Streams of Interest & Enlightenment in the Decad- 8th October 1995

[Continuing the Rosary Meditation]

1. Our Father: ACTIVE LIFE- The Will & the forces of Ego.

THE primordial definition of Will is Movement. In origin the Will that drove Creation's promise and animated Life at every conjuncture, this Will streamed from one being into the many that were to be, and it was to be seen as pure movement.

Now, in physical existence a man's mobility is given to the extent of his will and his mastership of it. The essence of ego-direction and application has at its heart the fiery action of the Holy Spirit. Although the Will of our Father is not unusually apparent in the particular, it is evident in all being. There has been confusion in the past as to the rightful place and purpose this mighty force holds within Man. For it has been coupled with a creative self-consciousness which is capable of devastating - either with clumsiness or evil management. Man cannot be innocent of his own powers. More and more he is called to become capable and coherent, that he create a'further, rather than simply undo such splendors already done.

One may understand Christ's gift to Man in relation to his ego by asking what would we have were Man without Christ? To this we would suggest we would have Lucifer. Or we would have another who also seeks a reign of forfeit, whereupon the men are magnetized together with one group will. Christ has enabled men to keep to their separateness that they may develop their own. This is no small matter.

The nature of Will is of paradox in that whilst it is motivated out from its initiator it may also be persuaded by that whom it does recognize as a greater power of will also. In this way we succumb to the laws around us without forever contesting the humdrum or necessary values which dictate to all. We have no choice individually in how the Globe glides (and it does not spin), we do not will for the sun to rise (not even in our selves) and we may not cause our will to cease ourselves being, in the true sense of soul and spirit. Therefore we have from this a simple proof that whilst we have will, that will is also obedient to greater will constantly.

The ego of Man is generously given, because it is the sum-total of the experience which has gone before and of all of the good which was to be harvested therefrom. Whilst the soul is so characterized, it also is not. Our soul selves are primarily angelic in their desires and in their attractions and perceptions. The soul is moreover satisfied with the enjoyment of Creation as it is. The ego of Man, on the other hand (which it does contrast right from left), advances into aspects of newness, which enables the being of man to take into himself much of the future.

The soul embraces the past and reveres it. The soul is joyous with simple and humble pleasures of spiritual ecstasy, whilst the ego to a great extent does tire of them. The ego pleads to take to itself more and to be known to be more; it has to be different to what it already contains in ways of experience and comprehension.

So we are introduced to a dissatisfaction from which we are prompted out into betterment and further development. The parcel of the two - of both will and ego contained and made active within our selves - brings also the consequence and knowledge of consequence, personally revealed. What we will and conjure in action or by active thought, is consequently offered to us in the opportunity to perceive the outcome and effect of our doings and to answer them.

Karma, in this respect, is a gift from the gods also. We shall not say that it is intrinsic to Christ, for He in relation to karma has brought His addition to Man. Not only are we ensured experience for the ego by all that we will and therefore do, we are also given the grace of deferment, in that our governing angels may decide much about what, when, how and who, that we are not overcome by ourselves and by our mistakes and have to answer them all totally and in the immediate. The soul qualities of Man are quite aware of past purpose when it presents and acknowledges its due. This too is a grace.

So when we contemplate the forces of Will and active Ego we may bring thankfulness into our heart for the very Will of Father God as it moves throughout Creation; and the Ego of Christ which umbrellas our own - being the greater Ego overall, saving us from the unsavory attractions of lesser but more powerful persuasions.

2. PEACE & CONTAINMENT - particularly in relation to # 1.

THE aspect and influence of peace and containment brings to Man his knowing of true happiness. In the primordial glamor, peace was as invisible and unknown, for there was no contrast to go by. Containment was and wasn't; however its formative evolutions were set to work almost immediately, although held transiently. Systems unfurled and designs shifted with a precocious aplomb. Containment was as but a brief hesitation on the way to a greater and more complex proposal to be formed.

Peace always brought the forces inward for that time when they were contained and held back from transmuting further. Peace enables us to collect ourselves and remain relatively stationary in a vortex of change and impending chaos.

In the very real sense of it, the influence of Peace is timeless and calls to halt time. Of course it cannot effectively do this indefinitely; however this is our chief meditation here - which, it may be added is paramount to meditation itself.

From concerns of time we are reprieved temporarily, that we may look down upon what we have and what we are; that we may be motionless, quieten our own wills and thereby know the expression of God's Will as is. That we may not drive our selves to constant distraction, but come to a reflection in still and perfect waters; that we may quell the ego's habitual prompting - overriding our own driving forces therefrom - that in itself is necessary and most powerful, more powerful than the will and ego themselves, that it can restrain the two and do so harmoniously!

Our meditation upon this gift is one of happiness whereupon the ego can afford to relax. Peace is no jailer; it also brings commensurate joy with its application. It is the initial substance from which all substance was derived and subsequently born out from; and that is precisely why we are enabled to return to it.

3. STRENGTH - sustained and active, to be used, summoned by the Will.

Strength is a corporate quality which as an influence empowers permanence. In the higher order a permanence resides, that although not gauged by Man, is there and in place and thus permits all other constancy to be.

Strength is undeniably amongst us. The permanence within the spiritual Worlds has been guaranteed in the memory of Father God. Such permanence affords all beings the ability to receive the future because the future does not threaten the wellbeing of what has been brought from the past.

We can begin to realize that the constant changing about us, the forming and reforming, works upon a higher principle of constancy which does stream through it. Just as peace itself resides as the essence within all motivated life, so too does a permanency engage itself within the struggles of manifested life as it consists and desists and rebuilds anew.

In no way does permanency imply stagnation, for stagnation is peace which has overrun its time in relation to time's demands. Permanency as an essential quality of influence, primordially speaks to us of the highest drafts which once laid down are here to stay.

Initially those things which were given in the Spiritual Worlds have the strength to remain, to continue regardless of what else is to follow, because Father God does not take risks - He does not seek change merely for change's sake. The future would not be qualified if it in any way threatened our spiritual heritage. In this sense, as things that were, so shall they be. However, Man himself has the choice always to depend on this strength, but travel out from its source and become different also.

In our very beginnings of the making of soul - those were the 'days' when things were built to last. This is the meaning of that: a time of pure strength and resilience, when the patterns were laid down and Man was then given all gifts and purpose, affiliations and loves which he carries to this day, by which it is strength itself that will ensure their permanence within him.

Our meditation on strength - as it is shown actively or by containment - is one of thanksgiving for that which does and will endure. Strength clearly comes from God, for without Him there would be no permanence, no jot would remain.

4. SEXUALITY and the various aspects related.

Sexuality is union, productive union, whereby two individuals are enhanced by combining together rather than by remaining separate. Offspring which follows consummates the proper value of the combining. There is no true sexuality without combining harmoniously and in agreement. In other words, in the context of this talk of this influence we shall not confuse the term with primary functions of the physical genitalia, for they alone have no essence of true sexuality; but rather we shall look to the spiritual significance and meaning for which there is always an implication of two, and an action of interaction.

In the spiritual meaning we find that there becomes a culmination of a longing realized because of another like soul, and the two have met so in agreement at those conjunctures for this to be realized.

When two individuals meet so together, they invoke forces of creation with great rapidity; not only in terms of bringing new souls into the world by such physical conjoining, but there are myriads of creative forces which also transpire at varying levels in which the two may communicate.

