Dear Temple sitters and –brothers, dear friends,

Inspired by a conversation with a dear friend of mine, I tried to find out more about the idea of IDENTITY and its continued survival.

In The T.T.  “HUMAN RACE,”  we read: “The First Race possessed only race consciousness. The knowledge evolved through differentiation and experience was an unknown quantity to the units of that Race.
The IDENTITY of each unit was then hidden in the IDENTITY of the race, and could only be uncovered by SELF- CONSCIOUS experience on the Seven planes – the seven stages of existence; but once uncovered, brought to recognition of itself, IDENTITY can never be entirely lost again. It is necessary that You bear in mind the fact that the same Egos, the same INDIVIDUALITIES which incarnated in the First Race will be the incarnating Egos of the seventh, as they have been the Egos of all the intermediate Races of the Present Manvantara. (TT I, Nr. 111, p. 291)

“SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS – the consciousness of existence as an individualized life – has awakened in three-fold activity, Desire, Will and Mind – the deific forces – in other words, the soul.” TT I, Nr. 73, p. 189/90)

“We speak of the Ego ….. and all the other differentiations of the higher realms of thought and being, but they may all be summed up in the two words IDENTITY and Intelligence – the I AM- of the Divine Soul, the knowledge that “I” as an INDIVIDUAL conscious intelligent being, am alive and evolving according to a definite Divine prototype – a greater “I AM” The group soul itself must evolve as well as the atoms of the group; as any one part is developed the whole group is evolved.” (TT II, SOUL IDENTITY, p. 326/7)

Human development is not only for one self and nobody can use his development for his self-interest, even if You wanted to, because everything is connected in a way.

“Until a student of life can accept the facts, at least tentatively, that consciousness is the one eternal reality, and that all else is illusion – reflection- he can never rest in the certainty of attainment in any field of thru philosophy. With every increase of the vibratory pulse of a world, the increase which takes place on the upward arc of a cycle of time, the mentality of man enters an entirely new field of adventure.” (TTI, Nr. 182, p. 453)

“True knowledge is the sensing and realization of an inner light back of every fact, and which light can only be known by actual identification with it, mentally and spiritually. In other words, to truly know, we must become the thing which we wish to know. We must again become identified and unified. With its inner light and spirit. Therefore, real knowledge and wisdom can never be gained by mere study of printed books. Knowing this, the student of life and its mysteries, the great fundamental, moral and spiritual truth on which the Cosmos, the Heavenly as well as the earthly man is built. It is pointed out that on this divine plan each one is the builder of his own soul and the architect of his own immortality.”(TT II, TRUE KNOWLEDGE, p. 266)

“To every human being has been given some particular field of work, for training in and performance of which he is best fitted by nature and desire. It matters not whether that work is to rule a nation, to build a road, or to take up some profession or trade; it is his divinely appointed task. As a general thing, his restlessness, his discontent, or tendency to crime is the result of his betrayal of his task, his not raising his work to the highest point of it. All that impedes his efforts is by way of preparing and inciting him to raise the scale and quality of his work, for perfection is the ultimate aim of the soul of man.” (TT I, Nr. 230, p, 560)

So let´s not be impatient with ourselves or others!

“It has taken millions of years to evolve the vehicle through which the consciousness of the ego can function sufficiently to allow it to become a SELF-CONSCIOUS entity, that is, conscious of itself as an evolutionary factor capable of attaining to liberation. Then what satisfactory reason can there be for believing a few month or years are sufficient for the completion of that purpose, i. e. the unifying of SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS with the consciousness of the Cosmos?” (TT I, Nr. 231, p. 565)

Even the so called death does not rob us of our consciousness and our IDENTITY.

“One difficulty which often arises in the mind of a new student when considering the life of a Devachanee is caused by his strong sense of separateness, his inability to realize that he, the Real Self or incarnating Ego, does not pass from one of the states or planes of matter at any time. He is manifesting on all of these planes all of the time. He is reflecting just as much of his Real Self as it is possible for him to reflect within the forms he has built of substance and energy by differing rates of vibration. Symbolically, those forms are robes in which he has clothed his IDENTITY. Each one of those forms has a consciousness of its own which identifies it with all other forms of the same rate of vibration. When one of the forms is dissipated after death, the consciousness of the of the real self is not changed. It is just as much alive and functions just as consciously in the other forms on Interior Planes as it has previously done. Nor is the SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS of any one of those other forms in any sense depleted by the dissipation of that one form. Since the seat of Memory is in the Soul, the vehicle of the incarnating Ego in those reflected forms are fixed in that Soul Memory, whether it be the experiences of that one incarnation or a hundred thousand incarnations.”(TT II, REALITY, p. 27)

How else should we come closer to perfection, the last final goal of the human soul, if we could not be able to keep our IDENTITY, individuality and learning during both life and “death”?

Yours as always with love
Annegret

About one hundred fifteen years ago the founding of The Temple took place in Syracuse, New York. The Master tells us it took many incarnations to gather together in one place the particular souls necessary to commence the work, which was, and still is, the 24/7 living of the Golden Rule. In 1903, He directed Dr. Dower and Francia LaDue to move the headquarters to a selected spot on the West Coast, Halcyon, where the residents could develop a model of harmonious living that integrates the Golden Rule and the Unity of all life into daily, hourly practice. For one hundred ten years members and friends continue to strive toward that goal.
In 1899, after one short year of Temple life, the Master had this to say:
You are bound together by ties that cannot be broken. You are in the position of five fingers to the hand. The hand cannot do its complete work without the aid of the fingers. If you will remember that simile it will save you much trouble in the future.
Unified action is absolutely necessary; it is for that purpose that you have been called into this Degree, and as far as your connection with the outer work is concerned it is that you may be able to work in harmony. That is one of the greatest tests we could have given you for until you can work together in complete and perfect harmony wherever any question of the work is concerned, it will simply be impossible for you to gain another step in evolution.
If you who have been brought into the most sacred relations that have ever existed upon the earth in over two thousand years cannot work together in sympathy, and give to each other that which you desire for yourselves – the love, the appreciation, the carefulness, the thought – how can you give to the Absolute and to the Masters the same obedience and faith? Until these can be given your development is simply stopped.
You stand on one step, or else you go back, you cannot advance. As I have before said there is where your great test lies. You must be able to put away from you all that concerns the personality of each other and unite on the principle of love; not love for any one thing, not love for any one individual, but love for the radiance of God.
When you can remember and hold fast to the one principle of cohesion I have laid down for you, you will find all these minor points of difference pass like the chaff before the wind for that is all they are. You must, as I say, work as one person. I have repeatedly tried to show you how dear you all are to me individually and collectively, and if it is possible for you to realize what the love of one who has passed into the silence may be, you will know that every disagreement between you of such a nature is a disappointment to me, because, by those very actions you prove yourselves incapable of taking the higher steps that will lead you inward and upward.
You must remember that you who have been called into these Inner Degrees are in altogether a different position from those who are working on the outside. I cannot do your work any more than I can do your eating or sleeping. The work that is necessary for your development, intellectually, morally, and physically must be done by yourselves. Therefore it is necessary for you to take action on all these minor points.

We can listen to these words, smile complacently, and say to ourselves, “That was then, this is now, and things are different.” But are things different now? I believe not. Those people were us, members of The Temple, and only the clothes, and physical accouterments are different. We are ever charged to take action.

We have all come to this Center, inexorably drawn by Master Hilarion and our own higher selves. No one urged us to join The Temple. This is a step that must be decided by each one approaching The Temple doorway. On the most basic level, it means that we have read and are in agreement with the basic objects of The Temple, and willing to live our lives by these principles. Let us review them and what they mean on a daily basis:

First: To formulate the truths of religion as the fundamental factor in the evolution of the human race. This does not mean the formulation of a creed.
To put it simply, we accept the truth that religion, aka the spiritual, is a constant in our lives, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not as a creed that we preach to others, but as a nurturing, sustaining Light in our lives. This Light pours through us to all around us.
Second: To set forth a philosophy of life that is in accord with natural and divine law.
Simply, we promise to live the things we believe in at the deepest level of our understanding and to bring harmlessness to every part of the manifested universe.
Third: To promote the study of the sciences and the fundamental facts and laws upon which the sciences are based, which will permit us to extend our belief and knowledge from what is known to the unknown.
Simply, we pledge that we will continue to study and evolve. As we do this, we will realize a growing experience of the Divine in our lives and will therefore be increasingly able to see the Divine in others.
Fourth: To promote the study and practice of the arts on fundamental lines, showing that the arts are in reality the application of knowledge to human good and welfare, and that the Christos can speak to humanity through the arts as well as through any other fundamental line of manifestation.
Simply, that we believe that the creative arts are God in action and we will be able to see that creativity everywhere.
Fifth: The promotion of a knowledge of true social science based on immutable law, showing the relationship between one human being and another, and between human beings, God, and nature. When these relationships are understood we will instinctively formulate and follow the law of true Brother/Sisterhood: the unity of ALL life.
Simply, we accept that we can become a part of all life only by interacting with Life, understanding that everything and everyone is a part of God, no matter what we personally think. We often have no trouble accepting that which is whole, beautiful and Light as a part of ourselves, however, we must accept ALL as a part of ourselves, even that which is seemingly damaged, broken, or dark. No person, place or thing is outside of God.
When we begin to realize what we have pledged to do, it is only a short step to the deeper understanding that all this demands self-responsibility. True self-responsibility is not self-centered, but helps us move from the place of balance within ourselves to behaving in balance within the groups in which we find ourselves, not just our Temple groups, but all groups.
We are, after all, products of the society in which we grew up. Some of the norms of that society tell us that church is for Sunday, where we think good thoughts and are nourished spiritually so we can go through another week. The Temple, on the other hand, asks that we add another dimension to our cultural norms. The Temple asks us to live from a spiritual base seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, and to understand that when we attend Temple services, or classes, or Lodge events, or cleanup times, it isn’t only what we get out of such experiences, it is what we bring to them in order to make these times one of group enrichment and growth. Perhaps, before such a service, class, event or workday one might postulate that, “I cannot bring anything to this gathering, as I am too tired, cross, dirty, or busy so I won’t go and thereby spare others (and myself!).” It is hard to realize that sometimes all that is needed in the group is our physical presence, that we serve as a point through which needed force can flow AND into whom the healing forces may flow for our own benefit as well as for the group. Perhaps the postulation might be changed to, “As tired, cross, dirty, or busy as I am, I will go and offer myself on the altar of our common brother/sisterhood asking to be used for the needs of the group.” Remember, the “needs of the group” include our own needs!
We are a cell of that group; we grow as the group grows. If we understand and accept our share of responsibility for the well-being of the group, all things in our lives begin to stream together in a positive manner. The excuses, “I’m too tired to go, I can’t stand that other person, so it is better if I stay away, I have to go to_______, or I have to do_______, or. . (you can fill in the blanks) are the physical plane testing forces in action to give us strength or rob us of energy in accordance with our choices.
The nurturing beauty of The Temple life is that it emphasizes our power of choice. Master Hilarion said, “The work that is necessary for your development, intellectually, morally, and physically must be done by yourselves.” Remember the number of times the Master says, “There are no little things?” As the Agent, I ask you to remember each choice that works for or against yourself is a choice made for or against The Temple and all humanity. There is no way to get around the fact that we are all a part of the whole, no matter what we may say, think or do.
The Lords of Karma track our choices and always, always, always give us an opportunity to learn from such choices. Every time a situation presents itself to us, we must ask ourselves, “What is the lesson in this for me?” The question is NOT what is the lesson for the other person. Our human tendency is to personalize the situation and think we are singled out for something unpleasant by a malevolent force out to get us. It is difficult to acknowledge, but nevertheless true, that we have chosen to stand at precisely the point at which we find ourselves right now. We are being presented with the opportunity to learn a valuable lesson. The energy saved by this acknowledgment of our own responsibility in any situation is enormous, nurturing, and empowering.

The Temple brings to us extraordinary comfort, unconditional love, understanding and insight that nurtures our entire being. As the Agent of the Great White Lodge, my challenge to you is to ask yourselves what do you bring to The Temple? There is no question of your stated offering of love and service. That goes without saying. But how we translate this offering into everyday action is exactly where self responsibility comes into play. The choice we make as we work between lofty ideals and everyday actions is the proving ground where we make evident our commitment to All That Is.

These everyday actions must include thinking before we speak. Are we kind to everyone we meet, not just those we like, including (and especially) our own Temple family? How about attending services and classes and bringing our best to them? How about participating in cleanups? I have actually heard people say, “Oh, let the new people do that! I have done my duty!” And how about paying your yearly cash dues, or making donations for chipping and other services you take for granted? What about listening with an open mind, not clouded by your opinion of the speaker? What about voicing your gratitude to God for the privilege of living in a small piece of paradise? What about refraining from thinking or voicing the often heard, “The Temple should…..” “She/He should . . .!” or “He/she thinks he/she knows it all.”

We must remember and practice the profound fifth rule of Discipleship which says, “Thou shalt not speak falsely, unnecessarily or critically against thy neighbor, and so put in action the converse force of creative sound and word; for the Higher Law will reverse the action of the force thus directed and bring back upon thee, with intensified strength, the results of the broken law.” Next time something seemingly “happens“ to you, you might give this statement of irrevocable law more than a passing thought! There are no accidents. Anything that happens to us we called in upon ourselves. The reverse is true. When good things happen, we have earned it by right thinking and right action.

