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If man could neither be influenced by nor influence another, he would still be capable of what we shall term self-influence. This being the case, the earnest student of Ascended Master law cannot fail to take into account the fact that the quality of his thoughts and feelings is absolutely vital not only to his freedom and God-happiness but also to his progress on the Path. Some say that there is a great chasm between the thoughts and feelings of man - that they are poles apart. But in reality they are one; and it is to this truth, so often ignored, that we would direct your attention in this Pearl of Wisdom.
Those who in their pursuit of freedom seek to understand the laws of God must realize that these laws, in their direct outreach into the world of man, have already established the bulwarks of freedom that their souls require in order to gain mastery over their thoughts and feelings. Will you understand, then, that each time a man thinks, there is effected a subtle yet tangible yoke between his thoughts and his feelings, and that each time he feels, there is a vital link established between his feelings and his thoughts. And if his thoughts were round, they could become elongated by the impact of his feelings; conversely, if his feelings were square, they could become distorted by the momentum of his thoughts.
I speak to you of these laws for your instruction in freedom, that you may understand that in the union of his thought and feeling mechanisms the gears of man's attention are totally engaged and that his entire psyche is affected thereby. Therefore, the startling fact of existence on this planetary home to which few pay heed is that no man is wholly free until he is wholly in control of his mental and emotional faculties.
In the Eye of God, in the orb of His immaculate Consciousness wherein perfection dwells, man can, if he will, revive those longings of the soul that were from the beginning one with the solar fires of the Mind of the Infinite One. The freedom that is so precious to mankind cannot be preserved unless men understand that they are to a greater or lesser extent bound by their thoughts and feelings and that they can find their freedom from this bondage only as they pursue the thoughts and feelings of God.
From time to time people become seized with the idea, perhaps true, perhaps not, that their individual rights are being trespassed upon; and it is with consummate passion that they dedicate their lives to the restoration and preservation of those rights. Would to God that they might pursue with equal passion their spiritual freedoms, which are daily, imperceptibly being encroached upon to the destruction of the soul! In the name of your immortal freedom, the divine rights of the monadic expression must be exalted! Not to the glorification of the lesser ego, which so often ensnares man in the most ludicrous circumstances, but to the expansion of the Greater Ego and the Sacred Fire burning in the chalice of the mind.
Being concerned that each individual monad retain his opportunity for dominion in the citadel of life, it is my wish, under the direction of the Holy Spirit and the Most High, to shed light upon the subject of freedom and yet refrain from becoming involved in needless controversy with those whose egos have forestalled their surrender of the ego. As an Elder Brother deeply concerned with the preservation of the fires of freedom upon earth, I must reiterate to the students of the Light that your greatest freedom lies in your own God Presence, in the divine intent that is a part of the Godhead, and in the gift of freedom that He has first given to you that you may so willingly give it to others.
There is a facet of man's identity that in his search for Reality may be temporarily lacking in the grasp of spiritual precepts or the conclusive awareness of the Great Law of Being. And until he makes greater attunement with the Divinity in himself, the monad may find that he is without his native ability to become one with premises and conclusions of the universal science affecting the entire Cosmos and his relationship therewith. Therefore, when man begins to surrender the personal self unto the great tides of the Divine Self and to the holy influences that transcend the ages, he should not expect to become possessed on the instant with the full faculties of his spirituality or the momentum of the eternal Theosophia. Having cut himself free from his moorings, he may find himself cast adrift upon what seems an endless and uncharted sea.
I do not say that Infinity has an end; but I do say that one can utilize in a most practical manner the sequences of Infinity - the compartments of God's eternality - to enhance his own personal spiritual development. Thus should be understood the relevance of Infinity to its own cycles as these release God's energy into the time-space continuum. Infinity contains within itself all that is of the finite realm - the depth, the breadth, the height, and the width thereof - and beyond. Although man may not understand the Infinite, he should develop the habit of putting together in consciousness the building blocks of his finite realm as segments of the Infinite; for the finite is to the Infinite as the part is to the Whole. And this knowledge is a key to man's inner development through his awareness of the eternal God active within the chalice of the monadic consciousness.
