Understanding Joy and Sorrow Through Qabalah

Our talk for this morning is Understanding Joy and Sorrow through Qabalah. And it has to do, of course, with all of Job, but the most we could do, a portion of it, which of course sounded most depressing. And some of you might have said, if I was going to be made even more depressed than I am why didn't I just stay at home I certainly didn't need this aggravation to my depression but bear us out my darlings it's better to start with depression in that and finish with joy than perhaps to start with false joy and end in depression and in any case if you had such a thought even mildly or intensely you need to listen to what we have to say more than others if you are in a state of joy you still need to hear it if you are in a neutral state then it's like a living death and it's better to be in one or the other because you're moving ahead although we need periods of neutrality in order to digest certain things we realize the point is that that until we can understand the significance of joy and sorrow, we cannot even remotely start to respond properly to the principles that have often been called good and evil.

We cannot even remotely also react to the whole evolutionary principle which utilizes the polarity powers or the powers of so-called light and so-called dark, so-called day and so-called night. And, of course, in order to understand what evolution is all about, we must come to understand the significance of joy and sorrow. Now, in the book of Job, we do have a Qabalistic text which is most extraordinary and unusual we actually have a history of what goes on in our own minds and we also have a history of certain kinds of friends who we need about as much as we need a home and whenever we are in trouble especially if these friends think of themselves as being spiritual aspirants and therefore utilize the ideas of elementary metaphysics rather than digging a little deeper. So let's examine the text of Job in the few areas that we can, because certainly we cannot cover the whole subject in one little talk on a Sunday morning.

Let's examine some of the main ideas and see what it has to do with us.

And perhaps we can become, as Job, the victors, where we receive twice as much finally, but in terms other than we at first thought it would be.

All right, then recall that Job had everything.

Even a glorious state of polygamy, you understand. Of course, if it was a female representation, there would have probably been a polyandry idea.

The basic tenet there, really, though, is that Job was one who accepted God, was in awe of God, or some would say fear. This is an interpretation, depending on the person who's translating an ancient text, isn't it? Whether we consider the term awe or the term fear. Year at any rate here you have someone now this is most illogical isn't it who's absolutely marvelous I mean he prays to god he makes his sacrifices he he's kind to everyone he does all the things that we consider the fine and highly evolved human beings should do and be and then you have a meeting up there somewhere on cloud I don't know what cloud it is at any rate it's probably heaven because the sons of God come before God and amongst them is Satan amongst them is Satan this is something few people stop to analyze and those of you who come to the classes are starting to realize that the word Satan perhaps has other meanings and as we go along with the rest of our talk you will understand I hope, more fully. Nevertheless, Satan, remember, is just one way of representing the idea of the forces that in astrology we call Saturn, or in other terminologies that we call the principle of manifestation. That is the Qabalistic terminologies, the principle of manifestation.

And, of course, the principle of manifestation does bring about a more complete expression of the polarity idea, that is, the light and the dark, the so-called good and so-called evil. And if you will recall, in my last talk we were discussing together these ideas of so-called good and so-called evil. And I pointed out to you, that is our last Sunday morning talk, I pointed out to you that the ideas of good and evil are definitely and inescapably involved in the interaction of opposites which bring about the development of consciousness, that is, a centered consciousness, a strong consciousness, and that without these interactions you could not have consciousness at all. It is only when you have the interplay of the pairs of opposites that you can even remotely become aware of the graduations in between, the different colors, the you and the me. Me, if you will recall, I pointed out to you that having what some would call samadhi, or cosmic consciousness, is a state of being unaware of anything else except the all-inclusive, beginningless, endless, ecstatic I, but without anything for I to be aware of.

And that being in a manifested type of vehicle and consciousness, that is what we might call limited and remember limitation takes away from cosmic realization in a sense or at least temporarily but it is only in this limited self-conscious state of awareness that we are able to say not only I love beginningless endless but there's nothing else but I but that in this other state we can say I love you you you love me we love each other in other words an awareness of all the different qualities the different colors the different shades of colors which make for the richness of consciousness now here with joy and sorrow we have one of the most profound problems tied up really quite completely with the ideas of so-called good and so-called evil.

