PP 297537/00068
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www.sydneygoodwill.org.au

No 220 / May 2005

We human beings are becoming more and more intentional and self-directing in our living. Choices flow out of our priorities and the purpose behind them. Over past millennia we have been learning how to be purpose driven and we practice by making choices. The more choices we have - the more subtle and refined our discernment becomes. Although choices change from moment to moment for the aimless decision maker, the purposeful human is aware of why choices are made to suit each moment and each context within the whole. The supermarket is a wonderful metaphor for decision making (or manifesting intention). As we wander the aisles we make choices and change our minds until finally their value is accounted at the checkout!

With more purpose driven decisions we are moving from the fear and desire prompts of animal existence to the will and intentional motivation of a more truly human livingness. Our initial basic impulses are being schooled to meet longer goals and larger purpose. The great overriding choice then is between the past and the future - between submitting to the forces of evolution, and co-creating and cooperating with the unfolding divine plan.

In the novel, Sophie's World, by the Norwegian, Jostein Gaarder, the difference is described to a young girl by a mysterious philosopher:
"To summarize briefly: A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit's fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable they never risk crawling back up the fragile hairs again. Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' But none of the people down there care.
'What a bunch of troublemakers!' they say. And they keep on chatting: Would you pass the butter, please? How much have our stocks risen today? What is the price of tomatoes? Have you heard that Princess Di is expecting again?'"

Are we lost in the detail of daily living or are we climbing the heights of the great simplicities? Are we scattered by the ripples or moving with the greater tides of that "life more abundant" that Christ spoke of? Why have we made the decisions that place us where we are in the world? The eternal "why" of everything draws out the emerging truth, or what is real. It is the great "reality check". Why are we and why are we here - or what is the purpose motivating our life? Is it personal comfort or is it identification with the whole of which we are a part - of the "One in Whom we live and move and have our being'? St Paul described 2,000 years ago when he introduced the Athenians to their "Unknown God":
"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art or man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent."

The One in Whom "we live, and move, and have our being" lives through us. His breathing creates the cycles and gives us time, without which we would never learn to become purposeful directing agents. Without time there are no cycles - no beginning and no end, no end-objective or purpose to pull us out of the animal sleep wherein purpose is only reflected in the instinctual need of the moment for relief from the pain of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, weariness, discomfort and threat. Gradually we rise above and beyond the immediate moment - we move to longer cycles and the larger scope they embrace until, as Theilhard de Chardin writes: "it becomes possible for (us) in perfect chastity to embrace the universe." But the sense of purpose, born originally from the seed of animal need, both draws and drives us on. Unknowingly God's will pours through us. His purpose draws us on through the cyclic growth pattern of his breath.

In His image we begin to create our own patterns of cycles - our own choices. Day/night becomes reflected in the binary base of complex computer programming. We use the building blocks of God's electrical nature to fire events. Even our physical creations are driven by His will and purpose rippling as electric arcs through our energy grids. We harness powers of which we, as yet, have little understanding - driven by His cyclic breath and His ultimate purpose through the breath of time and the electricity of space that drives us to create out of the substance of His great energy field - protected within its ring-pass-not while we learn its scope, interconnectedness and purpose, while we learn Him.

We are constantly part of Him - but are we constantly aware of this or only occasionally, like brief breaks in the humdrum of the petty life? What is our identity? What is it that responds to events in the world - desire for individual comfort, satisfaction, expression and recognition or an inclusive recognition of the one soul reflected in all things, no matter how distorted their expression in the moment? The journey is a gradual growth from the particular to the all-inclusive. Our identity grows and expands with it until a continuity of awareness of the whole of life becomes the constant context of our living.

As we live increasingly (and more continuously) with a sense of the Oneness of life our sense of the divine plan grows. In the 1930's the Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul, wrote:
"What is this plan? When I speak of the plan I do not mean such a general one as the plan of evolution or the plan for humanity which we call … soul unfoldment. These two aspects of the scheme for our planet are taken for granted, and are but modes, processes and means to a specific end. The plan as at present sensed, and for which the Masters are steadily working, might be defined as follows:- It is the production of a subjective synthesis in humanity and a telepathic interplay which will eventually annihilate time. It will make available to every man all past achievements and knowledges, it will reveal to man the true significance of his mind and brain and make him the master of that equipment and will make him therefore omnipresent and eventually open the door to omniscience. This next development of the plan will produce in man an understanding - intelligent and cooperative - of the divine purpose for which the One in Whom we live and move and have our being has deemed it wise to submit to incarnation"

It is not for momentary comfort but for this that we strive through our living experience. It is this that draws our focus and provides the context of our daily thought, inspiring the synthetic use of the mind. The power and simplicity of the path of the Universe is expressed in the following:
"Broadly has spread the praise of daring. The least of the disciples have turned to the path of searching and have approached Us, asking that We judge their striving. Each brought his dreams: 'I will destroy all earthly temples, because Truth needs no walls. I will water all deserts. I will open all prisons. I will demolish all swords. I will blaze all trails. I will wipe away all tears. I will travel through all lands. I will inscribe the book of humanity.'
But the least one of them turned to the shining stars and said, 'Hail to you, brothers!' And in this salutation of daring his ego vanished.
Let the path of the Universe be acknowledged in this daring greeting!"

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The books quoted in this newsletter and available from Sydney Goodwill are:
A Treatise on White Magic - by Alice A Bailey (Pages 403-404)
Agni Yoga - published by the Agni Yoga Society (Sloca 12).

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The Wesak Festival in Taurus will be celebrated at a meditation meeting at 7.30 pm on Sunday, 24th April at the YWCA, 5-11 Wentworth Avenue, Sydney. PLEASE NOTE the meeting will start at 7.30 with the talk and the meditation will commence at 8pm sharp. The actual time of the full moon is 8.08pm. The keynote is:
"I see, and when the eye is opened, all is light."

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