You Do Take It With You

This might seem like a rather peculiar reading from the Bible for the title of today's sermon, which is, You Do Take It With You. Nevertheless, I think we will see together that if we look upon what was just read through the eyes of the Qabalists, and always remember, the Bible was written by Qabalists, and to understand it, we must know Qabalah. Therefore, in order to truly understand what was said here, it is quoted so often in so many areas of life. Let's consider for a moment this Tarot key, which you see before you, called Judgment. And you notice the figures rising up out of the coffins as Gabriel blows his horn. And let's realize and let's try to realize that this whole story about Jesus making this man into one who could see even though he was born blind though it very well may be an actual and literal report inasmuch as it found a place in St. John's particularly and John was one of the most learned of the Qabalists, incidentally, we must analyze it in terms of Qabalah in this manner.

According to Qabalah, the whole intention of incarnation, of livingness itself, is to take from the innocence of living in the Garden of Eden, that is, you remember it mentions in part of the story that being blind is being innocent, and one part of it. Well, the innocence is the aspect of not yet having evolved self-consciousness. So that until we have self-consciousness, there isn't anything that is done or said which is truly interpreted by the higher soul or by life in terms of what we have come to know as good and evil. But from the moment we start evolving self-consciousness, from that time there is a more or less capacity to see. Now the complete and true seeing has to do entirely with attaining to the consciousness of the self. That is knowing who and what the Son of God is as is true of this story and indeed all of us in the areas of our lives where we walk in illusion are blind and all of us are seeking to develop sight or to have this miracle, that is to experience the one life, the one ego seated in the hearts of man, which has come to be known as Jesus. And certainly Jesus was the one human being who completely and utterly attained to that very aspect, that complete self-knowledge of what he was in terms of union with God. And you notice the parents were asked about the man who finally could see and the parents said ask him he has come of age now in as much as he has come of age he has achieved the point in his evolution where he can see and know exactly what it is that life entails and this has to do now with survival which we're going to discuss because those who are blind are not going to have the kind of experiences in the, shall we say, afterlife, according to Qabalistic philosophy, that will occur with those who have already learned to see, who have had the miracle of sight. You notice how whenever we suddenly have an insight or a realization, our expression is, oh I see!

And so we do, because true seeing is with the consciousness. And our great problem on this plane of existence is that our attention, our insight, our realizations are far too much focused in terms of just the material aspect of life. And so we lose track of the idea and we overlook the most important thing that there is to pay attention to. And that is that inasmuch as consciousness is eternal, it is absolutely vital to know what it is that we must do with our consciousness so that we know what it is we're going to take with us we know we have paraphrased that idea you do take it with you because there was a title about you can't take it with you nevertheless this is not true when we die in accordance with cabalistic teaching we take with us everything that we are up to that point in evolution in terms of our thinking, our feeling, and our being.

Now, this may sound comforting, but there are some spots in it that are rather alarming.

However, even though we are going to attempt to alarm you a little bit, we will try to finish with the comforting thought so that at least we can walk out of here with a little inspiration because we do want you to come back and to attain to the states that we know are attainable through the practices and techniques which BOTA has for the aspirants. So we are going to analyze and we are going to give you a few anecdotes so that you can try to understand what it is that is very necessary in order to know what is going to be taken along when we die and therefore what we had better start trying to learn to see instead of remaining blind. In line with this I would like to mention the very amusing little story I think because this is very appropriate to this particular talk of the group of religious leaders who died at different times. We've mentioned it before, but we have a different point to make here. So we're going to tell you the story again. This group of religious leaders died and another gentleman having also died, and also it is said in the story, having been a very naughty boy, he found himself in hell. And as he walked along in hell he came across this Catholic priest and he said, why father what are you doing here?

Here and the father said alas alas I ate fish on Friday and now I am doomed to hell so he walked along some more and came across the protestant minister and said why reverend what are you doing here and the reverend said alas alas I played cards and on Sunday mind you and therefore I am doomed to hell and he clicked his tongue walked down he came across a jewish rabbi and he said why rabbi what are you doing here and the rabbi said ah woe is me woe is me I ate a piece of pork and so he walked along then and came to a christian science practitioner and he said why sir what are you doing here and the christian science practitioner raised himself haughtily and said, but I am not here.

