CORTHODOXY EXAMINED-AND INDICTED
Chapter Eight
CORTHODOXY EXAMINED-AND
INDICTED
( シルバーバーチの霊訓 十一
四章 既得宗教のどこが間違っているか
───キリスト教を中心に )
TODAY, if the Nazarene were to return to your world and listen to the doctrines taught in his name, he would not recognise them. Many of them are not what he taught; they are the inventions of priests.
“今もしナザレのイエスが地上へ戻って
きて自分の名のもとに説かれている教えを
聞いたら、いったい何のことだか理解でき
ないでしょう。 その多くはイエスが説いた
ものではないからです。 後世の聖職者たち
がでっち上げたものだからです。
These were among the comments Silver Birch made to an Anglican clergyman paying his first visit to the circle. The priest put his problem to the guide: "I find your teaching very helpful. I am a minister, but I get very depressed with dogmas and organ-ised religion. Yet I find some goodness in the Church. I am perplexed whether to work from within or from without."
Let us begin at the beginning. Your church, like every other church, temple, synagogue and chapel, owes its existence to the fact that in days gone by the power of the spirit descended in your world. It was accompanied by what are called signs and wonders and sometimes miracles.
The power of the spirit came as a challenge to the beliefs, the doctrines, the dogmas of that day. The power of the spirit gave evidence of its divine origin in that its beneficence was demonstrated in healing the sick, in giving guidance and in stressing the fundamental principles of life that matter is a shell and spirit the reality. But alas, the pages of your history show that all such outpourings lasted for only a short while.
Gradually the theologians took control and the mind of man devised teachings which replaced revelations that were divine. Sterility superseded revelation. Again and again there have been some outpourings of the spirit accompanied by signs and wonders and what were believed miracles. And the process was constantly repeated.
These kind of churches were described graphically by the Nazarene as whited sepulchres, because the power of the spirit has been driven out from them. Orthodoxy has built such a formidable wall it makes it impossible for that sublime power to break through. That is the indictment which in all candour I must make.
そうした中で神学者というのが次第に勢力を持ち始め、 勝手な教義をでっち上げ、それが純粋な霊性を具えていた啓示と置き代えられていきました。 不毛の人間的産物が神の声を押しのけてしまったのです。その後も“しるしと驚異、 あるいは “奇跡、 と信じられるものを伴った霊力のほとばしりがあり、 それがまたもや人間的産物によって置き代えられるということが何度となく繰り返されました。そうしたことばかりしている教会をイエスは“白塗りの墓、、 と表現しました。 霊力がすっかり抜き取られているからです。 繰り返される作業によって築きあげられた壁の余りの頑強さに、 崇高なる霊の力も突き通すことが出来ないのです。 そのことをまず率直に申し上げねばなりません。
The problem arises when men like yourself become aware of the truths of the spirit which in many cases contradict their creedal beliefs. So what does one do in such circum-stances? I say stay where you are and enlighten those who will listen to you. You need not use words like "Spiritualism." It is only a label. We are not concerned with labels. We are concerned with liberating souls, giving them the enfranchise-ment that will enable them to live as the Great Spirit intended.
The troubles of your world are largely due to the fact that materialism dominates the actions and thoughts of millions of people. Greed and avarice are the malignant cancers that infect your plane. These have to be driven out by knowledge, by understanding, by a realisation of the fundamental truth that all life is founded on spirit and not on matter.
This is what you can teach. You can reach people who come to you for guidance. Because of what you are you should be in a position to help them to find themselves. In the end every human being has to indulge in a process of self-regeneration. Nobody else can save him. He can only save himself. You will find that the door continually opens for you to help others.
If you leave your church you have access only to the same body of people that others who are gifted mediums and exponents have. Therefore you are only one more to add to those already performing this service. But as an ordained minister, charged with a mission, you can help those who come to you because they consider you are a spiritual mentor for them.
The Nazarene is the guiding intelligence behind all the work we try to do. Moreover we have as helpers many like yourself who wore the cloth. Because of their added know-ledge and power they seek instruments through whom they can serve others. The desire to serve does not end with physical death.
The Great Spirit, with divine wisdom, has given you a questioning mind. It will grow and develop as you use it. Honest criticism can never be offensive. We welcome those who question us because they really want to know. For others whose one desire is to have wordy debates, challenges in semantics, this has no appeal to us. We want to serve wherever we can. When we find those whose souls have been touched because the catalyst of grief, sorrow, or difficulty has come upon them, then we can help. They are ready to receive.
