PROBLEM OF SUFFERING

　I would be untrue to my mission if I could offer any who come within the orbit of these truths an easy comfortable life. It is not our purpose to show you how to avoid life's problems. It is our purpose to show you how to face up to them, to conquer them and to emerge all the stronger for them.

　The treasures of the spirit are far superior to any earthly riches. These are eternal possessions which, once acquired, can never be lost. Strive to acquire them. No soul has to carry a burden that is beyond its strength. No soul faces difficulties that are incapable of solution. Carrying the burden and tackling the difficulties are signposts on the road of the soul's attainment.

　It is not easy, but the rich prizes of the spirit are not easily attained. If they were, they would not be worth the having. The truth is, uncomfortable though it may be, and hard to accept while you are in the throes of difficulty and doubt, for doubt comes even to those with experience, that those times are best for you.

　We, who love you, often have to stand back and watch you fight your battle. We hope and pray that you will do so in that spirit which will enable you to learn the lesson and equip the soul. You cannot have knowledge without the responsibility that it brings. When you get the proper perspective you will not regret any of your sorrows. It is not when the sun is shining and all is calm and peaceful that life's lessons are learned. It is sometimes in the darkness, in the storm, that the soul comes into its own and begins to express the greatness of which the individual is too often unaware.

　 The whole of your earthly life is one long challenge and test. You are the centre of a battlefield in which all the forces of your being wage constant war. You have within you all the elements of strength and weakness, the remnants of the animal ancestry which are part of your physical evolution, and the divine potentialities that are the concomitants of your birth as a spark of the Great Spirit.

　The whole of earthly life is a conflict as to which gains the ascendancy. That is why you come into this world. You are not created perfect, except in miniature. Being part of the Great Spirit, you have latent perfection within your soul. But all else is a struggle for development, unfoldment, attainment, as each aspect of being manifests.

　Always there is free will, not wholly free, but governed by circumstances which determine your choice, according to character and temperament, as to which way you will go when you arrive, again and again, at the crossroads of your own destiny.

　Each individual has the opportunities for unfolding the latent divinity with which he begins his earthly pilgrimage. He determines which way he goes, whether he lives in the light, or the darkness, whether he serves or is selfish. This is the constant struggle of human existence in your world. It explains all actions and reactions, determines the growth of the soul and its unfoldment, and whether you come to our world, when the time is ready, prepared or unprepared,  fit or unfit, mature or immature, according to the way you have lived. It is simple but complex.

　The more talents you have, the more gifts you possess, the greater is the responsibility. The soul knows before it incarnates what it should do with the gifts that accompany its entry into your world. He who has talents and does not use them pays a greater price than he who has none. It cannot be any other way. Grief is the great stepping stone to knowledge. Grief is one of the most profound means by which the soul comes into its own. Grief, especially when it touches the fibre of your being, enables the soul to be awakened. The soul sometimes is so embedded within the body that it requires a tremendous power to bring it out.

　Grief, sorrow, sickness and suffering are part of the means by which the children of earth are taught the greatest lessons. If truth were to be found with ease, it would not be appreciated. It is because truth comes in the hour of greatest sorrow or suffering that value is placed upon it by the one who is ready to receive it. Trite though it may sound, you cannot obtain truth until you are spiritually ready.

　No soul is awakened until it is spiritually ready. No soul is helped until it is spiritually ready. It is the soul's develop-ment which decides when the time is ripe for knowledge to make its entrance. It is determined by the soul and its evolution. It is natural that you should look at the universe, at life, at yourselves, through the eyes of matter and attempt to weigh, consider, assess and judge all happenings from their physical standpoint. But that is only a very insignificant part of a large story.

　The greatness of the soul is discovered only when it con-quers difficulty. Discouragement is good for the soul. You must learn to allow the latent greatness of the soul to express itself. That is why you are living in a world of matter. Discouragement is not the end. It is the beginning. There is a power within you that is greater than anything that has yet been expressed. The Great Spirit is not found when life is easy. The Great Spirit is found only through struggle and difficulty. The pure gold has to be crushed before its richness and beauty can be made known. The gold of the spirit cannot emerge until it has been purified and refined through sorrow and hardship. There is no other way. If some tell you that there is, I do not know it.