Sexuality was not always expressed as it is in the World today - and certainly in the higher worlds it is far different in action and application. However there are male and female angels, contrary to opinion; save to say that their determinations in this way are not with male rods or female wombs and they do not combine in this manner as played out in the physical realm today.

The forces which characterize the female are soul forces - they seek to contain, to embody, to acquire and to keep. The intuitive spirituality of the female influence contrasts the active knowing of the male whose primordial disposition is to go forth with great activity, desire and will, and with constant promotion. The action of the will and ego as described are masculine, whilst the action of both peace and strength are quite feminine. These influences counterbalance each other with a remarkable complement.

Now of course it must be said that neither man nor woman is confined to sole attributes of manliness or womanliness. In this we have a paradox but an answer also, because it is necessary for Man to know both, and to know and identify both he must have both. However one is active and one is quiescent at the one time.

Just as with conversational dialogue it requires one to will and work the words and one to remain silent and take them into their consideration. This is a fine example of the male/female exchange which is enjoyed with differing roles throughout any given day by men and women who inter-engage with both aspects demonstrably.

That a man may execute his own plans projected he must necessarily have those female attributes to contain all else about him. That a woman may come to know of the world outside of herself she must assume a manly attribute that she may leave herself in the first place.

Some things are best achieved with the assistance of another. Unwittingly we combine continually - we are exacted by conflict and difficult exchange. But then, how marvelous when two coincide in deep agreement, and their position of soul, as well as the rest, is receptive to a far greater result thereby. Men can decide upon affiliation and agreement with a self-conscious decision. They choose to be with other souls reflecting upon the needs of their ego, and the gifts they can share.

This is unknown by the angels and the beasts - who have not the direct ability to consciously choose in such a way. They gravitate to their own quite naturally, and combinings result from proximity rather than acknowledgment of differing individual characteristics. It is by affinity that they would come together; and yet in Man, he is given the appreciation of all that is different in a being other than him, and he can still come to love, and is enhanced by it! This is the beginning of a most marvelous mystery so told, and a greater step to egohood, as contrasted by but a lonely entitlement.

Our meditation upon sexuality is thus: We give a gratitude for that creativity which is spawned from two beings having harvested much love within each other. The primordial force here is an etheric milk which nurtures us all; which springs from the love in both warmth and in fiery desire. We can remember that all physical modems reflect a higher principle at work, and that the underlying forces which compel a sexuality are God inspired from the earliest moments of this parent universe. The Cosmic seed and semen is spirit and soul, whilst the Cosmic womb is Man.

5. GOOD NATUREDNESS: humor & goodwill.

There is an adage to suggest that nothing divines as aptly as good-naturedness. This is to say that should you wish to ask something of the universe you will best get your way with her if you are in good humor about it.

This force (and force it is) is as sophisticated as it is not. The primordial influence we experience here sprang from a gaiety as known by the original Spirits of Form. Cooperation began at this early phase and what followed was and is the delights now known by us. We go from the deep knowledge that two may incur within each other to the added creativity as brought about by more than two.

Good naturedness and goodwill extends out from the personal implications and divinations of ego and gives of itself without demand. (This by the way, is the true meaning of Christian Love.) That we do not invest our own interests is paramount to the effectiveness of the task to be executed.

Now there is nothing wrong with a man who seeks to care for himself, for ennoblement and enhancement and the desire for such, come of this right. That is one issue of Man. Counterbalancing this necessary ego-desire is his cooperation with the forces of life which hold him buoyant; and to this he is required to cheerfully submit!

If being happy was a command one could give, it would be one! The truth of the matter however is that it is not, but in time the satisfaction of harmonious interplay does make itself apparent to Man and he shall respond obligingly.

The meditation for this stream of influence is cooperation. We offer a gratitude for coherence and the forces thereof, and that the experience of humor saves us from the rigidity of self-centeredness and brings us into an expanse far further than ourselves.

6. OUR FATHER, PASSIVE- The Divine Will of utter existence: Quiescent.

The influence which predominates the forefinger titled number one, has been recognized as movement with the advancing of both the Will and the Ego's forces to propel ever further out into the beyond. Now we come to the forefinger which is same, but not so same, whereupon the chief influence here is of Father God also, however our Father who is not known to us in action or in movement, but rather in stillness of being, in those recesses to which we must go to penetrate His solemn Mystery.

The Divine Will has a twofold characteristic, as did the Will lived out in action and movement. Whilst it is causal to being, it is obedient to lesser wills who do desire and promote themselves either in conjunction or conflict to the greater Will of God. If this were not the case there should be no such thing as the will living in men at all.

The Divine Will allows for and makes way for its immature siblings. Yet there is further to this something quite wonderfully apparent - that is when a man wills correctly, with just or creative cause, he gives to the Divine Will and the Divine Will responds. This may only be felt upon the ethers - it is not to be visibly so seen - but it is known to men who have drawn upon their wills after consulting in prayer firstly and are so doubly empowered in action by this.

So we hold within our beings that access road into yet a higher determination. On the one hand we are personally empowered to be as definite and creative as a God, directing our Wills with the bidding of our Egos, always nonetheless remarkably subservient to the higher Will regardless. Then on the other hand, we have with us the living Will, passive though it rests, of God Himself; and we are given this that we may know His choosing and call upon His Will with any matter that is before us. 

When contemplating His non-apparent Self we are drawn to Him and subsequently relieved of the ego's tensions in this. If sleepiness results it is merely because our definitive selves have given over into His embrace then known. One day, as our development brings us closer to Him in our sharpened consciousness and ego activity, we will be enabled to go to Him and return with some recollection.

Our meditation for this stream of influence is:
"Dear Kind and Gentle Father, You are hidden from me, yet ever present. Your Will is truly known by me, and here I do recognize this gift of knowledge. I am thankful for this recourse, and ask of myself to ever learn to seek out Your Will before that of my own."

7. DISINTEGRATION: the power to desist, to dissolve.

Our mirrored finger, as discussed for this one, is one of Peace and Containment. In seeming opposition to this we have the chief influence of disassociation, whereupon the forces which were formerly adherent in property or makeover, have desisted and made way for new form and force to exchange.

As said formerly, Peace as a cosmic element exists as the primary substance; and once again, the forces of dissolution require the substantiality as it were of Peace, that they may presume upon form and design and desire.

Peace may be thought of as the pause between out-breaths and in-breaths. The evacuation of the out-breath is life metabolized. The exchange and corruption of the new breath requires dissolution - we negotiate substance and ether with the processes of dissolution and then assimilation or part retention.

We know these forces not only in death and in our dissolving out from this package. We know them by our constant evaporations out from our alluvial selves, in soul qualities that move in differing densities.

The power to desist and withdraw allows the ego to return unto itself; and so in similar quality to that of Peace we have the same aspect, for primordially this influence also calls to halt time, to return to the original aspect before the form was created; and so it calls for dissolution every time.

That we incarnate with worldly gravitation, that we can love so many harbors, not only here but in the spiritual worlds, and leave them all, this is with the same influence known, of returning to that which was before and before all. Because of this we find the World’s a fragment and time washes boulders into sand, but we move on.

Our gratitude here is for the might of disintegration, whilst also its providence. Although cautioned by its presence, we are as the ants and the miners, breaking apart those things necessary for conversion to greater purpose.

8. OBEDIENCE: Strength curtailed - servitude.

On the one hand the finger presents that strength which has sustained all being - representing Permanence. On the other we come to know of our strength's strength, the virtue of personal obedience.

Here we have the contrast of strength serving us - our example is clear within the Heavenly Worlds and all of Creation as it binds and supports us completely - to the ability which we may develop of serving also.

