The First Pledge- 16th October 2002

The first pledge

Is to uphold in faith,

The prolongation within and without,

Of inviolable trust given to Father God and to Christ,

That this World be deemed most Holy,

And the cradling Powers at all times,

The only Life that will endure.

To Love unfailingly

Is not to doubt or decry;

It is a pledge made knowingly

That is given from an intelligent measuring

Within a mind and heart,

Full knowing of the difficulties

Which contrast and contrive against the Holy Powers;

And in a defiance to all antagonists,

A willingness to ever love more, regardless.

With this,

Though in sheer and ethereal form,

We combine with every being of every realm

Who does so wholeheartedly love.

Elemental Elements- 6th October 2002

IT has been true to say that we are the dreams of the gods, sinewed and sewn, amassed and congealed with materials out from their imaginations… divinity expires and expels new life and an abundance of creativity with every outbreath of their living thought. 

Whilst our thoughts have ceased their life during the process of our very thinking them, the gods who oversee the spiritual realms are living thought - Divine thought - manifest. And in a cooperation alike unto no other, they combine to make up, support and maintain, all of the heavenly spheres surrounding them.

Sometimes it is almost as if there becomes a certain reversal of truth within the nature of things. Such as that thoughts do not merely represent the truth, as they appear to do within earthly experience, but are rather the original sources to all things, which later go on to collect more thoughts about them.

Often explained as being inside out, there are machinations and determinations which mirror-image the bordering realms. One could say, for example, that thoughts visit us, are drawn to us, can impinge upon us, can even live with us, but all the while are not truly experienced by us as anything other than semi-detached, unrelated, even unsubstantiated, occurrences. 

We do not require and nor do we perceive, thoughts which enter into our consciousness to impart their history or deliver pure truth when we are thinking them. The experience of the thinking can absorb our minds without there being recollection or further knowledge of the thought's precedents or even its true nature. The consciousness, even at its brightest within this world, retains the thought material in quasi neutrality, for it is that the 'skin of the thought' is all there is left to go by at this level, at this time, in our thinking. 

We identify thoughts as being conveyors of reality, but not having a reality or personality within their own nature. Yet in spiritual terms there is no 'middle man'; and within the spiritual reality, that which is, is, and that which isn't, isn't. Likewise, and just to be a little more complex, there are families of angelic beings, demi-gods (exalted masters) and even adept men, who all share the one name, having assumed the identity of their preceding hierarchical mentor. Chains of individual entities can all go by the one name, the one 'personage' which verily is, but certainly also isn't - all at the one time!

However and extraordinarily also, the family of Man inherently goes by the one name whether assumed or unassumed - namely: Christ. Our beings indwell in Him and we are His Living Reality. 

Composites of tattered thought-remains constrict our spiritual mind's knowing, like some seaborn crustaceous hanger-on, layering an armor-like sheath all over the indwelling cognition. Like bone over brain, like bone over brain.

And within our everyday searchings and contemplations, there are moments in which we strive to go within and search for the living truths, sensing with an inner divining the world of thought beyond the crusty veneer! This sensing is pleasurable in itself, full of hope and expectation. Just the moving forward in lively inquiry brings a spiritual release to the soul and to the ego. 

Such divination goes right to the heart of the spiritual beings we seek out also. There is a union quick to be consummated through our seeking truth through love. If you go to the thought (for example, and not especially):

DIVINE KNOWLEDGE IS COMPLETE, AND WITHIN ITS OWN COMPLETENESS THERE IS PURPOSE.

We can bump up against our skull (our crustaceans of former thought remains) and go no further (i.e. saying to ourselves: 'this is too hard for me' or 'how can one ever really know?'), or we can bump up against our skull and move out further with our inquiring impetus and feel the sensation of this pushing forth from the barriers of our rigidity into the fields of possibility. 

When we have entered into possibility we are enlivened, and in many respects we are healed. Think for one moment of the materialist, the man or woman who cannot come into the field of possibility, but is entrapped within the collection of thought-remains (the remains of thought-remains - the dust from the skin of the thought sloughed in thinking). This materialist may experience dementia of the mind or dementia of the body, but what is always apparent is the dementia of hope alongside this rigidity of thinking. 

If you do not exercise the striving to know, then it eventuates that this gift from the fields of possibility - that of hope - becomes more difficult and then impossible to experience, elemental to our thinking.

Hope is Carbon, is manifest in Carbon, in a family of names. 

