The Familiar & the Divine- 27th December 1993

FRANCIS was not a gentle man: being cumbersome in build, seasoned by several small wars, content to be a soldier and travel abroad, content also as a laborer whose coarse hands could hold a bird. This is to be mentioned because the familiar and the true may speak with a sense to all: a common sense which does teach us of the manner in which we may begin at the outset to ponder the reality of any truth.

Quite often it is that an advancing man becomes so capable of abstractions and specifications that he mistakes the familiar as to be a commonality which is so well comprehended afore time, that as a fruit sucked dry, shall offer nothing more.

Great art speaks to us from the two points intersecting:

Inspirational ▼


Familiar ▲

For we are marveled not by Heaven alone, but that she should enter into our World and all we know there! 

If one pictured St. Francis to be a bony man, lithe and feeble, they should mistake the great relevance he personally saw out by his commanding relationship to all - bird, beast and man - who did know him. Great organizers are rarely, if ever, feeble about their task. The men and women who were inspired by his constancy were awed by his purposefulness, forthright and decisive. That portion of his day he spent given to his Lord and Master was no less determined in its demands. How bold to ask! And though nine-parts humble, how presumptuous (and rightly so) that a man goes to God with the complete expectation of winning audience! But bold as it is, this is the way it's to be.

It happens that so many fall to severe and uneasy fortunes, and in those periods of desperate frustration a man may more readily pray with intensity. Cutting to the quick he may begin to really ask determinedly, for so often the boat drifts and steers hither and thither, as the saying goes, where the wind blows the sails, and all the time the man concerned is inwardly disorientated, regretting the journey. However, come the time when circumstance persuades his fiery will to ignite self-action, he may once again regain his necessary ego-qualification. 

It is of tremendous sadness to approach a soul who is devastated beyond 'spark and spirit'. Some are but temporarily ruined and shall return to their rightful place in true manhood; and then there are those within a lifetime that have 'forgotten' themselves - the stray lambs - who have begun to revert back into the other kingdoms in subjugation. . .

To be blatantly wilful is not, on its own, commendable. We are empowered to instigate great and marvellous happenings. All men are equipped to apply their virtue actively, and yet the ideas expire before their execution. Progressively however, our expectations heighten and as long as we are unabashed by short-term failure we do successfully implore the powers with exacting definition and artistry.

No man truly deserves sorrow and hardship. No man truly deserves to take his place closer to God than another. Yet it is that in both there is truth that it is, deservedly or not. Although abrupt and demanding, Francis did not come to the spiritual realities of the essential characters he bore relation to, by demanding or commanding or designing this be so, that his way be their way. He came to each and every one in love through the overgrown path and the little gate of their familiar habitats. To the birds he became as bird, to the doe he became as fawn; and masterfully so.

We may not insist upon another, but rather insist upon ourselves. By consciously endeavoring to seek out another's station and accepting every aspect that it brings, we may actively participate in full experience. Further on, those prayers which are expressed on behalf of others become efficient too. From this one can agree that holy men are not without their sensitivity and love of the familiar, that they can enter into and know so intimately, and for a time become.

We have discussed this many times of course - that the ego of a man may incorporate accordingly as the being of a man ventures out to that 'common' ground, common space, before returning with the experience gained. We are well to be reminded constantly of this process, as the complexities of actual thinking and the narrowing down therewith, are impartial to the success or failure of a man and his ability to protract out from himself sufficiently to enable greater knowledge. For the thinking that a man entertains may have little or nothing to do with true knowledge.

Thinking of itself requires containment, thought by thought, and each clings to a man once drawn. The thoughts, like molluscs, attach and congregate in their respective communities and are stubborn to actually make way for the adoption of new and varied thoughts to be brought in. So a man may labor under the very pressure of those which have amassed and grown as prevalent as weeds. Very simply, one may alleviate this compression by the conscious recognition of this being so, and desire for otherwise knowing that wanton thoughts shall and will be ejected - with time. 

They are empowered by our vitality we do give to them by our concentration and use thereof. They are given importance by our employment and are loathe to dissipate, without correction. These thoughts (or more correctly thought-forms) are the eager servants to men and never intentionally injurious. How a man prefers to think directs the nature of those provoked to him; and it is by the essential quality and nature of the man himself that shall direct his thoughts accordingly.