In the holy name of freedom, I urge upon all a renewed consecration to the purposes of immortal freedom right where you are in your development. You do not have to become an Ascended Being or an initiate of the highest degree to appreciate and apply the many gifts of Light which God has given to child-man evolving in the planes of Matter. Made available to man wherever he is found realizing his God Self-awareness, these gifts are intended to assist his spiritual unfoldment and to teach him how to initiate the spirals of individual freedom and ultimately become an initiator of the cycles of God-freedom.
You are not living in a hostile universe, but in a friendly one, where the powers of Light are prepared to give you that cosmic assistance which your souls require in order to rise upon the spirals of immortal freedom. Therefore, beloved ones, beware of identifying with feelings of hostility toward the Godhead, toward the self, or toward life; for as soon as you allow your feelings to flow with the world momentum of hostility, your thoughts will become energized by the same negative spiral, and this can be fatal to the purposes of your attainment.
To prolong feelings of guilt without taking steps toward self-correction can serve no worthwhile purpose. Self-condemnation (the condemnation of the lower self) that resists the alchemy of Self-realization (the realization of the Higher Self) will always deprive the soul of its inner glory and its fulfillment in the divine plan. Thus the delusions of incorrect thought and feeling keep man continually bound in a lesser state of consciousness and frustrate the growth of the soul.
To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with one's God1 is a requirement of the Law; yet this cannot be fulfilled while man wallows in past injustices, intolerances, and the wounds of his pride. The old man with his deeds must be forsaken ere the new man can be put on.2 If the individual is to obtain here and now those assets of his immortal freedom which he well deserves, he must put behind him every implication of the darkened world consciousness that does not comprehend the nature of God's Light.
The eternal God, in being love, is in love with His creation. But of necessity He cannot involve Himself with man's imperfect sense of the creation, for He dwells totally in the glory of perfection and Truth with which He endowed it. Therefore, those in whom the sense of imperfection and untruth becomes corollary to their lives, those who continually behold the part instead of the Whole, inevitably lose their contact with the Godhead - their direct involvement with His Consciousness - through their partial and distorted view of Life.
As a karmic index to mankind that all is not right with the world and that something has gone awry with the individual, God permits His laws to exact their toll, chastising those whom He dearly loves.3 Let men understand this attitude of the Godhead that is disposed to give to individual man the most marvelous gift - the gift of Life itself - and when the gift is not accepted, to produce out of the crucible of suffering the fruits of heavenly virtue that eventuate in man's freedom from pain. When you understand this divine be-attitude - this attitude of Be-ness - just a little more, your hearts will begin to assimilate the joybell majesty of the Cosmos. You will discover how the sense of the absolute can interpenetrate the sense of the relative, and you will experience your God-victorious deliverance from the mass mind.
Saint Paul said, "To be carnally minded is death."4 Indeed, those who are ego-minded cannot be Christ-minded; therefore they remain dead to the Real Self until they replace the ego with the Christ. They gravitate to a sense of failure and frustration that holds them bound to a round of carnal activities, of fears and doubts which readily assail them; thus they must recognize the need to shed these attitudes of 'not being' before they will be able to do so. Then shall they thrust them aside, not as into a vacuum, but into the transmuting flame of their own real God-identity. And as they accept the mantle of cosmic freedom and cosmic protection which the universal energies provide, they will be able to rise up the ladder of those spiritually initiatic processes which through the solicitude of The Brotherhood become a very real part of the life of each seeker.
I urge upon all of you, especially those of you just beginning on the Path, the recognition of the great tides of Life, the Light momentums that are already in the universe, generated by the Holy Spirit for your good and for your deliverance from evil. I ask those who are on higher rungs of the ladder but who berate their own rate of progress to in patience possess their souls.5 Truly, with God all things are possible;6 but time as it is balanced on the very finger of eternity must be apprehended. For life is a school; and passing of moments, of seconds, of minutes, of hours, of days, of years, of lifetimes is an activity of cyclic devotion which, when correctly understood, can assist the soul into its higher role. Believing this now and always to be an activity of universal love, I send to you that encouragement which I fully intend you to receive.
Out of the depth of the love of God's Heart I say, let this year and this day become God's year and God's day for you. Let them be a time when, through enlightenment and a sense of inner peace, your freedom becomes a banner of the soul that will ultimately translate you into that realm where death is not, but only the abundant Life prevails.