Obedience and servitude require an exact strength, measured and equal to that which is necessary; an apportioning, if you like. For to be obedient, through choice (and not because of force) requires the will and consciousness of the man to double-back upon his own ego.
Born of either trust or necessity, we are giving our strength into the hands of another. The primordial characteristic here is the station to which we know ourselves to be in - our true positioning, quite evident with spiritual sight in earliest being.

On the one hand there is the greater strength; on this hand we are given the particular which works within ourselves and that we may utilize such strength as needs be that we can curtail it and direct it with exactness defined. That we may effectively be strong, we must also be obedient - paradox though this is, this is Law. One may only be strong within the given parameters of power and influence, for either way other, the strength itself is compromised by lack of qualification. 

We may offer up a gratitude for strength enhanced with servitude. As men who willingly submit by choice, their strength to work for the best purpose as recognized, our egos become more apt in just how such strength is to be exerted and determined, and appointed in the now, and then later into the everlasting as well.

9. REVERENCE - the power to surrender to God.

This is distinct from the above, as reverence itself is an experience of attitude rather than of application. In the context of the Will of our Father becoming apparent to us, we are regarding a course of action, and doing and therefore subsequently becoming. All of this requires a measure of ego-activity within the man, which as alluded to earlier is an experience of the masculine order primarily.

Reverence is a soul quality which denotes that combining between man and God. With the influences carried and known by the little finger on the other hand, we find that the combining and the creative associations are examples of the manner in which we combine with Heaven in the primordial sense. Reverence knows this, and expresses the love in return for God's infusion into these our beings. The sexuality of Man is redeemed in the celebration of reverence for his relationship to God firstly.

"Before all, dear God, I hold thee", and so in attitudinal devotion we come to realize that our mainstay of Creation rests with Him.

Just as our actions are effective when proper strength is apportioned correctly, just as we are given His conference, His Will to ennoble our will's willing, just as death uncovers peace as she sleeps beneath the decomposing past, so also may our combining with God bring us nearer to our ecstasies realized in love's expedient passions.

We may meditate upon this Reverence, finding our own ways to be with Him, and thankful that we are not forgetful of His great Love for us, and this dynamic combining.

10. NOBILITY: the abilities of being generous, upstanding & virtuous.

The thumb on the one hand epitomizes selflessness, goodwill and good humor - amiable and obliging. On the other hand we contrast this with virtues which are not obliging, but rather self-willed and quite defined within the man.

Especially as he progresses and the integrity is ever called upon and tested, the noble nature of a man is often poked and pricked by the lesser men who contest the value of his upstanding. This follows as night does day, that lesser men who are as yet underdeveloped by contrast, shall not be able to recognize the worthier aspects within another, and so presume with morbid projection.

That the virtues may be called upon and live in full color within the man's aspect, brings him to the occasion where he is made separate to contrasts within his immediate worldly activity. This does not detract from his overall good nature or goodwill to fellow men; however, as established there are differing needs that he may carry himself (and them) through the World as is best.

Our meditation here is for Mankind as a collective. We can perceive our own noble aspects inherited, and pray for their realization throughout the whole of humanity in time.
We can be generous with reservation - by that we mean to say that we should never be too generous, i.e. one does not give away their soul or their mother or their God for example. On the one hand we have an element of obliging, on the other there is a decided obstinacy and a decided giving made special. Our meditation here is one of finding our true natures, most perfect and complete in all that we are. That we have faults is part of being able to give only so much; however, virtues stream in and out of us regardless. We are individually entitled to our noble title for attached to us is Christ as He works the greater harmony amongst the individual men.

So the same theme of community rests with these digits, but with differing aspect where we may find that we are not compelled to group orientation and not committed to give what we give. Therefore a true value shall be known and a worthier nobility in each thereby; that it is not by compulsion but rather out from true love that we shall be and become.

Footnote:
Clarification on how to do the Rosary meditation: Firstly one might start with one quality per day. Then instead of going through the whole of one hand, start with a finger on the right and then follow with the mirror finger on the left. This is the balanced way to do it.

The Sea & the Sky- 20th September 1995

WE may grace the sea's horizon in thought, but we may not proceed to meet it on foot. Some places are not readily penetrable. Some scenes, though ever there, are elusive ... we trip their beauty with a profound ineptitude, and when we happen upon it, as it happens upon us, the lights, hues and nuances envelop our interest and are drawn to our raptures, meeting with us within rather than without. So settles the whole great landscape in our beings. 

Just as we may not readily catch our widest gaze in the particular, to look in upon the wholeness of a man presents us with such a beauteous sweep which is also impenetrable and impassable by the conceits and concerns of this world.

The sea with the sky imposing, has long been a membrane to the skull of this world. It does heave itself and lick-lap-lick, pounding and swelling, or with a supercilious trickle. It is the life-bearer of proteins converted out from a body of death (being salt).

The sky contorts obligingly, and the ethers and upper ethers wrap around the solid forms, hosting this world with light, that it be held and be visible. Yet by another membranous containment too, our skies are defined by the spaces beyond this World.


In Man the soul's forces oscillate between his fluidic systems, his physical form and then to his soul's own regions of being and also beyond, right up through and into the reaches of his spirit. As the bubble of skyline is penetrated by the Sun, thus giving it a home, so also is the soul-skyline with a translucency so penetrated and impressionable to Christ.

Divinity is to be glimpsed in the elusive and not in the obvious. At the furthest reach of mind or form, it does not stay around long enough for us to ever contain and hold it captive within the physical boundaries. The nature of divine insight is transitory because it is ever commuting from one plane into another. So we may snatch and snaffle something quite wondrous, but must be prepared that it will leave us also. This follows on from the colors of the Sun's rising to the concepts that come bearing the god-wisdom - moments which arrive and then pass, sometimes to which we question their ever having been; happinesses won and then lost, born and then gone, but kept ever alive and in being in the soul.

When we sleep the procession of images which move before us are comprised of ethereal realities brought by our wonderings. In our transition between consciousness and slumber, and also out from sleep into wakeful consciousness, there is a special time when we may slip over the threshold knowingly.

The adept may pass into sleep without losing his wakeful consciousness, just as all men one day shall negotiate heaven quite similarly. They may do this because they are prayerful. Their merits of thinking are conducive to the heavenly realities and they have the means to interpret the spirit-speak, whilst also the ego can withstand the beauty of the passages beyond.

Later too, the adept advances into regions which are similarly cordoned with veils which take his memory before passing back through the gates. This 'unknowing' enables the man to enter back into a region without the pain which would otherwise follow him.

No man would leave the side of God were he to remember Him. In His Love for us he has given Man forgetfulness, one which does not strip us of our intrinsic knowing. Nor are we denied the full recollection in the days to come, however for the periods in which we must venture into those corners of life that by contrast are stark, we are forgetful of our ecstasies. We are saved from the longings that would ensue. However, it is by our very ecstasy that we are healed and so renewed, out from the substances of titanic splendor.

Life feels good. Goodness and the subsequent pleasure thereof is natural to this universe, just as virtues and graces in pure form are exciting to the spirit of Man and held to be fantastically beautiful. Misery is but a fiction of worldly poverty. Christ Himself is no sad reality. The truth is Wonderful. Spiritual poverty first comes from the denial in Man to acknowledge this. But some of us know better!

