Wisdom of Ramadahn by Ursula Roberts

CHAPTER TEN

 Spiritual Understanding

 So often we become discouraged in our efforts to go forward upon the spiritual pathway; there seem so many obstacles.

 Some of you tread this way with a concentrated dedication while some walk the way with but a faint idea where they are going. Some see the glory of the revelation with a clear spirit vision; some behold it clothed only in the vision seen by others and which they desire to see too. Whatever may be the purpose with which you travel, remember that it is the travelling forward which is important, the effort put forth in the climb will eventually result in your upward journey.

 The traveller upon the mountainside must sometimes pause and rest, waiting until some mighty power removes the obstacle in his pathway before he can go forward, and even so is it for those upon the spiritual way. You may have the clear sense of vision, the wish continually to climb, yet is there the insuperable barrier of personal responsibility which continually hems the soul in from exploration of the avenues of knowledge. We would say to remember that the obstacle upon the way, if bravely faced and patiently waited upon, will eventually be overcome, for there are mighty powers at work within the earthly life. Sometimes in the removal of some obstacle created by family conditions, it is the running rivulet of sorrow which removes the one who has held back the soul from its endeavour. Then must the soul hold fast and cling firmly unto its faith else it, too, will be torn away from the position it has attained, and swept down into the dark valleys of hopelessness and despair.

 Hold fast to the knowledge that all things are working for good, although they appear sometimes to be working for evil, for the one who is truly dedicated, who has set his feet upon the climb to the top of the mountain, the pathway of spiritual truth, this one places himself or herself into touch with powers and forces as yet unknown to the mortal mind, but which are known to those who guide you forward.

 When a time of great difficulty or trial emerges you are not alone, for around the aspiring soul converges a mighty host of strong spirits who have passed through just such an experience, and who stand by to strengthen and encourage, that the soul be not cast down. All things work together for good even in times of desolation and loss; what is important is that each one retains the desire to go forward and does not faint nor give up in this climb. The search for truth and illumination.

 You speak of seeing a spiritual vision. I do not know quite what you mean.

 Each soul has its own wish of attainment, a vision that hovers always before the spiritual eye. Unto some it is the reality of the being of the Master Jesus or the ability to compare their life to his. To others it is the realisation that their spirit has freed itself from the fetters of ancient thought and in this new revelation of truth and purity they may live, and sow into the earthly world the seed of love and kindliness, ceasing to reap the harvest of bitterness. To some it is simply the desire to live quietly and lovingly, no longer tempted by temptations of the smaller self, while to others comes the desire to press onward and upward unto a purer and closer realisation of their identity with the pure spirit, the Master Creator.

 Whatever your wish, whatever your vision, go forward and know that in the inwardness of its meaning it is the love of the Great Creative Spirit calling home His children, drawing the soul nearer and nearer, back to its original unity in peace and power.

 Are there any special virtues we should all try to cultivate?

 You should each value and bless that particular quality of the soul individual unto yourself. So much earthly time is wasted in fruitlessly endeavouring to accomplish deeds done by others, or in trying to emulate writings of other men and women. When you feel you are of no value because of this, disappointment and despondancy darken the inner soul.

 Grains of sand are not meant to shine like stars in the firmament, nor daisies to give forth the perfume of a lily, nor yet the lily to twine like a climbing plant beautifying the branches of a tree. Each of you has a soul quality individual unto yourself, and it is this that needs to be understood and developed, that at last it may crystalise in the power of the spirit, becoming your shining jewel of experience, your treasure laid up in heaven.

 Therefore, if the quality of your soul is simplicity: bless it. Let it stream forth in appreciation of the simple things of life, like a mountain river or a brook meandering through the woodside, refreshing and cleansing all it touches, thus revealing much that would otherwise be hidden. Eventually it can become the quality of revelation, often of mediumship, bringing forth crystal droplets of truth; and at the end of life's journey, on entering the spirit life, you may wear the diamond-like crystal symbolising the inner simplicity of your soul.

 If gentleness is your soul quality, breathe it forth; do not hide it from the harshness of the world but speak gently, move quietly, and realise that gentleness has also the quality of peace, for are they not part of each other? In time love and healing develop, for many need the gentleness of an understanding heart to heal their inner soul. The tender pink and silver jewels will be the treasure of such a life.

