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Lanello's Birthday Address 1992
'Tis good! It is New Year's Eve and we gather and rejoice. And we do not take ourselves too seriously nor the sinister forces, who take themselves all too seriously.
I come, then, with my usual birthday address commemorating the birthday of the King and the day in which I followed him, descending also through the birth canal into the arms of the waiting ones, my parents.1
Thus I reminisce on this life and many others, and I come to have a fireside chat with you this evening. And I thought I would begin by reading you one of my poems, which I wrote at Christmastime some years ago, that you might feel the stirring of my heart moving with the winds of the Holy Spirit that were soon to carry me aloft, never to return me again in the same form that I wore.
Thus life moves on, and is it not the Christmas wind that carries us hither and yon, perhaps to a new place in consciousness, a new place of rest or work or play or entering in to the deepest heart of hearts of eternal Being?
This, then, is my humble offering, written when I was yet in the abode of my final physical body:
Each day we see a cosmic day:
Eternity blends with time's own ray.
Sounds of new life do fill our ears;
The Star of Christ fore'er appears.
The Christmas winds are blowing
The whole wide world around;
Immortal winds are flowing
With silent, peaceful sound.
This view of children ever
Delights their hopeful eyes,
For faith beams never sever
Their contact with the skies.
Just above the heads of men
The rushing wind tow'rs high;
Constant swishing now and then
Magnetic beams draw nigh.
Rising shrines of the ages
Reach upward there to find
Hands of heaven's angels
Winging hope unto the mind.
Each day a cosmic morn is born -
Infinity's curtain torn
Releases into waiting air
Drops of Life shed everywhere.
The Christmas winds are blowing
Their holy flowing stream
Of air's delightful knowing,
Of God's own brightest dream.
Each heart in bondage human,
Released from burden's care,
Finds fullest Christmas friendship
Within the gift of prayer.
The Holy Spirit streameth -
Its might and main for all
Enfolds the Star he beameth
To answer heart's own call.
This flow of Holy Spirit
Delights the very air;
It is the breath God raiseth
To free men everywhere.
The Eastern wind, a stream does flow -
Christ's message it does blow,
Stirring church bells with its sound
And hearts that listen round.
God of old so loved the world,
Sent forth His Son to bloom
Cosmic banner e'er unfurled
Within form's narrow room.
The child, the man from every place
Turn hearts to God's revealing grace;
No more division shall recruit,
For hatred maketh all the brute.
O sweeping wind of Holy Love,
Thy glory mantle from above
Removes mankind's beleaguered ire -
Instead fills every heart with fire.
Kindling thus a star of hope,
Within Love's word He spoke,
"Peace, be still!" to every heart
For holy minds to start
The movement that will ope the eye -
No more the blinded mind will sigh.
Today shall men a new world make
For man and Christ and God's own sake.
[Messenger: Let us sing the song of the Christmas wind to the Holy Spirit that streameth.]
The Holy Spirit streameth
Its might and main for all
Enfolds the Star he beameth
To answer heart's own call.
The flow of Holy Spirit
Delights the very air
It is the breath God raiseth
To free men everywhere. (sung 3 times)
Blessed ones, as you enter this year filled with its promise and yet with some trepidation, wondering what might come to your doorstep next, I also come with hope. For hope is surely the star that we follow to the place where the Lord lay and where Christ is born in each heart.
It is good to know that all things that come to your doorstep can be dealt with by the living fire and the fount of Love within your heart. [The key is] not to react, not to become negative but rather philosophical, to say to yourself:
"Who knocks there? Whose footstep do I hear? Is it that of friend or foe? It matters not, for I give love and have plenty to spare. In this my calling in life, I shall greet all that comes to me with a chuckle, with a point of laughter, with the wisdom of the Mind of God, with my gaze fixed on him and yet kindness always flowing to my neighbor."
In this stance, then, be not reactors, beloved, but know that life is full of promises and many packages wrapped, some with love and some with cords of enmity. Receive them all and deal with them justly, honorably and with that deep fire of love that has compassion for evildoers who have lost the key to the heart of God that you yet hold in your treasure chest of Love.
Oh yes, beloved, do not allow yourself to be moved this way and that because of circumstances. Do not ever discount the moment of karma. For is not every particle of sand that descends in the hourglass the sign of passing karma that can be dealt with, that must be dealt with at the moment when it passes through the nexus?
