WHAT IS THE SPIRIT?

　I cannot give you a complete picture of the spirit because it is infinite. All words are finite and even when assembled at their best still remain poor and clumsy substitutes for the intrinsic power I am trying to describe.

　You all know that the Great Spirit is not a personal, vengeful, cruel, despotic being. As I have said many times it is the Law, and the mind behind it, the power responsible for the boundless cosmos without which life in its myriads of manifestations could not function. It is the power which is life itself, the primal substance of which all life is composed. It embraces the most minute and the most majestic.

　In this dim, comparative way, we grasp stumblingly some glimpse of what we really are, the Great Spirit in micro-cosm, the whole universe in miniature. It is too vast a con-ception for any to grasp. Your purpose in incarnating is to express more of its innate divinity. The expression is a process that is never finished, for development, like the Great Spirit, is infinite. Automatically your spirit is expressed in all the virtues, in acts of goodness, kindness, sympathy, toleration, compassion, mercy, friendship, affection, love. Thus the more good you do the greater is the spirit that is being made manifest. Now let us ask how we can con-sciously seek to unfold some of this latent tremendous divinity.

　There are many schools of thought, techniques, processes, each having a common objective. It is to still the physical nature, to quieten the brain and to encourage the emergence of the inner individual so as to obtain a greater harmony with the spiritual forces of life. In essence, all these tech-niques are concerned with your withdrawal from the maelstrom of matter into the silence of the spirit. It is not for me to outline any special technique. Each individual must find the way for himself.

　There are certain processes of concentration designed to achieve the one object of allowing inner potency, which is seldom expressed, to take control for a while and establish its closer and more conscious contact with the hidden but very real power of life. As you achieve growing success, you find that you become the recipient of greater inspira-tion. The psychic side of your nature unfolds. Then the spiritual aspect develops and there comes flooding into your being the power that belongs to the higher reaches of life.

　By the use of some techniques you can achieve self-healing and learn how to drive impurities and imper-fections out of the physical body. You can learn also how to achieve a closer harmony between all aspects of your being. Gradually as you do so, allowing your spiritual nature to attain the superiority which is its natural state, so you grow in inner wisdom, understanding, peace, confidence, serenity and awareness of your true relationship with the everlasting power.

　You have, because you are spiritual beings, all the latent power of the Great Spirit. You are the Great Spirit, the Great Spirit is you. You all contribute to the infinite power of the Great Spirit. The act of earthly birth is the incarna-tion of part of the Great Spirit into matter. That part contains potentially all the divinity of the Great Spirit. This is the seed that can flower with infinite possibility.

　When the gift is there, it can be expressed unconsciously by impact from our world. It is obviously preferable to have conscious rather than unconscious guidance. And it is obviously preferable to have unconscious guidance than no guidance at all. You automatically attract those who can help you to help others. So you get the restless stirrings of the spirit as it desires to express its latent gift in service, until the time comes when the soul becomes aware of itself and consciously is ready to go forward to fulfil the purpose of its being.

　The psychic nature is the in-between stage of matter and spirit. When you begin meditation, seeking awareness and releasing inner powers, the psychic faculties will be the first to quicken. This happens before the spiritual faculties

operate. There are some who believe, wrongly in my view, that development of psychic faculties is a deterrent to development of the spiritual nature, that it is preferable to try and climb into the highest possible spiritual realm by oneself. This could be very difficult and sometimes fraught with danger.

　The higher you evolve the more you realise that co-operation is part of the law. None lives to himself alone. All are mutually dependent on one another. We are all endless links in an endless chain. Why should the tyro reject the help of the expert? We come back to help you, and as you are helped, you help others. This service is the reason for our existence. You are constructed, not to live in isolation, but in willing concord with everybody else. This outlook must spread throughout your world, the realisation that all are linked, that no individuals, classes, castes, or countries can rise by themselves and leave others behind.

　All must rise and fall together, not only the humans but the animals too, for all life is one and mutual interdepen-dence runs throughout the whole infinite scheme. Besides it can be said that there are some who are selfish in their desire to reach out and achieve a kind of superiority that despises any other way. I am against the teaching that any one soul can live to himself alone. As I understand spiritual law, it is co-operation and no one can cut himself off completely from others. It is not necessarily selfish that you should want to achieve your own mastery unaided, but this is not the way that I recommend. To me service is the true coin of the spirit. I live for service, service to me is the expression of the Great Spirit. Let others who disagree go their way.

　All the great exemplars have tried to show by example, through healing, through comforting, through giving strength to the weary, through service, that the soul is up-lifted. You express yourself by service, that is the Great Spirit in action. I am sure that if you help one soul to dry its tears of sorrow, if you heal one sick person, if you uplift one fallen individual, if you give the hand of sympathy to your brother or sister in distress, that is the expression of the Great Spirit. All who say it is wrong to do so are wrong. It is right to help, it is wrong to refuse help. It is the motive which counts, but it is better to have service given from vanity than no service at all. If it is done for the wrong reason, then the soul of that individual who is the giver is not helped. None cheats the law, which is perfect. That is why it is said, "Charity suffereth long." Goodness is its own reward.

