You are Immortal

The title of our talk for this morning is, You Are an Immortal.

And as you can see, we're speaking about Tarot Key number 13, called Death.

And there before you on the Tarot Key, we have this rather grim-looking figure, looking looking like the Grim Reaper.

Reaping.

You can see it's reaping.

Obviously.

And it seems to be reaping some very peculiar kinds of things there.

On the surface, it looks like a very unbeautiful key.

After all who enjoys looking at a skeleton also the reaping aspect doesn't look very appetizing either does it on the surface but symbolically what we see here is that this figure is reaping understanding that's the woman's head assigned to bina understanding and bina remember is the divine mother the understanding of the divine mother the understanding of the divine soul also the figure can be thought of as being the the bride of the kingdom Malkuth, who sits on the throne of Bina, which means we're being told that the manifested vehicle isn't really anything other than an aspect, an aspect of the Divine Mother or Bina.

So we have understanding here, being reaped and we have wisdom being reaped because the male figure is assigned to the wisdom chokmah on the tree of life, that's the gray Sephirah you see there wisdom and understanding, you even see them properly placed on their pillars if you look carefully And this crowned male figure also is assigned to the Divine Son, the Messiah Consciousness, also called the Christ Consciousness, that is the Redeemer Consciousness, which is known as Beauty. So that wisdom beauty the divine son and understanding the Queen the divine daughter are being portrayed here as that part of what is being reaped we also have hands and one foot the hands are symbolic of the handiwork of man we're reaping in accordance with our works you know by their works you shall know them the handiwork of man brings its reapings and you have two active hands one passive hand the passive hand doesn't quite give the full story because amongst its many other symbols it is also symbolic of yod or the yod the hand the hand of the divine will which is assigned to the hermit the hand of the divine guidance the ability or capacity to be receptive remember qabalah itself means to be receptive to receive the divine wisdom as a matter of fact is one of its deeper meanings so we have the reapings of this wisdom understanding handiwork we have the foot which is also the um reaping the paths we tread usually are involved with what we have been sowing from the previous times or climes.

And inasmuch as we are at the end of the Piscean Age and at the beginning of the Aquarian Age, you have one foot to indicate we're already stepped over into the Aquarian. The Aquarian is shown on this tarot key in more than one way. You see the white rose.

Now this is the same white rose seen in Tarot Key Zero, The Fool.

And if you'll notice, Tarot Key Zero, The Fool, he's holding this white rose. This is a sign to Uranus. Uranus is the ruler of Aquarius.

And in astrology, Uranus is exalted in Scorpio. Now exalted in a sign means that the highest and most potent expression of the qualities of that kind of consciousness are possible as being expressed through the shading of the meanings of a sign whatever the sign is scorpio is assigned to the reproductive organs meaning that there is the potential for exalted exalted, if you think of it as Eurimus, for exalted expression as regards the reproductive energy.

The Scorpio is also called the eighth house, the house of death, incidentally. That's one of the reasons we have, several reasons we have the skeleton there. And of course, everybody fears death, it seems, even people who don't think so, they do in a way. We always fear the unknown. Gnome we're more at home with the gnome so you could say that the uranus the exaltation of uranus has to do with learning how to become exalted within the idea of death going beyond death at least in one's insight understanding wisdom and then the eighth house is also the house of inheritance and of course reaping is really inheriting isn't it we are our own inheritors of course part of it is inheriting our genetic and race karma still it's a personal inheritance inheritance from the race inheritance from our genetics and inheritance from our own past workings, you know, the works of our hands, the handiworks.

So you have here many aspects interacting.

But more than that yet, the white rose is a symbol of the purification of desire. The red rose is a sign to desire.

