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Hail, Living Word Incarnate in Man!
It is to thee and to the measurement of God's purposes upon earth that we proclaim Christ-dimension for all. Individual resurrection is a necessity, and it can occur daily as the gauge of the Law is applied to the seeking heart.
When I gave forth the teachings of The Brotherhood that have been handed down as the Sermon on the Mount, I stressed the need for the disciples to observe the laws on judgment and brotherhood. And if I were to address the multitudes on the hillsides of the world in this day and age, my sermon would be much the same: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again ... Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."1
Truly those who make the greatest progress Godward are those who are aware of the importance of being their brother's keeper.2 By contrast, how strange it seems that men would worship me without understanding my presence in all parts of Life; for I AM in the prisons, in the marts of commerce, and in the high noon of man's busyness. In the face of the child or the adult is the realization that I am come to the meek and lowly and to those who need the wholeness of the Good Physician.3
The stigma that is attached to the man who strays from the "strait and narrow path"4 may cause him to react with a certain conceit that in the stronghold of the ego often proclaims his liberty while in reality binding him to those wrong concepts which he has so readily allowed. The hem of our garment is yet with men, even with the lost sheep of the house of Israel;5 and wise are those who understand the depths and the riches of our immortal love that restores the afflicted in mind and body to a state of wholeness.
We do not ask, "What virtue is this?" Nor do we dwell upon the lack of virtue that may exist momentarily in the life of man. The quality of spiritual ongoingness embodied by the unascended devotee, while at times appearing as a cross to those who have not known the joys of overcoming, does most assuredly raise him up the ladder toward his own God-perfection.
The diligence of the Law in heralding its own perfection conveys the miracle sense which moves men and nations to the fulfillment of the divine hope. O diligent ones who seek to do the will of God, perceive how sweetly the union of cosmic purpose is accomplished, how men are drawn together by that immutable bond that exalts peace within their hearts. How often we have warned mankind who look to the world for that peace which can only come from the Christ within:6 "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape."7
The world cannot exist half slave and half free - half involved in those concepts of spiritual Truth which acknowledge the universal plan and half involved in mortal error which supposes life to be a rubble of fractioned energies. Through the mercy of God and the strength of immortal purpose, my mission continues to the present hour to unite hearts with their own Divine Presence. And as the Holy Spirit affirmed within me so long ago, "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away."8
I came to set the captives free,9 and so shall it be both now and forever. In this world of delusion and despair, the multitudes wander upon the shores of life that are strewn with the blasted hopes of yesterday. The few in every age who find the kingdom that is within feel their hearts swelling with joy as they discover their own life as a mission to uphold the faith and to bring my sheep into the fold of the Ascended Masters' teachings.10
The darkness of atheism is everywhere apparent. Men presuppose that they shall win through the doctrines of socialism, through submission to the mass pressures of mediocrity, or through worshiping our person without manifesting for themselves the law of universal love. That Spirit whom I glorified as my heavenly Father is alive today to raise mankind up, to lift him from the cross of man's inhumanity to man that makes countless thousands mourn,11 and to reveal each soul either as a candidate for the ascension or as one to whom the path of righteousness must yet be revealed for my name's sake.12
The valley of the shadow is in itself purposeless unless it becomes a goad urging man to climb the peaks of Light. Only out of the sense of an indwelling faith can men light the fagot of their being with the torch of Omnipresence. In reality God is ever nigh; yea, He is at the very door of being. Yet He is denied entrée by man's own false momentums and by his yielding to the patterns of inertia which, if unchecked, will ultimately destroy him through the blight of boredom, doubt, and fear. The years show forth either fruitfulness or fruitlessness. The same taper that has burned for darkness can declare itself a taper of Light. A man's life, in moments of seeking, affirms itself to be either darkness or Light, and so it is; for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.13
Man must overcome his own darkness by proclaiming his own Light, for the Father willed it so from the beginning. Never has the way of the cross been so challenging, the mockery and misunderstandings of men so blatant, the engines of destruction so bloated with viciousness. Never has the world been so divided, its communications so garbled with blocks of despair. These moments in history precede what could well be the proclamation of universal victory for mankind - a victory crowning the hill of our purpose revealed, burning new hope in the hearts of all who love me, and establishing by the Light of cosmic reason the lives of all in a new order of the ages.
What a pity that mankind do not see the need to stand steadfastly behind the purposes of the eternal Brotherhood. What a pity that they do not understand the fruit of our endeavor made manifest within our own triumph and made possible thereby to all mankind. They refuse to grasp the hands of faith and to walk into the Light; instead they turn toward the pall of the senses that defraud. Yet the Light is nigh them, even at the very door.
Greatly to be praised are the Spirit of the Resurrection and those miracle hopes that each one must obtain for himself. Those who become good Samaritans14 and cosmic emissaries of our Light merit not only our friendship and our love but also our assistance in the darkening days that lie ahead while the new age is forming. For upon the rubble of the past God will build the stairway of a new hope whose rising majesty shall reveal the ascension as the goal of life for every man. The communication of faith to child hearts, unsullied by the world thought, can at any age pave the way for new approaches to God and make plain the wonders of heaven from which the very spirit of triumph over death and confusion emanates.
The serpent said to man, "Ye shall not surely die."15 I have proclaimed the Son of Righteousness who sheds new hope into the lives of all who admit His transfiguring radiance. But unless man earnestly seeks to rise, his natural momentums will deliver him to a gradual downfall.
Keep on keeping on! For the success of The Brotherhood's mission upon earth - of all that we have built in former days - appears to your vision now in a cosmic burst of our purpose. And the energies of that purpose, while resurrecting the individual, shall raise the whole wide world, until the glory and peace of universal Love shall cover the earth and preserve it according to the eternal plan.
Devoted to the unfoldment of the flowers of hope within you and that which is ever of good cheer, I remain
Your brother and friend eternally,