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Friends Who Love to Do His Will,
I am reminded of an experience which I had long ago in an incarnation little known by me prior to my ascension. It was in the Middle East where I was embodied in the Arab world as a shepherd keeping watch over the flocks charged to my care in what are now the Syrian foothills.
One night as I lay out in the open gazing at the stars, in contemplating the oneness of Life which I felt even then as a current that traversed the skies and then descended in an arc to be anchored in my heart - I heard the sound of horses and saw a group of foreigners approaching. My soul told me that they were not of the light. And there was a restlessness that swept across the sheep. We were aware at once of a foreboding of evil.
As the caravan of horses drew nigh, I sought to hide myself with the sheep - but to no avail. The men signaled me to draw nigh. The vibration of their evil consciousness intensified moment by moment. Was it my destiny to encounter this forcefield of blackness generated by the rebellion of laggard souls? Was it karma? Was it opportunity? Or both? In my shepherd's robe and with my crook, I walked toward them in moments that seemed an eternity. As I approached their band, I saw that they were robbers with a booty of stolen goods - horses, gold, jewels, and silks (I was to find out later).
One among them, the leader of the band, eyed me with a penetrating gaze. And then he spoke in my native tongue, "Shepherd boy, come hither." He said: "We are of your native village and we come from the highway of Damascus. We are being pursued by a rival band of outlaws and have need of a hiding place for our stolen goods. You must take them from us and hold them in a nearby cave until our return, for we must deal with this rival band and eliminate them as quickly as possible. If you do not perform as we have demanded, we will see to it that great harm comes to your family."
Terrified yet composed, I saw that I had no alternative but to consent for the moment to the demands of the brigands. I showed them a hiding place in an out-of-the-way cave. The goods were transported there. And they made their exit as quickly as they had come - leaving me to contemplate once again the riddle of existence. In my soul I knew that I must protect my family, yet I also knew that it was wrong to harbor evil or to give sanctuary to the evil ones. And I prayed to God as the Spirit of Nature, as the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit whom I knew not according to theology but according to the communication of my heart with the larger Heart of which I was a part.
Not six hours passed before the rival band of outlaws could be seen moving as a cloud of dust approaching nearer and nearer the place where I was tending sheep - a pass in the hills often used by travelers from the North. In my musings of the hours as I called upon the Lord in my quandary, the thought waves which came upon me as comfort from the mind of God echoed the statement found in sacred Scripture "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."1 I was comforted with the sense of cosmic justice. There is a reason, I said to myself, why this has happened to me. It is a challenge and a chance to know more of Him. I will wait upon the Lord beside the flowing stream and learn his ways. I will not preempt the Lord, but I will allow him to perform his perfect work in me.
Thus as the second band of dark ones approached, I was in a frame of consciousness to extend welcome to them who would be instruments for the outpicturing of judgment and of balance, which I knew in my soul to be the law of the universe. It was thus that I sat meditating under a tree on that night so clearly lit by the moon's reflection of the solar orb. They stopped at my resting place, and their leader questioned me concerning the whereabouts of the previous outlaws. I said that I did not know if they had come through in the previous day, for I had not seen them. And after a pause beside the stream, they journeyed on down into the valley in the direction taken by the other band. And the last I saw of them, they disappeared around some boulders that lined the descending path.
Time passed - days, then weeks - and there was no word from either of them. I was no longer anxious, for my trust was in Him whose gentle radiance hung in the very air as the swaddling garment of an all-pervading Spirit reaching out to care for humanity and elemental life. I dwelled in the comfort flame in that life much in the same manner that the Maha Chohan, the Representative of the Holy Spirit, tarried in that flame in India, keeping the flame for untold millions as a shepherd on the hillsides. And as you know, Kahlil Gibran was also embodied as a shepherd boy in the Middle East. And thus God provides incarnations for the soul providing the simple way of nature, the joy of communion, and an absence of responsibility to the things of this world that makes for continuity of communication with other planes, with cosmic beings, and with the center of all Life - the very flame of God itself.
By and by there came to me news from the valley through the shepherds bringing their flocks to greener pastures for the summer. They talked of nothing but the battle of the bands of robbers who had a confrontation not many miles from my native village and who by their vengeance tore one another limb from limb until no man remained from among them to tell the story but only young boys playing in the rocks who hid at the sound of their furious fight and watched the battle to the end and then ran to tell the townsfolk. Once the dust had settled and people had begun to analyze in their way the events that had transpired, they concluded that the fight must have been over stolen goods. But all were perplexed, for no goods had been found.
I listened and I smiled. And I bade the shepherds on their way. And when even came, I prayed to my God: "O Lord, these goods are not mine, but thine. They have come forth out of this universe, out of this flaming Presence which I know to be yourself. I reclaim them for thee. And yet I would return them to those merchants who lost them at the hand of the robbers. Yet how can I, a poor shepherd, leave my flocks to go in search of whom I know not? And then what am I to say? For whoever I ask will claim them for his own."
Again the ripples of joy that come from the source of Life inundated the shores of my being. And I felt the indwelling Presence and the "Peace, be still"2 and the "All is well" consciousness. For the communication of God was to my heart a communication beyond words, even beyond the formulation of mental or verbal concepts. In my childlike acceptance of the Creator and myself as one of his creatures, humble yet aware of a cosmic purpose being worked out in my life, I knew that the Lord would deliver me from the burden of the stolen goods.
One day I went to the cave to examine the contents in the cache - beautiful silks, spices, gold coins and golden jewelry, and precious stones that I had not seen before. I was aware from the vibration of the goods themselves that these would be precious in the markets of the world. But of what value were they to me who had all of God in health, in joy, in the service of Life which was my calling? And then I thought of the needs of my family and the children in the village and what all of this could provide for them to increase their opportunity to find that oneness with Life which I already knew.
In next week's Pearl, I shall continue the unfoldment of my story taken directly from the records of akasha.