When we pick up in thought, word, or deed, the very real and powerful weapons of jealousy, hatred, and anger and strike out at anyone, anywhere, it is a blow to the very fabric of The Temple itself, and presents the real danger of taking The Temple out of incarnation for the present time. What will we choose?
As we contemplate these daily, hourly choices, let us remember that The True Purpose of The Temple is:

You must never lose sight of one fact. The higher purpose, the aim of all those who are true Templars, was and still is the preparation of a place where it might become possible for the overshadowing Christ to enter and send forth the message which the world has waited for so long.

It would be truly impossible for such an overshadowing of the spiritual forces to enter and dwell with a number of disaffected, treacherous, inhuman elements. It could not do the work for which it came, even if it were possible to come.

Such a place requires quiet, concentration, aspiration, unified endeavor, and faith in each other and in the common purpose.

These are essentials; all else is non essential.

So how, what and when will you choose?

Eleanor L. Shumway

The New Year begins.  Many of us turn to making resolutions to guide us through the time ahead.  We have such guidelines in our teachings in great abundance and I want to share some of these this morning.
The lessons in The Teachings of the Temple are given to us by the Masters in many guises.  Some are presentations of great truths, others are expressions of Their love for humanity, and still others  are filled with metaphor and poetic expression as a means of showing  what must be done by each of us to take the next step in our unfoldment.
The latter is so clearly expressed in the lesson entitled, “Closer Cooperation With the Oversoul.”   Through the metaphor of house cleaning, the Master tells us what must be done individually and collectively that we may take the next step together.
I will explore this lesson with you, much as Harold did with me many years ago.  I will never forget sitting with him as we talked at length about the lesson. With my proclivity for cleaning and order, it appeals strongly to me.
The Master begins by suggesting, “Try to understand the meaning of what you are going through.”  Note the word try.  Not  must, should, or you will  but try.  In other places we read that it is in the trying that we generate a force that the Masters use in Their work throughout the world.   This request implies a partnership and contained in this lesson are definite instructions on what to do on this journey through life.  This will help us to rediscover the sacredness and freshness in the teachings, ceremonies and rituals in our Temple life, and indeed in our everyday life.
He goes on to tell us “First of all it is a world condition in which you are involved and which must be borne in mind constantly if you are to have any intelligent outlook and be able to control situations or keep them within command.”  How often do we lose sight of this in the personal minutia of everyday life such as taking out the garbage, feeding the cat, cleaning the toilet or fixing dinner?  In Life we are given a major paradox: we have a personality through which we learn the lessons we must learn, and yet that very same personality can blind and mire us.   Of course, we think the personality IS us, IS who we are. As always, we must learn to use it, rather than being used by it.  We are discovering that personality is a tool to be used in learning the lessons of Life.  As we do so, we must look beyond ourselves and see the world condition in which we are involved, whether we want to or not.  The payoff is that by seeing the larger picture we can deal with the smaller one much more easily and with more insight.
The lesson continues, “There is a world house cleaning in process, a most thorough one indeed. Every room, closet, corner, crevice and shelf in every department of life is being overhauled.”  Every room, closet, corner, crevice and shelf in every department of life…  oh dear! What does this imply?  Every department of life?  Are we being told to clean up for some gigantic white glove inspection?  What about my “stuff”, all of which is valuable, which I may use someday or which helps define just who I am?  He doesn’t tell us to throw it all away, just to overhaul it.  This means to handle it, put the Light of consciousness on it, dust it, clean it, put it in another place, or pass it along to someone who needs it more.  This is on the physical plane, but this process is equally valid on all the inner planes.  I will never forget how my mother taught me about the connection between the inner and outer planes when she showed me my messy bedroom and pointed out in a very reasonable voice, “If your physical environment is a reflection of your inner self, your real self,  what does this mess say about you?”  It must have said a lot, because all these years later, I still chuckle with her on the very few mornings I do not make my bed, or pick up after myself!
This lesson is very specific about what all the facets involved: including first cleaning the mops, brooms and buckets we will use in the cleaning process.  “The very vessels and articles for carrying on the process must be cleansed themselves before the work can fully go on. Tubs, piled one within the other, but partially drained, must be upturned, scrubbed, scalded, sunned and made ready for fresh, sanitary waters, to be used lavishly otherwise.”  In applying this metaphor not only to our physical environment, but our inner one inside our heads, I would ask what constitutes our inner vessels and articles, what are our inner tubs, what is the fresh sanitary inner water?  I would suggest these things include an open mind, a willingness to listen to others and really hear what they are saying, a willingness to acknowledge that we might be wrong and a quiet certainty when we are in line, a willingness to modify our mindset when necessary, a receptive attitude, and a commitment to consciously working with the grand design of the evolution of matter, force, and consciousness.  The fresh sanitary inner waters include the clear Light of Love and Compassion and a deep and abiding connection with All That Is.
The lesson goes on to say, “Here again care and wisdom must be brought to bear. Certain skill, born of interest, concentration and devotion to higher principles must be used rather than anything gained by outer skill and discipline [through] technical instruction or command.”  Again I hear His trust in us and our attention to the higher principles of kindness, tolerance, patience, compassion and love which bring intuition into focus.  He assumes we have that certain skill.  Simply learning by rote, or because we have been so ordered is useless in the end.   By using the key of intuition we open up inner doors that will bring us the solutions to the problems at hand.  And if that solution does not seem to come as fast as we want it to, does it ever occur to us this is the time to acknowledge “not my will but Thine be done?”  Do you ever stop to think the Masters DO see time in a larger frame?
In the next paragraph, Harold wanted me to seriously consider   the applications and implications.  We discussed them at length.    The lesson reads: “For instance, rare articles are needing preservation in various places. Some are being destroyed by wear and tear, exposure to dust, climatic conditions and neglect. You have passed them by so many times without seeing, have brushed against them so repeatedly, have shoved or shuffled them out of sight or mind until tomorrow that it would be doing you a wrong to specify in particular just what they are and where they are to be found.”  Rare articles in need of preservation?  Things? yes, for example, did you realize that perhaps the plain, nondescript green vase that occasionally you move from one side to the other when dusting,  is a rare Roseville pottery vase deserving of a place in a museum collection?  And I thought our
Roerich painting was just an old badly framed calendar picture!   But what about the stuff inside our heads?  How about the mechanical repetition of mantrams or Temple hymns?  How about zoning out during the noon service or during a talk by someone with whom we do not agree in the best of times?  Or taking for granted the close-at-hand outer signs and symbols of inner treasures as we look for something new and seemingly brighter.  What is it that is  hidden in those dry, familiar words that needs to be made fresh and sacred again by our attitude, rather than by a rewrite job?
Apparently we do this far too many times since He points out “You have passed them by so many times without seeing, have brushed against them so repeatedly, have shoved or shuffled them out of sight or mind until tomorrow that it would be doing you a wrong to specify in particular just what they are and where they are to be found.”  He expects us to have the inner maturity  to identify these things that are under our very noses so to speak and THEN do something about it.  To me, in that expectation is implied His faith in our ability to do what is asked.   Then He goes one loving step further when  he tells us how to do it!  “You must call up the activities of your own inherent mental faculties, your so highly important, so hardly achieved powers, and apply them where most needed that the reconstructive forces of the Lodge be injected into the work with power, rather than allow the straining of Their souls to find you in the dark.”  Very plainly stated: you have it, so you will be held responsible to use it. In fact, it is a crime to have these gifts and NOT share them. Open those doorways between the Lodge and yourselves so no energy is wasted trying to find you in the dark.  The wise use of energy is of paramount importance in the Universe.
Instead of just shuffling along on the physical plane we are admonished to jerk ourselves into spiritual activity.  This means to demonstrate the wealth of spiritual food we have by our very being, by what we do and say AND think every day, minute by minute.  We can and must feed the hungry souls standing on every side but only through our “. . .own persistent, incessant, determined faith, courage and cheer; your positively promised knowledge that Light Will Come, the darkness will be vanquished. Power, Possibilities and Opportunity will be present. Patience and Endurance must be used unto the end, and in repeated new beginnings if efforts fail you temporarily.”  Here it is again: try and try again.  There is really no failure if we will but try it again, perhaps a little differently, but do it again and again.  “Failure in effort is only temporary.”  We would not be asked to use Patience and Endurance if we didn’t already possess them deep down in our very being.  We may not care to acknowledge having them for fear of what we might be asked to do.  Nevertheless,  we cannot duck or sidestep the issue.  We are being asked to use them, so therefore we do have them.  Besides, nowhere is it written that life will always be pleasant and comfortable.  It is always full, rich, rewarding and interesting, but not necessarily comfortable.  Someday we will evolve beyond the need of being taught through pain, but we are not there yet, so we might as well look for the lesson in every experience and put our energy there.  The paradox is, that as  do this, the pain lessens, the joy increases, and we move deeper and deeper into our connection  with Spirit.
The lesson ends by pointing out that each time we try to clean up our inner and outer acts, we find that truer and better beginnings are the result.  Each time we renew  our efforts we find greater and more efficient union with the Divine.   This means we have put ourselves into closer cooperation with the Over Soul of the Human Race of which each and every one is an important part.
As we do this we find that we are in purer alignment and adjustment with the Master Forces of our lives.  He tells us that by so doing we are in touch “. . .with the Great Lodge of which you are in reality a necessary and integral part, without whom can not be accomplished the complete and perfected work, which ever confronts you and the [human] race in all cycles of time.”
In this new year it is time to examine your inner and outer mops, brooms, dustcloths, pans of clean water and get consciously with the program of the “. . .world house cleaning in process, a most thorough one indeed. Every room, closet, corner, crevice and shelf in every department of life is being overhauled.”  It takes courage, determination and strength.  We would not be asked to do this unless a compassionate God knew we had it within us to do so.   The rewards are immeasurable:  The Light of Understanding and Compassion, the gold of the sacred within everything we experience, the inexpressible comfort of the connection with the Divine.
I will close with this message found in From the Mountain Top Volume 3, entitled “The Search for God:”
SEARCH where you will, in the cosmic heights or in its depths, for the God of your longing; you will never behold His face until it has been first pictured in your inmost heart.

When once you have beheld that face you will see it mirrored in every dewdrop, star and sun, on the wings of a gnat, and in the eyes of your fellow men and women. However brutal or distorted, however pure or beautiful those forms and faces seem to others, you will only see the face of God therein when you have fixed that pictured face within your heart.

If you could see the face of God reflected in the eyes of one whom other men had tempted to her fall by lust, could you turn away from her in scorn? If you could hear the voice of God in the plea for mercy uttered by the twisted lips of thief, or murderer, or wastrel, could you harshly sentence him to prison or to death?

Could you trample ruthlessly the wayside flower if you could sense the breath of God wafted to you in perfume? Or could you thoughtlessly bring down a bird if you could see God’s pleasure in its flight?

I say to you, No!  for when you have found your God you shall know His measuring line was laid upon the garment Love was weaving for you.
Eleanor L. Shumway

Dear Temple Sisters and Brothers, Dear friends,

     Soon we celebrate Christmas again, the birth of the MASTER JESUS, who was “sent to be a Light to lighten the world”, to lighten the life of anybody who discern Him and his Mission.

     “The great aim and ambition of enlightened man is MASTERY and the word itself should indicate the process and result.  An enlightened man does not aim at mere MASTERY over worldly conditions. Such MASTERY is far more easily gained than is the MASTERY over the finer forces of nature and the absolute control of his lower self. So long as man can be controlled by his senses it is utterly impossible for him to arouse into new activity that now atrophied canter of the brain which is essential to the control of the higher creative forces.” (TT I, p. 429)

            “The Great Spirit is expressing its own pleasure and working out its own ends through the attainments of its myriad lives under a law fixed at the dawn of worlds. This law is the law of cause and effect, otherwise known as Karma. Through it the soul passes onward through the fields of time, reaping as it has sown – good for good, and evil for evil. Thereby learning the lessons of growth that are, in the ultimate, to win MASTERY over the world of form.

         By Karma and reincarnation, times of intense spiritual activity return periodically in the lives of an individual and in the life of the race. At such times the forces of the Avatar and of the high Masters next to Him are very powerful on the physical plane and helpful for all of those who are able to consciously respond. The redemption of the race is greatly quickened, and many souls win the crown of spiritual attainment that follows the conquest of the lower self and the conquering of the restrictions imposed by the material world.

         Because of this intense spiritual activity and this moment is such a time, “the time of harvest” at “the consummation of the age.” This is spoken of in the New Testament. This places the Temple and its Cosmic Office in a unique position. The Temple is of deep significance for all those who are capable of responding to the Inner Light and entering the Path upon the direct line of the Avataric work for the New Age. History repeats itself in many ways. It was said by the SAVIOR (more than) twenty centuries ago “the harvest indeed is plenteous but the laborers are few.” They are always few, because the War of the Ages invariably rages fiercely around that soul or group of souls placed at the focal point of the Avatar with the feet of the vulnerable mortal self on the “steep heavenly hill” that rises out of the wreckage of a dying age into the dawn of a new. Blessed is he who can hear the call and enlists in the army of the “Warriors of Light”, and having enlisted, endures to the end. For him is the Crown.” (TT II, p. 5/6, Fred Whitney)  

         We understand that it is a long way; the individual life has to go, until it is able to attain MASTERY. But periodically there is a faster development and a SAVIOR is borne.

