Attainment on the Tree of Life - Class 7

Tonight we're taking up the Cosmic Divine Emanation which is called Netzach in Hebrew. That actually means victory and it is assigned to the function of desire.

Desire, how's that? What has ever gotten us into trouble? Exactly that, hasn't it? What's grown us exactly that wouldn't life be utterly meaningless without desire our eastern brethren of course because they have intuited certain very great truths and they have I'll have as far as qabalah is concerned certainly misinterpreted and mistranslated it their intuition because as you know in the eastern philosophies we are told that desire must be killed out and as you know in the western mystery training we say kill out desire and you've killed out everything that is if you should succeed in killing out desire a lot of people think they've succeeded all they've really done in a way make themselves walking zombies for a while one two three a dozen a thousand incarnations what does it matter in eternity but it sure matters to the personality doesn't it while it's suffering these things the point is that without desire you couldn't possibly aspire think of it you're yearning for god you're yearning to be more than you are whatever it is that drives you think could it be anything other than desire therefore it isn't the killing out of desire it's the transmuting of desire it It is the development of desire into areas that will express the higher aspects of our own true beingness.

So desire, as such, is called victory in Qabalah, to tell us that whatever it is we desire, we are always victorious.

Now, you think this isn't so?

If you think so wait until you have recognized the power of desire wait until you've seen just exactly what has been involved in desire throughout not only this incarnation but all incarnations and you will see that everything you are everything you have ever been everything you will ever be is dependent on desire and has always so been. You may say, well, I never desired misery. I never desired rejection. I never desired heartache. I never desired betrayal. No. No.

That's what we think.

But when we get to understand our own heart and our own mind, we see that we have desired everything that has ever occurred to us because we did not yet understand desire. In other words, we were still children playing in the sand.

We were still children using our powers in order to find out what they will do. We've been children using these creative powers and beginning with this particular Sephirah it is colored green it's assigned to Venus beginning with the Sephirah that we are taking up tonight we are actually starting to cover the personality we're starting to cover that portion of our consciousness which actually is involved with what in the Bible was recorded as the fall nothing that we are above this particular green and orange because remember they're a pair there are two sides of a coin as you will see nothing above this particular area has ever fallen or ever will fall, whatever fall means, it means many things, and it depends on our evolutionary level as to what interpretation we are going to give this idea. But in actuality, the fall is involved basically with the involution of the Godhead, of the Absolute as a matter of fact, whatever anyone else may think. If you analyze it, you'll see it must be so, with the involution of the absolute consciousness of the one, indeed of the absolute consciousness of that which is even before our concept of the one, involving itself into ever more concentrated expressions of its own beingness, involving itself into the discipline of certain creative ideas that it has had and has. The best way to try to understand the basic idea I've just given you really is in this manner that through the entire tree remember I pointed this out to you before the expression of the emanations of the one has to do with what is called the lightning flash and it can be called instantaneous in terms of its own self-awareness and self-decision which has to do incidentally with its own desire I repeat its own desire philosopher after philosopher after philosopher ad noceum tell us that the absolute can have no desire because the absolute by its very nature as such if interpreted is perfect what do they mean by perfect how can an evolving center of consciousness know what perfection is or is not our idea of perfection changes from day to day from life to life from month to month from year to year or at least it should if we're not static so whatever it is we think of as the idea of perfection it's just after all our own human interpretation at the moment. And so when our philosophers tell us that there's no reason for the universe, there's no reason for any of it because God could have no desire, or the absolute or the creative principle of life could have no desire, they're only going on the assumption that if you have everything you want, then there's nothing to want. But I ask you, each and every one of you have wanted many things throughout your lives now there have been times when you've gotten what you've wanted sometimes to your sorrow more often to your boredom and again often to discover that what you wanted was something that would have been lovely for then but not for now and so the things that we desire in actuality become things after we have had them after we have shall we say fulfill them become things which we lose interest in indeed it would almost seem as though it is better to be frustrated in order to keep interested in something wouldn't it in in order to keep life exciting.

Can you imagine anything more horrible than boredom? You've all been bored.

Now, everyone has been bored. Don't tell me you've never been bored, or I will say you've never analyzed yourself. So if you want to say that, keep it secret, so we don't have to give you this answer.

The point is, everyone has had periods, one or more, certainly many periods of boredom. What has boredom consisted of?

What?

Actually it has consisted of this there has been nothing to be upset about or let's put it in another way there's been no problem to solve there has been nothing to conquer in other words there's been nothing that has driven you towards victory because desire and victory remember in Qabalah are synonymous us every one of us have known that when we have been bored this has been the time when life has been meaningless empty nothingness there's nothing worse than boredom therefore one might say that if our learned philosophers insist on saying the absolute certainly can desire nothing since by By its very nature, it is perfect, or would have to be, and have everything. What do they mean by everything? And what do they mean by nothing? We cannot cope with concepts that are beyond the human level that we have. All we can say is this, that if something within us drives us, and it does, every one of you are driven by something.

And when you're not being driven, that's when you're in hell. Bored, in other words. So every one of us we are driven by something we are driven by something because something in us impels us to become something more than we are whatever it is that more might be disturbance that more might be upset that more might bring tears we are willing to take the risk that's why the very beginning of the tarot series as tarot key oh the fool that's the adventurer you know he's a fool isn't he and yet that's super consciousness from our point of view because of course when we're miserable the one thing we want is to get out of it and fat and this is exactly the point so what does it do it drives us to action and this is livingness this is livingness so let's not accept what has been told us by learned philosophers some of the more simple people are more learned in realizing that desire as such must in its very essence be at the heart of life or there could be no livingness and no drive there could be no urge to anythingness and after all who knows what the absolute could or could not be or would or would not be unless one were the absolute and we aren't we are expressions of the absolute we are centers of the one life just because we're alive the fact that we have consciousness in itself indicates that we are a part of a total consciousness and as a part we certainly cannot know the meaningfulness of the total now I know that many say I will never be content or satisfied until I have reached the total that is become a melting dew drop into the shining sea well we all have come as a dew drop out of the shining sea and if we want to blame anyone I always say let's blame god Isn't that right? God apparently wanted it. Some people get very shocked when I say this.