Now firstly, if we remember the few words said alluding to the chain of names shared by associate beings who assume identity and therefore are, yet are not, one and the same, we can also apply this to the contexts in which we often give names to realities which share identities - which are and yet are not the sum total of the name we have so given. 

Carbon may be identified as belonging in the one grand chain of Divinity known as Hope, yet in the highest and purest context there was indeed a spiritual entity at some point preceding Carbon that also went by that name and characteristic. And before them, there was another, and so on - back in time and before time and so forth et continuum. 

Hope is enabling. It will take you wherever you want to go. Hope also bears the consensus of Father God, which is precisely why it is effectual, life-giving, Holy Spirit infilling and enabling. Opti - expanding - optimism. 

The Sun forces which operate throughout the Carbon complex, correspond directly with the egoic action and Will of Christ. The Blood of Christ = Sun/Etheric vitality = Carbon. Firstly, this is why within the two pillars [Jachin & Boaz] the bloods are honored so deeply as they are. 

The pillar of Carbon rises out from a fixed place, through to the finding of knowledge. The rock of the skull actually gives solid ground to the base of this pillar. The pillar is upright and extending on through to hope and via hope we extend on into the knowledge and connecting with the ultimate reality of that which we are searching for union with.

The fixed nature of carbon holds therefore two offerings - within its own nature are dual components and these component characteristics actually contradict each other constantly. Carbon gives body to form, but also license to go beyond that form into yet another. 

Can we find also such contradiction within the very Will of Christ? For He has created and made possible the material of the World, but it is as unfinished and must continuously disassemble and reassemble in order to develop a'further. 

There is a knowing required which is Divine, which determines when to be fixed and when to give way. We can use this picture of principle within our own lives, but fundamentally we can respect it as an esoteric marvel. To determine this fixed nature and to inspire at the same time potentiality for difference, is a beauteous and complex signature to this Divine Will of Christ. And daily within the physical realm, this determining is in action from the minute to the magnificent.

Furthermore it takes a consciousness intelligent enough and a Will as comprehensive as it need be, to be this determining within the World and Man. This is no small principle, for in it also are keys into the karmic negotiations ever at play, as well as the chaos which would otherwise threaten our stability within the Cosmos.

Now in relation to Man, there is a further comment to be made. Yet another principle, is that within Nature we should take only that which we need for ourselves. Any surplus becomes dangerous. Even surplus of virtue unused (and particularly if it is unused) becomes a poison to us. This principle can be used in relation to breathing techniques, both in regards to over-breathing in general, but also in consumption and the retention of CO2 as well. 

You see it might be anticipated that if we understand in part some of the inherent qualities which livingly impart the same to us, then it is tempting to believe that an abundance is valuable. Spiritually speaking, a little of something (anything) is a lot. In point of fact, there is a Cosmic Regulator (you guessed it) that determines within the conjuncture of combining natures just how much of anything is required and it adapts accordingly. Beings and their emanatory environments/influences adjust and adapt to each other continuously. Once again it is also needs based etc. You cannot warehouse any profitable gain in Heaven. You cannot bank the valuable; it must be spent and then replenished. 

Also, if I have beauty I do not have too much or too little - beauty is beauty and is beauty. If I love, I love, and it can neither be quantified by too much or too little. All love is apt, and all love is of purpose and it is not amountable.

If I am afforded the grace of forgiveness (either to myself or from myself) it will not be measurable either. If I experience joy there is no such thing as one joy or ecstasy being measurably higher or better or larger than another's. It will be what it is, and so it goes. 

Divine Life modifies, but never censures. Yet also, quite wonderfully, no being may overtake another or consume another through being 'more powerful'. And so you see that the whole conceptional promise of more is falsely based within the spiritual realms. If any one being had more and that meant more power, more entitlements etc., then we would have collapsed in a vortex of hierarchy minutes ago. Nothing purchases more for ourselves to take more for ourselves. And physically speaking, when we take more than is necessary for our good health or happiness etc., then it instantly becomes a difficulty in our lives.

In this you could find the principle of severity. Severity does not mean hardship but 'to sever', to cut away that which is surplus. This is also one of the qualities of Carbon. That the sun-forces which act to inspire a vehicle for the existing of life to come, also have within their impetus a severity which knows on its own how much is too much. Once again we must bow to the higher intelligence operating here. That because Christ fully knows the needs and specifications of all, He is there within the formative and life-sustaining forces determining an overall homogony and harmony from the inside of each and every structure.

