How Tarot Negates Lack.Wav

This morning we're going to talk about how Tarot negates lack.

Of course, first of all, we should decide together what we mean by lack.

You see, one of our greatest problems happens to be that we have been raised in a civilization where the materialistic sense of having and not having, where the ideas of lack or lack of lack, have come to be tied up just about completely with the wherewithal that is the amount of dollars and or the amount of securities or real estate which could be turned into dollars it seems especially in this culture the idea of lack and lack of lack has been almost completely tied up with those I with those conceptions. However, it isn't only in this culture. Down through the ages, through every time, through every climb, the idea of lack, the idea of having or not having, has been consistently assigned to the materialistic or physical thing. Now, first of all let's agree together that certainly we are not denying the requirement for physical things the Lord of life has us concentrated at this point in and through a physical vehicle living and experiencing life in and through the appearance which we experience as a material world And this is real. It is not unreal. The fact that it is something other than we interpret still does not make it unreal.

Because if, as we have told you before, the entire universe is really the concept in the mind of God, what could be more real than a concept in the mind of God? Therefore, the impact of a table, or a chair, or a stone or a tree or the touch of an object. It may not be what it seems to be to our limited senses, but it is still real in terms of its own reality. Therefore living as we do during an incarnation in a physical world, we certainly have requirements. If we haven't got enough to eat we're going to suffer from malnutrition and if it's worse than that some dogs aren't loving each other we should give them a lecture so why that would help I don't know I was never able to teach my dog toddy to love her her not only her fellow neighbor but the canine the feline species with whom she shared a roof, that is, my cat. She had a very reprehensible character there, and I'm afraid it made me love her even more.

So I don't expect they would listen to my lecture after all, but we always hope. Nevertheless, the truth is that if we haven't got enough to eat, we'll die of hunger or if we have no food and if we haven't got water we'll die even more rapidly and if we haven't got shelter over our heads we will die usually we'll catch pneumonia and or some such thing so there's no question at all that while we live in the vibrational level that we call the physical world we need food clothing and shelter. Well we don't need clothing quite as much for instance in this climate as they do in the North Pole or in Switzerland. Still we need it. I'd hate to have to go out without anything in this kind of weather as I'm sure you would even if we were still living in the Garden of Eden. The climate would not be very good for it. So we do require certain things food clothing and shelter. Yet there are times when we haven't got it. And in what we call the elementary metaphysical teachings, a certain idea has grown up which incidentally in some ways has poisoned occultism more than almost any one thing.

This is a shame, yet it can't be avoided. The idea has grown up in, we would say say practically 99 out of 100 metaphysical schools of thought, though you at least, thank God, you always have that hundredth one, that to have whatever the world or the culture we're living in conceives as lack is somehow shameful. It seems to prove that we're not living right, we're not thinking right, therefore we're not spiritual. So in order to be spiritual you have to have whatever your culture's concept is of affluence. Now we ask you what kind of a spiritual teaching is this? If you haven't got a job or if you can't find a job, if you're going to be thrown out because you can't pay your rent, if you haven't got the money to eat, then what these people will do is fit very spiritually these modern Pharisees and they'll say now what's the matter with her thinking what's the matter with his thinking what are they doing with their consciousness and they will look so profound about it the modern Pharisees is what we should call them really just as in the days of Jesus And with this profundity they will be announcing that certainly the individual suffering at the moment is in a very low state of evolution. Otherwise, why such a condition? Why such a situation?

