Richard A. London, 6th Guardian in Chief
Given October 12, 2025, in the Blue Star Memorial Temple
Our Temple Teaching Treasure Trove is vast. The following two declarations have been Key to my ever-evolving understanding of Life.
The Pledge of the Order of the 36 opens with this:
“I believe in the harmonious evolution of all creative Force and Consciousness, and in a geometrical plan according to which each atom, molecule, human being, and star must attain development under fixed, inexorable Law, which Law is Love. I hereby pledge myself to work in harmony with that Law as far as lies in my power.”
Although humanity’s awareness of the atom and molecule would appear to be a rather recent phenomenon, our awareness of each other and the stars would seem to have never not been.
In the final prayer of the Noon Healing Service, just prior to the Benediction, we hear:
“In the name of Eternal Light, Life, and Love; in the name of that Divineness that inheres in all grades of matter and Spirit; in the name of the beauty, fragrance, and form in the flower world, the refreshing green of Nature, the Spirit of Flame in Fire, the Outpouring of Life from Stars and Sun in Celestial Spaces; in the name of all that is pure and holy, we ask that this Service be blessed, and that its radiant essence may consecrate us to Selfless Service now and forevermore. Amen.”
I find that connecting “the Outpouring of Life from Stars and Sun in Celestial Spaces” with “a geometrical plan according to which each atom, molecule, human being, and star must attain development” enhances my reverence for the Law of Love, and for my recognition of the harmonious evolution of all creative Force and Consciousness. I am revitalized by the reminder of my pledge, by the request for selfless service in the noon service blessing, and how both have their connections to the Words of Force.
The following excerpt is offered to potentially add context to the above two declarations. It is from the lesson entitled “The Wise Man,” from Teachings of the Temple, Volume 1.
“The wise man knows that a conditionless, changeless period of manifestation is an utter impossibility for man in his present state; he knows that history repeats itself in ever-recurring periods through an eternity of time as day follows night; he knows that the democracy of one age will make way for the monarchy of the next, as surely as he knows that the tides will throw up the waters of an ocean on its shores and then fling them back in perfect time and rhythm. He also knows that every tide of life, as well as every tide of ocean, must be taken at its flood if it is to bear a precious load of treasure or experience to its destined harbor; therefore, he takes advantage of every high tide in the affairs of men and nations to advance the progress of his ideals, and then falls back into some secure haven when the tide has gone out, and conserves his energies. But the wise man also knows that back of every tide, every movement of sun, stars, and planets, every cycle of manifestation, is a supreme power which governs all, a power which operates at the center of all things, the place of peace; the point where motion ceases and unity reigns, and that he must be aligned to that power if he would succeed.”
In today’s world, it seems that whenever I expose myself to the bombardment of varying points of view, I open myself up to becoming untethered to what I hold most Sacred, while summersaulting through a vast Ocean of Motion, Light, Stillness, and Darkness. Perhaps this is just another expression of how “knowledge put through the crucible of experience becomes wisdom.”
While I fully believe in freedom and rights, I also believe in consideration and responsibility. When I think about making sense of Unity in Diversity, I rely on my understanding of Orders and Degrees; which is to say that with rare exceptions, every order is composed of varying degrees — as in day and night, hot and cold, wet and dry, left and right, male and female, positive and negative, and so forth. As a child, one of my earliest encounters with this concept came through the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and the personal potential for something to be “Just Right.”
No matter the Order or Degree, all are subject to the Power Supreme, a declaration whose controversy and contentiousness seems far from settling down. Humanity’s battle over whose God or what God, whose Truth or what Truth, and whose Rules or what Rules are to be believed, trusted, and lived by, even if in principle alone, has yet to be won.
Through a practical study of the Temple Teachings, we come to understand that God is Love, and that there are Truths our finite minds are incapable of comprehending. No matter the nomenclature, the Highest Aspect of Creation from the Eternal to the Creator, to the Absolute or the Unknowable, all have been subjected throughout the ages to a multitude of deeply seeded spectrums of inquiry and speculation.
The third object of the Temple of the People is “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.”
In this regard, there has been astronomical scientific progress made over centuries of time as humanity has come to know the spherical nature of Earth. It is rather easy to take for granted that, not too long ago, the assertion that the Earth revolved around the Sun was considered a form of heresy. Since the times of Copernicus and Galileo, science has further penetrated the unknown when it comes to increasing the sophistication of humanity’s ability to measure great distances, amounts of time, and volumes of space.
