The Last Forty-Seven Days

January 6, 1973 The patterns that precede a major spiritual change are usually inconsistent with everyday reality because our energy is withdrawing to support a higher evolvement. I have lived through a continual string of such experiences. Sometimes, several are going on simultaneously. If they overlap, it creates one large shock, like plywood that is laminated and has structural matter going in different directions. When we get our mind and emotions caught between the energies that are operating, they usually build a resistance that is almost impossible to break down. The nature of a shock is to put a chemical into the body, which gives us the ability to digest what has been generated by the experience. It is only our continual mental and emotional resistance that changes a shock into a negative force, instead of a positive one. When I go through a series of experiences that are difficult for me, my body wants to resist the repetition of this spiritual pattern. I find that I resent the sense of bloating and pregnancy that I feel, and the lack of ability to enjoy that which I have attracted in my life. Eventually, I began to recognize the symptoms of my childishness and to realize that after a lifetime of incredible work, to build up such resistance in itself reflects the stupidity of my will. It is necessary for me to deeply open and see everything that I thought I was missing as only the reflection of previous work. I certainly didn’t want to become attached to something that was only part of an evolving energy. The reward for spiritual work is only the ability to work deeply, not to take whatever is brought to us and attempt to make it ours. The rewards that are given only reflect an increased state of being. If we identify with them, they only reduce our capacity to function. If you have ever had the experience of watching your mother or grand- mother baking, they often express their love by making a special little cake with the dough that is left over. When we work for God, He always leaves a little piece of creative energy for us and puts in something sweet as a reward for our effort. It is only our stupidity that allows us to focus on this small sweet and not see the larger effort. The cake is to serve humanity, while the small goodie is to placate us. Only a simple human being can serve God by slicing the cake consciously, and not becoming involved with his own little pastry. It is very easy to think that life should be a series of little goodies and to lose our focus on the major work, which is producing a larger creative cake to feed the people for whom we are responsible. There should never be attachment to the reward, but only to the initial work that produced it. If we do not understand that, we will get involved in making little goodies and not producing a larger creative cake, which is what it means to serve God. I had many people come to spend Christmas and New Year’s with me from ashrams around the United States. I was particularly happy to welcome some of our people from Europe: Peter Silverman, who built the ashram in Paris; and Buford Pippin who is a teacher there; Dr. and Mrs. Lauf, who were friends of Peter’s from Germany and were interested in being part of our ashram that formed in Germany; and Kathy, a friend of Peter’s. These were all, in a sense, the goodies that accumulated for the Christmas holiday. I had so much love for these people that I wished that they could become part of the advanced Tantric work that I was developing. I had realized some of this work with Buford previously and felt his coming was auspicious, since it occurred during an intensive phase of my own growth. But I found him busy taking care of his own needs. I have never found him lacking insofar as his ability to teach properly. It was only my wish to use him in a particular way that became a problem, for his concerns were elsewhere. I realized that if I tried to use him for this purpose, it would be an act of my will and would only delay the development of the Tantric work. I awoke one evening and found above my heart a four-inch circle of a brilliant silverish white material, which was glowing out great love to Buford. I realized at that moment that there was a maturity in our relationship, which necessitated his doing what he needed to do, not what I thought he should do. It is always difficult to free a child and allow him to mature. His responsibility is enormous, and the more I could detach my will from his effort, the stronger he could become. It does not mean he will be the type of person I would wish him to be, but the type of person he is capable of being. My will would destroy his creative flow. The situation was the reverse of what I described as the large cake and the little pastry left over. In this case, Buford was sufficient in his own growth, and was reaching for his piece of pastry rather than for the cake. It is not anything against him, only that at a particular point he was filled, and so required the tidbit rather than the entire cake. I found that I was immediately able to work out the breathing for the new Tantric work with another young man, who had appeared to fill the void left by Buford. Several days later, I was sitting in the store and felt an enormous pain. Raw electricity was running around my head. It went on for four hours. I thought I was dying. There were many people around, which only increased the pain. I have a student who is deeply open. He walked into the shop and I had him sit near me. As I held his hand, I was able to bring the energy to a place where it could flow in a more even way. Finally it sank into the depth beneath the area of the third eye. I felt exhausted and deeply satisfied. I did not understand what was happening, but I was grateful for it to be over. It was the fastest and most complete cycle of death and rebirth that I had ever known. A week has gone by. During the last three days, I have had a strange, heavy and unhappy feeling in myself. I could only understand that the unhappiness in me represented a total contradiction to the richness of my life. About three days ago, I began to feel tremendous heat between my eyes. If people near me put their hands within six to seven inches of my head, they could feel a great warmth. Looking back, I realize that the electricity that had been digested in the area of the third eye had been absorbed in the root system of this particular muscle and was giving off the heat I was experiencing. This morning, when I awoke, my head felt strange, particularly around the third eye area. My body seemed like a Ganesh elephant god, which for me has always been the symbol of being spiritually pregnant. Right now, I feel like a wounded animal, as I try to conform this intense energy to the simplicity of the day. When anyone whom I care for page 118 I as hug and kiss them. It is this strange feeling toward the people we love that represents the transformation within us of our energy from one level to another. It is our inability to understand it consciously that destroys the process. Fortunately, I recognized it for what it was. As I was having breakfast with the people who live in the ashram, I remarked about the strangeness that I felt in my lower forehead. It felt like someone had turned on many gas jets that were teaching out and giving off heat. When I opened my store a few hours later, I received a call from a friend who is a brilliant nuclear physicist, and was able to discuss what was happening with him. He felt that I would be able to direct this new energy to any place that I wished. I said that I felt it was the first eye of the thousand-petal lotus on the top of the head. If that was true, it meant that I had a tremendous amount of work ahead of me, as I would have to direct this energy consciously to each one of these thousand petals. it almost made me nauseous to think of the effort. It is frightening to realize how vast creativity can become. But there is no question in me that I will do it. Knowing what is happening makes me deeply responsible for this undertaking; refusing to do it would put me into a terrible karmic state. I would have to come back again and again, to work off a responsibility that I refused to accept consciously. The limitation of creative and spiritual work is only in the person in whom it functions. We are most certainly in a period of great creative expansion. Vast energy is pouring into the universe. This is represented by the image of the space age, but that is only a symbol of the vastness of the energy that is available for spiritual development. If the thou- sand-petal lotus is the latent seeding of a cosmic flower, then the capacity of consciousness to expand must be enormous. I feel that I am ready to embark on the most remarkable part of my life. I am not too happy about it. The magnitude of the work involved truly brings tears to my eyes. I can see the time to read murder mysteries and lie on the beach receding further and further into the void. I must accept the responsibility for the development of this potential. It is pitiful for me to see how people sometimes worship the idea of a third eye. it is of such a low order of spirituality that to aspire to such a thing as an end in itself, makes realization almost impossible. I have joked about a third eye being like the striking of a match in an outhouse. We only see a small area under very poor conditions and think of it as being the universe. It is a cripple’s use of a crippled organ, that allows him to live in a terrible world that he considers spiritual. There has been no real development and nourishment to 0 bring it into a functioning reality. How can people accept something so limited as final, when it does not produce or in any way express God in the richness of love that flows between us and everybody and everything? I find exclusiveness in religion and philosophy completely disgusting. It separates people from people and families from each other. it is not something that includes but destroys, as it requires a person to choose between alternatives instead of developing a love that encompasses everything. January 8, 1973 A human being in his ordinary state is very much like a potato that is taken out of the ground before it matures. A full-grown potato can be cut into various parts, each of which has eyes. These eyes, like seeds, can produce other potatoes. A human being can also go to seed when it reaches maturity. But what we usually describe as the seed of a human being is only a possibility. For a man to place a seed into a woman and produce a child, brings about another individual with a potential of evolving into a human being. We like to think of it as two human beings producing another. This does not occur as the two people involved do not have the maturity to produce a complete person. It is the sins and immaturity of the parents that are inherited by the child. The true miracle of our lives is that we contain within ourselves the possibility of evolving beyond the defects and limitations of our birth. I have on my head not only the third eye, the fourth eye, the fifth eye, the sixth eye and the Buddha’s bump, but also the eye and the petals of the thousand-petal lotus. This rare and highly sacred symbol is not worth any more than a pressed carnation between the leaves of a book. It is a memento, or promise. Until it becomes a realization, it is no more than any other symbol, no matter how vast. I had tremendous agitation in my third eye area recently. It was only after opening the channel between my temples and absorbing a higher level of cosmic energy, that I was able to understand the nature of the purpose of all these eyes. They are the seeds of creative potential, or cosmic consciousness. A human being is the result of creative energy descending onto the earth. As this energy touches the earth, it manifests, based on the crystallization of the matter that it touches. We are the refraction of this cosmic energy, as we represent, through our crystallization, the patterns that it produces. page120A human being can remove his crystallization by consciously overcoming tensions and increasing the flow of nourishment in his being. The halo that is seen when we look at pictures of saints and higher beings reflects the ability of the light to pass through them and manifest their evolvement. The light is not absorbed by the tensions of their crystallization. The third eye of a matured human being must be nourished by a higher source of creative food in order for it to evolve into its cosmic nature. This nourishment is a detached aspect of the flow of higher energy that comes to the earth. The entire creative energy feeds the physical and spiritual man, but the detached energy feeds the cosmic man. The first experience that I had of this process was awakening late at night and seeing above my heart a disc that I would call my cosmic heart, pouring out love into the atmosphere. It was an amazing thing to experience. I have since had similar experiences with my fingers and hands, where I saw above them, one- or two-inch fields of energy similar to moons or suns. These experiences reflect a maturity that detaches the energy from the physical body, allowing it to function in space. Sunday, I went to teach a class in Big Indian, our large country ashram in the Catskills. On the way up in the car, I kept being aware of the back of my neck. As I moved my head from side to side, large cracks could be heard as structures and tensions were being released. I must admit that I am never fully aware, in spite of such signs, that something remarkable is about to occur. No amount of earlier knowledge is ever capable of preparing a human being for the extraordinary. I had two and a half hours on the trip to work with several of the people who were in the car with me. It passed the time and also allowed me to work in depth with individuals, which is not usually possible during a normal weekday. When I began the class that evening, I felt tremendous heat at the base of my spine, but it was the first time I can remember consciously that the spine actually separated into seven to twelve individual channels. Toward the end of the class, a hood of one thousand cobras began to appear from the back of my head. I