The Path To Love. Part 2.

Guidance (Continued).

Judgement is Redundant!

Therapy and the Practice of Love

Words and Actions

Be in the Present

Suffering and Death

Detachment and Engagement

Surrender

Omnipotence and its Attractiveness to Ego

Humanity is Ruled by Divine Will

   The discovery of love profoundly changes human identity. Whilst there is no way to escape the past, which is the ladder of human growth to love, there is no necessity to linger on the lower rungs cursing past events, or feeling guilty about them. Nor do you need to have nightmares about the things that you did. They were done during many lifetimes and all human history is mirrored in your own.

   In the secret corners of the past lie your deeds of ignorance and thoughtlessness. They are like sterile trails, petering out in a desert from which the only way out is to retrace your steps. Within your own past, you carry all that you might nowadays judge others for. You are different only because you have become wiser and such things no longer attract you.

   Since you used to do the things for which you judge others, your judgement can only be deemed self-judgement or redundant. Evil actions are the result of love veiled by ignorance — consciousness ruled by a simple egoism which seeks immediate gratification. Since you, yourself, are the person you judge, be compassionate.

   This does not mean that one should condone evil acts. It is not right for someone, even on a human level, to escape the consequences of their actions, otherwise they will be more likely to continue doing ill. Human systems of judgement are there to detect wrongdoers and those whose job it is will mete out punishment. But the Divine system runs by experiential training. Grace, in its compassion, gives the soul lessons which have the best of hope teaching that ignorant behaviour does not lead anywhere.

   However, judgement is not one of the consequences of an evil act. Judging a person because of their actions is as inappropriate as if judging the sun for sometimes keeping behind the clouds. Evil people are quite as much divine as the righteous, in spite of the differences between their actions. They have the same potential to discover love as devotees, although their circumstances may differ. Every act has the potential to create a new step towards love consciousness.

Do not hate, revile or judge others. Have compassion for the executor of a crime, be it ever so great, as well as for its victims.

   For yourself, do that which is right within the moral system of society; or better yet, unite with divine wisdom and act from it. Jesus suffered Himself to be tortured and crucified, knowing that it would open a great pathway to love for humanity. This act of love cannot be considered a happy experience in the normal sense. But if Jesus had not done it, it would have meant a devastating and inconceivable unhappiness, even greater and more prolonged than His actual suffering.    If you can climb the step to love, you will know the best thing to do in life's situations and be astonished very often. But judgement of others only puts you in chains.

   Imagine a light burning in a box, kept within a cupboard in a dark room. Take away all the casings and the room will no longer be dark. Similarly, love is like a high-frequency vibration obscured by lower frequencies. Remove the latter and love remains.

   While the light is hidden in the cupboard, you have to hold on to things in the darkened room in order to get around. But once the light is exposed, it is no longer necessary. As you become more loving, many things you thought you needed will have less and less interest for you.

   People who have a consciousness that is deeply obscured experience life at a base vibration. They strike discords of greed, envy, hatred, anger, violence, and brutality. As they gradually find love, the discordant frequencies are left behind.

   Love over lights all lives and all behaviour, shining from within. Thus as you find the vibrations of love within you, you are not proud, judging yourself superior to your neighbours; but more and more, you will see them as essentially the same as yourself, following a comparable path to your own.

   Love is. It is released in you by its use. It lifts you up, and it brings you to who you truly are. The only way to find the love that is your essence, to understand and experience happiness is to practise it.

   The practice of love does not include dissembling. Love cannot flow freely if 'secret' agendas are on hand. The human ego is adaptive and resourceful. Before blooming, a flower protects its fragile blossom with a harder casing that falls off as the flower is ready to open. The human ego is like this casing, but it is identified with self and unwillingly released, even when one wishes to do so.