 Those who love know this is right, but not always do they understand how to bless this as it streams from them, for sometimes instead of a gentle warmth beautifying all whom they meet, their love is as a fire which burns and destroys. But still it should be treasured, for fire purifies and transmutes the baser elements, and those who have this fire within the soul develop healership, or love of humanity. Out of love is born the desire to serve and sacrifice, and from sacrifice comes the ruby jewel which will be their treasure in spirit. Truly, those who love may also be gentle, and the gentle may love truly, but you each have a predominant quality individual to yourself, and this needs to be appreciated and developed, that you may be yourself.

 Some have strength, a deeply hidden perseverence which can be changed into endurance. Those who are strong often have to learn to stand firm, to consider, to think, to be still just where they are. Out of their stillness they develop discernment, not that of mediumship, but the deep inward discernment of the soul by which they see why great world changes occur, and changes within relationships of the earthly life. For them on the inner planes of spirit are formed the green jewels of patience and endurance, glowing like emeralds or jade.

 The quality of peace is like an aureole of pure light. If this is the treasure of your being bless it, for tranquillity will flow around you in living streams of healing, eventually crystalising into the blue jewels of the soul. Often those who are innately peaceful feel they should seek for greater activity as they see their brothers and sisters running to and fro, and they are afraid to treasure their own inward quality, but peace is the basis of all healing.

 To a few upon earth is given the quality of creativeness, of energy, but in their misunderstanding they seek for ever to be making something new, to be showing forth something different. Creativeness is the ability of the inner soul to become attuned unto the great rhythms continually flowing through the universe. The creative soul is like a listener, listening to the winds, to the waters, to the soul of the world, and then outspeaking that which they discern in streams of living music and poetry, in outpictured forms. But such souls become restless sometimes destructive within themselves, because they do not fully understand how to bless the creativeness which moves in them. They should become attuned to the great rhythms, to the ebb and flow of eternal powers, that they may catch the golden stream of inspiration, turning it into the qualities of joy and appreciation, blending it with the other colours of the soul that all may gleam with golden light.

 It may seem unto you that some of these creators, the musicians, and artists in your world, destroy themselves. This is because they know not how to hold in reverent love the very quality which makes them individual unto themselves.

 Other qualities there are, but these of which I speak develop into the spiritual attributes known unto you, those which blossom into the beauties of mediumship, service, self-sacrifice and healership. Therefore, be yourselves, develop in the very fullness of your power, realising that from it other qualities may indeed begin to develop even as the petals of a flower unfold one by one, surrounding the inward heart of the blossom.

 Many of those around me seem to lead full and useful lives, dedicated to the service of others. I feel inadequate and fall so often. What can I do? It is hard not to get depressed.

 Unto all who feel within themselves inadequacy, weakness and failure I would say: These feelings, are they not all one and the same thing? For from them later will be born understanding, and out of understanding comes compassion, and from compassion is born love, and so you receive compensation even for your sense of weakness. Because you know this sense of inadequacy you will not despise your brothers and sisters when they seem to be weak, but rather from your own understanding you will say, "Yes, I know how you feel." So a bridge is made by which the green of sympathy, the rose pink of love and the tender hues of your healing flow from you to those others whom you meet.

 In your secret moments of prayer say unto your Lord: Thanks for this failure, for this inadequacy, for I realise that from this I gain something by which I may help the progress of others upon the way.

 I cannot understand what is meant by karma?

 Within the law of karma, or sowing and reaping, there is to be found a deeper understanding of all the laws which govern your life, both spiritual and mortal.

 The forgiveness of the human heart is small. It harbours within itself the sleeping memory of many hurts and wrongs, many injustices remembered in bitterness and pain, for the heart often forgets that the spirit of love is a spirit of forgiveness and it seeks to revenge itself for the hurts and wrongs which have been inflicted.

 There is little forgiveness within the heart until it has been able to receive the great inflood of divine spiritual love which comes with the unfoldment of spiritual purpose and understanding. The essence of love is in the forgiveness of love, and the greater the lovingness the less can it perceive the small imperfections or hurts which come from contact with the mortal world.

 Consider at the closing of the day: "How much has there been within the journey of this day which has brought unto me bitterness or hurt? accordingly must be the stream of my forgiveness before I can remain in harmony with the Laws Divine." Also, as you come to the morning hours on the following day, consider: "This one who has hurt me. Shall I not now give unto that one some token of my forgiveness?"