understood that the cosmic energy that entered my third eye allowed it to sprout, and the muscles from the third eye reached to the back of my head and opened some- thing that connected to the base of my spine, allowing for the increased manifestation I had, at times, felt up to two dozen snakes coming out of the back of my head, but never anything close to this number. The effect on the class was enormous. I awoke about 5:00 a.m. on the morning of the 8^th of January. Something deep inside my being told me to do a very long exercise in dropping psychic tensions. I felt an enormous flushing that allowed for the spreading of the cosmic root system in my body. After I bathed and shaved, I was amazed to see my face was very clear and my cheeks were brilliant red. This has continued all day. I felt great heat coming from my face that I had only previously felt from the top of my head. I am deeply content in my heart. It is obviously a period of great maturing and the beginning of my cosmic experience. Plants in a garden require thinning as they grow. As the maturity of a human being occurs spiritually, the eyes that come about must also be thinned to allow for the enormous room required for them to go to seed. Great detachment is needed to allow these cosmic spores to separate and live in the atmosphere. January 13, 1973 Yesterday, I was walking with a man to whom I find it hard to relate. It is not a personal dislike, but a lack of chemical affinity. This time, however, it was different. His ability to accept many changes that I helped bring about in his life broke down my resistance toward him. The limitation that he had previously been for me caused me to dig within myself, enabling me to achieve a depth that might not otherwise have occurred. People to whom we cannot open represent our resistance to finding an answer to our own situation. By rejecting them, we are rejecting the ability to make the additional effort that our own growth requires. It is the nature of people to reject everything that they do not under- stand. It is the nature of a spiritual person to reach further and further into that unknown for the nourishment that represents the chemistry required to free us from ourselves. Love is the vehicle through which God’s creative energy flows. Over and over again with people for whom I felt tremendous love, I have found that as their feeling diminished, the flow lessened in me also. At times, 1 was able to fight this tendency and carry the energy to a higher or deeper level. But usually it is the nature of life to cease drawing additional energy when the response diminishes. It is like a man carrying a wheelbarrow of bricks to the same spot for a week. We admire him for his capacity to take these bricks and move them to where he needs them. When the man finds that he has enough bricks and begins building with them, the person who had previously given him the bricks, waiting day by day for him to return, must conclude that the man is no longer interested in taking these bricks and begins to doubt the validity of the earlier experience. That he does not see the result of his effort doesn’t mean that it was wasted. The man might have brought the bricks to a river. He may travel with these bricks for hundreds of miles, in which case we never see what he is constructing. It is not necessary for the giver to understand how the receiver of these creative bricks is going to use them. The giver must be detached so that there is freedom for the person who takes to use what is given as he wishes. Otherwise, it becomes a limitation upon the giver and it makes it difficult for the receiver to assimilate the gift properly. it might be possible for the receiver to take the bricks and build a wall that falls on his head, causing him to receive his enlightenment, which might never have occurred in any other way. The need to watch every move that takes place in another human being is an attempt to control them, rather than to allow them to grow according to their own nature. Enlightenment is the organic growth that we can help some- body to attain, by feeding them additional energy and removing some of their unassimilated tensions, which can be dissolved by an outside connection with a higher energy or consciousness. The resistance that I felt toward the man that I spoke about earlier was produced by a particular kind of refinement that he represents. I have always had a tendency to be suspicious of very refined people. It is not that I was rejected by them; I wasn’t. It is only the coarseness of my own nature that makes me suspicious of their actions. Now that a particularly brutal period of my life has passed, it allows me to accept love and friendship from many people I would previously have had to reject, for they were a threat to my potential spiritual development. If I were a more refined person, I could not have sustained the pain and brutality of the situations that life had placed upon me in the past. God cast me in a very hot fire. I was molded in great pain and allowed to cool very slowly for forty-four years. It is only in the last year that I can accept what people always offered me but which previously would have caused an internal condition that could not have let me set in the proper mold. It is like pouring a dam that is constructed over a period of many years. The consistency of the vast amount of material going into it must allow for it to come forth as a unified structure. It is matter made into a living form. The pressure behind the dam is like a heartbeat within the body. It supports all of the changing functions of the surrounding area and allows them to move in harmony, maintaining the living relationship between that which is behind and in front. All disasters take place in life when the resistance of matter produces sufficient pressure to break the molecular chain, which releases the content. It is necessary as we become stronger, to increase the flow of creative energy so that there is a corresponding elasticity to make up for the pressure and tensions that also develop. It is the nature of the human mind to stop this essential connection to the flow of life and create a condition that can no longer support the pressure of growth. Reaching within me into the density that had previously resisted connecting with this man brought forth an opening between my temples. I surrendered deeper and deeper, trying to allow a great energy to flow to this gentleman. For the first time, I experienced a flow of green light entering into my left temple, while a flow of blue light came into my right temple. It caused an enormous flash and almost knocked this man over. He seemed very grateful and felt that he had received as much as he could absorb. This again was the mind’s limitation. By being given three times more than usual, we automatically think we are being piggish if we ask for still more. As he sat near, I could feel his gratitude for the breaking down between us of any resistance that I might have had. My respect for him grew enormously, as I could see the tremendous amount that he had accepted without in any way being provoked against me. The generosity of his attitude allowed me to surrender even deeper within myself. I began to understand that not only was this blue and green energy limited, but that it was not functioning in accord with the laws of cosmic energy. I was able to find within myself the method through which this energy was pumped into me and assimilated. It is like a cosmic windmill, or mandala, that contains symbolically all the component parts of the creative energy. These are experienced without color when they come into us as the Om sound, or as the creative energy that flows into our atmosphere. It is only when they are separated that they can feed in depth the psychic mechanism in a human being. I found that the various chakras and eyes (third eye, etcetera) are very much like physical seeds. They need to be fed by different energies. They can grow with the entire energy from the Om sound, but if they are given particular aspects of energy more in accordance with their nature, they can bloom, seed, and reach their higher level of fulfillment. It is not what we wish to give, but what is needed, that is the right formula for growth. I found in working with this man that the spiritual windmill, or mandala, was pumping these different colored energies through this channel between my temples. As it came to the middle of the channel between my eyes, it started to rise up and feed the psychic muscles, which are exactly the same as the chakras but on a higher level. They exist above the bridge of the nose to the top of the head. There is nothing that teaches as well as that which is opened by our creative energy as it rises. It unlocks the door of knowledge as it goes from one level to the other. But only when our creative energy rises can it be assimilated into our life force and become a permanent part of our being. Spiritual freedom should be experienced at each stage of development. Our ability to grow and release tensions should allow the people around us to do likewise. The inability of a human being to surrender and give freedom to the people who come to him as a teacher represents a tremendous limitation for them. Oil on the surface of the ground shows the richness that has come to the top; it does not express the capacity of the oil well. Gifted people are similarly misperceived. Their gift is only what life has brought to the surface, not what they have consciously dug out and allowed to flow freely. We are so busy worshiping the puddles of creative energy that we sense in such people that we never see what they might have done if their capacity had been developed consciously and released to its fullest. One of man’s greatest faults is that he treats those who are gifted with a reverence that does not force them to evolve. It is this limitation put upon creative people, that keeps the world in its abysmal state. The scientific approach to the breeding of animals increases milk production, raises healthier vegetables, etc., and illustrates how the conscious evolution of matter can be produced. Throughout history, there are isolated instances of extraordinarily creative people who enlightened the time in which they lived. It is appalling that they were not capable of seeding and creating others like themselves. To develop creativity, we must surrender creative energy in depth, to allow it to be internalized in our life and then recycled as energy January 17, 1973 If we are not in a more refined state than the situations that confront us, we are beating our head against a wall. This does not cause anyone to yield; it only creates increasing tension. People generally fail to realize that being right and winning are two different things. Being right gives justification for anger; winning has to do with absorbing and dissolving any physical, emotional, or intellectual resistance that confronts us. If we fail to do that, we are like someone lost in a twisting canyon, not having the ability to see the situation in its full perspective. ignorance of our situation is a continual drain, which prevents us from ever confronting anything or anybody, and thereby enabling us to raise our level of consciousness. Once a human being learns to transcend a pattern, he can then encompass it, much as a surfer captures a wave. He rises with it and is thrown clear, learning to use the energy of the situation to give him a new perspective. A developed individual will allow somebody to vent their emotions endlessly, while he sits quietly rising above the situation, revealing little of his own thoughts and plans. Finally, like a sniper on a rooftop, he can shoot what he wants or spare what he wants. It does not involve right or wrong, but simply consciousness. It is very difficult to absorb nourishment from a neurotic and psychotic human being as their patterns of energy are not constant. Their erratic energy flow has the capacity to interfere with the weaker but more constant energy flow of a normal person. It is necessary to take from this energy between the intervals of its frequency pulsation, the way you would in reaching for the ring on the carousel. It is essential to understand that everyone has a different energy field. We can only take from a human being within their pattern of creative capacity. Otherwise, we may be tied up by somebody else’s energy that winds around us, creating a cocoon, as it draws our energy from us. It is essential to determine whether someone is nourishing you or willfully using your energy against you, when you relate to them. If someone is imprisoning you in this manner, it does not necessarily mean they are doing it consciously. It is usually the expression of an unconscious effort to preserve their own image and security in the situation. It is essential to understand that when we fight for our freedom I s are infinitely small. An unconscious person on the superficial level is fighting the depth of the accumulated tensions of thousands and thousands of years. This, more than any other reason, is why very few people survive spiritual work. It is the weak move towards spirituality that attracts the unconscious depth of latent creativity, which is the real equation of our spiritual potential. As we ex for the opportunity to grow and place our seed into rich soil so that it can be nourished, we usually encounter the entire latent depth of creative energy working against us. just as the seed, when it sprouts, fights all of nature, so a human being, wishing to root the spiritual forces within himself, must contend with all of the energies of creation. January 18, 1973 During a spiritual crisis, it is necessary to stay open to all of our energy connections. As the rate of higher energy transmission in- creases, it also must be assimilated more quickly. If we neglect our ordinary sources of energy, we decrease our energy flow at a time when the situation necessitates a vast increase to avoid crystallization. It is never right to identify during great psychic experiences. Behind the angel that we can see stands a line of thousands of others just as valid, who are also waiting their turn to give us gifts. It is only our abysmal need to identify during a higher process