This must seem an impossible task - how to be there at the right point in time and space to greet your karma so that when it passes through the nexus it does not create a pile of karma beneath and therefore require you to start all over again.
Yes, beloved, when you are in the right place in consciousness, you are always at the point of the nexus, the nexus of the mighty figure-eight flow that delivers to you the lightning of the Mind of God through the Sacred Heart of your Holy Christ Self. Being at that point of equanimity, you can be philosophical about tragedy and sudden loss and also hold the reins of the ecstatic [mood] when great good things come your way.
In the peace-commanding presence of the centeredness of being, know wholeness. My prayer for you this year is that the Christmas wind, which is the wind of the Holy Spirit, shall bring to you peace of mind, wholeness, centeredness and, above all, charity toward yourself, toward all. Charity, beloved - for charity does engulf with flames of Love all pride and ego-centeredness that beget self-condemnation and the condemnation of others.
Yes, beloved, I would have you walk the earth as the children of Wisdom2 and I would have you deal with life and circumstance by the fiat of the spoken Word.
Yes, beloved, wholeness is the goal. It is achieved through love, yes, and wisdom. But as you have been told, without God's will, without that faith, without that fire of the true-blue chela, you will find it difficult, [yea impossible, as the scriptures say,3] to please God. And, blessed heart, if you are not able to please God, then you will become among all people the most miserable.
See, then, and understand that pleasing God does not require gymnastics of the mind or ultimate feats of this and that but simply the gentle heart. Oh, the gentle heart, the heart of kindness, the heart of Maitreya, the heart of the Bodhisattva!
How great is the kindness of the Bodhisattvas!
I count many of you bodhisattvas, some with a capital B, some with a lowercased b, but bodhisattvas are ye when walking the path of discipleship is the first order of the business of your life. That is when all other things come into place, all of the blocks in the building of the temple of man. Why, it is as though they would assemble themselves, beloved, drawn by the magnet of your magnanimity!
Oh, the heart of kindness! Oh, the heart of kindness that is not self-sympathy or sympathy for another but true and noble understanding, judging not another's way, giving freedom to all (for that is Saint Germain's gift) and therefore moving forward in unfailing love and support for one another.
I come, then, in a way [by which I might] prepare you by soundness of mind and heart and purpose for challenges that are to come. They will not be less difficult, beloved, but they should seem less difficult because you have greater mastery of the spirit.
And do you not now have [sufficient] experience with us and our presence so near to you in your very midst that you have come to trust that we are indeed here?
And if things come upon you suddenly, even as the fire that descended upon the feast day of Thomas Becket this week, and you ask "Why? Why, then, did Morya not stand between us and our calamity?" the answer must always be found in the utter conviction of [the Master's] unfailing kindness as he presents to the chela that which the chela must understand if he is to succeed.
Therefore, no one individual is [to be singled out as] a sinner but all must consider that the trial by fire4 does come to everyone whereby a man's works are tried as well as his spirit and his soul. This is the way of the Path.
If you should be shielded from day-to-day responsibility, it should only increase the momentum of your unconscious anger against God [that you are] receiving gifts that you have not earned. Thus, to deal with challenge is the way of chelaship and the only sure way that you will have the inner resources, the wherewithal, the presence of mind, the practical know-how from [your cumulative] experience [in life] to deal with the ever-increasing challenges of the decade.
And so, beloved, do not be moved by that which comes to pass but be in the position of the one who will challenge Darkness, who will offer the invocation [to God for deliverance from evil and evildoers] and who will know that those who keep the purity of the throat chakra and the vibration of peace [in the soul and solar plexus] and kindness [in the heart shall win].
These are they who, if they can withstand all onslaughts and yet remain true to the preservation of the First Ray and the First Ray chakra, will receive the empowerment [of their Mighty I AM Presence] as they exercise the science of the spoken Word.