You see, they took it with them, didn't they?

That's the point we wanted to make. They took it with them. And here is the basic idea.

If we hold guilt complexes about nonsense, when we die, we'll punish ourselves for it.

And if we decide it is not or I am not that too will be the state and we're going to show it to you in a few little ways to analyze it and then you'll realize why it is so important to work with the techniques of tarot and Qabalah in order to overcome these aspects in our personalities instead of roaming around addle-brained as most of us unfortunately do because that we will take with us also and truly we do become dizzy when we permit ourselves to remain in that state. When we work with the tarot we're working with stimulations in order to shake up out of subconsciousness these habit patterns of guilt which are based on nothing but illusion that is on being blind. We have to learn to see what nonsense it is. You know that other little story we've told that we love so much about the cannibal. The head of our forces on the one of the Philippine Islands during the war got in touch with the natives of that little island who were cannibals, attempting to get them to give us aid against the Japanese. And so the chief came and had a little pow-wow with him, then withdrew, told him he would give him his decision after meditating on the whole problem for a while after which he returned and said oh no not only are we not going to help you sir but I have given instruction to my people that have nothing to do with you because we find you are very very immoral you kill far more people and you can possibly eat very wasteful this is uh again part we take that with us what you see the guilt complexes Now suppose one of those cannibals had killed more than he could eat, he'd die, and have some terrible guilt complexes, and feel that he must, in order to attain to heaven, he's going to have to learn or kill only as many as he can eat.

Now do you think that our morals and ethics aren't just as foolish a good part of the time?

They are. And it takes tremendous stimulation to awaken ourselves. That's why we need something like the Tarot and the Qabalah to stir up These patterns which on the Tree of Life is shown by that Violet circle the one above the bottom one in the center that is called yes of the foundation When we read from the pattern on the trestle board it is that sephirah and Qabalah Through which is where it says in thought and word and deed I rest my life from day to day upon the sure foundation of eternal being Now that in Qabalah is called the astral world. It is the vital soul which we all share With each other and with the rest of life and it is also the world of illusion and to it Is given an association with the shells of the dead Now what are the shells of the dead? The shells of the dead are what ought to be our outworn thinking, feeling patterns.

They're the prisons within which we live and move and have our being, which we must break open, which we must cleanse ourselves from. And that's why in Qabalah that is also called the pure or clear intelligence. Because the work of man on this plane of existence is to cleanse and purify that part of his nature which we call subconsciousness and remember subconsciousness is the result of what we think and what we feel on the qabalah shown by the green and the orange circle that continuously feeds through the channels of those tarot keys and forces into subconsciousness the patterns which make our physical universe but the point is this when we die we take it with us that is our pattern so that our rabbis and ministers can have themselves a hellish time because they figure they deserve hell for nonsense they were too blind they could not see tied to dogma tied to nonsense tied to darkness they They were locked inside the coffins, whereas here in this Tarot Key, we give you the continuous impact of being released from the coffins of dogmas and nonsense and illusions and delusions.

And as we release ourselves from these coffins, we are at least developing better conditions for ourselves when we die. Now what really occurs when we die? The truth is different things occur with different people depending on the degree of acute self-consciousness they have evolved and the ability to handle and direct their thinking feeling processes as we are taught consistently in all occult schools of thought that it's what we think and feel it builds our lives The same thing is true on what we call the astral world Except it is more acutely true. It happens more instantaneously more immediately So that when we die whatever our basic world has been in our mind We find ourselves in that same state of consciousness but with a far greater intensity of reality in relation to the thinking feeling process in this way for example if we've been walking around with our head in the clouds and hardly ever know where we are or why we are you know dreaming daydreaming especially a lot of occultist parents like to daydream about how spiritual they are you know and they walk around trying to feel very serene and that ought to be pretty easy since they're not anywhere or apply themselves to anything that could even begin to upset them they're so withdrawn they walk around sort of apple brains like this removed from reality when this type dies they float around in a dream world so completely that know that none of the entities that are awake can even begin to wake them up absolutely fastened to their illusion but could anybody wake you up here such a dear friend of mine I remember and I thought how very foolish of him was missing the charm of my companionship because he was so determined I don't mean to be vain it's just to get a smile and keep you awake because he was so determined to be thinking about the fact that this world is a hellish place, a demon's paradise. And so he missed the fact that he was in beautiful California. The mountains were glorious, the sun was shining, the sky was very blue. It was not a smuggy day even. There were birds singing. He was driving his own car, had me by his side.