   At first the ego resists the call to inner spiritual awakening. It may find arguments to deny the presence of the divine in humanity. Or it may align itself with those who say that humanity can only be redeemed from sin by external forces. Or it may seek hedonism and short-lived pleasures in order to 'forget' that its days are numbered.

   The acknowledgement of spirit, of love within, is a great breakthrough for the identity: there is a greater Self, to which the ego is redundant. At this point though, the ego is still in place. Its next strategy is to try and subvert the practice of love for its own ends. It turns a loving deed into a 'good' or 'praiseworthy' deed, a deed which shows others how 'holy' the actor is. The motivation becomes pride and status. Ego tries to turn a loving act into an act of power and prestige, which demonstrates the superiority of the performer and the inferiority of the receivers. Is money given for some spiritual teaching? Then ego will seek to turn it into a lucrative source of income in order to indulge a wealthy and indolent lifestyle.

   Ego is linked to the human world. It is created by it, dependent on it and its motives. It tries to preserve itself by remaining on the human level. Ego steals around love, seeking to seal off all approaches to it. But eventually, ultimately, the practice of love will lift the Self above this level and ego will be gently and lovingly released, as consciousness advances beyond it.

   Humans have now become more aware of ego consciousness, with its dark, hidden basements where the unassimileable, overwhelming experiences of childhood are stored. just as guards around a prison cost a great deal, so much human energy is expended to repress events of the past too terrible to face, events which shade the personality with fear and anxiety.    Many people spend time and resources delving amongst these dark corners, attempting to become aware of their ulterior motives and to release some of their stored pain.

   There is no harm in delving into the past — for that is what it essentially is — as long as it does not become a way of life. If you constantly refer to your past as the source of your actions, you are trapped by it as you were when it hid in your unconscious. In fact, after a certain amount of emotional release, you actually feed it in the mistaken belief that you are healing it. It is easy to let your own morbid curiosity shackle you to your problems.

   Each of you carries the past, not only of this lifetime, but of a thousand before it. Each of you once performed most of the nasty acts of revenge, retribution, desire and terror which are repressed by your conscious mind. That is why you can repress them - because you have learned the lessons and risen above them. Dwelling in the past — to find the motivations and explanations of life — is a worthless exercise. As you discover that past lives have been real, it is tempting to dwell on subliminal memories of long-resolved challenges. Since they have no longer any importance, the exercise is a diversion, without spiritual value.

   Love grows by the practice of love. It may sometimes be helpful to release blocked emotional charges, but the way forward is to practise love. This de-energises the past, brings you into the present — where love is — makes you aware of who you are, and allows the past to rest, quietly resolved.

   A man discovered in therapy that many of his actions were motivated by an ambivalent attitude toward his mother. Instead of releasing the emotional 'steam' of this discovery and moving on, he began to excuse all his acts by it, blaming his mother for every failure. His ego had found a way to cling on for a while. If he had yelled out his pain for a short while and then consciously practised being loving to his mother, he could have healed their relationship and found happiness with her.

   The practice of love heals, and guides to the Self. It creates a new identity, to which the past is but a wry memory. Even if motives are mixed, it will slowly purify them. Whatever ego's strategies, they will crumble before the conscious, disciplined and continued practice of love. To find out who you are, live in the present. Don't waste time!

   Underlying creation is a great sound. From its echo, humanity forms language and turns it into a plaything, an illusion within life's illusions, weaving and regulating, proposing and exhorting. Words only give direction and stimulation; at best they act as shorthand for experience.

   Most words are uttered in the service of the human system and act as expressions of ego desires such as reputation and wealth. Humans erect mountains of words to describe simple things, which they proceed to bury under them. Even a great tome about love can make love less simple and less attainable.

   So let love be expressed through your words:

* Say little, so that truth is not cluttered.

* Whatever you say, seek to let God speak it.

* Speak from quietness, consciously seeking love's presence.

* Celebrate the delights and worries of human life — its pains and sorrows — with words informed by love.