The white rose is purified desire. Now when Qabalah, the secret wisdom, talks about purified desire, it is also referring to the highest expression that the desire nature can take in relation to the reproductive drives because of the idea of uranus remember exalted in scorpio and you know it's a rather interesting thing uh when you think of basic characteristics unless other things in a sign indicate otherwise like other placings of planets that are very strong the uranian temperament is not given to go to going into states of lust or desire via physical or material stimulus in other words the basic aquarium will fall in love and experience desire not because of any of the figure or the movements of a figure or any of the titillations that are strictly physical the Aquarian temperament basically enters into a state of desire if the mind is appealed to isn't that a rather interesting aspect many uh aquarians think of themselves as being rather abnormal when they listen to other people speak about what excites them for example and if you'll uh you get if you know various temperaments I think you'll discover that this This is basically correct.

Mind you, a person isn't just where the sun sign is. You have other elements entering into a chart. Also, all of us have the power to transmute our charts. We are all children of the Aquarian age, helping to usher in the Aquarian age. So all of us can be expressions of this Aquarian temperament. But it is a rather interesting commentary when we talk about purified desire that here we have desire that is able to take place not because of physical stimulus but because of stimulus to the mind, the soul you know, something higher not that being stimulated physically is evil they're just higher ways of being stimulated ways that are not dependent on strictly physical level expressions and of course in purified desire we find that the energies that drive us towards union on the physical plane are the self-same energies that give us the experience of union with God union with humanity and remember the Aquarian is the when the Aquarian age is thought of as the brotherhood of man that is when man feels in union with man when we feel like we are a brotherhood and we act like we are a brotherhood that is one of the indications, the response is other, we talk about it on and off in our Thursday night classes about this particular aspect but I think that this basic idea of purified desire has not been stressed quite enough before especially when you consider that this tarot key is assigned to scorpio the reproductive organs therefore the mars drive the very drive that brings forth the children of man from the seed of man self-same drive the self-same energy expresses in other and higher ways when we learn how to purify our desire and learning how to To purify our desire is something that we have to practice.

It doesn't come by itself. Not any more than a muscle develops by itself. You have to exercise it. And so also the way we interpret just about anything in life. We have to practice it. I like to call it developing spiritual muscles, which will then have greater power than the muscles we've used previously for lesser purposes.

Then, in this Tarot key, we also have other symbolisms that are very important to note.

We have the flowing river, which is always symbolic of consciousness.

And in this instance, the river is flowing towards the east.

Now, the whole movement is towards the east, so that you would say death is a return to the east, or to the dawn, rather than a setting. It's a rising sun. This is one of the messages of this symbolism, that the entire movement of the river of consciousness is towards the dawn or the rising of life, not the cessation of life.

Well, let's analyze a few of the Qabalistic attributions also.

The Hebrew letter Nun is attributed in the qualities of consciousness by Qabalah to the imaginative intelligence.

Now, don't get this confused with the image-making powers assigned to beauty on the tree of life. The image-making power is the power of the offspring of God to make images. The imaginative intelligence is the function of this, or the movement.

It is the movement of this power. In other words, the power to make images is in motion via the Hebrew letter Nun and therefore via the energies of Scorpio, via all the ideas we think of that have to do with death and with inheritance, as well as with the drives that lead to reproductive results.

Imaginative intelligence. Now most of us I'm sure are familiar with the fact that primitives use their imagination a great deal in erotic imagery and there's nothing wrong with that. When I was a child I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, when I became a man I put away childish things, things there's nothing wrong with it it's just that at a certain age we concentrate more in using some of our powers in one way as we grow older as we grow more in understanding as it's shown in the tarot key in wisdom as shown in the tarot key in uh inheriting that's what reaping is you you know, inheriting our karmic aspects, both happy and unhappy, as we receive these gifts of life, we find ourselves very much then in another state of being and we can very readily start to utilize these other states in a different manner.