God longs to entrust you with the ultimate powers of the spoken Word. Think upon those powers5 that were demonstrated by the great Sons and Daughters of the Solitude in all past ages on Atlantis and particularly by Ernon, Rai of Suern, who had those powers and who bequeathed them to the millions of inhabitants of what is now the subcontinent of India. Yes, beloved, [that is what he did] but they were an ungrateful lot and utterly resented their Guru.6
You have heard of such tales, beloved, yes, indeed. Many have reincarnated this day in India and elsewhere, carrying vestiges of those powers - powers of the evil eye, powers to work magic. And [some of] these [powers] have come down [to them] again, [because they retained them in] their lifestreams. And in each succeeding embodiment where they have misused these powers, more karma has accrued to them; for they use the power of God to bind and oppress others.
Now you understand the origin of the false hierarchy of India and the false gurus. [Bearing the siddhis of their Guru they come. But they have sold their souls to the seed of Satan.] These, then, feel ultimately threatened by those of the Great White Brotherhood, even by those [chelas who are] unascended, even by those in feminine form and our own dear Messenger. You must understand, therefore, that as they have misused these powers, they do not want to see you use those same powers for the vanquishing [of them and their evil works].
For the prophecy was given (which is not written in the book of Phylos the Tibetan) that there would one day arise a people who were the sons and daughters of Sanat Kumara and they would exercise the siddhis by the power of the invocation of Light. And by the power of that invocation, they would undo this chain of the descendants of those who spurned the Rai Ernon yet kept in their memory bank and in their accumulated self-knowledge the [black arts and the craftiness] of the adepts of the left-handed path.
Thus, beloved ones, you are that people [of Sanat Kumara]. And what I see [in you that] is yet wanting I would desire to turn on in you in this hour. It is that deep desire to remain constant in the centeredness of Brahman, in the centeredness of the Atman, the threefold flame and the Holy Christ Presence. [For thereby you might] go about conscious that you carry within your temple a precious flame and the very personhood of Brahman, [having the mind-set, as it were, that] you carry him on a bier, carrying him, beloved ones, wherever you go.
Are you not careful when you carry the newborn babe?
Are you not careful about your own temple?
If you can remember that the God of very gods resides in your own heart and that that God is the all-power whereby you may achieve those siddhis, [then you will achieve them]. Do you not see already, beloved hearts, that as we have given you labors [to spiritually challenge numberless demons] who rush toward the [sacred] fire, rush toward the circle of Sanat Kumara and his devotees, rush to their death, so they themselves have thus been consumed? Is this not the beginning of the return of these powers to those who deserve them?
I say, indeed it is! It was not alone Ernon who brought about the sudden extinguishing of the flame of life in the Chaldean soldiers.7 Blessed ones, in answer to his call, hosts of the Lord delivered their judgment.
So it is in this day. As the Messenger does lead you [in prayer and invocation to God for the exorcism of evil on planet earth] and does have that mantle for a cosmic purpose - and as you give your calls and fiats according to the [decrees we have] dictated to the Two Witnesses, according to the cadences and the geometry of the patterns that are [embedded in the decrees that are] in your decree books - even the most aggressive [demons] and those of greatest attainment among the archdemons must flee, must abandon their purposes quickly lest they be consumed by the fire of God [you invoke].
Take heed, then, beloved hearts, for there are those among you who are conscious of having a certain momentum by their decrees, which you would call a strength or a power. Be careful, then, that you do not misuse that Word, that spoken Word, that comes through your own chakras - the heart, the throat, the mind, the third eye. Take care that now that you have learned the science of the spoken Word, you do not misuse it to control in any way, subtle or overt, any part of Life.8
Let the power of God that you love as God's holy will make you humble - humble before your God and truly humble before the God in each and every one upon earth. Humility is the key, beloved. Be humble and let God raise you up. Always remain humble.
How can you be anything but humble when the glory of God, the Shekinah, does blaze forth and you feel that Presence and you know your God, you know the Lord with each dictation that we impart? For each coming of an Ascended Master enables you to feel [with a greater surety] within yourself how the day does surely approach when you can claim certain degrees of self-mastery, small ones at first [and then greater ones], which accumulate as you hasten the balancing [of your threefold flame]. Then [gradually you achieve degrees of self-mastery] on the entire circumference of the 360-degree [circle].
Beware, then. Be watchful. Watch, then, out of the corner of the mind's eye the behavior of the untransmuted self. Be the watchman upon the wall of your own citadel of freedom, your own manifestation in this octave, and be quick to snuff out the candle of that ego which is not the Divine Ego.