So Man must learn to tolerate the contrasts between the ecstasies of his ardent life to that of the effort-bearing details he must equally enable (and ennoble) himself in. This is painful and difficult in itself, for the man who has little contrast is constant for a while, finding a 'settledness' within self until death, content to be content with only definition. Whilst the man who presses for development shall leave behind the fixed definitives to meet with those qualities of higher life which prove the luster of the soul's known world - albeit transitory to his given perception - and he shall waver in and out of the experience of oscillation as is his soul's own reality of being.

We intermingle with heaven during our daily incarnating. Man is not fixed entirely to where his consciousness goes.
Here is another thought also: just as Christ is with us, we are with Him. Where He goes go I. That means to say that as He permeates every cell filled with light, as He inspirits all men and illumines their hearts with keen knowing, as He Graces each plant and tree in foliage and in bloom and it pretends to be Him, as He is in the body of water and throughout the ethers above; in the moments to come in all that is to be, there is He, and also I - for I am with Him.

Herewith we can come to the mysteries of the very mysterious, for all things are known by Him - sown, grown and shown by Him! Thus we are allowed to know also these things.

Therefore it could be questioned: how can we help to encourage other men to come to a greater happiness and leave the 'comfortable' posture of a mean and arid outlook? How may men give up their forgetfulness when it was first given to them as a grace?

As said before, our perceptions are selective, for it is by stupidity, insensitivity, to all other awarenesses that we are enabled to concentrate upon particulars which are specific to our interest. We do not appreciate the full physical realities which are all around us, we are saved from overwhelming considerations of sense, having mostly just 'enough' to comprehend - the light is not too bright, the flower too pungent, the wind too warm, the edges too sharp, the taste too strong, the colors too vivid, the humming too loud, and so it goes. Were we more sensitive to sense impressions we should find the world intolerable. Were the physical realities themselves just marginally accentuated, then also we should find that their properties were heinous to our selves propriety.

Our passage into perception is already quite delicately placed. A man does not shift his position from this without challenging the desire to fall into forgetfulness – sleepiness, unconsciousness. Just as a man who is brought a new thought which disputes his given reasoning may answer you with a vacant expression of this 'unknowing', he is entering upon that threshold whereupon he has not yet earned his self-consciousness.

What was the grace of forgetfulness is to be replaced by yet a higher grace of full knowing. Christ does not contradict our Father as this would seem. For in higher terms the two are one and the same - only it is that one is the quiescent partner of the other.

Full knowing is that which is to be realized. The future must be in order for it to be known. It is played out. And that we may proceed forward we must turn our backs to where we have come from. We are forgetful of that past. In this our knowing embraces our forgetfulness. But we must have our knowing as well. A man who has only forgetfulness and no knowing shall have no future.

In time (and out of time) Father God by presence alone, dispels the 'enchantment' of our forgetfulness. Here it becomes more meaningful - the gift when given twice differently - just as something as is thought to be lost is found and ever more valued.

With a greater knowledge than before Man comes to his end station with the recollection of all of the former along the way. This then provides the wisdom of the experience without the hindrance at that time - the continuity innately known is fully realized. This is also the circumstance with reincarnation and forgetfulness, along with our sleep and its forgetfulness as well.

The greater grace of full knowing proves the completed value of the grace of forgetfulness. This is how it has been, and is to be. It is not that forgetfulness should ever dictate to make the confines of our knowing, but rather that our knowing is enabled firstly by our forgetfulness, and then secondly by our own efforts to know. By this effort our consciousness is won and our 'unknowing' is transformed with greater purpose - although subsequently dispelled; having sacrificed itself it is reborn in pure knowledge.

Sleep Positions- 10th September 1995

AS we pass through the gateway into sleep, removed from our bodily habitat, sliding out from our earthly existence we become free once again to explore the further fields and ignore the gravities which choke our odysseys. This freedom is a blessing to Man: that he may abscond from his flesh, even though his body is quite revered by him - this is so, else we could not come to incarnate. Certain responsibilities so attached are given over to the cosmic tides as his cadaver slumbers in the bliss of a certain unconsciousness.

Ordinarily when we are awake there are certain nerve endings which are astrally infused and meeting with the world. The consciousness as experienced in the flesh is met with in those conjunctions of 'nervousness'. There is of course a constant activity (constantly intermittent, that is to say) in which the body may know itself in the relationship between the man's astral and then physical body's meeting with the physical world without.

When the man's astral body has lifted out from his physical body, the physical body 'sleeps', disregarding all of the vital functions which may continue on within itself. The conscious reality of life impinging is not recognized within the moment, and the systems within the whole organism continue on following the patterns in the very ethers themselves, from which they are constructed and constantly reforming - the body of man is everywhere, and no less in the spaces directly around him.

This will one day be understood when such patterns are found - just as also, the physic of seashell-plans are conspiring continually, so too the master-plan for vegetables and leaf, the systems of breath for all time-bearing creatures; the wombs and the spikes and their systems in whole and in part; fibrousness and moisture containment; bony frames which are independent of their fibery adjuncts; these and more are in float upon the ethers, and continually drawn upon that we may rejuvenate and grow anew, according of course to that form and sequence of living forms to which we may personally subscribe.

Yes it is quite correct to suggest that cancers which have attached are brought into the organism in like process from the ethers belonging yet to a foreign ecology, having found a host life to which they do not belong. To evacuate any growth once it has taken, is a very different matter to denying its presence before it has begun. Often there is an unusual affinity within the man or woman who is befriended by obtuse growths, and their sleep rhythms and how they may draw from the ethers at that time. For it is in this semi-quiescent condition that the sea of activity may be drawn upon and reworked within our constitution. Ordinarily a man would continue on in being a man, in that the systems which he already has in progress are well rehearsed in drawing from those impulse-systems immediately known. Each has its signature and is unaware of the multifarious forces and forms which there are to choose from. So when it does happen that a cancer has made its way in, it is not part of that system, or belonging due to its forces having gone wrong; it is rather a complete newcomer with extraneous provisions. Also it is naive to the workings that it has come in upon. There is no sinister intent, there are no malicious workings at hand as there may be with virulent disease. Cancers come about because of the way a man himself has drawn from the ethers and perchanced a system which is additional to the compote which is his own.

There are little patterns captured within the mineral world which are descriptive of the organic patterns played out in forces and forms. There are organic systems which are shared because they have come from man originally, and then given over into the systems of animal expressions which now have physical expression to accompany their impulses of soul-life and desire-life.

Man's starry substance, his higher astrality, creates the web for which his physical body may set form upon. The World at large is given to an etheric life which is life, that the manifestation may happen and that the starry influences may incarnate. Man himself is a starry influence, and accompanying him are those outer cosmic substances which go to comprise the etherical qualities he bears today. The obvious physical houses for these qualities are borne by the etheric life, and our World's etheric vitalities (as with our own) are actually brought in from further afield; although the passage is from the Globe's inner sun and so it should be said that the forces in that sense do not come from 'outer' regions, but further 'in' and then beyond.

The etheric life is memory impressed with the systemic forms as were just described. Often it is confused with being one of the same, however etheric substance itself is indifferent to form - impartial to actual particulars and history and such continuance. The etheric substance in purity is consistent with living light, it is the life-bearer to all form, and yet has the capacity also to carry the impressions of form as we know it. 

The crystalline forces are apart from these form-structures as they immediately are influenced by the starry influences which pervade our planet in presence and in likeness. The organic forms and forces are especially sophisticated to life. From the little breathers to the great grey whales, the bones of leaf to the branches in the brain, our etheric plastic gives us the bank of design and evolutionary design progressively on.