It is not enough to look to an Ahrimanic influence to find such regulating and wisdom as is described above. Uniformity is uninformed! Uniformity is not sensitive to the individual prescription - which, by the way, alters moment by moment. The 'mean' is mean. (Would you care for ten more potential bumper sayings? :-)) This is why it is impossible to translate biology into spirit, if at the same time trying to establish an 'ideal' physical criterion. 

One cannot counter one deficit with another. There has been a theory put forth which speaks of the Luciferic imponderables causing upset and disharmony within both the being and body of Man. That there can be questions and doubts which of themselves are poisoned in such a way, that there is no way through from them to finding answers or truths of any worth and resulting from this condition, the individual experiences constriction psychologically or physically. The theory in relation to this suggests that by adopting the 'strengths' of Ahrimanic orderliness, one can step from the internal realm of not knowing to knowing, and desist from those mysteries which are causing painful dilemma. 

We can add to this by saying that there is a fair indication that a person who is experiencing questioning without hope, without penetrating through the dead-space of the thought-remains through to that field of possibility which does lead to further finding - then firstly, it would appear that there is a definite lacking of Carbon transacted in some measure. However, adopting some Ahrimanic influence to counter this problem can only aggravate the concern of lacking this element, as it is that Ahriman and his objectives are Materialism. To be fixed without levity and brevity is to be non-compromising, non-responsive and non-alive. 

As said before, the interrelations between all spiritual beings are wonderfully adapting in continuous and sympathetic exchange. That is how life works, and works only through the inherent Wisdom as made real through our beloved Christ. The 'stay as you are' approach - the fixed and hardened nature of the composed and orderly Ahriman - is that same dementia of the inert and unresponsive being, though formerly human. In no ways will this influence bring health, healing or inspiration. 

It also follows, that by increasing one's loving inquiry into living subjects, connected to excitingly inspiring thoughts beyond this material sphere, one will come to a better relationship with Carbon and be enabled to seek and truly know - and if not to know now, at least to sense with optimism and hope the promise of fully knowing one day. 

Conundrums in themselves live all about us and travel with us constantly. Questions and knowings yet to be realized are a fact of life, without them becoming overwhelmingly deleterious to our consciousness or physical health. However the kinds of dilemmas which provoke the individual into an internal mayhem are usually with the same face: disappointments that drag and delay the leading consciousness within. At every movement forward in the thinking, there are derisive objections issuing from within the individual himself, preventing his striving further out into those places and spaces where the beginnings to answers can be found. The conundrums are not unanswerable in themselves or lacking truth, it is just that the individual deems himself incapable of answering them in the immediate, and there is a tension of will subjecting physical tensions within in the process.

The organization of the ant and his farm does not require Ahriman to reside. If you ever get to speak with the being of the Ant you will find him an expert problem solver into the bargain. You can ask of the ant to find you a wisdom outside of his immediate experience and he will have the ways and means of finding this knowledge also!

There is an outstanding and unique relationship the ant has to Carbon. The ant has never seen Ahriman though - in all of his experience!

Affluence & Confluence- 4th August 2002

An exciting path to suffering illness, sickness and periods of uncomfortably poor health.

THERE is a much overlooked but tremendously positive aspect to the suffering of any physical complaint. And that is that simultaneous to the malady endured, there are portals open and responsive within the individual for necessary change during this period. This change, although marked in the physical makeover (simply through the manifestation of the disturbance in the body's own environment) is the very elemental storm to sweep through - just alike to an electrical charge of a thunderous event - and creates new fields for thinking, and of the revised ego that is determined to express itself now differently.

How often have you yourself entered into a time of physical sufferance and resumed afterwards feeling different about yourself? The changes are changes in the consciousness becoming enabled to dwell within the body and cohabit with a now permanent function. 

Many, many times it requires that the physical body is palpably upset before this change can be recognized and remain. Likewise one can witness the folk who have relatively perfect health, traveling their years with little or no fundamental change within their thinking. This is why, for these dear people, that when sickness or complaint does come, and comes in hard, it has been an undeniable change in their external lives which has been the provoking catalyst.

There is often a spin given to this, to say that external circumstances are blameworthy, however it is more of the case that for the very healthy there is little which moves their interior life in a lasting way, and a developing way, and it will take an outer motivation to shock the system into such change, rather than an inner willing per se. 

So if a man is challenged by the outer world, inasmuch as he might have lost his wealth for example, and this calls for many changes within his own thinking thereafter, about himself in the main and about managing his fears etc. as well, then ill-health may well follow. In fact, you can count on it; unless he began life poor and has lived according to that all the while. 