They say, this is sacrilege. Is God so small that God's going to get insulted?

What's sacrilege? Divinity has an extraordinary sense of humor. If you don't believe it, Let's look at each other.

With indulgent, chuckling love, like deity looks at itself, as deity looks at the aspects of itself. Remember. And if we're going to be worried about sacrilege, we really don't belong in the Western mystery school. We better go to a fundamentalist Orthodox church, and we will receive what we need there and many people need this and that's where they should be really I mean this seriously because we have different levels of expression we have different interpretations we have different attitudes to the desire nature but in essence this desire nature cannot be said to be anything else or come from anywhere else except deity that is why why Qabalah calls it victory. And yet, I know, I hear your thoughts in my heart. Some of them are very unpretty. That's all right. You should have them because you're searching. And this is beautiful. What about the desires, you ask yourselves, that bring this hell, horror that bring on social conduct what about the desires that bring cruelty that really injure other creatures and other beings what about this kind of desire remember what I said the fall in accordance with Qabalah starts with with this particular emanation of deities.

And the fall really means that the essence loses conscious contact temporarily.

Temporarily.

It loses conscious contact with its own self-awareness in order to discipline a portion of its own substance. And there's only one kind of substance that's the divine all-inclusive mental substance of life that's all the substance there is the only difference between physical matter and the highest concept of spirit is a difference in its state not in its essence water and ice are not different from each other nor is moisture in the air which you can you cannot even see that they're the same thing but in different states of expression and when we realize this we will realize that the flaw is not exactly what people have thought it to be actually it is involved with the self-crucifixion of the son of deity or shall we put it tabalistically so we can understand it better it is involved with the self-crucifixion of the mashiach in hebrew called redeemer in english also known as Christus which is in Qabalah called Adam and Adam, remember, is mankind or generic humanity and so the Christus is the self-crucifixion of mankind or the only begotten son, or shall we say only begotten offspring, which is a better way to put it of deity and this self-crucifixion is what?

It is the descent or the involution of something that is free, glorious, wild wild not in the sense that we usually see it on the physical plane but wild in the sense of this ecstatic freedom of self-beingness but without anything to feel ecstatic about.

Now, you have had times, haven't you, where you have just felt joyous and you didn't need anything to feel joyous about. I hope you've had it anyway. Everyone should have had it at least once. I hope you've had it thousands of times.

We have times and periods like that. We're full of joy for no reason whatsoever.

Well when we are this way it's because at that time for whatever reason I mean we could can't go into all the aspects that are involved at that time that which we are basically is permeating us more fully and something in us is more aware of it without knowing what it is that it is aware of and the involution of deity into different grades of its own consciousness or awareness is for the purpose of developing self-conscious centers or shall we say creating creators for itself and and the fall really has to do with the offspring that is the offspring of deity going in for its own creation and you'll say God help us well we need God's help because that's what we're in this is the problem and it's also the wonder everything below that yellow circle that centers the tree that Christus that Redeemer that offspring of deity everything below which relates to personality is really the creation of the created offspring of God in other words your desire nature the green circle your mental intellectual, the intellectual aspects of your mentality, the orange circle called splendor, the number eight. The green one is the number seven, victory, that we're talking about. The violet center, the number nine, called foundation, this is the subconscious part of your being, and the lowest sephirah or emanation of deity, the number 10, is the actual physical manifestation as we experience it. In other words, we're experiencing the flower of the tree, but we are the way. Deity is developing, growing, and experiencing unique and specialized parts of its beingness.

Let's try to show it to you in several ways. We talk about it often and we'll talk about it again and again because always there's something more to get from the same basic idea.

Now then, every single one of us could be together and we could look at a sunrise. Eyes. Now would you say that any single one of us reacts exactly the same? It's impossible, isn't it? Utterly impossible. We cannot react exactly the same. Do you think deity wants us to? Do? Do you think we would want to? Think of the wonder of all the diversities in our response to that sunrise. We're all together. We're all reacting to beauty. Some of us may have decided we don't want to react to beauty. That's what I meant when I said if you think your unhappiness isn't your desire nature some of us may be may decide no I want to be miserable so we will look at the sunrise and we will send our consciousness off into memories of things that have been sad things that have been frustrated and what are we doing aren't we using our desire nature searching out the past in order to have the emotional reaction of your emotional responses deal with this sephirah your emotional responses as well as your emotional drive you know everything plays back and forth so you may look at that sunrise and decide to think ah I remember sunrise 10 15 40 years ago when this and this occurred Oh alas, alas, isn't life sad? And that's how we've used the sunrise. Another one may look at the sunrise and say I have seen so many but never have I seen greater glory and beauty. Look at the of the color look at the beauty the awakening livingness listen to the sounds of life isn't this a miracle I have seen so many other golden dawns and I have seen some dark dawns and they've all been worth it because I have the capacity to experience this sunrise with extra beauty now to the two people are seeing the same sunrise wouldn't you say but look at the difference you see the difference now which one do you think deity prefers uh-huh you're wrong they're both fine they're both fine the one who needs to use the desire nature to oh and ah and moan and groan and weep this is what is required I remember when I was a little girl I used to go and find some good sad music I'm awfully glad I did it then I'd hate to have to do it now such a waste of time that was the time to do it I used to find the saddest music I used to get up the records I remember when I was five and six years old and I'd put it on the Victrola and the sadder it was the better and therefore I was very careful to pick out the very saddest so that I could listen and get myself up into a good weeping spree in order to work myself up into the best self-pity you ever saw and let me tell you anything I do I do well I did a beautiful job of it and I'm proud of it and what pleases me more than anything is that I can remember the motives behind what I was doing and why now then, what made me weep?