And in Job, we have the most irrational bit of responses and explanations which one could remotely imagine unless one starts to interpret it in terms of the people who wrote it. In other words, start seeing it in the language it was written in now then what does job say basically then we're going to go into the ideas that we that really have to do with our own personal lives basically the story of job tells us this job was a marvelous upright glorious wonderful spiritual man man. He had everything physically, he had everything spiritually speaking, that is, at least ethically speaking. Let's put it that way. Ethically, physically, he had it all. His riches, his religious spirit, his worship, and so on. And yet when Satan, along along with the rest of the sons of God, appeared before God, it appears that God started to brag a little bit, doesn't it, about this terrific son on earth by the name of Job, saying, now here's a fellow I'm really proud of.

He is upright. He does all the things that one should be proud of.

And it seems that Satan, one of the sons of God, says to his father, God, That's what it seems like. Oh, is he?

Well, now, how can we be so sure? Why don't you let me have a little go at him, and let's see if he's really that.

And God, it seems, must have been terribly small, if you take things literally, and said, well, he is too. By God, you go... By me, not my God. It would be by me with a capital M, wouldn't it? You go ahead and test it and you'll see I might and so satan takes himself back off to earth where he's been going to and fro and and he starts really uh really uh giving job the works although he's been told by god now don't touch him physically all you can do is take away everything he's got boy some god or father or what have you if you took it literally literally, if you took it literally.

And so Satan goes ahead and pulls everything out from under Job. He really gives him the works, but he's not allowed to touch him physically. And Job still hangs on to his righteousness.

So the sons of God meet, and there's Satan again, as one of the sons of God. And God says, See, I told you so.

And Job says, Oh, ho, ho, ho, but you didn't let me touch him physically.

Yeah, let me get at him physically, then I'll prove to you.

Then we can, I'll show you that it isn't quite what it seems. And God says, you buy me, you can certainly go ahead and do so.

And so back goes Satan, and this time he pulls the skids from Job, not only in terms of material possessions, but physical well-being. So Job develops about every ailment you can imagine and becomes quite a, not only a pathetic figure, but quite a disgusting figure, at least from the physical point of view, according to the story. Then his friends come come around. And they sit around and they moan and groan with him. And they lament and they weep and they help him pour ashes over his head and they all start analyzing it. Now, what is it you've done? You must be evil, Job. You must be evil or you couldn't have been visited by God with all these problems. And so one by one they take turns. One gets worn out, the next one takes up, the next one gets worn out, the next one takes up, and they go on trying to pound job with the idea after all you couldn't have had all these problems unless you were evil now let's search into your soul and find out what made you so evil and what evil there is that made you have all these problems and poor job as though he hasn't got enough problems I told you he needed these friends like a hole in the head his friends under the guise of love and concern for his well well-being, are just having the time of their lives. Doesn't it make us feel wonderful if we can sit back and start looking at somebody else and start figuring out what evil in them gave them this problem and that problem, or weakness or lack of evolution? Sure, we're all human. Let's smile together over it. That's the only way to get over it really rapidly.

You have a story here with the most fantastic human awareness the inevitable weaknesses of the evolving souls of creation and of course the unfortunate thing is that too many people have taken this glorious story of evolution and the reason for joy and sorrow and have made it a literal nonsense yet anyone who examines it with even a fraction of a Qabalistic eye can see its meaning, especially if you were able to read it in its ancient texts and take the numbers and add them up and see what they correlate with. This is the secret cipher that has kept the truth, incidentally, of evolution awake and available to the few souls who are able to look and see, who have evolved enough depth to see and understand these things so we have a situation which would certainly make of God something like a monster wouldn't you agree I hope you're going to agree that if we took the literal value of this book of Job it would make of God or the creator of the universe a monster at face value nevertheless let's go back and re-examine it again, some of these ideas, in terms of the original intent and that which those who know how to read see instantly. They don't have to go backwards. They see it right now.