Did he enjoy it? Was he here and now being alert? No. He was lost in his private hell.

Now this same individual has said many a time, I don't see any reason for going in for all this hocus pocus nonsense, all this crazy, these crazy colors and symbols. That's all right for children, for these barbarians, these unevolved savages, but not for something as highly evolved as I am. That's what he thought of himself. He's so highly evolved that he has his hell well organized even here and it's rather sad to think what he will have to go through on the other side because it's unnecessary he's determined that if you lead the good life that is if you're kind and thoughtful that that's all you need you're going to evolve automatically my darlings this is not true no matter how many people try to tell you and teach it to you this is what you might call all really milk for the babes. It's not meat for men. It's very important to be kind and good.

But do you know how to be kind and good? The cannibals probably figure they know how to be kind and good too, don't they? In order to know how to be kind, in order to know what goodness is, we have to have consciousness. We have to know what truth is. We have to stop being blind and learn how to see. We have to know who and what the true son of man is and the true son of God is, which is the same thing.

Then we know how to be kind. Then we won't be killing some people with our kindness. Haven't we seen many do it? Maybe a few of us have attempted it. Ruin them, absolutely. All the time thinking we're so spiritual.

Or the reverse.

Ignorance is the great sin.

Evolution is meant to eliminate ignorance. Ignorance is being tied inside that coffin with the lid down.

Illumination and seeing is having that lit up and having the vibration of the Holy Guardian angel living in us with us through us of us around us so those who walk around with beautiful serene smiles on their faces like the Christian science practitioner in the story saying all is good all is good they may look very sweet and I don't know in a way they may have something there but they're not living intense reality they're not evolving a coping with matter with the universe as we experience it with changing the conditions with understanding them with the profound insights that are essential so they're not really accomplishing anything all they're saying is I'm not here they don't like it so they're not all right that is not uh that's not the sort of thing we want to take with us not being here because when we do drop this physical vehicle we want to be wherever we are and we want to be aware of it don't we now the thing that is really needed and needed desperately we have been told by the inner school so many times is that we have more self-conscious instruments passing over from here to there so they can keep working, helping, living in that area of vibrational field of beingness that we call the astral sphere.

But most people don't because they either withdraw, find themselves in their own hells because of their guilt, or their own I am not here's, or they're floating around lost in their own dream worlds of illusions just like we do here it's no different that's the funny part of it it is really no different it's just that we don't understand we think we see a human being around us and we don't realize most the time he's not around us at all people who are truly clairvoyant have noticed that at night when we sleep those people who are very much not here who live in these illusions they float around their astral bodies float around haphazardly washed and blown by every psychic wind while they sleep whereas occult aspirants who have developed enough self-consciousness and ability to control and direct their attention and will and emotions actually work in the astral world perform positive things even while their bodies are sleeping in other words they're already being a positive element in that area where they are anyway because remember again it's taught in Qabalah when we die we don't go anywhere we have an astral body right now we live in this astral body right now our attention is withdrawn from the physical vehicle or the physical level and becomes focused in the astral level or the subconscious level and therefore everything that is is true of us subconsciously is the thing we experience the most intensely that's all but in a way this is true here it's just that we interpret our outside as being other than the projection of subconsciousness nevertheless as you'll even see on the tree of life as qabalah teaches the physical universe physical experience is a projection from that astral subconscious level you see there's just one it projects one path down and that's the physical universe the bottom the bottom sphere called Malkuth the kingdom and this is the kingdom we all are destined to rule of course most of us can't even see it around us let alone rule it yet and we must learn to rule this kingdom in order to be able to rule and live and function properly on the other side and it's easier to manipulate our consciousness here than it is there that's one of the reasons it's so important to focus on growing ourselves that capacity now again those who have exalted ideas of their own spiritual development say and want to find an ear and never can you know how many people want a lot of attention and want to be thought super extra wonderful special marvelous and naturally they don't have that fulfillment. It's a curious thing. We get fulfilled all over the place when we drop the physical vehicle. Now what happens that many of these types, if they have developed enough self-consciousness, so they're not too completely lost in their illusion, but just partially, they will often decide that they are now going to be spiritual teachers and you'll find many psychics who are in contact with what they think are very high spiritual beings who are in contact with nothing more or less than people who have been very frustrated on this level as to being accepted where no one would listen to them and so by saying I am your spiritual teacher and thus and thus they get all this respectful attention from from people who are psychic enough to be aware.

