The Way Of Return As A Way Of Life

...turn as a way of life.

And I like the reading that we received from the Reverend Harriet B. Case in relation to this. Actually, it's a rather interesting one, isn't it? It would seem that it's better to go astray than not to go astray. Since if we go astray, we get the fatted calf and all kinds of parties and celebrations. Whereas if we just remain nice little good girls and boys with God, why everything God has is ours, and where's the adventure of life? See, I had to tie it into the party that we're having next Thursday night. And yet, of course, there's the most profound element of truth in this particular teaching. If you will recall, and it's a dangerous thing to say in a temple, isn't it?

We live dangerously here, don't we? If you will recall, all, the great avatars of all the religions throughout historical times always seem to have very directly pointed to one basic idea and seem to have expressed this idea in many ways, but always pointing again to the same principle. And it has been said of them that it would seem as though the greatest saints and the greatest avatars are the ones who who love the sinners the most. It's just like the parable of Jesus, isn't it, in relation to the son who spent his life in riotous living.

And always, too, in the stories told about the various attained ones or avatars or messiahs, we have the criticism that usually is heaped upon their heads by the rest of society, saying, well, how can you be truly spiritual or a truly spiritual leader, or how can you really be he who knows the divine will and is guiding us towards an awareness of this or towards liberation.

When, just look at you with Jesus. They said of him, he sits around with publicans and sinners and gets drunk. I mean, that's what they said of him, as well as harlots, of course. And they said the same about Buddha, you know. Because he seemed to have quite a liking for people of that type. And it has been said of many another, so that it sounds very serious on the face of it, and yet, of course, underneath is this tremendous truth that the whole story of the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden is involved with the same principle.

The entire evolution of the consciousness of man is involved in the same principle. And the only answer to the question of evil really resides in this particular principle too. And it is mainly this, that if we are in a state of perfection, that is the beginningless endless perfection in and one with the divine, which incidentally we all have been at one time and will without question all be again, but then and if we are in that state are there's no sense of bringing about the growth of any personal centers there can be no individualized and therefore uniquely develop new ways of seeing being doing reacting living loving in other words the richness of consciousness is involved so that the The whole evolutionary principle is said to belong to that area of consciousness which deliberately condenses parts of itself, limits parts of itself, which really means throwing these parts out of the Garden of Eden, and letting these parts sort of flounder.

Sounds cruel. And as a matter of fact, I'm going to try to have another fight with God about it one of these days when I get up my next, the next intensification of indignation over the state of affairs. But meanwhile, and so far I haven't had any success with him on this particular argument, you know, but the scorpions are such a stubborn lot, they don't know when to give up. So I will probably keep knocking my head against against the stone walls the more when I lose my basic awareness of the richness of this whole principle due to becoming overly compassionate and overly involved with the pain of evolution in others, especially those very close and near and dear to me. However the fact does remain whether we fight against it or not that the entire ability to develop centers of really individualized unique glorious centers of self-awareness is involved in having to flounder about to learn how to handle that portion of divine consciousness which it is ours to administer and this of course, is the whole reason for the way of return as it is taught in Qabalah and an effort to try to get you to see the wisdom of using it as a way of life at all times, not only during the time to come to church or study your lessons. Because Because just as no artist has become a great artist until first he made the most god-awful message on paper, and even no human being learned to truly write and to write coherently, let alone beautifully.

I never learned to write beautifully, only coherently. Nevertheless, no one ever learned to write either beautifully or coherently, both in terms of penmanship and in thought, except that first they made all kinds of scribbles. I remember when my little girl sent me her first letter in the hospital, and I was overcome with delight because what did it have? It had a bunch of lines and circles and dashes and dots. She was only three years old.

