Problem g: Refusal to Others & Guilt
A conglomerate of sheep stood huddled atop a windswept hillside, when one moonlit night they were happened upon by a group of mangy wolves. The wolves slinked and sidled up to each one offering to purchase their fleece. Each sheep was asked and each sheep said no, because their coats weren't yet full grown and besides which they did belong to the farmer.
"Bah!" said the wolves in disgust.
"Baah!" trembled the sheep.
Then the wolves persisted. "What use have you for all that wool?" they asked, “When we, flea bit and scruffy, could do with some of that warmth? Do we not feel the cold too? Do we not need some of that wool?" they pleaded with a sour note of innuendo.
The wolves persisted, "Let us have your fleece and we will promise that you shall never feel the cold again." Their eyes glinted red with desire.
The wolves persisted still further. "If you do not comply we shall return and take your young and then raise them for our own. If it is not to be your coats it will be theirs!"
To this the sheep murmured fearfully.
Triumphantly the wolves urged once more, "Just follow us down to our cave by the valley. It won't take long we assure you. It will be all done before you know it."
All but one followed them down.
The one who remained felt the dread of the lone decision he'd made. He circled the top of that hill until the sun rose high, and all the while regretted that he too had not gone along with his friends. The promises and the threat was still fresh in his mind. Perhaps, since it was that they had not yet returned, he still had time to do as they have done, and so he decided anew to follow on down.
He came to the bottom of that now loneliest of hills and he found the cave as they had described; but not his friends, just piles of bloodied bones strewn all over, lying haphazard in the grass.
Within a day or so our little sheep had found a flock to relocate to. He was accepted well enough, and though they were not of his family there was comfort in his kind. Now and then he would journey back out to the hilltop in hope of their return, but every time he would venture back with a heavy heart and disappointment.
One night when the moon was full-swollen but hid behind a mass of silver-lit cloud, our little sheep was surprised to see a flock in the distance coming up over the next paddock to greet them. This was unusual for sheep, to find them traveling at night, but oh! his heart jumped at the thought that it might well be his family out searching for him. As they drew closer he looked hard and thought to himself that he did actually recognize the fleece of one to be that of his dear cousin! Oh joy!
But alas it was not, it was instead a group of wolves, same wolves, in sheep disguise. All at once our maverick sheep felt the dreaded truth about this and that night. He called out to his newly found friends, "Save yourselves and do not trust these wolves!"
But the sheep blinked sleepily and ignored what they thought was his silliness. Our little sheep was all in a tremble and sick with upset. He turned and fled the paddock leaving the field just as the band of deceiving dogs tore upon them.
From his hillside home he could hear their cries and he wept feeling his helplessness and the shame of having left them. Once more he was alone and more alone he felt than ever, this time with an immeasurable loneliness, a condemning, unreasoning sense of self-darkness. He cried at the cold moon and the shadows that it cast.
Just then there came out from the darkness a luminescent glow that grew as brilliant as sunshine itself. With the Moon still high this could not be so, quizzed the sheep to himself, and forgetting his upset he began towards the light.
A figure stepped out from this brilliance and came towards him. Extending His hand he beckoned for the sheep to advance. This gracious Shepherd drove the very fear of the night away by His presence; and behind him our sheep could see with ethereal splendor his own family, all huddled together amongst the glow.
The Shepherd then led our little sheep through further fields until he arrived at a paddock which was fenced quite high and right beside a sturdy, well kept farmhouse, with many sheep there besides.
"You will be safe here" He said, "and" he then added, "if you are ever lost or in trouble again I shall be there to save you".
He then disappeared and the ethereal flock vanished away with Him also, and our sheep remembered His parting words ever on, and was happy.
Commentary:
Beast fables have long provided us with some certain knowledge concerning distinct attributes given to a man, whether these attributes be within the outer world or in latent virtue or simply perhaps in kindred quality pertaining to cosmic forces which are common to both.