First of all, let's examine the idea of evolution as we have been trying to give it to you through the most ancient of psychological, philosophical methods for spiritual advancement that exists, this, that is, the Qabalistic way that includes tarot. And please bear in mind that we have pointed out to you over and over again that evolution as such involves the growing from the less to the more.

This inevitably must be. The consciousness, therefore, that is in a narrow area of expression, evolution involves it's growing into a larger area of expression a narrow area of awareness to a larger area of awareness from the less to the more which also means from the surface to the deep because remember enlargement hasn't got to do with a surface level it has to do with a deepening level and those of you who have looked into eyes, eyes that have been experiencing some tremendous emotion, have seen that depth has a meaning quite distinct from anything else, because we can see surface emotions playing over the faces and eyes of people. And in moments of tremendous tremendous emotional impact, we see this depth suddenly come out, sometimes to our surprise. Haven't you known people where you thought they had sort of surface eyes lacking in emotion, where suddenly in an emotional moment you saw there was something there, after all, far more deep than you realized, even though it may not have stayed there very long?

The point is in joy and sorrow you have the method that evolution uses or deity uses for growing centers of its own being but we need to examine this a little more carefully we couldn't of course read you all of Job besides you'd have gotten bored and worn out with all the different philosophical and and psychological concepts that the friends were searching for.

And you would have gotten quite worn out also with Job's attempts to protect himself, as though he didn't have enough trouble.

Imagine him having to protect himself from the psychological attacks of these dear friends of his who were so concerned for Saul. But that's what he did. And this is what you call in occultism very often too the dark nights of the soul and we have more than one of them on different levels all right, but what does this mean? What does it really mean?

Recall at some place there in Job we couldn't read it all to you of course Job says vanity, vanity, all is vanity that's one thing that he says very definitely of course you had read to you that which I fear have come upon me also throughout the whole of job as I've pointed out you have this attempt of the well-meaning friends to make job acknowledge that he's a very bad naughty evil person after all because only badness has problems of this kind especially this extreme kind and job he had enough of something in him that he just wouldn't give in to that final idea you know that I have it because I'm just a horrible guilt-ridden being that's the one thing he would not give into if you've ever read you job I don't know if you have this is the one point that is made throughout the whole story he definitely acknowledges god has done everything he moans and he had reason to moan and he groans and he had reason to groan about the impact of the loss the pain the agony and his soul he curses the day he was born he yearns to become not I anymore In other words, before I came out of my mother's womb, he said, would that I had died.

So that you see here someone in an anguish of heart and soul beyond description.

But at no point will he actually acknowledge that which his very fine friends are trying to force him to acknowledge. And that is, it is because he was a bad, bad boy that he's having all these problems.

Now, what is the meaning of this? It's really pregnant with meaning.

What is the meaning?

The meaning really, basically, is this.

That sorrow is not the curse we think it is.

And that joy has a meaning other than we usually give it.

What is sorrow?

What is sorrow? We have different levels of sorrow. We have different grades of sorrow.

And yet, can you look back?

If you're sitting in this temple, surely you've evolved beyond the point of being bitter about yesterday's sorrows surely you have if not if there's still a little bitterness here and there it'll leave if you want it to leave that is it will leave once your soul sees the truth of the whole situation as finally Job did Job didn't really see it all I mean he made a lot of nonsensical statements too you know all through the thing but he finally saw with a seeing instead of surfacely as he himself states towards the end of the books of job and the last or next to the last verse he finally sees after incidentally god finally speaks up and says to him can there be anything that the lord hath not created it can the Pleiades shine and sing except I have done it can the vastnesses of space exist to sing their hymns and melodies he didn't say it exactly like that I'm paraphrasing him except I had done it who created the the beauty of the peacock's tail.

Ooh, the glory of a sunrise and sunset.