of manifestation that causes us to wear out the one connection that we have because we cannot consciously open to the infinite wealth that this manifestation represents. It is like becoming fixated on the first gold nugget that we find in a gold mine, instead of digging and accumulating the wealth that is there. Almost every type of spiritualism involves "somebody’s guide." The manifestation that appears is actually like the butler of the first occupied house we can find. We are so in need, that we call this servant a God and are never led into the interior. The faith that people put on these guides is an expression of their limited view of spirituality. Someone coming to spiritual work for the first time and seeing that the butler is being used as the master of the house may find it unattractive and in bad taste, particularly if they have a rich house of their own. To allow the servant to be treated as the master in no way shows respect for God. It certainly explains the limitation of our own dormant development. People take what is easily available because they do not have the ability to surrender in depth in order to receive the real treasures that exist in spiritual life. A person not different from parents who neglect their children because they have to attend a civil rights demonstration. If we cannot support our foundation, the higher goals that we reach for are not assimilated and eventually become an illusion. Anything that is not consciously developed level by level only becomes a spaced-out experience. It is the ability to equalize the proportion of flow on each level as we ascend that enables us to assimilate the total process. We must never lose sight of our responsibilities, to insure that during any course of higher evolvement the new experience becomes an organic part of our lives and an extension of our past existence. I have heard teachers in India say the most fantastic things to their students, who, because of their self-rejection and self-hatred, could accept any fantasy rather than work on the reality of themselves. It is similar to a human being who claims that he cannot stand the sight of the sun and so arranges his schedule to live only after the sun goes down. He can build an entire concept of spirituality based on this concept, only to awake one day and find out that he is really a vampire. The need to delude oneself in this way is only the expression of the inability to have a real spiritual life. Who would stop and accept a drink of wine from a bum in the street except another bum? But it is just this type of reality that allows many people to proselytize; to come upon someone like themselves again and again, while thinking that they are converting the world. Reality is the growth of anything that seeds and can be planted in a totally different kind of person and serve under totally different conditions from that which first gave it life. A complete system of rigid control is not the expression of spirituality. It is necessary to have discipline at the beginning so that people can absorb the irresponsibility that they may have expressed in their former life. But to keep anything chained is to admit that the values that are kept alive under strict discipline would be quickly eliminated by freedom. It is a good child who will emulate his parent without threats. During periods of intense spiritual experience, the ability to assimilate strong energies is increased by being aware of the consciousness that we use use on on our ordinary levels. To increase the love that we have for the people around us enables our feelings to combine more fully with the heavy spiritual energy of the experience and allows it to be assimilated naturally by the body. It is never possible to neglect any lesser level of consciousness for a higher experience that we may be undergoing. It is not their relative ‘s important, it is the capacity to perpetuate the experience as long as possible. One of the ancient stories about God is that he appears in many disguises, often in the form of some lesser object, and as such he is not recognized by those who are busy on their more lofty plains of existence. The warning is that one should recognize every face as that of God. The ability to assimilate that which is given is the true measure of growth. It is also essential to understand that if someone cannot assimilate the energy they are given, this will create tension. The type of person who fights instead of opening, will grind away the energy, and in this way free themselves from the responsibility of expressing their limitation. It is possible for one person to eat away the energy of thousands. And it is rare that anyone absorbs nourishment from what they are analyzing, to rise above the tensions that are created by the mind trying to grind away content. In order to surrender, we must allow ourselves to open and take the psychic energy that exists in all situations, by relaxing our muscles so that they can absorb this invisible nourishment from the atmosphere. To surrender is also to detach and allow for the breaking down and the flushing out of the tensions that build up by holding onto anything. The need to detach, so that the system can cleanse itself and allow the various muscles and organs to grow into more advanced psychic patterns, is the only way for a human being to evolve into higher dimensions. This is a natural function of the body, which takes place as the pressure of the spiritual experience builds up. It is always the nature of man to withdraw from the fight. In ancient times, a warrior in battle fought until he fell. Such a battle did not allow for someone with quick techniques to vanquish someone who had stamina. The ability to persevere over a period of time is one of the outstanding requirements for real spiritual progress. Longevity can alter the nature of a human being. It allows for the buildup of tensions that can cause the chemistry within the body to change so that a new dimension of consciousness is experienced. The body is made for this kind of treatment. It is only in modern times that man thinks in terms of vacations and forty-hour weeks. The ability to produce again and again removes the sterility that makes for insecurity in relating to all material matter. With two hands, one can lift a chicken off an egg. With a crane, you cannot lift a mother off her child. It is the ability of a chicken to lay eggs endlessly, that gives it the security to let go of the potential life that resides within the egg. The illusion of man is that the child was produced in more time than the egg. They both were produced in a split second. A creative act always occurs in an infinitely small amount of time. It is also God’s protection of human life that he has made it necessary for the mother to carry a child for nine months. Even so, children are the most poorly treated of all things that are reproduced in this world. It shows the nature of the human mind, that it takes nine months to prepare the parent for their responsibility. And often this enormous length of time is not enough. January 22, 1973 We often attract people in our lives who represent the link between ourselves and our potential. They are the sponsors of creative individuals. They have the capacity to inspire by seeing in other people a possibility for future development that they do not see in themselves. They are the unconscious servants of creation, the well-wishers and patrons of the young spiritual seeker. To take from them necessitates a consciousness of their nature. They are very helpful, but once we have grown under their help, they become an unexpected limitation. Their inability to accept creative energy as it moves into new levels they are unfamiliar with causes them to limit or destroy the growth that is occurring in their protege. They are a kind of classical well- wishing vampire. They will not consume the young, but wait, like the farmer, until the produce has been fattened before they strike. They are responsible, in all fields of creativity, for destroying a great deal of the potential that they originally fostered. The ability to take nourishment from anyone or anything on one level is the test of that level. But the structure that feeds all creative people eventually becomes an obstacle that prevents the creative energy from rising to higher levels. Within every organization, there are those who feed the creative energy and then become the limitation to the entire growth process, both for themselves, the teacher, as well as for the other students. It is like a new car that is made to last for a limited time. Beyond a certain point, the amount of money that is needed for repairs and the waste of energy that it takes to make them, not only limits the immediate growth but is responsible for the lack of development in the future. It is the unconscious dependency upon what is, and not seeing what can be, that continually destroys the creative gift that was responsible for the rising of a group or organization in the first place. It is very difficult to prejudge when someone will become detrimental to the growth of a particular situation. Many people come to the point of crisis, and then break down the tensions that oppose them and rise to new heights. It is never expedient to remove them to prevent a disaster, for they have earned the right to use the creative energy of the group because they have contributed to its growth. If they do not come through the crisis, destruction begins to form around them. Then a corrective action needs to be taken. It is the natural function of the body to build up antibodies, which develop as a protection against an inner attack, as creative energy goes through a period of transition and refines itself to rise to new heights. It is the unassimilated energy, in this case the people who are not willing to move to a higher level, that represents the disease to the plant or organization. The unconsciousness with which we function is responsible for the decay that spreads in any kind of creative process. It should become .the accepted expression of growth to realize that energy expands immediately prior to lateral movement, and that it is particularly vulnerable at that time. We see exactly the same expression in children as they go through a period of getting a little heavier before growing several inches in height. They are more susceptible to disease at this point than at any other, as their volume gives way to vertical growth. The new muscle structure is sensitive and requires close attention. So too, we can always expect that, as something swirls before making its thrust, it will need to break down its chemistry and eject some part of itself in order for the change to take place in the form of a new creative expression on a higher level. It has been my experience that as my schools grow, this pattern occurs among people who have been with me for a length of time. The more dynamic their contribution, the less the problem. The greater the ego, the greater the chances for them to not survive a major change, as they cannot surrender the tensions that hold them to the image of themselves. It is not a particularly pretty picture, to think of people as those who are assimilated and those who are not, ut nature completely expresses the creative process on every level, by excreting what it cannot digest. If we look at cells under a microscope, the pattern of movement should express parts of a group in a healthy working order, like a dance in which everyone is in harmony. If you saw some cells moving at a much slower rate, or having a different type of spastic movement, it might suggest that they were going to die. If one could take the same situation and expand it to life-size so that you were looking at people instead of cells, you would see some who were working in harmony with the situation. Others would be sitting on the side like dying cells. That which is not growing at a healthy rate impedes the progress of the entire organism. Many times, when I give a public lecture, people ask me about prophecies of the world ending. They have an incredible emotional identification with such a cosmic psychodrama. They continually avoid doing things because of this eventual catastrophe. But the reward for anything is in the moment in which it is done. It is not like a Christmas Club, in which you save up for something twelve months later. If we do not get, moment by moment, the reward for our effort, and if the consciousness is not there, then there will never be enlightenment. Raising consciousness minute by minute is the reward. It does not accumulate and explode. That is a fairy tale for the childish spiritualists who hope to receive the instantaneous enlightenment that can only come through consciousness; work, more work, and more work. I have applied the same principle of "potential disaster" to cosmic phenomena. If one lived on a planet ten million miles from the earth and saw a great explosion that took place on the earth, it might be viewed as the organism taking a good bowel movement to relieve itself of the poison that it had accumulated. it would also be our consciousness to say, "How wonderful that this organism can rid itself of these pollutants." The oceans would smell clean and the land would be fresh again. If we really love this earth, then it should be within us to want to see it made healthy regardless of the method. No bowel movement smells sweet, regardless of how good it is for our system to eject it. It is only our failure to adjust to reality that keeps us from seeing things on the scale on which they are actually taking place. How easy it is when we see a shooting star to make a wish, not realizing that it might be someone else’s universe that is burning up. Because some- thing is far away, we assume it is unimportant and we have no capacity to relate to it. This is the truth of our limitation in our relationship to God and to the creative energies that come through the universe. That they exist on a scale much larger than we do is not within our consciousness. Because they come from so far away we think of them as being infinitely small, instead of extraordinarily large. Distance in spirituality has absolutely no significance. We can open and travel much faster than the speed of