ALL IS RULED BY LAW
The universe is governed by natural laws which cannot be set aside. No guide can alter these laws or enable anyone to escape the consequences of breaking them, but he can explain them and thus help to remove the danger of ignorance. Some of these laws, just as real as the law of gravity, for instance, are explained here by Silver Birch:
WE try to teach the laws of the Great Spirit, which would enable health and happiness to be in your world of matter. All those who speak in your churches must one day undo all the wrong they have done. They do not escape the Law. None escapes the Law; particularly, all who have heard the voice of the spirit. If they fail, it is worse for them than for those who have not heard.
When your eyes are opened and your hearts have received the love that comes with the power of the spirit, when your minds have had the revelations of spirit truths, if, after that, you fail in service, the greater is the punishment that comes to you, for you have done it with knowledge and not in ignor-ance. There are many mediums who could be instruments who have sold their gifts for thirty pieces of silver.
The Great Spirit is within you all and, though you have risen and ascended through all forms of evolution and there is within each one of you a trace of your animal ancestry, which is part of your heredity, greater than all those things are the powers of the Great Spirit within you which, if you would but allow them to function and to express themselves, would enable you to walk the earth like gods.
Your world does not realize that each individual contains within his own being the power to conquer every disease, to master every difficulty. He possesses a reservoir of strength from which he can draw in moments of weakness. The king- dom of heaven is within. How little is that understood!
The way to contact that higher self is by living one's life in accordance with the laws of the Great Spirit. But how many do it?
Life consists not only of the things you do, but of the things you say and the things you think. Do not imagine that only your deeds count. They do to a large extent, but your words and your thoughts are also part of you. It is sad that so many of you are slaves to your thoughts, instead of being their masters.
The guide has often spoken on thneed for universal brotherhood:
WE are all parts of the Great White Spirit. Some He has painted red, some black, some yellow, and some He has not painted at all, but all these colours are part of His scheme.
Some day His laws will come into your world, and har-mony will come when the colours mix together and live together with love in their hearts. You do not understand what these colours mean. Each has a great purpose and contributes to the laws of life.
There will not be any peace in your world until all these colours blend together, until men learn not to look at the skins, but at the souls that are behind them.
Has it ever occurred to you that you have in this circle, in the guides and the sitters, a commonwealth of nearly all the nations? That is a great lesson for your world.
We have learned how the people of other races can bring into the pool that which is special to them. Out of that comes what is best for the whole. Your world does not understand yet that the man who has a yellow skin has something which can help the rest of the world, and the white man also has something distinctive which would be of assistance to the others.
You must remember that each one of you is a part of the Great Spirit. Each one of you can add to His work, His power, His love and His knowledge. Even as you try to lift up all those who are less strong than yourselves, so the power of the Great Spirit is able to manifest through you.
It does not matter which way you do it, or who you help, or where you bring light into darkness, so long as you raise up those who have fallen down, give strength to those who are weak, bring light where there is darkness, give food to those who are hungry and sleep to those who have nowhere to lay their heads.
That is all a part of the work of the Great Spirit. Wherever you make that effort there will always come to you more power to sustain, inspire and uplift you, so that you will be able to do more even than you understand.
The Great Spirit moves many people, not always within churches or cathedrals or temples, but where there are instru-ments who can respond to the power of the spirit, who can be moved by His power and who can uplift because they are fired with a zeal from on high, from the Highest of the High.
Your world thinks that the power of the Great Spirit can be limited and made to flow in the channels which it thinks ought to be used, but the Great Spirit uses those channels where His inspiration can pour down into your world of matter, wher-ever hearts are attuned to Him, wherever minds are accessible to Him, and wherever human spirits are in tune with Him.
That power of the spirit ignores all earthly distinctions and cares not for rank or title, grade of society, colour, race, nationality or class. It recognizes only those who can respond, wherever they may be, whoever they may be, and fills them with the power which cometh from the Source of all Truth, illumines their minds, stimulates their souls and makes them workers in the great vineyard.
May you all learn that lesson and, filled with determination to work for the Great Spirit and for those of His children who suffer in darkness, in stress and storm, in trouble, may you lighten their load and bring to them a new hope, a new
knowledge, a new light, a new strength, so that, their bodies filled with new power, their minds with courage and their spirits refreshed, they may be able to enjoy the bounty of the Great Spirit. You will learn the joy of service, a service that asks nothing for itself but only to uplift others.