         “Possessed of sufficient knowledge and of power over the natural forces of life, such a Master must possess to reach MASTERY, the latter would have no difficulty in accomplishing the descent from a higher to a lower plane for the purpose of aiding those in lower degrees of evolution…

         That a CHRIST is to come to the human race is beyond all question to those who have access to the astral planes, or those who believe in the countless prophesies of such an event. The real question is what are you individually going to do by thought, word and deed to open the way for His Coming?” (TT II, p. 176/9)

“Until man can learn to dwell with his brothers in peace and unity upon earth, it is absolutely impossible for him to dwell with God in that conscious atonement which constitutes perfection.

         Every Master of the right hand path has gained his MASTERY in the midst of his brethren. True, he must go apart for a time, but only to gain strength to endure the stress and strain of physical environment.

         Enlightenment – assimilation of spiritual food – comes in loneliness and quietude, because it pertains to the spiritual life; but upon its attainment follows a period when that enlightenment – that force which has been generated in the silence, must be put to the service of the rest of the body temporal, or its compression or selfish use will be disastrous in the extreme to the individual. As steam compressed beyond a certain degree will burst asunder the receptacle which held it safely before it reached that degree, so the astral form of man may be burst asunder by the irrepressible force or power generated in that form by the attainment of conscious enlightenment, if not put to universal use.” (TT I, p. 40/1)

       “When an Occultist has reached an advanced stage of MASTERY, an effort of his will connects his individual power with the power of the Infinite – which must bring about the accomplishment of the desire behind the act of will. He could not will to perform an action out of harmony with the Divine Will. And the fact that he has willed the performance of some act is sufficient to show that he has been acted upon by the Divine Will to serve as an intermediary or converter of the Divine Will to lower forms of force and matter, upon which the Divine potency could not act without danger to the particular grade of matter acted upon, because of the higher vibration of the substance of Divine Will. This is the real secret of all evidences of willpower shown by Masters.” (TT I, p. 8)

         That indicates too, that it is necessary for us, step by step to gain MASTERY, in order to transform the Divine Aid, so it can act helpful upon the physical plane.

         “It is the ability to hold and sustain a positive attitude towards a common center of activity while the negative aspects of the evolutionary law are testing his stability that brings the disciple of the Lodge to a stage of MASTERY. Every central position of every natural division of life, whether it is of the mineral, vegetable, animal, or human kingdom, is held by one individual force or entity that has won its power to hold its own position. ….

         In common parlance it is “standing to its guns” in storm, tempest, and trial, until it has won to MASTERY over inhibiting conditions. ….

 “Where two or three are gathered together in my name”, i. e., in my vibration, “there am I”, the CHRISTOS, at the center, in the midst. And where the Master is the holding force of any center of organized life, the gates of hell cannot prevail against that center as long as the transmitters of the Master force symbolized by the balanced cross of power, or three, the triangle of protection, remain at their post.” (TT II, p. 62/5)

Happy Christmas!

Yours as always with love

Annegret

Mark Twain is arguably one of the  greatest  American  writers.
His Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is deemed the great American novel. His wit and insight are legendary.  Twain’s last work was his autobiography, which he dictated and thought would be most entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-chronological order. Some archivists and compilers have rearranged the biography into more conventional forms, thereby eliminating some of Twain’s humor and the flow of the book. The first volume of autobiography, over 736 pages, was published by the University of California in November 2010, 100 years after his death as Twain wished. It soon became an unexpected best seller, making Twain one of very few authors publishing new best-selling volumes in all three of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Most of us do not know that during the Philippine-American War, Twain wrote a short pacifist story entitled The War Prayer, which makes the point that humanism and Christianity’s preaching of love are incompatible with the conduct of war. Remember, he had seen the ravages of the Civil War, as well as the Spanish(Philippine)American War.  It was submitted to Harper’s Bazaar for publication, but on March 22, 1905 the magazine rejected the story as “not quite suited to a woman’s magazine.” Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Daniel Carter Beard, to whom he had read the story, “I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.” Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Twain could not publish The War Prayer elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1923.

I would like to share this with you now, along with some insight into prayer as laid out in the Teachings of the Temple.

First Mark Twain: It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:   God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Now, prayer from the Temple point of view. This is from the Lesson entitled Prayer, Volume 1  of Teachings of the Temple.  (Interestingly, written about the same time)

PRAYER

“Over and over again, in some slightly changed form, some of you put the same questions to me; over and over again I make the same replies. Unconsciously to yourselves you often ask that the governing laws  of  the  Universe  be  changed  in  order  that  some  personal idiosyncrasy  or  desire  be  gratified.  You  ask  that  the  great  law  of Karma – cause and effect – be modified or changed in order that you may obtain some favor or win some power which you have not earned; that place, position, or opportunity be given you for which you are as  yet  unfitted,  unaware  that  unfulfilled  duties  pertaining  to  such places  or  opportunities  would  result  in  unspeakable  anguish  to  you.

“You  are  told  that  hatred,  unbrotherly  conduct,  harsh  criticism  of others whether  deserved  or  not,  generates  within  your  own  auras  a corroding, devitalizing form of force, which not only results in illness of the physical body, but which acts on the astral body and the organs of consciousness, on the mind plane, similarly to some of the noxious metallic  poisons  on  the  physical  body;  and  yet  some  among  your number  are  passing  cruel  to  each  other  and  to  others  who  are dependent on you, and who justly or unjustly excite your anger. You often think you are justified in assuming a judicial air, or in violently condemning wrong doers; but it is not your possible justification that we are called upon to consider now; it is the action of universal laws, as applied to a would-be occultist. If you are satisfied to evolve with the masses,  well  and  good;  if  you  would  pass  beyond  the masses, you must be subject to higher laws than those which govern material substance. You must try to realize that I, too, am limited.

“I  can  tell  you  of  things  to  come,  as  I  am  able  to  judge  by  the visible signs, as well as by my knowledge of interior laws; I can tell you how certain catastrophes might be averted if the humanity of this age would listen and obey; but bear in mind, I cannot change the laws that  govern manifesting  matter;  I  cannot  make  two  and  two  five,  I cannot take two pecans from five and leave four, although I might be able to make you believe that I had accomplished that feat by means of hypnosis or some other ultra-physical power.

“One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  you  experience  lies  in  your inability to accept as literally true the statements given out by myself and  others  in  positions  similar  to  my  own,  regarding  the  action  of universal laws.

“The  unyielding,  unpliable  man  is  invariably  the  man  that  is broken on the wheel of the world; the pliable man bends beneath the storm,  and  the  storm  either  passes  over  his  head  and  leaves  him untouched, or touches him so lightly by comparison, that his rebound to  a  normal  position  is  accomplished  with  very  little  difficulty  when the danger is over.

“The strained, tense condition of the nerves from which countless thousands of people are now suffering, is responsible for much of the evil that falls upon them. The same law that renders a relaxation of the body  necessary,  is  behind  an  equal  necessity  for  soul  relaxation  the law commonly known as gravitation, and true prayer should result in this relaxation of soul. The energy which should be evenly distributed throughout  all  the  nerves  and  muscles,  is  used  up  thoughtlessly  or ignorantly,  in  sustaining  this  tension,  while  for  the  time  being  it enables the ambitious man or woman to accomplish herculean tasks in business  or  pleasure;  consequently,  the  body  is  robbed  of  necessary force, and the mind cannot function evenly and naturally; antagonism is engendered, and finally, incipient disease or decay manifests. You must learn to relax this tension by power of will, and I have already told you how you must evolve such will power if you are to obtain it.

“If  the  positive  energy  of  intense  selfish  desire  is  sent  forth  in prayer,  and  the  energy  is  not  powerful  enough  to  force accomplishment of the desire that energy is dissipated, and the body in which  it  was  generated  and  by  which  it  was  sent  forth,  is  broken  or beaten down by the reflex action.

“If  from  the  higher  point  of  renunciation,  the  soul  while  in  a perfect  state  of  relaxation  sends  forth  a  prayer  to  the  Infinite,  not for some personal favor, but of faith, of love for that Infinite—– the same law which compels one pole of electricity to respond to the other  will  compel  a  response  from  those  Infinite  domains,  and  the response will be in accordance with the real needs of the aspiring soul. You will frequently find that the surest way of winning a thing is to give up even the desire for that thing.

“Thought is one form of energy, words are other forms of the same energy; combined, they create a third form, and true prayer is of this other form. Created and sent out from the human heart, it can go as far as its inherent power can take it. If the prayer or aspiration is selfish, it meets on an interior plane other forms of the same energy, the desires of  which  are  in  opposition  to  it,  and  one  neutralizes  or  destroys  the other, and the consequence is, that neither desire reaches  those who have the power to answer.

“The  wisdom  of  the  ages  is  compressed  in  the  words  spoken by, Jesus, ‘Not my will, but thine be done.’ It is only prayers preceded by that sentence and winged by an unselfish love, that asks only to love, not for love, that Omnipotence can answer. The highest power is only won by renunciation. Renounce with thy whole heart —  love with thy whole heart –work with thy whole heart, and all things in heaven and earth are thine.”

I had planned to quotes bits and pieces from this lesson, to draw parallels between the two writings.  However, as I thought it through, I decided to simply let them stand, side by side, and trust in your insight and intuition to make those connections.  Connections not only between the two writings, but the connections necessary between our inner and outer selves and the process of prayer.

The thought that kept intruding into my consciousness was, “Be careful what you pray for, you may get it!”

Eleanor L. Shumway
December 9, 2012

 The Temple will be 114 years old on Thursday.  But what EXACTLY do these numbers really  mean?  If we are not alert, we can fall into self-satisfied complacency over how long the organization has been in manifestation, and therefore we can float along forever. We must remember that as day follows day we must be constantly renewing, constantly building on the efforts of those who have gone before us, as those who follow us will build on our efforts.  We must study what has gone before in order to see and appreciate the foundation which has been laid, but we are responsible to the present moment, responsible for our place in the Golden Chain of The Temple of The People.

At the Temple’s Centennial Celebration Master Hilarion told us:

My Dear Children: I have ever been beside you as you have labored to bring into manifestation  a new step in the work of the Great White Lodge.  Through this Lodge Center I have poured forth the message of the coming of a Great Spiritual Light to help all of humanity raise itself out of the darkness of the material self.  As you look over the past years, you can see this Light impressing itself more and more upon every plane of being.  Dark corners everywhere are being cleansed and the refuse of centuries is being brought into brightness.  Now more than ever,  everyone is being asked to help transmute this darkness of ignorance and despair into the realms of greater light, intelligence, power, and wisdom.  My children, you are asked to hold firmly to your faith in Our message of the Light of Truth even when you cannot see the myriad ways in which your faith furthers our work.

As the Guardian in Chief my question to you is “How is this working for you?”  Not for someone else, not for some more convenient time, but for you right this minute.  I know that most of us are going through  a period of intense self-examination, sometimes accompanied by fractured communication with each other, as we try to find deeper, more soulful ways of living the things we say we believe in. In volume two of the Teachings we read, “you have caught a glimpse of the towering pinnacles of the Temple of Life and its mysteries and the end of the path, and of the tender face of the Great Mother bending over its battlements. That one glimpse is enough. From that moment your viewpoint of life has changed.”

Life has changed — dramatically and yet it hasn’t changed much at all. The sun still makes its comforting journey, the alarm still rings, work still must be done, the laundry piles up, the weeds must be pulled, the zucchini harvested, diapers changed, meals prepared, cars fixed, walls painted, toilets unplugged, — the list is endless. As the myriad details of daily life claim our attention I would propose that this is the most dangerous and difficult period. We have renewed our offers to the Lodge of the highest we are capable of reaching, all we have, all we are, all we expect to be. That offer was accepted and cannot be withdrawn. Now we have to live it, and that means EVERY minute. Now we are tested on our resolve to put it into action. We are told that as we bear the trials and tests of daily living, so comes our strength. (Believe it or not!)   We CAN make each of those details of daily life a spiritual detail by imbuing it with love, or as an act of service in harmony with Spirit.

It would be foolish to imagine that we can always maintain the change in our lives that comes after the glimpse of the Great Mother referred to in the lesson.   However, it is the part of wisdom to take the responsibility of being proactive, to plan one degree of change at a time, to build it consciously into our very being, to live it, and then to gain the strength to reach for the next degree. In this process we need to be sharing, talking, doing together, reaching out, risking pain, misunderstanding, disappointment. . . .and yet. . . . knowing there is joy, understanding and reward in equal measure. We need to stay focused in all the processes of becoming.

I truly believe that from the beginning this group of Templars has shown extraordinary spiritual strength in their ability to stay here, to believe in the principles set forth in these Teachings, to hold on in the face of tremendous odds over 114 years of effort.  Paradoxically we can only implement this one small step at a time — each one of us, each day. We are not asked for a string of brilliant successes. We are only asked to try and try again.  We are cautioned that our impatience is one of our greatest hindrances. When we reach the point where we are perfectly willing to grow one leaf at a time we have made a huge advance. Intense hunger for growth has blasted more human vines than any one act of perverted Law.