However, there becomes a great blessing should a man come to inquire, to call for such thoughts which are distinctly enlivened by soul-qualities, pertaining to the divine aspects. For then it happens that the benefits are twofold: one being that the former thoughts are loosened, having been disassociated from self as the vitality is directed elsewhere; and the other beneficial aspect is that the more refined and higher a thought the greater its gifts are to Man. In other words, there will be an accentuation from the practice of this thinking, as opposed to the mundane contemplations only bringing more of the same to a man.

The very best mix of all is that of the higher character along with the ordinary. For it is by the appreciation of the familiar we may begin to perceive the spiritual realities as they weave their way through; and it is by the entertaining of spiritualized thought that we may interpret the ordinariness as the true wonder it really is!

Looking Out Over the Dark Water- 26th December 1993

BENEATH the sea, underneath the shell-grit and rock layer, the earth is deeply compacted under the weight and strain of the body of sea above. The ocean holds fast, sealing those portions of impenetrable terrain - for some, concealing places of a very private abode- many a hidden temple wherewith the entry is not given to hapless wanderers, being only the docile watery inhabitants - and the archives, are safe-stored and protected from discovery, protected for posterity.

It has long been known by those qualified, the method whereby one may repel water; that there may be insisted upon, internal cavities (up to a set diameter) wherein no water may enter. And the many spaces laid down and remaining are but an overhang from the times of the Atlantean demise. Necessarily prepared for and although vacated by the original master-planner, they remain in use by those who do know their whereabouts. For there is little space within the ordinary upper world which is not frequented or permeated in such a way as to disturb the work-in-progress of the temple. The forces at play deep within the various mountains can be exceptionally favorable; or equally malevolent to those who, by necessity, require a 'safe-house' to remain in undisturbed.

There are also ways and means of concealment that have been employed where needed. It is possible, as in former times, to denote a given area and design such walls that repel a man's interest, so that if a stranger happened upon the area he would be immediately inclined to desist from advancing any further and turn away. He would not be able to see through into the space within. However at best, this was only effective in the short term and did require constant upkeep in a way that demanded from someone's capabilities to maintain.

The oceanic troves permitted our colleagues to store precious articles. Materialistically one may wonder as to the significance certain books and compilations of sensitive matter provoke - and not all, we might add, are objects to be desired, for there are not a few wards which are actually potent in their evil, that are for one reason or another to be concealed and withdrawn from public circulation. And the ideal place for such containment is in a body of water, where just as the emanations are inprone to permeate in, so too may we inhibit the influences from the deadly and vile.

You may ask: why not destroy these and be done with it. What possible use may these be? There are several answers to this - in regards to the physical remains of associated malevolent implication - and a few that may not be offered. However one interesting point is that the dispensation from such articles when they are released onto a higher plane - by breaking apart their physical glue, so to speak - may be extraordinarily powerful and provocative within its astral makeover. The influence can be perpetuated if received into the wrong hands, who gravitate to any such magnet of sorrow or devastation, in awe of the powers instilled. 

More importantly we may hold those physical remains of great spiritual importance too; and conversely, these are to be saved intact, for their potency when respected, enlarges in time and may become the beginning of a future landscape in worlds to come. How so, as the seed of wondrous matter in this time?- For some are so altered by the happenings that did occur around them that they become as unique and marvelous as the precious crystal is to plain rock; and as rare and uncommon as jewels, are impressed with a very special history - they are materially significant to future matter. And it shall be also that one day their substances will translate into field and ravine, mountain or plain, forming some part of a new world sprung from the goodness and remarkableness of the former.

This is why it has been very necessary to exchange certain particular articles, and although somewhat deceiving, it has been done in a way which proves the physical representation to be coherently identical, based on its astral compounds. It is, say in the case of the Turin Shroud - yes of course, had to be - fiber for fiber alike, but not so alike as to authentically date accordingly, having been manufactured four hundred years or so after the original.