Yet this is in itself not a sinister reaction at all. One could say that it was misfortune which prompted his physical decline, however it is an adaptive response and not blameworthy in itself. Grief and loss is only one exterior change requiring physical adjustment. To someone who changes from decades of a fortified constitution into sickness, winning the lottery could equally contest the physical just as much as any unwanted occurrence in their life. 

An example of all of this lies in respect to one changing one's habits, where the individual is resolute to consciously be different in some better way; and yet the habits prevail over the conscious will, stubbornly fixed - even though the ego of the individual has decided otherwise. So there becomes a distance of time between such deciding and the infilling of being. 

Within the higher and deeper aspects of the person there can be desires and also frustration, which calls for change within the material existence; and this is personal to that person (not merely an abstract qualification, but built upon interior reasons and experience) and eventually the working consciousness finds that the impulses coming through from these desires become stronger and more perceptible. 

It is not unusual to find scholars and scientists, philosophers and striving men, to all have chronic ill-health in common. That these individuals try to extend themselves beyond themselves, can be of itself enough to call for many changes, firstly in their physical body to accommodate these changes, to then become living members within their own traveling psyche.

Madame Blavatsky took to herself what was given to her (rather than come to in slow and consistent understandings), and endured a painful existence assimilating these truths into a working operation throughout her disabled life. She knew the cause and the consequence and accepted both, fully knowing that by the quality of future living truths, all men will eventually be freed from physical ill-health altogether - that the short-term sufferance was just that.

Rudolf Steiner also bore one physical complaint after another. There are no exact records as to his string of ongoing and repeating difficulties, but he endured them and dealt with this on a daily basis. Unlike Madame Blavatsky, this was not largely caused by the influx of ideas to reconcile within himself, but rather came because of the sword he chose to temper himself with. His whole nature was compelled almost, to explore and discover new spiritual truths and to be able to test them for himself before relating their existence to the world. This also came with a price. An enormous heraldry! 

Within the average man it is enough to change within the sphere of personal thinking, to alter the concepts which affect and inflict, enhance or enrich the general perspective. And this occurs more infrequently than commonly. Yet with this soul [Dr. Steiner] there was an avid determination to go beyond his own needs for change in perspective, and pioneer the truths which were then to be given out into the world with a charitable signature from his fresh experience. So even though his ego was well established and quite capable to incorporate a world of ordinary ideas into himself, he took on a bulk which would cause certain death to most, who were ethericly unprepared.

It is also interesting to note, that even the saints whose bodies survived for centuries later uncorrupted, actually endured physical maladies whilst alive! Therefore we may be kind to ourselves and to others, when it comes to considering the metaphysical implications of illness itself. The truth is that we can be sure that it is a condition current to all men, and not specific to just one cause, and can be a necessary benefit for the consciousness and its own health and achieving.

Please do try, when feeling physically under par, not to imagine that by mentally arriving at a set change you will effect a physical cure immediately. The exciting part is that the illness will reveal to you, will deliver to the consciousness the change birthed all of itself - without a feverous struggling or pledge for such betterment. 

You will know and recognize the epiphanous moment. It may be that a whole new character transpires, rather than one single concept. It may be that there is a strength experienced, or a holiness, or a quietude. Certain difficulties could dispel, or enthusiasm could renew, resolution can be arrived at, or even simply an acceptance of a reality hitherto rejected. Yet for all of the horribleness physical discomfort brings, there is this gift, every time ('every time': given that we accept it). We are also, according to the highest law of free will always offered the opportunity not to accept it. In this way it can present and represent over and over if prompted by the ego which is undecided.

Another interesting point is, that any physical/egoic battle won over through illness does not need to be readdressed - either in this life or any other. Now firstly it should be said, that there can be a chronic problem which either is the vehicle for much change or symptomatic of none. This cannot be judged by anyone outside of the sufferer, we should add here. As tempting as it is to cast judgments of others, for the point only of testing theory, we must be mindful that primarily these intimacies of being are exclusive to the individual and it is unlawful to even believe that we understand another's entire reasoning or circumstance.

Having said that, if there has been a change brought about during or at the end of this ill period, then that change (until changed) will remain after death in the consciousness and into the next life and beyond. 

Sickness is not prerequisite to lasting change by any means, yet at the same time it could be said that given the current homeo-status, it is a necessary adherent to the process at present.

Our relationship to our bodies is a mysteriously, curiously, wonderful subject. It is not a matter of perfunction at all, that we indwell and manifest in the way that we do. As spiritual beings, as little gods, we draw together and maintain an entire cosmic chain of planetary activity that appears as flesh within this world. Our bodies comprise stellar storms and habitat; coherent to both the Will and the Knowing of our Father, and the Creative License of Christ living too. 

