost and broken strands of his own wonderful reality. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the severed strands are once again united and the body of divine radiance that composes the invisible garment of the servant-son is once again placed before him as the means of his goalfittedness for a lifetime. If he is able first to perceive and then to accept these graces, the development of the Christ consciousness, the eschewing of evil, and the exaltation of hope will be accomplished in him as he exclaims:
I AM free!
I AM free from all mortal density.
I AM free from delusion, confusion, doubt,
and discouragement.
I AM exalted by the universal Spirit of the Christ.
I AM encouraged by the spiritual care for me
That manifests through the consciousness
of the Good Shepherd.
He has given his life for his sheep.
I see him everywhere,
In the bushes waving gently in the wind,
In the changing color of the sky,
In the rise and fall of hope alternating in anguish
As the sense of struggle seeks to drown
The rising radiance of the light
within the chalice of being.
I AM always one with God.
I AM content to live under the rod
Of the spiritual discipline of the Christ
And to overcome the world.
I AM determined not to be overcome by the world,
For he that lives within me
Is greater than he that is in the world.
I recognize the understanding that is given
To the greatest masters
and humble beginners alike.
I pray, O God, that this understanding
may be sufficient unto me,
That I may become as a little child
To receive the crumbs that fall from thy table
And to recognize them as seeds
of magnificent cosmic potential.
They are like tiny jewels from the earth,
Yet, like flowers, these spiritual gems unfold,
Become a cosmos radiant with hope for every person.
Where I AM thou art.
O God, I AM thyself,
Crown me with the delight of thy Law
In my inward parts and in my outer actions:
O Holy Spirit, deliver me!