The clergyman was accompanied by his wife and a woman whteaches religious instruction at a large comprehensive school. She told the guide: "I have been reading your teachings that have been recorded. In one place you have said there is no personal God apart from the one human beings have created. You say, 'The Great Spirit is the Law.' Also you have said: 'Through all eternity there is the love of God and the God of love. And each time you express that love you help God to express himself.' From this and other teachings I gain the impression that you are speaking in personal terms of God. Would you clarify this, please?"
I will try, but it is very, very difficult because to attempt a definition of the infinite in finite language is virtually
impossible. The Great Spirit is not a person in the sense that you understand personality. The Great Spirit is not a magnified human being. The Great Spirit is not a man or a woman.
The Great Spirit is the supreme power, infinite intelli-gence, love, compassion, wisdom, the epitome of all spiritual qualities and principles. But to convey some idea of the Great Spirit we are forced to use your language. If I refer to the Great Spirit as "It" this would cause more difficulties than if I say "Him."
Your universe, like others, is ruled by immutable, natural laws. These have always been in existence; these will always be in existence. They do not have to be changed because of unforeseen circumstances arising. They do not have to be repealed because new conditions have arisen over which they have no control. They are perfect in their operations, requiring neither suspension nor abrogation, because they were devised by infinite intelligence.
Wherever there is life the natural law operates. Effect always follows cause; reaping always follows sowing. None has the power to intervene between cause and effect, or to change what must be an unalterable sequence. Wherever new discoveries are made in your world, it is found that they operate under law. There is no chance, no coincidence; the natural laws comprise all and everything.
Is not this fact an indication of the sublime intelligence that created the laws and ensures that they sustain every facet of manifestation of being and activity? And is it not also evidence that love rules throughout all these natural laws and that perfect justice must prevail? Goodness brings its own reward just as sin brings its own punishment.
The last rites given by a priest will not change the opera-tion of natural law. The prayer offered, however sincere, cannot change the operation of natural law. Acceptance of any creed cannot change the operation of natural law, for it must operate in order to ensure that perfect justice pre-vails. None can remove the results of your actions from your shoulders. You are personally responsible for everything you do and think. The saint and the sinner do not share an equality of spiritual stature. And none can cheat or pretend. This is the Great Spirit and what the Great Spirit means.
When you speak of personality, the Great Spirit is personal in the sense that the Great Spirit is within every individual. And the Great Spirit is impersonal in the sense that the Great Spirit is the law. So the Great Spirit is not a vengeful deity with partiality for some and punishment for others. The law operates to ensure that effect will follow cause. The Great Spirit is within you. That seed of divinity is implanted from the moment of conception. You have the opportunity in your daily life to allow it to flower, to bloom and to manifest its hidden richness.
Would it be true to say that all comes within the compass of the Great Spirit?
Yes, the Great Spirit is everywhere. You cannot be where the Great Spirit is not.
In the New Testament the Nazarene said you cannot put new wine into old bottles. How does that link up with what you have been saying?
You cannot put new wine into old bottles. What you can do is to put old wine into new bottles. You cannot compel the power of the spirit so that it can be fitted into predetermined beliefs. You cannot make spirit truths fit your pattern of belief. You must reject at any time any belief, any doctrine, any form of words, however ancient, that you know are untrue.
The Nazarene spoke in parables, but the meaning is quite clear. If you are aware of spirit power, if you are cognisant of spirit truths, then you cannot expound any doctrine which is contradictory to them. It is as simple as that. I was asked about the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit is not three in one as it is said somewhere. The Great Spirit is everything, everywhere. The Great Spirit comprises all universal life.
新約聖書の中（マタイ9・17）でイエスは、古い皮袋に新しいぶどう酒は入れられないと述べております。これとあなたが説いておられることとはどう結びつけたらよろしいでしょうか───
古い皮袋に新しいぶどう酒を入れることは出来ません。古いぶどう酒を新しい皮袋に入れるのです。霊力というものを人間が勝手にこしらえた信仰に合わせて働かせることはできません。霊的真理を自分の信仰の型にはめ込むことはできません。いかなる信仰も、いかなる教義も、いかなる名句も、自分がこれは真実ではあり得ないと確信したものは、いかに古くから伝えられているものであっても、即座に拒絶なさらないといけません。 イエスはよく寓話を用いました。が、言わんとしていることはきわめて明瞭です。もしもあなたが霊力の存在を自覚していらっしゃるのなら、もしも霊的真理を確信していらっしゃるのなら、それと食い違う教説は一切説いてはなりません。ただそれだけのことです。
If you believe that the Great Spirit can be separated into three parts of a trinity, then what you believe is wrong. Besides, what does it matter? Does it help you spiritually to believe the Great Spirit is three in one?