* Be love speaking and you will not bind yourself to the status and power brought by manipulating words.

* Let your words to others be a signpost to your knowledge of the source of love.

   If you know little, speak little. If you know more, you will speak little anyway.

   Through knowing love, you will speak less but you will communicate more. Your actions, your words and your thoughts will harmonise. You will have no ulterior motives; instead you will be love's agent, the kind of person who arouses the curiosity of others, and guides them in their own search.

   To find happiness, seek the love in your heart before you speak or write; be aware of the implications of your speech for the listener and remember that love communicates directly, heart to heart.

   A person who treats words in this way will be 'good company', someone that makes others think, the kind of person you should seek to be with on your journey to your-Self. Such good company will support and guide you on the path. In the end, once you are filled with love, you will no longer need good company, for you are whole and able to spread light amongst others.

   Each human life is bound by birth and death; in between is the time to find love and practise it. Time is merely an organisational form.

   Human beings have set up time to regulate their lives. Having set it up they become dominated by it, rushing and hurrying everywhere. Modern lives are run by timetables and alarm clocks. Such things are products of anxiety and, ultimately, of a subconscious sense of the approach of death — for death seems to cut short all uncompleted activity.

   And then comes a moment of Grace, when time ceases to have meaning. There is only now, beginningless and endless. As identity creeps back in, time returns.

   How can you comprehend love if you are limited by time? In the experience of love, all that is, was, or ever shall be is now. All universes, parallel universes and alternative universes, all realms of visible and invisible energy are one. All is perfection. Love is now, not tomorrow, next year or after death. If you seek after something, you haven't got it. Love, you do have, now, at this moment. What is required is to know it.

   There is absolutely no point in hurrying towards love. The best you can do is to practise it in whatever way is appropriate. As you do so, stress and impatience begin to disappear; a sense of harmony emerges. At first, time does not cease, but as anxiety diminishes, its significance is reduced. Time becomes subjective. It may fly or it may hover. The past may seem a moment or an age, depending on your mood. The aim is to make the present moment infinite. So many people are directed away from this moment. Some ponder compulsively on the past, seeking to rearrange things that have been, to find understanding and release. Others are full of fear and worry for the future —'What will it bring?'; 'What does it mean?'; 'How will 1 do?' — trying to safeguard themselves against all risks.

   If you live this moment to the full, the 'problems' of the past fall away. It is the same with anxieties for the future. It is what you do now that determines your future, not how you try to safeguard yourself.

   People often try to escape time by running away into dreams and fantasies about how things might be. But there is only one place to run to with open arms: to the strong, welcoming security of the love that is present within you now; there eternity lives.

   All journeys in space and time are actually journeys to now — to that moment which is the same as all other moments, to that space which is the same as all other spaces; to the time and place where you know love. Instead of hurrying to get there, concentrate on living the now. What you experience is now.

   The game of discovery unfolds, according to your position on the 'board of life' .If you know that 'now' is the only home you should become a master player, and, demonstrating love in your every move, a contemporary being.

   You can only 'play for now' by releasing egoistic desires for worldly achievement and status; they relate to possible future states and are a source of anxiety and strife. 'Playing for now' means practising love and surrendering your control of situations to the Divine Will.

   The more you run, the faster will run whatever you seek to catch. just stop in the now and you will discover that it has not escaped you at all, but already lies waiting at your feet. As you cease to hurry, the practice of love redeems time for you, comfortably embraces your past and future and allows you to know better who you are. Death ceases to loom menacingly.

   Perform the duties which God gives you, practice love in every moment and you become 'real' and contemporary. All that seems impossible to the anxious mind becomes easy; the 'objective' world of space and time breathes love to you and the present begins to embrace eternity: it is now — not then — that 1 am to be found, Love itself.

