/> Awaken Spirit | Find Your Inner Light: Candidates for Higher Life UA-45840438-1

Be soothed, inspired and instructed to live life in fulfilment of that Great Law—Love to God and Man

Search Spiritual Prozac's 9,743 posts—

21 August 2014

Candidates for Higher Life

Helen is here. Oh, yes, I've been wanting to get you for days. It's for the news about Harry. Something quite wonderful has happened to him. He has gone with Hughey for a trip through space to study other planets, and will go right on with his music study, getting deeper into the heart of it by seeing its force or power in the eternal rhythm of planets and worlds, and all sorts of big whirling bodies.

Hughey and Harry are studying the relation of music to force, or that push from behind which implies motion, the evolving of things. You know motion or vibration is continuous, and each atom evolves and combines into forms, and as things progress they sing, or create tones, musical or otherwise, as the motion is smooth or jerky, rhythmic or broken. Nothing lives or moves without sound. Even vegetation sings its growth song. The ripping and snapping of an opening bud is a sort of music, were your ears keen enough to hear.

Seeing all this, we got the idea that behind all growth, which is another term for evolution, lay a great principle connected with music; in fact, that music was a part of life itself. Nownwhat we wished to know was its effect on growth; whether it is only a result, and not co-equal or co-ordinate with cause.

These are not the right words. I will try again; whether music is so united with life force as to be a part of it, and not a by-product merely; that it is really what you would call useful material instead of a luxury or thing of beauty merely.

Beauty, we feel, is never a useless or ornamental thing. It is of deep and vital use. Trace anything back to its source, and one will find it a vital factor in the evolution or development of God. I know this sounds rather wild, but if God includes all life, then God is in the process of growth. Believing ourselves a part of Divinity, we study to understand the plan of this everlasting opening up and growing from the in outward, this continuous circling through life forms.

Of course it is simple and easy to say God is all, God is Life, God is Soul, and let it go at that. But within each unit we call individual there is a restless, poignant desire to know, to find out the why, and how, and when. No matter on what plane a soul may be, it is never content for long. The inward desire pushes it on to learn the enclosed truth, the hidden answer to the human question, why?

We say this is vital, and that is unimportant.

We say art, music, acting, sculpture are all the ornamental, unimportant work of men. Did you ever stop to think that in the heart of the flower lies the seed of the plant? It's not the roots nor the leaves, but the apparent ornament of bloom, which is most vital to a plant. In its beauty is hidden its future.

The soul of a people lies in its art. In the so-called flower of its civilisation, and away back of this, lies some vital truth yet undiscovered; the mechanical force, if you will, of the so-called ornaments of life. What inherent power has music, for instance, that being the aspect of art we study. It is this the two men have gone to seek out if they can find it.

You must go now. Tell Papa it is better here because we create our own sunshine.

Helen

All right. Sister. Thanks for waiting. I was with Grandma E. She is working in her flowers for knowledge of cures for spiritual ailments. You know what wonders are contained in odours; what a close link there is between the sense of smell and the emotions. People with you study little into this side of science, which we find so useful, as well as fascinating.

Mental states can be altered and controlled through the introduction of a perfume or disagreeable odour. Grandma, loving flowers as she does, drifted quite naturally into this study; and being also a born teacher, she uses her gifts in combination with wonderful results.

Each soul has a special perfume which seems a sort of personal property, and which will affect it more than any other. As you have guessed, yours is the tube rose. That belongs to you on your present plane, though the rose odour La France also belongs to you. If I were you I would discard any other perfume and stick to roses. They mean something, and can help you on your way.

Tee needs you. Sister.

It's rather hard to keep from advising you to do things. That is why I stopped then. It is better for you to work it out for yourselves. You will give the best advice, I feel sure.

Tee needs you even more than he is aware. It may be wise for him to take a long rest, and look at life from a different angle for a while. He must do what looks best to him, remembering that a detour sometimes brings the revelation of an even better path upward. Detours matter very little if the main direction be kept; and when taken with faith and a desire to do and be what is best, they never fail to reveal finer things.

Helen

As we promised, we are here. Harry will write now, or rather dictate, as usual.