So they are fulfilling themselves in a way, but they're still lost in illusion and they're remaining very earthbound too, of course, because they just are helping others who will receive them to be lost in just as much of an illusion. That's why if one is psychic, one must be very careful about that phenomenon.

If you have real insight into human nature here, you'll have insight into what occurs on psychic realms because it's really no different, but how many people have insight into human nature here. And again, you can see the the little reading from the Gospel, this before I was blind and now I see, this insight that must develop.

So we must understand what goes on in human hearts and human minds to think that because Aunt Mehidabal or Uncle Oscar died that suddenly they're going to be able to help us know what stocks to buy in order to have a lot of money Which many people seem to think happens is quite ridiculous Why should if they really were able to contact Aunt Mehidabal or Uncle Oscar if it isn't just somebody parading as Aunt Mahitabal or Uncle Oscar just to get attention in as much as on this plane how many here would say they aren't quite delighted when they have attention and you wouldn't be human if you said you weren't maybe you need a little examination of a subconscious pattern in as much as human nature delights in attention imagine how many any of the entities on the other side deliberately get attention by parading as anything you want them to be since they can read the subconscious as easily as we read a newspaper because naturally that's the area they're in they play back for you whatever you want so to rely on any kind of psychic information or psychic advice is being pretty ridiculous you might just as well go to somebody who reads a crystal ball here and you'll get just as bad advice but at least you won't be endangering yourself with some of the psychic obsessions that can occur though it'll cost you a few dollars maybe so it depends on which is more important to you but you're certainly not going to get proper advice from somebody who's died just because they're dead because why should they be any smarter than they were if anything usually they're not quite as smart because in as much as when you die you're closer to your whole world of illusion it's more direct and immediate there is usually less at least apparent self-consciousness on the other side than here unless you have developed the ability to be self-conscious and directing with your mind, your heart, and your aspirations.

We know of one individual who had been a very wonderful reformer on this plane, and he lived to quite a ripe age, did many wonderful things. However he had a feeling of weariness in his heart and just wasn't sure that there was such a thing as survival and had a desire to just go off into as long arrest as possible well it so happens this is a true case I have had it verified and I know this particular individual actually slept for 50 years before ministering angels and other highly evolved souls finally managed to help him wake up he had enough self-consciousness so he was able to wake up the thing that kept him in this deep sleep was the fact that this is what he had wanted and because he just didn't think that there was such a thing as survival you see whatever we think or feel or believe this is what occurs at least for a while that's the whole point and he was so ashamed of himself when he became aware of what foolishness he had been in of the fact that he had so wasted this wonderful consciousness that he had because he had the capacity to do a lot of wonderful work for humanity and here he slept away 50 years of it he still has little quivers of it occasionally though he's overcome that which takes us to the next point the importance of keeping in mind that we do survive here is what we ought to realize if it is not true if we do not survive have we lost anything by saying to ourselves survival is a fact if we do not survive we won't know the difference so we won't be making ourselves miserable later however if we do survive and it's important to have that as a conscious intense knowledge then when we drop the physical vehicle and actually wake up to find ourselves in a body just looking just like the other one only let's hope a lot prettier usually it's prettier when we give it a chance then by accepting the idea of survival we have made the conditions which would help us to function the most actively. We therefore have nothing to lose by saying I am going to go on the assumption that I survive, period. We have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.