I cannot tell or command you on what to do next.  “Walk the talk” is my mandate.  I can only do for myself, I can only share with you my feelings when I succeed or stumble, share with you the things that have and are giving my life meaning, and listen carefully to you as you share your feelings of the meaningful qualities of your life as well as your perceived faults, failures or times of anguish. As we build these bridges of communication between us, we will all arrive gradually at places where we can effect significant  changes in ourselves. Of course we will fail at times, quarrel, take our toys and go home, creep out to try again, change techniques, and agree to disagree if necessary.  The workplace for all of this is with each other, here and now, not withdrawing in anger or arrogance, but living the process of becoming the thing we believe in, minute by minute.  Remember: THERE ARE NO LITTLE THINGS!

The Temple building itself is symbolic of our highest spiritual aspirations, as well as of men and women everywhere who are feeling the  subtle yet powerful forces of Love, Aspiration, sacrifice and dedication to Principle.  We know we are not yet masters, perhaps we feel we will never achieve that kind of unfoldment, and yet we are constantly bathed in Love, Compassion, Discipline, Instruction and Faith sent our way by our Elder Brothers, by the Holy Spirit Itself, encouraging us onward and upward, believing in us and our ability to grow. Our special charge, our responsibility, is to consciously work at serving humanity.  Not humanity in the abstract, but the humanity represented by our self, by our neighbor, by our friends, by our  enemies, and  by the many people we see and interact with every single day.   We MUST stop imputing motives of insult, or of back stabbing, or of need to control our neighbors and, instead, use the simple tools of a kind word, a loving glance, an understanding attitude, a hug, a handshake, and  a listening heart.

All of us, together with all of the manifested Universe on every level, are that vehicle, that method, that abiding place of the Abstract Infinite, or God. “I am in my Father and my Father is in me” becomes a reality. We have the awesome responsibility to make this reality happen, one simple moment at a time. However, as much as we often feel we carry the whole weight alone, we are not alone, there is always help. We may call that help angels, archangels, Guides, Spirit, Master, Energies, Higher Self, or God; but whatever the name, that Infinite Love is there to enfold us, to encourage us, to help us when we stumble or fall. It knows that the God within each of us will triumph, that humanity is still worth loving, worth serving. However, knowing the help is there and knowing we do not have to do everything all at once still does not absolve us from the responsibility of getting on with it!  Even as we sit here, right this minute.

The spiritual forces now working with humanity are increasingly insistent that all units acknowledge the connection between each person on this earth, as well as with all the kingdoms of Nature and the very Earth itself. Along with this must come the growing awareness that each of us is responsible for our own unfoldment. This cannot be left in the hands of anyone else, be it loved one, priest, teacher, leader, president, king, brother or sister. My unfoldment, my spiritual life journey is my own responsibility, as yours belongs to you. Yet you and I must always keep in mind as clearly as possible the impact of our journey on each other, on everyone with whom we come into contact in our day-to-day living. Our impact on each other influences and shapes our unfoldment. The grand paradox is that alone, yet together, we travel as a unit on our journey on the Path of Spiritual Unfoldment, gaining in understanding and consciousness only as we interact with each other. We, the human race, must stand or fall together, for in reality, WE ARE ONE. And yet, I cannot tell you what to do; I cannot put down rigid rules, time schedules or study guides and then stand as judge and jury to decide if you are measuring up to my standards. Nor can you do this for me. We can share with each other the experiences we have, the things that inspire us, and then trust each other to make the best use of these offerings within the context of our own individual journeys.

It is much easier to turn over this responsibility for spiritual unfoldment to someone else; then, when anything is awry in our life, it is that someone’s fault. Even the Masters tell us that we must not follow their teachings with blind faith — that we must test each step up against the White Light of our own intuition, our own Higher Self. If something they tell us does not ring true for us, then we must set it aside for the time being, holding to the path we see before us. We are, as a race, coming into our unfolding spiritual maturity and are being held responsible for functioning that maturity, not just talking about it.   I like to think that the Masters, as they lovingly watch us, think of Eliza Dolittle in “My Fair Lady,” when she sings, . . .”words, words, words, all day long, first from him then from you”. . . . .stop the words and SHOW ME!

Ernest Harrison, Temple Scribe in the early years of the Temple work, said, “The real Temple is something which Humanity has been building throughout the ages, and is made of such fine material and of such high Spiritual Essences that it is vain indeed to expect or endeavor to put into words more than the very barest limits of its true significance.

“The Real Temple is Humanity, and to the extent that one is interested in and identifies with the welfare of Humanity as a whole; and to that extent only, will he or she be recognized by the Masters as a builder of the Temple and a worker in the Great Work.

“Let us throw in the discard now and forever, any conception that the Temple is an organization of chosen people  (the Lord’s anointed) who are selected to do a certain work and afterwards to reap a great reward, and that all the rest of the unfortunate Human Race is on the other side of the fence, and does not belong in our set.

“If the Temple, as an organization, is to accomplish anything it must always be as broad as Humanity and as wide as the world is wide; absolutely without creed or dogma, and based on a religious philosophy which will at any time bear the scrutiny of Science and be open at all times to stand unshielded before the searchlight of Truth.  It must always be ready to relinquish any teaching which may be proved to be erroneous; and to hold fast only to that which is TRUE and therefore capable of bearing the scrutiny of all or any test that may be put upon it.

“Let us realize here, that each member of the Human Race is a member of the Great Temple; that each must in turn pass through the Great Temple Gates; undergo all the tests, joys and sorrows of the Neophyte; and in time be initiated into the Inner Degrees as his or her Soul Development may demand, until he or she at last becomes a ‘Master Mason.’ The impulses to action come to us constantly through the day.  There is usually a choice of Motive.  Shall I do this?  Or that?  Sometimes we are impelled  to do a little kindness, sometimes to do or say an unkind act or word.  As we select either the good or bad, we build into our Soul Substance a Stone which will either help us to climb upwards or draw us down into Matter.

So each of us is a Temple Builder, whether we will it or no, and each is an integral part of the Great Temple of Humanity, which is in the process of constantly becoming and in which each man and woman in turn must become a conscious builder some day.”

This process is the Real Temple that we are building, the stones composed of the small acts of kindness, comfort, prayer, aspiration and recognition of the Unity of All Life.  Several times a month, here at this altar in this memorial temple, symbol of the Altar in the Great Temple, we sing, “All we are or hope to be, Here and now we offer Thee.”   This offer is accepted and cannot be withdrawn.

Given the state of the world today, and given humanity’s usual ability to read all kinds of portends, omens and symbols into events we choose to view as life-changing, we may very well, if we do not remain balanced and quiet, tune into the prevailing moods of fear, panic, despair, and irrational actions.  What will change?  Even if the world blows apart, what will change?  We are still charged with the evolution of consciousness, no matter where we find our real selves residing.  Remember, the Master told us that dark corners everywhere are being cleansed and the refuse of centuries is being brought into brightness.  He is speaking to the dark corners of our souls, asking each of us to move into the realms of greater light, intelligence, power, and wisdom.  We are not charged to clean dark corners in the other person’s soul.  As we work on our own, we will find to our great surprise, the other person is doing the same work inside themselves.

One-pointedness is the Key to all interior and exterior success, and the one point that should be in the forefront of our consciousness  is true indifference, or non-attachment to results. We will never attain to spiritual power until we “let go” of possible results.  We must fix that one point in our minds. We create an ideal, the higher the better. Then we must concentrate our energies upon the working out of that ideal; working  as though every hour held all our hope, our only opportunity. When that hour has passed, we must not revert to it again. Never look back, only build on the very best of that which has gone before.

In these special times we must make the words LET GO our beacon light; throw out broadcast the energy of the idea embodied in those two little words. We must engrave them in our hearts, minds, and souls, and live them with open hands and hearts.  As we release our expectations of how things or people ought to be, we find that the joy of how things truly are comes rushing into our lives with treasures past telling.  This is true acceptance in the spiritual sense.

It is through these processes of staying focused with faith, of truly letting go of our constriction, of quiet listening within, we will find ourselves in absolute harmony with the pledge many made fourteen years ago at the Centennial celebration of The Temple:

“The Master has asked us to enter The Temple of our own Inner Beings; to listen carefully; to realize our oneness with all life; and to express our faith in His work in our daily lives.  We hereby pledge ourselves to continue the work we have been called to do: the simple task of preparing a place inside of ourselves for the manifestation of the Avataric  Force.  As we stand here now, looking forward to the years ahead, we offer our dedication and consecration of the Center of Light which are always being expressed through our idealism, our aspirations, our obedience and our love.”

I would ask you to think about how many ways can we speak of Brother/Sisterhood?  Words, words, words. . . . .show me!

Eleanor L. Shumway

Good morning everyone and thanks for having me speak again.  My book Radiance from Halcyon, a Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science is in press at the University of Minnesota and should be out by the middle of April next year!  In contemplating the focus on “Acceptance” at this 113^th convention of the Temple, it occurred to me that members of the Halcyon community have always accepted that the only true constant was constant change. In particular, early members were caught up in accepting and obeying the laws designated by the Masters for the growth of humanity, trying to apply them through attention to the Higher Self, but they sometimes had to accept that the time was not right for their full implementation on the physical plane. In the most concrete example, for thirteen years, Halcyon intentionally attempted to create economic conditions of equality for all who lived here, as part of its mission to establish a community based on the most advanced social science through founding the Temple Home Association. After their experiences and attempts at organizing the exoteric branch of the Temple work, called the League of Brotherhoods, formed between 1898-1902, the group started their own colony of Halcyon, not beholden to any larger national organization, in order to demonstrate the rules of scientific kinship and health, necessary to establish a foundation for religious and scientific progress yet to come.

One of the most important emphases of the early Temple movement was also characteristic of the broader theosophical field: to demonstrate that the brotherhood or kinship of humanity was a natural and practical, as well as a spiritual position. It was a matter of urgency. Founder Dr. William Dower believed that humankind’s survival, as well as progress, rested on our ability to create a peaceful world of kinship. He committed much of the early Temple movement’s energy to establish what he viewed as the necessary foundation of all other Temple work, the equalizing and harmonizing of the dualities of wealth and poverty, men and women, the ideal with the real. By 1899, the Temple’s new exoteric groups, called locally the lodges of the Brotherhood of Man, proposed to “enlarge the ideas of the people in general in regard to philosophy, ethics and right government, and to bring about in them a realization that no divorce exists between right ethics, right philosophy and right politics. In reality all true advance on the physical plane is dependent on right political action.”^[i] This was particularly pertinent in the run up to the election season of 1900. 

 The group’s broad support of the Socialist agenda fit their understanding of Theosophy.  Most of the lectures at the Lodge meetings, held at Hiawatha Hall in Syracuse, argued for the power of the people in overcoming party politics. Invariably, the lectures had a reformist political agenda, and openly criticized the present political system. Many of the lectures, given complete weekly coverage in the local Syracuse newspaper, called for the creation of a platform and party that could influence the presidential election in 1900. They called for universal suffrage, a collective commonwealth through a national system, cooperative businesses, limiting the money supply, and evolution over devolution.^[ii]

The larger political and economic arenas of the last decade of the nineteenth century were ripe for social change, or at least discussions about methods for accomplishing change. The publication of Bellamy’s Looking Backward in 1888, the great depression of 1893, and growing labor strength and unrest “suggested the need for practical solutions here and now.”^[iii] On the political front, a variety of reformists were organizing for social and political change, among them the proponents of the Social Gospel, Bellamyite nationalists, Single Taxers, Silverites, Marxian, Christian and non-partisan socialists, as well as producer and consumer co-operativists. According to one scholar, the “final decades of the 19th century were a time of spiritual unrest; a time when attempts were made to correlate emergent industrialism with moral and political thinking. Socialism of a non-violent and non-revolutionary sort, a mixture of State Socialism and the Biblical Golden Rule, had ‘arrived’ on the American reformist scene.”^[iv] No matter what specific solutions were offered, and these varied widely, the utopian values of the reformers became familiar: cooperation over competition, nationalization under an “invisible government,” and a classless society governed by the Golden Rule, under the reign of “truly just social laws.”^[v] Certainly, the broad sweep of reforms all had a similar mantram: people over plutocrats.

