UNIT 15
The Glory of God Within
God is beyond the limits you would place upon Him, for God is without form. Being formless, the Spirit of God abides in all things. There is no place where the divine presence cannot be found.
God is neither male nor female, for S/he has no body and therefore no gender. While portrayed in many forms, God is not the wise man with white hair, nor is S/he the wise woman either. All such images are anthropomorphic.
To understand the expression of God you must see both the masculine and feminine qualities. S/he is nurturing and also protective, gentle and strong, accommodating and assertive.
God has the wisdom of the old sage and the innocence of the young child. S/he has the strength of the warrior, as well as the sensitivity of the young mother. S/he is all this and more, for s/he is beyond definition. S/he cannot be limited to concepts or images.
The Spirit of God moves through your mind and your experience. It is the essence, the Tao, the Prana or the Chi.
While you are born and die, divine essence is not born and it does not die. It exists before physical birth and after physical death. This essence is not subject to the highs and lows of mental-emotional experience. It is a steady presence,.
The divine essence in you is not different from the divine essence in your brother or sister. It is a single essence. Bodies seem to separate from one another, but divine essence unites you. Minds may disagree, judge and attack each other, but divine essence holds all minds in simple harmony.
When you identify with the body or with thoughts of separation, you forget your essence. You forget who you are. That gives rise to all forms of projection and attack.
You cannot know the glory of God unless you appreciate the divine essence within you. This has nothing to do with your sex, your race, your economic standing, your nationality or your religion.
You have to look deeply in yourself and in others to find it.
Journaling Questions
Can you release your anthropomorphic concepts and images of God and accept the idea of God as formless, indivisible, and ever-present?
While may be impossible to define God, you can experience God’s presence. How has that happened for you?
Observing the Sabbath
Practice reconnecting with the Spirit of God in your thoughts. Nine thoughts may be about needing to fix yourself or someone else, but let the tenth thought be about that which does not need fixing. Let the tenth thought be about something which is totally acceptable, totally lovable.
This is a Sabbath ritual. For six days you are absorbed in the drama of work and struggle, but on the seventh day you are to remember God. The seventh day is to be a day of rest, of turning inward. Let the wisdom of the sabbath be brought into your daily life and your days will be transformed.
When you eat, God will sit at your table. When you speak with your brother, you will say something encouraging to him. You will learn to be easy with the choice he makes, even if it differs substantially from your own. You will learn to wish him well and stop arguing about the differences in beliefs or in form, which are insubstantial.
The Path to Peace
If you wish to walk the path of peace, overlook the differences you see, find what you can share with others and focus on those commonalities.
Truth comes in all shapes and sizes, but it remains one simple truth. You must learn to see the truth in every form, in each situation. That is what a man or woman of peace must do.
You are entering a time when the barriers of culture and religion will be transcended. People of different tongues will learn to understand one another and feel compassion for each other’s experience.
With tolerance for diversity will come the perception of universal values which can be embraced by all.
When equality reigns and plurality is accepted, the “many” become “One,” and separation ends. Unity is experienced in human consciousness and innocence is restored.
This is a time of great importance. Each one of you has a significant role to play in the dismantling of the barriers to peace.
From the place of peace within your heart, you will be a peacemaker among women and men. This is my teaching.
Journaling Questions
When have you experienced equality and understood that your good and that of your brother or sister are one and the same?
When you learn to stop projecting and hold your judgments gently, does peace return to your mind?
Do you understand that peace within is the single criteria for peace in the world?
UNIT 16
Classrooms
Yours is not the only dimension of experience. There are many classrooms, each with its own unique curriculum. In your classroom, the primary subject is equality.
You are here to learn that all beings are equal regardless of their apparent circumstances. Men and women, black and white, Hindu or Catholic, rich and poor are all equal in their existential worth.
All inequalities are of your own making and must be abolished. Many of you have been working on this curriculum for some time.
You also are here to learn to respect everyone’s right to decide for herself. If you decide for another or let her decide for you, you will be trespassing. You must refrain from doing this.
Learn to take responsibility for the decisions you make and give your brother the space to do the same.
The practice of equality can transform your world and allow you to graduate together with all of your brothers and sisters.
Incarnation
Incarnation in a body is difficult and time-consuming. The dense conditions of physical experience are difficult to master. It takes time to develop physically.
You start in your mother’s womb totally dependent on her. When you are born, you are physically helpless. You have to learn to feed yourself, walk, talk, and manipulate your environment.
In order to adjust to physical reality, your consciousness contracts, and moves to more fully inhabit the physical body, thus shutting off awareness of other dimensions with their creative possibilities.
In a few rare cases, consciousness does not fully contract when it enters the physical classroom. These people retain the memory of the non-physical dimension. Many of them become guides and spiritual teachers. I was one of them.
The time that you now inhabit the physical classroom is a time of transition. Technologically, you have the ability to destroy the physical environment many times over. Yet there is more light available on the planet now than there has been in any other time in history.
As the light increases, many of you expect me to come again in human form, but this will not be the case. My work here is almost over. And my physical presence with you now would only delay the transformation you are poised to make.
Through your non-physical communion with me and other wisdom teachers, you will learn to let go of the conditions that reinforce your suffering, and you will awaken to your own divinity.
Be patient and steadfast, my brother and sister. Our work will not be done until there are no more victimizers or victims. Our journey will not be over until we have accepted God’s love for us and communicated that love to everyone in our experience.
To walk with me is to be a servant of God and man simultaneously.
You serve man by showing him that God remembers him and cares about him. You bring him food and drink and solace in his suffering. You embrace him and allow him to lay his head on your shoulder. And you encourage him to weep. Because he feels abandoned by his parents, his children, his lovers, and by God. And as he weeps, you comfort him.
For how long has it been since you too felt abandoned and shed gut-wrenching tears of sorrow and regret?
That is the nature of human experience. It is only appropriate that you have compassion for your brother and sister. For you share the same experience of suffering and the same release.
When the lessons of equality are learned on earth, the electro-magnetic field of the planet will change and earth will give birth to a new and more glorious curriculum. The seeds of this transformation have already been sowed. Your job is to water and nurture them.
Journaling Question
How is your redemption interconnected with the collective redemption of humanity and the restoration of peace on earth?