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Alright, the crowd hasn’t thinned very much from the people who had to leave. Aways, when it comes to this talk, I feel somewhat reluctant. Because when old friends are leaving and we never get together, maybe perhaps one year from now or I may see you in the meantime in another city someplace, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in Stockholm with my good friends there or whether it’s in Phoenix or Denver or someplace, I always remember you and I am always very grateful to see you again. I’ve always said that if I didn’t have an audience, I wouldn’t be in this position. And that means that one must have followers in order to have the opportunity to come up on a stage and talk.
It always reminds of the time I came here, one time, and a group I was going to make a series lectures to, the Las Vegas group, and we all went out to lunch on that day, I had a 2 o’clock speech in the afternoon/ So, I went outside after lunch and I sat down. And. there were two or three groups in the cars and everybody thought I was the other car. They all went out to the meeting place and I sat there. And I says, “Well, you can’t have a meeting without the speaker.” So, after a while, somebody came back and got me. Neither can a speaker have a speech without an audience. So, I think we had a stalemate there.
Well, today, I want to in this hour, I want to speak about something that is a very close subject to my heart. It has always been. And, that is the gift of the Master. Now, this is a phrase that you perhaps see in my work. It is one that I’m constantly using. And, I don’t know if I’ve explained or not. There’s been so much pouring out of me in the last few years. And, there will still be a tremendous amount that will pour out yet. And, although I say five more years to go, that doesn’t mean that within five more years I’m going to stop writing. I have a long time yet to write. And, I want to keep it up until I get the message out and then I will go someplace, perhaps back into the mountains in the east. And, there I’ll stay.
Now this gift of the Master (some places as just came into my mind), I said that the touch, the embrace, the kiss, the glance, the feeling that flows out from the Master is the grace, is the gift in passing to the chela, the ECK or the power from the Master to that individual. It can be a handshake, it can be a touch on the shoulder. It can be any of these things. It can be a letter. But, it’s the contact and usually the physical contact in which, that perhaps, the Master touches someone upon the shoulder or embraces them and the power or the gift is passed from him to the individual.
Now, in the East there is a term that they use called the Arti. The Arti is a piece of fruit or something of that nature, which is put upon the tongue of the disciple and he swallows it with the idea that this is the gift that is passed from the Master to the disciple. It’s a symbol of what I’m talking about. But, here we dismiss, usually except maybe in some of the initiations, this sort of idea. So, we use, perhaps the touch, the glance or the pouring from the heart to the individual.
There were times that have been in the past in which I saw what is called the kwacha or the glance of the Master. And, it was such a burning glance and such a glance of deep devotion that I could hardly stand it. It was like the rays of sun pouring into my eyes. And, I didn’t know what the idea of anyone looking at me like that except for the purpose of hypnotism. But, then I soon learned that this wasn’t what the purpose of the glance was, that when the master fastened his glance upon the individual and looked at him and looked at him steadily, he was passing the gift of the Master to the Chela. And, this became an important factor into my life because, thereafter, the seeds and the germs of the message began to grow.
And, I found that it grew like the acorn that became implanted into the earth and, finally, became the mighty oak. Because this was what he was doing and this is the one thing in which that I try to do with all those I come and meet. Because this is a passing of the power and linking up of the power with the individual, And, thereafter, there is always a level of communication which goes between myself and the chela without words. It is an inner communication. And, it doesn’t mean that they particularly have to be initiates. it doesn’t particularly have to mean they hold certain social status, has nothing to do with any of this.
It is a form of love that makes the individuals, of themselves, to grow and, at the same time, it is a form of love in which the Master, himself, grows. It is a mutual thing. And, it’s done without restrictions, without hesitation, without doubt, or without anything having any feeling of mutual concern with it. It’s openhearted and it’s free and it’s only that which goes between the two. And, this is why that ECK becomes personal. And, this is why that, many times, in writing a letter, whether you are answered or not, which means that you have opened up the channel and the Master has received it and he has returned it. He asks for nothing from any individual. And, many people bring him physical gifts and many times, these gifts are graciously accepted but they are not the gift of what we really want between one another.
He who brings me love shall receive love in return. He, whom I love, hopes to have your love. That is in the Shariyat, not Book 1 but in Book 3 I believe, because he, of himself, asks nothing of the individual. And, all of these testings, all of these hardships. All of these things that one goes through, you must remember that all the time that you suffer, so suffers the Master. He isn’t built on a pedestal like you think because he knows and he feels everything that you go through. He wants the best for you in the spiritual means and, therefore, he will, of himself, try to get this for you. But, when you are ill, when you are unhappy, when you are in the deepest of despair, he feels this and knows this and he, too, may be in the same because he has this communication and he is trying to help because he has the deep love for the individual.