　Any who work as instruments of spirit power are touch-ing souls all the time, and that is the most important aspect of mediumship. To give comfort to the mourner, to heal the sick, to give a demonstration of spirit power in all its

aspects, mental or physical, these are very important and no one can gainsay that. But their purpose goes beyond anything physical. Their purpose is to touch the soul of the individual so that it becomes awakened to reality. Your world is full of so many millions whose souls are still slum-bering, who are dead to truth and who have yet to awaken.

　The function of all mediumship is to make the individual aware of himself, so that his own soul comes to the fore, he realises that he is a spiritual being. Having become con-scious of his spiritual nature, the divine seed implanted within him as part of his natural heritage should begin to grow. From that moment the individual is playing his part in helping the infinite creative power which is responsible for the whole universe.

　Before any individuals can be qualified to be instruments of the spirit they must undergo training. The training is a very rigorous one because it has to ensure a certain disci-pline, a certain confidence, and these can come only through suffering. The lot of an instrument must be a hard one, not an easy one. If mediums were to be found without trouble they would not be qualified for their task. The spiritual side of their nature must be tried and tested to see that they can withstand the kind of experience which will profoundly stir them to their highest and deepest possibilities. That is their own equipment; that is their own spiritual armoury.

　If they fail to pass through that test then they cannot teach others. You could not be a teacher until you have learned the lessons. And to learn the lessons you must do so in suffering, in travail, in being placed in situations where you may sometimes feel that there is nothing left, no one to whom you can turn. And it is only when you have thus plumbed the depths of spiritual experience that you are qualified by the law of correspondence to rise to the heights of spiritual attainment. This awakening of souls, this bring-ing of spiritual truths to hungry, thirsty souls, this is very important. This indeed is the whole reason for their existence on earth, but many go through your world without deriving from it the equipment that should be theirs.

　When they come here they are unready, or else their minds have been stuffed with so much untruth that they have to unlearn before they can learn anything at all. It is so much easier and more natural for them to learn their lessons in the place where they were intended to learn them, instead of having in our world so many misfits, ill-equipped, unready individuals. It is not possible to be able to comfort the mourners, to help the troubled, the perplexed and the problem-stricken ones unless you yourself have plumbed

the depths of sorrow and sadness, till your own soul has so been touched by your own experiences that you are fit to teach others.

　The teacher cannot teach until he has learned the lessons himself through the only way that the lessons can be learned. Spiritual lessons cannot be learned vicariously. They must be learned through suffering, through pain, through experience that sometimes seems bitter and hard and very difficult. That is the plan for every instrument who has real service to give. I would sometimes that it were otherwise. But out of all that experience comes a spiritual awareness, a spiritual realisation, a spiritual depth, a profundity that none other can understand, because you learn to place complete and utter faith in the power which upholds you through all doubt and trial until it helps you to bring yourself safely into the haven of a developed soul.

　This is a divine pattern instituted as part of the law. The road to spiritual attainment is not an easy one. Were it easy, it would not be attainment. Were it easy then the prize would not be worth having. To give service you have to be ready to serve. And to be ready you yourself must undergo those experiences which will touch your soul, unfold your spirit and put your psychic gifts on the highest possible spiritual level. There are many with psychic gifts, but there are not so many with psychic gifts expressed in any spiritual heights. We are concerned only with those who wish to use the gifts of the spirit, not just the gifts of the astral body, not the extension of the physical senses for experiment, however interesting that may be to scientists and researchers, and I say this in no sense of disparagement. There is work for them to do.

　There are many people who want to change your world, who do not wish to change themselves. And there are many people who want to change other people, but all development and all reform must start with the individual soul. Until you yourself have unfolded your spiritual gifts and expressed them and utilised them in service, you are not fit to reform anyone else. We are, of course, concerned with the great task of regeneration, but man must regener-ate himself. He must find himself. He must change his own heart, his own mind, his own outlook, so that the spirit which is divine finds the fullest expression.

　I do not care what religious label or political label is worn. I do not think that is important. If it helps, that is all right. But what is important is that lives should be lived in the full, divine light, in the rich radiance, in the nobility and dignity which are the gifts of the Great Spirit as part of the heritage of every child. That is greater than any label, than any church, or any religion. The gifts of the spirit are lavish and are freely offered as part of the normal heritage of every individual who comes into your world.

　When people come to you, the important thing is that you can touch their souls. To give a message from a loved one is very helpful. It helps the one in our world and the one in your world. But the whole purpose of that uplift-ment, the whole lesson to be learned from that is that the soul of the one in your world should be touched and made aware of the spiritual realities which are the only eternal standards which exist in the universe. To give a message of comfort is very important. To heal the sick is very impor-tant. To work as I am doing is not as important. But the whole aim of our world, and all who return from it, is to quicken the spiritual awareness of the individuals in your world.

　And that is the work you are doing. Never mind what the difficulties are. As long as you are faithful to the great trust reposed in all who are instruments you will never fail. The winds may blow, the rains may come down, but you will not be hurt. You will be sheltered and protected until the storms have gone and the sun shines. Immersed as you are in daily problems, it is hard to know all the time how strong, how mighty, is that power of the spirit which uses you for its beneficent purpose. You can only serve. The power that is expressing itself through you is part of the power that fashioned this whole universe, this mighty, stupendous, cosmic universe.