And as we said we feel this is perhaps the most tragic thing that has occurred in so-called metaphysical circles and yet we must call them metaphysical circles all right then do we say the opposite certainly not you see here's where the problem comes in a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and never so dangerous as when unevolved fools get hold of it and in as much as practically all of humanity is unevolved and certainly the mental abilities and capacities are just as limited as the other elements of our unevolved personalities the inability to see correctly and the inability therefore to evaluate properly is inevitable still we as Qabalists must see it as it is let's understand what the principle really means the idea that consciousness creates and let's not make the mistake of tying it up with how modern a car or how late a car someone is driving and just what their financial situation happens to be at the the moment. We must learn to throw these values out, and it will be difficult in case you don't know it, because you will be pounded as you are pounded every single day of your lives through the radios and the TVs and the newspapers and other people. You will be continuously pounded with the idea of the requirement of things. You're going to die practically if you haven't got one of their breakfast foods of course and you're not going to be able to be really springy and full of life unless you're swallowing one of their vitamins and of course you're not going to be able to face your neighbor unless you have one of their cars and certainly your house is going to be a menace and a shame to walk into you will want to commit suicide should anyone walk into your house unless you're using Scrucio Mucho cleaning something or other you know that I mean you're pounded continuously with the need for things and it's a continuous hypnotic suggestion that is going on the value that exists all right now let's consider values of course we remember Jesus said that it is harder for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle or no a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven that is mistranslated but in essence it's a correct idea of what is a rich man and worlds in the world's terms and what is a rich man in terms of true occultism what is true value and what is not what is having and what is not having well through the tarot you are taking taken into a whole series of principles step by step by step to show you just what it is you start off with the fool and this fool you know oh is he dumb the only worldly belongings he carries is on a little stick over his shoulders imagine anybody that stupid he hasn't got anything any he hasn't got anything to invest in real estate which is going to multiply by I don't know how much nor in the vault or any other place he carries his belongings lightly blithely in a debonair matter manner over his shoulders because he's the free life power which you and I are remember every every one of those tarot keys symbolize the spirit of us and this is the beginning the fool is really the beginning and the end of all things what the world might call wise is not what the fool is because the world's idea of wisdom and the true spiritual aspirant knowledge of what wisdom is these happen to be very different things very different indeed so we have this adventurer this debonair secure and we repeat this debonair and secure figure marching with joy from mountaintop to mountaintop descending into the valleys burdened lightly indeed and ready to march up to the next one gathering riches the likes of which you have never known yet the riches of experience and what other riches could we have you've heard me tell about the man who had a difficult time trying to get into heaven and finally st. Peter decided to ask God about it and after God thought it over for a while it seemed this man had only done one good deed in his whole life he had to think and think a long time before he remembered at this nickel he remembered he'd given a nickel to a beggar and so finally God said well I'll tell you what you do Saint Peter you give him back his nickel and tell him to go back to hell to go to just go to hell after all this this is how much value money has with God anyway if we learn nothing else from the story mind you not that the true occultist looks down money is something to be without it is true that in the east and in many other parts of the world when a human being has decided that he or she is going to make god the beginning and end of all things is going to give up all things is not going to permit any extraneous thing to interfere that such individuals usually give up all their worldly goods this is a typical part of what has been done in certain instances and it has happened in all schools of thought they give up everything in order to follow the only thing that they want and that is to find illumination to find God and You know in the east there are these bigger cups. They go out with a cup and have the population feed them Well, we're not recommending anything like that because after all we live in the West we do not live in the east and If we try to do that, they'd arrest us for vagrancy Well, of course we'd get food But we probably would prefer to be outside where we could watch the blue sky and see the sun shining So it wouldn't be exactly in accordance with the way we want to find God Especially as the odor would not be very pleasant when they threw drunks in with us nevertheless We do have a different system in the East and in the West and in the Western school of occultism We certainly do not recommend that you give everything up that you just sneer at the world the world's goods turn your back on it and go marching off towards God I think that if you try doing it out here you'd probably land in a mental institution I'm not sure you'd belong there but mind you but you would certainly land there and you would be showing a lack of discrimination if nothing else because we do have to live within the areas that life has placed us and certainly then we do have to live in such a way that we can plan that which we require in terms of food clothing and shelter but is this what we do you see we have given values to things beyond the simple needs food clothing and shelter We are ashamed if someone comes into our home, for instance, if it doesn't isn't exactly as nice or as beautiful or as bright as Joe Doak's home. We're ashamed of our car if it isn't as modern a model. And we're ashamed of our clothes if we haven't gotten the latest style and seen that the hemline is just at that spot and the waist wherever it should be or with the man if the jacket isn't fitted it just so. I mean we have accepted values that take a precedence and have taken us away from the real values. The truth of the matter is that no human being who has a great deal of money can ever be rich because he has the money. The, I don't know how many people you have known who were very well endowed with the world's riches but I know I've known quite a few and I can say without any question that every one of them were very miserable human beings not that money must necessarily make you miserable but it's much harder not to be miserable with money than with it believe it or not believe it or not it is true just one example you have a lot of money how are you ever going to know whether people love you for you or because they look up to your status and your money just that alone just think how would you like to walk through life never knowing whether it's really you whom they love and these people know it they walk a very lonely road the people who have a super abundance a real super abundance of the money and yet some people have this kind of karma where it is their responsibility to have more than most but this doesn't make them happy the most emotionally insecure human beings that you'll ever find are those who are apparently the most economically secure furthermore the thing you want to remember that no one is that economically secure a person can be a billionaire and lose it tomorrow no one knows what's going to happen and what good would being a billionaire or a millionaire doing you once you drop this physical vehicle and go you know up there let's hope not down there what good is that money going to do you none at all because it isn't how much you have ever in this world that matters it's what you do with what you've got we are very fortunate in this country because we have so much less of the really serious poverty which exists in the world but do you know there isn't a single human being dying of hunger or dying of exposure in this world not one of whom if we only knew it we would be able to say that we are not in some measure responsible we yes personally are fortunate to be here but we don't even begin to know the meaning of what real having is until we recognize that there is no such thing as true having until every human being on the face of the earth in every country in the world also has this is the real having but most of us we have to have and we have to sort of hold it tight away from the others I knew someone who had been terribly poor all her life and she was quite contented with the state of affairs. It never occurred to her that it was bad.

