Achieving Unity Or Conformity

It's about unity and uniformity, or should we say the differences in these two states of being, and has to do of course with a more profound understanding of just what is meant by unity and just why we have a problem which we, at the moment at least, are calling uniformity. Let's analyze this carefully together because this happens to be one of the greatest stumbling blocks that the aspirant has to face that is the various things that come up in life both on the international and the national scenes as well as in our personal lives which make us fall into the various traps of thinking and feeling keeping us imprisoned so to speak in habit patterns which we need to outgrow in order to open our consciousness for that which is an expansion rather than shall we say a contraction now if we will think down through history and carefully analyze the different forms of government which mankind has had, we will see that the greatest catastrophes have occurred at all times when the one or more who have been in power have attempted to enforce a kind of uniformity upon the people that are involved, a uniformity of thinking, a a uniformity of worship, a uniformity of feeling, a uniformity of interpretation of religion or ideal, so that we have the terrible occurrences which involve things like the crucifixion, which involve the tortures of the particular church in power given or applied to those individuals who did not have what we are calling the uniformity of thinking in terms of religion. And we all know unhappily that almost wherever we go, with very few exceptions, unless we follow a particular political line or a particular religious line, we are looked upon by those who happen to have very strong and I'm unhappy to say even fanatical leanings we are looked upon as being rather dangerous menaces to society friendships are lost even intimate relationships are broken and why because for some strange reason almost every human heart seems to to feel that unless another person agrees with him or her as to what the true economic, political, or religious ideal is, that that other person is somehow an enemy.

And very often he proceeds to treat him as an enemy, even to the point of tortures, as we have seen, even in modern times. After all what has occurred in the countries with the Mussolini's and the Hitler's and the Stalin's if it isn't just that kind of treatment towards those who did not fall into a uniformity of thinking a uniformity of feeling you see the great problem really lies in the fact that very few of us seem to understand what is meant by the preciousness of the individual, by the preciousness of the uniqueness of the individual. Apparently God, the Lord of life, in his infinite creativity, has created in such a way that there are no two things that can be exactly alike at all. Take the snowflake. Now we watch snow falling, not out here, I think thank God, though some of you might wish you did, but when we watch the snow falling, all of us have seen the pictures, you magnify these snowflakes, not a single one is the same, yet they are all based on the geometrical pattern of six, of the number six, a six-pointed star, and yet everyone is a masterpiece of beauty, of delicacy, of miracle, yet they are not exactly the same at all. I remember when I was a little girl, I became very, very concerned over the fact that all the little Roman Catholic children assured everyone else that they were going to heaven and everyone else was going to hell because they had the only true religion. Then all the little Protestant children assured all the other children that no as a matter of fact they were going to heaven and everybody else was going to hell because they had the true religion and then the little Jewish children announced that of course they were the chosen people and everyone else was doomed they would certainly never make eternal life and then a little Christian science child or two or three assured all the other children they were completely in error and a mortal mind and as much it was very apparent that they had the true religion and so it goes and then I would wander through the streets during the election campaigns and listen to the campaigners and I noticed that the Republicans assured everyone that unless they had control the country was was going to go to hell.

And we still had this heaven or hell idea, don't you see? Then the Democrats assured everyone that no, if the Republicans got control, why, we would all surely go to hell. And only if the Democrats got in would things be as they ought to be.

And then the Socialists, who were quite vocal at that time, assured everyone that both the Republicans and the Democrats were devils incarnate, and the only way to achieve heaven was to of course vote socialist at that time the communists hadn't quite yet become so powerful uh that happened later and naturally we all know that the communists know without any question that all capitalistic societies are completely anti-humanity and that they have the true religion even though they'll call it atheism their feeling is fanatically religious. And the horrors that have been perpetrated under these fanaticisms are terrible beyond description. And you see, this is what happens on the national and international scene. Now let's look to the personal scene. Let's look to our husbands and wives, to our children, our sisters and brothers, our friends, and see what happens there. When we meet anyone who exactly agrees with us, or we think that person agrees with us, our hearts just pour out. And we say in essence, almost like the fanatic and any of the other streams of thought, more or less the idea of comrade at least this is how the heart pours out because we think or we feel that someone else has exactly our idea if someone agrees that such and such a party political or economic or such and such a person should just be wiped off the face of the earth because they're evil we there's a sense of exhilaration takes place.

Ah, you are a person of discernment, we say.