 Thus the spirit, progressing through the daily life, forges for itself a constant chain of loving forgiveness, the experiences falling behind the progress of the spirit in links of ever-changing light, touched here with the experience of the earth hurtful and bitter, and yet before the ending of the day changed again into the light of spiritual understanding by the pure touch of loving forgiveness.

 The spirit who retaliates bitterness with bitterness sows into the ethers of life more pain and hurtfulness which will eventually come back again in further difficult experiences through which it must pass. Those who sow in love reap in love, and those who sow in forgiveness reap in forgiveness, for this is the law of the spirit.

 How may we create a good future karma?

 In the years before you come to self-realisation, you are inheritors of conditions created by those preceding you, and of conditions resulting from your past actions. But when you pause and say, "Who am I? Am I just a leaf blown in the winds of destiny or am I a spirit?" Then you begin to reverse the process of inheritance. Though you may continue to work through the past, now you begin to create those conditions that will be yours in the future.

 So teach your people and your children that they must sow seeds of goodness, creative thought, kindness and lovingness, even though they are working through a difficult destiny in which they may be reaping a harvest of bitterness inherited from some previous time.

 Perchance in your own home life there is chaos and unrest and you say, "How may the peace of spirit come into our lives?" First, you must learn to bless the very chaos surrounding you, looking at it with the clear perception of spiritual truth, seeing it not as particular injustice to yourself but as part of the whole unrest of your world. It will pass, for nothing in the earthly existence endures for ever, so bless the chaos and the very condition you resist. Set upon it your own wish for peace, and you will bring the light of spirit into the very condition from which you desire to escape.

 After blessing with your mind, make a gesture with your hand, either touching the quarrelsome one or setting within the place of disharmony a visible symbol of your harmonious thought such as a little bunch of blossoms or a growing plant.

 If you desire to create prosperity in the years to come, give thanks for what you have and for hands with which you can labour. Then make some token of your gratitude by labouring a little more for those who need care, perhaps cooking a little extra for those poorer than yourself. Bless your labour, but give away part of what you produce. Do not think, "I can only attain a small amount of money, therefore I must keep it for the future," but bless part of it and give it lovingly to others with greater need. Thus as you live and move into the future you may inherit the result of this that you are creating in the present.

 Again, some of you fear the loneliness of old age, but using the wisdom of understanding you must learn to bless the relationships that are with you now. Sometimes in your heart you cry: "These relationships of family and responsibility. These do not bring me joy. This is not what I want." But you should bless those who try your patience, who bring you tears of disappointment, for this develops within your soul the capacity to endure and to understand. Give thanks on your knees for those who bring you joy, and for those whose hearts melt in the tenderness of love in unity with your own.

 As you bless and give thanks to the great Master Spirit, so are you setting into motion the great flowing vibrations that go out into the future, and as you move onward you will meet others who need your understanding and understand them by reason of the difficulties you have endured.

 Do not limit yourselves to those who now hold your hands, the beloveds of your heart: you must be prepared to bless them, let them go, move on, for in the future the great Giver of All Good will bring you friends, companionship, and the conditions that you yourself may desire. Always by your right acceptance and lack of resentment as to the present, you set into motion the great powers of creative vibration which go on and on into the future. As you move through time so you come to meet that which is good, sweet and noble.

 Sow with the seed of nobility: let your earth be glad that you dwell for a little while, imparting unto the living soil some part of your own touch of blessing.

 Is it good to love even if that love is not reciprocated?

 The outpouring of love is far more important than its receiving, for the spiritual law of love is to give and go on giving, for what is given circles round in a mighty circle of light and eventually returns unto the one from whom it sprung. Unto all who love and gain no return for their loving, I would say: Keep on loving! Send it out and it will flow in a great circle of radiant light and some day it will return again to you, for nothing can be given but what eventually it must find its point of return. Round and round upon the great spirals of human progression, upon the great spirals of creative energy, round and round go the starry forms of light and the great loves of men and women, always meeting on higher vibrations, lifting, transmuting, changing all things, but always working according to the pattern and law of the great Creator.

 Life seems to hold such long stretches of drabness when nothing important happens.

 It is not that which happens to you which is of importance, it is your reaction unto that circumstance. See always that your reaction conforms to the law of love, and give for unkindness, kindness; give for cruelty, forgiveness; give for darkness, light, and remember that the law of love is the law of giving rather than receiving.

 As you give forth your love in a richness of blessing, an outpouring of gifts, in healing and encouragement, you will find that the true joy of your life is in the deep inward satisfaction which is gained in giving the best you have unto those in need, and unto those who can receive For in this giving forth in joy you live according to the true identity of your inward soul.

