INIQUITY OF ORTHODOXY
Many may think the following remarks on theology are too severe on the Churches, but if they knew the gentle loving spirit who is Silver Birch they would know that this guide never indicts without reason. His appeal is to Reason. and he does not bow to the "authority" of Orthodoxy.
THE bondage of creeds is one of your world's afflictions, It is worse than pestilence and disease, far worse than the physical sufferings of the body through illness, for it is an affliction of the soul. It puts the spirit in blinkers.
And yet your world clings to creed when it has at its disposal the infinite wisdom of the Great Spirit. There are some who are only happy whilst they are in prison. Liberty is only for those who know how to enjoy liberty. Rejoice that you have escaped from the thraldom of creed. Rejoice, and strive to elevate others that they too may escape.
We give you no creed, no ritual, no ceremony, but only the love of the Great Spirit seeking to express itself through His children. We ask you to follow no book, no dogma, no leader, no authority, no scroll of parchment, no learning, to worship no relic, but only to follow the laws of the Great Spirit, which are the greatest things in the universe. They are the only supreme authority.
Many so-called churches are the relics of the dark ages. The Great White Spirit is not shut up in any building. He is everywhere. They think that because they put a few stones together and make a big steeple, and put in windows with coloured glass, that they please the Great White Spirit.
He is more pleased when the sunshine He has provided lightens the hearts of His children and when the rain He sends down brings to fruition all the crops He has given to His children. But between His bounty and His children there stand, very often, the Church, the statesmen and the men of finance. All these must be swept away, and today they are being swept away.
Do not think only in terms of the power of the spirit in the past. Remember that the power which operated through the Nazarene is operating once again. Just as those who were the leaders of the churches in that time rejected that power of the spirit, and said it was of the Devil, so once again they reject the same power of the spirit as it operates today. But your world has evolved, for they do not crucify any longer.
The splendour of the Nazarene does not belong only to the past, but to the present. Where do you think he is today? Do you think the story of his life ended in Jerusalem? Where do you think his great spirit would be today, with your world of matter full of distress, trouble and bitterness?
Those who deny us and say we preach the gospel of darkness are in line with the same people who, in the days gone by, made the same accusation against the Nazarene. We come with the same power of the Great Spirit, bringing the same manifestations of the spirit, the same message: "Comfort the mourner, heal the sick, bring light to those who are in dark-ness, health to the afflicted, strength to the weary, knowledge to the ignorant."
We are all the servants of the Great Spirit. Some of us have evolved a little higher. Because of that, we return to give service, for service is the law of life. Where there is no service, there is desolation. Where there is service, there is peace and happiness. Your world must build a new system of life with service to one another. It is all very simple, but they make it so hard.
I feel sorry for those "men of God” who have so much to unlearn. They have built a structure based on shifting sands and they try to defend their sandy castles against the onslaught of spirit truths. They have built falsely. They have surrounded the Nazarene with fable. They have magnified him into the Great Spirit of life and, because the foundation is a faulty one, they have gradually to destroy it. As they destroy, fear strikes their hearts.
They think there can be nothing left at all, whereas the truth is that, if they had built on the foundation of fact, of natural law, there would be nothing to destroy.
That is why we have come back to your worldーto ask you to give no obedience to any one man, to any one book, to any one church, to any leader, to any being whether in the world of matter or in the world of spirit, but only to learn obedience to the laws of the Great Spirit, for they alone are infallible and unerringly right.
That is why we preach the natural laws, and the natural laws only. If you call that Spiritualism it does not matter, as long as what you understand embraces the natural laws of the Great Spirit and their operation throughout all the spheres of life, whether life that is visible to you or life as it is known in the planes of spirit.
Your world has set its store by leaders, and has magnified them out of their true importance, and so it has created difficulties of theologyーdifficulties with scientists, with philosophers and with all those honest people who want their minds to be free and who cannot accept anything which makes their reason revolt.
That is why we emphasize the laws of the Great Spirit, for the true understanding of these laws harmonizes all know-ledge. They cannot in any way cause the minds of scientists, philosophers, free-thinkers or anybody to revolt, for they are founded upon eternal, unalterable, immutable operations of the Great Spirit.