And our hearts certainly flow with what we think is a beautiful type of emotion. Because we have found someone who agrees with us that someone else or several someone else's should be annihilated in some way or other, depending on the ferociousness perhaps of our particular leaning in whatever idea has been agreed with and on the other hand if we come across someone who disagrees with one or more of our pet theories instantly our emotional nature contracts and our consciousness starts hunting for all the terrible things that we can think and feel about this person and we will talk about that person to other persons about either their lack of intelligence or lack of feeling or lack of sensitivity or lack of perception or lack of practically anything and everything because that particular person has shown such very poor discernment as to either be on another other side of the political fence or economic fence or what we might call spiritual fence.

We draw up ideas of what we consider good and what we consider bad, and we draw it up not from our own inner feelings of true unity with life, but we draw it up from the prejudices that that have been ingrained in us on the uniformity levels of life.

And we don't seem to realize this. You know, in the esoteric occult work, it is very well understood that the first and primary job for an aspirant is what is called to work consciously with dissolution.

Now dissolution is the alchemical term for breaking down our old habit patterns of prejudice and we'll repeat that our old habit patterns of prejudice we understand that unless these habit patterns of prejudice are broken down we are not going to have that open cup we are not going to have ourselves in that condition or situation which we call the vessel being held up for God to fill in order to live our lives in order to live our evolutionary stream we might say the clear way to put it but learning how to live our own true evolutionary stream is really the secret of spiritual attainment. You see, none of us, or let us say very few of us, at least very often, have the courage to be secure within our own center. We don't feel secure within our own center, and therefore we have to rush about getting other people to agree with those parts of our nature which are centered in the prejudices of the past which have been handed down to us. You know when the Bible says, and the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, more than anything it is the general outlook on the goods and the bads or the interpretations of what's good and what's bad that is involved here because don't forget children are given their religion by their parents and then their parents got it from their parents and in the same way they are exposed to the political scene more or less uh you know they're used to I'm sure you've heard that joke about the person who'll say my father voted either democrat or republic and his father before him and his father before him what was good enough for my forefathers is good enough for me sort of business as though that makes it right and people will appeal to the past as something that would that is supposed to make the present correct. Well do you know that this particular habit is the thing that stands in the way of our having really happy unifying relationships with each other? It is just that unless we can see the way we think it and feel it in groups as we've just been showing you, we are apt to miss it when we hunt for it in our personal selves.

And yet you see, every group is made up out of personal selves. And therefore the first job for every occultist is to look within his own heart, to examine his own soul, and to discover where each of our own bigotries abide and with the discrimination and the objectivity of a true aspirant hunt it out, throw the light of the sun on it and then work at transmuting that thought or that feeling or that idea.

For example, take children. Now when children are very small all it's a very interesting thing they accept the differences in each other as natural you've watched children play the fact that they're different from each other is natural acceptable and delightful but as they get older they start picking up from that race mind level and from the the impact of their elders, the uniformities that are considered a must. And of course, you get, in some strange way, you get to a place in adolescence where the strangest phenomenon takes place. A two-way thing is occurring. And if we don't understand what it is that occurs, we won't understand what occurs within ourselves when we're under initiation. Initiation You see getting ourselves released from uniformity into true unity is the true initiation of the spirit into higher and higher levels of life So what happens there in adolescence to help give us an inkling? The Average adolescent has a complete need to rebel against the parents In order to feel his own individuality his own center of inviolability you might say and yet at the same time the same adolescent has a need to conform so what they do is they usually decide to conform together like all together and over the nation they'll spread themselves out right now it's the twist and before that they did things like cutting the rug and you know there used to be things like the Black Bottom and the Charleston, each of us have had our particular kind of rebellion against the parental or older image of society. And yet when we get older, we look at the present-day adolescent, as we said right now, the twist is the rage with them, and we shake our heads and we click our tongues and ask what this younger generation is coming to and yet every one of us if we will look back should be able to recall that when we were adolescents we too had the elders saying this about us whether we were in the period of the Black Bottom or the Charleston or the cutting the rug or whatever has occurred it is there but But you see, what the adolescent does is this.

He rebels with one hand, but his very rebellion is an act of conformity because he starts to conform with something that is a mass mind rage.

In other words, a part of him he permits to go down into the morass of subconsciousness, into the unthinking emotions.

While another part is trying to attain its own center of stability as an individual. Well, you see, most of us have not outgrown that particular kind of retreat from insecurity.

What we do when we get older is retain, that is most of us in society, I don't mean most of us in this temple. What we do is retain this need for some kind of security by the uniformity idea, so that we then attach ourselves very emotionally to the political party or the economic idea or the religion in a fanatical way, and thereby we keep ourselves in this feeling of security with the group at the same time thinking we have attained our own individuality you see evolution remember is for the purpose of every single human soul attaining the complete unique individualistic expression that only that soul can be for God. You, every one of you, as you look out at life, and you've heard me say it often enough, and you will hear me say it often again, every one of you, when you look out at life, see it from your very unique point of view.