 Sometimes it seems however much effort we put into working for what seems right, there is so little to show for it.

 You will never see in your earthly world the results of your labours, for that which is done with spiritual intent is done unto the spirit, and may not be fruited upon earth. The man who builds for himself great wealth upon earth will reap the wealth of the earth, but the one who gives his labour in love and service unto others, to men and women who pass swiftly from his comprehension, such a one will only see the result of his sowing in the spiritual realm when the journey of earth is over. It should be that you in your wisdom will be content to labour, to love and to sow within the field of human life the seed of goodness, that your reaping may come by and by, for on the earth there is only the shadow, whilst here within the spirit is the reality. Therefore your work must ever be incomplete.

 The wise spirit says: "I live here within a world in which all is change, for that is the law of the Master Spirit. So I will not grieve either over gain or loss, either over riches nor yet over poverty, but rather will I seek in all things to accomplish with a loving spirit the Labours which come unto my hand."

 Why is the earthly life so fraught with difficulty and frustration?

 Many of you who are learning your lessons in the great school of life question this. Your world needs to manifest the spiritual aspects of love, and the first of these is patience. In order to help you lift your love on to a higher plane, the things you desire are withheld for a time that you may learn to wait in patience and in peace, for truly in patience there is peace.

 Often the ways of the earthly life show forth this lesson, when the lover is separated from the beloved through war, economic stress, or the differences of race. By this separation the beloved learns patiently to wait. When a beloved precedes you into the life of spirit through disease or accident, because you know the spirit endures for ever, you wait patiently for months and years, quietly persisting in the knowledge that you will meet again with the coming of your own death.

 So love teaches you patience and patience teaches you peace. In your development of the spiritual powers of healing and mediumship you need to learn their higher manifestations, but always you cry aloud saying, "Why does it take so long before the healing brings health and ease to the ones we desire to help?" It would be wiser to ask yourself: "Have I sufficient love for these sufferers to keep on healing in patience and peace? Is my love really for myself, in that I desire to see the result of my healing rebounding unto my own benefit and praise?"

 To our vision patience fills the aura with a shade of gentle green, a colour to be seen in the world of nature where there is no hurry, no haste, for the grass comes slowly to fruition and the leaf unfolds in unresisting silence. This is the greenness of beauty in your world, and even so is it seen within the spiritual aura. When it slowly changes to these delicate green hues, we see expansion and strength coming there and we blend into that aura any other colour, for there is no clash between another colour and green, for this is the beauty of its being. We sometimes blend in the deeper blues to stimulate psychic unfoldment, rose pink to warm and quicken the affections, the gold of wisdom and the deep mauve shades of healing. Therefore one of your first lessons before you may become a medium or healer is this lesson of patience.

 Whatever your condition of earthly life, bless your time of trial or of waiting, thank the Master Creator for witholding the treasures which you desire, for in the waiting you may learn patience, and in learning patience you will find peace.

 Is there a golden rule for living?

 Try to order your lives as harmlessly as possible. Learn to have a quiet tongue which if it cannot speak good will remain silent. Learn to have such love within your heart that it can quench the raging fire of your temper and resentfulness, that unto the unjust accusations of others and in the quarrelsome situations that arise you may stem the fire of your impatience, the swiftness of your retort, for those who live harmlessly will not engage in quarrels with other men and women. Truly you may give wisdom and quietness of judgement, but not in the heat of debate or the haste of impatience.

 Blessed is the peacemaker, but how may he be blessed unless he has such peace within his heart that he sees no reason to quarrel? In living harmlessly, sometimes in the secrecy of prayer you must decide between two situations, and it may seem whichever decision you make this will bring hurt unto another human soul. To apply the laws of love and peace your decision will be made so that the least harm and hurt may be rendered unto all whom you know. Then having made your decision in the tenderness of love and prayer, extend unto the one you need to hurt the healing of your love, the gentleness of your regret. Thus you bring the law of harmlessness into the fullness of its fruition and beauty.

 If one learns to guard the tongue and say nothing harmful, isn't the damage already done if the thought has been there?

 This is partly true, but I think it is impossible for earth's children in their present state of development to make every thought harmless. It is easier to begin with the heart and deed, then with the word, then as you grow in strength and power slowly the harmlessness may be transferred into the more subtle regions of the soul self, and may come forth in thought, prayer and love. But it is always good to try to feel, speak and think harmlessly.