Without getting too technical, varying estimates (and AI) assert that there are “one to two septillion stars in the observable universe, calculated by multiplying the estimated number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy (about 100 to 400 billion) by the estimated number of galaxies in the observable universe (around 2 trillion).”
Just for context, one million seconds equals approximately 11 days. One billion seconds is approximately 11,000 days. One trillion seconds is in the vicinity of 11 million days, and a septillion of seconds is in the realm of 11 quintillion days. By adding space to this thought about time, ever wonder how many Earths could fit into our Sun? If Earth were a water balloon and the Sun a bucket, the estimated number of Earths needed to fill up the Sun would be in the ballpark of 1.3 million water balloons. To further underscore the vastness of the Universe, the star known as Stephenson 2-18 is said to be large enough to contain 10,000 billion water balloons the size of our Sun.
It is difficult for me to comprehend, let alone imagine, the vastness of the Universe. I would be cautious about buying anything from someone who says they know the exact size of infinity.
Other than Earth, there appears to be no confirmed number of planets that support life. However, by some scientific estimates, billions of potentially habitable planets exist within the Milky Way alone, with a possible 50 sextillion in the entire observable universe. As a refresher, a septillion is 1 followed by 24 zeros, a sextillion is 1 followed by 21 zeros, and a quintillion is 1 followed by 18 zeros.
Having stretched our thinking about time and space, without even getting into specifics about distance, it is the concept of the Garden of Eden and its sacredness that is significant to my understanding of the excerpts from the Order of the 36 Pledge and the Noon Healing Service Prayer.
In that regard, I believe that my body is the Garden of Eden. While there are many who do not even believe in the Biblical reference to the Garden of Eden, I believe it to be a fact of life, which humanity has the potential for comprehending and which eventually needs to be realized as we continue to wrap our minds around the unlimited vastness of the Universe.
The time is nearing when the taking for granted of the miracles of our bodies and the sacredness of life will have undeniably become a consequential matter of choice. Many recovering addicts will confirm the truth behind the old adage, “Your second cup of pleasure contains the first drop of poison.”
To that end, there continues to be an accumulation of a type of inconsiderate and irresponsible behavior now tarnishing an increasingly unfettered form of freedom and rights. While at best, the existence of harmony is being challenged, I’m noticing an increasing concern about losing a form of government that many of us believe to be democracy. Could this portend the coming of a monarchy?
Here’s where the Golden Rule needs to be considered. It’s no secret that the Temple Teachings hold the Golden Rule in the highest regard, while acknowledging that it may be the most difficult rule for all people to follow, no matter one’s race, creed, sex, caste, or color. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” will one day become a simple rule to implement, once humanity comes to terms with “what to do?”
I believe that the sacredness of the Golden Rule is revealed through one’s understanding of the Garden of Eden. It is the concept of Fohat that adds clarity to the role played by the Golden Rule within the Garden of Eden.
Throughout the Temple Teachings, we find Fohat corresponding to the Word of God, Cosmic Electricity, and the Holy Spirit. From there we may come to know the Sons of Fohat as Sound, Light, Flame, Magnetism, Attraction, Repulsion, and Cohesion. This is touched upon in the lesson entitled “The Creative Word,” in Teachings of the Temple Vol. 1:
The ocean of ether, that shoreless, soundless, motionless mirror of God, reservoir of all the life essence of all the eternities, is set in motion by Fohat, the Word, and the Divine Thought. That Eternal All breaks into ripples and waves of different lengths and intensities, clothing the souls awaiting embodiment with their first garments of manifestation. These are called light waves and sound waves by modern scientists, but the average scientist has not yet evolved to the point where he becomes conscious that the synthesis of the individual forms of his many incarnations (namely his personal self) is, in reality, one of those waves of the etheric ocean, set into motion countless aeons ago, and so to continue that motion until the Divine Word of recall is spoken aeons hence, creating and disintegrating form after form by the power of its own inherent vitality for the use of the soul — the essence of that Word — sent forth from the depths of that silent ocean. In the vast, immeasurable spaces of the heavens, myriads upon myriads of waves are being unceasingly spoken into motion, garments of souls that will sometime people other systems of worlds, now in process of building.