My desired nature wanted to feel sorry for itself did I have reason to? Yes certainly I did but what's that got to do with it as a child it was all right to fall into that trap because I was a child ah but when we become grown up we should give away childish things give them up the point is then that there isn't anything we experience that hasn't been the result of our basic desire drive. Truly. This is a hard thing for most people to take and some people take it too hard. In other words they decide to use this in order to keep themselves even more miserable. Saying, oh, you know, they bang themselves on the head, talk about dust and ashes and say, oh woe is me, what an unregenerate soul I am. Oh how unevolved I am well this is determination what is it? Desire emotions drive to stay miserable I was just mentioning to our beloved Reverend Helen Miller who's my precious assistant I was mentioning to her today we had the music on and a very morbid song came up and she said you know I just used to adore those morbid things and I said darling that's what makes you so wonderful today that you used to adore these morbid songs. And so did I. Now let's examine ourselves. How are we using this power? This fall, then, really isn't anything that we should decide to use for extra misery. The fall has to do with the necessities of evolution. That is, the cosmic power, for whatever reason, and you know that expression, God only knows, is really a good one. But the point is, God does know.

And in as much as we are living centers of the Most High, and in as much, God bless you dear, and as much as there are those of us who, having achieved a certain level of consciousness at least at times come back and all of us agree to this vital bit of information that we bring back from this level of consciousness we say to you that the so-called fall isn't a fall at all although it is you might say a temporary blackout for special purposes that come to good. This so-called fall is really for the purpose of becoming consciously aware of desire, consciously aware of love. I repeat, love. So that we have love as another aspect of this particular emanation of God, because it is assigned to Venus, and so there's a special area of love that we speak of notice that beautiful figure there that you think is ugly tarot key number 13 and it's called death I bet some of you looked at that and said what is that supposed to inspire us my answer is yes it's peculiar anyway well we're all peculiar of course thank god makes us interesting Now I want you to notice on the Tree of Life that from this divine emanation which we call Beauty, the number six that centers the tree, the one that is involved with the center of your true selfhood, the creation that you are begotten, remember begotten by the Cosmic mother and father from that triad above I want you to notice that the channel of force that connects that true center of your being the eye of your higher self to your desire nature also therefore your ability to love or shall we say the quality of your love not more than the ability the quality of your love that connection is given you by the tarot key called death the hebrew letter called noon and you know what it's assigned to terrible the reproductive organs the reproductive organs and you know what that is saying to you in essence it is saying that the creative spirit of God is expressed in and through love on different levels and that we grow through death we grow through death we are continuously crucified crucifixion isn't something that happened two thousand years ago it is a principle of the evolution of the consciousness of the begotten child of deity it is the principle that involves our consciousness more and more into the discipline of forms and that's why that whole lower arc when we say lower remember we're not saying evil We're not saying evil. That whole lower aspect of the tree, it has its cosmic purpose and it is expressed in and through the personal part of our being. In other words, in Qabalah it's called the macrocosmic in terms of Godhead and the microcosmic in terms of ourselves as expressions of this Godhead. And the microcosmic could not be except that Godhead decided to give the discipline of form by how? By what? By merely compressing its own essence, its own spirit, because there is nothing else. And which means what? Concentration. It is in the compression of the Spirit of God that we have the development of form and the first form that deals with personality is in the desire nature. Now in the Mystery School initiation, actually it isn't until the entire evolution reaches the bottom, you know you have to hit bottom. It isn't until it reaches the bottom, which is the physical aspect of livingness.

In other words, the discipline of form has been brought to this essence of life, of God, of consciousness. Then, having gone through this discipline, you have a center of awareness, no matter how nebulous, that is distinctive. In other words, it has become something unique instead of something diverse and therefore unable to tell the difference between one color or another remember how I pointed out to you each and every one of us react differently to a dawn now imagine how much god must enjoy this or have you forgotten that god is the enjoyer of all as well as the sorrow where if you insist on thinking of it as sorrow but I just pointed out to you that your sorrow is really your desire it's just part of what you're enjoying like when I put on the records in order to have a good cry like when you deliberately listen to a morbid song to work yourselves up to a lot of heavy emotions well we need to do this up to a point of course but after we've done it enough you know we get very tired of it and that's how our desires change so each desire that we have has to die in order to give way to the next there again you have that death card and therefore it isn't so terrible aren't you glad that you haven't that you haven't got some of the desires you had quite a few years ago I mean would you want them to be resurrected or wouldn't you, don't you want to see them pretty dead?

Don't you like the idea of reaping the harvest of those old desires so that you'll have more discrimination and be able to desire more positively?

You know, we are full of pain so much of the time, alas, and I don't like it myself, really, but we are full of pain so much of the time, mainly, Because we take upon ourselves interpretations of life, of experience. We think of our desire natures as having been something so terrible and evil and unregenerate. We misinterpret the past and we fail to recognize the fact that we couldn't remotely know love unless we've known hate. We couldn't remotely experience and appreciate beauty unless we've known ugliness we couldn't even remotely know friendship unless we've been lonely can't you see this your pairs of opposites are the way consciousness can be at all and so your desire nature on the one side in the the emanation numbered seven, victory, and your intellectual life or mental life on the personality level, incidentally, number eight, called splendor. These are not separate things, as you'll see when we talk to you about it next week.

