4
THE GURU AND THE CHELA
By the Ascended Master Kuthumi
CHELA:
Beloved Master:
Why is it that so many earnest spiritually-minded men and women suffer financial
lack and physical distresses? Should not these men and women be among the
manifest examples of opulence and health?
GURU:
Beloved chela:
Truly such individuals should be the manifest example of all that is beautiful,
good, and perfect, not only for their own happiness, security and well being,
but because such people represent us in the world of form. Those who rest smugly
and complacently in their own willful pursuits of pleasure use just such an
argument to discredit the earnest ones on the Path. The words "If thou be the
Christ, come down from the cross" have been echoed through the centuries in one
form or another by many spiritually sightless sons and daughters of men. One
day, in the distant future, such a challenge will echo through their own
consciousness as well!
To answer completely WHY such apparent contradictions between
affirmed faith and works exist would require a volume of written words. However,
for the comfort of the dear ones who writhe self-consciously upon their
respective crosses and feel self-condemnation for such affirmations of
limitation, I shall enumerate a few reasons as follows:
First: Each man who sets his feet upon the spiritual path must begin
just where he is, not where he would like to be. Profession of faith, offers of
service and acceptance of service do not change the heritage of personal karma
any more than application for a position in the world of form, and acceptance by
the employer, change the qualifications of the applicant.
The Master, like the employer, accepts the candidate for service
upon reasonable confirmation that a certain qualified momentum of talent is
available for use in a given position. The Master, like the employer, must rely
upon the candidate himself to live up to his own greatest light and then,
through voluntary study and application, raise himself to greater efficacy in
the endeavor at hand.
The candidate for spiritual knowledge is, by the very reason of his
present interest in spiritual study, usually one who has devoted a goodly part
of his energies through the centuries to developing spiritual powers, oft-times
to the neglect of his physical well being, as well as his financial security.
The law, being wholly impersonal, only releases through the consciousness that
which is held in mind, thought and feelings. If man has not contemplated beauty,
opulence, and the various gifts of plenty in this world, there is no mold, no
form, no channel through which primal life may flow to externalize these gifts
in his experience. Thus, such a one must learn to balance his abstract devotions
with practical mastery of the creative process of molding out of thought
beautiful designs, and energizing them with feeling, bringing them into form as
ways and means of increasing the individual ability to serve the Cause and the
Master. Even in our Octave, we must design and form that which we desire before
it is precipitated into our hands and use.
Second: The student upon the Path immediately comes under an
accelerated action of the Law of Cause and Effect. The energy returning to each
one (which he has sent out in previous embodiments as causes of imperfect
nature) must be returned to such a one to be purified, transmuted and returned
to God in the same perfect expression with which it was received from Him. Thus,
such students have much more to "handle" as their energies return, than mankind
at large whose returning energies are held in abeyance, in mercy, until they
learn the Law of Transmutation (The Violet Transmuting Flame of Mercy and
Compassion). Otherwise they would be overwhelmed by the karmic retribution and
no spiritual advancement could be made in that Earth life. The Cosmic Law it
that no soul can receive more destructive karma back into his experience in one
life than his developed consciousness can transmute and master. Let all who read
take heart thereby, for no student is allowed by the Karmic Board to receive
into his experience any appearance which he cannot by his own light transmute at
the very time it is received. Therefore, in the experiences of life, rejoice
that the Law has felt your consciousness developed enough to receive calmly and
transmute perfectly any shadows that appear, temporarily, upon the screen of
your life.
Third: Every student is a part of the mass karma of the race, the
nation, the planet, the evolution to which he belongs. The conscious students
volunteer to accept the added service of dissolving much of this mass karma
along with their own, even as Jesus assumed and transmuted much of the karma of
the world through his experience at Calvary.
Fourth: Strong individuals, further, sometimes volunteer in a Cosmic
Moment to stand as a Spiritual Guard around certain dedicated lifestreams,
screening out the directed energies, visible and invisible, that would seek to
destroy the heart center of such movements. Thus, Beloved Joseph and Blessed
Mary assumed much karma acting as a guard around the sensitive energies of the
pure consciousness of Jesus. Let no man look at another in judgment, for that
one might well be working out the karma that would otherwise weigh heavily upon
another soul.
Fifth: The seeming happiness, security and well being of the
individuals in the world is built on good endeavors in the past, true... but it
has no assurance of permanence until the consciousness can create and sustain
such conditions at will. Those born to great affluence or physical perfection
have earned that luxury and perfection but while it is an unconscious enjoyment
born of no conscious knowledge of the Law of Precipitation, Healing and Peace,
it is as fleeting as the sunshine that plays on the grateful man but which at a
passing cloud is gone... the man, unable to re-create the sun, being merely an
unconscious receiver of a benefit enjoyed but fleeting.
The individuals who have placed their feet upon the spiritual path
will find no security, happiness nor permanent peace in being the unconscious
recipients of the "gifts of Dame Fortune." They must become conscious of the
powers of creation in the mental body, the powers of animation in the feeling
body, and the powers of externalization through the coupling of practical,
dedicated, channeled physical energies through the flesh. Then no outer person,
place, condition nor circumstance will affect their tranquility, security and
peace. It is such training that ofttimes withholds temporary "surcease" because
the outer consciousness is so easily assuaged when it has received its desire
and unless the law itself is mastered, no further effort would be forthcoming by
the individual until the gift so given was exhausted. Then the consciousness
violently begins again the spasmodic endeavor to re-create a condition of ease
in which to slumber on.
Sixth: The soul of the average individual spends a good hundred to
one thousand years in the Octaves of Light between embodiments, which allows the
individual to gather much reserve energy in the emotional and mental bodies to
work out much accumulation of discord in the etheric body, and to return to
Earth life "refreshed in spirit." Those who are engaged in the spiritual "push"
of the hour have sacrificed this sojourn in the Heavenly Realms and its
consequent reprieve from the vicissitudes of earthly experience, some of them
re-embodying within a year after laying down the previous Earth garment, a few
even abandoning one body before its dissolution and accepting, another. This
sacrifice often is apparent in seeming lack of physical energies, as well as
nervous tensions. All of these factors are the results of conscious sacrifice
upon the part of individuals who are looked upon by the very beneficiaries of
their selflessness with scorn and question. Be unconcerned for we were so
treated before you.