Silver Birch has told of a “great secret” that has not yet been learned in the material world:
THE Great Spirit is infinite, and you are parts of the Great Spirit. If you have perfect faith and live your lives right, then you are able to participate in the bounty of the Great Spirit.
If every person in your world had perfect faith, then he would receive. If a person were hungry and yet had perfect faith, then he would receive the answer.
That is how the Law operates. If you learn to attune your- selves to the Law, the results must come. If the results do not come, that only proves that you are not in tune with the Law. Your history books tell you that there have been those from the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor, who have tried the Law-and it has not failed them. You must not point to those who do not try it and ask why it does not work.
Sometimes the spirit gets crushed and cannot rise above the surrounding circumstances, but if you had perfect faith you could rise above all the troubles of your world. You would turn your faces to the sun, which is but an emblem of the Great Spirit, and say: "I am a part of the Great Spirit. I am indestructible. I am eternal. I am infinite. That which is finite and part of the world of matter cannot touch me.” If you did that, you would not be touched.
Many people start with fear in their hearts. They are afraid they will not get results, and the element of fear disturbs the vibration. Perfect love casteth out fear! Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you!
That was taught to you many ycars ago by one who knew the Law. He showed that when he put it into operation the results were always forthcoming. If you allow the Law to function, then the results must come.
I will tell you another Law. There is nothing you can have in the world of matter without you pay the price. The price of mediumship is increased sensitiveness. You cannot accumulate wealth without paying the price because if you do that, and forget the duties of your own spirit, then you
may be rich in the goods of your world, but you will be very poor in my world.
You have the greatest riches within yourselves. You are part of the Great Spirit. There are no riches or fortunes in your world that can be compared with that. We seek to teach you to explore your own gold mines, to reveal the diamonds of the spirit that are within the clay of your own natures.
May you all learn to respond to vibrations of the highest planes of spirit. May you all realize that you are never alone, but always encompassed around and about by a host of those who love you, who seek to guard and guide you and to help and inspire you. And may you, as you unfold your own spirits, realize that you are being drawn closer to the greatest Spirit of all, becoming more in unison with His Law.
You serve Him by serving the children of matter. When you do that, you are within reach of His infinite arms, you are surrounded by His love, which will bring you to perfect peace.
Faith that is faith alone sometimes fails when the winds of bitter experience blow. But the faith that is born of know-ledge provides a foundation which is so strong that no wind of circumstance can disturb it.
Blessed are those who believe and have not yet seen, but thrice blessed are they who know and, because they know, place their faith in that which is not yet revealed to them, because they know that the laws of the universe are operated by a power which is love and wisdom.
You should all have perfect faith, because it is a faith born of knowledge. You have had the proof of the power of the Spirit. Now you should have the faith that all things work wisely and well and that, if you put yourselves in tune with the laws of the Great Spirit, then you must reap the operation of those laws.
You can all banish from your minds the thought that any-thing that is unenlightened-or, as you would say, evil-can ever touch you. You live and move under the protection of the Great Spirit and His laws.
If there is no evil in your hearts, then only good can reach you, for only good can dwell where goodness reigns. None but the servants of the Great Spirit come into your presence from my world. You need have no fears. The power which envelops you, the power which supports and sceks to guide you and inspire you, is the power that emanates from the Great Spirit of all.
That power can sustain you in all your trials and difficulties. That power can change your storms into sunshine, and bring you out of the darkness of despair into the light of knowledge. Your feet are set on pathways of progress. There is no need for fear.
Perfect love casteth out fear. Knowledge dispels fear, for fear is born of ignorance. Where there is love and trust and knowledge, there fear cannot reign. An evolved spirit cannot be afraid at any time, because he knows there is no experience that can come to him in any phase of life that he cannot master. for he is the Great Spirit.
Fear creates its own prison for the soul. You must learn to rise above fear and not to allow its vibrations to hinder you. to have perfect faith and confidence and trust, to know that you can stand on your feet and say: "I am the Great Spirit and the wind of circumstance cannot shake me. I will rise triumphant over every difficulty because of the infinite power which is within my soul.” You have power over every circumstance. Would you limit the power of the infinite soul?