Two sides of a coin separated.

You can't.

Each of these pairs of opposites are one thing.

And they are all part of a growing evolutionary aspect of life which brings us a self-conscious uniqueness. And as we grow, we develop more and more awareness of our powers. The powers we have.

This is why, again, as I pointed out, that below the number six is really the creation of the created or the creation of the offspring of deity. And our personality is our creation now when I say our creation remember in Qabalah we do not separate it from God because we are the way God is experiencing and growing centers of unique self-conscious awareness and power so it isn't something separate it's something unique and eternal this This is what makes the difference. But the personality part isn't eternal.

Now, some of you have a rush of pain or anxiety when you hear me say the personality is not eternal. You say, my God, then what's the use of it all?

You know, why go through all this trouble, this pain? You know why you're having such reactions, those of you who are?

Because you've got yourself identified with the wrong thing.

What would you think of somebody who identified selfhood with the sweater you got on? It was too hot. You just took your coat off. If your selfhood was identified with this coat you just took off, wouldn't that have been stupid?

Stupid, really. But then we're stupid until we get smart.

And eventually we get smart no matter how long we take at it. So that's something to feel happy about, isn't it? The point is because we are involved in this area of evolution in the compression into the unique individuality which will be strong enough to withstand anything and has to be that's why we keep going through what we call the tests and trials and these tests and trials aren't things that somebody else or something else has put upon us we place them on ourselves just like you You discipline yourself when you want to become a dancer. You discipline yourself when you want to become a singer. You discipline yourself when you want to learn how to walk because you watch other people walk and you want to walk too. Why crawl? You all did it when you were infants, whether you remember it or not.

We discipline ourselves when we want to drive a car. If we didn't, we wouldn't be in this body very long, would we now?

We would learn a good lesson have to come back and learn how to be a little more careful about the conditions around us more alert to all these variations and differences so the idea of the discipline of form is exactly that which gives the glory the ability to be aware of beauty there can be no awareness of beauty unless you have your two sides of the coin with your consciousness able to maneuver and manipulate.

And the way your consciousness manipulates and maneuvers is through the whole creative drive that you are. God is a creative spirit.

Or you might say, Yod-Heh-Vo-Heh-Elohim.

That is, cosmic father, cosmic mother. In union are having a marvelous time they're just creating children all over the lot they're very reproductive as we are I mean we take after our parents is there anything in that that doesn't make you respond to the idea of the logic of it. You are a creative consciousness in every way.

And you cannot not be a creative consciousness.

And every problem you have ever had and have or will have is merely the aspect of the growth requirement. Requirement. When you are, therefore, what we call a young soul, an immature soul, your desires will drive in barbaric ways, savage ways, for their fulfillment. And so you will do savage, barbaric things, of course. And the repercussions of the savagery and barbarism will eventually teach you a little more social conscience so that you'll discover there are just like a child does there are certain ways of fulfilling the desires that just plain don't work out. In other words, after a while you get tired of the repercussions, the bruises, and you just concentrate a little more, you learn a little more. And the whole evolutionary process of the personality is a matter of continuous change.

Now if you think that you are your personality if you're upset at the idea that the personality dies I want to ask you some questions and then you'll stop being upset now think each of you about your personalities when you were five years old what was it like have you got the same personality today it died then didn't it so what's there to get upset about all right think of your personality when you were 15 16 17 18 the good old adolescent years the years of rebellion against the parents the years of really raising a riot I hope you did if you didn't maybe you'll do it now separate the psychic umbilical cord from the conditioning of yesterday and thereby gain the ability and the capacity to have your desires on higher arcs and not that you stop loving your parents we're talking about the umbilical cord that keeps you from developing more of your own uniqueness all right then think of your personality age anywhere from 13 through 19 or 20 and 21 what's your what's your personality like today as against that compare it have you got the same personality it's as different as day and night I mean it's different it's not yours there's nothing about it today not if you're you've been working on the path of return at your isn't if you're still the personality you were then honey you're in the wrong place really okay you You thought that you're a case of retarded development.

I think about your personality ten years ago.

Ten years ago, think about it for a minute.

And now.

Even then, wasn't it so different that you would hardly recognize it? What is it about you that's the same then your personality dies and dies and dies over and over again and so it should because you're not the personality you are building thought form the real you the eternal you the you that experiences it you are building thought forms through what you desire in other words through what you love so what you love determines what kind of thought forms you will build we'll talk more about the kind the actual forms of the mind and intellect next week to show you what it is that we all do this is part of the miracle of our usness the point is our personalities are the way we means in and through which we are developing ever greater capacities ever more unique abilities ever more glorious depth of reaches in order not only to be able to love but in order to be able to be conscious co-creators in and with love real love not the kind of love that we think love is this is our nature though it is a sign to certain aspects of love remember in the personality level that which you loved at age five and at age ten you certainly don't love now in other words that which you would have loved to have had I wanted a little red velvet dress at age something or other which at this point I don't want at all I've had it now I want something different variety oh a red velvet dress I still have incidentally but not the same kind different there are many things I would have loved then I would have loved to have gotten william farnham in the movie it was my ideal and raymond navarro I was madly in love with them but ye god god help me but that's what I would have loved at that time you see what I mean by desire we reach in so many ways we don't realize this is the outpouring of the actual center of the driving force that comes from that supernal triad itself it goes through its different stages but from this point on we are becoming the conscious of expressing areas which bring all the magical beauties now some of you may say my life is not magic but it will be it has been and in time it will be anytime you want it to be tarot key number one is called the magician and that table if you want to look up there at the tarot key you'll see that table that he's working on actually you see those four implements on that table that's the personality fire victory desire nature number seven water splendor intellectual nature number eight air the number nine foundation which has to do with the subconscious powers of vital animal soul which we share with all life all life and earth the coins the actual physical manifestation those are the implements you are the magician every single one of you are the magician and the personality in itself you'll take those those implements and you'll switch them and you'll change them and you'll toss them around just like the prestidigitators do. Dr. Case you know is quite the prestidigitator and I want you to notice I say that without the slightest hesitation the tongue-twisting I'm always proud of it I like to brag it's a difficult word magic I had to practice a long time that's what you call learning how to control through experience this is what you call the discipline of matter well now then bear in mind that not until you start cooperating with the processes of the opposing areas of life which are not really opposing at all force and form force remember by itself or drive or desire by itself can do nothing absolutely nothing it goes out and dissipates into a foreverness so it takes form in other words it It takes the reception and the holding of this drive to bring about the individualizations, the actual expressions of all things.