And what she did was put a lot of marks on paper that were meaningless. And certainly there was nothing aesthetic about it, nor did it even have any meaning, except that she was attempting to express a thought. She was attempting to send, in the only way she could at that time, her love. And she was attempting to say with no way yet to say it on paper I love you I miss you get well and come home this is what she was attempting to say and had not yet been able to say it because she had not yet evolved to this then later she of course developed a better ability to write and when she wrote a note or two from camp uh several of us had hysterics at some of the expression when she had already learned how to read and write up to a point. And we were particularly delighted when she very definitely wanted love given to a nut, which was really her aunt, A-U-N-T, she reversed the letters. And this had extra delight, of course.

Well, this has to do with our topic this morning, don't you see, as well as Thursday night's party. Because it shows the growth of an inability to be articulate in certain ways, and the growth towards it, even though there are still these charming clumsinesses, unintended, and yet aren't they amusing even though unintended like for instance in the spelling of her aunt's name and there were many things of that kind and I'm sure you all have this kind of experience in your background in relation to yourselves or close relatives but you can see this growing development of an ability to handle the tools of force which which are what which are your basic element of consciousness. And the ability to handle consciousness really has to do with the ability to become a center in and through which the divine will can function under control. So that will becomes a personally administered force in and with and for the evolution of the divine image presented instead of being what it usually is so of course we all make mistakes of course we all do what in the larger picture would be looked upon as charmingly foolish things but in the smaller picture really they're not so charming as we know because we look at it from the the point of view where it needs attention and correction.

But the question of evil, you see, resides in this. And the idea of the sinners being loved by the great avatars and messiahs also has to do with this. Because he who is on the journey back towards the center, on the way of return, instead of just being still at the point of developing enough of a center of self-consciousness, which, incidentally, most of humanity still can't be in, unfortunately, there's a great difference between those who have evolved to a point who are already saying, at least inwardly, whether they realize it outwardly or not, I will return to my father and be his servant. There's a great difference between that and between the individuals who are still working in every way they can to compete, to show they're better than the other person, wiser than the other person, stronger than the other person, more beautiful or handsome than the other person, more clever and aware than the other person, more able in various ways, more powerful than the other person.

Usually everyone is in a state of competition with the other person and when people are still in this tremendous state of competition it is because they have not yet attained their full self-conscious center and so they are using their infantile understanding in that area of consciousness that's been allotted for their own cultivation. And with these we can do nothing, incidentally, directly.

But when these reach the point where finally they have what you might call satiety, they recognize or they realize that having tried to taste of all the various wines and women and men to use it incorrectly in order to impress it on your mind and they still are unhappy they are still frustrated they're still dissatisfied when they discover that they have worked and slaved for more money or more power and it all becomes dust and ashes in the mouth but we have to work and slave for all of this incidentally it's part of growth it's part of developing whatever it is we are supposed to be but when finally the point is reached where it is seen that although these are neither good or bad in themselves that is the having or the not having we then you might say develop what could be called a greater directive element in in relation to the path of return, we stop hunting in circles.

That is, in the pool rooms and in the bar rooms and in the speeds of cars. We stop hunting in the material possessions.

We stop hunting in all the various ways that we do because something in us finally knows and it's taken more incarnations than I would care to tell you. Far more than you remotely realize taken far more incarnations than we know to come to a point where the whole heart and soul yearns to return to where it came from except that of course in returning it returns other than when it left so that he who has gone out and sinned in terms of the story comes back infinitely more enriched than he who was, is, and still is in the state of the primeval innocent because that one is not really a completely evolved center who can take over and administer, who can do, who can control the areas of life, the evolutions of portions of the universe, which it is the destiny for each and every one of us to do, as we achieved the ability. Otherwise we wouldn't have been thrown into this hell.

Although you could also say we threw ourselves into this hell since we are aspects and eternal portions of the one self. So it isn't that we were really thrown. We threw ourselves. But if we don't like the idea, we can ball God out for that too, since it doesn't matter. God seems to to be big enough to take it, and God doesn't seem to have the ability to get the kind of hurt feelings that are prevalent. And does God seem to mind when we say it's all your fault, as you and I have a tendency to do when people tell us, well, it's your fault I didn't do this, if you had reminded me of that, or if you'd have acted in this or that other way, and so marriages break up, friendships break break up, our relationships break up, because it's wonderful to have someone else to blame.