You see the wisdom of the counsel that is given to us to express. As your world grows in wisdom and understanding, its people will learn to regulate their lives according to the Laws of the Great Spirit. They will learn to have obedience to the Law. They will learn that all the misery and the starva-tion, the suffering and the heartbreaks that come through your worldly conditions are all caused because the Law is not obeyed.
When the fuller understanding comes, there will be swept away all the hideous growths in the garden of the Great Spirit that prevent its beauty being shown to every one of His children. With that aim we strive, not only to make the souls of mankind free, not only to liberate their minds, but to give their bodies of matter a chance to live in harmony with the laws of the Great Spirit.
I am impatient with Churches because they do not use their opportunities to reveal the great truths that the world of matter has known.
I am impatient because they betray the Nazarene whom they seek to serve.
I am impatient because they remove him so far from humanity that he ceases to be an example and becomes a god, dwelling in the high heavens beyond the reach of the children of matter.
Over the doors of the churches is not written: "We are loyal to truth and truth alone.” Rather does it say: "We preach a creed, we espouse a doctrine, we practise ritual, we are tied to ceremony." The Churches are the means of opposing truth.
I do not criticize the many great souls who strive to serve by becoming clergymen. There are many such. I criticize the system that cannot make way for truth, that is loyal only to the old worn-out shibboleths and has no place for the vital, energizing power of the spirit to express itself.
How can the power of the spirit be realized in Churches? They have their prescribed limits to what is allowed to be preached and said.
We teach of the Great Spirit, with natural laws, and are instruments who have revealed the operation of those laws. and we point to the Nazarene and say that he, an instrument of the Great Spirit, was an example of what all the children of matter could reach if they would unfold the power with which the Great Spirit has endowed them.
Creeds, dogmas, doctrines, rituals, ceremony, stained glass, altars, mitre, copeーwhat have these to do with religion? Religion is in the spirit, the spirit that belongs to all Creation, which expresses itself in every rhythm and manifestation of life, that is revealed in every aspect of Nature and in the striving of all idealists and reformers who wish to serve. What has that to do with a creed?
Learn to be free. Do not imprison yourself. Do not hedge yourself around and refuse to allow new inspiration to come to you. Truth is a constant search. Its boundaries are ever widening, for as the soul evolves the mind responds.
You become free when you realize there is no limitation to knowledge, truth, wisdom, growth. You become free when you discard at once that which you know in your heart is false, that which reason rejects, because your intelligence cries out in revolt. You become free when you are not afraid to discard error in the face of new light.
There is knowledge for all when you are ready to seek knowledge, but you must journey on the great adventure. You must be prepared to start on a search where even some-time the boundaries are not known, sometimes be prepared for hazards and dangers, sometimes be prepared to walk in uncharted territory, yet always prepared to follow truth wherever she leads and to reject all that is false, no matter how old it may be.
Your world pays too much attention to old fables because they are old. Truth and age do not always march together. I know it is difficult to surrender the dearly held beliefs learned in the days of childhood, but when the soul becomes free it must discard all that reason rejects.
How much poorer is your world because it does not learn how to make itself more accessible to the powers of the spirit! How much longer must we go on, trying to break down its doors of superstition and its thick walls of ignorance?
But it will not be as long as you think. Look around and see. There are signs everywhere of decay. The proud citadel is crumbling. One day, when there are enough of you to shout, the walls will tumble down.
Questions and Answers:
WHY are so many of the lives, deaths and resurrections of figureheads of religion, including the Christian religion, similar to those of the mythological gods whose lives were based on the phenomena of nature, such as the solar system and the seasons?
It is because the children of earth have always borrowed from the myths of ancient times in order to invest their leaders with supernatural powers. They did not understand the operation of natural laws. They wanted the one whom they considered to be the greatest of all to be endowed with attributes beyond the reach of the other children of the Great Spirit. And so they have all borrowed from one another.
But that does not affect the teaching which was given by the messengers of the Great Spirit who, each in his own day, reflected some of the truth, wisdom and love of the Great Spirit.
Is it an accident that these lives do, according to their followers, follow the course of nature, many of the recorded incidents in their lives being suggestive of natural law, such as resurrection following death as the spring follows winter?