　Your world is the world where mistakes are made. In correcting them your spirit grows. It is indeed a boon that those who are called upon to face trial and difficulty, ob-stacle and handicap, are, in the end, better equipped than those whose life is too often a bed of roses. The power of the spirit does not express itself when all goes well, when the sun is shining and there is not a thought to disturb the soul. The soul comes into its own when it has to meet challenge and difficulty, when it can call upon the inner, divine armoury and allow the weapons of the spirit to come into the great battle of existence that is part of the overall plan.

　Do not complain about difficulty. Difficulty is good for the soul. You may not like it at the time that it cones, but you soul. You may not like it at the time that it comes, but you will look back and thank the Great Spirit for the oppor-tunities that were given through difficulties to enable the gold within to be excavated. If every soul that incarnates found life an easy pattern to follow there would be no development, no unfoldment, no character, no attainment. It is a hard lesson, but the things worth attaining are those which are the most difficult. The prizes of the spirit are not come by with ease.

　The Great Spirit is constantly at work, never absent, al-ways familiar with every aspect of being. The Great Spirit's laws continue to operate, in sunshine and in storm. You cannot judge the Great Spirit. You cannot judge the uni-verse. You cannot judge the world. You cannot judge your-selves. Material yardsticks are all too infinitesimal for that purpose. Naturally when you look at your world through the eyes of matter you see inequality, injustice, wrong-doing, the triumph of might, the despair of virtue. All that is only a very partial and false assessment.

　It may be that for a time justice does not come into its own, because in a material world you cannot always have redress. But when the story is finished, the scales are always rightly balanced until not even a hair's breadth separates them. You are not the best judges of what is spiritually best for you. Sometimes the worst answer to your prayer would be to give you that for which you asked.

　You must try to judge, and it is very difficult for you, every situation, not from the material standpoint, but from the spiritual standpoint. Sometimes what seems disaster to you is victory to us. Sometimes what seems triumph to you

is disaster to us. If you ask for guidance you will receive it, not necessarily in the way in which you want it to come but in the way that is best for your soul at that moment of its evolution. The divine power cannot fail you, but do not attempt to measure eternity with the yardstick of earthly life.

　There are certain infallible indexes of spiritual verities. Two of them I will enunciate. No harm can come to any soul whose honest motive is to do the best. Every soul who desires to serve will find the opportunity provided. Do not be impatient. It took millions of years for conscious life to be made manifest in your world. It took millions of years for that life in human form to reach its present organised form. It took many years for you and others to be aware of spiritual realities. Let the power which guides the universe, let the power which proved it is capable of guiding you, fulfil its purpose. Trust implicitly in that power which cannot fail, for if it could the universe would cease to exist.

　The simple truth is that unless you had problems to resolve, battles to fight, difficulties to master, the latent divinity of the spirit could never attain a maturity of expres-sion. It is easy for me to say it, I do not have to go through your difficulties, but I have been through them. I have lived much longer than any of you because I can count existence in terms not of hundreds but thousands of years. In the course of that long experience, I have come to regard with increasing awe, wonder and admiration the exquisite per-fection of the natural laws that regulate the whole of the universe.

　Nothing is left to chance. There are no accidents. All is regulated by unchanging, inflexible, omnipotent law. I know that when the soul has awakened and comes into its own and is aware of itself, the way will be shown. I have perfect confidence in the infinite power that created the whole universal system. There is none in your world who can produce any power that approaches by a fraction the power of life which enables them to continue from day to day. I know of no country or nation which can produce systems of law that will compare in any way with the natural laws that rule all life.

　Why then should there be any fear or lack of trust in that divine power which has been directing the universe for all time? You must put yourself in tune with it. You must cast out all thoughts of fear and anxiety. You must learn to have inner tranquillity and serenity, complete confidence, so that through you the maximum of divine power can flow to fulfil its purpose. When you are in harmony with the law of love and wisdom it works itself out. The wind bloweth where it listeth. Love finds its own. Love, divine love, of which human love is but one expression, is the ful-filling of the law.