light. A human being can go billions of miles in just one breath. The further we go, the more we can receive. The greater the distance away from the source of creation Distance being the measure of the infinite that we tap consciously, it is only the individual’s insecurity that draws his source of spiritual creativity closer. For most people, cosmic consciousness exists above the first cloud they see. We should not relate to a particular dimension. It should be our consciousness to relate to all of creation. What we experience is no more than one layer of a magnificence that is beyond and beyond and beyond. When we squeeze an orange for its juice, it is not just an orange. It is all oranges. We do not live from one orange, we live from the total amount of oranges that we will have in our life. Latent in the cosmos is the creative energy of tomorrow. We can be open to this dormant creativity so that we can receive it when it flowers. A true oneness is that which meets the moment throughout time. Creative energy produces the same inspiration in many people simultaneously. But it usually takes several years before the thought becomes strong enough to enter the atmosphere of the earth in an acceptable form. There is always tremendous resistance to the spread of a new idea, not because the idea is so revolutionary, but because the creative energy has not been absorbed from the cosmos into the internal system of the people who live on the particular planet. It is only a fool who grows spiritually and expects his ideas to be accepted immediately. It takes time, like good cheese and wine that has been carefully aged, before its value becomes appreciated. It is only a tension filled person that tries to propagate the thought of the moment, because he does not have the capacity to sit with it quietly and allow it to connect and mellow and become transferable. No creative energy has meaning unless it can be assimilated into the physical, mental, and psychic structure of the person to whom it is given. During the incubation period, society overlooks the possibilities inherent in new developments that are forming. This is apparent in politics. We continually underestimate any type of radical group. The apparent indifference of the rest of society always causes people to disqualify rather than understand that the group is just a collection of cells that are germinating until they become ripened and can begin to function. This was the way people reacted to Hitler. He was so radical for his time that his approach was not taken seriously by the rest of society. What could have been removed with a small operation became a disease that caused millions of people to lose their lives. It was the lack of consciousness of the powers involved that allowed for this kind of occurrence. 1 isease. If a man were bitten by an elephant, he would immediately act to fight off the obvious. Our ability to smack the mosquito and destroy it so easily, makes us vulnerable to the effects of the disease with which this insect can infect us. The heavy and large energies in the atmosphere are the blocks of our consciousness. We relate to what we can see. The larger and stronger they are, the more we pay attention to them. For example, if we try to return something to a shop and act in a gentle way, it does not attract the same attention as if we create a disturbance. The attention is always given to those who are violent in their demands since, if they are ignored, they may get worse. The contempt that people have for quality is also shown by their lack of appreciation for the finer energy in the atmosphere. Because this energy can only be gradually received in depth, it is usually ignored. Very sensitive, creative people have experiences of an extraordinary nature. Their quiet and passive openness allows fine energy to enter them. They use this energy to produce great works of creative expression, but their mechanism may not be strong enough to take in this refined energy in quantity. It accumulates, until it becomes strong enough to tear them apart. It is the curse of our unconsciousness that allows most creative people to be destroyed, for we cannot help them through their difficult periods because we lack the sensitivity to feel and understand what it is that brings about their destruction. It is possible to determine in an abstract way the creative potential of a human being as a function of their physical strength and sensitivity. Sensitivity allows them to absorb a refined energy; strength enables the integration of that refined energy into the physical structure. But neither is useful without the other. January 24, 1973 The sooner man recognizes his need for conservation, the more he is able to support the environment in which he lives. Spiritually, we are in a similar situation. Consciousness of the future allows a man to begin to prepare for the long-range use of his energies. Each change of chemistry is only nature’s way of indicating what will be required, giving us the opportunity to prepare so that we can allow our system to produce the essential raw materials upon which our future growth depends. When a new frontier is opened, it is only systematic development that keeps the land from being ravaged, even though its resources seem endless at the time. This is also applicable to spiritual energy which, as we become aware of its existence, overwhelms us by the enormity of its depth and seemingly inexhaustible supply. It is only the short sightedness of man that allows him to be continually impressed by the bounty of nature. It is also his lack of imagination that continually catches him building with what is available, without having the awareness that what he is building must be supported in the future by ever- increasing amounts of the same material. Today is my forty-fifth birthday. It had been prophesied by the Shan- karacharya of Puri, among others, that this period would mark the end of physical suffering and that my life would change radically. Having a sense of needing to pay for growth, I was prepared for many sacrifices that I felt would be necessary to fulfill my future responsibilities as a teacher. But it was increasingly apparent throughout my forty-fourth year that the great periods of pain and personal trials that I was continually having to undergo, showed every sign of vanishing. In its place was an ever-increasing opening of the heart that allowed me to have the capacity to love all people. Since I expected to make sacrifices, I continually looked at this pattern as a way of taking from me the physical and personal. I felt God was indeed generous to give me something more universal as the replacement for my emotions. I was so concerned with having to ‘give away something that was not demanded, that I almost succeeded. But the increase of love in my life and the number of people to whom I was attaching, began to fill me with a greater human richness than I had ever known. I found within the people to whom I was relating, a capacity to rise above all of their tensions. The sweetness that I felt from them was like the essence of honey and nectar that is spoken of as being the drink of the Gods. My doubts remained, though. They had to be overcome hundreds and hundreds of times, but all I had to do was open to the obvious love that existed in all these people, for them to be gone. It was their attitude, their ability to surrender, that freed me hundreds of times and finally freed me once and for all from the need to limit myself in this flow of love between myself and them, and eventually between myself and everyone. I feel the continual radiation of love from my heart, like a fast flowing stream pouring out into the atmosphere-a great happiness that is the reflection of the souls of the people who have joined with me in our spiritual work. As I sat yesterday becoming adjusted to the fact that my forty-fifth year would be a wonderful and joyous year, I wondered how this happiness could serve my spiritual growth. I have always had strong reservations about Bhakti, or love as it is described in Indian philosophy. I have heard it expressed in words more often than I have seen it in action. Real Bhakti, in my experience, exists in the simplest people in India, flowing from them without words, but with total devotion. But I didn’t understand its place in my growth. Was it a tangible energy that would carry me toward my ultimate fulfillment or was it a device to bind me within its forms and limit my future development? In spiritual work, one must be suspicious of gifts, which have a way of becoming the limitation of inner development for many souls who otherwise are very advanced. I found an enormous questioning within myself as to the acquisition of so much love and sweetness. It also became necessary for me to surrender the questioning as it was based on my not feeling I deserved to receive this joy. I was able to surrender the entire question and then the questioning of the question. Late in the day, I suddenly felt a little pop inside me and the answer came very quickly. An inner voice said, "This sweetness is the insulation for the shock that will occur in your fifty-sixth year, as you burn to dust !when you destroy the crystallization of this mountain of love and sweetness and evolve to your next spiritual dimension." This answer gave me a real reason for accepting the sweetness and I feel deeply content within myself that upon my birthday, I can consciously gather for the next eleven years that which is essential for my future growth. The same material, in this case love, will develop the antibodies within me for the change that will occur eleven years from now. But it must be a conscious understanding rather than an indulgence. It is not different from having a great pile of bricks that you amass just because they are available. You pile them up thoughtlessly and then one day they fall on you, causing your death. It is only our consciousness of the material that we acquire each day that determines our ability to grow. Everything that is not gathered consciously be- comes an obstacle. The ability to surrender more deeply within our- selves for our spiritual development and enlightenment is the inheritance of each human being. By demanding within, we gather all that is given in life and allow it to fulfill its highest potential. What is not used in this way goes into the rest of our lives. The continued surrender to God as a way of fulfilling our spiritual potential is exactly the same process of creation that occurs when a woman is bearing a child within herself. The child takes everything that is needed for its growth and what is not needed feeds the mother. This is the miracle of creation, allowing higher life to be supported by lower life. In spiritual evolvement, the depth is beyond the mind and beyond any capacity of a human being to understand. It automatically allows our spiritual life to take from the physical whatever is required, and there- after necessitates an increase in physical energy so that we can also provide for the essentials of our ordinary existence. Instead of disqualifying ourselves for our ordinary life, we are placing a demand upon the unconscious to provide what is needed for both these higher and lower levels. The drawing of this higher energy for our spiritual evolvement has the capacity to align the rest of our life into a continued pattern of harmony and value, which expresses itself by the growth of the spiritual, as the physical strengthens itself so that it can preserve this development. In every aspect of life, more refined force has the ability to direct all lower energies. Everything serves when there is a strong higher purpose. The need for the continual surrender and rededication of ourselves to our spiritual values must deepen continually and absorb more and more of our life force for the eventual spiritual realization that we are pursuing. It allows the energies that are functioning through us to open more of the unconscious. It acts like a dredge that cleans a harbor as the silt fills in the channel. Our ordinary life washes into the depth of our wish all of the superficial material that can only be removed by the rededication that digs out this slowly accumulating resistance. If we are able to feel within ourselves a new depth in our spiritual effort each day, it is only because we have removed this ever-collecting and deadly ingredient that gathers so quickly each moment of our lives. It is never the obvious that destroys a man but the subtlety of life that creeps up and eats into our being, while we are busily looking for a dramatic effect. These dramatic patterns of our existence are easily dealt with, because the nature of their emotional content automatically calls for a response. The subtlety of the silt does not evoke a response. We are slowly buried under it like an ancient civilization. This quiet death allows people to continue talking as if they were doing, and to attract unto themselves people of a similar disposition. They join together in underground worlds that keep their wishes from God, as all of their energies are beneath the level of the thickness of their unconscious. Most frightening of all is that it allows for an innocence on the surface that only proclaims the lack of reality on the part of the person in their attitudes toward their ultimate existence. This silt is the great- est enemy of spirituality. Buried beneath its endless depth lie the well- meaning people and those who feel they can always begin again. It encompasses the masses who don’t have the courage to fight. Like the mountains of the moon, this cold and endless death does not allow any life form to reflect itself above the material of its composition. Life is lost within the rock and the dust, which represent in a tangible way the level of the existence based on the inability of people to remove the materialization that slowly engulfs and crystallizes their being within its death. As with individuals on a certain level, we can only see their lives after we delve deeply within the mountain that is above their soul. This is what we do when we are trying to connect with people for spiritual or physical relationships. We must look for natural resources that may be deeply hidden that are able to