(If your computer allows it, you can view the animated, musical version of our Christmas message by clicking here.)
Dear Friends,
Amidst all the noise of “this world,” may you rest gently in the perfect peace of the “silent night,” the “holy night,” and find even deeper realms of the treasured Christmas gift – the truth of Being. Dwelling without ceasing in that truth, may you be an ever brighter Light unto the world, a beautiful benediction to all.
We are in deepest gratitude for your companionship on this path and for your dedication and commitment to the life of Spirit and Love. We wish you and yours a most blessed Christmas season.
Abiding love and recognition,
Liz and Marty
We have prepared an excerpt from Joel’s December 1955 Letter as a Christmas contemplation on the activity of the Christ as peace, and we are happy to share it with you.
To view, download, or print the excerpt, click here.
In our study of the book Leave Your Nets, we are hearing the class sessions in the sequence Joel gave them. As we go through the sessions, it can be helpful to review the key points from the previous session before hearing the next one.
After we play a recording for the first time, we will post a summary of that recording on this “What’s New” page as a convenient review. You are welcome to download and print the summary if you wish.
To download and print the summary for Tape 32, Side 1, played on Sept. 19 and 26, click here.
To download and print the summary for Tape 32, Side 2, played on October 3 and 10, click here.
To download and print the summary for Tape 33, Side 1, played on October 17 and 24, click here.
To download and print the summary for Tape 33, Side 2, played on November 7 and 14, click here.
To download and print the summary for Tape 34, Side 1, played on November 21 and 28, click here.
To download and print the summary for Tape 34, Side 2, played on December 5 and 12, click here.
On December 19 and 23, we paused our study of Leave Your Nets to hear one of Joel’s wonderful Christmas tapes. This class was the basis for Chapter 12, “The Prince of Peace,” in Man Was Not Born to Cry. In case you do not have that book, we have posted a summary of the class below.
To download and print the summary below for Tape 443, Side 1, played on December 19, click here.
December 19 and 26, 2015
1961 Hawaiian Village Open Class
Tape 443, Side 1: “Christmas 1961”
Summary
Merry Christmas! That word “merry” reveals to us the significance of the day. Of course, the full significance of Christmas can never be known unless you catch a glimpse of the nature and functioning of God. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is eternally the same. That which IS always has been. That which has been IS now. That which IS now will always be. So Christmas did not begin two thousand years ago. It began in the very beginning before time was, and whatever took place two thousand years ago was merely the revelation of an experience that has been continuous, not only since “before Abraham was,” but since before time was. God did not inaugurate anything two thousand years ago.
The significance of Christmas is this: God planted in human consciousness the seed that was to evolve as His Son – not two thousand years ago, but in the beginning. This seed is planted in the consciousness of every individual ever born into human experience. No one can escape it. The function of the Son of God was revealed to us in the ministry of Jesus Christ: “I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.”[1] He was not speaking of I, Jesus, for he said, “If I speak of myself, I bear witness to a lie.[2] I of my own self can do nothing.”[3] Yet he also said that the Son of God is come that you might have life more abundant: “I am the bread, the meat, the wine, the water.[4] I am life eternal.[5]” The Son of God is all of this, and that Son is in the midst of you and of every individual since the beginning of time.
One of our students sent me a most beautiful story as a Christmas gift. It tells of an ancient king who was peaceful, just, merciful, and kind, but who had a neighbor king intent on war and conquest. The peaceful king sent an ambassador to the neighboring king to seek peace, but meanwhile he had to prepare for war to protect his people. The factories turned out war materials, and gradually joy faded from the hearts of the people, for they knew the nature of war. The king prayed for some way to bring about peace and harmony. One day the wife of one of his officers came to him and asked to reveal a secret. She whispered the secret to him, and what she said made him smile. He told her to go out and tell the secret to the other women of the city and the land – not the men, just the women. Then he told the secret to his wife, and he asked her, too, to go into the land and impart this great secret to the women.
Soon the smiles began to return to the faces of the people. Singing was heard in the land again, and joy was abroad. On Christmas, word came from the ambassador that a peace treaty had been signed. The king issued an edict to cease all war preparations, but he quickly learned that it had already been done. This was part of the reason for the merriment in the land. All the officers of the court wanted to know the secret that produced this great effect. The king told them, “The secret is this: Whisper to every woman, ‘Every day, retire for a short period of silence. Go within yourself but do not pray to God for peace. Do not pray to God for anything at all. Just sit in the silence and find peace within yourself. Do this every day.’”
To many of you, this will not be a strange story, because you have realized that you cannot pray to God for peace in the nation or even peace for yourself. Why? God has planted peace in our souls, our hearts, and our minds. As humans, we have buried it there, and we must return within and meet the peace that is already within us. Then the peace that we find within escapes out into the world, and our neighbors feel it. If I find a peace within myself; if I find that center where the Son of God is planted in me, and I become one with It, that imprisoned splendor escapes and you feel that peace. When you feel that peace, it is easier for you to go within and make contact with that center within you. The peace you find then spreads to your neighbors – not only the neighbors in this room, but to neighbors all over the world.
The function of the Son of God within you is that you may have peace and life more abundant; that you may find within yourself all that the Father hath. When we dig oil wells or mine for gold or silver, are we not bringing forth that which God has already planted in the midst of us for our good? Are we responsible for all that is in the earth and the ocean? No, all of this has been forming for millions of years, probably before there was even a population to need it. All we do is bring it forth. This is also true of the spiritual universe. God has planted His kingdom in the midst of us. It is not in holy mountains or holy temples, nor “lo here nor lo there.” It is within you. How are we to enjoy the kingdom of God, except by finding it and bringing it forth from within?