And these forces, these two sides of the coin, actually are the playthings, in a sense, or at least the attributes of that center of consciousness, which is really the middle pillar.

It's that middle pillar and notice that the physical body is actually involved in the middle pillar we'll talk about that when we get to that point to show you what a different thing the entire physical manifestation is than we have thought and also to show you that even though it is spirit truly spirit condensed into a specialized expression it doesn't matter what happens to the physical vehicle finally because the spirit that condenses it is the infinite power in itself which is you again it is you it is nothing else than you and what we want to try to get you to see is that attainment on the Qabalistic tree of life has to do with helping you to change the identification of your idea of selfhood from the different attributes of your personality, from the different attributes of the physical world, to your true selfhood, and yet at the same time show you that you don't do this by turning your back on it as unfortunately too many of our Eastern brethren have done by saying that desire must be killed out by sneering they can't sneer as well as I can I'll bet I won't go in a contest at the moment at any rate by sneering at the physical manifestation as being illusion, delusion, and snare.

What they do is attempt to return to God, which is a good and proper drive and desire, but they attempt to return to God before developing that which their true selfhood or deity has had in mind. It's pretty much like leaving yourself open to the attacks of all the various wolves and wild animals while you're slowly and laboriously trying to climb back up to the pristine light you know there's yearning and longing to return to God you can't have the strength to return to God until you take back with you all that the discipline of the condensation of the universal substances universal mental substance of God involved you have to take back your own selfhood and your own selfhood that is your individualized selfhood all of this is being done by deity for the purpose of bringing back the power to create consciously the power to create beautifully the power to create perfectly and certainly you must admit that when we have to listen to a song that's morbid and use it to whip ourselves up into some morbid self-pity we are not using our individualized creative abilities in the way that we should as yet so it is fine to use it that way. As long as we need to, so we must do. Not until we are tired, sick and tired of keeping ourselves centered on the frustrating parts of our life, will we start really hunting for the controls. We make mistakes, or so-called mistakes, in two ways.

The first way is because we can't help it just like the child will stumble when it's learning how to walk in other words I say well don't blame me it's my youth and so we should feel about ourselves incidentally and we should have that indulgent love towards ourselves wherever we see that we've made certain so-called errors because of the clumsiness of our youth, or shall we say, because we have not yet had enough experience in that area to recognize the wolves, the attacking aspects of life, which are really our friends.

In other words, they're teaching us how to discipline ourselves, how to become aware whereof and to control our environment.

And until and unless we work on that, we cannot remotely achieve a return to the conscious unity with God and to return in such a way where we return with that treasure of all treasures, permanent individualized self-conscious creative power in for and with God do you know the difference between individualization and being nothing but a response mechanism to the mass mind haven't you ever found yourselves taken up with the emotional drive of some vast mass mind you know Jung calls it the primordial unconscious haven't you ever found yourself caught up in it for instance during election season where people you loved you can't imagine what makes them such unevolved morons you always thought they had better sense than that and you know they're just as upset about you that's the trouble just as upset you get caught up in math ideologies to the degree that you're caught up by the mass to that degree are you not strengthened enough yet in your individuality the whole lynch mind mob is the reactive principle to that which is not yet strong enough as an individual therefore your desire nature holds the whole secret and the key incidentally to the response you're going to make to these instinctive wild drives of the immature or the souls that have not yet become individualized enough or shall we say strong enough so that they can withstand the lashings and the ties of the mass consciousness that clip at them.

Every problem you've ever had has been the gift from your selfhood with a capital S to the individualizing part of yourself in your personality. It is all the exercise of muscle. As any dancer, any musician, any hiker, anything you've ever, artist in any field, anything you've ever tried to learn to do, this is the exercise of the discipline.

And the way your desires function. This is an indication, incidentally, as to where you are on the path of return.

And of course, each and every one of you will take this, and you will start looking at other people, and if they're not desiring as you do, you'll click your tongue, and you'll say, ah what young souls only trouble is they'll say the same about you because that which we think shows we're old souls might not necessarily be so you know you remember that song it ain't necessarily so it ain't necessarily so I thought that was rather delightful therefore change which is assigned to Tarot Key 13 along with death this is the great gift of life that no matter how hard we try to remain frozen in patterns our divine beingness won't let us isn't that marvelous isn't it wonderful how horrible life would have been how horrible life would be if we didn't have that divine beauty seeing to it that our consciousness keeps traveling into changing aspects of its own selfhood self-revelation and development or shall we say refinement of its desire nature Bear in mind then that the refinement of the desire nature, which we'll be able to discuss more adequately next Thursday, because next Thursday we will be talking about the other side of the coin. Oh, this Thursday after that, next Thursday we'll be stuffing ourselves physically and wishing that our desire nature had developed more discipline and that we had more control of the gluttony in our hearts and minds and souls and bodies in particular and appetite but we'll always think that for sure time those of us who want to gain weight will be delighted with the gluttony. Those of us who want to lose weight will moan and groan and sigh.