The original questioner said, "I found it very confusing."
So do I. Give your allegiance to the truth as revealed to you. To believe in the unbelievable is no credit to your intelligence. Neither will it help your soul to grow.
When a "dissatisfied clergyman in the Church of England" visited the circle for "an evening my wife and I will never forget," the guide greeted him by saying:
I know you are familiar with some of the truths I have tried to teach. In your own way, after much heart-searching and inner tribulation, you have turned you back on the creeds and doctrines of the past and have grasped the truths of the spirit which have illumined your life for you.
I wish that others who have been in your position were as accessible to the power of the spirit and to its sublime truths as you have been. It is a piteous spectacle to contem-plate that those who should be the custodians of this divine power and the ambassadors and emissaries of the Great Spirit present a stone wall that neither the power of the spirit nor its truths can penetrate.
And so their churches are cold, barren, lifeless and sterile, because the vivifying power of the spirit cannot be mani-fested there. So rejoice that the way was shown to you, even through sorrow, and you have found the light which has guided you and which will continue to shed its refulgent beams and illumine your pathway.
Invited to ask questions, the visitor said: "We know the Great Spirit uses you and others in the higher realms and comes through to us in that way. In the whole of history has the Great Spirit ever spoken without coming through a spirit entity?" Silver Birch replied:
The Great Spirit is not a person. The Great Spirit is not a deified individual. The Great Spirit is beyond personality. The Great Spirit is the epitome of law, love, wisdom, truth. The Great Spirit is the law, the infinite intelligence operatinceaselessly in a mighty universe.
The Great Spirit is to be seen in the countless manifesta-tions of natural phenomena. The Great Spirit is to be wit-nessed in the demonstrations of love when His children perform deeds of heroism, self-abnegation, mercy and serve those less fortunate than themselves. The Great Spirit is visible in the flow of that power which heals the sick, comforts the mourner, uplifts the fallen. The Great Spirit cannot manifest as a man or a woman. But some of the essence of the Great Spirit which is within every one of His children can be expressed.
Can we speak direct to the Great Spirit? If so, is it the Great Spirit within
ourselve ?
You are the Great Spirit, the Great Spirit is you. The difference is not in kind or in essence but in degree. The Great Spirit is the acme of perfection, for which you will infinitely strive. So the Great Spirit is within and without. When you express qualities of divinity, love, tolerance, mercy, compassion, charity, you are communicating with the Great Spirit because the Great Spirit is being com-municated through you.
Now the Great Spirit has many messengers, many channels. The Great Spirit has a hierarchy of beings whose
purpose is to ensure that the divine will is made manifest. So you can, if you like, talk to the Great Spirit in silence, by meditation, verbally by prayer, which often is a good thing because it helps to crystallise the thought which may wander and meander and give it a concreteness of expression which otherwise it would not have.
But whether silent or spoken, the true yearning of every soul is known to the Great Spirit and to all those who are charged with the task of administering the laws of the Great Spirit.
Have you ever met the Nazarene in the spirit world?
Yes I have, many times. I have told my
friends here about it. Always when I withdraw from your world, which I do regularly, to attend the gathering where the Nazarene is always present. He is concerned with spreading these truths, of which he was an exemplar on earth, long since buried by those who claim to follow him.
These are being resurrected, accompanied by the demon-stration of the same power of the spirit which operated in his day. Nothing causes greater sorrow to the Nazarene and to all the hierarchy than to see the way in which those who are ecclesiastical superiors are so abysmally ignorant of simple spiritual truths.
So you have found the light. Rejoice that you have done so and know that the same power which guided you and provided the unerring signposts will continue to point the way. It has not been easy. But the easy way is not for those who have work to do.
If these could not surmount the troubles that befall them, they cannot rank as officers in the great war being waged by the world of spirit against the parasitical materialism of your world.
Thank the Great Spirit for the truth that has brought so much warmth and love into your hearts, for the love which you thought you had lost and found and which has brought you where you are now. Rejoice. You have in your posses-sion a treasure which, in the words of the Bible, moth and rust cannot touch. It will be undimmed, translucent, radiant and yours for all time because you have earned it.
It is also apposite to quote what the guide told two American clerical visitorsーone was a canonーon their visit. Silver Birch, as always, gave the guests a warm welcome:
You are doing a very good work. This is not easy, but it very necessary where live that the light of the spirit shall drive out the prevailing darkness and substitute the worship of truth for that of the golden calf.
