Meditation and Work, Faith and Knowledge, Spirit and Science.

The young acolyte went to his master feeling despondent and anxious.

He said, 'How must I meditate when my mind is taken by the work that has to be done in the world, and how can I work, when my heart longs to be one with the spirit through meditation. These opposites tear me apart, so that I am never happy. When I meditate I am thinking of the world, during work I am thinking about meditation.

'It is simple,' said the master, with that smile which always denoted his wisdom:

'If you make it so that your meditation becomes as practical as life you will learn what is best for your work.'

'How is that possible?'

'Only if, when you meditate inwardly, you observe how the spirit of the world enters into you. Listen to what it is telling and you shall be directed to the best way to perform your tasks in the world.

'Conversely, if you allow your practical life to become like a meditation you will find yourself.'

'How is that possible!'

'It is possible if when you work in the world you seek how every movement you make creates an imprint not only in the physical world but also in the spiritual world.  If you seek to find yourself in your deeds and how they are either in harmony or out of harmony with the spirit in the world. This is self knowledge. You will learn to see how well you have listened to what the spirit has told you about your tasks in the world.'

'So I am to make no distinction between the contemplative life and the practical life?'

'By making Meditation  as practical as life, and practical life as spiritual as meditation you are uniting all polarities, life and death, right and wrong, inner and outer, above and below. This is the cause of all the wars and strife both in the world of men and the world of spirit. You have the power to bring harmony into both worlds. Then you shall find happiness in everything you do, for true happiness is being in harmony with the spirit.'

The acolyte was amazed. 'What is the power in me that you speak of that can unite all things?'

'It is the power that long ago divided all things inside you.'

The acolyte left his master then, and practised his advice and in time became a great and wise master.

He died and was born again a Dominican Monk. He was together again with his reborn master and he now asked him the same question only differently.

He said to him, 'Master, how must I reconcile  Knowledge and Faith? I am never happy for when I am learning about the world through your teachings I cannot find myself, and when I pray before the cross I feel like I am a blind man believing something I can't see!'

His master a man known for his angelic nature said, smiled for he knew this dilemma. 'This is what you do:

'When you are working with knowledge observe how everything you know is gained from the world of nature around you, from what you see with your eyes. But you cannot find yourself in nature, can you? If you were to rely only on nature, you would always set limits to your knowledge, because you would only see half a truth, you would never see the spirit that is in yourself in the things you see.  Train your will to enter the world through the power of devotion, and your will shall become a light that perceives itself and finds its likeness in the spirit of the world - you will see your spirit because it enlightens the spirit in the world. The difference between the two: your spirit and the spirit in the world, this is true self knowledge. Sending out the light of your spirit of the self into the world brings you knowledge of yourself.'

 'In your prayers unite lovingly with what your knowledge of the world in the self, use thinking honed by this knowledge to understand that all you see has its counterpart inside you, and you will understand how this counterpart is the spirit in the world. In this way thinking becomes the power of a Faith that is not blind but which enlightens the spirit of the world in the self through knowledge - this spirit in the world can only be seen because you have a spirit in the self which attracts it.  This is what it means to be faithful - attracting the light of the spirit into the self to give you knowledge of the world.'

'By making  knowledge a power that leads to faith and Faith a power that leads to knowledge you will reconcile all divisions, for in our time heresy and orthodoxy is merely knowledge and faith seen from different sides - one must see holistically - then there is no quarrel only understanding.'

Many lives later that young Dominican Monk was born a Teacher. One day a young pupil came to one of his lectures. He felt he knew this boy, something drew him to the boy. Afterwards when the boy came up to him and asked him:

'How do I bring Science and Spirit together?'

The teacher, now remembering his old teacher, fell at his feet, 

'You need only remember all that you have taught me, my dear teacher!' he said, 'My task shall be merely to remind you of what you already know.'

That young pupil became a great teacher himself. He united the practical life with mediation, knowledge and faith, science and spirit. He taught many how to find a scientific way to spiritual experiences, and how to bring knowledge of the spirit to explain the world around us. He said, 'Look inside yourself to find the world, look into the world to find yourself!'

Many lives later they met again, this time as peers. They both remembered one another and were filled with joy.

The one who had been an acolyte twice an only once a teacher said, 'How can we bring together the Sophia in our souls with the Christ?'

The one who had been twice a teacher and only once an acolyte said, 'We must awaken knowledge and faith in one another!'