This is my paraphrase of the ideas that you have when finally God speaks back to Job after the long lament and the terrible agonies of heart, soul, and body that Job has gone through. The idea being, God is trying to say to Job, you are suffering this way because I have created it, for I am responsible.

Shocking statement, huh?

But that is precisely what God is said to have said, if you want to go back and reread your job and in Isaiah as dr. Case points out in the lessons you received through the mail it says shall there be evil in the city and the Lord has not done it that's even more shocking isn't it because we like to think of God as being without sin whatever that means and as God and And we like to think of God as creating nothing but beauty and happiness. But then we're in a spot. If God has to be this kind of wonderful, beautiful God, from our point of view, how do we account for the very apparent evil? And it exists.

And how do we account then for the sorrow?

And those who think even more deeply say to themselves, all right, God is the creator of all, and as our beloved Fr. Felix likes to say, you have a clean sheet when you're the architect, and so you can draw what you like.

Which again shows that very definitely, incidentally, the drawing or the expression of this universe with its good and evil, its joy and sorrow, cannot be separated away from the deity or the creator. All right, then what do we do? Look and say, what kind of creator is this? Well, at a certain age we do. When I was 21, I looked at it that way, and I was filled with horror. And I said, this evil that exists?

After all, a creator who is the creator of all also created creatures capable of creating evil. Therefore, the creator is responsible, if there's a creator.

And this creator also would have created such conditions that would inevitably bring sorrow and pain and agony.

Therefore, whoever we want to blame, whether it's our mother or father, sister, brother, friend, enemy, you have to go backwards and say to the...

You have to point your finger at God or the creator of it all because God would have made it possible in the creation to bring about this kind of experience to centers of life ourselves and all other creatures at age 21 I saw this and I decided I was an atheist I said to myself such a God if such a God existed would be a demon because only a demon would create the kind of universe and the kind of life that could bring sorrow well I couldn't even kill an ant so certainly I was something nicer than this kind of god don't you think good thing to think about the point is as far as I was concerned if only a demon could be responsible for a creation where injustice and sorrow and pain and evil existed I wouldn't have truck with such a god so I decided there is no god and I decided I was an atheist for a good three and a half years I had myself a ball with my own consciousness the fact that I continued to protect anything and everything didn't strike me as illogical at all at the time that's what we can do when we're young now that I'm past 25 not much mind you of course I've ripened in my perceptions but at that age and with that point of view this is the way I saw it and yet everything in me had a complete and absolute need to do something about lifting the pain of this world then as I'm sure it has done with you at times and then what occurred in my realizations what really occurred to change my point of view because certainly something changed it because I I'm sure you realize they do not consider God a demon anymore when I would have no truck with and one that didn't exist well something certainly happen to change it very much like happened to job because we all go through this over and over again this is part of the evolution you've had the same experience as every one of you at different times in different ways where perhaps you have not yet realized that it is involved with the same principle But the thing that made me change my ideas, basically, was another kind of experience, where with Joe I was able to see, I thought I understood, but now I really see.

And what is it that I really saw?

What I really saw was that only when we have experienced the testings and tryings that that come from our own higher souls, only then can we be said to have accomplished anything.

Take it into any area you like. The bridge that's built has a certain strength, and it's built to have that strength, to hold so many tonnages of weight. This is an analogy I got from our father Felix that I always use with his engineering mind but this next point though once you have built a bridge to take so many tons of weight do you know whether it's really going to do it unless you test it so then you have to send something over that bridge to see whether it'll take that weight but but that isn't enough.

Then you have to send more and more weight over to see at what point it cracks.

When you know at what point it cracks, you know what limits to really set, and then you know what to do for the next bit of steel you're going to put into the oven to work on the next groupings.

Because after all the idea is more and more and more isn't it and once you've accomplished one group of functions then you get busy on the next group all right now this idea of sorrow joy and sorrow here we have job let's take it back to ourselves who has everything everything for that time and level there was a time in your life when you said to myself I'll be thoroughly happy if I have a million dollars and some movie star. Maybe you were only five or six years old, but didn't know what a million dollars meant, but there was a time in your life when you had some such concept, you know, whether in a smaller or larger measure. Then you got to another point in your life where you said, I will be perfectly happy when I have some other group group of conditions, maybe when I'm just world famous, where everyone looks at me starry-eyed.