The Temple group called for action. They looked to visionaries, such as Bellamy, in their demand for “the downfall of capitalistic usurpation of the universal law of supply and demand, the extirpation of social and political evil, and the true coming of the Christ in power and glory.”^[vi] Bellamy’s protagonist Julian West echoed what many saw in their cities, where “riches debauched one class with idleness of mind and body, while poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork, bad food, and pestilent homes.”^[vii]

Many early members viewed capitalism as then practiced as antagonistic to the realization of brotherhood.  Early member Edgar Conrow saw Capitalism as a disease that needed to be surgically removed, and sited the conditions of the miners in Pennsylvania, writing in the Artisan that they lived in “hovels in which a respectable farmer would not put a pig. . . Those coal mines were never intended to be owned by any one set of men, and for another lot of men to be compelled to work at digging out that coal and receive a pittance in return for it. . . . Every man should be entitled to the product of his own labor, and this disease that has gotten into the great human body must be gotten out somehow.”^[viii]  When the United Mine Workers in the anthracite coalfields in Pennsylvania called a general strike in 1902, Dower was quick to comment in the Artisan:  “The imagination is thrilled, as it senses the possibilities in the great evolutionary event that has recently occurred in the life of humanity:  in the fact that the patient, plodding, long-suffering entity, known as Labor in contradistinction to Capital, has at last come to a consciousness of itself and realizes that it is an organic being with possibilities of power undreamed of before. . . And this is not the end, but simply the first streak of dawn in the morning of a new day for the children of the Earth.”^[ix]  In support of the coal miners, H. A. Gibson, President of the League of Brotherhoods, called for a “prompt, vigorous and universal strike for governmental proprietorship of coal.”^[x]

At a meeting at the lodge held after Dower attended a planning meeting with famous socialist Eugene Debs in New York City, he reiterated the mistrust many felt in the two great political parties:

We are standing at a critical point in the history of our country. We must go forward in the path of true progress for the universal welfare, or we must go backward for the next century towards disorder and degradation. This is the law of evolution. We have gone astray from the plans of our forefathers who founded our nation, for we are not living a true life. The problem of the distribution of the necessities of life has grown with the growth of our great cities, and of our monopolies, trusts and syndicates. The many are being sacrificed, and they are being down trodden under the heels of those who serve the money power.^[xi]

Subsequently, the socialist-inspired National Social and Political Conferences were held in Buffalo in 1899 and Detroit in 1901, and were attended by several Temple officers and members. These conferences brought together hundreds of reformers from varying social and political viewpoints and agendas in order to consolidate and create a Social Reform Union, but the platform created “failed utterly to bind together the divergent strands of reform thinking.” ^[xii]

Temple members were decidedly committed to the ideas generated at the conferences, as they believed they had the support of the Masters that would produce real results. Inspired by the Buffalo Conference, Dower put his faith in what he understood to be Hilarion’s directive that if they organized the exoteric work, progress would occur.  By the Temple’s convention of 1901, however, public reform meetings under the auspices of the League of Brotherhoods were reported by only four out of over twenty squares. The organization that seemed so pertinent before the election was losing momentum, but the political ideals of the group, and their commitment to Socialism, continued unabated. After the election of 1900, Dower and the Temple leadership modified their call for a new political party.^[xiii]

Meanwhile, an attractive but often difficult resolution was presented as the “cooperative commonwealth,” first heralded by early Marxist Laurence Gronlund, and then by famous novelist Bellamy, that was preached far and wide by socialist clubs, emerging academic associations, and even by important Christian Socialists, enamored by its ideals of equality and unity.^[xiv]  In general, however, socialists were unable to form adequate organizations to unify Socialism’s various idealistic, materialistic, and evolutionary strands.

Important to the consolidation of the movement was the belief that the kingdom of heaven could be realized on earth with the creation of a socialist state. This was Gronlund’s position, as he wrote in his book The Co-operative Commonwealth, stating that Americans were ready for a great change. His book was the first popular account of Karl Marx’s theories, without the troubling aspects of class struggle. He believed that evolution over revolution was the way for Americans because of their democratically engendered optimism, and faith in religion and science.^[xv] Theosophists were major supporters of this idea of equality.  Worldwide, theosophists joined in the discussion, particularly with inspiration from theosophical leader Annie Besant, who early in her career preached Fabian Socialism to the growing numbers of members of the international Theosophical Society.  As theosophical lecturer and writer Burcham Harding put it in 1896, “Theosophic teaching does not rate men as so many cattle, to be bought at the lowest possible cost in accordance with the law of supply and demand. Every man is every man’s brother.”^[xvi] In its ideal, Socialism should strengthen the natural kinship of human beings, weakened by capitalist civilization. The Temple would return man to his ideal state of kinship, with communal property ownership the basis of a new social order.

Increasingly the group looked forward to the creation of a new settlement in the western United States in which they could demonstrate their theosophical and social goals. Important theosophists weighed in on the issue of creating socialist settlements, but the largest theosophical group in the world challenged its practicality. By the eleventh congress of the Theosophical Society held in Chicago, 1897, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that Besant publically balked at the pragmatism of Deb’s socialist ideals, saying that “the contemplated experiment of Socialism . . . will fail. . . . Our London experiment has degenerated into a mere stock-jobbing scheme.” To Besant, Socialism was “the ideal state, but can never be achieved while man is so selfish. All socialistic colonies have failed for the same grasping selfishness of man. Not until man is educated up to a higher spiritual plane can Socialism be made a success.” Theosophy, which included the principle of Socialism, would lift humankind to this “higher plane.” Besant’s words were truly prescient, but it took nearly two decades for Temple members to realize it.

Dower and the Temple movement believed that they could accomplish this “higher plane” if they were diligent, and followed the directives of the Master.  Spiritual leader Blue Star argued that Socialism was a means to an end: to work towards the true cooperative commonwealth within which the Masters “live and have their being.” She told readers of the Artisan, “as long as the doctrines of Socialism agree with the laws of Occultism, the Temple teachings endorse Socialism, but no farther. When it comes to eliminating the religious or higher aspect of life from the social and political life, those teachings are immovably opposed to it.”^[xvii]

In late 1900, the League of Brotherhoods announced their new major goal. The group would “[form] a settlement which must eventually become a city,” located in either California, Washington or Colorado, where the laws of the state would offer no constrictions and

Where the principles of direct legislation, municipal ownership of land and public utilities and equal rights for all, regardless of sex, color or creed, may be carried out in its government. . . . In the building of this new city it is proposed to restore to man a more just division of the fruits of his labor. . . . if then there exists a city on this continent in true harmony with the divine plan–for there is such a plan–it will be a model for other communities. Nature in every phase of life is ceaselessly striving for the perfect type that has always existed; the catching of reflections of this ideal plan has always furnished the spiritual dynamic for true reformers; without this progress would be impossible.^[xviii]

By 1903, with the settlement at Halcyon beginning to take hold, the Temple Home Association was officially founded as a cooperative venture in property and mixed agriculture and quickly supplanted the League of Brotherhoods as the official exoteric work of the Temple movement.  A letter went out to the membership encouraging them to form a commonwealth of “brotherhood” and equality. They were obliged to “take advantage of modern business methods,” and form a company that would own the land, and all business enterprises. It would lease the land back to members, on which they could build their own houses that they would own. Interested people did not have to be Temple members; simply the fact that they believed in the kinship of humanity and were “willing to work to make that Brotherhood a reality in all that concerns their life,” was enough to make them “desirable comrades.”^[xix] This early proviso already created the possibility of friction between members of the Temple who were also Temple Home Association (THA) members, and those members of the THA who were not committed to Theosophy. This was a wedge, which from the beginning of the organization allowed for dissension to mount over leadership decisions between those “loyal” to Temple dictates, and those simply living in Halcyon and doing business as members of the THA.^[xx]

Temple members believed that the Association would externalize the great spiritual truths of “unity, solidarity, brotherhood, co-operation, interdependence” as spiritual law.^[xxi]  All the land of the Temple would “be owned all of the time by all of the people; where all the means of production and distribution, tools, machinery, and natural resources, will [also] be owned by the people—the community—and where Capital and Labor may meet on equal terms.”^[xxii]  Members, who raised food crops and poultry, also tried their hands at producing herbs and flower seeds, with many after 1909 working in the art pottery studio.  The town attracted comment by nationally visible socialist leaders, such as Thomas E. Will, who wrote to Dower:  “If a body of high-minded and at the same time practical people can maintain themselves in a community on an ethical plane somewhat higher than that of the capitalist world, and make of it a propaganda center—a city upon a hill, so to speak—it will make for itself a place in history.”^[xxiii] 

Each membership in the Association cost one hundred dollars, and included a half-acre of land and a vote in the Association. Profits from businesses started through official departments were shared with the members, and members could use their half-acre as they chose, including starting their own businesses—creating a hybrid between capitalism and socialism. By 1905 there were at least five departments: construction and printing, farming, poultry, and medical, with the medical department represented by Dr. Dower’s new Halcyon Sanatorium the most successful.

The farming department was in charge of cultivating over 100 acres of land, with additional land for orchards, out of the 300 acres owned by the group in 1908, with 140 members.^[xxiv]  The poultry department had 2000 hens by the middle of 1906, and growth was steady enough that a general store with post office was opened in 1908 and still functions today, though the Temple Home Association abandoned cooperative economics by the middle teens to become a land holding corporation.^[xxv]

What is most interesting to our topic of accepting change, several methods of cooperation were attempted over the years, and nearly all of them found wanting.  In 1911, full explanations of the various systems attempted were outlined in summary for the membership: “Only a few people were residents and a partial communistic system was put into operation. Under this plan the workers were given their living expenses of board and lodging and a cash allowance of ten dollars a month.” The group showed a deficit, and the plan was unsatisfactory to workers. After three years, the department system was inaugurated. Workers were grouped in different departments, each department “working out its own destiny” with the Association still responsible for the financial burden. The system lasted for one year and was declared “unsatisfactory by all concerned.” They still showed a deficit, but not as great as under the earlier system. In 1909, a new system of renting land, buildings, and equipment to groups was put into operation. It proved the most successful because those renting were in charge of all expenses and this minimized the frictions and misunderstandings between groups, individuals, and the Association. The net gain was small, only sixty-one dollars, but it was, as they put it, “on the right side.”

Troubles were on the horizon. In early 1910, The Clarion told its readers that the Association was compelled to bring suit in the superior court of the county against four ex-members who refused to pay rent or vacate, and were demanding wages for the past year’s work, in spite of agreeing to the profit-sharing scheme. This was conspiracy, and other members were supportive. Winning the suit was a great moral and legal victory. However, the directors’ idealism was sorely shaken.^[xxvi] With these difficulties, the lower tendencies in human nature seemed to be triumphing over the higher.

Even with the solidity of the THA made legally plain, there were worries in the ranks, as some members wanted to retire their certificates for cash, and there wasn’t any. John and Agnes Varian, even though stalwart core members, considered retiring their membership in the THA, thinking that Dower was too autocratic, and that the Association needed reorganization. The Master reminded John Varian of his position in the novitiate of the priesthood, and Blue Star begged them to retain their membership, which they did.^[xxvii]

In 1913, another suit was brought against the directors and found to be without merit. But the rumors being spread had consequences. No institution could make progress against such “malicious persecution” in the community where they were doing business, especially when it had to use its scant resources to defend itself.^[xxviii]

At the August convention in 1913, members were informed that though they had been enthusiastic advocates of Socialism, the leadership had not sufficiently considered the “natural racial and temperamental characteristics of the average man.” Now the directors realized that “personal ambition, love of power and self-aggrandizement,” trumped “the finer qualities which tend toward self-sacrifice and humility” and therefore, the original idea was “weakened and finally lost.”^[xxix] They hoped the membership would not resort to legal action; rather, they should create a plan to pool their holdings.

              The original Temple founders came across the United States to California. Gone were the niceties of city living. Practical, necessary work often preoccupied the leaders, and was undoubtedly a source of irritation, given their grand plans to build the new White City mandated by the Masters. Sanatorium cook Annie Altamirano remembered that Dower would sometimes be out in the barn milking the cows by lantern light, because those assigned to the task had not done it. She recalled that, “the cooperative was a great source of friction and never worked. Those who owned land and were real farmers tore their hair out by the roots and screamed in agony at being told how to run their businesses by people who were long on talking but short on doing. Many left the Temple with great bitterness.” Hermann Volz, however, remembered that farmers knew Francia LaDue and visited her often for advice on farming. He reasoned that her knowledge must have come “thru the Masters.”^[xxx] As a young man working at the sanatorium, Bob Stenquist remembered that the Master’s messages of the period expressed disappointment at the way things had been going: “I remember thinking they sounded more like a disappointed Dr. Dower than a disappointed Master. Also, if it really was the Master, He sure didn’t have much practical knowledge of human nature or economics. For someone who was supposed to be all-knowing it didn’t add up to instigate such a disastrous policy. But then, what does a 14-year-old kid know?”^[xxxi]

Dower was clear that living within Temple formalities often challenged those at Halcyon. In 1921, he wrote that to live in Halcyon, and have one’s vibrations raised, brought out the worst as well as the best in people. They were folks of “startling contrasts” with “apparently impossible faults and failures,” counterbalancing “the strength, splendid beauty and devotion of the very same comrades.” If any conceived of those at headquarters as saints, and thought of them as “emasculated little tin gods sitting on airy clouds of spiritual exaltation and breathing the high air of heaven,” they should “get us down to earth pronto.” While the group continued to believe in the fundamental philosophy of cooperation, Dower wrote a student in 1921 that they were now individualistic: “Each member who lives or resides here has his own home or must find work and support himself. In a number of cases we have some members living here who are self-supporting, that is, have a regular income.”^[xxxii]

Dower later summarized his knowledge of cooperative efforts to a member of the Cooperative League of the USA:

They start out very well, there is much enthusiasm for a time, and then it wanes, and there are quarrels and dissensions, factions spring up, because of the selfishness and ambition in human nature, and the cooperative association is broken up. But of course the principle back of this effort is all right, if humanity could only be unselfish enough and spiritual enough to carry it out for the benefit of all others, and not just themselves. The day must come when we will have spiritual cooperation, and such a plan will succeed.^[xxxiii]

As the THA was redefining its mission in the local arena, leaders of the Temple moved their attention to the international level, and the Artisan became a mouthpiece for peace, and for distinct political commentary that challenged some Temple members.