No one else in all the universe can see it as you do. No one else will see a flower the way you see it or a color the way you see it no one else in all the universe will feel about a bird or a tree or a cloud as you do and every second of your thinking every second of your feeling and every second of your reacting is utterly completely and eternally unique to you and this makes you something special something precious something treasured and indeed the whole beginnings of the United States of America of America came about because of that knowledge by the few wise ones I don't know how many of you are aware of the fact that the master of wisdom who is behind our work is the same master of wisdom who was behind the beginnings of this country the Declaration of Independence and the first true experiment in freedom and democracy based on what that all men are born free based on what on the preciousness of the individual on the acknowledgement that every single individual is deserving of love, of attention, of care, of opportunity to find his and her own way towards happiness because of being a human soul, a child of God.

This is the heritage we have. But this heritage we have in terms of a national idea is merely an outer form to something that has even far greater significance, don't you see, in the inner sense.

Therefore, in order to truly attain what we call unity, Unity with God, unity with each other. In order to truly attain that, the first essential is to recognize and worship at the shrine of your own and everyone else's unique individuality. Why? Because don't forget that each and every one of us happens to be the way God sees and experiences creation in terms of our uniqueness. It is God's eyes because who, where else can seeing reside? It is God's eyes who have the power to see through through our personality.

It is God's ears through which our personality brings to God the wonder and beauty of music and birdsong and the voice of the child.

It is the touch of God that is being experienced and expressed when you tenderly touch the face of a friend or a loved one. Whose else could it be? You are an aspect of God's consciousness and God can't go anywhere else to have the same kind of experience that he can have through you. This is why it is so necessary, so vital that we become aware of our own preciousness, our own uniqueness and start loving ourselves and when we start loving ourselves because of recognizing what wondrous instruments we are in and through which God experiences that particular unique livingness of ours when we do this we will also have respect and adoration and feel wonder for and towards all the other wondrous expressions of God's life with their unique way of seeing and feeling and thinking and doing and we will not look upon it as an affront to ourselves because someone else or many someone else's happens to see or think or feel other than we do. We will be able to say to ourselves this is one of the infinite ways that the miracle of uniqueness is being expressed and to that uniqueness you can give salute even if you don't agree with its thought even if you don't agree with its feeling you should at least worship at the shrine of the wonder of the self-consciousness that the Lord of life has evolved in and through these various beings so that there can be differentiation wouldn't life be boring and utterly unbearable if everyone's thought the same if everyone felt the same where would be the interest when we go to a movie would we be able to sit through the movie and enjoy it unless there were all these various conflicts that are involved with different people thinking and feeling different things the thing that holds our interest is the is the fact that there are so many different aspects so many different points of view so many different ways of feeling and so many different possible results. This is what keeps us interested and this is what keeps us excited. And if we weren't all unique and different, we couldn't have this phenomenon of amazement, of wonder, of interest to hold the attention to that stream of unfolding life which we are and which everyone else is in us, with us, and through us.

We must always remember this.

Our kidneys, our lungs, and our hearts are unified in a purpose within the one body.

Yet they each have a different purpose.

And if the lungs try to force the kidneys into becoming as the lungs, or the heart tried to force the lungs into doing the job of the kidneys what would happen everything would fall apart the fact that people are lost in bigotries that they have fanatical ideas and attitudes this we must acknowledge this is true certainly we cannot at any time agree with any kind of bigotry which seeks to force other human beings into thinking or feeling in accordance with their molds. But what we must remind ourselves is that this is merely an evolutionary factor, and evolution swims like a fish in a river towards towards the ocean, from less to more.

And the immature, the adolescent in humanity, will of course be having all sorts of ridiculous ideas.

We must be careful not to let ourselves get pulled into the mass mind crazes, whether they be political or economic, in any sense at all.

We must be careful to keep ourselves an open vehicle for God so that we don't have to hate another person for his creed, for his politics, for his economics. And the reason we need to hold ourselves in that fashion is because only thus will we truly be serving the democracy. Democracy, the democracy which incidentally has to do with our own spiritual evolution as well as with the evolution of the mass. You see, unless you can become free in your own heart from being washed by the insanities of the mass mind levels and the social structure, you are not helping to serve the freedom of humanity because you are giving yourselves then over to the slavery to bigotry you cannot feel free within your own heart unless you start opening yourselves to the recognition that you are the unique child of the one life as is everyone one else and everything else and as that unique child you are in constant care or you are being constantly cared for by that higher self which guides us all and in that care you can have the courage not to let your emotions be swept away by other people's negative thinking and feeling only to the degree that you love your own uniqueness will you develop the strength of soul not to be washed by other people's thinkings and feelings which happen and which go on all the time you know if you're in the presence of someone who hates you pick it up especially you here in this temple who have been working with the Qabalistic techniques and have therefore become ever more sensitive to this amazing wondrous unity of life.