I Am this World- 23rd December 1993

With the apparel of a temporal storm, thick enclaves of mud, which like a fondue spatter and bubble, infiltrate the clear water puddles, narrowing the swollen arterial river ways. . . The arbor satisfied, calls unto the rain, drawing its succor into trainer and runner; and the salt-tempered earth inhales Life by the soil; and the meshes of blind-reaching tangles creep just a little bit farther. . .

THE great cities chatter with a liveliness of their own self importance, exuding, exhaling, emitting with ceaseless salvo. And to each, nestled in congregate huddle, the hidden activities provide for the unsuspecting souls ignorant to their being, and bring the gifts of the natural and extraordinary world - the combustion of putrefied ferment delivered daily into free particles; blessed with elastic renewal.

The multifarious hostels of insects, given to sprawl and bustle with laborious drive, these and their cousins, the sleeping pollens, stimulate life by activity in perpetual hurriedness. They make designs within the invisible world - that place adjunct - and these patterns of activity encore and precipitate physical being. White ant, red ant, black ant, green ant - who does count and know each one? And in swarms infesting those cavernous hideaways, they work on.

Vivacious the wildlife, protective their entourage - beings-celeste and beings-gravitae. Whisper corporeal world, that they might hear you; for it must be soft-spoken to penetrate through. 

Now at Christmastide, the imp, the sprite, the nymph, the sylph, the rock-dwellers and the slime-bound creatures, the triphibious beings of the air, of light, of water, become aware of the men who stalk amongst they who ordinarily maintain a casual denial of presence. All at once they become eager to draw forward and peer and prod the manly-being before them, in wondrous curiosity. 


There is a boost within the dome of general consciousness whereupon the infilling light awakens all creatures and beings energetically, that they may come to find much more of the community they dwell in. For it is generally, that we prefer to live in amongst our fellows, naïve to their being and presence.

To some they are as mere expressions of life, however detailed; when verily they are individualities composed with soul and stature, and reasonably divine! Even the mite has soul: his being extends to that soul which is his. Shared or not, he is with the importance our Father God, instilled; and the character devised by unfathomable wisdom; and we may assess this with humble respect.

And too within ourselves, our blessed bodies who in servitude do love our souls; our multi-fractional egos, which as experience gathers, come to love and endorse our world in its entirety and honor Heaven in this also. For the ego of a man knowingly commits to the understanding of all that which is quite separate to it - full circle a man does become what he did first experience in the great revelations of initial vision. Man says "I am the World, I am time itself, I am the light behind the light, and I dispel self in the mirror of all my fellows-in-being".

Once experience has gravitated unto a man he says, "I am particular and knowledgeable and may prise this world into many pieces - I may count the minutes if I will, and discern the light from the shadows - I am not my brother, I am me, and how I know I am me is by what I choose not to be".

Then, one day in full self-realization, the precious ego-incarnate may exclaim:

I am this World and I do know it.
I am this World and this World does know it.
For I have looked unafraidedly into her face,
And she returned my greeting,
And we met on that inner plane where souls are meeting.

I am Time,
For I have aged and withered and died,
Only to return and withstand every parcel of change time had wrought,

Only to conclude that in being timeless throughout,
I am Time in perpetuity,
For it serves me, in generous latitude.



I am the light behind the light,
Where He goes, go I –
Into every illuminated recess,
From my eye to His Eye.


I have looked in His Eyes unafraidedly
And seen how the light does stream out from them.
Onto the World His Soul pours from His Eyes,
And I am that He is,
And He is that I be.
And I have offered back my being,
With gratitude which is full and pervious,
And wept with thankfulness, that I too am illuminated.

I am the full measure of all of my brother's fault and majesty,
I have tasted their salt and their sweet and become both,
Pursuing this worldly knowledge.
And from this, I love them all and know them well;
And though I know I am not them,
I remember when it was, how it was, in being as them so similarly.


And I do not measure myself against Men –
For I am only much more,
Therefore there is no distinction –
But measure myself with the god-men,
Who beckon me higher unto them.


I am mirrored in the Celestial Powers,
And I am, on behalf of all Men,
I am.

