Mankind

Tonight I wish to speak about the influence between the spiritual and material worlds. Much has been said about the influence of the world of spirit on the world of matter, but not as much about the influence the other way around. For both affect each other.

There are many of you who admit God exists. God or this Higher Intelligence—or whatever you choose to call it—is of course one and the same. Yet you do not believe that it could be possible in this wonderful Creation for an entity of higher intelligence than human beings to manifest to you through a human instrument, if preparations are made and certain conditions fulfilled. This, you think, is incredible. This is something you cannot believe. But why not, my friends? Why is it so hard to believe? It is certainly not unimaginable that creatures of higher intelligence, of greater wisdom, endowed with more love than human beings should exist! If so, it should be possible to communicate with them.

Everybody knows that it is important to be a decent person, not to commit so-called sins, to give love, to have faith, and to be kind to others. However, this is not enough. In the first place, knowing all this and actually being able to act on it are two different stories. You may be able by voluntary action to refrain from committing a crime such as stealing or killing, but you cannot possibly force yourself to feel that you do not want to harm anybody, ever. You may act kindly toward another, but you cannot force yourself to feel kindly. Neither can you force yourself to have love in your heart or to have real faith in God. Whatever pertains to emotions is not dependent upon your direct actions or even on your thoughts. Changing your feelings requires the slow process of self-development and self-recognition.

An inanimate object is petrified life force. A beautiful idea, a truth, is flowing life force. Life force is eternal and therefore all life is eternal. Death is but an illusion. An inanimate object you call dead is only so temporarily. All life, in whatever way it manifests, must exist eternally, for non-eternal life is no life and therefore a meaningless contradiction. The life force contains all divine attributes. It is, it has not come into existence, it does not do, it does not work or have. It simply is. Try to understand the significance and the distinction of these words. Life force is all around you and within you.

QUESTION: Is the total number of spirits incarnated and discarnated finite, and if so, does that number remain constant or are there additions and subtractions?

QUESTION: What is the difference between an emotionally mature and an immature person? How can you recognize it?

In your daily life many possibilities are offered to you to see yourself as you are; to verify what you really feel, rather than what you try to feel. All you have to do is to remind yourself constantly to be alert to this reality in you; to cultivate the awareness.

Tonight I should like to discuss a new topic, humanity’s relationship to time. This is, indeed, an important subject. My words will be very helpful, if you take the trouble of pondering them and trying to apply them to yourself. What I will say may at first seem utterly inapplicable to your personal lives because of its abstract, philosophical and metaphysical nature.

. . . . This will give you greater understanding and a wider vision of the relationship between the individual and the totality of all individuals. It will enable you to visualize that humanity as a whole is an entity, governed by the same laws as the individual who is a part of the bigger body — humankind. There are aspects within the individual that you do not fully understand and therefore cannot control, thereby destroying union, peace and integration of the personality. This also applies to humankind as a whole.

Let us recapitulate certain aspects of the life force. The life force is profoundly intelligent. Its intelligence is always available, always present and ready to be applied not only to great, important issues; this super-intelligence “deigns” to express itself . . .

On any real path of development, regardless of the approach, the areas in which you are unfree and automatic must be revealed.

The principle I explain here holds true on all levels. It is indeed ascertainable on the physical level. The physical system, like all other systems or planes, also strives toward wholeness and health. When a disturbing force pulls in an opposite direction, the pull of the two directions creates the pain. You can tell that this is what actually causes the pain because when the struggle is given up and the individual lets go and gives in to the pain, the pain stops.

To properly let go a healthy, balanced ego is needed, not indoctrinated with false concepts, false fears, and destructive attitudes. Only then can the ego give up the direct, over-tight control with the outer will, which then becomes possible and actually desirable.

. . . life will manifest exactly as you believe and conceive of it — not one iota differently. If your life experience and your conscious concepts are at variance, this is proof that your unconscious concepts must accord with your actual life experience.

The life force therefore consists not only of the pull toward others, but also of pleasure supreme. Life and pleasure are one. Lack of pleasure is the distortion of the life force and comes from opposing the creative principle. Life, pleasure, contact and oneness with others are the goal of the cosmic plan.

The function of this path is not to remove a bothersome symptom in a person’s life. This is not a treatment of sickness. Nor is the path simply a way of becoming a better person, of developing spiritually. All this happens, of course. But it must be fully understood by all of you, no matter how far you decide to follow it, that the aim of the path is the total realization of the divine kernel.

In the course of this journey toward experiencing old feelings which had not been fully experienced before, you also came across the needs you had as a child whose unfulfillment caused most of your painful, and therefore repressed, feelings. As I said, any person not bringing his or her unconscious feeling experiences into consciousness must carry this repressed material into the next incarnation.

Humanity consists of different levels of consciousness. Each level of consciousness represents a conglomerate of attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. These levels of consciousness are often at total variance with each other, expressing different states of development in the evolution of the person.

In each phase a higher level of development is reached, so that what was gained through the emphasis on, say individuality, can then further the group consciousness, and what is learned in group relating can then further individual development. I will now give a brief, somewhat simplified picture of this.

As the planet is maturing, so are men and women. What does this really mean? How have woman and man evolved and where are they going? What is the ultimate realization of womanhood—and of manhood? Woman is coming into her own in this phase of history; she is coming out of her confinement.