Yes, beloved, some of you are very ready for the exchange whereby you surrender the human ego and receive the Divine Ego. No less of a person shall you be if you do this, no less of an individual, but an individuality in God, a "God-manifestation," who is always humble and yet bears the strength of the peace-commanding presence that is begotten of the heart of kindness.
Beloved ones, some of you have made great strides because you have decided to place yourselves in a [counseling] circle with one or another of our therapists. Others of you have thought, "I do not need this," and yet you are still troubled, still the house divided - not happy here, not happy there, yet not willing to pass through the [purging] fires that will eliminate the divided self and bring you into that point of wholeness. Wholeness is surely worth striving for, living for and affirming daily.
Recently I gave to the Messenger the teaching she gave to some of you. It is regarding [the bad habit that people get into of] carrying around with themselves day and night, twenty-four hours a day, the consideration of all of their faults and shortcomings and burdens and worrying about them [obsessively] instead of following the path of the imitation of Christ, so clearly and beautifully set forth by Thomas à Kempis. I bid you, one and all, to read a page of that book9 daily and to incorporate it into your life.
Thus, the way of the one who is becoming the adept is to make a list of all those things that one desires to work on in one's lifestream that are not pleasing to God or pleasing to oneself. In your mind you put each one on a separate piece of paper, or you may actually take a box and put in it all of your pieces of paper [on which you have written your faults].
Each day when it is time for prayers and the recitation [of decrees] and rosaries, as you come to the altar [early or] at noon, when you stand beneath the zenith of your I AM Presence, [or in the evening], take, then, this [mental or physical] box. Open it. Draw one or more of these pieces of paper. [And as you commune with your Mighty I AM Presence], work on [your negatives] diligently by inner resolve, by will, by fire, by love, by gratitude to God for his mercy that these things might be consumed by the violet flame.
Give it your best, beloved! Make your calls and fiats and when your session is through, put all these "things" back in the box. Seal it tight, put it on the shelf of the mind and leave the altar with renewed joy and zeal, and walk in the footsteps of your Lord, Jesus Christ.
And as you walk, select the quality of your Christhood that you would embody and ensoul that day. Affirm that you are that Christ unfolding, surely the fairest rose of Sharon.10 And do what I taught you to do when you saw me physically in the flesh: role-play. Play the part of the person you want to be.
If it is [the part of] kindness, then practice being kind. Whatever it may be, beloved, put your whole heart into being that [part] and watch how by and by it becomes a part of the natural manifestation of your true identity and it does replace the rough places.
So, beloved, do not be fooled in this month11 into engaging in that criticism, condemnation and judgment, for it is always and always the product of human pride. Even when you condemn yourself, it is a matter of personal pride that you think you can evaluate yourself and then say, "I am not good enough for the Lord."
Well, beloved, pride is a tricky thing. It is a shadow that hides from us that we cannot see unless we are astute and determined to see it.
When you cease to have pride in yourself and your accomplishments, you will also cease to have that criticism, condemnation and judgment for yourself and others. And, oh, what a day of freedom it shall be for you - for you, beloved!
For then, you see, you will not be embarrassed if you make a mistake, you will not be offended if someone attempts to insult you in this way or that, you will not be caught off guard. For you will know that the human self can never be perfected and that the Christ Self in you is already perfect. And as long as you are striving to reach the goal, you are received as acceptable in the sight of God.
Therefore, beloved, be done with those things that are a trap. They are a mousetrap, I tell you! Truly, do not be caught in a mousetrap, for you have bigger [and better] things before you. You have promises that you have given and that you will keep. You have a life to give to God when you are ready. If you are not ready to give him your whole life, then I ask you to take stock this day.
[Ask yourself this question:] "What percentage of my life will I give to God? Is it one or five or ten percent?"
If you start with something, beloved, it will be the leaven and God will give back to you a multiplication of that leaven until little by little and day by day, year in, year out, you will see yourself more and more in the divine likeness. And because you are found in that likeness of God, you will say to yourself, "Why, I can give a little bit more of myself, for, after all, my self is God!"
And this is the way, beloved. You cannot swallow a camel whole; do not try to swallow God whole. But because you cannot do so, do not think that you cannot swallow that morsel, that Communion wafer, that daily portion of the Body of the Lord, and that daily cup, even if it be a thimble of the Blood of the living Christ.