I find that my evolving understanding of Fohat correlates to some scientific assertions, including the idea that the building blocks of a planet, such as the minerals contained within rocks, are the result of the life and death of stars and suns in celestial spaces.
By the time humanity was becoming self-aware and conscious of consciousness, it would be by humanity’s budding ingenuity that various aspects of matter — “the garment of Spirit in manifestation” — were able to offer safety through the primitive transformation of sticks and stones. The created was now creating. The evolving need to work for protection, sustenance, and shelter had become foundational to the reduction of fear and doubt, brought about by the weaning from the Garden of Eden. The earliest known repurposing by the created of the denser Garments of Spirit continues to further evolve the Supreme Power — the original Creator’s “Geometrical Plan” — into an apparent controversial reshaping of the Divinely inspired Orders and Degrees of physical existence.
To further expand on “the denser Garments of Spirit,” we find in the Bible that the term “rock” is frequently used as a metaphor for God’s strength, stability, and reliability. For example, in Psalm 18, David declares, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.” The expression “Solid as the Rock of Gibraltar” is a modern idiom, reflecting that geological landmark’s immense stability to symbolize something dependable and unchanging. It is, however, Human Nature that I am thinking about in regard to resolving our relationship with the rock of reality, as many of us can be “stubborn as a rock”!
On the other hand, the phrase “nothing is written in stone” suggests that an agreement, plan, or rule is not fixed and is subject to future modifications. This idiom is in contrast with the Biblical concept of the Ten Commandments being inscribed on stone tablets by God.
Nevertheless, while certain aspects of Human Nature — or to an even greater extent, the Human Condition — would seem unresolvable, the prospect of the inevitability of change is cause for faith and keeping hope alive. In other words, we still have the opportunity to be here today because of “the harmonious evolution of all creative Force and Consciousness, and a geometrical plan according to which each atom, molecule, human being, and star must attain development under fixed, inexorable Law, which Law is Love.”
Can you imagine, even for a minute, looking up into the sky on a clear night and only seeing a handful of stars? Remember, science has been able to confirm only relatively recently that the most basic elements of life are composed of atoms and molecules, while still remaining invisible to the naked eye. We need to take this into account to give credence to the probability that many planets with their own forms of the Gardens of Eden continue to have the opportunity for existing throughout the Universe.
While the Sons of Fohat include the seven forces of Sound, Light, Flame, Magnetism, Attraction, Repulsion, and Cohesion, I use the last three to help clarify my understanding of Love as it relates to Creation.
I remain in awe of how the most basic building blocks of life know exactly “what to do.” Through the process of Attraction, Repulsion, and Cohesion, atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, for example, are attracted to each other to form cohesive molecules that provide us with the sacredness of water.
Naturally and yet amazingly, through the auspices of the Sons of Fohat, all the Universal Elements have a sense of knowing “what to do” when it comes to creating a Star, Sun, Planet, and a Garden of Eden. The same holds true for all of the cells, organs, and systems to which my soul, my Spirit, knows to be its body — its garment or its Garden of Eden.
There is a deep-seated connection between the Supreme Power, the Truth, and the Rules foundational to the creation of unfathomable numbers of Gardens of Eden throughout the Universe. That same connection exists with each one of us as well.
From the Creator to the created, to the created becoming a creator; from Intelligence to instinct, to instinct becoming intelligent; throughout this process without beginning and end, the ultimate goal is to realize that “we are God, in God, of God, and that all things, all creatures, are in us and we in them.”
My sense is that humanity is now far beyond the consumption of its second cup of pleasure. Many of us find ourselves increasingly disconnected from the wisdom to be found within the instinctual Orders and Degrees of Mother Nature and their integral connections to the Geometrical Plan.
Whether our individual relationships with the Temple of the People are of attraction or repulsion, in order for there to be cohesion or unity amongst those of us who remain, the binding of bonds will never be without varying degrees of selfless service.
That a Creator could create a Garden of Eden — an instinctual system with its constituent parts operating interdependently and cooperatively to a point of balance without the randomness of choice — and that its various Orders and Degrees would be drawn together by the Sons of Fohat, would most certainly correspond to the inner workings of the human body, a Body, a Garment, a Garden of Eden for the Soul where the various cells, organs, and systems exist by the very nature of the Golden Rule.
Do you think the individual constituent parts of the human body operate under the auspices of a democracy or a monarchy? How humanity comes to terms with the type of selfless service necessary for our bodies, or any other manifested Garden of Eden, to come to know the harmony of a sustainable cycle of resiliency, remains to be seen.