   The soul seeks love at any cost. It will willingly enter painful experience as a human being to enable love consciousness to develop. The soul is aware of love as the only solution to life's problems. It seeks, prays for re-entry into life, for there, and there only, can it find the way to love consciousness. The soul will re-enter life again and again, until consciousness of love pervades the human being and wisdom is discovered. This striving of the soul for love which explains the problem of suffering: human beings, mesmerised by ephemeral desires, replay every lesson until they take up the opportunities given to them to turn their desires to love. That is the soul's motivation to enter suffering humanity.

   A loved one dies; a friend is crushed in an automobile accident; hundreds of thousands starve. A child is beaten to death; a battle ground is strewn with bodies; a dreadful disease causes a protracted and painful demise. Torturers pursue their vicious work. If there is grace, why do such things occur? Suffering and death are the hardest facets of the human diamond to accept; they are the most testing.

   Suffering depends on attitude, among other things. When someone is cut, one person might say, 'Oh, 1 should have been more careful with the knife.' Another screams at the sight of the blood. The first experiences no suffering, a little pain perhaps and a lesson learned. The second imagines they are suffering and, consequently, feels it. Their pain is magnified by fears of infection and death.

   If you stretch your hand into the fire, you will be burned. That is a kind of self-inflicted suffering. If your acts deny the practice of love, you will also suffer.

   Compassion towards suffering is one of love's great gifts. When you express your compassion by practising love, you begin to transcend suffering. For love is not dependent on outer experience. Engage with love and you will find happiness, for happiness depends on love, rather than the ups and downs of outer life. Lovingness ameliorates the suffering of others; it heals the sick with a deep quiet joy that is an overwhelming power. By strengthening your connection with love, you learn that your suffering is the result of non-loving action. If you are centred in love, happiness can be present, in spite of pain, for suffering and pain are both reactions.

   While the world is occupied by people who are motivated by material possession, the degree of suffering rises. Greed results in poverty and starvation; luxury in squalor; envy in crime; and power in violence. Those who themselves do not materially suffer (at the time), but are full of greed, cause suffering for others, even if the parties are separated by thousands of miles. Grace provides the resources for all to live. How they are divided and used by men and women is the responsibility of humanity and reflects its moral state.

   A human society centred in love might not be materially wealthy, but it would have little or no suffering. If you can understand this you will be able to see suffering for what it is. Be compassionate to those who experience the results of not turning to love. When you feel suffering yourself, you will know that your soul is teaching you. Instantly hold fast to love and the lesson is learned; suffering will recede.

   Another aspect of suffering is its connection with fear: fear of others' views; fear of unresolved problems from the past; fear of losing material standards that you expect; and, above all, fear of death.

   Death is merely an interlude between births. The physical body, possessions and ego sense are released. The soul exists as energy on a non-physical plane. For those bound by desires for the physical, death is a terrible event. But for those who know love and live by it, death is no great hurdle. For those approaching conscious embodiment as love, even the entry and exit are known and chosen.

   See death for what it is and you will not suffer on account of the dead, but commend them to grace for their next appearance on the stage of the human drama. Make love and its practice your being and you will have neither fear of death nor lesser fears. Since you do not know the time of your death, practise love now. There is no point in wasting time in unnecessary fear.

   A small child is tempted by its parent, who presents it a bright and cuddly object. Jackdaw-like, it grasps. At first, it gives it back quite readily, but after a while, it refuses. The concept of 'mine!' is born — so simply does a child enter life's training. The practice of love — spontaneous giving - thus begins to be masked by holding on.

   As soon as holding on is established, taking emerges. But who may take? Anxiety about possession is born.

   Next it is a question of protecting - and struggle arrives.

   Out of successful struggle emerges the thought of keeping.

   'Keeping' requires power, and power in the service of keeping soon leads to aggression. The pattern of human civilisation is easily established!

   All too often, the 'gifts' of loving parents reinforce 'mine' and 'my-ness', with their attendant chain of dubious qualities. But a loved parent can nurture in a way which brings to dawning consciousness the sense of wonder and reverence that comes with spontaneous giving.