There is nothing which is known to Man that is not of Man in some part, some measure, therefore the enterprise of any soul-picture story is that it will work upon an individual with an explanation that is inherently known as a truth in the way that it is given. The beasts to this extent may not only allegorically provide an imaginary key into the esoteric reality involved, but also in the contemplation simply of their form itself, bring about an understanding of the nature that they have come to stand for as well.
Children decipher these forms with delight. Not only with animals do young people grasp the 'nature' of the nature that is contained in them. They are intuitively happier to wear the image of the Sun for example, instead of the abstract symbol of the Cross - which in later years shall come to hold more significance (consciously and unconsciously); which is a direct change from youth into maturity.
Pictures translate into symbols, words into the alphabet. The inner-sight draws from form to create the words, as the soft round lines of a child are later given to the more angular protuberances of the defined man.
The question which begins to set upon the guidance and advice from other beings or people, states that there is a risk of the Arterial Self becoming inflicted sorely by those who should wish a control over us. Firstly we may say that the two do not imply each other, i.e. the giving of good guidance and advice does not imply the wish of one to control another, in point of fact that would be then to dual purpose. Good guiding advice is enstrengthening and liberating (through being informative) and a service to those to whom it is offered to.
In addition to this, there does become the difficulty in forever pushing back from ourselves these recommendations and askings which have cause to contrast our own desires. Another man can never be truly qualified to interpret the needs of his brother over the reasonings of that brother, and nor can he reasonably ask for anything which is hesitantly given.
This comes of the law once again, which has to protect the distinctions of each and every individual, and there can be no two ways about this in the principle, because it is by such divisioning we may endure with our continental (separate) selves.
Were that men and women were the same, there would be no defining contrast to know and love them by. The price of sameness would be death to that which was imitated. That is why in true redemption we do actually maintain our composites, only to requisition them with a work-perfected detail.
We began the issue of the refusal of others, with a story so old you have probably heard it many lifetimes before. Certainly you would have known of the properties of the oily wool, perhaps woven the thread or pounded the felt - regardless, we have all, in one way or another sequestered the fleece from the sheep for our own garb.
The unity of the sheep was broken by the one who did not choose to give in to the promptings which came from the evil-natured dogs of the Moon. The wolves represent remarkably, the carryover from the past, the olden times, which should have been laid to rest but rather comes over to steal from the future.
In a manner alike to all standover persuasionings, the wolfish dialogue offers firstly a ploy, a pleasing, a promise and then a threat. We can note, that when men go to the length of finishing up their requests of us in threats, veiled or maintained, we may be apt to realize that this is indicative of past forces which are pushing to relive beyond their given time.
The action of forceful negotiation proves that the powers are weakening, so that they need draw from unlawful means for their prolongment. Here is where our dear donkey becomes a wolf - when the habitual patterns as ghostly remains, continue on with a persistence to survive, outlasting their usefulness and then turning evil when continuing on, out of the context of their value.
This problem occurs throughout the Cosmic wars. We find patterns also of this in bacterial onslaught, when that which was once rightfully useful in its role, demands a continuance which is not relevant or needed, and thus becomes threateningly dangerous to the new birth begun.
Even moments age. Our Arterial Self must determine exactly what is relevant in time, to our time and our being. The refusal to others who would have us do otherwise brings about the same depressive shame our sheep did feel in leaving his party behind.
If you are to go forward you may well have to leave some things behind you. As we progressively move into further thinking and to higher reaches of aspiration beyond the commonplace thought, it is with the sufferance of all pioneers who know the sadness in leaving behind the familiar home from which they've grown. Yet there is small comfort in this home as it has become, for it too has changed has it not? Our memories can savor the innocent and uncomplicated, the golden age, the uncorrupted; but in truth even the familiar can turn foreign to us in time. What brought nurture to the soul has found its place elsewhere to go and what remains in time is seeming only.
However, Christ is always waiting in the Future there for Man, for all men. Whatever the ways that wend towards the future, He holds the outcome as the only security we'll want for. He maintains our futures, so that the wolves of past ways can never come to claim our days to come.
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