So it is that when we withdraw from our physical bodies by way of our starry body we travel within ourselves also. And here it may get a little complex, but we would like to depart from the usual standard lines of explanation. The diagrams you may be used to are those of the astral body traveling out just like an astronaut in a bubble-suit attached with a cord etc. etc. This is and isn't correct, insofar as the soul consciousness of man goes inward, his path through to the cosmos beyond is deeply in, and astrally what we do happens back to front - if for example, I travel out, I am actually traveling in. 'Space' if you like, is not found outside of the planet, but through following the grid-plans within one's own astral system firstly.

Perhaps it is neither here nor there to introduce you to this example of contrariness, however this sort of seeming (and we only say seeming) nonsense is non-sense within the physical realm, whereas it makes perfect sense within the cosmic makeovers. Once again we can suggest that according to this simple understanding of the back-to-front law you may begin to see the process also of homeopathy and its implications. The natures of things - what they are and what they are not - may be exaggerated in either direction, particularly in relation to another organism also.

The further we approach the further we have departed. Many an initiate has had the crazies over this one. It is not a law which is easy to negotiate. Equally it can be said that as we have departed from our subject we have indeed come closer to a certain understanding of it!

Movements made physically invoke memories in the immediate. The surrounding ethers are challenged with any movement that comes from a man. This is difficult to describe, but we may begin by suggesting that one may try for themselves to intuitively feel the many differences which are brought about by the simple shift and repetition of certain physical moves played out. When I sit and cross legs one over the other, it becomes far more than mere 'body language', it is also a bodily verb when expression as such is exceeded by action. 

When a man crosses his legs he accentuates his own consciousness, determining a more defined attempt at coming to an understanding of something. In one respect he has closed himself at a conjuncture to do this, in another respect it may be that he wishes to comprehend the entire situation with more concentration, and the forces which are met within him in the legs have caused him to bind them for another reason. Were he walking his concentration would not be the same; it would be of a very different nature. Rather than using his legs to 'get up and go', he has restrained them, and also met currents of forces within that crossing which enable him to actually follow his thought through to that crossing and confine the concerted narrowing into that position. In other words, the position he holds does affect him.

The form of man and how it is placed, shall invoke very definite results both within and without him. Just as we could see that to have one's legs crossed is more than self-expression (albeit unintended for the main part), it is moreover an action which proves itself useful and is therefore executed when the situation requires. You can explore for yourself what certain mannerisms, forms and movements (in conjunction with others also) appear to affect and to conjure in the surrounding elements and then within. It is not set to a limited text, for one may remember that every movement has its implication. Quite so, when it was that Christ was reduced and concentrated into His minor physical form, every action was a marvel, every movement had a reason and a purpose as it swung parallels in and between the adjoining worlds. Every step and every grace was a beginning for the new world, with a metamorphosis made present by His actions and their substantiality. Then Christ moved into His larger physical presence, our World; and as it sweeps the Cosmic wind it also makes for creation, for His actions bring visions into being, visions which have not yet a history, too new to be reliable by repetition. Yet they are there nonetheless, they are there.

Further to this we may come to those positions and movements which a man may preference for his slumber. For these too do hold effect upon the nature of his nap time and have bearing upon his physical renewal.

Even though our hands or our feet are not being purpose-used at the time of our sleeping, they and the other considerations upon us, hold keys to the influences which continue to conspire around them. A man may rest with his hands held up to his head, over the chest or beneath the groin; his legs may be relaxed or up drawn, crossed, closed or splayed, toes up or down; head up or chin in, sleeping side on, facing up or bellied down - all of these considerations will make a difference to the forces which work all around him.

Firstly we may say that the condition of sleep is very sacred and very beautiful. There is an angelic repose which befalls not only children but men as well during their times of slumber. The influences are good and holy, and should he unfortunately be afflicted with night-starts or disturbances, these are arising from the protection which he is given from the angelic services. There are many reasons why this may be so, however the end result happens that the man is alerted to wake that he may take charge and change course. In perfect sleep when a man comes to be fully rested he has gone the length of the night with no untoward happenings. This is a blessing, for it is that he may go into his nightly wanderings with the assurance that his body shall not be invaded by another being, that he alone has the key to return, and also that the goodness he may retrieve from the travels out shall be brought back and put to use.

There are dream-recollections of certain realities he has encountered and experienced; and all the while he has vacated for the most part, his body, which is kept intact and is not given to the currents which would otherwise decidedly pull it apart. Our resistance to death and deleterious deterioration comes from our sheath of etheric light, and amongst this is brought all of the pictures of conforming forces and patterns which we may draw.

If a man lies outstretched, hands above head, legs apart, face up, he would be 'open' to all influence in an act that removes the ego activity immediately from the body. The reason also that it may feel uncomfortable is because the ego itself is understandably 'put out' in another sense of the word. Men rarely sleep in this fashion, however infants do quite comfortably, as do many animals. This is a non-preferential attitude of posture which is modified readily, with for example the closing of the legs.

When a baby is swaddled this is the immediate difference - the arms are still up around the head, but no longer are the legs relaxed and splayed, they are bound together with the wrap that holds them firmly. Now they are not crossed, they are held straight. 

To cross one's legs lying down is of a different experience to that of being upright. Crossing at the ankles may assist a man to enter sleep just as he may be assisted into a concentrated consciousness whilst awake. This is no specific recommendation, but only a comment that it may become a habit because the man may use this to narrow his preliminary sleep-meditation; the effect though does have ramifications upon the forces in the head.

Returning to the position whereby the legs are held straight but are kept together, we have then a unison from the hips down, offering a mirroring unison for the waist up. In the child this is perfect, for such a balance in the very small baby is far better than the indiscriminate splaying of limbs, for once again, even in the small child there are consequences as to its sleep positioning; however it does rely upon its parent to assist in this.

During the time the child was tight held within the womb the baby is given to the shawl of the mother's etheric influence. The mother, in turn, is given to a greater etheric influence than that which is usually accompanying her, and that is in the presence of the child's own divinity - the greater aspect of soul enwraps her, just as she ensheathes him; and the forces of creation do differ from the forms of repetition. The physical aspect of the child in the manner which it is placed, is not determining the creation as it will in later repetition.

The formative process is governed by the starry complex which is conspiring and creating the initial space and form to be. Until born, the individual soul may only fabricate his form from the outside in, so to speak, and this is usually in collaboration with many host influences also. Thus he does create the etheric envelope in which his mother is contained during this time of creation. After birth there becomes a certain incarnation within the limb system in part (for this does take many months before there is a definite gravity), however the relationship between the body of the soul and the soul's activity is struck and thus one impacts the other in strict accordance.

Standing upright when legs are together, a man is most definitely called to 'attention'. He is brought into a harmony which says "I am where I am". This helps the child to incarnate - that he is comfortable in being where he is and that he can begin to awaken to the knowledge that he is where he is. In an adult it inspires the feeling of virtuousness within the world. "I am that I am here justly".

When the dead are laid out with legs straight together and arms crossed over the breast, that crossing denotes that the individual is alone, being contained and quite separate in their being. Death is a time which is of first importance to the deceased. Even though the experience is one we do share, and would like to desperately send our 'final' messages across, perhaps to make counsel with the belated, it should be understood that the time of passing and the few days after, are with far more significance to the deceased than anyone else, i.e. his death is his experience firstly. 

