Far away in the distance, so far as your physical hearing is concerned, there is a sound of music and of bells. At this moment there is a music in your own surroundings and a chime which is so closely allied to holiness. If only you had the capacity of catching its sweetness and its note of promise you would understand more and more how much is going on around you of which you are in total ignorance.
In walking through a country lane it appears to you that quietness and stillness is the order of the day. Now and again a little movement occurs, or a sound is struck on the silence, and you note it as something unanticipated and even out of place in the quiet serenity which abounds. And yet, you can realise that it is purely the outward, and that which is able to be communicated to your senses.
In the dust under your feet as well as in the green slips by your side; there in the hedges, in the ditches, above the ground and under the ground, work of a comprehensive nature is going on minute by minute unceasingly and without definite periods of rest.
In nature there is no cessation of effort or of labour at all. While the animals rest, the soil works on and the growth of the trees is not delayed because night is gathered in.
Then in the fields this idea is multiplied even more! There is struggle, there is effort, and there is a labour of a kind inconceivable to the physical mind. But nevertheless it goes on, and not in an inconsequent way, but in a regular orderly manner. Nothing is haphazard with the plans of God! Although to you the seasons seem to change, the labour of the earth is unchanging; unchanging and unchangeable, because only by its efforts can humanity live.
There are secrets of so staggering a character that very little could be held by your physical mind. Such is the wisdom of God.
To your physical eyes there is the outward and very often the beautiful. To the eyes of the spirit there is that of which no one can speak; a network of arrangement, a most marvellous system worked out to perfection. To you, automatic, but to those free from the flesh, who see the far reaching power of the Spirit, they know and understand that only the Mind of One could have conceived of anything so wonderful, and yet so straightforward and so simple.
Try and prepare your mind for what is going on in your daily life. You, and the majority of people on earth, have an idea that these happenings, these wonderful demonstrations of God's love, are concerned mainly with life in the Beyond. It is of all things the most difficult to rid the physical mind of; that invisible, but permanent, and insurmountable dividing line between life and so-called death. Again and again you swing back to your early conception that this existence of yours upon earth is governed by laws entirely separate from those which are in evidence in the life of the Spirit.
Think about this most earnestly. Try and take in more of the real position of affairs. It is just as though a child were taken blindfolded through a beautiful land of flowers, of colour and of changing scene, and the companion who walks by their side tries, so far as they are able to describe what lies on this side and on that. Many questions are asked but their best powers seem totally inadequate to present the picture that lies around. The questions go on and on and the answers do not satisfy the mind which wants to know so much, and again and again, fretting under the restrictions so imposed, the child cries out!
It is hard for you. God understands so well the deep, deep longing that is within to see for yourself just a little of what He has prepared and has given into your own possession. This will not be forgotten hereafter, nor in the days to come. Do you not think that those who walk beside the child longs too to uncover the eyes and to grant a request so natural? It is not easy for the Spirits, and yet you will see that it was but God's love which withheld from you the contemplation of the beauties that lie around.
Physical sight and hearing is precious to those while in the body, but spiritual sight and hearing is the heart's desire of those who love the Lord. The heart's desire, if it is worked for with patience and with confidence, will be granted in the end. In some cases, "in the end" is not at the end of life upon earth; it can be gathered in a long time before that if the dedication is there.
There is the music of the spheres around you, there are bells ringing out upon the atmosphere; bells so allied to holiness that could you hear them you would indeed in mind and in spirit kneel in adoration before the One who had created that which, to you, held so much of Himself!
Outside there is storm and a gale is blowing, but inside there is calm, there is peace and there is love. Another contrast, and yet all these little things which occur in your daily life indicate some big truth and are ‘simile’ of what is taking place in the spirit. As you are able to separate yourself from the storm without, so, by the aid of the Spirit, you should be able to enter into the inner citadel of that which belongs to God and to separate yourself equally from the discords of daily life.
For those who wish to follow the Master there is not only protection but immunity from suffering; held out, lavished upon you in a way you cannot grasp! ! Soon, however, the realisation will come, and with the realisation will be the revelation as well. Then, with so much gladness and hope and certainty, the peace of God will not only come but that great Joy which is so closely allied to Him that it is impossible to think of His Godhead without experiencing the Joy which is inseparable from it.
There are many whose thoughts are still lingering upon the resurrection of the Lord, and in the days to come their attention will be directed to the incidents which took place between that demonstration of the power of life over death, and the bestowal of the Comforter. Although the Christ was seen after His burial, He was but an example of what had been, what was and what will be so long as physical life is necessary.