And, in return, he asks for nothing that would be given to him except the love from the individual. Now, this is the word that seems to have great emphasis on the human race today. And, it’s not without cause or reason. Because we have opened now, the ECK Masters have opened this great channel, and it’s flowing constantly into the world. And, they are serving as a channel to get more and higher vibrations in this world and lift the human race, on a whole, up to a higher notch, higher level.
I believe, as I see and know now, this is coming about. I see it constantly, despite all of the merchants of doom and those who keep prophesying and reading about all the violence that is in the newspapers and on the public media and all of the things that go on within the political element of man, I still see an advancement of the human race. Now, we’re having quite a conflict as a human race and that is with that one phase is called technology.
And, technology is actually becoming such a part of our lives that we are, ourselves, being (I wouldn’t use the word victimized.), but being computerized and being a part of the great industrial states that are arising, no matter whether it’s in the deepest Congo or whether it’s in the United States, where it is highly developed at the present time. But, we’re finding we are in conflict with this because we are being made numbers and cards. And, everything is being done by computer. And, we’re no longer individuals and we ’re in conflict with this. And, this is one of the things which concerns the Masters.
They have not much interest in society or any of these aspects of the life of man. But, they are interested in this one thing because it is bringing about the dehumanizing of the individual. And, the great work (that) is going on is to make the individual an individual and to not let him be computerized and ground down into the dust as much as he was in the Middle Ages when there was serfdom. There’s not much difference in being a slave under a master, the material masters, or being under a computer type of thing, a computer society, which is a technological society. And, this is something that we have to think about and, not so much as to be in conflict with it, but to see where it creeps into the corners of our lives. And, it is and we’re not aware of it. And, it is creeping in because the masses of people must now be handled in a different way than they were fifty to a hundred years ago.
The communications have become so great today that we can become the victim of a news report within five minutes after it happens, through Telstar and other ways. And so, then we must begin to think about our lives here in comparison to what we want it to be.
We have to look at that, which is known to us as the spiritual life and, at the same time, have to live with this. It’s a regrettable sort of existence but it’s something that we must take into consideration because it either throws us to the extreme in either way. We either go all the way over under the materialistic side or we’ll go all the way over under the spiritual side. Now, we know that we must be balanced to live this life and live the other life because, after all, we are living in a human state of consciousness.
But, we cannot allow ourselves to be brought into that position of being, well, I use the old terminology, brainwashed into this sort of thing. And, I cannot blame those people today, who are trying to get out of society and trying to do something for themselves, because they are running into certain rules and regulations of the establishment, which has brought about such things. It’s regrettable. But, we’ve always had it in a certain way. We had it during the Middle Ages and we had it in the time of ancient Greece. So you see, we’ve always been, as individuals, up against what is known as the System.
And, this what some people come to ECK for because they hope to get the answers to get freedom. And, this is what we are trying to say to you, is that freedom is here and now. And, we don’t have to travel inwardly so much distance to get to this freedom because it is here and now without all of that. I have talked to people. I have consulted people all the way from the multi-millionaires to the fellow who didn’t know where his next meal was coming (from). And, they all have the same idea as to “where can I find freedom?”
And, freedom always comes back to this individual or to the individual who is able to then to say and do, within his inner self, as he wants in the spiritual life. We’re all bound out here with certain rules and regulations that nature gives us. True. No man, no matter how holy he became and how high he evolved in the spiritual sense, he still had, as long as he wore the body, he still had to do or obey the laws of nature.
During the 4th century, there were a large number of people who went out into the Egyptian desert as the ascetics. They believed that by overcoming the body, overcoming sex, overcoming certain ideas of life, that they could enter into a holy life. And then, they could have a greater communication with God. They did everything in the world to the body. They even buried themselves in the sand, in the burning sun with only their heads out. And, of course, day after day with this sort of thing, you could imagine what happened to the skin and the face. They swelled beyond proportions. They did all sorts of self-torture in hopes that it would bring about liberation. They died away as a sect. And, they were replaced by more moderate people who went into the monasteries and began to work in a different idea, a different area. And, the people who went into moderation began to find enlightenment.
Now, when you stop to think about the people or, let’s say, one individual like Buddha who went to all extremes of this nature within his life to find the enlightenment of God, he almost fasted himself to death. Then he decided that there was one way and that was the Middle Way. And, when he found the Middle Way, he found the light. So, therefore, he went out preaching moderation. Live with what you have but unfold spiritually. So, this is the way that we, too, must go in the same sense because the ECK Masters have always preached this. From the beginning of time, that we must not go to the extremes on either side.