That is the point. And the reason we mention this is because we know of a case. This was a very interesting case. This man was the dean of one of the most important and largest universities in this country, and he had been so busy, his field had been in the legal field, he had been quite an expert in law, so that he never had the time to go into any of the researches in the psychic, occult, metaphysical or religious fields he did have a feeling or basic belief in god well he had a friend who had been a scientific psychic researcher and this friend the psychic researcher got a letter from him dealing with economics answered him and all of a sudden the psychic researcher had a compulsion to add a paragraph after writing the letter saying dear friend I don't know why but I have the compulsion to mention to you because we never discussed this together that I have spent 25 years in psychic research applying all the scientific methods and my final conclusion is that human consciousness absolutely and definitely survives I thought that you would like to know that was all. Of course each knew that the other was very a very careful researcher. He never heard from him until about two to three months later he received a letter from this Dean's daughter saying that her father had died very suddenly and she found this letter in her father's file and realized it had not yet been answered because it was in the unanswered file and wanted to tell him.

Well, about ten years later, our psychic researcher was with a friend who is intensely awake and aware in the areas of survival, was born more or less clairvoyant and clairaudient. And this psychic friend said to the psychic researcher, there's someone here who says that he was in law he said that he knew you through a university and he wanted me to tell you that you your last letter now mind you this psychic knew nothing about any of this in fact our psychic researcher had forgotten about this incident that it was had in ten years previously and he said in my and I wanted to tell you that your letter that little note you added meant everything to me and I shall be eternally grateful to you because in as much as I had never taken the time to research any of this I was completely agnostic as to survival I neither believed nor didn't believe I just didn't feel I knew and when I heard what you had to say I knew that you were such a careful researcher that it would be very foolish of me not to accept your conclusions and when I died it was a very simple thing for me to immediately wake up and get busy just because I had this belief in my consciousness this is how important it is I tell you the story so that you can feed your recognition of your eternal beingness. This is how important it is in terms of effective activity on the other side to accept survival at least tentatively even if we can't be real emotional about it. It makes that much of a difference when we die. And I see that we're coming close to the end of the time.

I do want to then stress the things we need to do to work on in order to be sure we take with us that which is required and not a lot of the excess baggage which unfortunately we are so prone to we don't want to we don't want to find ourselves when the time comes because everybody drops the physical vehicle sooner or later it is true the masters of wisdom have attained to such astonishing control of the energies that make up the physical vehicle that they can stay around in a physical vehicle for many many hundreds of years nevertheless that's still many hundreds of years but remember they function consciously on the astral level as well as in and through the physical body depending on what they're doing when they put the body to sleep for a rest they are conscious in the work they're doing on with the astral level fields because that's a vital field we are all working on the astral level all the time our whole life experience is an impact on subconsciousness which is the astral level so that even though a master of wisdom may keep a physical vehicle for many hundreds of years still sooner or later he's going to drop it and go off to some other place or some other function and some other vehicle it's not you don't keep a physical vehicle forever it's vital to know what we are to do in order to become integrated subconsciously and self-consciously which means what astrally and physically and spiritually In other words, on all the levels of our being.