 If one does say something that is regretted, is it possible to lessen its effect by sending out the counteracting thought?

 Yes, each of you should try to live in such a way that at the closure of each day, if anything has been done or said which you recognise as harmful, try to cancel and change it. Either ask the person harmed for their forgiveness, or change the wrong thought by a thought of love and healing, for by so doing you balance the scales of cause and effect day by day, bringing the mind and soul back into harmony.

 Can perfect health be gained by the power of thought?

 No, not by the power of thought, but it can be gained by the purification of thought so that the thought body comes into harmony with the spirit which is trying to express itself through the thought and emotional bodies.

 One simple way to attain this harmony is to cultivate the habit of non-action. Refrain as much as possible from giving forth any reaction into the outer world until you have paused to analyse that which has taken place. When in your passage along a street, although the pavement is nearly empty, another walks straight into you, your first reaction will be to say to yourself, "This man is not looking where he is going, therefore I have the right to be annoyed with him." But if you follow the policy of non-action, then you will stop and think, "Was he drawn to me by a ray of attraction, and have I then a service to render unto him?" This would be a policy of non-action by you to give your spirit time to consider that which had occurred. So also in all similar incidents of the day; the spirit, as onlooker, viewing the whole picture of life, stands and considers each happening before any reaction occurs within the mind or feeling.

 Thus your spirit may fully judge what has occurred before it allows a reaction to take place, and in such a fashion your reaction must always be of a spiritual nature.

 Is suffering necessary?

 It is true that you must pass through varying experiences in the daily life but you do not need to suffer; your suffering is simply your reaction to what occurs. Throughout your whole life there will be changes of pattern, for your children will grow up and leave you; your mother and father will one day be transferred into spirit. Sometimes other men and women will not understand you and you will react either with sorrow or bitterness to these things. But if you are wise you will say to yourself, "These are but experiences which come to every person; they come to develop strength within me." By accepting them you do not need to suffer. You just endure them as a means by which your soul will be more highly developed.

 I have heard it said that suffering is ordained by God.

 God has not ordained suffering, but has ordained change, change which must come in every human life. But there is no need for you to  suffer through these changes if you can accept them as experiences by which you learn.

 Surely suffering helps one to have compassion for another who suffers similarly?

 To answer this question we must understand what we mean by suffering, for surely the inner meaning is to endure agonising pain of mind or body, and I would say this is not necessary. People suffer because they try to withstand conditions arising in their life, but if they can accept these things as something through which they will learn, they may know pain and loneliness, they may endure separation, but they need not suffer in the full meaning of the word. Therefore, the soul by passing through varying experiences enlarges its understanding and gains in tolerance of others, but it endures suffering only because it will not accept.

 As we pass middle age, many of us find our memory failing. It is very worrying. Will it hinder our spiritual development?

 This should not cause anxiety for it is part of the spiritual growth of the soul that it may learn how to forget as well as how to remember. Often we have to take souls who have newly arrived in the spirit life and deliberately teach them to forget. In the Halls of Forgetfulness where a soft, silvery grey light fills the atmosphere, those who need to have unpleasant memories eradicated from their minds rest for awhile in dim hospital rooms where slowly the consciousness sinks into rest, rest, deeper and deeper rest, until at last it begins to let go of its earth memories of pain and fear. When this period is completed, skilled healers will draw from the sleeping mind the residue of the memory. If such a one returns to earth to communicate, you may discover it does not remember dying or the seasons of pain, but comes back with remembrance of happy and joyful things. This lesson of forgetfulness is of great importance.

 As you make your way through the many experiences of the daily life seeking spiritual unfoldment, the habit of remembering spiritual matters becomes established, but with it you may forget certain earthly things which no longer seem of tremendous importance to the spiritual mind. If you understood this with greater wisdom you would command yourself to remember or forget, saying: "This is of no value. I will let it go and forget it." Thus the consciousness would be uncluttered and free to remember that which is important.

 In your schools the child and youth should be taught the value of forgetfulness. Too often when souls come newly to the spirit life they are tormented by remembrance of unimportant details of their mortal life. We say to them: "Forget it. Think upon the things of the spirit. Look to the glorious light and remember the new truths we are trying to teach you." But because the old habit of thought is so strong it will continue until it is at last transmuted.