And we go ahead and we build images of what's going to make us perfectly happy.

The point is, whatever it is we think is going to make us perfectly happy, sooner or later, you know, we do accomplish it, as I've pointed out over and over. This is the one area where elementary metaphysics is correct and incidentally probably the only area I'm sorry to say where what we hold consistently enough in our minds will eventually come to pass though not necessarily in one incarnation this is the point it may take many many incarnations but it will if we are consistent have it come to pass in various ways and degrees depending on the accuracy receive our images as we work towards it. But finally, when we have that perfection, or shall we say fulfillment, here you have your Job. He had fulfillment, and in that fulfillment then he had to get tested in order to be prepared for the next steps in his evolution. So in that fulfillment he had to get tested. Then we go on, we evolve and we grow, grow, and the next fulfillments evolve things that are less full of nonsense.

And so we go from stage to stage, from evolution to evolution, from incarnation to incarnation. That which we consider will fulfill us becomes, of course, more complex. But every time we have our complete fulfillment, that is, we have everything, and supposedly we're satisfied. Satisfied something in us though something in us is not satisfied because remember what job said that which I feared have come upon me whenever we have anything that we figure is marvelous and wonderful we always become afraid of losing it when we're in love haven't you been afraid of losing the one you're in love with when you've been in love or if you've had money at times or some precious possession uh we always develop a fear of loss when it's something we feel uh is marvelous beautiful wonderful fulfilling not that it will stay that way because unfortunate unfortunately a familiarity when it's in a narrow sense does breed contempt the point is though that we always as human beings become fearful of losing that which is the most tremendous most beautiful the most wonderful to us at the time or at the moment.

And so, of course, the moment we're afraid of losing it, we immediately set our own evolution into the next larger circuit, in its inevitabilities, so that we have to lose that which we were afraid to lose, because this is part of our own image. And along with that, we bring about the very conditions which bring grief, sorrow, loss, unhappiness, because we're trying to hang on to that which we had desperately.

And already the forces have been put in motion, which make it inevitable that we lose it. Now, did we do something wrong by trying to hang on, by having fear, which was really imaging a losing or letting go? This is the whole point of Job. We did not do anything wrong.

It is inevitable, as a part of the necessity of evolution, that we bring our pains into expression, not because we are evil.

Remember, I say it, shall there be evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it. Not because we are evil, but because in a certain state of evolution, we have to think and feel in that way, and it is the very thinking and feeling for that state of our growth or evolution that brings about the next stage of evolution for ourselves.

And our sorrow is inevitable because we will always hang on to that which we think is what we want, even though we're being prepared for the better as finally comes in Job but even more perhaps than that.

The very sorrow, the very part of our nature that moans and groans is actually deeping its cup of capacity and why is it that finally at the end Job was able to have more? This means us. It is because the very depth of grief and sorrow dug the cup of capacity that much more deeply so that we had more of a cup of consciousness and life to fill and so we have to empty out to make room for more we empty out and we make room for more any time we think we have achieved the final joy there's always the next final sorrow the loss that prepares us for the next greater joy until we have reached a point where we do not require these influxes of opposites and the important thing to recognize is that it is not because of evil in our souls. There is no such thing as a devil or a Satan as against a God. God and Satan are son and father, sort of having a beautiful interplay of, is this strong enough? Has this achieved the sort of thing we think it is? Is it really a center of expression in relation to what we're after? And Satan Britain is merely the tester of the steel, that which tests the bridge.

Now, does that mean that sorrow is not sorrowful? Oh, no, my darlings. Sorrow is sorrowful indeed, and no one would know it more than I.