It is important because there are millions of souls in despair who know not where to turn. I know you will forgive me when I say it is unfortunate there are not hun-dreds, thousands perhaps, of the clergy who are able to help them in their crisis and point the way that will bring them spiritual, mental and physical freedom.
This is the task on which you are engaged. It is sad that the churches, which are built for the one purpose of revealing divine truths, have become places where the power of the spirit cannot operate because of barriers that man has built.
And it is sad that clergymen, who should be the spiritual leaders, teachers and masters, are bereft of spiritual truth and, even worse, prefer man-made creeds to divine inspira-tion which is available today. Please do not think I say this as harsh strictures. I am enunciating only that which is a very regrettable fact.
But the light is breaking through and the power of the spirit is here to stay in your world. It will continue to stream through in an ever-increasing number of human channels. It will demonstrate that the Great Spirit is not without witnesses even in your own time and that every child of the Great Spirit has access to the divine fount.
It will reveal that sublime power and beneficence are available if the children of the Great Spirit will order their lives so that they are capable of receiving them. They will come to you because through difficulty, heartbreak, bereavement and sickness they will be spiritually ready to have their souls touched.
Do not waste your time on those who merely wish to have theological debates about the interpretation of doctrine or dogma. This has no value and will not increase any person's spirituality by one jot. It does not matter because it is arid and pointless. Wait for those who are ready. Be available. Offer truth wherever you can. If it is rejected, feel sorry for those who have had the chance and do not take it.
The natural law is so perfect that every child of the Great Spirit while on earth has one opportunity of finding him-self. He can have his soul touched, so that the divine spark can be kindled and fanned into a beauteous flame and some of the richness, dignity, beauty, splendour, nobility and grandeur of the latent divine spirit brought into expression. This opportunity comes to all. If you can help one to find the way then it is all worth while.
There are mighty hosts of the spirit, evolved, liberated beings, part of the hierarchy, who are deeply concerned with worldly conditions, with the maelstrom, chaos, violence, destruction, greed, cupidity and jealousy, all products of a materialism that grows on the human body politic.
These must be uprooted, so that man can come into his own and have an awareness of what he is, why he is in your world and what he can achieve to transform it into a kingdom of heaven. This is what your world is intended to be when all live according to the light of the spirit.
You have the inestimable privilege of serving in this mighty cause. You have been guided. However difficult it may be, however irksome, remember you are never alone. The light of the spirit is with you and the love of the spirit encompasses you wherever you may be.
I have said it many times, to serve is noble. There can be no higher service than that which is done for the Great Spirit to His children. And there is no higher or greater religion than that of service.
Religion which is merely formal and gives subservience to doctrine has no value. Religion is that which enables and compels people to go out into the world and make it better because of what they do.
When things become difficult, when storm clouds gather, lightning flashes and thunder roars, be still and know that the power which has guided you will continue in its own way to show what is the next step for you.
Go forward. Do the best you can. No more is expected of you. When you fall down pick yourself up. That is why you. When you fall down. You will make mistakes because you are imperfect beings in an imperfect world and the pilgrimage towards perfection is eternal. So be grateful for all that has been made manifest to you.
At other circle meetings came these penetrating comments:
What you are trying to do is to touch souls. I have told many of my friends in your world who do the healing, which is among the greatest gifts of all, that when the body is healed, it is excellent. But if the body is healed and the soul is not touched, then the healing has failed from our point of view.
It is touching souls that matters. It is making every indi-vidual in your world aware of the fact that he is a spark of the divine. And it is your service to kindle that spark, to fan it, so that the individual becomes aware of his innate divinity, and what was a spark becomes a glowing, lambent flame.
That is what you call in your world the object of the exercise. Evidence for survival after physical death is very important. But it is not designed only to assuage grief, vital though that might be. It is designed, like the healing, to bring awareness of spiritual realities.
I said this is a unique service you are performing. It should be done by the churches; the healing should be done by your doctors. But it is very sad that in the case of the churches they are, alas, blind leaders of the blind. The open vision has gone. They no longer are able to see what is around them. They have lost the ability to enjoy the richness of spirit and spiritual communication and communion. What they have to offer are merely husks, and in many cases doctrines which privately many of them no longer believe.
As for your medical men, it is sad that they are so immersed in their conventional treatments that in the main they oppose any other form of healing which can bring relief, betterment and cure to the growing number of sick people in your world. But even there, progress is being made.