 As you pass from youth to maturity and thence to the closing years, try to apply this truth to your lives with wisdom, cultivating the memory of your spiritual consciousness, learning to forget the less important mortal things. Furthermore, this habit of not forgetting can create mental torment for those still in the physical body.

 When you desire to help just such a sleepless sufferer, send unto them the soft, silvery grey colours of rest, deep rest, and impart into the consciousness by thought the idea, "Forget your suffering, let go of your fear." Draw it unto your self as a healer, even as the healers in spirit draw from the consciousness of the resting soul its memory. You can also withdraw from a sick person the remembered fear or pain they endured in a difficult illness or operation, and so hasten their recovery. The veil of forgetfulness can be drawn across the mind like a soft, silvery grey blanket, as you draw away from them the memory of their suffering. 

You who desire to heal often think, "Oh, could we but take away the memory of guilt, sorrow and suffering, and replace it with harmony and happiness." You can indeed, but first apply this simple law unto yourselves, that in the valuation of forgetting and remembering will come the seed of your wisdom.

 Why can we not remember our past lives, the experiences we had before we were born?

 Surely the burden of remembrance is very great! Would it be wise to be burdened by remembering all the errors and mistakes, the triumphs, joys and sorrows of the life preceding this one? The Master Creator in His love taught man to draw the veil of forgetfulness that he may take his way on earth with a fresh and new consciousness, one able to absorb experiences, then to forget them, that newer and better ones may be absorbed. Give thanks to the great Giver of all Good that He has given you the power to forget as well as to remember.

 The consciousness of man is like a tree, which, if it is to grow straight and strong and glorious must shed some part of itself ere ever it may unfold the higher and newer parts. Man's new consciousness unfolds from the old one of things he has forgotten. Forgetfulness is the soil from which grows the plant of wisdom, realisation and new remembering.

 There are many teachings on the value of peace and joy, but what about laughter? Isn't this of spiritual value?

 The birthright of those seeking understanding of spiritual law should be the way of quiet happiness and joyful peace. But man's mind becomes contained within the shell of its own sorrow and self-concern. For this reason the Master Spirit sends to the earth those whom you know as the laughter makers, the clowns, those having deep within themselves the ability to create joy and laughter wherever they go. When laughter moves within the inward being and a host of people enter into joy and amusement together, then the joy within reaches unto the joy without. This creates an opening, an opportunity, whereby the mightier spiritual joy may find entrance. Value your laughter makers, for they are part of the great healing band which encircles your sorrowful world.

 Have they any special work to do in the spirit world?

 When they leave the mortal body and continue their life in the spirit places they go on creating laughter and bringing to birth happiness. Sometimes they come to your circles, awakening the laughter which may bring true inward relaxation and release from tensions. But they do their greatest work here within the astral planes and within the homes of healing in the first planes of spirit experience, for to these places come those who leave the mortal body shattered by sorrow or broken in mind by lack of understanding, or with the memory of great suffering. We cannot gain their attention to teach them the laws of spirit, but unto such we bring the laughter makers, those who can create such fun, such an exaggeration of joy that those watching must eventually give way to a little amusement, and finally unto a little laughter. So the creator of laughter who was once a comedian of the earth can give the sad one some part of their own golden joy. This will be the start of the rehabilitation of the soul stricken in sorrow.

 Do we weaken others by helping them?

 The true way to help one another is in standing by and giving hope when it seems that all is hopeless, in upholding them when they are cast down into the depths of weakness and despair, by lending unto them strength, so that they have the power to continue from day to day until the time of trial is past.

 To feed the hungry over an indefinite period of time is to supply their need but to deprive them of the desire and necessity to work. Work and labour should be undertaken with love, for that is the expression of the inward spiritual will through which the great laws of cause and effect are continually balanced. Where there is no need to labour, then lethargy and self-indulgence seize upon the mind, body and soul, and with that comes destructiveness and sinfulness.

 We in the spirit love you, but our labour of love is rendered not by removing your responsibilities but by standing by and lending unto you hope, strength and comfort, by shedding light upon you and interpenetrating your world with radiations of peace. We know that through such spiritual influence slowly you become stronger and able to stand in your own right as beautiful spirits, and out of your own experience of suffering will develop the desire and ability to comfort others. So do not seek to try to help one another. Be wise in your helping, and know that if in your desire and ability to assist you yourself are being dragged down and exhausted, then you do not serve in wisdom, because you are not helping the other ones to understand and help themselves.