The use of imagery is one of the most important messages of this key, as a matter of fact, because, again, Dr. Case points out in the lessons that the twist of the spine in the skeleton and the twist in the river are also saying to subconsciousness, we have to give a little twist to or a change of direction to our entire concept of all the things that the Scorpio energy the eighth house stands for with its Hebrew letter noon and that little twist we've talked about quite often this recognition that the significance of it and the aim of evolution is something a bit other than we have realized the realization that it is by taking in hand our very desire nature and making it a uranian exalted in scorpio kind because we have the power to do this wherever it may be in our chart you know because we are an interior cosmos cosmos learning how to develop whatever we can or what that relates to our higher aspirations every aspiration brings with it certain kinds of imagery so we must learn to change our imagery that which we think of as passion we need to change it into a more exalted kind of a passion we don't want to give up passion what we want to give up is letting passion push us around in lower expressions that we don't really require anymore we want to be able to express it in exalted manners with our beloved mate or in our own personal lives whether we are destined to have a mate in this incarnation or not the important thing is learning what is involved in purifying this desire and in keeping it and giving it the twist so that it will start feeding our higher centers and thus give us the capacity and the ability to use our imaginative intelligence in ways that go beyond that which we were capable of doing previously the other aspects that are also very important to understand for example noon is also called the fish as you heard in the lovely reading from the book of tokens and if you will recall the tarot key that's assigned to Aquarius, and that's the lovely star there.

The Hebrew letter assigned to that is called the fish hook. So if noon is the fish, that means if the reproductive energy is the fish, which it is. It is the meditation, because that's, remember Uranus is the purified desire we're talking about. It is the ability to meditate, and it is the kind of meditation you are being taught to do in the secret wisdom, that's the use of the fish hook that gets that fish out of the waters and makes it your own. And what is it that you make your own then? The imaginative intelligence is what you make your own. The understanding, the wisdom, the ability and capacity to bring about change, because change and propagation are also assigned to this tarot key, to this letter. Transformation is assigned to this tarot key, to this letter. So you see the ability to through meditation to hook this fish has a great deal to do in fact it has everything to do with the ability to discover that you are an immortal death is something on the physical plane that we see all the time and we see it in more ways than one we don't even realize that we're seeing it most of the time.

We don't seem to realize that there could be no such thing as life if there were not also death.

Because life is a continuous movement.

And movement in itself requires going from something to something else.

Now, if we're going from whatever is a something to the something else, that something has to cease to be in our immediate now. In other words, we are forever dying to old thoughts, old concepts, old experiences, but we do not recognize it.

Our very bodies, our cells, keep dying all the time, and that's why we're able to have a body that has life.

Indeed if the cells did not keep dying all the time we could not have the kind of body that is able to keep a balance a movement of livingness a process of growth from which we could reap the understanding and the wisdom when in genesis the serpent and remember that's one of the symbols for the Scorpio energy, the serpent, the eagle, and the Scorpio. All three are symbols of the reproductive energy, the reproductive power. So when the serpent told Eve that the knowledge of good and evil, that is the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, is good for wisdom, you see, inevitably also it was making it necessary in order to gain wisdom you have to take on the kind of consciousness the kind of experience that takes you out of one thing into another and going being taken out of one thing into another can also be called another aspect of the idea of life and death we have a way of fearing death and of weeping over for death and we have a way of rejoicing over the birth of life and yet those who know the wise ones who have gone beyond the outer forms of this birth and death as it's understood they tell us that the moment any aspect of life is born, it has the privilege of continuously dying until the final cessation of that particular vehicle, and that indeed death rather than being something to fear is something that we should all be very, very happy to have existing in this world and in this consciousness.

Dr. Case points out that if just one pair of codfish kept multiplying and there was no death, in the life of the one pair of codfish, if all the progeny stayed alive, nothing died, the entire Atlantic Ocean would be so stuffed full of codfish there could be no other life.

It would just be absolutely one solid mass in just the life of what we think of, the regular lifespan of the one pair of codfish.