   Even for a young child there are choices — to hold or to give, to possess or to release. All through life such choices are offered. Give freely and joyfully, and release the ephemeral satisfaction of 'having' with all its attendant fears. View even the things which you feel you need:— house, partner, whatever — as a trust, to be used for a while in the practice of giving, and not as a possession.

   Holding on ties you to the material world. It may even affect giving. A thing grudgingly, resentfully or conditionally given involves fear and faintheartedness. Calculation, thought of return, or manipulation, taint the energy of both the giver and the gift.

   To a person addicted to 'having' — however little they may actually have — the idea of 'giving-living' is rather terrifying. Anxieties will crowd in : 'Perhaps I'll starve!' 'Nobody will like me! 'People will laugh at me!' 'I won't be respected!' 'I'll be vulnerable to anyone's whim!' 'Who'll look after me when I'm old!' 'If 1 don't cling, my partner will leave!' . . . . These are the ghosts of the human world, its terrifying phantoms, sired by holding which make release so fraught.

   None of this is unconquerable. The practice of loving provides strength and joy. Every step towards love draws grace. It works! Little by little the fears can be understood for the illusions they are.

   The entire material world, with all its relationships and interactions, is God's gift. Even qualities which one possesses' — humour, anger, fearfulness, desire and so on — are God's gifts. Love has released them into form and energy.

   The real source is not the gift but the giver. Capture the Giver and all is yours. But the Giver is not located in the physical dimension; nor can He be reached by spaceship or through 'hyper- space', neither can He be ensnared by spells or psychic power. The Giver is Love and resides in your spiritual heart. By the practice of love and detachment from all His gifts may the Giver be found.

   So do not grab at the artefacts of the Giver, be they ever so tempting. Centre your desires on the real prize, aim high!

   The Giver gives; so give like the Giver! Emulate Him! The Giver is love, so practise love! Let the Giver's material gifts circulate freely.

   Trust the Giver's ability to give; trust your life to it and you will receive all that you need, but continue to give to others, in love. If it seems hard, start practising little by little. However much you are distracted, return to the task.

   Be engaged in the world, a channel for divine gifts rather than their possessor. You will discover a life of bliss, without clinging, anxiety or fear. As you do, detach yourself from everything else harmoniously, for harmony makes detachment and engagement real.

   To reach the final goal — the essence of all these gifts — even attachment to the Giver has to be released, for if the Giver were attached, His gifts would not be given on! Quietly know who you are, abandon striving and desire. But do not pretend to have reached the goal when you have not; that is dissembling. Practice of this engagement and detachment is part of the practice of love.

   A world composed of people on such a search will be very different from the world of today — dominated by people holding and its retinue, fear and aggression.

   If you understand that love is life's reality, and that grace is all pervasive, you will also realise that your reality is love, and that freedomexists when you are united with the giver of grace — Divine Will.

   The development of the ego has manufactured a defensive world, full of anxiety, compulsion, insecurity, projection, and all those neuroses that psychologists enjoy theorising about. As you seek love by practising it, these masks can be released. With them go previous definitions of pleasure. Instead of attachment to this or that, you begin to find love in more and more of the human and natural world. You begin to appreciate creation in all its forms.

   The practice of love creates the conditions for surrender to Truth; it frees the body's energy, allows it to become a chalice for omnipresent love, and provides liberation to bliss.

   The practice of conscious surrender supports that process. It proposes:

* God, not self, is the doer.

* Acts are done for God, not self.

* The results of actions are God's, not self's.

   In your infancy you had to 'surrender' to your parents; the experience of surrender is there. To practise conscious surrender, it helps if you have a genuine spiritual teacher; for one of the duties of such a teacher is to receive this 'intermediate' surrender, and to guide you beyond form to love itself.