The Great Spirit rules over that which is material and that which is spiritual. There are no divisions in His universal kingdom. Do not attempt to divide the life of matter from the life of spirit. They are not distinct and separate. They are parts of one indivisible life, for the things of matter react on the things of spirit and the things of spirit react on the things of matter.
You have yet to learn that there are no difficulties which beset those blessed with the power of the spirit that they will not surmount, as long as they in return serve the Great White Spirit wherever they go.
There are no obstacles in your world we cannot remove, 11 it is the law that they shall be removed. If. sometimes, the cross you have seems very hard to bear, remember that, although I would give up all my progress to take it away from you, it is better for you to carry it and to learn the lesson it brings. You must consider not only this life, but the whole of eternity.
If you children of matter would but remember that not only are you human, but also divine, how much easier would it be for you to live your lives.
Your troubles would melt away, your obstacles would be swept on one side. But you have little faith in the power that is within you. What you call human belongs to the world of matter. That which is divine belongs to the Great Spirit.
Many years ago you were told to be in the world, but not of the world. Because the people of your world have not the faith, then the Law cannot be put into operation. You say one has more money and less worry than another. You do not know how their worries compare. The laws of the Great Spirit cannot be cheated.
You are on earth to build your characters. It is the way you face your problems that makes your character. But there is no trouble in your world of matter which is greater than the power you have within you for overcoming it, because the troubles are of the earth, material, and you are part of the Great Spirit, divine.
There is only one peace—the peace which comes to those who are at one with the Great Spirit, whose hearts beat as one with His great heart, whose wills are at one with His great will, who are at one in soul, mind and heart with the Great Spirit. Then there is peace, because they are in harmony with His laws. There is no other peace.
I can only teach you the laws. You were told many years ago that the kingdom of heaven is within. It is not without. It is not to be found in the rush of the world of matter. It is to be found within the soul.
So finely balanced and so perfect is the Law that there can be no cheating. Not one person escapes his punishment, and not one loses his reward. Do not judge eternity with the eyes of matter. Do not judge the smaller when you have not seen the greater.
Do not confuse the transient joys of earth with the enduring things of the spirit. They are tawdry and flimsy. You think in terms of the earth, while I see with the eyes of the spirit. I cannot alter the Law to please you.
If you ask all those who return to you from my side, you will find that they all say the Law is perfect. They never want to return to the world of matter. You seek to find peace with-out. I try to show you the eternal peace within. The greatest riches are the riches of the spirit.
Some people will always worry. Even in the world of spirit they will worry. They will worry because they will realize they could be more perfect, because they are not perfect instruments for the Great Spirit, because only through toil and stress will they outwork the imperfections of their natures and allow the divine to shine through.
Do you think we are happy when we realize the work that has yet to be done? Do you think we do not worry when we see the children of matter denied that which is necessary for their sustenance, or when we hear the false teaching that is poured out in the name of the Great Spirit?
Do you think we do not worry when we see darkness where there should be light, when men are imprisoned by desire when they could be free, when we see the chaos that has been caused in your world?
We worry because our hearts are filled with pity, because we seek to enable the love of the Great Spirit to flow through us and you into your world of matter, where so many are denied the things that are their heritage. The Great Spirit has given them all things in abundance, but they are denied them. You cannot be a great soul when others starve and you are filled with plenty
The hardest part of our task is when we have to stand by, sometimes, and see you suffer. We know we must not help because it is a battle of your own spirit. If you win your battle, then we have won, too. If you lose, then we have lost. It is our battle all the time, but we must not lift a finger to help.
Sometimes I have wept tears because I have seen suffering, and knew I must not help. That is the Law. It has hurt me more than it has hurt the sufferer.
If you do what you know is right, then you cannot do any more. If that means that sometimes you must deny yourself, then you must do it. One day a balance is struck.
I cannot solve your problems for you. If I tell you what to do, that interferes with your free will. Once I start to tell my medium what he must do and what he must not do, that is the end of his free will. Then his progress begins to suffer.
It is the way you settle your problems that develops what is within you. You do not develop the spirit when everything is easy and smooth, but when you have difficulties. But there are times when we feel justified in interfering with your judgment.