We can view death as an initiation into the spiritual worlds whereby the passage to be instigated is done so alone. That is not to say that it is not without loving assistance, for this is true also, but the experience of departing this world, out from our bodies for the final time, and away from those who remain, is very much one of where we have our lower torso straight and balanced and our upper closed. The crossing over the heart brings the conjunctions of the activity at the wrists, nullifying the forces of the hands (the worldly gates and outer flows) surrendering the man to inactivity.

It is sinister indeed to interfere with a living man's wrists in a way which binds him, for not only does this weaken his physical strategy but also holds immediate effect on those forces which channel down throughout his entire system and into the hands. Once again it is no mere symbology, as the practice of physical motion may lead to the very consequence of its promotion. If you smile you will feel happy - the same happiness which may have prompted a smile also. If you concentrate down and scowl long enough you shall also feel and know the shadow of its effect. (Therewith the saying: "Be careful for the wind might change" and you shall be stuck with the face you have drawn.)

We call the winds of etheric motion to us with mimicry continually. Not always are we adept at this when we want to be, for we may assume a superhuman vigor and force a smile for only so long, however in the short and with meaningful episode, we do lead with our tails back to front and can invoke the same properties by our very motion of them.

When we lie on our sides with our left cheek flush against the pillow we have created a duality between the forces of the earth and the spaces directly above us. The magnetisms of the earthly currents are differing to those which orbit the Globe - there are many influences indeed which may come under such a heading of magnetic drag and radiation. One can remember too that there are levels upon levels of differing vitalities. Directly beneath us the Earth's immediate magnetisms may be considered as unhealthy or unwholesome in their aspects of base elemental composure.

There are numerous organisms which exist on the borders between life and death which are absorbed by our Earth but as yet are underdeveloped and undesirable for immediate contact with man. These are the moon bacteria and beginning organisms, which may well come to manifest if well put to use. Whilst also, in those places unpenetrated by the sunlight, there are all kinds of influences which pool and sit and are very consistent with all of the ugly aspects of man's lower nature and its offspring. For Man has his containers of ugliness which make plutonium by contrast appear with a short shelf-life!

The sins of man are stored in dark earth cavities, in astral gloom, in grave and in every sad place upon the Globe it awaits its redemption. Every vile thought of hatred and harm, every misuse and abuse of the good and the holy, cruelties and slaveries - these slink within the earth. Yet that is only within the immediate and it may be pointed out also that there are gravities which draw us down, for which we may be thankful. That same 'earthliness' connects us with the substantial life as known through the feet; we are given our very links with all others in this manner. Each realm is endowed with its most beauteous aspect. There is no species which is not favored with purpose or grand design; even in the catacombs and unseen places of this World.

There may be something said of the displacing of weight in the position of sleep. The drag downwards is burdensome to the overall vitality of the organs within. We can alleviate this pressure by our moving from left to right side, belly to back and to side again, and this promotes good tone to the varying surfaces of each inside.

Returning to the preference for sleep: we find that when the left cheek is upon the pillow and the legs are drawn up, hands are near head, there becomes an attitude of prayer, of reverence. This is the form which says, "I am small within this World, I come to the greater Life". When the legs have been brought upwards, retracted, it is as if to say that they are without commission - the muscles are contrary to use, the knees folded (as opposed to their daily taut), we have one ear to the ground and one open to the ethers, with the contrast of both working within our systems.

When we lie upon our bellies there may be a more comfortable distribution of weight, however there is also a receptivity to earthliness which will bring about nightmares and unwholesome thought. The frame of Man does not like to be face down, and even when the head is placed sideways to accommodate the position, it shall struggle with this position for it does not favor the influences as should.

It can be pointed out here that the good instincts a man should have about his positioning may well be denied during an unusually heavy slumber which comes from intoxication or from extreme exhaustion. This also manifests in those who suffer sporadic sleep episodes, when it comes to pass that when they can sleep they are so debilitated from lack thereof, that there is a heavier than usual stupefied type slumber.

Far worse than that are narcotic slumbers when the astral body has been almost severed from the trunk and the man has so little a connection for that time that his physical body may assume any position in which it falls. The result of this will be that the body of the man no longer may be depended upon to guide what position it needs in order that it may devise and employ the forces which it requires. There is a balance to be struck here, for although we do not maintain our sleep with fully composed self-consciousness, we do not, in good health, fall into slumber with a deathly unconsciousness - the kind which repulses the soul and sends it outward by that very repulsion.

Lying directly onto the earth is unhealthy when given to sleep. Once there was a myth of a man who did do this and awoke to sprout leaves. There was something quite true in the composure of this, for as we have studied, we as men are sympathetic to our immediate environs. We do easily mingle with the various natures of those things which are around us and no less during sleep ... the nature of the food we have consumed in our stomachs, the inherent nature and aura of the wool in our blanket speaking of characteristics of sheep and of pasture; the very nature of the author speaking inaudibly from the book at the bedside; we come to intrigue and discovery with the impressions brought to us in the immediate constantly.

Moreso are the lively forces which are perpetuated in vividness in soil and moist contact with the soil itself. As our moisture, our soul forces, meets with its moisture (inevitable whether apparent or not, i.e. not needing to be in any great measure), we are combined with the vitality and impressions and force forms therein. During waking, practices such as sitting or gardening will not affect us in this manner, which it will most certainly if we are to sleep outdoors and on the ground. To sleep is to receive, and the story of the man sprouting leaves is consistent with the results.

The vagrant or hobo (or camper for that matter) often finds that his thinking processes have weakened by this activity. He sleeps heavily because of this, but has begun to become quite plant-like in opposition to his manly ego activity within. One might suggest that the forces of the night sky might compensate for such earthliness, however the Moon is more earthly than is credited - it is as Earth upon reflection - and during the nighttime we are subjected to such earthly gravities with a greater intensity as are the day lit hours.

Whilst walls and doors cannot exclude all influences that are around (thankfully we might add), they do remarkably, draw definitions around us which conceal us from the more lower emanations.

When we sleep belly down we are turning our back on Heaven so to say, in attitude. For some it is an action of denying conscience and this can manifest in the most conscientious of men, that they feel the need to do this that they may rest. For the nightly reviews and examinations bring before the mind's eye much of the day and of our own actions, and it is that special time when we can understand anew that which has just passed before us.

If we were to fling ourselves upon the ground face down this would be an expression of selflessness, but also of denial of Heaven, which is not understood by those orders who request such acts of 'humility'. It is rather theatrical than practical. To sleep in this position for any given length of time compromises the healthy flows of force-forms which would otherwise be drawn into a man. The occurrence of nightmares should awaken him to the fact, if he is not prone with a narcotic sleep.

Sleep and the heroic fables:
The origins of design are carried within each and every signature therein, that the beginnings of an organic form, any organic form, reminds Man of that time of first creation and the forces which we brought together and thus played out.

The impulses of heroic striving, of the eager advance, of the God-given confidences, the courageous fortitudes and the great progression of Man, these forces are firstly made most obvious and apparent within the living etheric forms as are all about us. We may take for granted the way in which life pursues its courses and persists, and yet with remarkable perseverance the reformation which is necessary for the continuity and continuance of manifestation, is first brought to us through this essential quality throughout the etheric life, which is the prime characteristic of Christ. For it is that He not only brings the wonderfully new plans for future Man, He also brings the constancy to see them fully realized.

Our greatest strength assists a certain endurance; for creatures, including the beings of Man, require a faith in their own existence, without which they would not be able to take in and realize any outer reality. Do you remember the saying that many a battle is lost ere it's begun? We have seen the diseases which Fear brings, sweep battlefields and watch men fall to defeat prematurely - collapsed, having been given to phantasmagoric foe, quite before the real enemy has arrived to find their huddled and quivering frames taken with the madness of self-doubt.