feed and serve us. It is very common for people to have attachments to individuals who are highly creative, but not know how to relate to the capacities that are within the gifted person. The mountain that covers the creative individual allows them only limited ability to reach for what they need in their lives; it also closes from anyone else the capacity to take the gifts that lie within them. Many exceptionally gifted people are constructed in exactly this way. They can tunnel for their creative treasure in a semi- conscious way, but they cannot give the ability to anyone else. Often they form relationships only with those who allow themselves to be turned into servants, to aid the creative person in fulfilling his own destiny. January 30, 1973 - The Cosmic Weaver I left New York for Texas last Saturday evening in a great rush. It had been a hectic week. There were many people visiting because of my birthday. They were more symbolic of the future than an indication of the moment’s celebration. I gratefully encompassed this increased activity as an indication of a new momentum. My capacity to deal with more people in depth is becoming apparent. The middle-class ideas that I grew up with were continually revealed as inadequate. did not fit this kind of pattern, and yet the mediocrity within me kept holding on, as a kind of dull security, to what I had been taught was the right way. But the truth is that the way my particular chemistry best fulfills itself is the right way for me. At the end of the day, I had to throw people out of my antique shop so that I could catch the 5:45 flight to Dallas. The rush was a great expression of being deeply involved on all levels. It gave me a wonderful feeling to express my capabilities as an efficient businessman, while I prepared for my spiritual journey. My students, Beau and Mimi, waited twenty minutes for me before I could close, so they could drive me to the airport. It was a very rainy night. Beau went to LaGuardia by an unfamiliar route. I remembered my twenty-minute tardiness and tried to keep my mouth shut about his being late for the plane. It is always remarkable how gifted we are in trying to shift responsibilities, only causing tensions and increasing the likelihood of disaster. As soon as we got to the airport, Beau ran for the gate to make sure that they didn’t leave without me. It continually amazes me when I see someone’s effort to help me. It makes me realize the importance of feeding and sustaining all connections. I was feeling quite relaxed when I arrived in Dallas. There were several different groups of people who met me. I was able to relate to them all distinctly and compatibly. They were in no way competitive for my energy, but became woven into separate patterns that reinforced each other. They made a material like laminated cosmic plywood. Each separate pattern and relationship, being of a different level, had its structure running either horizontally or vertically; this allowed the appropriate energy to flow from me into them, creating a matrix that had the capacity to bear the weight and flow from each different relationship and level. It was apparent I must act freely, and not get my mind involved. I had never felt this flow of multiple dimensions before. Stuart Perrin is the head teacher of our Texas schools. There are at present four ashrams-in Denton, Dallas, Nacogdoches and Austin. We also have a dozen groups in prisons, reformatories, universities and high schools, etcetera, where we have teachers. The complexity of these activities rests mainly on Stuart, with the other main schools being very well run by the teachers there. When I saw the people who teach in the ashrams under my guidance, I tried to open myself with ever-increasing consciousness. I asked God to not put my limitations on them. I would serve according to the needs expressed, and with the knowledge that I would be guided by His energy to do the correct thing. The first evening we went directly from the airport to the church in Dallas where my lecture was scheduled. We arrived the minute the lecture was to begin. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and face and rinse out my mouth, so as to drop some of my surface tension. As I entered, I glanced into the mirror and saw looking back at me a deep pair of eyes and a tousled head of blond hair. My heart opened suddenly and a pulse of energy shot from me into the eyes of this man. I understood that he was probably one of the prisoners out on trust for the evening’s lecture. Looking at him was like receiving a spiritual pep pill, which I consumed deeply within myself. It is fairly typical that at any public gat attract som e reincar- nation level. They enable me to use a new source of energy and to not resort to heating up yesterday’s leftovers. I consciously seek these connections on such occasions. The lecture was a truly great experience. For two hours, I was consciously detached, drawing into myself the energy from the audience, which acted as the threads on a loom through which the lecture wove itself spiritually. Depending on the material in the audience and in the atmosphere, and my consciousness as the weaver, the lecture takes its unique form. I enjoy serving as the weaver, trying not to have my will inflict itself on the pattern of the process. After the lecture, I gave a class at the Dallas ashram for people who came from all over Texas. It was wonderful to see the growth that had occurred since my last visit four months previously. As Stuart is under the most tension and has been with me the longest of the people who were there, I worked deeply with him after the lecture. Unwinding his tensions was like spinning thread. Gathering up such tensions was my main purpose in traveling to these distant places. It frees my teachers to do the same for those who come to them for help. The cocoon that man gathers around himself is an amazing reflection of his nature. He spins from within himself a world of limitation, emerging as the butterfly of his projected enlightenment. It is not the most we are capable of producing, but it reflects nature’s and God’s grace in allowing our limitation to express itself as a beautiful creature emerging from the tension of our lives. It gives so-called enlightened people a sense of transition and change to an exotic creature on a higher level. All the caterpillars look up to the butterfly flying above them as God. We as people look to those who call themselves enlightened similarly-not having the capacity to understand that this one miracle of transformation expresses only the first of the real potentials. The following morning after giving another class, I was taken by Tom and Madge Harris to their new ashram in Austin. I worked for a long time on the flight to open myself fully so that I could put into them a deeper energy, allowing them to begin their work in Austin with a greater capacity. Their loyalty and love only asks to be used to serve and develop along with the people they teach. To not recognize this simplicity is to deny the reality of our connection to each thread of our creative life. If we do not break the thread, our consciousness can let the cosmic energy flow from God to us and to all who have the need to take from us. I looked at Madge and Tom and could not help but find a new love and value for them as they were taking from me the limitation of myself. I was allowing them to draw from me that which would keep me trapped in my ego coffin. The people in Austin were young in the knowledge of spiritual work but open and willing. I felt a depth with them, and had only respect for their efforts. That which I did not understand, I let flow; like the bumps that are seen in thread under the microscope, that in no way lessen the strength and beauty of the fabric, but show the pulsation of life that produces thread. I am not the designer, but the weaver, and have only gratitude to be able to do the work. Those who pick apart the threads weaken the fabric of creation by applying their mind to the design, because to them God’s will is not as acceptable as their own. We must first surrender to the miracle of creation. Then the pattern will emerge. Life is composed of an endless variety of threads of many colors. The need to reduce them to a certain type of design constricts the creative output. All the tensions put into the weaving is man’s limitation of God’s purpose. The Austin lecture was wonderful. There were many new people with real interest in joining the ashram. Afterwards we went to see some real estate. Tom and Madge were in the process of buying a building for the ashram with their own money. They attracted a real estate broker who was running down every possibility. I had come to Austin to co-sign on a house, but the agent had found a much better building, which would have enough rental units to let the ashram occupy a large building and be rent-free. The vitality and reality of the way all of them were producing required very little from me, for which I was grateful. My real purpose was to deepen the attachment we mutually have with each other. It became apparent that there was a healthy seed planted. Neurotically attacking what was developing could only hurt the results. It is amazing what potential there is in this country in the most abstract of all areas, spiritual development. I have never found a fraction of this capacity in any other country. In India, the home of the original seed, the separation of the source in the teacher, from the seed in the student, does not allow the creative process to flow freely. That afternoon I went with Larry Hestand to Nacogdoches, an old town set in beautiful forests. Larry is a very fine guitarist who lives only for his music. His depth of devotion to his spiritual life was apparent when he asked if he should abandon his music in order to pursue his spiritual development. By his willingness to ask, he left no doubts as to his detachment from this great love. We left for Austin at essna. I worked the entire one and a half hours to drop the tensions that I felt coming out of my head. It was a strong outflow. As it continued, a great throbbing pain began to grow from the point of the third eye out on a forty-five degree angle. After lunch, I asked Larry to sit with me upstairs in the meditation room as the pain was sharper. I lay down, folding my sweater under my head. Larry asked me if he could drain the pain into himself. He said he wished to share all of the suffering I would ever have. This goodness opened my heart, deeply absorbing some of the pain. I fell asleep for a few minutes. When I awoke, the tension was breaking. In a few minutes I was scheduled to give a lecture.It went beautifully. Having been a good vessel through which the lecture flowed, I was also a refreshed person afterwards. Immediately afterwards we left for the airport and flew to Dallas. I was due to give another lecture for some forty prisoners at :00 p.m. When I came off the plane, Danny Cook, the teacher at Dallas, looked at me and exclaimed there was a very distinct cobra on my forehead. it expanded from the point between the eyes about five or six inches, forming a perfect triangle. The pain that I had undergone while I was with Larry was the breaking through of this energy. I discovered I could give the Kundalini shakti from this point of my head by merely looking at somebody. The cobra was vitally alive. It represented another indication of the buildup that was occurring in me for the change that had been taking place for the last six months. it was supposed to end on April 15^th, and at that time reflect itself as an entirely new level of creativity and spirituality. On several occasions, I had been told by various people who know my astrology chart, that this would be the real beginning of my spiritual life. We drove from the airport to a restaurant for a sandwich. I then went to shower and change. We left within a few minutes for the prison. It was an amazing atmosphere in which to conduct a class. The door was opened by a young angel of a man-strong-deeply open and sweet. But the group itself was quite mixed. Some of the prisoners were hostile. The authorities in Texas are truly remarkable in their receptivity to any work that outsiders wish to bring to their institutions, though they check out what is being given thoroughly. They gave us the auditorium to use-it was a big cold room. Usually a smaller and more suitable chapel is given, but that wasn’t large enough for the size of the audience. I have never in my entire life felt so threatening an atmosphere. It was like the energy coming out of a lion’s cage. For most of the lecture, I didn’t think that my energy was reaching anyone. After an hour, several people left and the atmosphere lightened. At the end of the evening, much appreciation was expressed by the prisoners. Danny Cook said he felt as if his stomach had been torn out. We went for some ice cream to heal our wounds. The contact with those who did connect was amazing. Several of the men are seriously considering joining the ashram when they are released. Some will go back to school, and strangely they are all going to schools in cities where we have ashrams. The worst and the best are in prisons. We certainly will attract people with great energy, and those who wish for alternatives will have them. At 9:45 p.m., I returned to the Dallas ashram to find some people waiting for a class. I gave one forty-five minute class, then worked with Danny Cook for forty minutes, and for two hours with another man about to become a teacher. I fell asleep at 1:45 a.m. to awaken at 5:45 a.m., so I could teach a class before leaving for the airport at 7:15 a.m. This is a typical schedule of work when I am on the road, and it does not include fifty or so conversations of fifteen minutes to one- half hour each, or special work with people whose exercise is not going properly. I have never been happier in my entire life. It is with enormous gratitude and joy that I understand that all of this is only the buildup for a much more intense period ahead. February 1, 1973 Many times throughout my life, I have had the experience of some- thing within me that was completely different from all that I recognize as myself. This feeling is like a