And we will not do it by just sitting and meditating on God, though that is an absolute essential for the spiritual aspiration. And we will not do it by just leading whatever our concept is of a good life, because some of the things we might think we're doing, which happens to be, according to our own concept, good, might be terribly vicious, basically. Like for instance the parents that think they're being so good to their children and won't let them do a thing which reminds me of that other story that certainly with this title we ought to again remind you of of the man who died and while he had been on this plane he just dreamed and dreamed and dreamed of leading an easy life of not having to do anything at all of just being weighted on hand and foot being free of all responsibility responsibility. This to him was his idea of heaven. So he died. And as we said, we are always fulfilled, beloved. Remember, we are always fulfilled. We must be careful to know what it is we are wanting, in other words, learn to see. Because this man died and he found himself in the most beautiful mansions with a personal valet who cooked all his meals, brought them to him, wouldn't even let him tuck his napkin under his chin he would tuck it in for him he would put him to bed and he'd get him up he wouldn't let him put a sock on or tie a shoelace he did every last thing for him and our man just relaxed and said oh boy isn't this the life and so this went on and on and uh there's nothing he was permitted to do nope where he was permitted to go everything was brought to him in always every detail finally this got a little boring and the man got a little restless and he tried to do a few things for himself but his valet wouldn't let him said oh no sir here it is not permitted and he would not let him do anything at all finally he just went to pieces practically and said blankety he blank blank blank why I might as well be in hell and the valet looked at him in surprise and said but my dear sir wherever in the world did you think you were so that let's not yearn to to be weighted on hand and foot let's not yearn to be relieved of responsibilities let's not yearn for all the physical things thinking that's how physical things are beautiful and fine but thinking that the physical things will bring the full fulfillment they're wonderful if we know that they're just passing experiences and it's very good to want physical things merely to know what they are as an experience but remember always there's the danger of becoming attached to them and the moment you become attached to anything this is what you take with you you do take it with you the attachment and for instance they're the drunkards well you know what happens to them when they pass over they are they remain earthbound and they hang around saloons and they try to experience vicariously through other drunkards the experience of drink this is what happens with a drunkard God knows how long this goes on usually it's quite a few incarnations until they just really hit the dregs and become desperate enough to start developing a little more control over these false appetites and those who are so madly in love with money for instance what in the world are they going to do with money on the other side when we say you do take it with you they'll take their passion and attachment for money with them and you know what they'll even be able to manufacture loads of it loads of it but isn't what are they going to do with it since everybody in the astral world builds with their own minds and their own emotions they build directly to the degree you've learned how to demonstrate well here to that degree can you build yourself the most terrific mansions of the astral so what good's all that money going to be all he's going to know how to do if he's mad about money is how to picture money and if he believes that there's rain and snow there I'll tell you something he'll have it you see the catholics aren't completely wrong when they talk about purgatory they just don't quite understand it we experience on the other side what we believe in and we manufacture factor with our consciousness that which we've become attached to. So we have to learn to become attached to the one guiding higher self, to the true principle in life. We must learn to keep our attention here and now to be able to see in every detail what the beauty of a mountain is like, and a tree, and a leaf, and a creature, and a person, so that we can truly create as we're supposed to you see the whole idea we walk around don't know where we are I will have a very boring kind of landscape to create there and we all we'll probably have to pass various tests and I hate to see some of the grades some of us would make if we were told to in our consciousness say to build a mountain landscape with trees and a few birds and yet this is part of the way we serve all of life and serve God, because finally, I don't know how many umpteen billion years from now, but finally, never forget, we are being evolved so we too can be the creators of solar systems and planets.

Sooner or later.

And we are already the creators of solar systems and planets, except that some of our planets aren't they horrible because remember every one of us lives in our in the world as it looks to us in our own consciousness we all have our private world to the degree that we attain to union with the higher self with god to that degree do we learn to share the vision of the higher self and then build in terms of that vision we're learning how to build with our minds and with our heart and this is what we take with us and the kind of experience we have the ability to continue to serve from that side to serve it all indeed has to do with how much we work on our consciousness here and that is why we hammer you with the Tarot and with the Qabalah and if we sometimes seem to hammer a little too hard or if sometimes it seems that we are stuck in a rut with what we say please remember we're trying to put across the most vital thing there is in life the most vital thing that there is for all of us so let's go out of here after the service today and let's make up our minds to look much more carefully at the bird and at the tree and at the sky and at the mountains and at people and at ourselves and at our thoughts and at our feelings and to try to become intensely grateful for every awareness in order to help us in the by and by and the curious thing is this that it is by what we do here and now and making here and now lovelier that we have the the by and by and it isn't pie in the sky by and by either there you make you learn how to bake your pie here and you'll enjoy the flavor and the by and by in a way that you can scarcely begin to realize we'll tell you more about the various conditions there and other levels during other talks on that subject but remember to go out and examine the beauty of God and let our consciousness picture it in perfection in detail in glory.