The power of the spirit is here to stay in your world. Every centre, every group, every individual who is aware of these truths and has become a repository for them, spreading them wherever they can, is a lighthouse of the spirit. Its rays will enable pilgrims who have lost their way to find the truth that has brought you spiritual and mental freedom.
Each little lighthouse becomes a bridgehead that is consolidated and has then to be extended for another bridgehead. Thus, gradually, the power of the spirit will girdle your globe. There will be available numbers of instruments to act as the dispensers of its beauty, its glory, its radiance and its grandeur. No individual, no combination of individuals, no parliaments, no churches, no bodies of doctors or scientists, none will be able to banish the power of the spirit.
That is the task on which you are engaged. Behind it is the supreme power which cannot fail you. This is the measure of the inspiration that awaits each one of you. There is work to be done. There are many to be helped.
It is a sad commentary that despite the large number of churches, chapels, temples and reverends of many kinds they are unable to meet the spiritual aspirations of people in their own lands. Unfortunately some of them have little faith in what they proclaim as the fundamentals of religion. When they are confronted with the acid tests of bereavement, sickness, suffering and crisis they find that their ship is rudderless and cannot steer them into peaceful waters.
It is a very dark world, a very troubled world, a very violent world, a very sick world, a very distressed world. There are millions of despairing individuals who do not know where to turn. They have lost faith in the old religions and philosophies because they feel these have let them down and cannot answer all the questions they have to ask.
Where is the religion that can explain to them who and what they are, why they are placed on earth and what happens when they come to our world? Healing plays its great part in answering these questions. When it is successful the intelligent individual must realise that the power responsible does not come from any source in your world, but from a much higher sphere of activity.
The trouble with the people in your world is that they worship mammon. Their ambitions are centred on things material. They allow themselves to be ruled by greed, selfishness and avarice, with the result that their focus is all wrong.
It is the spirit that must be seen to dominate matter and not matter that must dominate the spirit. It is the spirit that must be king and matter the subject. When the spirit rules and governs and directs, then all falls into line. Not only is health achieved, but an inner awareness, a serenity and tranquillity inevitably follow.
The violence in your world is the direct result of the sick-ness of the people who live in it. The change must come from within. Governments can pass laws to alter certain material conditions, but these are only temporary expedients that cannot deal with root causes, the effects of a worship of the golden calf. It is good to heal physical bodies. It is better to touch the soul so that awareness is achieved.
We are working according to a plan. We are not evan-gelists conducting mass meetings and capturing people in the heat of emotionalism. We labour to ensure that individuals become convinced, one at a time, that they are satisfied with the evidence they have received that they will continue after physical death, and they are also satisfied that what we have to teach neither insults their intelligence nor makes their reason revolt. We must win you by evidence, by reason, by intelligence, by affection and by co-operation.
We will not presume to dictate or to compel, but teach you to use your divine gifts to serve others, as people with divine gifts have served you. So it must be one at a time. Each individual who becomes convinced creates a magnetic link with our world which cannot be broken, and is the means by which a constant stream of power will come to him or to her.
We will continue to make progress as all these bridge-heads are gradually consolidated. The plan of the spirit will be fulfilled. We rejoice as every time another soul in your world emerges from the darkness of superstition into the light of spiritual knowledge.
There are many clergymen who have their doubts, but are afraid to express them. Many are honest, but in positions from which they cannot extricate themselves. Let us be sorry for those who should be able to lead, but instead of being in the vanguard are in the rearguard. It is the greatest condemnation of what you call Orthodoxy that you have a world in travail and it has nothing to offer because it turned its back on the light many centuries ago. We are privileged to be ambassadors of the divine. Thus it is a
responsibility for us all.
It is part of the plan that the power of the spirit is being made manifest, not through archbishops, bishops, popes, priests and rabbis, but through ordinary mortals who are charged with the wonderful opportunity of helping the
Great Spirit so that divine love, wisdom and power should be available to all who are ready to receive it.
If you remove tears of sorrow from one mourner; if you heal one sick person who has heard the dread verdict that he or she cannot be cured; if you have enabled one soul to find itself; if you have given direction to someone who believed he or she was in a morass or a maze from which there was no escape, then the whole of your earthly life will have been worth while.
Our task, like yours, is to enable the power of the spirit to become available to those who are ready to receive it. They will come to you in their sorrow, in their despair, in their sickness, in their perplexity, in their bewilderment, because nowhere else, in religion, in science or in philosophy, can they find what you have to offer.
It should be the labour of those who belong to the vary-ing religions who, if they were truly qualified, would be following the injunction of the one they regard as their leader, to heal the sick and comfort the bereaved. But, alas, there are very few within the religious sphere who are able to perform any of these important tasks.
