The light that shines, heh? Two hundred years ago of your age there was no such light. Light came from the thing that is now dead in the corner [a beautiful, unused fireplace]. Thousands of years ago the light in the hearts was light of the human race. Now it is like a dead thing in the corner.
Spiritual learning, spiritual striving, spiritual work, work that raises a spiritual sweat has gone by the wayside in many places. Now the people are luxurious. Luxurious in their homes in many ways. Luxurious in their automobiles. Luxuriously distant from one another with the telephone machine, the facsimum [sic] machine. Everything done to cause an appearance of closeness, but in fact, to enforce distance: To keep everyone as far away as possible. Now, from time to time, there come times like this where you cannot be far from people. But largely, times like this are rare in this age. But, as in ages past, and in many places in this world even yet today, no one goes to sleep without the accompanying warmth and sound of the breaths of their family and friends.
But here in this place you shutter oneself off from another. You cause yourself to be quite distant from one another. So that there becomes an avalanche of fear. Fear stems solely from question. Question that must be answered, not by the mind, but by God. But when the self turns to the mind instead of to God, fear is the answer one gets. Your mind is your best friend and your very, very worst enemy.
The mind was given to you as a gift. It’s not something to be destroyed. It’s not something to tear apart. And it’s not something to rip right out of yourself and to do away with completely. But if your mind is not tamed to become the great tool it should be— the diamond cutting tool it should be— with that kind of precision, with that kind of value, then it might as well be thrown out. Because what is the mind, if it is not this tool, but a false god all its own.
When you incarnated into this world dear ones, which is an event very few remember in detail but which every one of you experienced. Isn’t that remarkable? You cannot remember, but you have absolute proof-positive it happened. Can we not then take another leap and say you cannot remember being with God, but there is absolute proof-positive it happened.
You didn’t come out of nowhere like mushrooms growing under a log. You came from somewhere. How can this be known to be true? Largely, it is because your lump of clay you call your body is an inanimate object, dear ones. It is not a living thing. It is animated only by the incredible power of the divine. Without that power this lump of clay would fall on the ground and would eventually decay.
We can tell you that this is so because all those who have ridden the divine power out of their bodies have this as what has happened to their bodies. To every human being in a body an end comes. But not to the being. An end comes to the body and also to the mind. Your mind, dear ones, is a gift from God-Almighty, but it is not God’s mind. It is a human approximation of God’s mind. It is an imitation. And coming here it looked around and said:
“Where is God?
I don't see God anywhere.
There is a need for God, so I will be God.
I will cast judgement on others and on myself.
I will decide what is good and what is bad.
I will decide that what I know
is more valuable
than what anybody else knows.
And I will trust only myself,
my glorious mind.”
This is what the mind said, dear ones. It’s not what you said. But loving yourself, loving your world, and loving your mind, you were persuaded. And this happened, before in many cases, you met the womb. You were persuaded to give your tribute and your power to your mind. And now you rely on it whole-heartedly. It has enslaved you. And it keeps telling you that the answers are really just around the corner. Just give it another day. Another year. Another Guru. Another practice. Another college degree. And it will have the answers you are seeking.