Some fifty years ago, my work brought me to New Zealand. By my second visit, I was so enchanted with the flora and fauna that I never wanted to leave what I came to think of as a Garden of Eden. Since then, I have found that Halcyon also holds the intentional Garden of Eden potentiality, as a place where all planes of existence as they relate to God, Truth, and the Rules are taken into account. This process of evolution resonates deeply with me.
I will close with the following article which, to my way of thinking, zeros in on the unintended consequences of altering the Geometrical Plan as it relates to Mother Nature. Additional insights can be gained by extrapolating the karmic results of any alteration made to the Geometrical Plan, especially when we take into account the well-being of Mother Nature and the mental, moral, and physical health of humanity. The more we distance ourselves from living by the Golden Rule, the more we disconnect ourselves from the path which leads us to the next evolving version of the Garden of Eden.
“Officials release hundreds of traps in forests to fight detrimental threat: They are very smart”
by Daniel Gala, September 23, 2025
Is it ethical to kill millions of invasive predators in order to give native species a chance to survive?
This has been the quandary facing wildlife experts in New Zealand, which has adopted an ambitious goal of completely eradicating invasive predators from the island nation by 2050, according to NPR.
With beloved and iconic species such as the kiwi on pace to go extinct within a couple of generations, New Zealanders have had to decide which species will survive and which will die.
“If we don’t take action, we are killing native wildlife by omission,” explained Brent Beaven, manager of the Predator Free 2050 program at New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, per NPR. “Choosing not to take action is an action. So either way, something’s going to die based on the decisions we make.”
The starkness of this choice has been playing out in New Zealand’s efforts to completely eradicate the invasive stoat, which is a land mammal related to weasels and ferrets.
Stoats were introduced to New Zealand in the 1800s by European settlers, who had hoped that stoats would help control the population of rabbits, which were also an invasive species brought by outsiders, according to NPR.
The situation has highlighted the ethical and logistical complexity of protecting native ecosystems in a world so heavily influenced by human activity, with the circumstances playing out like a real-world version of the old nursery rhyme about the “old lady who swallowed the spider to catch the fly.”
New Zealand wildlife has been especially vulnerable to the impacts of invasive species because native plants and animals evolved in relative isolation from so many of the predators present in the rest of the world.
For a long time, New Zealand did not have any land mammals besides bats, so species like the flightless kiwi never developed defenses against predators such as the stoat, according to NPR.
Now, in order to save New Zealand’s native birds, wildlife experts have focused on removing these invasive predators from the ecosystem, which means killing millions of animals. While this might cause an ethical dilemma for some animal lovers, the solution to the dwindling kiwi population is clear for New Zealanders.
“The ethical questions that arise are really less about, ‘Is it OK to do this?’ and more about, ‘What values should we be upholding as we do it?’” Emily Parke of the University of Auckland explained to NPR. “Even if we all agree with the aim of a predator-free New Zealand, we might disagree about ways of achieving that aim.”
When it comes to the stoat, experts have found that the more progress they make, the more challenging the work becomes.
“They are very smart,” said Claire Travers of the Whakatane Kiwi Trust, per NPR. “Very, very smart. I mean, a stoat can climb really well, get through very small holes, will take on a predator that’s much, much bigger than it is.”
Further, after two decades of eradication efforts, the stoats that remain are particularly difficult to catch, as they are the ones most able to avoid the traps used to kill them. They can even teach their evasive tricks to offspring, NPR reported.
The whole situation has served as a reminder of the incredibly devastating impact that invasive species have on native species and habitats. Invasive species often outcompete native plants and animals, disrupting the delicate balance of native ecosystems.
In addition to threatening native species with extinction, invasive species spread deadly diseases, destroy crops, and disrupt vital trade.
To help support native species, there are plenty of steps you can take right in your own backyard. By rewilding your yard or planting a native garden, you can provide vital food and shelter for native species of birds, pollinators, and even small mammals while also saving money on water and landscaping costs.”
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I love the way this article closes with a suggestion about “what to do?” when it comes to recreating a Garden of Eden.
There will come a time when “Endeavoring to realize the Presence of the Avatar as a living Power in our lives” will be known to be the needed answer to the ever-burning question, “what to do?”
— Richard A. London
6th Guardian in Chief