The power of the spirit is mightier than the princes of the churches. We must be sorry for them. How sad it is to see that those in positions of high office have lost their way and are incapable of having access to the same source of inspira-tion responsible for the religions in which they are the leaders.
A circle member asked whether any religious leaders who discovered these spirit truths should renounce their old orthodox outlook. The guide said:
We have enshrined personal responsibility as one of the supreme principles. Each soul is responsible for what it does. You cannot equivocate with the truths of the spirit. As awareness comes so the voice of conscience says what should be done. If it is accepted and recognised then that soul must do what it implies. I will not condemn individuals because it is not right and proper for me to do so.
I think it would be wrong to criticise, but should one encourage them?
What should do is to offer truth wherever you can. Individuals cross your path for that reason, so that you can help them just as you were helped when you needed it. This is the law and how it works, but after that your responsibility ends. All souls in your world are at differing stages of evolution and growth. There is no one single truth that will appeal to everybody.
In matters of the spirit mass conversion is not possible. The wind bloweth where it listeth. The spirit infiltrates where it can. It is the leaven constantly at work. Each individual must resolve for himself or herself as far as is possible, according to the stage of growth, attainment and progress, what the truth implies and go on from there.
What is important is for truth to effect its lodgement with that self. As I said before, when the magnetic link is made it cannot be broken. That is the means of creating the channel or the path through which or along which the power of the spirit is able to manifest.
If you act according to the truth as you see itーand neither you nor I has arrived at its finalityーthat is all you can do. No more and no less can be expected of you. As I have said many times, you do the best you can. You cannot do any more and you should not do any less. Every effort you make to help to spread truth, to cause error, superstition and ignorance to vanish has our blessing and our help. That is why we have returned to work in your world.
I find it very sad that those who should have the greatest knowledge of spiritual matters are the most profoundly ignorant of them. I think it a reflection on the orthodox and conventional religions of your world that they have become so atrophied and wandered so far away from the original source of their inspiration that it is indeed almost impossible to find any resemblance between the origin and its successor.
One of the primary reasons that beings like myself were asked to return and proclaim our teaching, philosophy, and ethics and enunciate the true spiritual principles on which religion should be based, is because your many religions had failed in their task and were unable to guide those who looked to them for direction.
It is paradoxical that the power of the spirit was originally responsible for the foundation of these religions which have erected edifices in which it is conspicuously absent. More-over, those who are leaders are not receptive to the power of the spirit, are spiritually deaf, dumb and blind, admirable people though they may be in other respects. In their ignorance they oppose the descent of the Holy Spirit today, that same power which enabled their religion to make its mark in times gone by.
You are privileged to be the custodians and disseminators of this tremendous power of the spirit. You are making a very important contribution to your world which has been, and still is, in peril through the ignorance and blindness of those who govern its affairs. The work that you and many others do is to ensure that the power of the spirit, having established itself, will continue to broaden its influence. Thus more and more people can be made aware of who they are, what they are, why they are on earth and what it is they must do so that they fulfil the purpose of their being.
It is pathetic to realise that there are millions, like moles burrowing in the dark, who have no understanding of life, its dynamic, its purpose and how they should order their existence so as to derive from it all the exhilaration, mental, spiritual and physical, that could be theirs.
A visitor told Silver Birch: "My scientific life has created problems that have worried me. The first is to do with the concept of God, which since I have been acquainted with Spiritualism, I find you call the Great White Spirit. Before this I developed my concept of God because I could not agree with the orthodox version. I decided that God could be equated only with the overall laws of nature in the widest sense, but not an entity as supposed in orthodox religion. Is this a realistic view?" The guide replied:
Let us begin with the orthodox conception which is far short of the reality. There is the immediate problem that language, being finite, cannot express the infinite. God, or the Deity, or the Great Spirit, as I prefer, is infinite, without beginning, without end, always has been, always will be. Spirit, the life force, similarly is eternal, without beginning and without end. So God, life, spirit, these have always existed. They were not the product of some spontaneous generation.
You can only picture the sublime power behind the universe in very restricted form because it is impossible to comprehend the whole. You said that you equated God with the laws of nature. But God is more than the laws of nature because God is responsible for the laws of nature. It is infinite intelligence which devised the natural laws and also the means by which they operate.
Unfortunately, for most individuals on earth, their con-cept of God must of necessity be anthropomorphic. They cannot visualise any being having existence except in individual form. But God is not individual in the sense that you are individuals. God is not a person in the sense that you are persons.