Many members hoped that the “great war” would lead to a Brotherhood of Nations in federation, or a “United States of the World,” that would allow all nations to “disarm without fear,” and rely on an international police force to maintain law and order. Since it was the matrix through which the new sixth race would be born, the United States represented the ideals of the new humanity, and this gave it “the right to strongly insist upon certain fundamental rights that will make war impossible in the future.”^[xxxiv] The Artisan predicted that the United States would be drawn into the conflagration, and by April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany.

Twelve Temple members served in the war effort, including musician Henry Cowell, stationed at Camp Crane in Allentown as assistant regimental bandmaster. Two members died as a direct result of the war. A flag with twelve stars hung outside the headquarters cottage, two of the stars were gold.

After the armistices and capitulations, the December 1918 Artisan declared that “the great war now terminated has transmuted karmic actions of untold ages past, thus clearing the air for the New Order.” The war revealed one great truth, that no nation was sufficient unto itself, and that all were “bound together in one great interdependent whole.” This was the ideal of the Lodge, “One in the Many and the Many in the One. Thus will the Order of Heaven descend on earth.”^[xxxv]

            To the Temple, the formation of the League of Nations was the moral and logical next step, insuring progress and preventing another war. The Artisan urged members to write to their senators to support the League. He asked members to study the Articles of the League, “as you would a sacred writing, for in the principles expressed it is the grandest and most wonderful document on human welfare every formulated by the Children of Men.”^[xxxvi]

Not everyone in the inner circle agreed with Dower and Blue Star. John Varian was clearly against the League, as issues of Ireland’s self-determination began to be debated internationally. Varian wrote to Henry Cowell, “I talked last week on Democracy & Dr. thought I was whacking at him and maybe I was hinting a little any way there was a lively time in a quiet good natured way.”^[xxxvii]

As John Varian was apt to agitate, Blue Star asked for a meeting with him and Agnes in November 1919. She told him that he was “mixing lines with Ireland and the Lodge.” If the Temple deliberately refused to put itself on record and “our people come under suspicion,” they would have failed in their duty to the Lodge. Blue Star believed that no one had the right “to bring the condemnation of the Government upon all our people who might have different views than ours chanced to be,” and predicted a great war if the League failed.^[xxxviii] Varian continued to feel that Blue Star and Dower had it in for him “because of my attitude in THA and about centralization” and that Blue Star was “grumpy because she thinks we are not grateful to Dr.”^[xxxix]

By nearly all accounts, it was Wilson’s desire to create a patriotic populace committed to the war effort, and a pro-war indoctrination policy, that led to the purposeful destruction of radical social and political organizations, and censorship of individuals with socialist ideals that had risen so dramatically in the early twentieth century. Leader and socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs was arrested in 1918 for his outspoken denunciation of America’s participation in the war, and other socialist leaders were also jailed.^[xl] Disloyalty was punishable, and the American Protective League tried to crush any dangerous views held by the populace. This likely caused Blue Star to fear that Halcyon would “come under suspicion.” Ironically, the very ideals held up in the early THA were those challenged by the war President. Yet, the logic of the League of Nations seemed the next best step in the realization of universal kinship so dear to the Temple’s founders.

In conclusion, while the THA was the first instantiation of the socialist political ideals established in Syracuse through the League of Brotherhoods, and at first welcomed all who believed in true kinship, by 1920 the group became more insular in its desire to prepare a place for the Avatar, and that required devoted Temple members. The THA was one specific outgrowth of the work, and during the experiment, ideals of Socialism were discussed and digested by the membership. Many of the teachings of the Temple were preoccupied with the spirituality of socialist community arrangements. However, the reasons for the THA’s failure were multiple, and involved ideological, personal, and practical considerations. Clearly in these early formative years, the goal of high ideals, such as the building of a City for 10,000 inhabitants, still required the acceptance of human limitations that continually went hand in hand in those early years.  In facing the inevitability of change and sometimes the disappointments that change seemed to engender at the time, the members were reminded of the Master Hilarion’s words:  “. . . your relationships one to another must be stripped of all pretense, all self-seeking, all selfishness. The tests you will continue to meet are based on the Law of Brother/Sisterhood and involve the finer courtesies of life, the gentle services for youth and age, the ability to withhold rather than to give ridicule or criticism, to bear with and not to provoke, to entertain the Christ within your hearts in such a way that you become the absolute embodiment of Light and Love.”^[xli] 

[i] “To the Temple and the Brotherhood of Man,” circular, March 10, 1898, 3. Temple Archives. See Paul Eli Ivey, “The Theosophical Temple Movement: Socialism, the Iroquois League, and the Politics of the Brotherhood of Man,” in eds. Arthur Versluis, Lee Irwin, and Melinda Phillips, Esotericism, Religion, and Politics (North American Academic Press, 2012), 215-234.
[ii] For examples see “One Broad Platform,” Syracuse Herald, March 13, 1899; “True Unity,” Syracuse Herald, March 23, 1899; “Wants a New Party,” Syracuse Herald, March 30, 1899; “Up to Date Government,” Syracuse Evening Telegram, April 6, 1899; “The Money Problem,” Syracuse Evening Telegram, April 13, 1899; “Impending Crisis,” Syracuse Evening Telegram, April 20, 1899.
[iii] Robert D. Fogarty, “American Communes, 1865-1914,” American Studies 9 (1975) 2, 148.
[iv] Kim McQuaid, “The Businessman as Reformer: Nelson O. Nelson and Late 19th Century Social Movements in America,” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 33 (1974) 4, 426. See Albert Fried, Socialism in America, From the Shakers to the Third International (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1970).
[v] Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 138.
[vi] Syracuse Herald, January 23, 1900.
[vii] Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward 2000-1887 (New York: New American Library, 1960), 152.
[viii] “League of Brotherhoods: Its Purpose and Work, including the Building of a City, “ pamphlet, October 16, 1900, 7-8.
[ix] Artisan 3 (1902) 6, 89-90.
[x] Artisan 3 (1902) 5, 77-78; Artisan 3 (1902) 6, 93-94; Artisan 3 (1903) 8, 124-125.
[xi] “Wants a New Party, Lodge of Brotherhood of Man Indorses Reform Movement,” Syracuse Herald, March 30, 1899.  On party reform alignments see James L. Sundquist. Dynamics of the Party System, Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States (Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institution, 1983).
[xii] Syracuse Evening Telegram, July 11, 1901. See W. D. P. Bliss, “Social Reform Union,” Arena 22 (1899) 2, 272. See “Special Number, The Buffalo Conference,” Direct Legislation Record 4 (1899) 3, 38; Eltweed Pomeroy, “The Buffalo Conference,” Direct Legislation Record 6 (1899) 3, 33-64; and J. H. Ferriss, “The Buffalo Conference,” Arena 22 (1899) 1, 71. See Dower’s comment on the conferences in Artisan 13 (1912) 4, 65 and Syracuse Evening Telegram, June 29, 1899. On the Detroit meeting see Eltweed Pomeroy, “The National Social and Political Conference,” Arena 25 (1901) 6, 588-592. On Socialism in the United States see Rose L. Martin, Fabian Freeway, High Road to Socialism in the U. S. A. 1884-1966 (Chicago: Heritage Foundation, 1966).
[xiii] Artisan 2 (1901) 2, 26-27; Artisan 2 (1902) 9, 136-137.
[xiv] See Louis Filler, “Edward Bellamy and the Spiritual Unrest,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 8 (1949) 3, 239-249; John Hope Franklin, “Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement,” New England Quarterly 11 (1938) 4, 739-772; Laurence Gronlund, The Co-Operative Commonwealth, An Exposition of Socialism, rev. ed. (Boston: Lee and Shephard, 1894); Mark Pittenger, American Socialist and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 44-46; Stanley Buder, Visionaries and Planners, The Garden City Movement and the Modern Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
[xv] See Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 65. See discussion in Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits, 227.
[xvi] “Ripe for the Occult,” The Washington Post, May 25, 1896, 10.  See Burcham Harding, Brotherhood, Nature’s Law (New York: Burcham Harding, 1897).
[xvii] Chicago Daily Tribune, June 27, 1897, 13. See also New York Times, June 27, 1897, 1. Artisan 6 (1906) 12, 204.
[xviii] “League of Brotherhoods: Its Purpose and Work including the Building of a City,” pamphlet, October 6, 1900, 10. Temple Archives. See also Master Hilarion, Interview no. 61, August 22, 1900. Temple Archives. Morya, by Luestra, to the Executive Council, April 2, 1902. Artisan 1 (1900) 7, 107-109.
[xix] “The Temple,” February 25, 1903.
[xx] “To All Temple Members,” 1903, exact date unknown.
[xxi] Temple Artisan 8 (1907) 2, 36.
[xxii] Temple Artisan 8 (1907) 2, 36.
[xxiii] Temple Artisan 6 (1905) 3, 46-47.
[xxiv] See William Alfred Hinds, American Communities and Co-operative Colonies, 2nd ed. (Chicago:  Charles H. Kerr and Company, 1908), 577-580.
[xxv] Temple Artisan 5 (September 1904), 51-4.
[xxvi] The Clarion, March 1910; The Clarion, February 1910. Artisan 10 (1910) 11, 206; Artisan 13 (1912) 1, 24.
[xxvii] Blue Star to John Varian, no date, probably 1909. Temple Archives.
[xxviii] Letter, “To the Members of the Temple Home Association,” June 21, 1913. Temple Archives.
[xxix] “To the Templars Who Are Members of the Temple Home Association,” August 5, 1913. Temple Archives.
[xxx] Artisan 7 (1907) 12, 230; Herman Volz, “Early Memories,” hand-written recollection, 1986, 1. See also Herman Volz, “Early Days of the Temple,” hand-written recollection, January 7, 1985, 2.
[xxxi] Bob Stenquist recollection, July 14, 1996.
[xxxii] Family Letter, April 15, 1921. Letters of Light, 213.
[xxxiii] Letters of Light, 111-112.
[xxxiv] Artisan 17 (1916) 2, 24-25; Artisan 17 (1917) 10, 147.
[xxxv] Artisan 19 (1918) 7, 84-85; Artisan 19 (1919) 8, 99.
[xxxvi] Artisan 19 (1919) 8, 100; Artisan 19 (1919) 9, 113; Artisan 20 (1919) 1, 10; Artisan 20 (1919) 4, 42. See also an article by William H. Taft, Artisan 20 (1919) 5, 59-61.
[xxxvii] John Varian to Henry Cowell, January 25, 1918, 3. Russell and Sigurd Varian Papers (SC0345). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.
[xxxviii] “Wilson Defines Stand on Ireland, Says the League Sets Up a Forum for All Claims of Self-determination,” New York Times, September 18, 1919. “Fail to Satisfy De Valera,” New York Times, September 18, 1919. After having requested a meeting with John and Agnes, she sent over a letter dated November 24, 1919, and one on December 1919. See also Artisan 20 (1919) 3, 29.
[xxxix] John Varian “Life Ledger,” entries July 14, 1921 and July 12, 1921. Russell and Sigurd Varian Papers (SC0345). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.
[xl] See discussion in Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent, 288-29.
[xli] Quoted in Eleanor Shumway, “Preconvention 2012,” http://www.templeofthepeople.org/pre-convention-2012/

On April 15th of this year my mother passed away. Most years, April 15th is Tax Day, although this year it fell on a Sunday. In the odd way meaning gathers around certain dates in our lives, now Tax Day has a new and strange meaning for me, and I expect it will come around every year and remind me of my mother. If I had to choose a day to remember her it wouldn’t be Tax Day. But that is far from the only absurd thing about my mother’s passing. In fact, looked at in a broader context, Tax Day is almost fitting.
That’s because death feels arbitrary. It doesn’t make rational sense. When you experience a death that is very close to you and have your world upturned by it, you realize this much more deeply than before. When I was in college, I signed up for a course called Metaphysics, not knowing that Metaphysics in college philosophy departments means studying the logic behind the science of physics. I was expecting something a little more spiritual I guess. Anyhow, the most memorable thing I read in Metaphysics class was an observation by the British philosopher David Hume. In a game of billiards, he wrote, one ball strikes another and the second ball goes flying in a direction predetermined by the first ball. We may see this happen a hundred times or a thousand, and yet we cannot perceive the transfer of force from one ball to another. We merely know from experience that a certain cause produces a certain effect. Hume said there is really nothing about the phenomenon that should lead us to believe it will always happen this way, except that it always does. We can’t capture or understand the link between cause and effect. We merely experience it.
So too the sun rising. It rises every day because it rises every day. We don’t often stop to consider that this is just a temporary phenomenon exhibited by an ephemeral star in the midst of its lifespan. If the sun didn’t come up one day our world would be thrown into turmoil, and yet one day it won’t. In the daily cycles of our own lives, we grow used to seeing the same people every day or being able to call them up on the phone whenever we want to. The existence of the people in our lives is like a fact of nature, like the sun rising — always true and consistent, seldom thought about. Then one day one of them is gone. A loss like this is not abstract. Thousands of people may die in a distant hurricane and it will not strike you as deeply as the loss of one person to whom you are close. Such a loss affects our very sense of how the world is supposed to work. It’s as though you walked outside one day and the sky was green and the grass was blue. I can only speak from a few months’ experience, but I do wonder if they ever fully return to their previous hues.
I have always found myself in a quandary when it comes to matters faith and belief. My parents, looking for a place to get married, found the Temple in 1970, and my mother’s lifelong and devoted membership from before I was born until the day she died has been one of the constants in my life. It led to my forming my own bond with the Temple that has been steadfast and unquestioned in my mind. I rely on my sense of belonging to the Temple community and my devotion to its values. My mother always said, when in doubt, remember the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. No matter what might be the ultimate secrets to life and death, this rule is hard to deny, and my love for the people here and the way they practice that rule is one of the foundation stones of my life.
But if you ask me whether I believe in certain specific tenets of this or any other faith, I am likely to respond that I don’t even really “believe” in electrons or Alpha Centauri. I accept that reasonable people and deep thinkers have convictions about these things, and I respect the feelings of the devout. I’ve often thought that if I could merely turn off my skeptical reflex long enough I might be able to accept more of what I cannot directly experience. The specificity of belief is what has always caught me up short. A general notion of a beneficent creative force driving the universe seems reasonable enough, but as soon as I get into the specifics of doctrine I cannot help but think, why this way and not another? I say this not because I think I have it all figured out and those who believe are wrong. On the contrary, I think I would rather have faith if I could.
In place of faith I have often turned to poetry. So here’s a poem by Emily Dickinson.
I dwell in Possibility—
A fairer House than Prose—
More numerous of Windows—
Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—
Impregnable of Eye—
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—
For Occupation—This—
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise—

