Superior Index Go to the next: Chapter 44
Print Files: A4 Size.
What joy is contemplated by the many today as they reflect upon the passage of time and the binding-together of the historical pages into the Book of Life. The celebration of Thanksgiving has always held a fascination for those whose hearts hold dear their opportunity to praise the greater Source of abundance. What struggles occurred in the early colonial days in America and what struggles are occurring today in the emerging nations! How dearly won is the gift of freedom and how it ought to be cherished!
History seems to verify, although it does not justify, the fact that freedom as a goal looms large before the minds of men until they have attained it. But after it is won, when its enshrining should become of even greater import, the initial impetus seems to give way to self-seeking and the cult of success. In their search for personal freedom and personal happiness, those who are but the heirs of a freedom hard won often fail to capture the vision of their forebears and they permit the banner of freedom to be trampled in the dust as the universal rights which it symbolizes are eroded one by one from the screen of man's future opportunity.
This need not be - it could not be if men had caught the vision of the eternal principle of freedom. Therefore it is our wish today, mindful of the early colonists and their festivities commemorating their freedom and their raising of the banner thereof, to remind you that the hosts of heaven have not forsaken mankind now nor will they ever forsake mankind, for they played and continue to play a very important role in the fashioning of the image of freedom.
In the early days the attention of the colonists flowed from mind and heart one-pointedly toward freedom as a goal they had not fully achieved. Alas, no more than a century passed before the attention of their descendants was diverted into worldly channels! There is something stultifying about the concept of attainment. It is as though with attainment the wheels of progress stopped - as though there were no longer any need to struggle or to fashion anew, for all is done. There are times that we believe that man's sense of the requirement for continuing achievement is lost proportionately as he gains the vision of fulfilled needs; thus the more he acquires of freedom, of opportunity, and of this world's goods, the more he fails to see how much remains to be achieved and how mightily he can yet recover the balance of spiritual power, wisdom, and love which through neglect he has lost.
It is greed that permeates the social structure in a world where so many materialistic goals seem to be achieved, where so many opportunities for physical enjoyment seem to be fulfilled for so many. In this world bristling with communication, there is little compassion or even awareness of the needs of others, especially of the need for all to be free to participate in the rituals of their own emancipation. People forget that rule by law is also rule by love. In their offering of thanks unto God, they forget to thank for opportunities yet unborn or for understandings yet to be given. They forget to invoke those opportunities and those understandings without which they cannot continue to retain either that which has been won or that which can be won.
I am mindful of the many organizations in the world whose purposes are wholly constructive - many who make plain and strive to attain that which I advocate in the continuing preservation of the flame of liberty. I am also aware of the strength of those organizations which have espoused the holy cause of freedom and of those individuals within them who fill them up with the fashions of great strengths.
On the other hand, I know that the energies which mankind put into failure and the pointing-out of the failures of others would constitute another world of opportunity if they were packaged all together side by side with the constructive efforts of humanity. Thus the strength of their united effort would help to yield a more abundant harvest - a harvest of more abundant opportunity. It is perspective that individuals need; for without perspective they cannot fulfill their objectives, and their goals will remain shortsighted whether they seek to achieve individually or collectively.
Achievement is brought about by a drawing-together of the skeins of human thought and the fires, as El Morya has said, of human hearts. God has first acted and He remains a willing potential for those who will harness Him as they expect Him to be harnessed to their objectives. A senseless dissipation of man's energies through cross purposes and oppositional factors, a sense of struggle and a futile jealousy have far too long taken their toll of the world mind; and thus accomplishments have been more sparse rather than more abundant.
As I see before me the enormous bursts of energy released by mankind in the giving of thanks, I am cognizant that these energies can be harnessed for good because they accrue to the credit of a grateful humanity and can be shared by all. We speak about a common gift and a tangible intelligence. The frontiers of life are to be found in the crossroads of commerce and industry. They are to be found wherever people are, and they remain a vibrant spark to elucidate purpose and secure for all posterity the successful meeting of each and every challenge. Above all in your gratitude, be grateful for that sense which will not allow you to give up as the holy strands of eternal compassion continue to feed personal, world, and cosmic needs.
The hills and the valleys are alive with the color and movement that portray the recycling patterns of nature, the wonders of universal change in the cycles, and the tremendous outpouring of the activity of the Holy Spirit. And in the swift descent of the year, humanity may catch the glimmer of the Light and hold it close within their embrace. For it is in the inner vision of the mind and heart and the uplifting of the spirit that men of great courage and renown will go forth to accomplish in God's name that which has never been completed, that which will always remain the avant-garde activity of each day.
To some the summit goals of the hills are only glimmers. Others see only brown or blackened earth - lifeless hills lacking compassion in the universe. Some who see the glint of God falling everywhere recognize that it is human hearts and human minds that must follow in their search for freedom this hidden yet manifest Light. This is the Light that creates the balm of right action and a strengthening of those bonds between organizations and peoples that amplify the power of love and deny wrong action, whether of the past, present, or future. These behold not a universe of rejection, but one in which there is a radiant perfection in manifestation. This they seek in mind and heart; this they enshrine in their symbolic thanks as in the tangible platitudes of their festivities.
How beautiful is freedom as it is seen upon the crest of the fire of the sun of universal purpose! Without it, all of us would be but burned-out cinders of purposeless ash. Through the fires of freedom and hope which we now seek to fan, many hearts will come at last into the domain of purpose. In taking dominion over the earth,1 these will also behold an unrealized virtue made manifest, the virtue of that which God Himself has used and uses of His own freedom to create a man in whom diligence is more than a word - a man in whom freedom is an ever cycling round of motive transcendent, seizing for tomorrow as for today renewal, resurrection, and ascension in the crown of hope that is the laurel of all worlds.
Freedom,2 how beautiful is thy name!