   Surrender to parents is followed by resistance, as ego develops and judgement grows. The divine teacher is a perfect foil for the hidden roots of ego. He or she appears perfect, as parents once seemed, and does not possess the 'faults' which the child tried to resist. A healing process can take place; for former resistances to parents are played out in projections on to the teacher, leaving the identity free to surrender now and see, behind the form of the teacher, Divinity itself.

   Many so-called 'spiritual teachers' are incompletely evolved. Those who are genuine will transfer attachments projected by their students onwards, to a perfected teacher. If they accept such attachments themselves, they have succumbed to their own ego and cause only disillusionment to the seeker.

   The practice of surrender is devotional and comprises the following elements:

* prayer;

* chanting and singing to the Lord;

* silently repeating the Lord's name till it becomes as integral as the breath;

* dedicating all actions, throughout their duration, to God.

   Such devotional practice, if it is part of the practice of love, and not a meaningless ritual, accelerates the release of ego-will and builds confidence in faith and grace. It facilitates access to Divinity and the emergence of Self from the cocoon of self.

   The 'devotional path' is not in itself an easy way to Love. The combined practice of love and devotion —'integrated devotion' — provides intense and frequent experiences of bliss, which stimulates desire for love. Surrender to love — it is the perfect guide to yourself — it will never let you down.

   Love — oneness — divides itself into many; in this way, it can know itself. This initial and ongoing creative act is the acme of power. Creation and modification of 'physical form continue all the time, organised by physical and moral laws which also structure consciousness.

   The energy of Divine Will maintains the stability and character of the entire creation. There are creative, maintaining and transforming aspects of the power of love, while the power of grace supports the strivings of consciousness towards love, bending or breaking laws governing the material world if necessary.

   Such power is an attribute of Love manifest. As you seek love in yourself, you gradually begin to experience the power of Divinity in yourself.

   At first, the world seems objective and rational, as obeying the laws by which it is governed. With each step towards love, this 'rationality' becomes relative. 'Coincidences' begin to multiply, leaving the 'rational' faculty of the mind, developed for a lawful world, perplexed.

   It seems impossible to count on these 'coincidences': sometimes they happen, sometimes they don't. You meet a person you were thinking about. A book opens at an appropriate page. Help comes just when it is needed. An accident that seems certain is avoided. Yet accidents do occur; sometimes help does not come. This is a new subjectivity that seems capricious.

   As you dedicate yourself more and more to the practice of love, nearing the source of grace, you find your thoughts and desires empowered. 'Extra' faculties emerge. The body now becomes a vehicle which may be left and re-entered.    'Impossible' things such as bi-location, the rearrangement of the physical world, the replay of a sequence of time, direct knowledge of others' thoughts and feelings — all become possible. At a later stage, conscious control of incarnation and non-incarnation is achieved — the mastery over birth and death.

   These powers have been described by Indian spiritual teachers and collectively termed 'Siddhic'. But they are known to spiritual teachers all over the world and rightly regarded with great ambivalence, a gift and a challenge at the same time.

   The difficulty is that they emerge in partial form before ego has vanished from the identity. The remaining ego may give itself a boost by using elements of such powers for self-aggrandisement and prestige, or in attempts to coerce or manipulate others. Such misuse constitutes an 'abuse of trust' .If it is not corrected, it leads very rapidly away from love — like going down a snake in a 'snakes and ladders' game. And since to lose what you have almost known is a real tragedy, the exercise of Siddhic powers should be regarded with extreme caution by the unperfected seeker of Self.

   Power without love causes much unhappiness. As such powers manifest themselves in you, continue resolutely with your surrender to love! Remember that they are not 'your' power, but love's — used solely and appropriately by love, for love, and out of love. Ultimately, when you are love, consciously and perfectly embodied, love's power will flow from you as a stream of compassionate grace, in just the right measure to each seeker.