And those of us who haven't got any problem with weight will be quite satisfied and we'll have all our various unique expressions. And that's the beauty of it, isn't it? That we will. The point is then, that you will not be able to see the full picture of how desire forms itself through the mind until we take up the next part of the class, which will be a week from next Thursday, as you pointed out. And I think of it as next Thursday, mainly because I'm accustomed to that. But it will be the week after this Thursday night. And we will show you then in what way the form or the mind starts to build and show and brings the next development in the personality level now remember in essence and then we will be will have our little break here remember in essence that the desire nature as such is victory that there isn't anything you have ever desired through before the beginning of time which you haven't actually had. You have been victorious, always. Remember that everything you are now is because you have not yet learned how to desire properly in some ways, and because you have learned how to desire gloriously in other ways. We're mixed, you know. So that everything that you have in your present experience, in your present life, is a result of the way, the quality of your desire nature and whether you are at a moment where you have been reaping the repercussions of your love for the morbid and so on guilt that will have to take up next week when we deal with the thinking part of this desire nature because they're not separate they're two sides of one coin this is what we're going to have to realize and when we discuss this other side of the coin we will also then realize that that which we yearn for with the upper and deeper and inner parts of our being that is with our true selfhood with our eternal eyes that this is inevitable there isn't anything you yearn for that you're not going to have incidentally you're going to have anything and everything that you want.

Be careful what you want, she said.

No, why be careful?

How are you going to find out what you want unless you're willing to get in there and risk it?

This is the problem that we've had, as I pointed out, with the misinterpreters of the Eastern philosophy, that they have run away from the desire because they've realized that it is ephemeral. I pointed out that you desire differently today than yesterday you have not got the same personality today than yesterday they have seen that all the elements of our beingness below that central I has its illusory character because it brings certain appearances but they've misinterpreted the whole thing and they say let's get the you know what out of it let's get the samadhi out of it others say let's get the you know what else out of it and it depends on your point of view as I pointed out if you try to run away from the disciplines of livingness of finding out the powers of your desire nature of learning how to work with them with your desire nature how to understand your desire nature always mind you with your spiritual aspirations naturally if you're on the level where you desire killing, plundering, I said please leave the temple right now because you're going to be awfully uncomfortable here. These vibrations will not be good for you actually.

They will bring you pain. You will be very uncomfortable in the vibrations of true spiritual aspiration because you're not ready to withstand that much force, that much... you're not ready to take that much light. And because of this, you will have even more problems if you're not ready for the real aspiring kind of desire. Remember, when we say you have to have the courage to seek out your desires, to find out how to use them, what we are saying in essence is that you've never desired anything personally in any case desire is the gift of God and your problems come because in your personality level because of its immaturity you have misinterpreted these desires and you've sought out immature and infantile ways for fulfillment this is where your problem has come here we We teach you and train you in the different levels of our work how to know what these levels are, how to be able, how to bring in the ability to change, to transmute, to just dissipate the old desires and recollect that energy because nothing gets lost into more refined forms of desire, more refined forms of love.

Only the savage goes out with a club to fulfill desire. Those who are spiritual aspirants have discovered that no desire is remotely fulfilled in its proper sense. No desire is even remotely an expression of the divine intent unless unless it is full of the benevolence for one's fellow man, for the other person, the other creature.

Any desire that you have, if you try to fulfill it at the cost of another, you will have your repercussions, and this is good, because if you truly aspire, you will recognize then how foolish this is. You will recognize that we are all one being marching towards the sun, and our uniqueness has been won in a very difficult way indeed but it is ours eternally but that doesn't separate us away from each other you will learn that any pain you give another through your desire will just be your pain after all you will learn all this and if you have to you will if you've already learned it you are now going to stop sitting in stupid habit patterns and this we insist on you will now you will now start watching your desires and your emotional responses to life and the minute you see yourself feeding morbidness or hatred towards another or blaming of another for anything you'll stop it cold and you'll say no I do not please to enjoy myself because of a morbid song that says ah I have lost you I have lost you you'll stop doing that because you that way you're going to keep losing everything and who the devil wants to do that let's gain that which we want to gain let's be fulfilled it's time we work towards fulfillment constructively and fulfillment comes only with a love nature that is willing to work with the desire knowing desire is a gift of god Dr. Case said, your desires are God's promise or you wouldn't have them. Every desire you have, you will fulfill. I repeat, and you will be fulfilled eternally in all the special ways when you recognize that these desires are actually the gift of the outpouring of the the love of God and therefore include the welfare of everyone and anyone that comes to you that even doesn't come to you in all of life in all the universe you will know this and you will know more and we will discuss the details as I said in our next class that has to do with the other side of the coin the way we use our minds in terms of our desire nature let's have a break I have one question here. The question is, I quote, is there a difference in personality and character? If so, explain. Yes, there is a difference, and yet in another sense there isn't.

Character, you might say, is the essence of many personalities that the self has developed through its evolutionary series. Whatever our character happens to be is the digested essence of the various personalities we have had and expressed and been. However, let's not run away with ourselves. What do we mean by character? Well now, some of us might express one group of traits which may be considered character, and one person might say of that individual in terms of character, Oh, this is a very loving saint. Another person might look at the same indications of character and say, what a weakling that individual is. Now here you have admiration and contempt from two different people. In other words, what do we mean by character? We have different standards in different cultures.