The Basic Priorities to Existence & Grace- 18th December 1993

"NOT all trees may become Ash trees", and with consideration to species - as species is divided - we may add to this in saying that there must be Divine reasoning for diversification in plants, in animals and in Men. Not all men shall go on to develop and become so similarly; even when their feet are fixed upon this path, this inner road home. Even when the certainties reside and the urgings to the quest have lent the fresh perspective and inflamed the mightiest of curiosities, men go forth and become in different fashions - not all the same. Yes, men of Christ will feature this and that in preference to those and they, and each as glorified and as deified as the other. Every man has equal purse, over time.

The great mystery is Man - where has he gone? How great the contrast- the contrast between the firstborn, the purest blood, and his numerous relatives with heavy countenance in delicate stupor.

There is mystery if one looks into the face of many individuals and asks "Where is the man within? ". They may be walking and talking and appear to be interacting. But at times, with some fellows, it is apparent that the 'ennobled soul' is as inactive as to be quite separate, as it were, to the copycat facsimile before you. Where is the divinity? He is, in consciousness pertinent, quite happily placed dozing with back to road aside a river; concealed within a sun bespeckled forest; conversing with the Angeloi - or yes, most literally 'off with the fairies'!

When we gather our consciousness to ourselves, we drive more of our own substance into that concentration which is placed where the ego of our being resides. Yet too, we are apportioned in many ways throughout the soul-hemispheres, having remnants of self in all places past frequented- we may flit here and there, respectively. The 'narrowing down' in self-conscious exacting is a drawing together, a summoning of those higher faculties which are ours, when we come to know how to use them. In this back-to-front sense, a man never really becomes more than he already is; and yet one might say this also for a silken thread yet to take its place amongst an extravagant tapestry - one might say it is all one and the same. . . 

However, we may not take to ourselves and claim that which is not ours to take; and every godlike feature which comprises the advanced Man is already accessibly inaugurate to the constitution.

The central point of gravity within a Man depicts his knot of active consciousness. By and by he will become capable to enable powers and strengths - from will, by concentration, from a developed and exercised morality (which corresponds with cosmic virtue) - that he does exercise and provoke thereby the higher ordinances- little by little he is dynamic centrally and conducts accordingly.

The higher attributes of a man are correspondingly sensitive to the Graces which sustain the soul and infill it with properties specific to their heavenly inclination. For were we to not experience the qualities of Grace, a man would be basic to need, sameness and stimulation only.

• Need= Hunger needing sup-placation, coldness needing warmth, muscular system needing exercise and commanding movement, genitalia needing accompaniment and stimulation - actually pairing according to the vital and specific inclinations.

• Sameness= similar to sympathy, but not so developed. For one may sympathize or empathize without actually being the same at that time as the correspondent. In the developed sense we may advance out from our ego-condition sufficiently to experience another's station or experience or meaning, or gift; and then recoil back. However with sameness the sympathy is limited to expression and inadequate. Camaraderie is often born of sameness, as opposed to true brotherliness. Dogs may lie against each other when cold, in mutual understanding. They may even lack the ego as defined and consequently have sameness of experience with a human by sharing the man's experience, but this too is sameness.
  

• Stimulation= the reactive element which maintains continuity. In this way the physical world may appear distinct from its truer reality - that it works upon itself with a series of atomic contests. However the movements of all are marvelously manipulated by higher intervention, second by second (actually out of time).
  

So the point in reviewing the basic priorities to existence: need, sameness and stimulation, is that it may assist us to begin to comprehend the power and value of the aspects compelled by Grace which infill us with a vastly higher meaning than the basic animalia has to offer. It is by the practice and rehearsal of higher thought, aspiring and conjoining with Divinity's reasonings that fashion the man, who, as the pearl, gains layer upon layer of beauteous acquisition upon the general core.

Is the student dismayed that he may supersede his brothers? Does he wrestle with their attendances and eagerly foists his own self-measures upon them? Are we impatient for perfection to work and prove us correct?

What we do we do for the future, yes, but also we do firstly for the here and now. The saying that 'the end justifies the means' implies that the means may be unwholesome and yet qualified by result. We would argue that a sour beginning only leads to a sour end, that all seeds of action are colored with the initial 'spirit-vitae' and the nature of such. Therefore it is precisely the 'doing' within the realm of the here and now that need be answerable to the future.