Life is a unity, but not a uniformity of expression, remember. And there's nothing, we remind you always, there's nothing that you think or that you feel that is really private to you because everything you think and feel goes out and and is attracted to those people who magnetically are in tune with your thinking and feeling. And in the same way, if you think and feel for yourself the bigotry, the dislike of anyone who thinks other than you do, or believes other than you do, if you do that, you're opening yourself to the thinking and feeling of all the people who try to enforce a tyrannical stamping on the minds and hearts of others, as is happening now in all the Bolshevik-dominated countries.

More and more, they are putting out stamped replicas of a certain idea that they call the state. And therefore more and more the preciousness of the individual is being lost. More and more they're attempting to make what is called an anthill or a beehive kind of consciousness.

And you see to the degree that we do not have the ability or capacity to love and accept our friends and relatives despite what they think and feel to that degree do we contribute to the very horror of a backward motion in evolution that is going backward to the hive mass mind part of the consciousness not that we can really do it because evolution is like a spiral as you know we'll go up and we will come down and seem to be going backwards but that's only because we're gathering strength to go to the next height and we you and I have reached a point in our evolution where we must take our evolution consciously in hand where we are not anymore going to permit our hearts and our souls to be swept with bigotries, to be swept with hatred, to be swept with narrownesses, we can't afford it anymore because the new age is already upon us.

As we've told you before, the separations are already in the making between those in our life force wave who will be going on to the development of a true brotherhood of man, which is a true unity and not uniformity, and to those who will be unable spiritually to partake of that kind of beauty and glory. And what is the difference between those who will be able to go on and those who will not? There are many things that are involved, but right now the masters, the inner school, all the higher forces of the hierarchy are pouring energies through every true channel that they can utilize in order to bring home the point to every human being possible that the one, at least, of the very vital and main differences between those who are going to be able to go on and those who are going to have to fall behind and wait for another time not that falling behind means they've lost remember nobody gets lost in a universe where everyone is a part of god but it can be delayed of course and what is involved what is involved really basically is the ability to love freedom and when we say love freedom we do not mean it in the sense of the bigot we do not mean it in the sense of the ones who get up on platforms and teach and start using all the methods that they know how in order to stir your emotions into hate in the name of freedom we do not refer to the hate-mongering kind of reactions because those who love freedom will hate beyond all else anything that has to do with hate-mongering those who love freedom will love their husbands and their wives in such a way that they will want that husband and wife to feel the freedom to think and feel in terms of his or her own uniqueness. Those who love freedom, for instance, will not get, would not get insulted if, let's say, they go to a movie together. We like to give homely examples, and one says, oh I just didn't like that picture at all, and the other one says, you didn't? What's the matter with you? Are you dumb? Are you stupid? I mean, that was a marvelous picture what's wrong with you you see you're not giving the other person the freedom to be themselves now on the other hand though if you if you truly love freedom in your heart in the spiritual sense remember suppose your husband or wife or sister doesn't matter who brother child says I thought that picture was dreadful now let's say you loved the picture instead of reacting acting with, gee, you stupid thing, you lack discrimination, you lack perception. It's obvious that it was wonderful. Instead of that, the open-minded wonder, you didn't, what was it about the picture you didn't like? Explain it to me so I can understand your point of view. I want to understand your feelings, see, even though I might not share your conclusions.

Do you see the difference between freedom and lack of freedom? Now tyranny resides in our own heart.

And to the degree we have tyranny in our own heart, to this degree are we going to feel violated, we are going to feel insulted when anyone in our immediate environment does not think or feel or act in accordance with our ideas. Is and to the degree that we are not tyrannical to that degree do we learn how to have a true experience of unity with other individuals we'll be able to pick up their thoughts and their feelings on the subtle levels but we'll know it's their thought and their feeling and And we'll be grateful that we can understand how our beloved child or sister or brother or father or mother or friend feels and thinks. We'll be grateful to be able to understand this, even though we may not at all share their conclusion.