“I dwell in Possibility,” Dickinson writes, “a fairer House than Prose.” Here “prose” relates to the word “prosaic” meaning commonplace, unromantic, lacking in beauty. But of course prose is more literally the opposite of poetry: writing that focuses on stating the facts. Dickinson does not say that the open possibility of poetry is better in every way than the hard facts of prose, only that possibility is fairer, more beautiful, and that she herself has chosen it over prose, or else it has chosen her. Possibility is more beautiful than fact because it has more windows and more doors, and as many rooms as there are trees in the forest, so many you can’t ever see them all. Its roof is the sky. And your occupation when you dwell in possibility is to spread wide your narrow hands and “gather Paradise.” This thought resonates with me, the thought that the openness of possibility is more powerful and broad than the closed circle of certainty. If there is comfort in not knowing what you believe, it is the comfort of always being open to possibility. I tend to find that openness in art and poetry and in other people, even in belief systems that may not seem as though they reconcile with each other. Somewhere above the contradictory specifics in life is a harmonious resolution of opposites beyond our understanding. That’s not a statement of faith so much as an embrace of possibility, an opening of one’s hands to gather up Paradise in its endless variety of manifestations.
And then I think of my mother and my mother’s faith. She was smart and as skeptical as anyone when it came to political and cultural life. One of the things I miss most is being able to talk with her about any subject under the sun and feel we were having a real exchange of ideas unburdened by the limitations of already made-up minds. I learned so much from her about how two people can help each other to grow by accepting that the other person always has something to teach you. In that sense she was certainly a person who dwelt in possibility. She never once told me that I had to believe what she believed or even that I should. On the other hand, she had a deep and certain faith, and her faith was a central part of who she was. Her faith stood strong against every test, and helped her immensely when she faced the greatest of tests in her final years. I find myself wondering if there is a way for me to understand faith through her.
In many other ways, my mother has become a part of my inner life since her passing. I went to visit her in the cemetery yesterday and as I was getting out of the car I thought to myself, “Mom, I don’t know how to write this talk. I’ve had this title in my head, ‘My Mother’s Faith,’ for weeks now but I don’t know how to say what I want to say.” Almost before those words formed in my mind I knew what she would tell me: “Just write.” In fact I have some idea how she would answer just about any question I can think to ask her. As I was visiting her yesterday I thought that as good as our conversations always were when she was here, there was the veil of language separating us as it separates all people. I say what I think I mean and you hear what you think I said. The slippage between those meanings is often the cause of great misunderstanding. What I say I learned from her was how to overcome that gap between two people somewhat. It requires patience and the ability to really listen, and it requires an understanding of what language can and can’t do. But now when I feel I’m communicating with her or my memory of her or whatever it is, there is no need for mediation. It’s a direct line. She’s right there in my head or my heart or that inner place without a name. We don’t have to go through the struggle of trying to put thoughts into words. The words are just there.
But it isn’t as though I can ask her how she came to her faith. The sense of her that I carry with me doesn’t answer questions like that. If I do ask, the kind of answer I get is both indirect and very direct indeed. Her voice in my head says: Write. Make music. Do something nice for someone. Read a book. Cook dinner. Be with your children. Get outside and take a walk, don’t stay cooped up in front of the computer all the time. And that’s it. That’s all I get. I know for a fact she would have given me a long, convoluted answer when she was alive. She liked to talk and would have had a lot to say. But somehow in my head it all boils down to this. Don’t think about me, think about you. And focus on what matters.
Focus on what matters and be open to possibility. After all, the things I hear her telling me to do are all about making a real connection to the world and to one’s inner self, through art, interaction with people, getting close to nature. Those are the activities that mattered to her the most and all of them ask one to look at life with an open heart and an open mind.
I frankly often feel that far too much of my time is taken up with things that don’t matter much at all. I suppose many of us feel this way. In order to make a living we give up our precious time and gradually whatever we do to make a living takes over and becomes who we are, or a great part of it. Here’s William Wordsworth to say it better than I can.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

It should be said that despite the line about the “Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,” Wordsworth had a lot of affection for ancient Greece. He’s saying he would rather be a person of faith than a person who spends all his time “getting and spending” and worrying what time it is. How unfortunate that some of us feel we are faced with the choice to be one way or the other. And yet I wonder if there is a clue in the way the speaker in the poem talks about faith. He would rather be a Pagan, he says, and be able to see Proteus rising from the sea or hear Triton blowing his horn. In other words, the kind of faith he wants is the kind that comes with concrete evidence. He does not seem conscious of this paradox. Has his focus on “getting and spending” trained his psyche to see things only in material terms? Is that the key to his predicament? He cannot throw off the weight of the world unless he finds a replacement he can weigh on the same scale. But if you weigh the immaterial on the scale of the material, you’re bound to say it lacks substance. It’s like saying to someone who only speaks English that I’ll happily accept your position if you say it to me in Chinese.
I’ll let my mother have the last word. This is from her Temple talk entitled “Forgiveness.”
If we begin to look at the collective actions of humanity in the [light of] comparing ordinary acceptable behavior to Natural Law, even as we are able to understand it, we may soon begin to feel overwhelmed by the realization of the enormity of our sins, personally and collectively. It may seem as though we must be living on borrowed time — as though the executioner’s axe of divine retribution must very soon fall on us all. Yet it is at this very point of realization of the dimensions of our crime against nature that the most hope lies. For here we may begin to understand the power of forgiveness to transform. Anyone who can admit to themselves that they have ever broken one of God’s Laws has the power to practice forgiveness.
We can begin by forgiving ourselves. Let us remember that if “to err is human,” and we are human, we are prone to error. Our progress along the Path to enlightenment is marked by the errors we commit, and the lessons they help us learn. Breaking God’s Law and paying the price meted out by the Lords of Karma is the only way we evolve on our way to self-conscious reunion with God. But let us remember also that “to forgive is divine.” A human being is much more than a poor collection of lower impulses to self-gratification. Each member of the human race is a spiritual being as well, and it is the transmutation of the lower self into the perfected Higher Self that is the process we call evolution.
The only thing that limits any human being from participating in the higher life of the spirit is the inability of his or her consciousness to perceive the reality of the spiritual realms. Once the student of occultism, the earnest seeker of enlightenment and truth, accepts the idea that the most cherished ideals of human development and behavior are in fact beacon lights held high by each spiritual soul to light the journey out of the selfish darkness into the eternal incandescence off selfless Unity with all Life, he or she can begin to practice the virtues represented by those ideals, gradually making them their own.
We can learn to recognize and accept responsibility for our own sins, for all the breaking of God’s Law we have ever committed, and, hand in hand with our own Higher Selves — our own aspiration toward perfection — we can forgive our erring lower selves. In so doing, like Jesus with the blind man, we blot out, dissolve, the blind errors of our former ways, and begin anew, armed with the knowledge of self-examination and experience, to apply these ideals to our own daily lives. The sins we have truly forgiven and duly forgotten, need never be repeated, because we have made an alliance of our own consciousness with our Guardian Angels, our spiritual selves, and have raised the vibration of our own beings closer to the ideals we hold so dear. If it takes the near despair of realizing the enormity of our sins, all the more reason for gratitude for the pain they have caused, since that helps each of us create ourselves anew, though pressuring us to seek surcease, and showing us the way to forgiveness.

I have spoken before about  The Healing Meditation and The Words of Force.  We hear them so often that I think we need to examine them at regular intervals, putting the Light of consciousness on them, each time investing these powerful tools with new awareness of their authority and majesty.

Here in Halcyon we hear the Healing Meditation at least three times a week: “We will now hold the Healing Meditation, calling in the healing forces of the Lodge. With the Power of the White Light let us surround the Guardian-in-Chief, Temple Officers, all members here and elsewhere who are in need of help; all who have sent in their names for the Healing Bowl; and everyone who is searching for the Light.

“May the Master purify us that we may more worthily perform this service. In the strength of the Christos do we repel all evil from this Thy Holy Altar and sanctuary; and we pray our Heavenly Father/Mother that Thou wilt send Thy Holy Angels to help us build a Spiritual Temple, through which Thy Strength and Blessings may be poured forth upon the world.

“To Thee, Almighty Father/Mother/Son, Creator of Life, spiritual and material, we lift our hearts in faith that, if it be according to Thy Will, the Sun of Thy righteous and omnipotent Love may shine upon and within us, lifting the fallen shadows of disease and suffering, and restoring us to mental, moral, and physical health.
AMEN”

What in the world are we actually doing when we say or hear this?  What do these words mean?  Do we even really hear them any more?  Would we be upset if they disappeared?  Who cares?  I think I can truthfully and resoundingly say, “We do!”

Let’s take a careful look.

We have been told many times, in many ways of the creative power of sound.  The Bible, announcing the formation of the known world, tells us in the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God,  and God spoke the world into being.  Our own Teachings are full of references to the power of Sound.

So why do we speak the words of the Healing Meditation?  We tune into the creative power of this primal, Divine Force.  In order to use it for healing, our motive must be a sincere desire to help everyone, including ourselves, to  meet the challenges facing us.  That motive must be articulated within each person present as the invocation begins,  “We will now hold the Healing Meditation.”  This articulation can be instantaneous, for thought happens faster than the speed of Light.

Remember, when we hold a meditation, instead of sending “out” light, or prayers, we need to go within.  See yourself following the Light deep within your heart and suddenly it opens out into the real world containing the essence of everything in manifestation.  As we go within our hearts we conserve energy, becoming  more and more effective in our role of partner and co-creator with the Masters and God.

Next, we tap all the good, all the positive forces of the Great White Lodge with the words, “calling in the healing forces of the Lodge.”  We acknowledge  the Love, the Guidance, the Presence of the Masters and Their Love, and our right to call upon Them.  Even though we are never actually outside of that presence and Love, we must ask each day for the spiritual food we need to keep us spiritually healthy and connected.  This our responsibility in the partnership we have with All That Is, or God.

We make the connection, then we state, “With the Power of the White Light,” by which we acknowledge, that as part of the team, we are going to use that Power of the White Light creatively under the Higher Law to do the following: “let us surround the Guardian-in-Chief, Temple Officers,”  note this is not by personal name, but rather by the point made manifest by the office itself.  We are asking that the White Light enable each office to most effectively function its duties. The personality currently occupying that point is included in the following  “all members here and elsewhere who are in need of help.” We see ourselves and each person in our Temple family surrounded by the White Light, helping us all to meet whatever challenge we face.  Then we spread this beneficent Light in ever increasing circles to:  “all who have sent in their names for the Healing Bowl; and everyone who is searching for the Light.”  This effectively covers the world and beyond.  We must actively engage in this process. Our responsibility is not met by just listening and drifting along.  We must see ourselves as being a power station, actively engaged in  helping to send the Light in all directions.

Nelson Mandela  expresses it so clearly:

“Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness,
that frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t
serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened
about shrinking
so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the
glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us,
it’s in all of us.
And, as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously
give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated
from our own fears,
our presence
automatically liberates others.”

–Nelson Mandela

In The Healing Meditation, next we ask that the Master help us clear out the garbage inside ourselves that could get in the way of our being an effective instrument or partner in this process.  “May the Master purify us that we may more worthily perform this service.”  We begin with ourselves, then we move inward to the specifics of the task at hand.  “In the strength of the Christos do we repel all evil from this Thy Holy Altar and sanctuary;”  We see ourselves standing guard, upright, strong, and invincible, as a Warrior of Light.  As that Warrior, we do not raise a sword or gun, we simply ARE the Light.  We find that evil, or the shadows, falls back defeated.  Then, “we pray our Heavenly Father/Mother that Thou wilt send Thy Holy Angels to help us build a Spiritual Temple, through which Thy Strength and Blessings may be poured forth upon the world.”  We ask for help in our inner building process of becoming a conduit through which that help may reach us as well as all others.