So firstly we can see that the impulse of a courageous continuance is inherent within each floating form and we do draw in this quality also. It does help us to awake in the morning. It encourages the soul to find its way back into the world day after day, even when perhaps, the day before was less than encouraging.

When a soul returns to a condition in which there is pain and subsequent suffering throughout the waking hours ahead, there is a call upon the fortitudes for such forces which will begin to work in answer to that immediate activity. Often physical pain makes possible the entrance for future forms and forces. Its presence commands that the individual be brought the supplication required; and this shall be, whether in this lifetime or the following, that no pain is for naught.

It is not to say that the agonies - the dull, but contemptuously unremitting, or the intense and violent sufferances - are the ideal teacher to Man of his spirit's heroicism. However, at this time, in these conditions, that is exactly how it does happen to work; and comfort, if it is to be sought, may be found in the knowledge that pain endured shall carry also its rewards to that soul who has abided it. Even when the mind does falter (for understandably, because pain also heralds the end of a particular system, making way for the beginnings of a new one) even when the man does succumb to upset because of it, he is drawing rapidly from the spiritual worlds a knowledge of a greater contest that holds a marvelous outcome.

When a soul enters the heavens after having known a measure of pain within their days or within this world, there becomes change occurring at certain conjunctures because of the effect that the pain wrought within their egos at that time, and also because of the impulses now strongly forged within their higher astrality and its associates. It is as a sharpened, more acutely defined awareness of that which does now encompass them. It brings their consciousness into a more clarified comprehension which in turn will help them to perceive the beauties and wonders which abound.

Contrariwise, a man who has sought out and gained a luxurious life for which there has been little striving and small consequence, one where he has not had the sufferance of pain, this individual shall be by comparison quite dull to the heavenly offerings and their incredible realities. It becomes as a sleep to him, because he has not the forces to interpret them, because he shall need some heroicism to go forth consciously and meet with all of the awesome beauty that the expanses have there before him.

During sleep we find a measure of this experience also. The prisoner in his cell, the very poor and their commensurate hardship, the burdened men whose hearts are heavy each night with their terrible woes and worries, and those too whose only guarantee of respite from their physical malady may be in snatches of rest, all of these will find supplication in the sanctity of sleep. Physical restoration is a marvel, how moreso then the continuing hope which carries on within the soul! Many other virtues work in and upon us when we rest.

Acts of selflessness, when we have given charity by our actions to another - a charity with no self-interest attached - this immediately brings a man into realms of Heaven that he would otherwise have no knowledge of. Here is another example of our back-to-front journeying, as acts of love as for another do surely concur our own salvation.

When Man was given to negotiate the physical worlds with all of the struggles which coincided with this awkward internment (and we say awkward because it is at present), he was also afforded that time in which he could return to his more familiar conditions, returning to his Father every night of his life (or part thereof a day) for as long as he was required to be in the World.

The experience of drowsiness preceding sleep comes from the one great length of expiration which has almost reached completion. If the etheric body of a man could be viewed it would be seen to inhale and exhale, having brought into itself life enough for each day upon waking, only to shrink back and deplete as it is expended within the hours ahead. It is as one respiration a day, which is in keeping with our Sun also. (Fatigue as well as renewal for our etheric body comes from this etheric connection, which in itself remains intact during the process, which as it implies can be only a healthy action to do so).

The physical body (when not strained unduly) does not feel the tiredness which we do experience - as it is renewing constantly it is what it is. An animal does not know tiredness. It will experience a start and a stop and what may mean strain - a strain to reach its limits - but it will not consciously know tiredness as men do.

The undead vampires of recent horror tales present us with a very interesting representation of a man who must find life without an etheric body. That is just about what you would get, were the circumstance quite so. Characteristically this phantasmal man appears bloodless - the complexion bears no life, no translucency - and he has not the means to continue on without drawing his vitality from others, and this is done so astrally; which will sustain a man on some levels, but not in a way that he can give himself to expression and experience, within this world.

It is because of our etheric bodies that we can find a loving connection with this world, and fully immerse ourselves within it retaining our ego-consciousness into the bargain. Our blood bears qualities of this aliveness, when we are enabled to experience both the delight and the purpose which comes of all living Creation.

The saintly and the virtuous have developed those qualities within their own selves that in turn they may mirror God in life. When a man begins to exude that same power of delight and purpose out from his own etheric vitality, it happens that his own renewal becomes rapid, not necessarily requiring the gathering throughout sleep, for his angelic nature is consistent with his self-consciousness and he is made stronger, more conscious and wakeful for longer periods because of this.

When a man awakes to feel weary, and there is no great underlying cause but rather a generality all over, this may bring us an insight as to the soul's disquiet with the format of life he is given to. Men know themselves when there is something quite 'wrong' in this regard, that they have a heaviness of limbs and feel the gravities dragging them into the earthly magnetisms upon rising. This is a definite indication that their etheric body has not resumed with full vitality. If you like you may call it an etheric asthma.

The prescription for this is a curative we have often suggested, namely that a man must give time to involve himself with activities throughout his day that he most truly and wholeheartedly desires with a fervor, anticipates with abundant joy, and goes on to experience with an immense, intense love that frolics in the overspill. Quite usually the man or woman who suffers from this etheric asthma has imposed upon themselves restrictions to which they must conform - they hold back from happiness and from activities of such, because of their overwhelming sense of holiness in some cases.
Many virtues overrun their usefulness into fields where excess becomes difficult to the man himself. The virtue of holiness requires a perfection in Man, that he knows how to adhere to self-defined perimeters and will himself into those confines. As part of manhood the discipline of will is most necessary, although it becomes excessively placed at times when a man presumes that he needs to exert his concerns over such aspects which simply do not require his consciousness or his direction.

For example, a healthy individual does not require to use his forces of will in any effort at all to pass motions from the bowel. (We apologize for the subject itself, but bear with it if you please.) This system, as with others, would best be kept as one where it may run its course, for bringing thought into the muscles restricts them rather than assists them, and we produce a counter force merely in our efforts to take control.

Now firstly, it is no place for a man's consciousness to be - it is simply not needed. Whilst secondly, it does indicate that the will is frustrating itself by venturing into realms in which it may not find productive resolution. Of course the effort of will does come in the before and after sequences of toileting - what is discussed here is the actual biological process in the healthy individual, just as we do not consciously regulate our pulmonary systems or our sense systems etc. And it can be added, that the factors which may present whereupon a man is prone to poor physical tone within the bowel, there becomes a different circumstance to which we are not referring to today.

However, in relation to the virtue of holiness and its overuse within the will, we can find examples of this throughout much unwarranted behavior. The man believes that he is needed to engage his will in the world, rather than Father God's. It is a small discrepancy indeed, but on the whole rather large in implication.

No one man may be held to condemnation for this quirk of the personality, for in part we all suffer it, as the ego brings with it a conscience of responsibility which seeks to make right, as well as to know. And firstly, it is an honor-worthy virtue to propagate within the self. What we can know, to assist ourselves in our trials with this development, is that by relaxing our wills and giving over to those things which alight happiness in soul and self, we shall also strengthen our capabilities of working and of discipline, and of holiness, providing of course that we also give ourselves and our times to those endeavors as well.