 Regarding our attitude to possessions, we know there should be non-attachment, but is it not equally important to cultivate this toward people?

 Truly, for sometimes in the treasures of the heart there must come a willingness to relinquish one who is well-beloved and who is, perhaps, of greater value to the soul than all their possessions or gifts.

 How can we recognise the right time for this?

 It is an attitude of the inward consciousness, a willingness to relinquish if this should be demanded. It is an inward feeling that although this beloved one is indeed the treasure of the heart, yet does he or she rightly belong unto the Master Creator. Should it be that this one is demanded, then there must be the willingness to let go. It is not always necessary that the relinquishment should take place, but rather the attitude within the spiritual self which is important.

 Let your thought go forth in healing unto other creatures of the earth and let your living magnetic force radiate unto all things that you see and all things that you touch. Do not live unto yourselves alone, but live as part of the whole, and as part of the whole let goodness, love and peace be your watchword.

 How would you answer the question "Am I my brother's keeper?"

 It is good and it is right that each of you who are upon the pathway of unfoldment should learn to become a guardian or keeper of their brother, a leader of the wandering sheep. Consider with what care the shepherd looks after his sheep, planning the pastures wherein they may feed, and yet are the sheep all unheeding of his tending, aware of him only when confusion seizes upon them and the flock becomes scattered. Then are they glad to hear the familiar voice calling them home, bringing them once more into unity with each other and with him.

 Even so are you here in the mortal life, for you are the shepherds of the sheep and yet the sheep are unaware of your shepherding. The law of love is expressed by unity, and you cannot live unto yourself alone for this will bring spiritual stagnation. If you have loved, if you are upon the spiritual pathway, you can only progress by becoming the guardian, the leader, teacher or keeper of the flock of your heedless brothers and sisters around you. But if you have not yet evolved love within your heart, if you are still living the ordinary life of the animal creature, then you are not a keeper of the flock for you are but a goat or a sheep yourself who has to be lovingly led forward and brought into the pathways of understanding. Those who have not yet learned the law of love, these too become their brother's keepers and sad and sorrowful is the pattern they portray, keeping their brother in the chains of their possessiveness and selfishness.

 So, you are the keeper of your brother's destiny whilst you are growing in love and unity, and also whilst you are showing the opposite aspect of love which is love jealous, love possessive, the love which holds and clings. Whichever way humanity treads it still has this responsibility, for no human soul can progress along the pathway unless they bring another with them. Nothing occurs without each man and woman contributing something to the total joy or misery; each is responsible for the whole pattern outworked within the town, village or place they call their own.

 That is a hard teaching. Is it not contrary to the law of personal responsibility?

 No, that is not true. In this sea of mortal experience you cannot live unto yourself alone. You are part of the great community of life surrounding you, interpenetrating your thought, touching your aura, flowing through your physical body. As you progress, your understanding of the law of personal responsibility will come more and more into an attunement with the great Giver of all Good, until your purified love becomes a universal compassion for the people around you. As this flows from you into the great sea of human life, you betray your knowledge that you are the keeper of the flocks, the shepherd of the sheep, for you are the keeper of the brother and sister nearest to you, shepherding them on the way towards the light. They may be unaware of your influence even as the sheep who follow close behind the shepherd as he quietly goes forward. You may say you do not possess them and they do not belong to you; nevertheless, in your spiritual influence you show that you are your brother's keeper, keeping him in the way of truth and beauty.

 What about the guiding ones in spirit? Are you your brother's keeper?

 Yes, yes! We are the keepers of those in the mortal life, for we know that before we can come into a closer kinship with the great Spirit of Joy we must firstly bring home from their wandering way some of the weak, the lost and the hungry, by interpenetrating our silent influence into their consciousness that the good therein may be stimulated to unfold and grow strong, and that they may see the way and walk the paths which lead to the things of the spirit.

 A Group Prayer

 "We would gather together the scattered petals of thought created by the consciousness of all who are here, bringing them together in one beautiful blossom that they may be joined into the stem of our teaching, thus creating a lovely flower enfolded in the soft green leaves of sympathy that wing from the hearts and thoughts of those present. As we create this beautiful blossom, like a lovely chrysanthemum glowing with the purity of light and tinged with the gentle pink of love, we would uplift it, O thou Great Creator, that this bloom may be taken unto the altars of prayer in the temple of light, there to lie for a time gleaming and glistening with the blessing which comes from Thee."