February 27, 1981
God is with each of you at this moment and surrounds you with love and warmth and direction in your lives.
We experience God in so many different ways than you. For us, God is very much of a presence. We feel that presence as a warmth, as we have expressed. We sense it as a great light, but never blinding. We recognize God’s light according to our ability to see. For some souls God’s light appears brighter than for others. This is as it should be because were the light too bright, the soul’s vision would be blinded.
The purpose of God’s light is to clarify. It is to increase our vision, our perspective. As we become accustomed to a bright light, we have the capacity to view light of even greater intensity. Experiencing this spiritual light is much the same as when you experience daylight upon emerging from a dark room. When you enter a room that is lit from the outside, it is not blinding but appears bright. You cannot easily view the light that is outside, the direct sunlight, but in time your eyes become accustomed to the filtered light and you can then see well in direct sunlight. Your sense of spiritual knowledge, the growth that you achieve, progresses in precisely the same way.
We are entrusted by God to clarify light to you, but while our vision may be clearer, we cannot impart to you all of our understanding for you would not understand. You would build a wall resisting the power of the ideas. Therefore, our function is one of gradually helping you to tolerate the brightness of God’s presence in your lives.
We know you thirst for knowledge, for a sense of direction and understanding of God. But just as a person who has been deprived of food for a long period desires nourishment but cannot be given a large meal, so you who desire a greater understanding of God must be nurtured in small doses. Knowledge which you acquire on an earthly basis also gathers slowly. You cannot explain to a child the intricacies of the universe in every detail. Though the facts may be absolutely true, there comes a point when the child turns away. Although you may not feel that you could possibly reject a complete understanding of God, it is in the nature of human life to cast aside what cannot be understood through logic and through a sense of faith.
God does not desire to be hidden from man. God wishes to be seen and wishes to be understood, but also realizes that God can only be viewed according to the capacity of each individual soul. You are growing significantly through your understandings of God’s teachings imparted to you through us. Your growth is steady. The more time you spend in studying God’s teaching, the more understanding you will have and the greater will be your receptivity to God’s light.
Each of you is on a quest for knowledge. This knowledge is spiritual and infinite in time, but you also seek knowledge which is temporal in its application. As you know, God is the source of all knowledge, spiritual and temporal. When you suddenly gain insight into a matter of importance to you, it is not you who have generated that special knowledge. It is the result of your soul’s opening itself to an understanding far greater, tapping a resource, if you wish to think of it in this way. That information, that knowledge, then becomes yours. Advances in medicine, science, indeed all thought, all disciplines, come from that opening of the spirit.
So frequently when you are ready to fall asleep an idea can come to you which may excite you and give you insight, and you have said to yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that before?” The only thing which happened was that you freed yourself of the restrictions placed upon you in your daily living and opened yourself to a higher source of knowledge. You were ready for that knowledge and it was then given to you.
When you approach events in your life in which you must achieve an understanding which is not part of your daily experience, seek ways to find inner peace, ways to find an abiding sense of calm. Imagine yourselves being warmer. Try to feel the physical warmth and clear your minds of your concerns or anxieties. You will find in this manner your insights will grow—your insights into matters of your physical lives and those of your spiritual lives. God is not a mystery, but you must be open to understand.
You may say to yourself, “Why am I here? What is my life to be? Where am I headed?” You may sense a frustration or a feeling of pointless movement. It is at times like those that you should seek that calm and physical warmth. The warmth we speak of is actually a warmth. It is not just meant as a matter of speech. You can learn to raise your body temperature and lower it. Each of you can learn to control many of your bodily functions, the mind is that powerful. When you try to generate a warmth, it can be done by viewing yourself as a light and attempting to brighten that light. The energy which is emitted is a spiritual one as well as physical energy. In learning to do this, you will sense a connection with wisdom and peace beyond your imagination, and it will serve you well.
Your ability to center in, as you say, can be applied in numerous directions. One direction is a passive stance in which you become quiet and listen. The other, while appearing passive, involves the application of your energies. Each is effective and it is valuable to develop your capacity to do both.
In building your energies you are activating your spiritual selves, much as one who turns on a radio. The radio becomes the vehicle for receiving much. Your souls are also such a vehicle. You may receive the teachings of God, but you can also receive the teachings of evil forces. Always pray for God’s presence; always center your attention on light, not darkness. The source of your strength is light. We spoke to you before about the ability of light to transmit thought. When you direct your consciousness toward intensifying your light, you will be guided by God and not evil powers. It is your way of fine tuning the radio which is your soul.
The soul is sensitive to all influences. It is sensitive to evil as well as good, and as you pray, you should pray that your souls increase their sensitivity to God and shut out the forces of darkness.
So often we use the terms of light and dark, but the concepts are wholly accurate. Evil does not operate in light; therefore, light is important for your knowledge. As your knowledge grows, your ability to accept more light of greater intensity also increases. Knowledge, then, is a function of light. It is controllable by you, for each can decide how much light you wish to accept and, therefore, affect the level of your knowledge. There are many in your world who claim great knowledge but who lack a sensitivity to light. Their knowledge is limited. It is shaped by temporal concerns. It is not spiritual.
Each of you must seek a balance between both fields. You cannot function effectively in your daily lives with only a sense of the spirit, but your soul cannot grow and guide your lives unless it is tuned to God’s light. Temporal knowledge is only valuable when it is used in combination with spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge finds its fulfillment in its application to temporal matters. This is why you are given the blessings of life. Were life not essential, you would grow strictly through spiritual life. One is necessary to fulfill the other. The knowledge of one side gives meaning to the knowledge of the other.
You are constantly growing in your awareness of God. The rate of growth may change from time to time, but its direction leads you closer to God’s light, and we are overjoyed for our great desire is to share our closeness to God with you. We wish you to feel God’s light, to see radiance as we experience it. It is we who try to focus that light so that you will receive it with real acceptance, slowly but steadily.
Each of you has so many blessings to thank God for. Take time to think about them, to recognize them and to give thanks. It is a sign of God’s love that God bestows blessings on you, and it is a sign of your faith that you search for that recognition of these gifts. Faith is your response to God’s love. It is not a blind hope. Faith is an acceptance and a reaching upward and outward. It is the response of your soul to the outreach of God.
God surrounds each of you with guiding warmth and love, and leads you forward in response to your needs and according to your ability to see God’s light. Be patient in your growth, be ready to wait as well as act. Relate your spiritual growth to your temporal growth. Recognize God’s hands resting upon your lives. God blesses you and us and protects you and lifts you up. Rejoice!
Amen.