A man who works his week without joy will exhaust his etheric body and become unresponsive to further etheric infillment. A man who overworks his passions and employs no will, living in experience only, will not know joy, because he shall have no tension to relax out from, and he too will be depleted, downhearted and forever unsatisfied.

The man who embraces life carefully but firmly and ever with love, may find the torsion betwixt virtue and greater virtue a happy contest for which there is no argument.

The sea does not argue with the skyline. This a man has within his own nature, both sea and skyline. The definition of the sea is no less because of the expanse of the great sky above, and they give to each other, both meet in each other, and in certain lights one may wonder that they are not one and the same.

Stepping Outside of Ourselves- 4th September 1995

Question:
We have a question from one of our dear friends about an episode which happened when she was a child.... There was a time of great distress for her around the passing of her father, when at the funeral lunch she had been told to leave (because of her age) and go to her neighbor’s residence to be cared for. What transpired was that sometime after the upset she actually found herself sitting in the gutter of a nearby street - with no recollection as to where she had been or how she had got there. No other person could help her with this, except to say that it seemed to be three hours or so which had lapsed. Her question to you is: Can you help explain what did happen?
Thank you.

FIRSTLY we may reassure all such people who have had similar experiences of memory deficit that there shall be due occasion prior to death and most certainly after death, whereupon they may review the happenings unknown which will then become most plain. 

This is a comfort to the many that have vacant spaces yet to be filled; and it may also be pointed out that whilst there are great differences between unconsciousness and semi-consciousness, all men in their conscious receptivity are lacking somewhat in their observation and retention. There requires that time indeed, whereupon they may explore the events with a fuller aspect of ingenuity, and so one cannot expect to have such a defined 'grip' on the happenings around them at any given time, let alone with a reliable continuity.

This is not to suggest either that all men are mad. Fortunately this is not the case at all; there are measures of reality established concurrently and the more obvious truths are received en masse. However this is leading into an interesting realm when we try to understand how it is that men may comprehend events in the first place. By what tools do they interpret the happenings of the world?

To define our daily waking consciousness we may begin by agreeing that it does differ from the consciousness which has moved on and out of the body during sleep. During nightration, when the body rests without the will of the man to guide it, the animal of the man is somewhat divorced from the governing soul which inhabits his body. Just as you may tie your mare or stallion to a post, we depart our bodies nightly with but a slender unseverable rein, exchanging our charge for the wings suited to Heaven, returning refreshed with feed for our physical body, which is knitted together with all of the necessary cosmic forces which comprise the physical substance life-bestowed.

Consciousness cannot be in two places at the one time. It is where it is. It may certainly be projected out from a thinking man, and the man is therefore transported to that place or that person which he has cast his intentions (or love); however, it may not be here and there, as it is the foot-runner to the soul, going first, presenting first, at all times. There should be great divisions made within our nature if it were to be otherwise. If creatures or men, could manufacture a secondary consciousness then it should happen that they would be two beings and not coherent or consistent within their own whole.

The way that this is tolerated is quite wonderful. We are afforded the abilities to step outside of our own selves. In wakefulness we may negate the responsibilities of our earthly representation of ego and will (in the instance of a stroke say for example or in the briefer sense the departure through meditation or in active combining) and forego the necessity to drive ourselves with complete detail. 

The expression 'to be lost in thought' denotes that occurrence when the man himself has directed his attentiveness into a realm where he shall leave his ego or powers of willing behind temporarily. He doesn't as a consequence, keel over in a swoon from such a process (the point being that should this occur there still remains the capacity for reorder and finding the way back); however he frequents realms of thought and beyond, in a way that cannot be fully retained at that time. 

We can find an immediate experience of this when we are caught by such beauty which inspires us to leave ourselves in the very transaction of contrast. When we are witness to an ambient sunrise or sunset we are almost incapable of comprehending the occurrence with an active consciousness. The event does not relate to our own selves, in the sense that we have not willed it to be so. We have willed that we be there for the happening, this is true, but once there, as we stand we may find that the colors in the clouds take us out from ourselves, not with split consciousness, but with all the vagueness of one who is experiencing a marvel without needing interaction of self. Much joy comes from this. 

We can know joy, because of that 'selflessness', given in the meaning just described. You may understand that we are enhanced by such happenings, for this is not injurious in any way to a man, he becomes forgetful of self only temporarily. However several things shall ensue from this condition which we shall describe.

In the first instance, in relation to the sunrise example the man has ceased with a tension inside. Maintaining constant consciousness in active willing - deciding and thinking, planning and involvements - wakeful consciousness may be depleting to the man as it requires self exertion to be maintained. When we exert our selves (even in opinion) we are responsible for that effect which we give out into the world; and reasonably we may assume that until such a time in which we are adept at carrying ourselves and our beings with the profile of an angel and all of the positive forces of Christ, then we may assume for the time being that we (understandably) are given to error and misjudgments constantly. We are liable to cause more havoc and consume more than we offer; we become karmicly entangled over and over with a seemingly impossible store of mistakes to make answer for. 

Our true self-consciousness is seldom rarefied, being somewhat enmeshed within a substitute mind, self-made and repetitive, rather than responsive in the minute, in the present, in the very here and now. A sharper consciousness would be painful and we all settle for the buffer-zone thinking, relatively speaking. The point being expressed here is that the individual is taxed by the repeated exertions of self, and he may find a respite when he can invest his attention elsewhere.

This holds good of course for the immediate also. The here and now is an eternal, and when we find sense of the immediate, of the here and now, we thereby experience the duration of the eternal. We find God in that - not in the minutes, but in the minute, not in the divisions which identify, but in the underlying spirit shared. 

Now the fact that we can commune in such a way is remarkable; and that we are not rent apart in the process. In the story as given from a little girl in sad circumstance, it may be said that this was a time whereby her sense of self was exchanged for her longing for her father. Some individuals are so placed with empathetic longings that they may well go in consciousness apart from their own egos, and in this instance, it too must have been the will of the father that this be so. Because as explained, it was not a matter of will for the child once there. What kept her apart from herself would have been her father himself, who as it is to be remembered, was very much present at that special time. Her longing coupled with his love and longing to, drew her out from herself to where he could be found. 

Usually it would be that the father would have gone to the child (or whoever), and he would flit in and out of their consciousness that they would be distracted by his presence. However here we have a little child who had traded her ego-consciousness fully. Her own will forced her self to repel away from her ego and be with the soul in consciousness that she chose to be with. A child can manage this best for their consciousness and projected imaginings are empathetic with the world rather than taken with their self's self - this being but an extreme example of a very sensitive individual whose love went beyond herself.

The memory of what transpired shall return and become a treasured keepsake for the soul who now feels the need to understand. We often try to recapture such realities that do not translate into the reasoning because they cannot translate into the reasoning, however the soul's perspective and comprehension is there, in which the account will be found, and therefore such experiences are not lost but rather recovered with merriment and great meaning. When this recovery does happen (particularly after death) our consciousnesses has thereby adapted everything in full knowledge. This is why our faith may bring us privileges after death that cannot be realized in life. All of our findings are exalted. The sunrise which saturated us then, is seen in full glory and comprehended in totality and it is magnificent. 

Remarkably, the principle as described before applies right here, and it can be said that there is a greater will which receives us within the sunrise that we may go to it. The invitation is there, the consciousness meets with our own and we commune with a mutual affection. The sun we may lovingly cast ourselves out into, at dawn or at twilight, does truly know us. We are received. And our joy so known, though oft forgotten in clarity, inspires rapture in the infinite, to be realized in our being.