Yes, beloved, little by little by little the mountain of God rises beneath you. And as the mountain grows and grows and grows, you will find one day that you are sitting on top of the highest mountain. It is the mountain of God-Self reality defined.
Yes, then you will know yourself as the conquering hero!
Take all things, then, in proper order, meticulously guarding the moments, the minutes, the hours, the days, the calendar of the years. Yes, beloved, day by day by day you have the opportunity from God to conquer yourself and to know yourself as the true Light-emanation of cosmic purpose.
Is it not a wondrous thing to work on solving the riddle of being each day? ["Yes."]
Make a note of it! The riddle is complex. If each day you solve a little portion of the riddle, write down [how you did it], because the riddle is a cosmic equation that defies memorization.
So, then, in the matter of organization, this is a Church that is a citadel of freedom. Each one of you is the Church, a citadel of freedom.
What is the fire in the midst of your citadel?
Tend it. Do not let it go out.
[It is the fire of the living Church.]
Community is a very bad word in the circle of the fallen angels. They do not wish to see a community of Lightbearers succeed, for the Community of the Buddha - [consisting of] the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha - presents the equation of the equilateral triangle that is invincible because it is a threefold flame. Wherever the communities have formed round about the earth, on the surface, beneath the earth, on ancient continents and on other systems, the fallen ones have come from afar to snuff out that candle of Community.12
Do you not realize, beloved hearts, that Community is the answer to the problems of so many - of those in ghettos in every nation and of the poor and of those who can no longer afford to live in the cities of the world, much less in the country?
Yes, beloved, why do they not form communities?
Because, quite simply, they argue about who is boss.
They cannot even get along with themselves or the members of their own households. How can they band together by the hundreds and then the thousands to form a community where arms are locked and a mighty mesh of armour as chain mail is formed by the living bodies of the Buddhas and Christed ones and bodhisattvas and babes in arm?
All of these have the fire of God within them and submit to holy purpose, to the indwelling God and therefore, because all see the same All-Seeing Eye of God, all see El Morya, all know at inner levels what is the foundation and the bedrock of Community.
So the Community is a strength multiplied, geometrized by the numbers within it and by those of the hosts of the Lord who are enabled to step through the veil through you. You are not mere physical numbers. You are yourselves plus all of the angels and elementals and Ascended Masters who can work through you individually. Such is the multiplication of the Community of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the Great Multiplier, beloved. Therefore understand that when your heart is a well of living fire, the multiplication of that fire is also infinite. But if there be lurking somewhere in the folds of the garment of the unconscious indeed a force of anti-Love neglected, left there long ago, which you have since sought to transmute but you have not - if this be the case, beloved, there is also a multiplication, by your tie to the Great White Brotherhood, of that substance.
Thus I must warn you, before you make your first mark on the journal of 1993, that you are in a karma-making situation when you fail to pursue the inner resolution of that original ancient point of anger (and all the other Martian manifestations) that divided you from your God. It is one thing to recite these [conditions of consciousness] that they might be bound through your decrees, but it is another to truly desire it - to go after them and to exorcise them.
Yes, be the deep-sea diver! Go down to those levels and ask to be taken this night not to retreats but to the caverns and canyons of your own subconscious and astral body and the unconscious, beloved. For this is the place that you must now revisit, the place where you who have remained here [in the Community] have the strength to go.
[Yes, you have the strength] to descend with accompanying seraphim and members of the bands of Seven Archangels and to call for the exorcism of those points of darkness, neglected, long-forgotten, that still weigh you down as though you were yet carrying a burden on your back that you carried ten thousand years ago. And indeed you are, but you have forgotten that you yet carry that burden.
Well, I wish to quicken the memory. And I wish you to offer the prayer and use this call, beloved. And this is the way it goes:
Call to Lanello to Descend the Spiral Staircase
I call now to my beloved Lanello, my mentor of the Spirit. I call to El Morya, Archangel Michael and the Lords of Karma, my own Holy Christ Self and I AM Presence and all who assist me on my way.
Take me now, O holy ones of God, down the spiral staircase into the depths of the subconscious, the electronic belt, the astral plane and the unconscious. Take me there, O God! With covering cherubim guide my feet, guide my heart and mind.