Therefore, does it not seem that death is a rather fine idea in order to keep various movements going? We have apparent deaths take place at the end of a special season then comes a new season and a new seed comes into being you see the seed in this tarot key it's not doesn't show clearly there but it's in the upper left hand corner it should have been painted white as I remember so as to show up but what was is it painted there no neither seems to me I recall it should be painted white maybe we overlook putting it in the instructions that's quite possible but it's because otherwise it doesn't show up from its background anyway that is the seed of life and that seed of life walks hand in hand with death and isn't it interesting that the reproductive organs from which life comes because after all pregnancy takes place through using this energy that is this self same sign with its letter attribution that is also assigned to death well the message of the secret wisdom basically is that that which we call death is really transformation and change and it is what makes that which we call life possible if there were no death there could be no change change and death are synonymous a hitler would remain a hitler there could be no changing uh a monster would have to remain a monster there could be no way of changing it is only because of the benevolence that exists in life the benevolence of death the benevolence of change that we have growth we have evolution so all of evolution is really, as Dr. Case calls it, like the beads, the white, in the Book of Tokens it's mentioned, like the white and black beads on the single string.

And therefore it isn't a cessation of being as much as it is a change from being one thing into another. But as I pointed out, we have a way of thinking that if a thing changes from one thing, then it has ceased to be. And yet, the body you have right now, not a single cell in your body is the same cell you had something like a year ago. And if you think of seven years ago, my God.

And think of more years than that. You haven't got, and yet, you still think of it as being your body. But it is the principle of death that has kept you in the state where you are able to keep a line of lives and deaths going so that your consciousness is able to go through experience to reap its understanding, its wisdom, its harvests of the handiwork that brings us greater and greater capacity to move back towards whence we came, that is, to return to the beginnings from the endings and discover that, in essence, we've always been immortal. You see, when it became necessary for us to die in order to evolve, to fully develop the knowledge and wisdom. As we pointed out, transformation and change are an essential.

Knowledge and wisdom can only develop through experience. If there were no movement and change, life would become so boring.

Oh, how you would long to get out of it, and there'd be no way, no way at all. It is the change, the fact that everything is changing that makes life so precious and even when it goes through what seems to be the extreme change it is always precious because the truth of the matter is that it's the divine wisdom that's assigned to the life power and therefore the life in all of us is really the life of the divine father we may not know it consciously as yet but this is the truth of the matter and that's why that's one of the things we shall reap when we proceed when time enough has passed when we have strung enough little white and black beads on the string of lives which brings us from one state of evolution to the next and to the next Next, let's talk a little bit more about this idea of change.

It seems that almost everyone is quite insecure in some way or other.

Now, with some of us, the insecurity shows itself more in relationships. With others, it might show itself more in areas of possessions. With others, it might show itself more in work, jobs.

There are many, many ways and areas in which this insecurity shows up.

And this very feeling of insecurity that we usually have brings about a tendency to cling to anything, anything at all, that we're familiar with. Now that familiar thing we may be clinging to might be very painful. Still, we cling.

I remember so well the time when I was so torn in my own heart so many years ago with the idea of death and pain and felt I just had to have the answer to pain and death. If, in some way or other, if it could be had.

And I did get the answer. I became, I meditated, and I became evolution, the principle of evolution.

And this is something other than just seeing something. It isn't a psychic experience. When you become a thing, you're completely identified with it. And that's the only way you can know anything fully, you know, to be identified with it well I became absolutely and completely identified with the principle of evolution and in this experience the thing that struck me more than anything not while I was in it after I returned to my end consciousness but while I was in this experience the thing that struck me more than anything was the fact that those who kept fighting fighting to keep from going with the river the river was rushing rushing it's the evolution the movement change the rushing river moving moving so that the shores and the scenery is changing all the time but the ones in the river and the of course the river was stashed full of souls you know this is symbolic how we uh else are we going to express it now some souls were were fighting like hell excuse the spiritual expression but that's exactly how they were fighting there's no other way to put it to hang on to where they are or were they didn't want to go with the rushing river so rocks would come up and they would grab hands would come out grabbing for rocks grabbing for stones grabbing for anything that might be jutting out from the shore just fighting, fighting, wearing themselves out and the only result was they were bruising themselves cutting themselves, drowning themselves just becoming just a mess there were others that went with the river there weren't too many that's the spot of evolution there were others that just went with the river it they accepted change they were willing to go where the river was taking them they had a sort of awareness they were working with it in a way it was almost like you swim with a current and occasionally you even float you know you take a little rest and look at and you watch the scenery and then you go somewhere so you had everybody or all souls all livingnesses in this rushing river and some were absolutely slashing themselves into ribbons and others were having a ball and they were all going to the same place and it didn't do the ones that slashed themselves into ribbons didn't do them any good the river of evolution of consciousness is inexorable I like that word inexorable you can't get out of the river of evolution so why fight it you can't get out of the river of change why break your heart over it you can't get out of the river of growth why try to hang on to your immaturities you can't get out of it the river of consciousness inexorably is taking all things with it because you belong to it you belong to the consciousness of God to the rushing river taking you to the ocean and I experienced the river and I experienced the ocean and everything the slash and the calm beautiful, peaceful all went into the ocean that was the shall we say the goal you might call it the goal of the divine will everybody had to get there whether struggling screaming tantruming slashing kicking or helping eventually Eventually, you had to get to the ocean, you see.