Also we have different standards in relation to different people. What is thought of as being a strong character by one group of individuals may be thought of as being exactly the opposite by another in other words someone who say is a masochist who likes to suffer likes to play the role of spirituality by being a pawn for the undeveloped or unevolved might be considered or analyzed as being very saintly and yet another might see that this is not true saintliness at all because a loving parent isn't going to be a pawn to the tantrums of a child for example so what is the standard of character we must be very careful to keep an open mind you will we will talk more about the mental aspect of this next week and we mustn't run away with ourselves when we try to interpret character remember we each have different ideas some of us may think a flirtatious person is a very bad bad bad type of person others may think if you're not flirtatious it's indicating that you haven't got any real reaction to and admiration for the opposite sex.

Some people like to flirt just because they love God's idea of difference in polarity with pure heart. They just love to flirt. Others may have terrible reactions emotionally to the very act of flirting and may think of the person who flirts as being very evil-minded, impure in heart, In other words, they'll project their own attitudes, their own feelings, their own responses.

So, I cannot answer a question like this fully, as you can see. Only do bear in mind, true character is something that we are not in a position to judge. We haven't developed enough discrimination. The few of us who have achieved a level of perception and insight are perhaps the last one to give you a definition of real character, because we have to take these things step by step.

Strength of beingness and the ability to react in ways that are in harmony with the evolution of deity perhaps might be termed the best way to express character and yet even there we each have a different idea about what that might be but at least bear this in mind personality is something that is a that happens to be a group of interrelated reactions the kind of desire our and love nature we have in the personality realm the kind of thinking and analyzing we do in the personality realm because this is all personality the kind of habit patterns we've developed in the subconscious area of our being and the kind of expressing we do in the physical level of life all of these interrelated are called the particular personality we have at at this time, which changes tomorrow and tomorrow, thank God.

Character, we're not in a position to really judge.

You might reread some of the things Jesus had to say about that, and you'll see how careful he was not to let people fall in that trap. Now, the next question here is, quoting from me, the absolute has no desire, some philosophers say. Then Reverend Ann Davies says this is the idea I know it's from you isn't it I knew it I knew by the essence of it I knew by the type of question uh the absolute has desire number one there's the creation of the universe indicated number two there's the creation of man at least this is what you had in mind this is condensed and I'm sort of enlarging and then in red why and there are four question marks you see there along with did God create man and the universe the answer is this since I am NOT total God or total absolute I wouldn't dream of giving you God's reasons I felt you had me protected Precious. I do. Not precious. He said he felt I had the potentials in that. Actually, of course, those who do experience a certain level of this all-inclusive, beginningless, endless, glorious cosmic love and then find ourselves again in the personality realm and can jump back and forth sometimes very often sometimes just at times we do get to have shall we say certain theories now then I'm willing to give a tentative answer if you're willing to to receive it as a theory.

And, of course, the fact that I'm willing to give a theory as to what God desires in itself is unmitigated gall. I hope you realize that.

Yes, please? I would like to see you make a statement, because I'd like to see someone prove you wrong.

Oh, I wouldn't mind at all. I'd love to, yes.

One of our very handsome frotters here said he'd like to hear me make a statement so that somebody could prove me wrong and I should love that because then one knows what to wash out if we can be proved wrong we know we can wash that out as a possible theory and then go on from there and so this is always constructive and to the good as long as we don't have to be right this is marvelous isn't it and uh it's wonderful and there's a spirit of joyous freedom when we don't have to be right and it takes the perception into to the evolving consciousness of deity and the aspects of deity to be willing to be wrong. You know, those who aren't willing to be wrong learn nothing anyway. You realize that. It's only when we have the open mind that we can continue evolving ourselves. All right, now then, as I said, I'll have the unmitigated gall to give you a, shall we say, guess as to the why, although really it's impossible for any of us to know the wine basically I will give it to you in this way actually only because I have experienced myself on innumerable times as being the all which doesn't mean I really was or am but I've experienced it and this is a little more than most and because I also have the joy and the delight of knowing myself and experiencing myself as Anne and know and have the experience and the delight of looking at each one of you and seeing these magical variations and differences these glorious, unique miracles miracles the ability to see all the different shadings of your hair of your skin the expressions in your eyes some of you sometimes are slightly hostile you know but I wish you could have seen the hostility in my daughter Bonnie's eyes when she went through a certain period of her adolescence and I looked at her calmly while she was having the maddest kind of tantrums honestly she was the most god awful adolescent I think God ever made and is the most perfect glorious adult you can imagine and I would look at her calmly while she was screeching hysterically about her mother being a freak and why couldn't I be normal like other people and wear an apron and discuss the cookie recipes with neighbors over the fence.

And I would say to her, honey, you're rebelling against authority. This is good.

This would make her madder than ever, poor child.

And then, and I would say, look, darling, you are attempting to cut the umbilical cord of the psychic tie between mother and child and this is excellent so you're this is why you're rebelling you're you are working at becoming your own individual and so whatever I am you're going you'll you will have to be dissatisfied with right now and I think it's wonderful honey I'm happy that you're not satisfied with me and this was was more frustrating to her than ever. Because she didn't approve of my full acceptance of this rebellion. I made her feel a little too free. Then she attacked me for permitting her to attack me. Incidentally, she learned a great deal, but she taught me even more.

And this is true of evolution in general. Now the point I'm trying to make is this.

She finally said to me, Mother, you have no right to permit me to talk to you the way I do.

You make me feel guilty.

You are so sweet. You are so kind.

And then she said, I quote, forgive me, Damn it!