CONVERSATIONS WITH AN ALIEN: When two or three are gathered in my name...

A being from a distant planet came to visit me to ask me this question:

'Why do you eat food?'

I answered thus:

'Before we were like you, we were whole. In those days we did not need material substance to survive, we lived on spiritual substance.'

'What happened to you?'

'We were tempted to create an inner life in order to have freedom from the gods.'

'An inner life that is free from the gods! You mean, you are not open to the wisdom of gods when they wish you to be?'

'We have learnt to cut ourselves off from the gods, to gain wisdom without them, but we had to split into male and female to do this, for we needed to create a distinction between outside and inside, above and below so that we could lie.'

'What is a lie?'

'We can experience something inwardly that does not correspond to what we see outwardly. In other words, our perception sees something different to what we sense and this has created thought. Thought is a lie because it is based on a half truth. Only what we see in the physical world.'

'This is a lie - for there is spirit behind the physical!'

'Yes, but this lie gave us thinking and thinking gave us the possibility for freedom, but this freedom from the spirit in all things means it cannot feed us. We cannot eat what we are not conscious of! And so we have had to eat material food instead. Eating plants and animals is the result of the development of our thinking and thinking has led to death - a division between consciousness here in the world and consciousness in the spirit. If we don't eat we can't think and we die, we lose consciousness of the world, but because we never found the spirit in the world, we also have no consciousness of the spirit after death! We must return to earth again to gain it. To begin everything again in another life. This is called Reincarnation.

'How awful! This reincarnation must take up all your time!'

'Yes, but we eat to feed the body only so that in between meals we can work creatively and freely on the soul to perfect it and to find something greater than the 'I' that we gain through thinking so that we can be born again, that is the only way to love.

'What is this higher thing you wish to find?'

'The I AM. It is for this reason that we work day and night in order to feed ourselves, but some of us have forgotten this. Some have grown to enjoy the act of eating for its sensual pleasure and think only material things as a result, these people cannot truly love. They cannot think in a way that will lead them to the IAM - which is the highest manifestation of love. 

Then they are doomed to live and die, to eat only matter and perceive only lies and never return to the spirit!'

'That would have been the fate of such people had a being from the world of spirit not descended to help them remember the IAM and bring the truth of the spirit back to our consciousness so that we can love through freedom. 

'Firstly he gave us a gift, he taught us that eating, specially when we join together with others, can be a spiritual experience when it is in His name.'

'How?'

'Sharing a meal in His name has the power to bring consciousness of the truth of the spirit that is in everything that we take into our bodies - not only food, but also all our sense experiences of the world and of each other. When this truth of the IAM enters the soul it changes the physical body and death is overcome and we are born again, because we bring female and male, inside and outside, above and below together.This way what is outside and what is inside are perceived and sensed as the same - we become like you but with a difference.'

'What is this difference?'

'We come to this wholeness again through the IAM, through freedom and love.'

'What is this freedom?'

'The being from spirit worlds showed us how to free our souls so that the spirit of truth can enter into us, and find our IAM, only then can we truly love.

'What is love?'

'The being showed us how to allow another soul into our own so that the spirit of truth in us can feed the soul of the other and help the other discover their own IAM. 

'The being who descended could do this for us so that we could observe His example and follow it. That is how He taught us to overcome the problem of who has more and who has less food  - through the power of His IAM. 

'And that is what He meant when He said that 'When two or three are gathered in my name the IAM will be among them! John the divine, the greatest follower of Christ before he died told his followers - Love one another! That is what he meant. Find the I Am in one other and the spirit of truth will always be among you and you will feed one another!'

'Who is this I AM?'

'Christ.'

'I know this being you call Christ! He was once in the sphere of the Sun but he left and we lost consciousness of Him - he died to us!'

'Yes, but in this conversation I have loved you, and so He is born again for you!

'I see him through you!'

'That is because my spirit has fed you. Now go and tell others the good news: Christ, the IAM Lives again through freedom and love and he can be perceived in the soul of every human being who has found the spirit of truth in freedom and who truly loves!'

The Paradox of True Love and Selflessness

The Alchemy of true love
Is:

Allowing another
To write their story inside our hearts
So that we can read it there
Again,
As if it were our own.

The Alchemy of true Selflessness
Is:

To write the story in our hearts
Inside the heart of the world
So that we can read it there
For the first time,
As if it were not ours. (AK)

Painting by Christian Schloe