Therefore I ask for the armour of seraphim and Archangel Michael and the helmet and shield of the Lord and the sword of blue flame. And I ask to be guided by the Maha Chohan as to what I may be delivered of, and I would perform that exorcism under the living Christ Jesus, my Lord.
I call, then, that day by day for thirty-three days I shall achieve the undoing of those substances that dwell within me that will not speed me on my way to a glorious God-freedom that I seek but will only hold me back.
And therefore, O God, I surrender that portion of myself that helps neither you nor me. And I ask that I might be cut free from all individuals that I have ever been a part of where the will of God dictates that I ought to be cut free. And I ask to help those I may help and to remain tied to those with whom I [should remain tied according to the will of God]. And I call for the balancing of all karma by the violet flame.
It is my deep desire, O Mighty I AM Presence, that I might be delivered of excess baggage now, that I might become a better servant of the Lord Sanat Kumara and that I might be free to help others - free of the schisms in my own psyche, free of all encumbrances [of the human consciousness], so that I need not withhold the perfect gift to anyone, friend or foe or stranger, who does knock at my door.
I commend this prayer to the heart of God for adjudication. And I pray for the dividing of the way of the Real and the Unreal within myself that Victory might have his day through me.
As a humble pilgrim on life's way, I seal my prayer this day, O God. God, help me! God, help me. God, help me.
This, then, is my Christmas gift to you, this understanding and perhaps a new level of science in the approach to the problem of finite being - yes, finite being in whom there dwells the star of Bethlehem and the point of Light!
- Yes, finite being that knows that it is a part of the Infinite and is willing to go for that restoration piece by piece, bit by bit, day by day, morsel by morsel, until all compartments of time and space slide into infinity and the finite one is at last free of the chains of mortality.
I AM Lanello. By the grace of God and only by that grace, by the love of the blessed Mary, Morya, Kuan Yin and numberless numbers of saints and ascended beings, I have broken the chain of mortality! Call to me: I will show you how to do it! - [34-second standing ovation]
This dictation by beloved Lanello was delivered by the Messenger of the Great White Brotherhood Elizabeth Clare Prophet on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1992, during the five-day conference The Dawning of Your God Reality, held at the Royal Teton Ranch, Park County, Montana. [N.B. Throughout this Pearl, bracketed material denotes words unspoken yet implicit in the dictation, added by the Messenger under Lanello's direction for clarity in the written word.] Throughout these notes PoW is the abbreviation for Pearls of Wisdom.
There are many precious stories to be told and numerous lessons to be learned when on the Path. This story is a few years old but its lessons are still being learned.
I had been received on staff in June following nine months at Summit University, Levels I and II. My first assignment was as a teaching assistant and it was two weeks before the start of the fall session of Summit University. There had been major changes in my life in that year and I was not feeling integrated within, nor with the Teachings, nor with the Community. I had strong doubts about my ability to represent or present the Ascended Masters' Teachings to the students.
That Saturday I was feeling overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy and fear. It was a clean-up day on the campus and I was assigned to rake Excalibur Square. I was grateful to be out of the office and to work alone doing physical labor, for it provided me the opportunity to sort out my thinking and converse with El Morya and Lord Maitreya.
I knew the assignment to Summit University was no mistake. I was there when the assignment was made and was part of the discussions and considerations leading up to it. Yet I was filled with self-doubt. My day's labor in Excalibur Square ended but my conversation with El Morya and Maitreya continued as I wrote them a confession letter prior to the Saint Germain service that evening. In the letter I confessed my concern about my ability to properly represent them, my fear and depression.
Tears had come frequently during the day and continued while I wrote. I was not accustomed to asking heaven for favors or proof for something, but I found myself asking El Morya and Maitreya to confirm that they desired to have me as a teaching assistant at Summit University. I asked them to confirm this through the gift of a semi-precious or precious stone within the next six weeks.
I was embarrassed, even ashamed at what was coming out on the paper. I smiled and almost laughed through my tears because it seemed so childish and I knew of no possible source for such a gift. I then told the Masters that such a confirmation was not really necessary and that they could be assured that I was there to serve and would do so. I said I knew that they were there for me and I was grateful.