If you mean the story in the Bible that, when the Nazarene was crucified, there was great thunder and lightning, that is not true. If you mean that all those who die, as your world calls it, return, that is true. I understand the question to refer to the additions to the historical lives of the messengers of the Great Spirit.
What is the sin against the Holy Ghost?
The sin against the Holy Ghost is to deny the Holy Ghost.
What is the Holy Ghost?
It is the power of the spirit which descends into the world of matter. Your Churches worship it in the abstract, but they reject it when it descends on millions all over the world, for it is that power which we use to commune with you. It is that power of the Great Spirit which enables, even for a short time, the world of spirit and the world of matter to become one in harmony of purpose.
I have been told that baptism in any denomination has, as its object, that when a spirit passes over, a band of spirits belonging to that denomination receive it and care for it until it is adjusted to the new conditions. If this is so, what happens to non-baptised souls?
The power that set the universe in motion, the Spirit that breathed into a body the breath of life and made it a living soul, the Great Spirit Who is responsible for all the worlds, for all the laws of the universe, the Great Spirit Who is expressed in life in all its varying degrees, the Great Spirit Who has been revealed throughout all the ages by all the seers and the instruments, the Great Spirit Who is within all, the Great Spirit Who is behind all, is not troubled whether a man has sprinkled water or not.
What does matter is whether the life has been lived in accordance with his highest ideals. The laws cannot be cheated because a few drops of water are sprinkled on a baby, The laws cannot be altered, for effect always follows cause.
Has not Christianity produced plenty of good men?
They would have been good just the same, whether they were Christians or not.
But are not some good because they try to follow the teachings of Jesus?
When your world emulates the Nazarene, a new chapter will have begun in history. It has not happened yet. I do not see any signs of it. Do not speak to me of “Christians", whose lives mock the one they profess to serve. Did not the Nazarene say: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven"
Are there not thousands of Christians who believe the creeds superficially and who yet live very good lives and who are unselfish?
They are not good Christians. They are bad Christians, but good men. Remember this, every creed fetters the soul. Men are not good because of creed, but in spite of creed. In the name of creed they have killed one another and they have burned one another. Anything which binds, which cramps the soul, which prevents it from having full expression, must be swept away.
What of priests who go to leper colonies to help the sufferers there?
They do not go because of creed, but because the soul wishes to serve. Religion is beyond creed. Creed is not religion.
A reply to the wireless plea of the Archbishop of Canterbury who called for a return to organized religion, was given by Silver Birch:
YOUR world has had a "Recall to Religion". Real religion is service to the Great Spirit by serving His children. To do that, you require no churches, no priests, no clergymen, no sacred books—unless they implant in your heart the desire to serve, and make you love the children of the Great Spirit more than you loved them before. Serve whenever you can. Help to lift your brother's load. That is religion.
I only repeat the simple truth that many of you know, either instinctively or else through reason and logic. I bring the truths which I have learned in the larger realm of the spirit, where all people have to face reality, where cause and effect can be seen in their immediate operation, where only those who serve are counted as higher than those who do not. All the pretence and shams of your world are stripped away and the soul is revealed in all its nakedness, so that its strength and its weakness can be known to all.
I come from a world where values are known, where falsity does not exist and inequality does not reign. There are no poor and no rich in my world, except those who are poor or rich in spirit. There are no mighty and no weak, except those whose souls are mighty or weak. When all the things that your world of matter praises highly have faded away into the dust of the forgotten past, the eternal realities of the spirit will endure for ever.
Look around your world of matter, see the misery and the despair, the sorrow and the anguish. Look around and realize that there is a vast field for service. Ignorance still reigns, misused power still prevails, prejudice has still to be overcome. See the hunger and the starvation, those who "suffer” because they have too much and those who suffer because they have nothing. See the many physical bodies racked with pain, unable to express as they should the power of the Great Spirit within them. See the condition of poverty and distress, the hovels that should shame all those who regard themselves as Christians.
And remember that your world can be a Kingdom of Heaven, that it is filled potentially with all that can transform it into a garden of peace and plenty, but it is choked by the weeds of selfishness.