God is impersonal, but at the same time expresses all personality, which is difficult for you to understand. God is in all life. As life becomes individuated in human beings God is expressed in individuality as well as in the operation of the natural forces that are part of the universe, which in part of the cosmos.
You have to try and visualise not a being, but Being, infinite in intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, truth, in fact, the epitome of all the divine qualities with which we are familiar. And this is God, not male, not female, but male and female, beyond personality but immanent in all personality.
God is within all and without all. None can exist apart from God; none can be cut off from God. God is in as God is in the rain, the sun, flowers, vegetables, in animals in all that has any aspect of existence however small it may seem to be. We are in difficulties when we try and present this picture of the Great Spirit, as I call it, the supreme power of love that directs everything, is not divorced from them, but within every manifestation of being that there is.
Another guest wanted to know: "If God is a universal spirit power of wisdom, intelligence and love in perfection, directing all life, and created man perfectly in His own image, why is man now imperfect? Can you explain why and how the Great Spirit first found its lodgement in the firmament and why we humans could not?"
This is a question of the microcosm and macrocosm. Man possesses in latent form all aspects of perfection. But he has to achieve perfection, which is an infinite process. There is no difficulty here at all. Man is not created perfect in mind, spirit and body. But he is given the divine, perfect spark. It is for him to order his life so that the spark becomes a radiant flame.
The trouble with your world is that man creates God in his image. He thinks of the Great Spirit as not even a woman but a man. There are men who believe that being male is superior to being female. The Great Spirit created all humanity in its spiritual image. Life is spirit, and spirit is life. Because you are created in the divine image, you are forever linked with the Great Spirit, sharing the Great Spirit's divinity. As a corollary you are members of a vast spiritual family because all have the same essence of divinity within them. So it is a spiritual likeness, not a physical one.
The Great Spirit has been in charge of the universe for a very long time and knows exactly what is best. Do not worry. Do the best you can; that is all we ask of you.
You cannot change the world at once. Neither can you change people. You can change only yourselves. You are responsible for what you do and for nobody else. Help wherever you can. Serve wherever you can. Offer what you have received. If others will share it, rejoice. If not, let them go their way. Those you are to help will be brought to you.
The Great Spirit cannot be divorced from the world which divine love and intelligence created and exists only because the power of the spirit animates it.
The Great Spirit must get very fed up with the people in it.
That is nothing new; it is very ancient history; but just as we try to teach tolerance so we have to practise it. If we did not love you we would not come back to a very dark world. It is only because we know we can help, when there are those ready to be helped. Alas, too often they have to exper-ience the depths of spiritual despair before the soul can be touched and begin to be quickened into activity.
The light of the spirit will continue to illuminate wherever it can. In some lands it is only a flicker, but that light, be-cause it is divine, can never be extinguished. There are natural laws which control and regulate not only your world, not only the universe, but the whole cosmos. The Great Spirit is competent enough to have made provision for all throughout the whole of the cosmos. Do not worry. It is a bad counsellor and never does anything to improve the situation.
Was Jesus a human who progressed through many incarnations? Did this begin man's acquisition of the etheric body? Or was he before the creation of earth?
All I can say is that the spirit power which expressed itself through the Nazarene is in essence exactly the same as the one expressing itself through everybody in your world today. There are differences of degree, of spiritual evolution, but there are no differences in the kind of spirit. All spirit is the same. It is possible for spirit to incarnate throughout the ages in many forms through many individuals.
Asked about prayer, the guide explained:
No prayer, no earnest, honest desire to strive towards greater efforts to extend the boundaries of knowledge, to heal more who are sick, and comfort more who mourn, to add a greater ray to your lighthouse that enables weary ones to find a path to you, all part of the task on which we are engaged, fails to get a response.
You are not alone. You are part of a vast army. Behind and beyond us there is a tremendous range of liberated beings of much higher development spiritually than perhaps can appreciate. You and I, and others who work close to us, have access to this vast richness. The only limit-ing factor is our capacity to receive and to assimilate. As we unfold, so more of this divine beauty, radiance, grandeur, nobility and lustre can be ours. This is the incentive for all of us to exhibit more and more of the innate divinity which is the heritage of birth in your world.
Hold your heads high. You can achieve far more than all the churches, synagogues, temples and chapels. You can exhibit the power of the spirit, which they cannot. They prefer the arid theology which has choked the spirit and prevented it from flowing into their midst.
A circle member asked, "Is it to the natural law that we should pray?"