And I have often said, not in sacrilege, but to help us see it a little more clearly, that if we do have to blame anybody, it really is best to blame God, since we at least are not going to have to cope with the hurt feelings of any particular something, and then the chuckle or the humor will rise in us and make us see how foolish we're being, how childish we're being and that in itself will help us to grow up. Now then, the way of return as a way of life really starts from the time, as we pointed out, that we have sort of done everything and done everything necessary to make us recognize values a little more clearly. They are not really completely clear yet. We have not yet learned how to handle them or how to direct them as well. We the wills of other people, their drives. All this we are.

Nevertheless, the focal point in our consciousness has reached that stage.

So what do we have to do then? Having recognized this, we have to point our way towards home or towards the full capacity for our evolutionary center. And this is where we come then to the various occult schools of thought which gives help to those aspiring, those centers of divine consciousness, which we all are, only some of us have reached a point where we're ready to proceed with more serious work, that's when we receive the help from those specific centers in order to guide us towards the full attainment of what we have set our will upon. And we have set our will upon this because we have finally opened ourselves to the primal will which has been in us to begin with. We just didn't know it, just like the child doesn't know yet until it grows up, just by its function.

You know, this thing hasn't been on at all. Or has it? You know what, Felix? Looks never...

Now then, we get to a point where we are guided then to what we need next for our growth on the way of return. And usually, incidentally, this takes up many, many incarnations more. Again, I would hate to tell you how many because I don't want to discourage you I want to encourage you because you have reason to feel encouraged at this point of the game but we then proceed to learn how to direct our consciousness with greater aspiration with deliberate effort that is we start learning how to actually control ourselves towards goals that are larger than the immediate and only material and physical goals which we had during the earlier phases of evolution in order to strengthen a center of consciousness. And so we go through many incarnations being part of all religions, being part of all occult types of thinking and feeling finally. And then we come to a point where we're ready to start to integrate the different approaches. This incidentally method of growth is always the same, though the time element varies with different souls. The actual procedure is always the same, just like an embryo growing in its mother's womb always follows the same procedure. Although there they have a regular time element at all times, don't they? But here we do have a variation in time and we have the variation in time, incidentally, mainly because time and space in themselves are a mental concept, and to the degree that we achieve an ability and a capacity to reach towards the higher levels where time and space are not the physical time and space, to that degree do we hasten our evolution because we become more and more free from the limitations of the exact timing in the time and space.

And it's like that recorder suddenly being able to wind much more rapidly than it's doing, and still it would get all the sound effects into it. This, then, is what occurs to us. We having gained various bits of information, various degrees of knowledge, incidentally much of it which is nonsense, having worshipped totem poles which is part of our returning back to the center incidentally, having worshipped totem poles having worshipped or what might be thought of as idols having worshipped the different gods in all the different countries through all the different races so that our soul becomes immersed in the realization that the inner feeling or the inner essence of the soul really uses each and every one of these methods for a particular way to achieve or reach or feel or experience the ones finally we have this enrichment within us as we pointed out and we're ready to integrate now I know many of you have read in various occult books that there are different rays and they talk about the ray of this master and the ray of that master and then you've heard about the different yogas and the the yoga of this type and the yoga of that type.

Now, all of these things are not untrue, though they are misinterpreted a great deal. The fact is, as long as we are still following a very specific ray, so-called, we are still just bringing together another portion of our being into a growth to prepare it for integration. In other words, if some of us are more intellectual to her and we lack the emotional responses to the divine and to humanity, then of course we will need to be sent into, shall we say, what is called the mystical ray or the love ray, in order to be fed and charged by that ray and fed and charged by that ray to the point where we develop that empty spot. And of course we will always have unhappy experiences while we are raw and undeveloped, developed, just pretty much like the child falling and getting up and getting bruised, until we have perfected ourselves in that department of our ability to express.