She was used to it and she had tremendous contentment. Situations changed and all of a sudden she found herself having $250. She almost went out of her mind with worry. Her sister had lost money when the bank had folded up so she was afraid to put it in the bank. She was afraid to hide it in the house. The burglar might come and steal it there. She was afraid to invest it because something might happen there why it was fantastic this serene contented little gal suddenly miserable because she was rich now to you 250 you smile but don't forget it's the same way that somebody who might be a billionaire would smile at somebody thinking you had a lot of money if you had a hundred thousand dollars I mean it's a matter of relationship values isn't it so the lack that we feel usually is in terms of what we've decided we require in terms of the world's standards rather than our own as far as just the sense of money and the things that money buys is concerned but then there's a far deeper principle involved here and now we will try to enter into that principle the principle that we with our tarot work the principle which we as occult aspirants must learn to use we really must learn to use this principle if we are ever going to overcome the tragic insecurity which is at the heart of all our problems in other words what we are saying in essence is that having the money or the things is not going to overcome the fear and the insecurity you might think it will but we hope that you have enough wisdom to recognize not by now that it really wouldn't we hope you've known enough people who've had it and watched their lives to see that it doesn't work that way we hope you've seen people become possessed by and obsessed by their possessions and maybe all of us have to some measure which again is like digging another little inch in the grave of our consciousness instead of letting it wash itself upward into the Sun we get things and then we become slaves to them and becoming slaves to our things happen to be one of the most insidious of poisons that can happen to the soul especially when you remember you're not taking it with you. We'll give up everything we as human beings will destroy, we will stab in the back, we will betray, we will do some of the most extraordinary things in order to be able to keep whatever it is we value in our things or get in in terms of money or things. This is what we as human beings have done to each other down through the ages and which we as human beings continue to do to each other in various ways.

Sometimes it's much more subtle than other ways and this is one of the greatest dangers on the path. Because what is having and what is not having? What we have is consciousness. Consciousness you remember we told you that this whole idea of that has come to be known consciousness creates has been so misunderstood misinterpreted and misused by the majority of the metaphysical schools consciousness creates but what is forgotten is that when we say consciousness creates one is not talking about the puny personality and this is one of the mistakes we make. Consciousness is the God consciousness creating in and through us and all things.

And that which we require for a specific period of our evolution is the kind of consciousness we will be most apt to have with the push from the divine life to help us become aware of where the immaturity lies so that we can, in conscious cooperation, with the divine will change whatever the consciousness is. For example, you, I haven't mentioned it perhaps to this group, but a very dear friend of mine meditated and meditated on having a lot of money. Consciousness creates, you see. And he meditated and meditated and he could just see those bills in his hands and count them and they were just masses and stacks of them. Well, it took years and years and years and all of a sudden one day he realized he certainly had all those masses of bills and was counting them only they weren't his he was the steward for somebody else it was going somewhere else through him said to him to take and put and put into another area for the person to whom it belonged consciousness creates you are you getting the subtlety that's involved so what do you think you're gonna do you're gonna say aha then I won't make his mistake I'll see all these bills and I'll watch and I and I'll see myself putting it in the bank with a bank book that has my name on it in In order to avoid that hazard, it wouldn't work.

It wouldn't work. If it isn't in your immediate or close destiny to have it, you'd never see that bank book clearly enough to see, or your name wouldn't, it would waver.

Consciousness does create, but it creates only that which it is your destiny to create for the next cycle in order to bring about your finest and best growth. And you can stand on your heads and do yoga exercises for 24 hours a day. And you're only going to be able to hold in your consciousness those pictures which your past karma and your future karma make essential that you hold for your future growth, for the experience you need for tomorrow.