And finally, we make a passionate plea, asking, like the warmth of the physical sun, that the warmth and nurturing of the Spiritual Sun will shine on us helping to dispel the shadows of disease and suffering.  As we do this, we move into our Divine mental, moral, and physical health.   “To Thee, Almighty Father/Mother/Son, Creator of Life, spiritual and material, we lift our hearts in faith that, if it be according to Thy Will, the Sun of Thy righteous and omnipotent Love may shine upon and within us, lifting the fallen shadows of disease and suffering, and restoring us to mental, moral, and physical health.”

We address these words to the Father/Mother/Son, Creator of Life, spiritual and material.  We acknowledge the threefold unity of being, the Creator of all Life.  We must understand that there is no way to be outside of this Creator, looking in.  We are it, we simply state that we understand we live according to Divine Law, knowing that we are not victims of blind chance, but an active partner in the creation of all Life as we know it.  With the help and guidance of this threefold expression of Divinity, we will gain the heights, and help others to stand beside us.   We state that “if it be according to Thy Will,” thereby recognizing the Law of Karma, which is balance and Love or God in action.

The vibratory rate of the words of the Healing Meditation bring us into alignment with the Forces of Divinity, thereby helping us to function more effectively, restoring us to mental, moral, and physical health, which together spell spiritual health.  We are irrevocably connected with every other atom in the manifested universe, therefore, as we seek  and find mental, moral and physical health, we send that increased balance to every other part of God.   When we feel this is too much of a responsibility, we are too weak, too tired, and/or too busy, remember the power of a small candle in a dark room.  When we all light our small candles we create a powerful Light, the Light of Love, the Light of God.

John Varian calls this power, Sun Power:

Through me sunlight shooting outwardly into the world-darkness;
Through me warm, wholesome love to the Hungry-hearted;
Through me balanced independence into the serf-minded;
Through me heart strength and endurance to the lost.
From me happiness to the sorrow-ladened;
From me courage to the weak-souled;
From me perception to the blinded;
From me expression to the dumb.
Radiance to the world,
Peace to the earth,
Truth to the Law,
Love to the folk.

THE WORDS OF FORCE

At regular intervals during the last three or four years of her life, my mother would say, “Why don’t you write a talk about the Words of Force?” or “Why don’t you study the Words of Force in a class?”  I can remember looking at her rather blankly wondering how one could fill a talk or a class with one sentence.  I would say, “Oh, I’ll think about it”, or  “That’s a good idea,” and then go on about my routine.  She may be gone from the physical plane, but  I really feel she is still nudging me.  I wrote these words several years ago and want to share them with you again.

“Out of the Darkness shineth the Light of the Glorified Triple Star,  into the hearts of Humanity, raising the pulse of the Cosmic Heart, and driving the shadows into the blackness of the Great Abyss.”   This one sentence, entitled  Words of Force, is repeated in Temple meetings every week, and used as an affirmation by many people during daily meditation.  What does it mean, and how does it operate in our lives?

The title, Words of Force, gives us the first clue to the power inherent in this affirmation.  “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God”.  All of manifestation came from the Word, the differentiation of God into the parts of our world, to grow, evolve, experience, and return to God self-conscious in our Unity with the One.  The Force  is that energy inherent in the Word; the strength, the vigor, the power of Fohat, which is the universal propelling Vital Force, which is at once, the propeller and the resultant.  So as we say these words aloud, alone or together, we are invoking or calling on the Divine within all manifestation.   We need to be focused when we do this, alert, and aware,  in order to properly absorb the force as we become attuned to it.  We are told we always get what we ask for, sent to us  in terms of our real needs, and on a Divine time schedule.

“Out of the Darkness shineth the Light of the Glorified Triple  Star . . .” Coming from the Darkness of the unmanifested, the undifferentiated, pours the Light from the first trinity, Father-Mother-Son, the Red Star, the Blue Star and the Gold Star, the Glorified Triple Star.  Combining and recombining, constantly in motion, interpenetrating all of the Cosmos with the synthesis of all colors, the White Light of the Absolute, this trinity powers all that we know.  This trinity, the Glorified Triple Star, has other names: Desire, Will and Motion; Love, Will and Wisdom; Light, Heat and Electricity; the Thinker, the Thought and the Expression; Atma, Buddhi and Manas.  All these names are an effort of ours to describe the nearly indescribable.

The Light of the Glorified Triple Star pours out into the hearts of humanity.  As the light of the physical sun pours down upon the planet we call home, without distinction, without choosing one place over another, so does the Light of the Triple Star constantly bathe each and every one of us. As local weather conditions can obscure the sunlight temporarily, so can our choices of negativity, hatred, malice, self-centeredness, and greed obscure the Light of Love that continues to surround us without discrimination.  It simply IS.   This Divine Light raises the pulse of the Cosmic Heart, the Heart that connects all of us with every other thing and being in the Cosmos.  We cannot escape this connection, no matter how separated we feel, one from the other.

Our point of responsibility in this affirmation is that of staying connected with all manifestation.  The Master tells us on page 325 of Volume 1 of the Teachings of the Temple, “Tear down the barriers, children of my soul!  Shut out from your hearts nothing in the Universe save the thing or creature that would separate you from other human souls; for only in union with those other human souls will you ever find God–find Love Incarnate–find Peace and Fulfillment.  Every barrier you build between other human souls is a barrier between your God and your own soul, between your Higher Self and you.”

Dr. Dower emphasizes this responsibility when he writes, “The mistakes of our brothers or sisters are our mistakes and not one of us can fall without causing pain for all of us.  When we keep this unalterable law in mind we find the courage to hold steady, to keep the faith, and to endure that the rest of us may not suffer because of our limitations.  When we can see each other with eyes so steady that neither light nor shade, joy or pain, can keep from us a realization of our oneness each with the other and thus replace condemnation and criticism with patience and understanding, then indeed can we open the Place of Refuge to the Avatar and make radiant with understanding love that Dwelling Place.”

Alice O. Howell, in The Dove in the Stone wrote, “There are as many miracles to be seen through a microscope as through a telescope.  Start with little things seen through the magnifying glass of wonder and just as a magnifying glass can focus the sunlight into a burning beam that can set a leaf aflame, so can your focused wonder set you ablaze with insight  Find the light in each other and just fan it.”

When we are actively participating in the process of the Light pouring in on humanity, raising the pulse of the Cosmic Heart, we are nourishing not only ourselves but all of manifestation, and strengthening the power of the Light.  It is, indeed, a most profound symbiotic relationship, a Cosmic “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” situation!  As this process happens the shadows of negativity, of doubt, despair, separation, and self-centeredness are driven into the blackness of the Great Abyss.  The Great Abyss is that place of oblivion, of absolutely undifferentiated matter, of total non-being.  Nothing is every lost, just recycled in its proper time!

With the words, “Out of the darkness shineth the Light of the Glorified Triple Star into the hearts of humanity, raising the pulse of the Cosmic Heart and driving the shadows into the blackness of the Great Abyss”, we are affirming our recognition of the way the Divine Light pours into the hearts of each and every one of us, indeed, of all manifestation.  Inherent in the recognition comes the acknowledgment of our responsibility to the process.  We are an integral part of the evolution of consciousness and we must become more and more aware of the process, reaching toward the Light and helping to drive the shadows in ourselves into the Great Abyss.

When one considers the cyclic nature of all manifestation, from darkness to Light and back to darkness, this one sentence  tells the story of  manifestation in a manvantara and then withdrawal into pralaya, or rest.  One short sentence, one incomprehensibly long period of time.  Yet another paradox!

In closing, let me read this from Sue Bender in Plain and Simple, “The Amish love the Sunshine and Shadow quilt pattern.  It shows two sides—the dark and light, spirit and form–and the challenge of bringing the two into a larger unity.  It’s not a choice between extremes: conformity or freedom, discipline or imagination, acceptance or doubt, humility or a raging ego.  It’s a balancing act that includes opposites.”  It is the balance point we strive for.  Out of the darkness shineth the Light.  We are becoming that point.

—-Eleanor Shumway, Guardian in Chief

Dear Temple-sisters and –brothers, dear friends,

Acceptance has a lot to do with HARMONY, HARMONY inside and outside ourselves. How we experience a situation is our own responsibility. We are always tested at our Achilles heal, our weakest spot. According to our frame of mind there may be more of them. Our condition varies. We are permanently asked to do our actual best. At times that can be more or less. But still this “more or less” has consequences. The same situation is put in front of us once more.

“This is a Universe of Law and Order. If a single one of the Universal Laws could be broken by man with impunity, manifestation of Spirit in man and Nature would cease. While the forces of evil aroused to action by man`s efforts to break or suppress those Laws are overruled for his growth and development, the laws themselves are Eternal and Irrevocable. When man fully recognizes this fact, and understands and lives in perfect HARMONY with those laws, he becomes like God – All-Powerful.” (TT II, p. 24)

This is the final aim. Until we are there, we still have a lot of steps to go. I think it  is cheering, that all the bad things we do, knowingly and and often not knowingly,  in the final result serves us to make us able to understand the Law and to yield ready obedience. So I will not regard it as a punishment when I get the same lesson innumerable times, so I may see my mistake. Its more like a private lesson. That does not mean that I do like it. But perhaps it helps to want to avoid this fault. But it´s not eluding displeasure that should be our aim, but to choose the right thing because we want to do our best. It helps to remember not to work against something but for something.
Back to HARMONY that includes acceptance. In the dictionary Duden HARMONY is defined thus: “1) joining, fitting together, agreement, accord, union, 2) in educational art: symmetry, the balanced, quiet, moderate, regular proportion of all parts concerned 3) melodious sound of several sounds and chords in a musical movement.  To HARMONIZE is described thus: vote, mutual adjustment, bring into accord.”

We are looking for the themes, where we are able to agree, and that are best for everyone.

“This spirit of UNITY shall prevail independent of race, color, nation, organization, creed or caste of any kind. Utter selfishness is the great obstacle in the way of development. In our great greed for all and everything that can be of service to us individually, we pass by Love, Mercy and Justice, and grasp at every hope as a drowning man at a straw, regardless of what it may have cost others to extend a helping hand to us. If we perfectly realized the law of supply and demand we would be more careful. It is exact in its action. If one gives us something that is of great use and benefit to us, by that giving he has created a demand on us which, if we do not supply to the best of our ability, nullifies the gift as far as we are concerned. Spiritual truth cannot be sold, but if we are given a great truth we should immediately set about seeing in what way we can return to the giver an equivalent, or at any rate supply a need of his which is perhaps equal to ours. This interaction produces HARMONIOUS conditions which permit of mutual help. …..
The mission is preeminently one of HARMONIZING discordant elements and UNIFYING the separated parts of the scattered flock. One of its greatest efforts in this line is directed to persuading all to lay aside peculiar personal opinions and UNITE on the one fundamental plank that is acceptable to all – common UNITY based on the BROTHERHOOD OF MAN AND THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD:
In this presentation of Universal Truth and Principles no (separating) organizational lines, creeds, fees or dues exist. Spirit alone ensouls all things without form or obligation, each one following his own light within himself and his own particular field of endeavor, aspiration and influence, trying ever to realize the UNITY of All Things and the Great Father-Mother Source of all Being, through their own spiritual principles.
Contact or relationship with any church, organization, group or society with
which one may be affiliated, shall in no wise be interfered with or disturbed.” (TT II, p. 348/9, 350) Of cause there is no reciprocal disparage actions or persecution among the several groups either.

“The fearful and the unbelieving, as well as all sycophantic devotees of the Beast of Mammon, have invariably attempted to stop the progress of evolutionary development by building mental images of disaster and failure, or spreading nets of discouragement to entangle the energies directed by true lovers of the human race toward a common goal and a common good.” ( TT I, Nr. 29, p 64)

Let us try not to listen to these voices and instead to keep our strength for the creation and preservation of HARMONY. That is very important, because no one lives alone, everything influences each other.

“The visible sun is often said to be the generator of heat and light, but in fact it is like unto a concave mirror, and intercepts and gathers the etheric vibrations of sound, heat and light, and in turn throws them back into the receptive cushion or aura of the earth and the other planets of its evolutionary chain. The correspondence between such action of Cosmic forces upon each other, and the influence of one human being over another, is perfect, for the magnetic radiations of any aura reflected upon the auras of others, and by means of the action of the same great Cosmic light, and if the latter is intercepted by an antagonistic emanation, that which should have been a spiritual uplifting, upbuilding power for good, for both sender and receiver, becomes a disruption, deathly influence, or shadow, which is in the way of the light, (the truth), and through which each party must look at the other, consequently there is friction and hatred where there should be HARMONY and power.” (TT I, Nr. 66, p. 167)

But all sorrow, all consuming fire, is only a note in the scale of that glorious HARMONY, that only burns all imperfection, only destroys the chrysalis, and prepares conditions for the advent of the perfect angels of radiant light, Wisdom, Knowledge and Power. (regards content TT I, Nr. 27, p. 62)

Let us face our sorrows with acceptance and inner HARMONY.

Yours as always with love
Annegret