So, with the confession made, I went to the service and then home. My heart was still troubled but considerably more quiet. I shared an apartment with other staff off campus and we had a guest in the house that night whom I did not know. I am not sure if I had even met her.
Early the next morning I was praying in my room when there was a knock on my door. It was our guest inviting me to go out to breakfast with her. I wondered if this was a distraction to take me from my prayers, but I decided to go.
As we were leaving the restaurant, my companion stopped and said, "I didn't know how to do this, so I asked you out for breakfast. When I woke up this morning and was putting on my rings, I knew that this one no longer belonged to me. It's for you from El Morya." She then handed me a blue sapphire ring.
I was stunned. It was but fourteen hours after my written request. I told her my side of the story and we both stood in awe. I was moved by this woman's attunement and her willingness to readily relinquish something as personal as a ring to a stranger. Yet, there she was, an instrument of the tender mercy of El Morya.
The ring was one I might have chosen for myself. The band was fashioned like latticework, and I had been meditating on the concept of having open spaces within oneself (like latticework) for the fire of God to pass through. The stone anchored the love and the presence of beloved Morya, one with God's will.
El Morya saw beyond my immediate request to a deeper need to develop trust and to know his love. Throughout the year, as I would feel the ring on my finger or look upon it, I knew my Guru's presence and it sustained me.
It is a magnificent and humbling experience to be a part of the process that Summit University is. The student hears a single teaching or dictation and finds it uniquely applicable to his own life. Throughout the quarter the accumulation of the teachings, dictations and clearances, combined with the science of the spoken Word, work a sacred alchemical action in the student that is an immeasurable assist toward the goal of union with God. The student has the opportunity to contact not only the teaching but the Teacher behind the teaching - and therefore its source.
Summit University is a sacred adventure in soul exploration, and it was no less so for me as a teaching assistant. El Morya's assignment was a specific challenge to points of pride and fear as my sense of inadequacy and being overwhelmed continued to reappear. The ring was and is a reminder to me to trust the assignments given to me through the Messenger. And it continues to be a reminder of El Morya's abiding presence, wisdom and love. It encourages me to surrender those elements that obstruct the work that he would do through me and to embrace the will of God.
I am reminded of El Morya's words in his dictation given April 19, 1992: "The will of God is only good and it is glorious and it is supreme and it is comforting and it is enlightening and it is all things, including the restoration of your blueprint in every atom and cell of your being."
Beloved El Morya, Beloved Mother, may my heart grow in oneness with your own. May I come to trust and love the will of God over all else and take courage therein. Thank you for striving with me and taking my hand.
Montessori International Apprenticeship Program
I would like to witness to you of the wonderful experience I had this summer in having a Montessori student as my apprentice.
I work in construction in the ranch maintenance department, primarily as a plumber. So, for the most part, I taught my apprentice plumbing. But the young man, age eight, also learned about electrical, carpentry and household repairs.
Our two big projects were to set up the shower trailers at East Gate and prepare the Heart for the class. This involved all of the gas lines, water lines and hand-washing stations. He was so excited about the work that he didn't want to stop! He was always upbeat and continually asked questions. He just loved it! He kept me going when the class drew nigh and fatigue became a challenge.
It was important for me to have him as a companion. He helped me to remember what it was like to be eight years old. It was like reliving the fun I had with my best friend at that age. I believe the apprenticeship program will do more than teach the children valuable skills - it will give all of us who are blessed to work with them a chance to find our own inner child.
This experience taught me patience, understanding and better ways to teach skills. We often took each other by the hand and he would teach me to see the world through his eyes. I actually began to reexperience my youth again. We are going to try to keep working together through the school year when we can.
If only you could have seen him in the tool belt I gave him! He always liked to carry more tools than I did. (I've enclosed for you two photos his mother took of us.)
I will be working with the foreman on developing an apprenticeship program for our children this fall. I have witnessed to many of the adults in our community of our experience and, based on their reactions, I know the program will really grow.
Thank you, Mother, for this wonderful opportunity!
"The Best Thing I Ever Did!"I want to tell you about my apprenticeship as a plumber this past summer. I learned to fix toilets, sinks and many other things. My favorite job was during the setup of the July conference in the Heart. I helped hook up the water and propane on one of the trailers.
I was glad I could work for you and help put on the conference. Learning to be a plumber this summer was the best thing I ever did!