Many might know it as much, though not too many. Sorrow is real indeed. And those who have experienced the nth degree of sorrow for this human mass consciousness evolving group of beings, those of us who know the very depth of this sorrow and loss, we also know the height of ecstasy. Never think for one moment that joy, ecstasy, love, and fulfillment have ever remotely come to you, except that you were tested to know whether you can take it and made your own capacity, but you made it not because of evil, but because you are amongst the sons and daughters of God. Because you are the evolving centers of livingness, of consciousness.

And the sorrows that come, and they are inevitable, are not sorrows if we come to recognize that these are the ways and means for developing love. Have you ever remotely been able to feel compassion as deeply except after you have overcome a certain sorrow of your own.

All our abilities, all our capacities to love have come to us because we can say somewhere in our hearts, whether from past incarnations or this one, I too have bled this blood. I too have been bruised by this rock I too have been washed by these tides and your heart goes out to another and it would never even remotely be able to go out to another except you had gone through the testings of the strength of that steel of your soul keeping your individuality you would never remotely be able to look up at the star and listen to their stars singing the vibration of life you would never remotely be able to look out at the sunrises and the sunsets except your heart and souls have felt darkness, the pall of lack of livingness, of sorrow, of loss. You would never remotely be able to reach out with tenderness to another, except your heart had been empty and lost, and in your greatest need, your dear friends started to try to hunt up your failures, instead instead of helping you, trying to give you real strength and comfort.

All of the beauties of our nature, the love of our hearts, the washes of our souls, these have come to us because we have already tasted the bitter cup of sorrow over and over again. And we will taste it over and over again until we come to the point which is pointed out in Job. Where we can say, Thou, O Lord of the universe, have created this.

Yea, even though I am killed, still will I believe in you.

Whatever happens to me, I will not lose my understanding or realization that you are all.

You are the creator of all. I will not lose my faith in you, no matter what. This brings the finish, the blossom on the flower for earth, when we can finally come to this recognition, this realization, when we stop beating our own breasts or hitting other people over the head because of the vanity. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. As long as our own egomanias seek to make us feel that we are a center of persecution from others as long as our egomania and vanities and we all have them my darlings every one of us share this make us feel that we are not understood by others as long as our ego and vanities make it necessary for us to search for the the dislike of others, the projection from others of hostilities in various ways. As long as we have this kind of nonsensical vanity, we will keep building, but not because we're evil. This is the point.

Because we are still separated away in the narrow vanity, vanity, always vanity. But as we get to the point, where we can enlarge our scope and say every sorrow has been the gem for my crown when we come to the point where we recognize that everything we have feared that has come upon us has been because we have still felt that there were certain things in the material universe which could bring us our joys and fulfillment this is part of the vanity when we can come to the ploy a point where we see that this could never have been so that our happiness our fulfillment our joy is dependent on one thing faith in the one life to work it all out faith in the creator of the universe when we come to that point then whatever it is we have lost we have lost many things and why not it just makes room for more as I pointed out whatever it is that has brought us sorrow this is good it has given us the capacity for greater joy whatever love we think has walked away from us this is good it has made us understand and love love and revere love enough so that we will be more tenderly kind to love the next time and appreciate it as we're supposed to to grow into it through it with it anything that has brought us sorrow is our treasure it is going to bring us the greater joy multiplied and running over and when we reach this point I reiterate where we can say Today the Lord of life has done it all.

The testings of the Son of God, which is the Satan within ourselves, have really brought me to extra fulfillment, to the capacity for extra fulfillment. We will see that never has there been a sorrow that hasn't been worth it.

Never has there been a disappointment that isn't worth everything we've paid. Never has there been a grief that hasn't been an indication that the Lord chasteneth who he loveth. And why? Because the chastening is really a preparation for complete fulfillment, kingship, ability to permanently in this evolutionary field be a center of the glorious joy one of the sons of God who comes before God at the regular meetings and lives that which is meant to be lived and that's what we're all growing to my darling give up your bitterness give up your sorrow of yesterday thank the Lord of life for the growth and strength and evolution that it has brought you to this point and you discover what real joy is that can never be taken from you here or hereafter