No, you pray to the Great Spirit which is within and without. You strive through aspiration and attunement to establish closer unity with that power. Your prayer should always be a desire for more illumination, knowledge, wisdom and understanding. And that prayer will always be answered because the very fact of its petition is helping you to express the inner divinity.
The same questioner said: "Sometimes we know that other people in your world are helping in certain things. We do not pray to them. How do they become aware of our request?"
Sincere prayer finds its target. When you really pray, and I mean pray and not ask for something to be given to you, your prayer finds its target. If you were clairvoyant, you would see that round and about you there is always a host of beings because of a link that binds you, kinship and a mutual desire to serve in specified fields. When you pray you draw them closer to you.
The unfailing magnetic law of attraction works. You build with your prayer a bridge over which that answer can come. That is why I always say banish fear. Fear disturbs the physical and spiritual atmosphere round you and makes it difficult for help to come.
Do you wait until people have invoked God's help before trying to help them? Or do you simply leave them or help them irrespective of whether they have asked for help or not?
It is impossible because of the efficacy of natural law for anyone or any form of being to be forgotten in the divine scheme. The natural laws are so perfect that they embrace all. Nothing and nobody is outside them. You cannot be overlooked by the Great Spirit. Wherever you may be, you are still under the care and in the orbit of the natural law that encompasses each one of us.
Your needs are always known. If you pray, you will get the help that is available according to the mental and spiritual stage you have reached at that moment. What sometimes does help is to make your prayer audible rather than silent because in vocalising it you are helping to clarify what it is you are striving to achieve.
What about those who don't pray, and are in the depths of despair? Because they don't believe there is a God, is there no help for them?
It doesn't matter if you believe the Great Spirit has no existence. This will not trouble the Great Spirit.
But would they get help? Here is someone incapable of prayer or believing, for various reasons, in God. Yet he is in terrible trouble and needing help. What happens to him?
The ability to receive help does not depend on a belief or disbelief in the Great Spirit. It depends on the stage of mental and spiritual evolution reached. This determines what you will receive because you are fitted to receive it. This is cause and effect, which is the natural law.
Is there a lot of truth in the Bible?
It is a mixture of divine truth and man's falsification.
When we talk of life after death to people who are religious, they often quote the Bible where it says we should not talk to the dead. What would be your answer?
It would be twofold. The Bible has been the subject of manipulation throughout the years. It consists of mis-translations, omissions and, as you know it, is only a copy of a copy of a copy. No one can produce the original manu-scripts and say, "This is where it all began."
You cannot point to any statement in the Bible and say it is authoritative. There is no evidence that what is stated in the Bible has the imprimatur of divinity. There are many horrible things in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testa-ment. There are accounts of deception, villainy, murder and violence that nobody can possibly regard as being a divine revelation.
According to the Old Testament, God, the Great Spirit, is responsible for behaving sometimes in a way no wicked tyrant would on earth. So because something is in the Bible it does not mean it is true. If it is true it has to be demon-strated beyond all shadow of doubt.
To these people of religion I would say: Let us accept that it is said you should not communicate with those who have died. Why, then, in the New Testament, does the Nazarene and three of his disciples have a seance on a mountain where there appeared to them Moses and Elias and communicate, although they had been dead for a long time. It is said that the injunction, "You shall not talk with the dead," came from Moses. Yet Moses was the one to return and talk. This must be a problem for the religionist.
"When my wife and I produce a child, what are we going to tell him on religious matters, especially when I am not completely convinced by the Christian faith and realise the truth in Spiritual-
ism?" Silver Birch told the questioner:
This is not so difficult as it would seem. Your responsibility as a parent is to ensure that children should get the kind of tuition that will best help to nurture them, so that they unfold according to the true religion, rather than having to succumb to falsities which they accept at an early age whetheir mentality is plastic and exposed unthinkingly to what is said.
The result, as you know, is that what is accepted in very early childhood can become hardened and embedded in the subconscious mind so that it acts as a barrier and hindrance to the acceptance of truth at a later stage. One of the great problems we find when we try to give teaching to your world is the fact that individuals subconsciously resist because of the false teaching they received in childhood. They are indoctrinated and this takes a long time to be overcome.
What happens sometimes too is that there is a kind of catharsis. The individual throws away everything, the good and the bad, in adult life, and indulges in a revolt against the whole of life. Your responsibility is to ensure, as far as you can, that no false teaching should be implanted into child minds.
Try to see that the children are taught the fundamentals of all known religions, what is common to them, to stress the
golden thread through them all, so that in time they will learn to disregard the incrustations of theology and seek the simple truths.
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