And in that ocean, what did you have?

And what do you have? Because it isn't what was. What was is and ever shall be. That ocean, I also was identified with and therefore am. And that ocean was the brotherhood of man.

The knowledge of the unity of life.

The knowledge of one's immortality because you know when you know you know when I say no I mean more than intellectual knowing I mean something more than even emotional knowing it's a knowing that comes from an extraordinary one or more direct experiences there are different kinds and different degrees of the knowing but when we know that there's no way to get out of that river I think then perhaps we become more willing to go along with it it's pretty much like the thing if you can lick them join them Pretty much a matter of that. And you see, most of the agonies and anguish that we go through is because we fight like that. We fight in that river. We fear. We fear the current. We fear what we're going to. It's unknown.

And so we struggle and we hang on or we get false notions.

And we therefore go through much pain. And that's why even the book mentions in the book of tokens you know when Jonah was swallowed by the great whale you know that's the fish of noon also you know one of these symbols one of its symbols it was a symbol of the fact that we seem to have to go through pain and suffering in order to gain our understanding and wisdom. That is, we seem to have to go through it up to a point. But sooner or later, as I experienced in that identification with the principle of evolution, there are some people who discover that it isn't necessary to be that miserable anymore.

And we have to work at it. You see, it doesn't happen by itself. Too many of us think it will happen by itself. We have to take the wisdom this teaching and we have to practice having faith in what is to be in its ultimates now obviously some things that are going to be in any immediate future could be very very painful because we are after all reaping many things as we pointed out there is the genetic karma the race karma as well as the foolishness of any personal karmas that might still be there so obviously there have to be certain painful experiences but if we have trained ourselves to know that any painful experience is merely the message that we are on our way towards the dawn towards more wisdom, more knowledge, more ability and capacity to perform the proper handiwork of God, the capacity to purify that rose of desire. If we remind ourselves and teach ourselves that the pain is doing this, our whole mind and heart then can reach beyond the pain at least in part with a kind of faith in ultimate outcome and it gives us a strange strength a very extraordinary strength to go through various experiences in a manner that it could be called almost serene it isn't that we do not go through certain pains and sufferings but there is a it's a different kind of pain or suffering it becomes more like the kind of test initiatory test that is a message of something beautiful to come and that way we don't have to wallow in the pain we don't have to add to our pain because our minds are eagerly springing ahead if you're in one thing the other has to follow all things come in their pairs of opposites the fact that life is means conditions that were have to change everything changes there is no sunrise that's the same one day as the other there is no sunrise that uh has us or the planet in the same place that we were a second ago everything in the universe is moving moving every atom is moving every cell every molecule all things are in motion and if we think they're not we look at a mountain and we think that it is standing still or solid we're mistaken that mountain's on a planet that's moving and the atoms in that mountain aren't still everything is in motion and for the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the gift of the realization that all motion and all movement whether we are destined to have some pain or not is moving us towards fulfillment joy, beauty remember the beauty on the Qabalistic tree of life that Tarot key death is the path between victory, that's the desire nature, and beauty, that's the attaining of that central selfhood that can say, I am offspring of God.

I am my own redeemer, and I know that my redeemer liveth.

And by liveth, I mean liveth.

It can never die.