We do not go, like some groups who say that sex is for nothing but reproduction of children. And, we do not go like some who say we have to have the austerity of fasting in order to reach the heavenly states. I do not deny that sometimes it does that because if you fast long enough you are going to get there. And, I’ve had that occur in ECK. Some young chap decided, against my advice, that he was going to fast until he got out of his body and got enlightenment, against my advice, so, he did so and he lost a number of his teeth. Then he came back and wanted me to put his teeth back in. And, I advised him to see a good dentist and maybe, perhaps, he could help him with false teeth, that I wasn’t responsible for his teeth going out.
But, you see, it depends upon the individual, how much he can take austerities. Some people are just naturally tough and resilient and they can take a great many things. Others are not. So, it’s going to have to depend upon the individual and just how he feels that he can go along with a great number of these things.
Now, there has been, in the course of my advent into this work, the fact of the gift being passed to others. Sometimes it’s received, sometimes it’s rejected, sometimes it’s not recognized. That makes little difference to me because I feel that whatever I can do to help, irregardless, is a great privilege which has been granted to me. But, if another person does not want such gifts, that is perfectly alright with me. I do not, of myself, ever feel that, in a rejection, that brings me back frustration or any of those negative qualities, because every person has their freedom to do as they wish, to accept as they wish, to take love or to give love.
Now it comes a great deal in the fact that we do not have to pass love to all those in our environment, but we should be able to give them goodwill. It gets into the point sometimes, in which in having an argument in my home, in which my wife says, “Well, I love you, but I don’t have to like you.” So, this is something in which we can always feel towards people, that we do have a deep feeling for them but we don’t particularly have to go along with their ideas and their thoughts. And, we don’t have to be so naive in accepting the thought that they themselves are bringing to us a certain amount of lessons to be learned or a certain amount of ideas that we ought to accept because we should be openminded. I hate to think that every time somebody approached me with an idea that I should be far openminded (enough) to accept that.
But, we can be of such a mind that we can hold it in the neutral state and none of these ideas become lodged within us. And, this is a great problem of having, in being around so many people, as we do today, with so many ideas. So much is going on constantly around us, the TV, the radio, the publications, people constantly pouring in to us ideas and we think, “Which of these am I going to accept? Which one of these are going to be the ones that are going to give me the great advantage?’
It comes to a point, then, that a person has to be alert and on his guard constantly or he is in the quandary of being confused because he doesn’t know what to accept. And, I find a great number of people, in this state, wandering around from group to group hoping to get the secret of God. And everybody’s pouring different ideas into their minds that by the time they get to ECK they are utterly in such a state that you wonder if they will ever be straightened out. All the doubts and confusions, the masses of ideas that pour into these people and the state that it leaves them in, is actually very distressing when I look at them and talk with them. I receive letters from these people because it’s a problem, in trying to get through to them, that they don’t have to have all of this. All they have to have is the simplicity of ideas in which they, themselves, know that they are the individual and that they have to be themselves and they have to act accordingly to this state.
And, in doing this, I am trying to lead these people back to that state that they can have liberation and freedom from all of this. And, they will be able then to rise above all of this. They don’t destroy it. They don’t overcome the negative. They don’t fight or have resistance against any of this. They are in the position to rise above and take control of their own problems.
We’ve never said in ECK that we’re going to resolve all the problems within the individual. That’s impossible. As long as we’re living here, we’ve got the problems. And, remember, that when you’ve solved one you get a bigger one. That seems to be the nature of life. And, as is the case of those who are in training and those who go through the higher initiations, they find that every time they resolve a problem, they got a problem that is twice as big as the one that they had before. And, this is purposely set this way.
And. it is set this way because they are training the individual to have every possible experience in life that can be had. And, of course, they don’t get it all in this lifetime. They will spend many lifetimes in doing this, in going through such states until one day they reach that position in which they become self-disciplined enough to know that they don’t have to solve all these problems. All they have to do is take control of them. And. this is all you have to do. That your position in life is to take control of the problems. Get above these things and then life, itself, is taken care of.
I’ve wandered a little off the subject here and there and tried to keep, at the same time, within the general subject of the gift of the Master. But, you must remember now, that each and every individual in here, regardless, has received this gift. I want you to go home. I want you to live your life according to what is given to you. It will take you some time to digest all of the work that has been given here during the 3 or 4 days. But, when you are ready within 6 months or a year from now, you’ll suddenly find that it’s coming back and coming into the mind and it’s workable. So, I’m going to say to you now, I hope to see you back again in 1971, here again at the 5th World Wide Seminar. May the blessings be.