　The simple truth is that those who have knowledge of spiritual realities should face each day without a trace of fear and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Great Spirit within gives them automatically the possession of such an armoury that they can fight any battle which they are privileged to encounter. They must triumph, for the power of the spirit is mightier than any material force.

　Fear is the worst enemy of mankind. Fear is corrosive, Fear saps, drains, vanquishes reason, overwhelms, keeps away very power that would enable you to conquer every difficulty. Fear disturbs, prevents harmony, stops attunement, causes wavering and doubt. Banish fear. Those who have knowledge should be tranquil, radiant, serene, confident, impossible to be disturbed.

　If what I say were not true, matter would be superior to spirit, darkness would be greater than light, ignorance would triumph over knowledge. The power of the spirit, which is the power of God, is supreme throughout the whole universe. The spirit is not only all-powerful, it is all-wisdom, it is all love. Behind all life's manifestations is the divine wisdom.

　It is in the fire that the steel is forged. It is in the hour of difficulty that the spirit calls upon its latent, infinite divinity and allows it to find expression. These are invaluable sign-posts on the path of your life. Just as the darkest hour pre-cedes the dawn, so the light of the spirit must shine. All that is required is that you should discharge your duty faithfully and well, and rest your confidence in the power which has revealed its loving beneficence towards you.

　The soul that has knowledge must realise that frustration and setback are equally parts of the plan, as are advance and progress. The negative and positive, action and reaction, are opposite and equal, these are the two sides of the coin. You cannot have the one without the other. There is a law that sets in motion the means by which you can advance. There is a law responsible for frustrations and setbacks. All is part and parcel of the same complex, intricate pattern, designed to allow the human spirit to find its fullest expression. You cannot have all-knowledge. Where your knowledge cannot take you, you must have faith, not blind, foolish, credulous faith, but faith founded on knowledge.

　Knowledge is the unshakable base, the enduring founda-tion. Knowledge, which has revealed the eternal truths of the spirit, in turn should produce complete, unwavering, unrelenting, undisturbed confidence in the power of the spirit which is the life-force itself. The fears in your world, the wavering doubts, these disturb the atmosphere. We work through tranquillity, through certainty, When you disturb the atmosphere with fear, doubt, anxiety, apprehen-sion, you block the path by which the power of the spirit can reach you.

　It is easy to thank the Great Spirit when the sun is shining, when all is peaceful and there is plenty of money in your bank. The time to thank the Great Spirit is when you are in the darkness, given the chance to let latent strength lead you to the light. That is the time to thank the Great Spirit, for that is when your lessons are learned, your spirit grows, your mind expands and you begin to reach the stature that should be yours. Nail your colours to the spiritual mast.

　What your world does not understand is that spiritual truths cannot be received until the soul is ready. The seed cannot grow until the soil is fertile. It is there, divinely implanted, but you must provide the appropriate conditions, the sun, the water, the air that are necessary for the seed to burst its bonds, to grow and then to flower in all its won-drous beauty.

　There is only one way that the soul can find itself and come into its own. It is through the path of travail, sorrow, suffering, what seems to you darkness. Your soul will not be touched while life bubbles along for you and there is

naught to draw your attention to the underlying, eternal, spiritual realities. And so it is that the plan of the Great Spirit is shown, that knowledge makes a lodgment within sorrowful preparation. Once knowledge makes a lodgment within you and you begin to be at one with the power that fashioned you and in harmony with the laws of the Great Spirit, then you are expressing the gifts of the spirit, its richness, its beauty, its lustre, its nobility, its dignity, its grandeur, these priceless gems that are part of your birth-right.

　Once you have acquired this knowledge, you cannot lose it. Your soul has made its magnetic link with the world of spirit and you are open to receive what can be, when you are ready, a flood of power and wisdom, of inspiration, truth and beauty. To each one of you there is given that amount of free will which, as you evolve, you learn to exercise.

　The higher you evolve in the spiritual scale, the greater can you exercise your free will. You are your own limita-tion, but, because you are part of the Great Spirit, you can conquer all the difficulties and obstacles in your world. Spirit is superior to matter. Spirit reigns supreme. It is the essence out of which all life is made, for spirit is life and life is spirit.