Although God made Himself manifest in the body of the Christ, from the beginning of creation God has been in the midst of humankind in as definite and in as generous a way as when the Christ came.
How about the countless millions who lived and had their being upon earth and passed over into the Beyond? Would it be like God to give to one group of His children that which had been withheld from another? Wouldn't it be rather more characteristic of the earthly parent, who sometimes finds it most difficult to distribute their love fairly and their gifts likewise? This is the great difference between the Father of all and those who, in order to work out certain experiences, take on the privilege of parenthood during the physical life.
God has never separated Himself from humanity in any sense there could be, but humanity made such barriers in between that, in order to demonstrate His Presence, the Christ came into the world and has remained in your memories ever since. But make no mistake, God did not give the Christ to you and to them and withhold Him from His children before that time.
The Christ to the Spirits is the most accessible of all God's many manifestations of Himself. But the Christ is God, and God was always in the world. God being God chose those forms of bringing Himself into the midst of humanity which the conditions of the times made it most easy for the people to grasp.
Think over those incidents narrated in the Old Testament; how God was not only able to get through His will to humanity direct but also to those who were willing to submit their minds and bodies to the necessary self-discipline. He was able to speak and to be heard by them as a natural as well as a spiritual fact. It is amazing to the Spirits that so many minds are able to rule out those direct manifestation of God, which appear in the records which you call the "Old Testament" over and over again. Remember that but for one incident narrated countless thousands slipped through the sieve of the physical mind and were lost to posterity.
In those times it was necessary to treat humankind in a totally different way from today, and yet human nature as a whole changes very little. But customs and traditions and environment must count a lot, and the Father showed Himself to His children in the way which could be most easily understood.
The people of that time were not ready for the revelation of God as a Tender, Compassionate, and All loving Father. So in order to save them from themselves, from that physical self which was out to destroy the finer self within, God showed Himself, in the main, as a Ruler and a King; as One who must be obeyed and as One who had to be reckoned with if evil was sought for wilfully. And yet, the Jehovah of old was just the same Tender Parent, Compassionate Saviour, long suffering Christ as He is today.
Although there may be different waves of civilisation and the types of humanity so produced may change and change again, God is unchangeable, and the God of Wrath was the same Great Heart, the same Understanding Mind of Love with which you have been getting so well acquainted with.
Although the Comforter was bestowed publicly upon humanity after the so-called ascension of The Lord, that Comforter has been with the children of the earth right from the beginning of physical life and long, long before that. Always, from the moment that you became a separate individual from God; right from that time was the gift of the comforter your own!
It is a gigantic thought and it is not easy to make it clear. Even as God, in order to make His Presence felt upon earth, manifested Himself in a physical way through the Christ, so on the day of Pentecost was the Holy Spirit made manifest as a reminder to humanity, but it was not the first bestowal. There is no question of that fact for long before physical existence, right back in that time when God's thought produced humanity, was the comfort of the Holy Spirit accessible to all.
This will not be easy for some to grasp, and yet, it should appeal to common-sense. Was Moses not, according to your records, imbued with the Holy Spirit inspired, a direct example of the outward manifestation of the Holy Spirit? There were many prophets of old who demonstrated the power of the Spirit in this manner.
Humanity will never understand the gift of God in the Christ; its magnitude, its selflessness, its essential God-likeness! The Spirits cannot take it in; they stand on the outer threshold of understanding, and have to fall back again and again on the old thought that, after all, it was God, and leave it there!
The same applies to that outward and visible demonstration of the Holy Spirit descending upon those who, previously, had not shown themselves, from an outsider's point of view, as suitable receivers for so much grace.
Try and think on bigger lines. Instead of belittling the gift of the Holy Spirit widen the borders of the Love of God in a way undreamt of before. From the beginning of the history of many as a thinking individual the Holy Spirit showed Itself, but in many cases was not recognised as such. The gift has always been there. God, Father, the Christ, has never changed or altered, and you cannot divide God from the Holy Spirit. They are One and God, being God, has and will, according to the necessity of humanity, has in the past and will again in the future, demonstrate Himself in the way most applicable to their needs.
It is all so simple, in the sense that God works always on straight lines. His children are equal in His sight, and He does not bestow upon one that which He withheld from another.
Unlimited, unstinted, with a generosity absolutely inexplicable to you, His gifts lie all around for humanity to gather up. If the Spirit within was given more of a free hand those gifts could be attached to each one, and much suffering would be saved in consequence.
