PP 297537/00068
PO Box 627
Caringbah NSW 1495
Tel: (02) 9540 2391
Fax: (02) 9524 0025
www.sydneygoodwill.org.au

No 184 / April 2002

Dear Friends,

In spite of the great surge of hope and optimism that launched the new millennium, there are still many points of crisis that continue to erupt and come to the forefront of world attention. Closer to home we read accounts of the hospital system's being at crisis point and of the education system's struggling to meet youth issues and needs that have been failed by all other agencies up to that point. Yet despite apparent failures, individuals continually labour to improve the human condition and to give what service they can within the constraints of the time. Thus the human heart and human will are greater than the tide of individual desire, demand and depression that gradually diminishes as our species learns it is more than the sum of its parts.

We find that solutions are not in the attainment of our personal ambitions or comfort. These come as incidental by-products of the greater life working out - and in that scope the perceived successes or failures of an individual are no more than momentary adjustments in the great flood of being. From Life's perspective there is experience in form. From the individual's perspective it is experimentation through which we learn life into existence. The words: "A man's reach must exceed his grasp" reminds us of our place in the greater scheme "or what is heaven for?" Living is always learning new untried steps. Success in any step means that we already know, so no further growth has occurred. "Failure" means that we are learning a new step and always, always the boundaries expand out toward the universe.

The animal life seeks the perpetuation of the form life of the species. Their pleasure and pain and all their talents are honed to that end which is their point of achievement. For the human, form life is but an anchorage point for what essentially is, in reality. The anchorage and the reality are brought together through human being - through what we are. And this is how we sacrifice, or make sacred, our planetary life. Thinking through, and knowing, what we are and living it into the world - that is our life journey and, in our constantly expanding universe, for us it never ends.

Many symbolic representations of the potential grandeur of the truly human have been put forth through human inspiration. In "2001: A Space Odyssey" the character of David Bowman becomes the soul of something newer and greater and is empowered by an unimaginable power represented by the monolith, "the outward manifestation of something too subtle to be consciously perceived. It was merely a toy to distract the senses, while the real processing was carried out at far deeper levels of mind." The future growth of the human is indicated then in this prognostication: "He still needed, for a little while, this shell of matter for the focus of his powers. His indestructible body was his mind's present image of itself; and for all his powers, he knew that he was still a baby. So he would remain until he had decided on a new form, or had passed beyond the necessities of matter."

And so what was at one time David Bowman moves on to a level of identity that can embrace all the "lives" that make up the Life of a planet. Just so do we read in The Bible: "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." and in Agni Yoga we have read the salutation of daring from the lowliest aspirant to the stars: "Hail to you, brothers!"

Yet it is through the challenge of our daily lives that we grow into our real stature. As humanity becomes more truly "human" the rate of growth speeds up, the scope of challenge expands and we move from the purely reactive mode, inherited with our animal forms, into the self-initiated challenges that arise from holding a point of spiritual tension, holding to a purpose and intention that takes us beyond the personal comfort zone. Achievements are never complete. There is always more growth ahead as each gain is taken further into the subtle and more pervasively powerful realms.

The dangers here occur if we are holding to personal requirements when moving into the expanded subjective worlds where the forces are larger in scope and are no respecter of persons placing their little scope above the vastness of the purposes operating there. In those realms it is humanity that is the base unit rather than the atomic, individual man. To enter here, and work, and further those great plans, requires such immersion in our group identity that the personal individual requirements are automatically attended to without diversion of attention (and so energy) from the larger undertakings.

In these realms the individual is no longer all-knowing or in command but surrenders all its desires, both manifest and hidden, in order to be receptive to the greater intention of the group, of humanity - without the distortion of interpretation relevant only to the individual. The individual relevance becomes clear when no separating desires intrude between the individual and that larger intention working out through us. Although looking far ahead of our present state, direction and goal energy may be derived from this description of the stages of growth from the Tibetan Master:
"When animal-man passed through the door of individualisation and became a human being he came possessed of an innate potency of sight; for aeons he has seen in the three worlds, and many have for several lives sought after the vision which stabilises the aspirant upon the Path. Through the door of initiation, having attained the mystical vision, each aspirant will become aware of that within himself which permits of a spiritual perception of such an expansive nature that he gets his first real glimpse of the divine Plan; from that moment his entire life is altered. Later . . he will pass through the door of identification. . . its significance is most carefully guarded. . . only the WORD can enter through this door - this highest and widest of all doors. Once through that door . . the Initiate will comprehend what is meant by "monadic impression". It is not impression by a Monad . . upon the brain of a man who has . . passed through the fourth initiation. It is an innate responsiveness to the Purpose of the Universal Mind of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being."

Such is the capacity within us. It has only to be awakened - and the crisis posed by challenge is the alarm that draws us out of the sleep of separation to join the sea of life whose breakers roll against our consciousness until we release the obdurate shore and become one with its flow. When the livingness of this great living scheme pours through each daily moment in our own "lives" then the challenges of the moment, no matter how dire, are transformed into that which draws forth what is real. From the account of a survivor from the holocaust of the Second World War, we read of a noble soul suffering an ignoble death:
"Alone the never abating tumult of fighting grinds our taut nerves to breaking point. Then, suddenly, and in an unbelievably strong voice, Lilli cries out . . Her words have been etched into my soul for ever: - 'Lord! If I get out of here alive, I vow to serve humanity with all my life.' Never has a more noble vow been made in a more ignoble place by a dying person. It seemed as if even the human wretches brawling all around us did realise what a heroic soul was wrestling with the angel of death right here, on the floor of the goods wagon. The noise fades away and, its strength spent, the fighting ceases. Lilli did not speak again. What could she have added to her affirmation? What more painful and more binding legacy could she have left me than the pledge proclaimed in a (Nazi) cattle-truck and waiting to be carried out?"

Every moment of challenge, from the petty irritations of the more comfortable contexts to the devastating tortures suffered by those caught up in war, is a point of tension that can bring forth new recognition and new light into the world of form from those vast reservoirs that brood benignly about us. Each and every one is an opportunity to affirm living being.

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The Easter Festival in Aries will be celebrated at a meditation meeting at
8pm on Thursday, 28 March, at the YWCA, 5-11 Wentworth Avenue, Sydney.
The keynote is: I come forth, and from the plane of mind I rule.

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Lucis Trust Visit - A quick note to let all friends and co-workers know that Sarah McKechnie of the Lucis Trust, New York, will be in Sydney on 16th and 17th October 2002 for evening meetings on those dates.