Then we will be sent on to the next ray. So, for instance, on the Tree of Life, where we are shown the various grades of return, which actually occur only towards the end, when we have usually not more than between three and six incarnations to go, so that place where we are finally brought to that kind of, and some of us may be making it in one, we don't know how many we've done before. See, I'm trying to encourage you. Because no one knows whether you've had one, two, or three in the past in a particular grade. Though your ability to handle your mind, your emotions, your response response to people tells a true adept exactly where you are, incidentally. And by true adept, I don't mean the masters, because there are adepts and adepts. Some people are adept at playing the piano, although they maybe got awful over the kick stove or trying to use a hammer. And some people are very adept with a paintbrush. So you'd be practically committing committing suicide, if you try to trust them with anything like matches, it might be that careless.

So you see, it has to do with different developments in the area. But an adept, even here, we have different levels of adepthood in our work in a school.

And the grade of adeptship usually is known without any question by exactly that factor we're just mentioning the ability to handle that portion of your consciousness which is yours to handle that is your personality and the environment around it in your reactions to it and in your influence upon it and the type of influence you have upon it it doesn't take very long for one who has achieved this perception to be able to see just where another is or is not in the inner evolutionary level of that being. And, of course, there are the various grades that are involved even with that ability.

But the thing then to bear in mind at this point is that when we have already had the specialized types of teaching and training of through past incarnations, where we are ready to start integrating ourselves. This is when the higher self guides us to whatever group may be existing as a channel to give you what you require for that integration.

Now this integration is not such an easy matter at all, nor is it always apparent that certain integration is required. And sometimes people may think that they have one thing more highly developed than another in their own nature and still be very mistaken it takes graded practices as brought out by the tarot and then the later development of the tree especially on the esoteric work of traveling the grades of the trees which we have in the chapter itself it takes that particular work to gradually become become aware of all the things within ourselves that we're not aware of. For example, we recently got a letter from a member who's been studying with us for, oh, close to five years.

He also has had the value of a lot of personal teaching by one who gave him quite an intensification of awareness to be able to handle certain problems a little more powerfully than he'd been handling before. And yet after all this work this particular individual who is a very deep aspirant still has not awakened to the fact that for example he has got a great weakness as far as being able to control his own responses in relation to his evaluation of himself. He is dependent, too dependent, let's put it that way, on presenting a certain image of himself to other people which he has not yet developed in himself. In other words, his deeper self does not yet believe it. So that when he writes or talks almost invariably there hardly a letter will come where he will not say I am handling this and this in a manner in a courageous manner that depends courage and stability and real power or he will say the same thing in different ways I am working at something something that requires great power and integrity. And because it does this, of course, I am applying all of the power that I am, and I know that I must have victory. But the point is this, he must always, without it, and he never fails to do this, he must always mention how much power and integrity and strength he is using. Now, you know, this is like Shakespeare's me thinketh the lady doth protest too much when people are handling something with strength and power they're not even aware that they're handling it with strength and power and the last thing in the world they would think of is telling you about it because it wouldn't occur to themselves that it is taking strength and power they know they're in a challenge they're fighting something out and that's that but when you have to be presenting yourself to through yourself you know what I am being spiritual I am using humility I am being broad-minded you are not because if you were you wouldn't think you're broad-minded you have if you think of yourself as broad-minded for example well it's very obvious then that you're very not that you accept narrow-mindedness and know that you are something tremendous because though you have reason to look down on somebody you're not doing it because you're so broad you see these are the subtleties that are involved in the final stages of occultism in the earlier stages they keep getting us into trouble continuously but when we start getting to the final stages in occultism that's when the pot starts to truly boil and the paths of return and it isn't really past it's really paths of return which involve every one of the tarot keys in terms of the subjective principles as we use them and have them, and the tree of life, the sefiris on the tree of life, which involve the ability to have control over them in our outward forms, which means our environment or even our response to life.

