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Beloved Hearts Who Seek the Flame of Truth:
Your human free will is misnamed and should be called instead your divine free will. For albeit from the first moment of their individual creation mankind are given by God the right to choose, that right, guaranteed by cosmic law, can never be abrogated; nevertheless, it is limited by those bounds which predetermine the range of man's experience according to cosmic law. Whereas all are judged, then, according to the same Law, it follows as a consequence of that Law that those who advance along the spiritual Path will find opening up to them a wider vista in which to express that free will which by right choices they have made divine.
Mankind should search diligently to understand the law of free will. For the right to choose is a divine prerogative. When embodied in mortal form, individuals may exercise this prerogative to choose evil; and they retain that right while they are out of the body yet in a state that is less than perfection. To choose only good is to choose only God. Yet this too is subject to the exercise of free will. The accretion of greater knowledge by a lifestream is the result of his rightly choosing to expand his consciousness into cosmic domains through spiritual development and by a willingness to be obedient to the fiats of Life.
You will remember that when I was embodied as Paul I spoke these words concerning Jesus: "Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name."1 Mankind today have not understood the gift of their divine Sonship nor the Christ-emanation thereof. They do not understand the universality of Christ Jesus. They do not realize that in reality God has no favorite son but exalts the universal Christ Reality into which each man can drink and become thereby a co-server with the Universal Christ.
One who surrenders completely unto God and whose childlike attitude is acceptable in His sight cannot fail ultimately to attain Christ-mastery in the true spirit of oneness. When a man or woman has attained to this level of God Reality through the universality of the Holy Spirit, there is no longer any differential between his or her soul and the Spirit of God. Souls who advance to this place in the spiritual realm automatically rise "from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."2
This oneness - this blending of the energies of mind and heart with the Cosmic Consciousness that is God - in no way marks the cessation of mankind's free will; for at any point along the way to the center of the Godhead man can, if he will, withdraw from his God-appointed spiritual initiations which are programmed for the advancement of his soul. Yet the one who has surrendered his free will to the will of God knows deep within his heart that it would be folly to do so; and therefore he does not.
The greatest danger on the Path, however, arises just prior to mankind's realization of his final victory. Spiral upon spiral, God transfers to those among mankind who are progressing spiritually greater and greater measures of His authority, until at last He is prepared to transfer the maximum authority that is the heritage of those who have attained oneness with the Godhead. After having received this authority, Jesus declared, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."3 Thus once he has passed the danger by passing the tests which the danger portends, mankind finds himself in all succeeding cosmic manifestations face to face with the tapestry of his own everlasting enlightenment.
When he is ready for the highest cosmic honors, invariably three great temptations come to man to test his mastery of the energies of the Threefold Flame. These were symbolized in the wilderness experiences of Christ Jesus. They involve (1) the desires of the flesh,4 (2) pride of the intellect,5 and (3) political power and worldly acclaim.6
It is written that Jesus was an hungered.7 This signifies that the physical body of man, because human desire patterns are anchored therein, may express a great need to satisfy these human desires. His reply to the tempter who suggested he "command that these stones be made bread"8 was "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."9 By this statement of cosmic law the Master refuted the lie which was the basis of the first temptation.
"Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."10 In the divine awareness of his spiritual authority, of his complete oneness with the Father which he retained even during his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus refused to succumb to that measure of human weakness which in the "natural man"11 would have yielded to the outer manifestation with its attendant desires and to the intellect with all of its pride and pomposity.
"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."12
Human desires, rationalized by the carnal mind and thrust into prominence by the ego's craving for recognition, can be accentuated until their importance is out of all proportion to Reality. This phenomenon was in evidence in the story of Jacob and Esau when the latter sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.13 Mankind should understand once and for all that the physical side of Life originates in the spiritual side of Life. This means that the finite is but a facet of the Infinite and must remain wholly subject thereto if the Christ is to be "formed in you."14
Yet negative forces functioning within the framework of time and space attempt to distort man's view of himself in relation to his universe - of the positioning of the microcosm within the macrocosm - so that he will fail to understand the interchange of energies between the manifestation of Life Above and below. Through his acceptance of this warping of his comprehension of the Whole, man finds himself in a quandary from which he cannot extricate himself without divine assistance.
Every student of the Light should recognize in the gift of free will the right to choose evil as well as good at the same time that they recognize the insistence on the part of the Christ Mind that man choose only that which is right, just, and pure in the eyes of God. The fact that mankind today still retain the gift of free will refutes the claim that God periodically revokes that gift and causes certain conditions to be brought about that are in conflict with humanity's will. On the contrary, God has allowed mankind to exercise their human will within their own domain and to create, in defiance of karmic law, circumstances which are a complete travesty of the science of universal justice.
Thus delays in bringing in the kingdom of God upon earth or a state of higher consciousness to man are always indications of the presence of interference with the will of God. This occurs through the subjection of the individual's mind and world to those acts or choices which are reflections of his own will. Man, then - although it is clearly stated in the Scriptures that his days are likened unto the grass15 which passes away - during the tenure of his occupancy of the planet, has every right to take dominion over the earth plane and subdue it.
Yet his dominion is best realized through the acceptance of the sacred will of God. The teaching of the false prophets who declare that Heaven is literally taking earth by force is just as dangerous as that of those who proclaim that mankind ought to take Heaven by force.16 Neither approach is satisfactory; for only by yielding to the divine will can mankind achieve, both in this world and in that which is to come, the most blessed experiences of the Most High that they are intended to share.
What a blessing mankind have received in the gift of free choice; for when they do accept the will of God, it is purely their own choice. So do men align themselves with Heaven, with the Christ Consciousness, and with that determination which fortifies the man of the Spirit against the temptations of wickedness and wicked desires.
Men should always bear in mind that God has never created evil, but only all good. Through this realization they can joyously choose to externalize and accept that good which God is. Therefore the ultimate end of mankind will be decided by his choosing spiritual victory for the race. Without question each man must choose thusly for himself; and out of the proper exercise of his free-will choice there shall arise upon the planetary body a great number of advanced souls who will have achieved those spiritual initiations which assure them a level of consciousness that is on a par with that of the Universal Christ. This is God's intent, not to bring just one son into the captivity of His divine will but the many; thus should all souls rejoice in those convocations of the heart, the mind, and the infinite planning of the Father of all for His whole creation.
The kingdom of heaven may have suffered violence and the violent may have taken it by force; but now is the hour of preparedness when the sons of God, through the recognition of their own inheritance and the acceptance of immortality and a heavenly reason, have embraced the fiat of that reason and established it upon earth. The kingdom of God, then, is born as a result of the expansion of the flame of hope in the hearts of all. One day this which God has already established in heaven will be done upon earth. To hasten the day, mankind must rejoice in those choices and opportunities which are reflective of the grace and will of God.
I, Hilarion, release this Pearl of Wisdom with the full realization that through the study of these words mankind may become free of all dogma to be instructed in righteousness by the Lord Himself. Thus shall the trump of God overtake the world in all its infirmities and establish the unquestionable law of cosmic economy upon earth. By a little touch of the magnificence of heaven, that which has been sown in dishonor is indeed raised in honor17 by the cosmic honor flame of universal purpose brought to view.