small child lost in the woods crying for its mother. It calls out strongly saying, "I want to go home." We have within us many energies that relate to different dimensions or, in more dramatic terms, other planets and galaxies. To me, ordinary spiritual energy is like the clouds in the sky. These other forces re- semble suns and moons peeking out from behind the clouds from some great distance. It is always possible to understand the vast reach of a particular energy. The further away from the earth it is, the more refined the energy since it has exhausted its power to reach this plane of existence. It is the logic of spirituality to relate within ourselves to that which can support these energies and allow us inally to connect through them with the source of their conception. It is as if there were fifty bats flying around simultaneously within fifty caves, one encompassing the other. As their radar reaches out, em. One reaches to the side of the first cave, one reaches to the side of the second cave, one reaches to the side of the third cave, up until the fiftieth bat who reaches the furthest wall of the furthest cave. We, like the bats, relate only to the physical and psychic area that we can contact. It is possible for a human being, if he has the consciousness, to relate to fifty different levels within the atmosphere simultaneously. Each awareness is like a different bat. The ability of a human being to reach out to these separate planes of existence has to do with the extent of his capacity to relate to people that he meets on the physical plane of the earth on many different dimensions. It is the combination of these planes that constitute within us the returns of our own creative life. It is also that which destroys a great deal of our psychic and creative potential, as there are people who may reach to the first plane, and people who may reach to the 6,014^th plane, with very little reference in between. The angle of feedback of the 6,014^th plane would be in such contradiction to the feedback on the first plane, as to cancel out the creative potential within the first. Each plane must be built on the next, as we relate from here to infinity. We must open to everything, not just the immediate experience. It is like having an appetite and eating the first thing you see as you enter a grocery store. If you see a pepper and a tomato, you eat them, but this would not be an act of consciousness. Reaching for what we must have to satisfy our appetite does not serve to expand our ability to grow toward a more conscious control of our relationship with these cosmic energies. And some of these powers are in direct conflict with others. This kind of conflict exists for many people who are allergic to certain kinds of food. If they eat these foods, their chemistry is unbalanced. Many people open to energies to which they are allergic with somewhat similar effects. Some forces have the capacity to consume other forces. Somebody reaching for such energy may be taking in something that can poison their system. Then it may be necessary to de-energize the person as one detoxifies a drug addict, so that the poisonous energy can be withdrawn. It was very obvious to me when I was teaching in the penitentiary in Texas that my energy was dying in midair, not being able to make the connection with some of the people who were sitting there. This condition was produced by the hostility in the atmosphere. I looked at the faces and tried to sense inside the prisoners, but it was like asking a stone wall to speak. It was not their consciousness but the near the field around them. It is not until we understand that certain energies completely repel other energies that we can start to realize how to relate to the forces involved. It is not that there are those who can live a higher life and those who can’t. It is that they represent different types of matter and must be treated accordingly. How simple it is, once we empty a pan of water, to fill it with milk, or empty a pan of milk and fill it with meat. But to pour milk on top of water, or meat on top of milk, only spoils the special qualities of each. The ability to feel the highest creative connection in a person allows us to find the thread between them and infinity. Reinforcing that connection allows it to grow from a thread into a tube, which can draw sustenance from the furthest field in the cosmos and raise the person from the limitations that exist for them in the atmosphere that they inhabit. The distance between their physical body and the point of their infinite creative capacity encompasses all of the intervening energy in space, which can be used for higher nourishment. The teacher is the creative weaver that can work on this loom of infinity, bringing forth the returns that reflect cosmic consciousness rather than the limitations of spirituality on the earth. It is the energy, which rises and rises and rises, that becomes the fabric that fills the loom of time and space. It is the ability to reach for this endless thread of each individual that we connect with, that allows us to bring this distant energy and consciousness into the reality of our day. It enables us to lift the energies from the earth into a place of dignity and creativity. All that we see in the world represents the limitation of the physical and creative energy stuck on the ground. This is unfortunately obvious when we see millions of people killed in wars, which in a very simple way, expresses the inability to use an intense energy for higher purpose. War is a creative dump. It is like an overabundant wheat crop that we keep in huge granaries until such time as it must be burned. All countries have exactly the same problem. They try in their limited way to express the overflow of creative energy by attempting to free it. When this fails, war burns the creative potential that has not effectively been realized. We must look at our society from a far distant place and see that keeping millions of people waiting for their future will only produce a spiritual combustion that explodes in a catastrophe. It is only when we allow the creativity of the young to carry them and their energy into the infinite that we begin to serve the earth, the universe, and each other in our most positive expression of life. Sending someone to a university is an attempt to change their level of matter. When you take a piece of rice and expand it, it only becomes puffed rice, which is not changing matter. It is saying, "We will give you this much, can you do something with it?" It then becomes a way of demonstrating the limit that this rice has on the level of the earth. It is like feeding a person, measuring and weighing him, and examining his stool. It only shows how the mechanism works. It in no way shows the potential of that mechanism to change. If you reach from your ego, you are reaching from tension that can only attract more tension. We feed tensions into tensions instead of surrendering tensions and reaching for internalized energy. Everything in the universe represents a potential. If you can take a grain of rice and plant it, raise it and crossbreed it and crossbreed it, you can make a grain of rice that is strong enough to make something of substance. Everything that grows has an attachment-the apple to the tree, an ear of corn to the stalk. It feeds from the inner core. Connect to the inner core of yourself and reach for the inner essence of everything you touch. February 3, 1973 When I was in India a year ago, I saw an extraordinary statue of Swami Nityananda that had been sculpted by Professor Manjrekar, who through his love and devotion had created this sculpture. I was deeply moved by the feeling of life in the figure and was able to arrange to have a casting made. The statue was cast, following ancient Indian traditions. It contained seven precious metals including silver and gold, and was able to hold and transmit the spiritual power of this great saint. it is not just the force that is within a statue but also its energy potential that is important. It works like a high frequency radio. It can function in direct proportion to the aptitude of the person working with the image. Its purpose is not to imprison us within the energy of the statue, but to provide us with nourishment for our growth. The statue arrived yesterday during an enormous rain storm. It has always been a great blessing for me to have it rain upon an important spiritual occasion. It acts as a benediction upon all things, helping them grow. I felt the presence of the statue the whole day, as I had when I had originally seen it in India. Once it was installed in the ashram, it became obvious that I could not relate to it totally. It was too vast and extraordinary for me to encompass. We put a screen around the statue until a proper enclosure could be made to house it. It was as if Swami Nityananda were sitting there in his cosmic body. I used my hands to wipe away the dust and felt that even this action should be undertaken over a period of weeks. It felt like the sun were slowly coming out from behind the clouds after a hard winter. I returned to my shop and sat quietly. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I began to see small pointed blue lines, like cosmic arrowheads, being shot into my heart. This went on for several hours. It was the beginning of the opening of my heart to Nityananda on a cosmic level. I did not feel in a hurry to expand the experience, as I wished to incorporate all that energy deeply within me in order to feed the next level of my development. I intended to use this statue sparingly and completely, so that it would serve me for my life time. There is no need to hurry. It was easy to remember the circumstances that brought about the creation of this particular statue. I had broken my relationship with Swami Muktananda, as I felt a deep interference between him and my connection with Nityananda. It was a continual problem. Nityananda was my Guru. He had saved my life physically when he was alive and continued to feed me the spiritual energy that brought my development into more and more consciousness since his Samadhi. In contrast, I felt that Muktananda was always striking me with an ax, but the size of the tree of my spiritual creation allowed me to take these smacks as pruning. They did not damage the trunk of the tree. It was never for my good, but as a means of controlling my energy that these tests were inflicted on me. I submitted to them for twelve years, as I under- stood how to consciously use the expression of Muktananda’s creative energy in relationship to my own connection with Nityananda. Many people in India and the Western world expressed concern about my relationship with Muktananda. The consciousness within me necessitated my staying to use the vast energy of Nityananda, which was structured by my effort to transcend the will of Muktananda, as he tested me endlessly, allowing me to draw deeper and deeper from the Shakti that was my connection with Nityananda’s soul. It was like some strange triangle of energy in which the spiritual force of Nityananda was ground into me by overcoming the resistance and tension of Swami Muktananda, which, in turn, allowed me to rise endlessly. It was certainly a difficult way for me to grow, but I am deeply grateful for having had someone willing to inflict upon me the tension that was necessary for my growth to occur. I will always be grateful, for I do not know anyone else in the world who could have put me through these tests. I could survive them, but I was less sure that my students could. It was this concern that forced me to separate from this very difficult person who had no real love for anyone. His need was always to press someone beneath his own creative capacity. I felt that my responsibility to those people who came to me necessitated my separating from him so that they would not get caught between US. I have a statue that I call Alfred, which I have worked with for twelve years. It has such a deep spiritual energy that I did not confront it directly until just recently. I felt the same type of relationship with the statue of Nityananda. It is not only a sense of respect, but also the wisdom to understand its potential. If I went to it and felt I could encompass it within my being, then I would be utilizing this statue as one would swallow food in chunks. I would receive only minimum value from the use of the available food. The statue follows exactly the same principle. By opening to it in great depth and having tremendous reverence for it, I make this statue endless in its capacity to nourish and serve my spiritual development. So much of the richness of life is lost because we attack that which we should open to gradually. It is not man’s consciousness to see things in depth, and so in his hunger he jumps into the deep oceans thinking they are shallow lakes, feeling no effect after a point. He does not realize that he is underneath and completely drowned y the total mass of potential information and nourishment. The reverse is also true. A man can sit in three inches of water thinking he is crossing the ocean. I have gone to a museum, looked at two or three objects, and have left because I was totally filled. Many people take a whole day to walk through a museum. People always think they are expressing their cultural capacity when they can sit through endless numbers of performances of opera, ballet, etcetera. It only expresses their inability to assimilate what they are trying to use as a source of nourishment. The ability to take according to our capacity is the beginning of true sensitivity. Until a human being understands that he has taken in all his system can absorb, he will fail to detach from the source of that energy, so that he can digest and transcend the level on which it exists. He will just eat and eventually have a massive bowel movement. Stuffing one’s self full of culture and spirituality is another form of unconsciousness, and the indigestion that occurs is as effective in keeping a human being from his growth as an expression of strong negativity. it is a form of spiritual defensiveness, which is perpetuated by many people who do not have the courage to break themselves down, but only reinforce all of their limitations