This is also an outward form in a way that we often don't realize it. When we come to this period of our evolution, the thing we have to do is practice the principles of these Tarot Kings and these Sefiris as a continuous way of life. In other words, we can't anymore be doing what we just told you the four very sweet, aspiring gentlemen does. We can't whistle in the dark and pat ourselves on the back for things we are not, though it's quite fine that he's trying to become it by acting it out. We cannot keep ourselves in a state of self-deception because we don't have to.

Having understood the reason or the purpose for the so-called sins, the prodigality of of the sun, the riotous living of ourselves in the past and even now, as children of God who've walked off in order to see how high we can kick our heels and how acrobatic we are, and developed some good abilities, incidentally, meanwhile, having seen and developed all this, then we do not need to look upon anything we've done in the past in the same way we did before. Having seen that sin, though it exists in a relative sense and must be fought in a relative sense very definitely, still is a part of just what something looks like in a stage of its unfoldment. We can then waste less of our energy having to dramatize our sorrows, our mistakes, keeping ashes on our heads, or having to fight inferiority complexes by shouting about how broad-minded or spiritual or courageous or strong we are.

We don't have to do this anymore when we become willing to be whatever we've been as a part of or every turning. And so each of the spirits and the powers that are involved have to do with learning how to walk as a way of life in that peace of acceptance of self, of evolution, of acceptance of other human beings as being what they are, because it's the only thing they can be at that stage, even though you might have to prod them sometimes if they They try to, if they're barbaric or savage, which they are, and you're not going to let them, I hope, scalp you. You're supposed to have developed more intelligence. It's the attitude. We then take this way of return.

We take the various principles we've learned, and it more and more becomes a way of life, so that from the frustration of yesterday, from the hatreds of yesterday, day from the longings and the tears we manufacture something new and this is really getting ourselves integrated we start becoming everything we must be during each step of the way towards a husband towards a wife towards a lover towards a sister a brother a child a parent we become what we should be and we're able to shed what we should shed we can throw away what we're supposed to throw away we can take on what we're supposed to take on because we can give up fighting are the things that are unnecessary in ourselves and even more important we can start accepting all the beauties that we are and accepting these beauties we start to evolve the rest of the universe with us to the degree that we learn how to make that way of return a way of life waking up each morning in the spirit of the tarot key and the path of the law going through each moment and each hour in that spirit forgetting and being able to smile at our forgetting and grabbing it again the thought or the idea. Clinging then to each step as we're traveling back towards our own realization, yet leaving a portion of us wherever it is we've been, not because we're leaving it, but because we're stretching ourselves out. And we're therefore expanding ourselves like the universe expands. And this is what really is involved in learning how to love, incidentally, of god love this is what's involved in learning how to achieve that complete and conscious unity with the divine this is what's involved in learning how to become a direct channel for the one will because we have become an integrated whole we can be what we need to be at every on every step of the way as expressed through each parakeet through each part of the tree and when we start achieving even a portion of this, we start seeing the scenery that we're looking towards as we're traveling back towards home and then we start receiving help.

This is coming to meet the sun. We start receiving help along the way and this is where you are now. You are receiving help along the way. You are being given the opportunity to receive ever more intensive help as you go along. And even if you fall, if you don't study regularly, if you do all the foolish things we all do, you are reacting in the way we are meant to react. In other words, you're not giving it strength anymore, so you are transmuting it from the mass mind. You are transmuting it out of yourself. And you now are becoming something so much more fantastic in your influence on the evolution of the whole of humanity then you could remotely realize someday I'm going to give you quite a long talk on just that one phase of it just what it is that we do together here in the temple that influences humanity and other life types in ways that are astonishing and those those who learn to see inwardly start to see it in the most glorious fashion.

And it makes life of living and breathing and being and doing and hoping and weeping that much more meaningful to us. And above all, it starts giving us a peace that is beyond the joy or the sorrow because it's an ecstasy of unity with the Most High. Thank you.