Returning to the opening comment about the Ash: the Temple of St. John is open to every man, of course, but whether or not it is to be the choosing of every man to enter, is an entirely different matter. In a manner of speaking it is as the whole of Humanity - just as we discussed - Man has all the components of deity already; and yet our supporters anguish in ripe indignation that their 'teachers' are so ignored! This frustration comes of immaturity and is to be expected. In time the student comes to realize that it is misspent aggravation, when it is consolation which is required.

How so? As every frontier is ventured upon there becomes esoterically, a deluge of unanswered imponderables, which if not met with an inner content shall dissolve a man almost entirely. For mysteries never cease to be mysterious! It truly is endless - any field of study necessarily and profoundly, holds the opening doors to further and further penetrations of understanding; and the 'unravelling' as it were, has to be ceaseless, for all that comprises eternity is by nature ceaseless too. The story is that long, and the facts along the way are immeasurable in their totality. So we must at the outset develop a capacity to be content when we are not so inclined to be so - that we may exercise this at will, for there is a paradox in understanding too. One may actually come to a comprehensive grasp of understanding, soulfully, and this may ease one into the contentedness we seek.

For example: If one is frustrated that the majority of men are incapable of higher discernment, it becomes an imponderable to contest this thought. On the one hand it is downgrading and demeaning and insulting and injurious to view any man as a dullard or inadequate, on the other hand (forgetting the impropriety) it is often the case that the man is a dullard or inadequate, and could achieve, would that he could; and we do rightfully make these distinctions on behalf of him, and are frustrated because he at this time cannot. However such frustration at these discrepancies becomes as self-inflicting sorrow if we do not answer it with, as they as they say, "a hope and a prayer", "a lick and a promise", and then go on.

One cannot go where uninvited. One cannot give to he who refuses - this is the Law. We can respect this Law because it affords each to license of himself, and commensurately, protecting our freedom all the while. Dear Christ cannot obtain the entrance key (at this time - but who knows?) and so we must be content in His Reasoning that this be so.

There is no amount of urging whereupon one may accelerate or accentuate another's development. Equally so, all students, though few these are relatively speaking, share great meshes of supporting sympathies amongst them which surpass distance, from city to city, outpost to nether-nether; and every meditation, every aspiration, every inner acknowledgment gathers light to the planet, as well as to themselves. We may not answer all evil or all stupidity, we may however, address and remedy that which is our appointed task as presented.

Contentedness need not imply faint-heartedness, nor should we be one hundred percent content all the time- moreso content with our discontent which provokes us to greater concern.

Association, right association is of tremendous importance! It has been held by us before and need be said again, that it is vital to the soul of man that he lovingly works amongst that which he does. That study must be with joy and enthusiasm - his joy and his enthusiasm - and it is disharmonious and injurious if these aspects are not with him. When he labors it should be with great happiness to do so. When he is in company, be it - at least some of the time - with those who his soul is most comfortable to be placed with, and where possible, dynamically intertwined, fashioned by mutual love. For without absolute wholehearted participation, he is resigning his individuality to a corrupt and irregular aspect of perspective. The greater profit to the man and his world is through the expressions of ecstatic interaction.

There are many tasks which are loathsome and it would be pretentious to assume that every detail may be exerted with full joy. However when there is time afforded and personal choosing, one is better to 'follow one's heart' and pursue those activities which encourage the exuberant joy.

Should one choose the way of the teacher and to be exemplary to those who might savour advice, should it be from one who is lusterless and humorless, ill-content with the world? It becomes an interesting misapprehension: one is no less serious in that they experience happiness, in fact, contrariwise! There are confusions in this; however it is stressed by us because so often the students who have arrived thus far are humbled in their expectations and are dangerously grim. God surely has appointed happiness that we may come to know it completely, and that be His Happiness also.

Happiness is preferable to wickedness, and man shall learn this as well. Frivolity is not happiness, just the appearance thereof. Happiness is the expansion of self, swollen with the comprehension, jubilant with the infilling grace of wonderment, and closer to a knowledge-wisdom of one's soul. We wish you happiness - now and forever.

(Thanking those also for all kind thoughts - requests noted, depositions accredited. We are not so intrusive, but only a thought away. And, you do come close.)