I would interfere if a very vital principle were involved. If it meant that my work through my medium would be inter-rupted, then I would interfere so that the channel would still be free. But where the problems only affect my medium's own evolution, then they are his responsibility and he must work them out for himself.
Silver Birch has spoken of the great responsibility of those who use their free will in order to deny others the things which are their heritage:
THOSE who stand between the children of earth and all those things which sustain their bodies and their spirit, have a very big responsibility. One day, either in your world or in mine, they will have to pay the price.
Sometimes I get very tired with those who want what they call “higher teachings” from the spirit world and do nothing to help their brother men. As people grow, they understand more and more the operation of the laws of the Great Spirit. There is no "high" and there is no "low" teaching.
If all the people who clamour for teachings would do some-thing to make the earth a better place, a brighter place, a place where the hungry would be fed and the thirsty would be given drink, where people were allowed to live in houses where the sunshine of the Great Spirit could reach their poor, tired bodies, then they would be putting into operation the highest teaching of all.
Stressing that most of our troubles are brought about by the exercise of our own free will, Silver Birch once said:
IF you are faced with a war, there will be many who will say: "Why doesn't the Great Spirit stop it? Why doesn't the Great Spirit prevent it?" Yet, all the time, the people of your world are to blame if they choose to ignore His laws.
Do not think that your world can escape the consequences of its actions. We cannot alter the Law. What has been sown must be reaped. You have sown selfishness; you must reap the results. Pride, jealousy, envy, greed, malice, distrust, suspicion--all these things, when they fructify, produce war, distress, discord.
We who strive to express the Law of the Great Spirit are often criticized by those who do not understand the purpose which is behind our coming to your world. But we only seek to reveal the Law, for there is nothing else in your world, whether you call it religion, or science, or philosophy, but the natural law of the Great Spirit.
Whoever it is, whether it be the one or the many, the race or the nation, that seek to live against the Law, they must pay the price. I have always told you that the Law is perfect in its operation. Sometimes you do not see the fulfilment, but I know that cause and effect always follow each other, because it is the Law. I have always told you these things. That is why I tell you again that there is nothing but the Law-the Law of the Great Spirit.
We seek to reveal the Great Spirit, but we can only reveal Him through His laws. We seek to teach you the Law, so that you may live your lives in harmony with that Law. Yours is the free will to choose. Whether it is the free will of the one or the many it is the same.
Until your world learns that it must plan with the Law and not against it, there will be chaos, bankruptcy, disaster and ruin everywhere. We can do nothing but teach you the eternal principles of the spirit, because they are the enduring things that remain long after that which is material decays and crumbles into the dust. Man, whose eyes are cast only on. the things of matter, makes a great mistake, because he chases illusion and forgets eternity. These are the simple truths, but your world has not yet learned them.
But through bitter travail and tears, through bloodshed and sorrow, they must learn them, if they will not learn them any other way. I would rather that you learn them as we seek to-express them, in all love, in all desire of service to one another. But if you will not learn through the ways of the spirit, then you must pay the price for attempting to live against the Law. The great ones of your world are not the great ones of my world. We see greatness as greatness of soul, greatness of spirit, greatness in desire to serve. These things will endure long after the glitter of the material world has disappeared.
Free will is a gift of the Great Spirit, but if it is not used aright then the price must be paid. If the world lives with the Law, it reaps the benefits. If it lives against the Law, it reaps the results. One way brings peace and happiness and plenty. the other way misery and war and bloodshed and chaos.
We are despised in your world of matter by those who should be the teachers of the children of the Great Spirit. We are rejected by those who should welcome us because we come in the name of the Great Spirit and His love. Filled with the desire to serve, we seek to reveal those laws and that power which will show your world how to save itself.
And those who are steeped in the ignorance of spiritual blindness, and who surround themselves with ceremony and ritual, and at the same time deny the power of the Great Spirit to descend today, must pay the price. We are the friends of all who seek to serve. We are the enemies only of those who seek to destroy. We come on wings of love and service ready to help wherever we can. That is the great task that we all have to perform.
I know that we will encounter difficulties and obstacles. But we will surmount them. The tide will ebb and flow, but it will be a winning tide. We all do so little alone, but between us we can do something. If we raise up one soul, if we bring light to one in darkness, if we bring strength to one who is weak, or comfort to one who is distressed, then we have done something.