How can we be accept the fact that we are really immortals strangely enough by accepting the fact that there's a part of us and everything is mortal otherwise how are we going to even understand the concept of immortal and being willing that certain aspects of life be mortal For example, being willing to go from one year to the next, being willing to age.

Do you know the anguish we put ourselves into, most of us, over aging?

This is true of both men and women. With some it comes sooner than others.

But we put ourselves through a pain and an anguish and a terror and a fear and what has this got to do with being with a becoming aware of our immortality as a matter of fact everything everything because the acceptance of change is pretty much in harmony with the idea of accepting the inexorable movement of the river of life taking us to complete fulfillment and complete immortality when we stop looking upon death as the enemy and start seeing death as a friend when we stop fearing the unknown and start having faith in ultimate outcomes immediate outcomes as I pointed out before we never can tell what how what groupings of karmas are there we have to be willing to go through them but having faith and ultimate outcomes is walking in a center of serenity even though storms may be raging around us and within this center of serenity we can become ever more aware of our own immortality you see there's that something in you that is alive you say to yourself I live you say to yourself I am now you can say Say to yourself, I am a you-know-what.

I am a lovely person. But always it's an I am aspect.

There is an I-ness.

And in that I-ness, we're aware I am moving livingness. I am moving livingness. Now this moving livingness is that aspect that really was never born though it seems to have been born and doesn't die sooner or later all of us are destined to experience it in different ways I was telling my Jacob just a very short time ago that in the specific experience I had where I became so completely identified with the cosmic I that beginningless endless I rapture the thing about that particular level of knowing and that was complete identification complete in that state there certainly was no knowledge of life as we think of life or death as we think of death because in that state of knowledge of I-ness, I, there is a synonymous knowledge of I beginningless, endless. Now if you think of the idea of beginningless and endless you're right in the idea of that that's something in you that was never born and can never die now how do you know it's in you the very fact that you are a livingness the very fact that you can say to yourself I you know a tree says I did you know that and a blade of grass it says I tree to itself or I grass I know everything everything that lives and actually everything does live everything lives is a specialized aspect of that eye now we are in the state of evolution or the age of our own evolution where we are being prepared to eat of the knowledge of eternal life but we cannot do it until we have reaped our understanding and wisdom we have to prepare ourselves for this knowledge it's a level of knowledge that we have to grow into in other words it's that aspect of the rushing river of evolution we have to gain we have to take our inheritance you remember the inheritance of the prodigal you might say we're all prodigals who've made that turn or that twist and we're on our way back to the father to the east we're on our way back to receive our inheritance and that's you now as you get closer and closer to that state of consciousness you do become more and more aware of that something in yourself that was never born and will never die and as I pointed out before I'm going to point out again one of the biggest greatest most profound secrets is the willingness to flow with the movement of change remember what I said change transformation this is part of its meaning and what is this movement of change of transformation. You have to be willing from age 16 to be age 76. You know age 16 can't conceive of ever looking like age 76. And if you'd show it a picture it it might commit suicide to try to avoid it, which wouldn't do it any good because it would have to reincarnate and become a 76 in a more painful manner instead of a happy, accepting manner.

You see, the thing is, we interpret things that we see erroneously.

If we look or train ourselves, because it doesn't happen by itself, If we would teach ourselves to search for, as we look and look, to search for the beauty. You see, death combines beauty with victory, remember.

Ah, death, where is thy sting?

Well, when we have the victory over that idea of change, death cannot really sting us in the same way anymore because we recognize that death is just birth into our other vehicle and that when we're ready to reincarnate into this plane again we sort of die on the other plane to be born in this we go back and forth until we've achieved the proper growth but that proper growth has to include our search for beauty and when I say search for beauty I mean this literally wherever we go beauty is in the eyes of the beholder it has been said you want to know yourself as an immortal you're going to have to search you're going to have to try to become the beholder of beauty you will not behold it if you do not search it out and if you do not search it out in the right manner and how do you search it out it's everywhere if you look in the face of someone whose mouth is bitter instead of saying what a horrible mouth do you know it would not be a bad idea to say how beautiful is this mouth going through its grief and its anguish feeling its bitterness it's inevitably going to have beauty and let your heart see the beauty of the experience and the compassion for that person there's a beauty even in a bitter mouth then you see what I mean if you look upon frowns dissatisfactions which so many faces show you think that these faces are unbeautiful do you know you're mistaken they're filled with a poignant beauty a poignant beauty because here is a greater unhappiness here is a greater dissatisfaction and the heart should melt with poignant compassion.