We call all of you to service, asking you to forget yourselves and your own desires, to allow that which is divine to triumph over that which is earthly, so that each one of you becomes a messenger for the Great Spirit of life. Each one of you should seek to carry on the work of reform, to bring cheer and happiness to all who need it, to wipe away all tears and to replace them with laughter, to fight all ignorance and superstition, to let knowledge reign in their place, to abolish all the darkness and to allow the light of divine truth to penetrate, to banish all fear, all mourning, all disease, so that love can rule triumphant.
While Silver Birch does not regard Jesus of Nazareth as being divine in the unique sense taught by the Church, he always speaks of him with deep reverence as the greatest teacher ever incarnated into the world. Here are some of the questions he has been asked regarding the status of Jesus:
WAS Jesus Christ "God the Son", as the Church says, or was he an ordinary man with great mediumistic powers? The Nazarene was a messenger of the Great Spirit who came into your world of matter in order to fulfil a mission of the Great Spirit. He fulfilled his mission on earth, but he has not yet fulfilled the rest of his mission, which is still being directed from the world of spirit. It is wrong to worship the Nazarene, for worship should be given only to the Great Spirit and not to His messengers. The Nazarene came into your world by fulfilling the natural laws which the Great Spirit had ordained, the same natural laws which all must fulfil in order to be born into your world. You cannot live, you cannot be born into your world, you cannot pass from your world into mine, except through the natural laws of the Great Spirit.
Can you substantiate that by references to Bible texts?
My appeal is only to the laws of the Great Spirit. Those who rely on the crutches of words must be left until their souls can be awakened to an understanding that the Great Spirit is still at work, still inspiring, still revealing.
His laws are still in operation and His power can flow through instruments today, if they will allow themselves to be used for the Great Spirit, as instruments were used many, many years ago. The Bible, as you call it, is a great book. But there is a greater Bible. It is the universe, which is sus-tained by the laws of the Great Spirit. From that, you can learn far mote than from any book in your world of matter, however great it may be, however respected it may be, however revered it may be.
Where is Jesus now, and what is he doing?
The spirit that worked through the Nazarene is still at work, seeking to continue the work that it started two thousand years ago, but that spirit has been crucified a thousand times since, and is being crucified almost every day. But, because that spirit is part of the Great Spirit, it will continue to spread its influence wherever there are instruments who can work for the Great Spirit to bring peace and happiness to your world of matter.
When you speak of the Nazarene, do you mean the man Jesus or the spirit forces working through him?
The man. But he has since evolved and there is now a far greater spiritual consciousness expressed through him than there was in the earthly incarnation, for the amount that he expressed then had to be in consonance with the limitation of his day. There has never been on earth anyone through whom the manifestation of the spirit has been greater than through the Nazarene. There has never been any through whom the laws have revealed themselves at so great an intensity as through the Nazarene.
Not in two thousand years?
No, neither before nor since. That was the greatest mani-festation of the Great Spirit that your world has yet received. But we do not reverence the man as he incarnated on earth. We pay tribute to the power which operated through him. We recognize that the man is only entitled to respect in so far as he was the instrument for the power of the spirit.
Is the spirit world planning a further revelation by the sending of another teacher like Jesus?
Different methods are being used to suit the different needs. You must remember that your world has become more com-plex, more interdependent, and more channels of communica-tion have had to be opened. We have to meet with different temperaments and different habits, thoughts, ways and modes of life. Our message has to be adapted to national environ-ments and characteristics, to racial habits. It has to be given in the language and the limitations of a variety of peoples. But behind the focus of the power is the same driving force.
Your Christian world pays its tribute to one who rose from the "dead", who was seen after his “death”, who demon-strated that life continues beyond “death". The Nazarene demonstrated that he was the same individual and he gave as proofs, in the materialized body, the earthly marks of the crucifixion. After that, he revealed himself again.
Your Christian world believes all that, though it cannot prove it. But it says it was a miracle! We have returned through the same laws to demonstrate the life beyond death, to show that the Great Spirit is eternal and the operation of His laws immutable, that even as one was resurrected so are all resurrected, because resurrection is a law of the Great Spirit of life.
0コメント