This is where most metaphysical students get all balled up, you see. This is where they fall into the trap of why they fall into the trap of condemning other human beings and sitting in judgment on them for not being better creators with this magnificent consciousness of theirs because they just don't see the full principle that little knowledge is a very dangerous thing and then sooner or later they fall and start to realize that they haven't seen things correctly, but when they fall they fall a lot harder than they might have fallen that they had a little more perception so it is true my sweet ones that consciousness creates but don't try to overcome it in the way I just suggested if what you want is a lot of money I hope that you're not that foolish what would you do with it I mean you think ah I'll buy a house and I'll do this and I'll do that and I'll do the other and I'll do the other it's the wrong concept if god has given you shelter you are fortunate if you want a more beautiful shelter live in it with your heart and in time you'll have a more beautiful shelter but you won't have it unless you see the shelter you have you're in right now is beautiful that is the secret of it truly sounds so simple I know that there are lots of people who occasionally have a tendency to criticize me because of my or shall we say indifference to certain aspects of metaphysics like consciousness creates tra la la let's be affluent you know and and show how successful we are I've had I've had criticism that way more than once, I was told, you, after all, are the symbolic representation of what BOTA stands for.

Therefore, you should be wearing the finest clothes, and not just plain clothes, the finest, the most expensive, just made to order, and you should be driving the most modern car. If you're not an example for this work, how do you expect people to follow you and then take up the work?

And this kind of makes me very sad and I think sometimes I'm just not suited to be the head of BOTA because if that's important I sort of can't seem to do it I'm not that interested in clothes I love to dress up and I'm not that interested in a modern car I have a 1952 English Ford Anglia and I drive when I drive it I feel richer than any of you who might have a Cadillac as a matter of fact I think a Cadillac as a horribly big on a big expensive bulky mountain that people push around I don't know why they want to bother with it but I believe in freedom and if you want to enjoy it enjoy it but I don't see why I should have to be driving around some very expensive of something when I feel that the work requires whatever funds there are far more than that I should present an affluent appearance. I would hope that those who follow us would feel enriched because of the riches of the kind of love that we can send you, and the enlightenment we can bring you, and the inspiration we can lift you to, so that you can go out and walk in real riches and in real having, so that you could walk around and say, Thank you, God, for the eyes to see.

This is having. This is riches. For ears to hear. This is having. And this is riches. For fingertips to feel with. And lips to kiss with.

And I hope that I won't be criticized if I say I think it's a lovely thing to have lips to kiss with. Maybe you might think that that's unspiritual, but that is very spiritual to use consciousness creates in order to have a million dollars or the latest clothes and so on. But you see, I mean, it's a matter, it's a matter of values. That's all that it amounts to. And he who walks through life feeling the riches of the spirit, and tarot is what trains us to do it, of course, step by step by step. He who walks through the highways and byways with the heart pouring out with love and compassion to a fellow man. He who tries to dry a tear wherever it is present. He who gives an encouraging word, and she incidentally, remember.

These people have a far greater riches and incidentally this is what brings back the riches because as you pour from yourself the ancient occult axiom is you project the light in order to make room for more and as you give so do you receive and that's why when I was offered a few years ago the choice of a gift of a nice new car that would give nice prestige to bota or the same money to be put into the down of a larger down payment for our temple you see we have the temple seems to me that this is something that is far more rich because this gives me the ability to to give to you the riches of the Spirit in ever greater measure. And it gives you the privilege of receiving and returning back to us, incidentally helping us pay off the mortgage in greater measure.

Because real having is the ability to let, to flow out and receive back. Real having is in using what you have with love, in having a need to return whatever good you have, in other words, in having gratitude to God and to life and to people, and to pour this gratitude out in acts and in thoughts and in monetary ways, if you happen to be in a position so to do. This This is the having and he who has in this spirit will never be without. He who gives of this spirit will never go hungry, will never go thirsty, will never be without shelter, no matter where he walks on the face of the earth.

And it may not be in the same manner that human thought considers it. There's more, much more I would have liked to say, but we haven't got the time now.

So we'll just finish this morning's talk with this one little reminder watch your consciousness because it is true that consciousness creates but watch it in a very special way do not let fear enter into your hearts for tomorrow as jesus said instead think of the fool as your beginning those of you who are studying the tarot at home will have even the further practices and works think of the fool and the debonair security of a life that is eternal also do not let the riches that you have pass you by unnoticed the ability to walk to talk to eat, to drink, to dream, to speak, to aspire, to touch, to love. Watch these things in yourselves and let your hearts flow with gratitude and keep saying, I thank you, Lord of the universe, whatever it is you are. I thank you for this riches of the Spirit and train yourself to let flow to flow and that which flows out will come back and if you receive this help and this inspiration remember he who receives must also learn how to give in other ways that are needed and it is up to you to have the gratitude because an ungrateful heart loses its ability and the capacity incidentally to pour the thank you that is a part of the real riches of the spirit and the security that does come even into material circumstances at last. As a matter of fact, one more last point. Remember if your heart is pouring love and gratitude your emanations will be so nice and sweet that other people will love having you around and you can't avoid opportunities that will help you materially even if you were going to try to it's that simple so seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you which is that