You may feel that roses are the most beautiful flower. And someone close to you might think, no the most beautiful flower god ever created is a lily and somebody else might think no the most beautiful flower that god ever created surely this was a daisy but does that mean that you should have contempt for the other person but this is what we do if someone doesn't share our musical likes or dislikes are the kind of entertainment that we go in for, the political thinking or feeling, we immediately decide to feel contempt for them. And this is a symptom of a certain tyranny within ourselves that we must get rid of. Only he who continues to love and accept another despite the differences is really prepared to live in a brotherhood of man's society where true freedom resigns because he expects freedom for himself and he gives it to others and remember freedom is not license to do evil as we grow we get to understand the difference we truly get to understand the difference between freedom and license to do evil and they are as difference is day and night because again he who is truly prepared to go on and help the lord of life through the hierarchy to bring about a true brotherhood of man such a person has attained a self-discipline which is the opposite of license only the disciplined human being has attained even the first capacity towards true freedom. The disciplined person incidentally is not the repressed person. Discipline is a part of loving, as unity is a part of loving. And anyone who loves is automatically under a discipline which is a very easy discipline because what is it to love which is real unity just let us think for a moment I know a man who very much resented his wife expecting gifts for anniversaries and birthdays and Christmas he said and this man explained to me he said and he said I'm really very generous, but I want to give a present only when I feel like giving it.

Why should I have to wait for those periods? And my wife resents this. I said to him, if it is important to your wife to have this symbol of your lovingness on her birthday, on the anniversary, on Christmas, isn't it a greater love that has the discipline that gives to the beloved at a time they feel the need for it, rather than just going your own undisciplined way, just when you feel like it. Do you see the difference?

Love is thinking of the need of the beloved, whereas self-delusion, that goes under the guise of love, and thinks it is love, gives only when it's in the mood to give, and he who gives only when he's in the mood to give, incidentally, isn't giving for purposes of love at all. It's just because he's in the mood to feel, what a wonderfully generous person I am, he or she. You see, there's a weakness involved. There's a lack of the discipline, which is part of love, which thinks of the welfare, of the other person and that person's needs and yearnings that person's desires this is a true unity it puts itself in the beloved's place and the beloved remember is any relationship truly it puts itself in the beloved's place and does for that beloved when that beloved needs and when that beloved wants and not just when we feel sentimental washings in order to have a need to have a self aggrandizement feeling so discipline and love are not something separate truly because love automatically has that discipline within itself the need to be and do and give and that's part of the freedom actually strange as it may sound because only he has freed himself from his own self-centeredness who has disciplined himself into a recognition of what real joy is and all of us know every one of us know that the greatest joy we've ever had in our lives is when we've been the instrument through which joy has been given to someone we love a friend and a friend is even that which has to do with marital relationships and family relationships a friend is a marvelous thing and rare to come by but we must learn how to be friends truly because this is the real unity a friend is one who because you share something with him, the joyous thing becomes greater because of the sharing. Like if you have a bit of good news, something wonderful has happened, what is the first thing you want to do? You want to call your friend to share it and say, oh the most wonderful thing has happened to me. You must share it. And the friend, if he is a friend, will have his heart just wash out with joy, at your joy, with with happiness over your happiness.

And the friend, if you go to this friend in grief, it's a strange thing. Your grief is easier to bear. It has been divided.

You share your joy with a friend and it has expanded.

You share your grief with a friend and somehow by splitting it, it becomes easier to bear.

This is the idea of unity that we're trying to get across. Cross. It does not mean, you see, uniformity. It's the ability to love and rejoice over and with the other, the ability to grieve with the other, and the ability to love the other, not because of sameness, but because of the uniqueness that makes you something precious, an adventure to investigate. The gate. Whatever you did when you were a little girl or a little boy, if you share it with me, you have enlarged my consciousness. It is different from what I've experienced, so it makes you precious. Anything that anyone shares with you becomes something that has added to your unity with them. And if you'll keep this in mind and try to hold in your heart the worship for and towards the preciousness of the uniqueness of each individual you will learn that you will have greater relationships more glorious unities because of being able to rejoice over the differences instead of feeling so sorrowful or hateful over the differences the secret of real friendship and relation the secret of successful relationship has actually been put in your hands this morning in a more succinct way we hope than usual and so when you leave the temple this morning what we hope you will do if you came with someone else is start comparing notes as to where you're all different and then add a touch of love to each other for for the differences you discover.

In other words, reverse the process. And if you've come alone, why seek someone out before the day is over and do this with them and start practicing it daily. And you will notice a miracle occurring in you spiritually that you couldn't begin to dream of as a result of such a simple exercise in love and unity, which is not uniformity.