   A new age of spirituality is succeeding the age of materialism. As humans are transformed for it, the 'objectivity' of the material world will more and more be brought into question. The greatest temptations will not arise from the material per se, but will lie in the ego's attempts to manipulate Siddhic powers. Prepare yourself well, for the transition will be swift!

   Humans think that their systems make the world better. People almost always say their century is better to live in than the one before. Never has it been so loudly insisted upon than in the age of materialism.

   As proof of the virtue of this age over any other, people extol running water, the motor car, television, and the aeroplane, in spite of war, famine, poverty, and homelessness. Although great resources have been spent on medical care in many countries, diseases have multiplied to keep up with them.

   The production of a plethora of material objects has replaced spirit as the focus of human fervour and endeavour. Since all these material things give only illusory and ephemeral pleasure, this age might be said to be the most poverty-stricken of all. Desires are stimulated endlessly and possession anxieties thrive. Commodities may become more complex, more may be known about the laws regulating the physical universe, but this is no progress if human consciousness is more and more turned away from the divine.

   Love is scarce in this age; what there is, is very precious. Even a little love will secure divine grace. In this sense, the darker the age, the easier the path to spirit as love welcomes those who have turned from such manifest and multiple illusions towards the truth.

   Humans think that the things they achieve and the civilisations they build are permanent; they constantly ignore their own history. Whatever the quality of past civilisations, spiritual or material, they have faded or been destroyed. For remember that all the human material resources that can be mustered — even in this age — are infinitesimal in relation to the natural powers of the universe. Only divine grace keeps a civilisation in being for a time. Divine grace, not human will, changes it.

But ego sees itself as the 'doer' and for support expands this view to humanity as a whole. It disregards the fact that love is the true doer. It operates to create, maintain and transform, as much in collective human affairs as in other parts of nature.

   It is better to see humankind as actors on the stage, playing the drama of love lost and regained. Divine Grace, not humanity, structures the different settings. In every age, and in every civilisation, the theme of the drama is the same. Only the context differs. Contemporary society and civilisation are merely settings against which this universal drama is played out. God is the author, awareness of the truth of love the theme.

   In this divine drama, there are four recurring epochs in human history, defined by the degree of human separation from Truth:

* In the 'great' age, humanity is close to spirit, but grace is given only as a result of extreme effort. Ignorance and wisdom are rather separate.

* In the second age, spirit is still primary, but many find themselves torn between two paths and powerful 'enemies' of spirit emerge, to try human motivation.

* In the third age, spirit and delusion are almost evenly matched, with ceaseless wars between their representatives. Even the good must conquer materialistic desires.

* And in the fourth age, materialism is dominant in almost everyone and each must wage an internal struggle to discover the truth hidden behind illusion.

   It is divine power that changes these settings. At present a figure of true love is embodied on earth to usher out the age of materialism and introduce an age of spirit. The cycle is in process. It is simply the way things are, like a natural law.

The transformation takes place through all who seek love as the truth of their lives. As they follow this impulse, they begin to find their own truth. And as Grace works through them, they become agents for change. A very different human society is emerging, one which will surprise even those who yearn for it, for they also are steeped in materialistic concepts of human well-being.

   One age is not 'better' than another. In each, humans struggle to attain love, learning what blocks and what facilitates their task. Nor is the task easier in one age than another. A different context brings about different practice, and presents different challenges — but the goal remains the same.

   Human happiness will not be achieved by a new age, but by the discovery of love, and mergence with it. Seek that as transformations unfold about you, and you will be in harmony with them:

 

* Practice love in compassionate and dedicated service and you will find love multiplies.

* Surrender to the Divine will, which is the only will.

* Though engaged with the world, achieve detachment from its material things, dissolving your egoistic self so your real Self can be found.

* Wonder at transformations in the world of humanity and nature and use them to reinforce your faith.

   These are the great tasks of your lives. Achieve them and happiness will be found; your lives will be well lived.

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