Silver Birch was once asked whether free will was limited in the sense that there are definite tendencies of events in rela-tion to individuals. He replied:
THERE are tendencies, vibrations, but these are not insuperable. You are surrounded by radiations and influences, much of which can affect your destiny, but the Great Spirit has provided you with part of Himself, a part of His spirit which, when your free will is properly used accord-ing to your evolution, can enable you to conquer all that stands in the way of the fullest expression of that part of the Great Spirit that is within you. For you are the Great Spirit and the Great Spirit is you.
The seed of the Great Spirit is planted within every human soul, and, like the seed which is planted in the earth, if you give it that which makes it grow aright, then the little seed will first shoot up through the earth and gradually it will bloom until it bursts into the full beauty of the flower.
The Great Spirit has planted the seed within you, but you are the gardener and it depends on your efforts whether and when the fullness of the flower is able to express itself. There is always your free will. If you keep the seed in the darkness and do not give it the light of soul-growth, of charity, of service, then the Great Spirit is not being expressed through you.
Questioned as to the value of suffering, Silver Birch said:
EVERY experience is part of the pattern of your life. You try to judge eternity by temporal happenings. You see in matter apparent confusion, but you do not realize that a divine thread runs throughout all your lives.
In the great universe where harmony is the Law, each one of you contributes to the Plan. The events in your lives, sometimes of bitterness and despair, of pain and misery, all play their part in preparing the soul gradually for the path that is being trodden.
The darkness and the light, the shadow and the sunshine, are all but reflections of one whole. Without shadow there could be no light and without light there could be no shadow. The difficulties of life are steps which enable the soul to rise. Difficulties, obstacles, handicaps—these are the trials of the soul. And when it conquers them all, it rises stronger, more purified, deepened in intensity and more highly evolved.
Do you think that the latent powers of the soul, infinite in their possibilities of expression, could realize themselves with-out difficulty and pain, without shadow, without sorrow, and without suffering and misery? Of course not.
The joy and the laughter can only be enjoyed to the full when once you have drained the cup of sorrow to the dregs, for as low as you can fall in the scale of life so correspondingly you can rise. The more you have tasted and experienced that which seems the shadow of earthly life, the more you will appreciate, because of it, the greater joys of the sunshine.
Your experiences are all part of your evolution. One day, freed from the trammels of flesh, with eyes not clouded by matter, you will look back in retrospect and view the life you have lived on earth. And out of the jigsaw of all the events, you will see how every piece fits into its allotted place, how every experience was a lesson to quicken the soul and to enable it to have greater understanding of its possibilities.
There is no experience that comes to the human soul, which, rightly understood and rightly faced, does not leave you better for it. Can you contemplate a world of matter where there were no difficulties, no trials, no troubles, no pain, no suffering? There would be no evolution. There would be nothing to surmount. You would decay.
Silver Birch has frequently talked of the sacredness of all life. Once, a sitter, on holiday, had taken part in a fox shoot, and the guide was asked whether it was wrong. The following discussion ensued:
ALL life belongs to the Great White Spirit, and no one must take it, in whatever form it is.
But the fox had eaten twenty chickens.
suppose I gave the fox a gun and told him to shoot you because you had eaten twenty chickens! The Great white Spirit has provided for all His children, everywhere. It is man who makes them starve, not the fox.
When the children of earth have begun to evolve into higher beings, all their gross desires will fall away. When you can create the fox, or the chicken, then you can take its life away. If it is true that you can kill the chicken and the fox, then it is right for a man to kill his brother.
Life does not belong to man. It belongs to the Great White Spirit. Whenever anyone takes it away, he must answer for it some day.
What of the menace of rabbits in Australia?
You take something away from where it should be, and then you complain at the result. It was the same with the white man who came to my country. He brought those things which were good in the white man's land, but not good in the lands of the Indian.
He also brought war, "firewater", many things that helped to bring sadness to the Indian. We did not know how to shoot with firearms until the white man came and he said it was right to kill.
One day you will understand the law of the Father, which is that all things in the universe-animal, bird, fish or flower－are all parts of the Great White Spirit's plan. They are all there as parts of the creation of the Great White Spirit.
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