I don't know where she ever heard it you're too sweet you're too kind you make me feel insecure you're giving me guilt complexes and I thought for a moment what a wise child I have how true it is that our children are greater than we are how true and I analyzed this for a while and I said honey you're right forgive me I said I'm going to give you hell when you talk to me that way from now on I thought if she could use the word damn it I could use the word hell I don't know where she got it the point is that the adolescent has to rebel against the authority the umbilical cord and we all go through the various phases of our evolution but at least that this we know when we can be proven wrong we know how to take the next step and we never know where and by whom and through whom we will be proven wrong it's wonderful to have this open mind because there's always more magic that can come in. However, my child, my daughter, my adolescent, who incidentally has turned into the most glorious adult as I've told you, I will tell you many times, I had not seen her unhappily. I'm very proud of her, you know. The point is that our ability to see the motives and the responses of those who have a larger area of consciousness, our ability, it isn't there. And so certainly I could not even remotely say to you what the real reason for the creation of the universe and man happens to be except that because I have had very unusual levels of awareness and very much more than one and in many ways I can't say to you and I can say this to you from the depth of my soul I know that whatever the reason is love was behind it most of us may not know what is meant by love though we may think we do I know that when I have experienced the one and only one when I have been nothing but pure consciousness which I've been so many times and am often. When my consciousness sweeps into any area, automatically it makes space by the very push of its sweep. When my consciousness looks in the other direction and sweeps, it makes the future by the very sweeping, without knowing knowing there is past the future, this is the point. It's sweeping and making space just because it's hunting. It's aware of nothing except I, love. But what is there to love?

There is nothing but space. Can you imagine this? And space isn't the real word. I use space only as an analogy because I say that human consciousness and our scientists agree human consciousness has created space in order to give a reason for the experience of thought forms which we call things in the universe but But I know what that space is. It's consciousness, because I am it.

I am it, much and often.

But when I am that, I don't know that you exist when I'm that. I don't know that my daughter exists and my two grandsons. Look, when God and I get together, you've really got something, as I've told you before. In that state of consciousness I sweep and hunt with consciousness that is aware of an everythingness which is nothing because there's nothing to be aware of and therefore in my and consciousness I start to compare and that's why I have the unmitigated goal to give you a guess I start to compare And I say in that state of consciousness I am I as all there exists. And I know that I am all-inclusive consciousness, that if my consciousness sweeps it makes space and there's love, but nothing to love.

Or no one to love and it doesn't know it.

But in evolution in creation we have something to love in other words we can love ourselves haven't you ever been in love with yourself for at least one mad moment as a child no don't worry we'll make you fall in love with yourself I have a couple of this is that means no is negative really let us put it this way then at least I'd say two-thirds of you have a some time in your life probably when you were children or when you fell in love well one of those two times you've had a sudden moment of ecstasy for a second or maybe it was days and weeks and months if you were lucky where you looked in the mirror or looked into your own heart and you said I love my beloved loves me I love and I am loved and that is an ecstasy that is definite there is somebody and something to love and there is the awareness of being loved there's the experience of being able to feel the breeze this is going to be in place of your meditation there's the experience of being able to feel the breeze sweep through your hair and across cross your brow and being able to say god is loving me in and through this breeze I'm being caressed you feel the love and by feeling I don't mean I do not mean this empty kind of feeling I mean a feeling as definite as you you put your water faucet on full force and feel that water pouring on you in your hand or in the shower. It is strong. It is definite.

It is more real than the reality of pounding on a so-called physical thing. That breeze is loving me. You could be hearing a bit of music or some little saluting sound from a bird perhaps in the night some of you may have said damn it that mockingbird woke me up but some of you may have listened and heard God saying I love you through the song and melody of that bird and those of you who haven't will if you persist properly and are determined to discover whom what you are and what your purpose is and why god created the universe there is the touch you reach out and you touch a plant yes a plant a little creature a pet the soft feathers of a little bird The fur, the warmth, have you felt the emanating warmth coming from a creature and reaching into all of you?

Have you reached out and had to touch somebody you love just to touch them?

A mother, a father, a child, a sister, a brother, a friend?

Of course, with a lover we know, but love is love. Have you had to touch just to feel the miracle of the touch? Have you put all of your consciousness into it to experience it?

If you want to know why God created the universe and man, it is my guess, and incidentally, I'd say it is a pretty damn good guess, if you'll excuse my French.

That God being love which every mystic and every occultist and everyone has ever experienced any level of true cosmic awareness knows although there are different levels and degrees of knowing because God is love being love in itself makes it inevitable and makes it essential in other words it brings an absolute need to share this when you have had joy have you really been able to experience this joy unless you could share it with somebody how much joy have you been able to have unless somebody else is there to share it and if you have had ecstasy and joy without a yearning to share it just been a portion of what you can have because when it overflows when the cup of your beingness and your consciousness starts to overflow with your experience you have to this is the compulsion of the desire nature of god you have to share because without sharing what is there what is there every bit of beauty that has ever been how can you really experience a full ecstasy unless you're sharing it this is the reason as a gift for creation because we that which we call man this is God's way of being in love with self not only in one way but in the infinite number of ways that we are this is deities way of knowing all the unique miracles that exist in only the special way that we as offspring can have it to see colors only as we can see it nothing Nothing else can see it like we can.

And each one of us is different. To hear sound only as we can hear it. You're listening to my voice right now.

You're listening to God's love.

Because I am God and I am love. And you are God and you are love. And we are permeating each other with a special experience and we will do it over and over again in many different ways and we will learn to hear the silent voice that has no sound because we're listening for it and we will learn to see the radiance of God, because we're looking for Deity in all its uniqueness in and through each other. And we will learn to touch Deity in a million trillion, splodging in different ways, because we listen and watch for it and feel it in the breeze and in the touch of each other's hands and if this isn't enough reason to have the miracle of color the miracle of form the glory of music if this isn't enough reason to be able to find ever new and enlarged ways to share ever more glorious creative beauty in with and through each other what other reason does there have to be I ask you Let's give thanks for it next Thursday.

I'll talk about the true meaning of thankfulness in the Sunday morning talk to come next, which is our Thanksgiving talk. So now I'll say good night. This has been our meditation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.