How beautiful the soul that is having to bear such a burden of consciousness until it can reap its rewards of such consciousness, which will be more pain, until it can become something more loving.

There is a beauty. We should be grateful to the beauty in ourselves that can search out the beauty in others we see faces that are puffed with time literally and we say how unattractive no it's beautiful these faces have been living life and and they've been carrying weights, and more than anything, they need your compassion and your love.

You should not deny them at least the kind of love that is compassion love, because it is beautiful. So search for that beauty. Don't just look for it in a person that has evolved the capacity to shine out some beauties. That you should look for too you should try to see it in the faces that don't know how to find beauty yet because even that has its beauty everything, everything is part of the one life you cannot lock it out you cannot lock it out though you try to take a million trillion keys and put a million trillion locks on doors and jails you cannot lock them out they're all part of that one life love life love the livingness of life love the poignant pain of life love the age and the wrinkles and the wisdom and the tears and the disappointments and the disillusionment of life love it cherish Cherish it, treasure it, seek it out, and feel tender towards it.

That is accepting the change, and that's what will transform you into such a glowing beauty that you will develop the power to help some of these tears to dry and these bitter expressions to melt away. You will be pouring in that divine immortality of you because to the degree that you accept the mortality of life in a body to that degree are you also preparing yourself to walk with the knowledge of your immortality and the immortality of all life remember nothing can die and that's another reason you want to so tenderly love all the signs of struggle and disillusionment and pain as well as the signs of victory and beauty and love it's easy to love a loving person be compassionate towards the ones that are struggling with bitterness even though you may not want to tie yourself tight to them that is true, you shouldn't but it is your attitude, search it out watch the change of life and you will discover such trembling exquisite beauty everywhere touching you to a degree you didn't know exists and remember the fact that anything is is its own absolute proof that it will always be a center of the eternal livingness.

From our Eastern brethren we have such a beautiful little poem that says, Never the spirit was born, the spirit will cease to be never.

Never a time it was not end and beginning our dreams birthless deathless and timeless abideth the spirit forever death has not changed it at all dead though the house of it seems you are that spirit you have lived in many houses and you've housed your spirit in many dungeons as well as in many mansions and you've now come to the place where you can cooperate with the movement of the rivers of your consciousness where you can start pervading your heart and soul with greater beauty where you can keep saying to yourself I am an immortal and when you do you will feel that much more responsible for everything you think and feel and do towards another because if you cannot escape from this inexorable river of evolution my darlings think Think, and if, after all, we all of us are in the same river, just think.

Isn't that the kind of miracle and the mystery that should help you to know that we are all immortals going through our lives and our deaths and knowing this can't you hold can't you see how much easier it will be to hold a little extra tenderness everything is leaving is leaving us just as fast as we have it you cannot grasp this instant the moment you're grasping the the instant it's gone, it's gone, everything, it's moving. You cannot grasp this fraction of a second. The moment you try, it is gone.

You cannot grasp and hang on to anything. It is moving, it is moving. Love that movement and work with it.

And keep reminding yourself, I am an immortal. Immortal I am an immortal being grown and moved towards full experience and knowledge of my immortality and I walk amongst immortals who know not that they are that but they are and I am and for this reason and because I know that I cannot escape it also let me shed this beauty that that key divides it let me find it let me search it out with my eyes with my ears with my fingertips with my tongue with my nostrils let me search it out with every faculty good god will give me for as long as I can and in that way I will be floating with this river towards the sure knowledge of my immortality because I will become identified with it eternally.

Take that with you. I pray I've given you a touch of something.