by what they take from a creative source. One of the great problems in continuing to grow is the formation of cosmic rust-a ty 1 y as a lack of creative flow, produced by our rejection of the spirit of the opposite sex we find within ourselves. Every man was a woman, and every woman was a man, many times throughout their past births. Our inability to accept that we were both prevents the inner current from washing out the particles of self-rejection that build up until they clog the creative flow. It is like washing in either hot or cold water, instead of turning on both faucets and finding the temperature that is suitable to our bathing needs. it might be 10 percent of one and 90 percent of another. Our failure to find the right combination produces the cosmic rust. Man controls his sexual expression, for it has been formed by the society in which he lives, his family, religion and friends. He is not allowed, and does not allow himself, to find what is natural for his own system. The slow suicide of internal sexual rejection produces a gradual buildup of tensions that form a crust over a human being. This eventually blocks him from his sources of nourishment. It is what causes people to go from marriage to marriage and relationship to relationship. It is not that they have used up the situation or person but that they have lost the capacity to absorb nourishment. To open and become more sensitive is to extract a lighter, more nourishing energy from those around us. In this respect a person is like a tree. Matter grows by bringing in nourishment internally, and it is expressed externally through the extension of branches and the thickening of the trunk. The inner core draws from the root system. It builds up external manifestation as the by-product of creative flow. Once we kill the roots of a tree, its ability to live ceases. All of the branches, the leaves, the trunk, no longer have meaning. We continually get involved in what we see, instead of in the creative flow, which is invisible. It can be felt only when we detach from these other manifestations. They are tangible and become what we reach for because we have forgotten where they come from. It is the pursuit of any external matter that keeps us from the process through which this matter was created. It is always that which goes, not that which is gone. We can gauge our spirituality by our ability to continually surrender the outer, until we can see the inner connection with the forces of creation. Only when we can feel within people the core from which their matter is drawn, can we be nourished by them. Contacting the depth of this creative core can change the molecular structure of our energy and free us from the patterns of our life. The deeper we go to draw the energy from a person or situation, the greater our capacity to change, since we must break down the thickness within ourselves to contact this refined flow. We were not put on the earth to be like another person, but to take from them and become ourselves. Spiritual antibodies that can remove congestion are essential in developing the capacity to assimilate spiritual force. These antibodies manifest in different ways. When the spiritual force of another person is absorbed, it may ignite the material it contacts. This burning will remove the congestion in the body, which will allow spiritual force to enter. Many people are physically thick. They can no longer absorb nourishment. They express that inability by building an image that protects their condition. Ego is only the shell or camouflage of human congestion. A man can only surrender to higher nourishment when there is room inside him that creative energy can fill. It does not matter how great the nourishment or spirituality is if a person is already filled to his capacity. The purpose of surrender is to allow a fresh creative flow to come into the area that has been opened. Antibodies consist of energies and shocks that destroy the defensiveness of the ego. just as an inoculation of cholera prevents cholera, so a little bit of truth is needed to remove the congestion that keeps a person from being open to spiritual growth. Some people who begin a spiritual life experience diarrhea, vomiting, and other forms of physical shock. These experiences cleanse the body so that the spiritual process can work upon it. Shock is of enormous significance in spiritual work. It quiets many people who are otherwise too neurotic to assimilate spiritual energy. It is one of the great gifts of nature that keeps people from burning out and also allows them to reestablish a balance of body chemistry. February 10, 1973 One of the results of growth is to attract what seems to be a spiritual whiplash-a reaction to a forward thrust by a backward pull or a drop in energy. But this does not indicate that anything is wrong. One of the effects of intense energy is to attract a force that can clean out and rectify the limitations within which it has been expended. Removing all weakness and tension through such a reaction allows for a more solid or compact growth to take place. if one were to build a house and then rent it, it would reflect the ability to put conscious effect into materials and to bring the work to a point where we receive a small return for our labor every month. The first five years of rent might pay for the house. The future depends on having a tenant who will respect the property, so that it can continue built, understanding that everything that is constructed has the ability to produce returns based on its longevity. There are many spiritual builders in this life, but very few conscious landlords in the spiritual world. This is due to the inability to take the return on what we construct over a long period of time, using the investment on one level of development for the support of the next. It is not different from a housing development where, if we fail on the first building or two, we lose our capacity to go any further. Spirituality in a real sense has to do with the practical treatment of our energy. Each result we get allows for an increased consciousness, which can then support a deeper capacity. The adventure of doing must be closely followed by the capacity to sustain, repairing and adding to whatever structures we might have built in the past. It is as though we had constructed a housing development forty years ago. To maintain it in the present would require rewiring it for air conditioning, and putting in a swimming pool or whatever other facilities that would be necessary to compete with the communities that were built later. In our spiritual development, we can operate on the highest level available to us. This evolved consciousness can also be used to improve everything that we have constructed in the past. On the second of February, one of my students arrived from Texas. He had been a great help to me a year ago. Now many people have come who are able to assume his responsibilities. I noticed a few days before he arrived that my forearms were be- coming very stiff. It felt like hundreds of rubber-covered wires were being implanted inside them. It was necessary for me to have several of my students squeeze my forearm to relieve the pain. Immediately, enormous energy shot through my fingers. It was obvious to me that I was going through a rewiring process. When the young man arrived from Texas, he looked very tired. I felt quite cool towards him, in comparison to my relation with many other students who had come more recently and who had a greater depth. As I thought about my reaction to this man, I realized that it only reflected my inability to sustain what I had, along with what was developing. It was hard for me to realize my inability to support the loyalty that had been given to me when I needed it the year before. I was 100 percent wrong, but to be able to see it allowed me to open and expand. This is the real way that a student serves a teacher, by helping him to see his own inadequacy. It takes great courage to grow spiritually. It requires a tremendous sense of surrender to endure the I going through the boring periods during which the mechanism is put back into order. These intervals must be approached consciously. They do not rep- resent a lack of growth, but the ability to develop creatively by being aware of the process of tearing down and rebuilding of our mechanism. When the heart grows or the brain increases, it must affect every other part of the body and psyche. To expect these changes to take place easily, is in itself a lack of respect for the human organism. It is the vastness of our mechanism and the consciousness with which we relate to it, that allows these changes to occur with the largest potential benefit. The longer we can keep our awareness of these periods of tearing apart and assimilation, miserable as they might feel, the deeper the change that can take place. So much of the unconscious spirituality that occurs, the chanting and repeating of prayers or any other spiritual exercise, allows a wall or thickness to develop in a human being that can act as a layer of resistance for future growth. It is only when these same exercises are done with a deep consciousness, that the positive result is structured in the body of a human being in a granular way. That is, the energy flows into the very flesh and muscle of a person, not between the muscles or near the outside of the skin. Creativity without consciousness is resistance. It builds a defensiveness that al- lows a person to express their own development as antagonism towards others, rather than deeply internalizing the energy so that it can open and feed into the muscles and cells of every part of the body. The amount of consciousness with which we breathe expresses itself by the depth of energy that we find in our functioning. The lack of breath expresses our resistance to life, for we are laboring under the pressure of what has not been assimilated in a proper way. It is not different from a bad education that disturbs the mind and makes the person more prejudiced and ignorant than he was before. It is better to stay simple and learn from life, than to be educated incorrectly. No one ever gets over a bad education unless they go to an advanced university. It makes life many times more difficult to structure it badly, than not to structure it at all. It was the intensity and depth of my spiritual growth in the last several months that brought about my need to rectify my connections with the people for whom I was responsible. It did not mean that I was wrong in the past. It was just that I was being given the opportunity to not be wrong in the future. There is nothing to say. There is only something to do. Endless conversation is no substitute for the simplicity with which one can effect the change, by accepting he truth be responsible, I was able to effectively change and found that the impact altered many other areas of my life. When we cut through the center of a tree, we see the circles that represent its yearly growth. The wider the circle, the deeper the energy or nourishment that was available for that particular year. It is possible for a human being to tap many different areas of energy. If a person were cut through and measured like a tree, it would expose not just the physical but the spiritual and the cosmic energies, which would represent the simultaneous growth that is available for a human being. It would look like the tree except for a different pattern in the rings. One, three, five and seven might represent the physical; two and six the spiritual; and four and eight the cosmic. The spiritual and cosmic rings are ordinarily invisible lines of demarcation, which show up as the tissue between layers. Only if they are given the nourishment that they require, can they express themselves as circles. In this sense, if you cut through an ordinary human being to look at the circles of growth, you would see one, three, five, seven, nine, etc. That the extra growth areas are not expressed, leads us to believe that they do not exist. It is the lack of deeper understanding that keeps us from developing these higher capacities, and the sensitivity that incorporates them into real cosmic consciousness. Physical, spiritual, and cosmic consciousness should occur as simultaneous growth, not in contradiction with each other. They are, and should be, a reflection of our ability to draw on all of these separate levels simultaneously. it is because a human being uses spiritual energy in place of physical energy that the structure of the spiritual energy becomes attached to areas where physical nourishment should be taking place. It is the nature of matter to be absorbed based on the need of the body to structure materialization. If we do not use our physical body in a physical way, then our spiritual energy will become used as physical energy. Likewise, if we are using our physical energy and spiritual energy correctly, then we must be conscious of the process that brings about cosmic energy. This higher force will only structure properly if it is prevented from going into areas that are being sublimated or not being used in the right way. That is, if we do not use physical energy or spiritual energy properly, then the cosmic energy will go into either of these two areas, instead of building the mechanism that will allow it to produce its own layers of growth. if we think of ourselves as a one-inch circle or cube, then around us would be a shape twice the circumference, and around that a shape of four times the circumference. If we can function in the areas beyond the one-, two-, and four-inch areas simultaneously, they will all be alive and functioning. if we try to function only in the four-inch outer layer, the energy will be sucked into the inner core of the physical self. This creates the illusion of having a cosmic body in the four-inch circumference. If we are in the two-inch, or spiritual level, and not working properly, the spiritual energy will get sucked into the physical, creating a similar illusion. It is the nature of energy to first fill the lower depths of a mechanism. If it is not full and functioning, the outer level cannot be supported properly. It will cause a mixture be- tween the two lesser levels to reach out into the