Yet certain experiences are essential for the purification and the growth of That which has started off from God to become as pure as God in the end. But the processes are manifold, and progress cannot be unduly hurried. It all takes time, and God in that process of purification and perfecting suffers with His creation in a way impossible to describe.
If someone struck a knife through your hand, because it was your hand and not your mind, you could not dissociate yourself from the pain! So it is with the Creator of all. Individual you may be, but you are of Him in the first instance and it is impossible for one blow to reach you without it being registered in That which is the very Centre; the Centre of feeling, of thought, and of everything you could imagine in the way of nerves and sensitiveness. When you suffer, in that Centre is registered pain, not as you feel it, protected as you are by the physical body, but anguish which is utterly beyond your imagination. The Spirits too are protected, not by a physical body, but by the protection which is the cloak of all. The protection of the Love of the Father, who takes upon Himself the sharpest stabs of pain and only gives to you that which your spirit can bear and longs to bear, because of the overwhelming desire within to be a little more like Him; to get a little closer to holiness, and to feel that indeed you are making progress, slow though that progress may be. Each pain endured is a gift; a gift because it brings you just that space nearer to the One who bears the pain of all.
So do your best. Talk it out with yourself; not with your physical mind, but with the spiritual mind which does understand, although it is so hampered by the body. Talk it out within yourself, think it over and ask God that you may be permitted to grasp at least the fringe of this great truth; the truth which you are so earnestly trying to learn.
In God's own good time that which is veiled now shall be made clear, and that which presents difficulty now shall be shown to be of that same simplicity which governs everything which comes from the Father. That simplicity which, after all, is but another manifestation of the love and forethought with which He has planned and worked out everything for the raising up of humanity to power and to perfection. For that is the ultimate end of all and which shall indeed be worked out down to the tiniest fraction; worked out because God is God and Lord of all, the beginning and the end, the first and the last!
God is God and Lord of all, never forget that!
Remember the storm outside and the peace within, and then the interloper in the form of a disturbance, and then, by the direct intervention of your understanding Father, the dispatch of the intruder and the re-establishment of peace.
That is indicative of what will always happen. There may be, for such is life, storm and turmoil without but, if the faith is there, there shall be a peace which nothing shall be allowed to interfere with. You shall have enemies to fight; those who wish to destroy your handiwork and god's handiwork too. But God is over all and if you, like a child, take to Him your misgivings and everything else that concerns your daily life, you shall find that the intruder of whatever nature it may be shall be dispatched quickly and easily.
It is by God's direct intervention that you are able to correct that which had been overlooked. Next time you will not overlook it, but you are human and such details quite easily escape your observation. You had your example and really the only one who suffered was them who suffered so much, both consciously and unconsciously, for God. One who set out with faith and with hope to bring within the reach of humanity the hidden and the undiscovered. They found both themself but could not pass it on it the way they intended, not at that time.
There is no desire, no pure or half-pure desire that, sooner or later, is not put into execution. There is not one wish that is ever overlooked by the All-Seeing Father! In time to come you shall look back and see that not only did you uncover a little corner of your earth, but indeed was used to unveil something of that great, vast, unlimited continent of the Spirit.
Let this thought go very deep because in it there is illustration of faith, there is justification of faith, and there is proof positive that faith in the end is made into certainty and into fact.
"Let your light so shine before men". Many in following their earth experience have been landmarks to others, and although the ways chosen have been difficult, they have indeed become as beacons to the stragglers in the rear. They have shown by their courage, their determination and their disregard of self, to what humanity can rise, and how God can be demonstrated during physical life through you. To everyone, both great and small in the world's estimation, there is not one who cannot do likewise. You may not be able to cross the unknown seas of the earth or climb the mountains which have been thrown up by nature, you cannot do these things maybe, but you can do far, far greater. You can lead the way for others to follow, you can cross the bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds, leaving your foot prints behind so that others may be influenced to do the same!
There is a host of things you can do and, in the little as well as in the big, you are called upon to set about still more diligently that preparation and that discipline of self.
It sounds rather hard to you after so much toil and strain, but God knows you better than you know yourself, and having reached this point the Spirit within will never give you one moment’s peace unless you continue the climb. You know it yourself. So once more raise your eyes to the crest of the hill, keep them from the valley beneath, and be certain that as you climb renewed strength and additional help will be available every inch of the way, and God is there to hold you in case you fall. The blessing may be silent to you but it is heard and answered by the Great Father of all!
© The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association 2025
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