Given that, it is no small thing when a man should change his mind and endeavor to do so lastingly! The environment of his soul-life is recommenced with a dynamic tantamount to a country changing government. This must be so, because it is not upon whimsy that the higher ego chooses what it does; it is not a frivolous casualty that the soul seeks out beyond itself - it is hard won wherever the pain is manifest.

All foods dull the thinking. If it is nutritious food, the provinces (the stellar community of the fleshly existence) shall live cooperatively in the main. But then if this experience of eating is one which is not nutritious, then the community will be agitated and the original joy of the dull thinking provoked, will be replaced by an illness which calls for a re-examination and a more alert awareness. 

Either way there can be pleasures associated with this food-mood, where we are as much consumed by the process as it is by us. Taste is secondary to this pleasure. It is a pleasure one can think little about, because it is a pleasure that negates the thinking once entered into! 

Folk have likened the appetite and eating of food to human sexual intercourse and it is not the same at all. (A comment by the way: the two do not translate in principle in respect to this). Also of course, there is the hunger which comes from need being responded to and the charity of the feeding involved; but largely men eat and overeat because it gives a relief out from themselves and dispels their coherent awareness in the process.

Fasting radically is dangerous because it will cause a shock to the etheric and astral vitalities which will then issue a response accordingly (which is undesirable), but fasting with fruit and vegetable juices and pure water, will reorganize the thinking processes wonderfully. It is ever so curious to find the difference that this makes upon the being, that taking food as food (with solid form and chewing and subsequent digesting and overcoming and assimilating) will confuddle the reasoning, whereas pureed and with the original vitality intact, will enhance the reasoning tremendously! So in times of shock, illness, or for the prevention of ensuing illness, we can move to these beverages to help enable the necessary renovations called for in our bodies.

Self mutilation is misguided inasmuch as it does not accomplish a change or a relief within the consciousness, however the individual that goes to this behavior is not only turning upon themselves physically, but is putting their own will upon their own will as well. 

It is interesting to see how quickly we do not recognize our former selves once changed; whilst also the former self can contest the new self and vice versa. The will of the current man begging to become something different and preferably better, contests his own self and perhaps also confronts a catalogue of contrary experience and a witness-crowd of complaining ghosts. All because he seeks to change, there are parts of former being he must deny in order to so. 

But in the extreme of self mutilation there is also a devastating rage which ensues from the complainant, and this is overall a poor behavior which brings no good - just one more astral calamity. They would be better advised to swap to their juice diet for a couple of days and review their thinking that way! 

'Stress' also will be greatly improved by following through with this regime. One day a week given solely to fluids* will give time enough for the mind and body to reorganize harmoniously, whilst also affording special time to the thinking processes which are then freer and more in touch with the ego of the present day man and his future directives pressing in. 

During this one day it is most useful to contemplate your own directions, needs and desires and be observant as to what comes before the mind, asking to be addressed in earnest, in working consciousness and following through into your life lived as well. If we are given to these episodes it will follow that the extreme periods of sickness will become alleviated - at least in relation to what could have or would have ensued. 

However, if sickness does come upon you, be also excited and comforted with the thought that the phoenix of thought will revise itself out from these demanding times, and watch with a fascinated expectation as to what then follows within you! 

*[Obviously fresh is best. The Brothers have warned about the overuse of orange juice. Carrot juice has been recommended previously.]

Soul & the Higher Ego- 13th July 2002

BOTH the soul and the higher ego push to know. To know; qualifying in a more costly honesty, an honesty that is their very life's substance.

Love is truth.

Truth is Life.

Reality of the Spirit,

Is life to the Spirit.

Whether we are aware of our highest motivations or not, there will always be that determining factor which takes our inquisitive beings where the humble man might not even conceive of. 

Men in the world are humbly comprised. Very quickly from birth onwards, we are disappointed with our own failings and those of the offerings around us. We may fly in our dreams, and reminisce the luxuries of the ethereal life, whilst knowing that much of the glory of this Kingdom is as yet unrevealed.

Mute, the innate siblings laze,

Adrift on a tedious shore,

Watching the thoughts come in and return,

From the Mind whence they came from before.

Blow upon blow,

Waves prostrate on the rocks,

In a tangle of seaweed and shells,

Mermaids and mermen,

Entwine in the froth,

Anemone and conch,

A sea-sky of mirth,

And one hundred-thousand,

Luminous starfish.