third, which will create such a confused pattern that we will never understand where we are or what we are doing. It takes many years for the walls to build between the physical and the spiritual, and the spiritual and the cosmic, so that they are easily distinguished. It is like having three separate stomachs, each with its separate food and appetite. It takes enormous effort to keep these separations clear. Without this clarity, we become like an actress or actor who doesn’t know when the performance is over. We must be very professional before we can separate our reality from illusion. When man begins to understand that t is only his ability to take and surrender that allows these various manifestations of higher energy to properly structure themselves, he begins to appreciate the perfection of a human being’s creativity. It is the simplest of all things, but it requires a consciousness that allows the simplicity to manifest. We are endlessly trying to tell this energy where and how it should work, rather than allowing it to reveal itself. February 17, 1973 During this last week, I felt an enormous increase in the life force flowing inside of me. I tried to work with this flow for several days, only to find it was inadequate for the quantity and refinement of the energy that was needed to materialize the new inner mechanism I felt developing. I found that by going back repeatedly I could continue to open more deeply. But I still felt the inadequacy of the effort against a psychic sense of what was now possible. It was as though I were fighting myself. Everything in me wished to accept what I found the first time as being an ultimate, instead of the limitation of that moment. The need to deepen is an everyday need. When I feel restless and uneasy, it is only my system telling me that more potential can be realized. The capacity is limitless. What we usually see in ourselves is our acceptance of limitation. During the last four weeks the people to whom I am most deeply connected have expressed a wish for more energy and a deeper commitment from myself. I must have failed in the past to have been responsive. Only now can I afford to hear the call, which must have been there unanswered because of my limitation. It is heartbreaking for me to realize that my lack of growth only expresses itself in a limitation to those who I am trying to serve. It is like a parent who yells at a child to do his homework because he does not know how to teach the subject to the child. Tension is always the expression of limitation. Surrendering is the expression of ability. I am very grateful to find that my growth has allowed me to feel more capacity in people that I can serve. It has also given me a deeper sense of gratitude for what God has allowed me to experience. The need to express myself as being extraordinary, seems ridiculous against the extraordinary nature of the creative energy that is opening. It makes me feel very small against its magnificence. It has brought me closer to the reality of other people’s needs and of their ability to take and value what I can give them. I have never before felt such a sense of longevity with my students as I do now. I also feel a deep sense of my existence moving from one level to another. Previously, I would have stopped functioning during a transition period. But I am able to keep right on going regardless of the changes. if we have a period of our life in which certain emotions control us it does not mean that there will never be a time when these emotions can be transcended. Everything that we attain must be continually tested. We have not succeeded unless we can integrate the results into our ordinary day. The ability to work under more and more difficult conditions represents the level of consciousness that we are trying to attain. The purpose is not to eliminate from our life the things that disgust us, but to encompass them so that they can be absorbed into the stream of our life force. We allow ourselves to have simple relationships but turn away from the difficult ones because they are objectionable. We fail to see that the hard ones contain a strong energy. I have watched many teachers whose growth and involvement separated them from their disciples. They removed all of the strong tensions that would allow them to correct themselves. They put themselves above their students. Only through the process of confrontation can we see that the lack within a student is an expression of the inability of a teacher. It is not that a new person legitimately has the right and ability to criticize, but he does have the capacity to reflect from his comes from being open to all people and situations, as they are part of the total creation in which e re living at this moment. It is so easy to disqualify somebody because they are not in a position of importance or are not essential to our life. It is exactly this distance that allows us to use them in a deeper way, as we do not have the tensions that would occur if they were closer. It is only when we can use situations that are further away from us that we can begin to see the ones that are nearer. It makes a total pattern that supports our judgment and allows us to have a deeper insight into our existence. After we have worked well, it is natural to slow down like molasses in the cold. It is only the mind reacting to the chemistry of the body. If we work consciously to bring more oxygen and energy to our inner flow we can dissipate this thickness. Often an outside situation can be used as a catalyst, such as an unexpected call from somebody that we deeply love. But we should be able to produce the same effect within ourselves consciously and not be at the mercy of outside stimulants. February 20, 1973 1 visited Athens, Georgia for the first time this past weekend. We have an ashram there that has just begun to function. When I travel, I usually go to a university town and give a lecture in some auditorium. But when I spoke with Tom, who is in charge at Athens, he expressed reticence about having a public lecture. He said that he had a group of close friends who wished to keep the situation very controlled. It was against my instinct, but I felt that I must respect his wishes. When I arrived in Georgia, I was deeply impressed by the quality and openness of the people who were there. They were young and poor, but they gave whatever they could toward the expense of the ashram. They ate very simple vegetarian food, as they could not afford anything more. I have learned after much personal suffering to accept a situation as it is. To change an environment in any extraordinary way would be to deny those who are there the opportunity to create an atmosphere that is natural for themselves. It would also present creative problems that they would not be able to deal with, for it would not be a direct extension of their own effort. It was hard for me not to offer them money to help meet some of their material needs. But I found there was no sense within them of being deprived. Their poverty allowed them to draw a sense of life and friendship from each other that would not have been possible under more abundant circumstances. It has always been my wish to enter a situation and give what is wanted, not what I feel it needs. It is a basic mistake of strong people to project their concepts upon others. Those whom they come to serve do not need tensions. They do not need criticism. They need reinforcement and love. I found much to love and much to reinforce. I gave a class on Saturday night. I found their capacity to take was wonderful. There was no resistance, only the effort of surrender to the creative force, which came through me to them. It has always been difficult for me to work with a group of new people. There is a certain excitement and stimulation, but the psychic poisons that I absorb from them on the first contact are deep and extremely strong. I am deeply affected by any sudden change in chemistry. Taking in the intensity of these people connected me with them karmically in the present and through past lives. The impact within me was enormous. I awoke at about five in the morning with a violent headache. Cold perspiration was pouring off me. I could not move my head even an inch. I have had these experiences before. It was the reaction of the accumulated tensions I had absorbed, which, when it reaches the ultimate of its compactness, begins to burn as it is recycled into life energy again. The pain and sweating went on for three or four hours. Fortunately, an early morning class was not scheduled. If it had been, I am sure the class would have been given and this experience would have taken place in another way. At about 9:30, 1 began to feel much better. I was able to walk around, and by 4:00 p.m. I was able to give a class. It as a wonderful experience. I feel that this group of people and I will be together for a long time in the future. We will grow and share our spiritual life. All of the ashrams that I have are growing according to their geography and the nature of the people involved. I find myself as comfortable in a cold room as I am in a duplex penthouse, which we have as an ashram in Paris. It is only the souls of the people, not the outer form, that matters. To give a group of people a connection to a higher spiritual potential allows them to evolve, as they become more and more conscious. This does not require pressure. It just needs love and nourishment. As they grow above the tensions around them, they will make the changes that their energy and finances allow. It matters so little if a cup is slightly cracked or a piece of silver bent, if there is love and thoughtfulness behind its use. I was amazed when I took a shower in a freezing cold room that I didn’t feel the cold, even though I wouldn’t ordinarily take such a shower if I was in my own home. The sweetness, love, and simplicity of these people made the atmosphere warm even though physical heat was lacking. It was a great lesson for me. It is not my need to live under primitive conditions. But it was wonderful to be open to such a situation and to work within it without disturbing its structure. (Dictated Wednesday evening, February 21, 1973, aloft somewhere between Teterboro, New Jersey, and Palenville, New York.) The last two weeks I knew I was going through a transition, but could not quite determine which way it would carry me. I am now en route to Glen Falls in a small plane to teach a class in Ft. Miller, New York. It is a good way to travel, as it takes six hours by car and only one and a half by plane. I have been sitting all day letting negative psychic tensions flow through my fingers, which it has done with increasing intensity. After being in the air about an hour, I began to feel an opening in my heart and the love of the many people to whom I am attached. I seemed to doze for just a moment and could see the faces of several of the people whom I love deepest. A great warmth filled me and positive energy moved down from my brain to my heart and sex organs. It immediately clarified the reason for the amount of negative psychic tension that had been flowing from me. It was making room to receive this finer energy. Although it has been just a few minutes since this experience took place, I feel completely renewed. It is exciting to see how these changes have the capacity to reflect a higher creativity. I am deeply looking forward to teaching the class tonight. It has always been a source of great strength for me to do a simple exercise for a long period of time, allowing it to go deeper and deeper. Such basic work is the foundation of spirituality. Improvisation is not a substitute for discipline. The inability of students and teachers to do what they are given is what creates problems for them. They wander through the basic exercises, not having the ability to sustain any simple effort. But this is precisely the process that builds a strong foundation, which supports the whole structure. It is always easier to feed our system from the same stream, by deepening and lengthening the amount of time given to an exercise, than to look for a new source. Involved and dramatic methods allow us to lose the basic discipline from which we receive our strength. We must check any deviation from our basic effort, since it is that effort that perpetuates the line of energy that makes for elasticity as well as an extraordinarily deep strength. I am leaving for Europe this weekend to begin a deeper commitment toward my European ashrams. Most of the teachers in the United States were brought to New York for additional work and a strengthening of the existing connections between us. I feel this exemplifies the above principles. I do not wish to exchange my loyalties in this country for those in another. It is easy to look to the glamour of a foreign culture as a means of expansion. But the success of our work will be based on the depth and growth and love that exists between myself and those to whom I have committed my life. From that integrity the European ashrams can grow. it is the investment of people who have been with me that allows our work to consciously deepen and expand. It is not the neurotic need to go off into foreign lands. I need to strengthen and clarify my relationships with all of the close teachers before I leave. Simplification conserves energy and allows it to shift to a higher level. I do not wish to see what will take place in Europe as anything except the rising of a total spirituality that reflects the maturity of my surrender to God. I feel the last year of my life has prepared me for the understanding that expanded consciousness can only come through expanded nothingness. This state is produced by surrendering the tensions that bind and restrict our physical mechanism from expressing the power of creation. It is God flowing through us and showing us how we are connected to Him as the expression of higher creative will and a deeper sense of surrender. (Rudi paused. The pilot suddenly cried out, "Oh my God," as the plane came out of a cloud bank directly in front of the crest of a mountain. The plane crashed. Rudi was instantly killed. The three other members of the party sustained only minor injuries.)

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