I scarcely know how or where to begin my story, Sister. Hughey, Edith and I, with a great teacher who acted as guide, were taken to several other planets inhabited by beings who were once just people like us. I can't describe what they seem to be. They are infinitely finer, clearer-eyed, and more beautiful than we, being a race made up wholly of what we speak of as ideal; in colouring, form, grace of movement, and melodiousness of voice, just each a perfect human creature. But—and here all likeness ceases—absolutely devoid of material ambition, lust of power or possession. A race of students, living for the good of the race; utterly unselfish; able to train and use elements as we use carpenters' tools, yet seeing before them as much to learn, apparently, as we do.

Seeing these people and glimpsing their horizon lifted my spirit beyond the fear of ever being depressed. Life, this big splendid unfoldment, is so tremendously interesting and inspiring, that one has no time to sit down and snap at flies. Just as if you were there watching some magnificent pageant you would be utterly oblivious to a mosquito biting your ankle. That is the way the petty bickerings and heartaches of your lives look after a glimpse of that other. Life further on is so beautiful, so splendid, so full of work and power to do, it takes one's breath just to see it, and realise that we are candidates for that larger life if we keep on doing our best; keep on weeding out of our lives the non-essentials; keep on striving toward the highest we can conceive.

Each turn of the wheel brings revelation, an opening out of the higher path. What seems vital at one point a little further on drops out of the picture altogether.

Growth, change, is vital. Anything which tends to harden our outlines is suicidal. We are petrifying when we hold on to anything, either material, mental, or moral after we get a glimpse of better things. We must leave our minds open to revelation, to change, to expansion. I feel we may have done you a wrong when telling you to hold to this or that form of work. Holding on to anything indefinitely is a dangerous attitude of mind. One's mind as well as one's heart should be kept expectant, ready to see the next lesson God presents.

I am not half so sure now as I was a short time ago, that I know what is best. I have seen whole systems melt and break up and apparently dissolve, and out of the chaos I have seen rise something far more beautiful, more subtly true than the first, and yet containing the same elements, the same life, the same big desire.

Having seen, I hasten back to you, not to unsay what I have said before, but to add a further word of hope. Through all life, all work, runs a golden thread of eternal truth; through each task, be it a duty or an art, a mere livelihood, or a love. The things we do are just differently coloured and variously shaped beads on the same string. The Creator cares as much for the bead of clay or glass as the jewel of gold, but each must be strung on the thread of honest desire and unselfish devotion.

My horizon has opened out. I see now that music and so-called art work is absolutely the same as any other result of honest human effort. What matters in any work is the spirit back of it, the love we mix with it. Now it is possible, as I say, to love every sort of work equally, and to turn from one to the other without altering one atom in the combination.

What is our pet work or preference? It results merely from our childish idea that good is limited. A child likes only one or two sorts of food at first. Gradually it learns that food is meant mainly to sustain life, and there are many sorts of food capable of that service. It is so with work. What any work is for is to develop the soul and help mould character. We begin by doing only what we find most attractive. Later, as we progress beyond the infant class, we see that any and all work is good, if it be needed, and that the need of the work, not the desire of the worker, is its raison d'etre.

Character grows in any climate, but only by the adult mind can this truth be perceived. Human beings continually seek congenial environment, the work they love; when all they need is a realisation of the principles of human development, and the desire to evolve. It is imperative that each soul give his or her utmost, no matter what or how, the main thing being that we give to the utmost.

If one possesses some great gift one should naturally cultivate that and share it generously. But unless one has the gift, the call is only for one's best. Use one's mind in selection of work, but if circumstances seem to hem one in, then do cheerfully the next best thing, knowing for a certainty all roads lead to the same goal.

Why do artists starve in garrets when there is so great a need for field hands? Simply because they are stupid, and believe there is only one road to glory. Do what needs to be done, whether it is in your chosen line or not. It is just as good a means of building fine things into your character as the work you prefer, perhaps better.

Life and growth are free and within the reach of all. Fit your work to your environment, and keep on improving your methods. You see what I mean? Get the underlying principle of anything and you can then soon master all its combinations.

That's all for now. I see you are tired. Sister. Thanks.

Harry

No comments:

Post a Comment