Understand clearly that the secret of this Christmas Day is that God has planted in each of us the seed of Himself that springs forth as the fully developed Son of God. The mission of this Son of God is that our lives may be fulfilled, and that we may show forth the kingdom and glory of God. Since I can of my own self do nothing, then all I am doing by my life is showing forth God’s grace, God’s wisdom, God’s spirit, God’s health, and God’s abundance. This is the potentiality of every individual on the face of the globe, for God is no respecter of persons.
Since the beginning, man has had within his own soul the divine peace and grace of God. But we cannot give it to our neighbors or receive it from them until we have found it within ourselves. We cannot give what we do not have. If you have not found the Christ within yourself, you cannot share the Christ with another. If you have not found peace within yourself, you have no peace to share with others and you cannot bring peace forth from them. Love is reflected in love. No one can draw love, abundance, or peace to themselves who is not expressing love, abundance or peace. Whatever you would have or share first must be found within yourself. Jesus had nothing to give the world until the Christ was revealed in him. One must be ordained with the Spirit of God before one has the spirit of peace, joy, love, and abundance to share.
The significance of Christmas would be lost if we think that the Prince of Peace lived 2,000 years ago but is not on earth today. The Prince of Peace lived 2,000 years ago and 4,000 years ago, and the Prince of Peace is on earth today in the heart, soul, and consciousness of every individual, waiting to be born and released into this world. We cannot arrive at peace by reforming our neighbor or praying to God to do something to our neighbor. Let us leave our neighbors alone until we have gone within, secretly, sacredly, and silently, and communed with the Prince of Peace within us, the Prince of joy, the Prince of health, the Prince of wholeness, completeness, and spiritual perfection. When we have found some measure of Christhood within us, peace will go forth from within ourselves to all mankind.
The “peace that passeth understanding” is already established within us. We make contact with it in our daily meditations, and then it flies out from us like the dove of peace and spreads its seeds all over this universe. To look for peace, justice, mercy, or gratitude in another is a mistake. We must find the kingdom of God within us, and this is our individual responsibility. This is why the Master always used the word “you” or “ye.” You must forgive seventy times seven. You must pray for your enemy. You must seek first the kingdom of God within you. He knew that if you found peace within yourself, that peace would envelop all mankind.
You will discover that the inner peace you find in your moments of meditation becomes the health of your children and the members of your family. You don’t demand anything of them. When you find the peace within yourself, it becomes a law unto them. You retire to that secret place within yourself and commune with this Son of God until the feeling of peace envelops you. Then those who have turned to you for help receive it. You have not transferred it to them by suggestion or hypnotism. Rather, you have retired to the kingdom of God within yourself and there found peace, oneness, or spiritual communion with the Christ. Then this influence escapes from you and becomes a law of life and love to those who have turned to you for help.
One of the very earliest revelations given to me was that it is not necessary for me to pray for anyone or give treatments to anyone. I had only to find my own inner peace, and then the peace that I found, the awareness of harmony, wholeness, and completeness that I found, immediately became their experience because they had attuned themselves to my consciousness. When people reached out to the consciousness of Jesus for help, the peace that enveloped him descended upon them. But remember – that same healing Christ never has been crucified or buried in a tomb. The healing Christ is the same Christ which is the Prince of Peace, the Son of God, within you. We raise up the Son of God in us through our meditations and through inner contemplation and communion with that Spirit within.
It is a miracle of grace that one with God is a majority; that when two or more are gathered, the entire kingdom of God is in the midst of them; that communing with the Son of God within us brings forth all that the Son of God is. This bears witness to the sanctity of an individual life. Every individual is an offspring of the Most High, and the life of every individual is sacred. Until the western world appreciates the dignity of the individual, it will not have the moral force that will bring peace on earth. Peace will not be established by military means, but by the moral capacity of nations that grasp the significance of and the reason for the value of an individual.
As a human being, as a mortal, an individual is not valuable. It is because of the incarnation of the Christ that every individual is as important to God as the greatest of the prophets and saints and saviors. Every individual potentially is Christ, the Prince of Peace, the Son of God, the I that has come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. It only takes a few who realize the dignity and sacredness of individual man in order to be the moral force that can change the nature of elections and eventually govern international affairs. But there must be this lifting up of the Christian ideal of the nature of individual being and the reason for it.
You cannot dignify yourself unless you know that you are the offspring of God; that the Son of God is within you; and that your life is really not yours. It is God’s life, individually expressed through you and as you. Your mind is the mind of God, individually manifested as your mind. If you look upon yourself as what you see in the mirror, you can find no reason for your existence on earth. You have to understand the nature of that which is inherent in us and which awaits our raising up for our redemption and for our functioning as children of God on earth.
This is Christmas, the “Christ-mass” – that we realize that we are here to show forth all of God’s glory. “I am come to do the will of my Father,”[6] says the Master. Because of the universal nature of God, this is our function, too – to allow God’s will to be done through us. There was no salvation for the Hebrew people until a Moses appeared. There was no salvation for the Hebrews of the Master’s day until the Christ was shown forth as the consciousness of Jesus. There was no Christ message carried to Europe until there was a Paul manifesting the Christ: “I live, yet not I, Christ lives my life.”[7] The great spiritual teachers agree that God is manifest only as man. God appears on earth as man wherever an individual realizes: “I am here that God’s will may be done through me. I am here to be an outlet for this imprisoned splendor. I am here that this Christ within may function for the benefit of all who are still in darkness.”
Napoleon said that every soldier has a marshal’s baton in his knapsack. This is saying what the Christian teaching says – that every man has within himself the full authority and dignity of a master by the grace of God’s presence in him. Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jesus, John, Paul, Buddha, Shankara, and Nanak all caught the vision of the indwelling Spirit of God and realized their divine nature. This is a universal principle, but if you do not perceive it, how can the Christ become a universal revelation and demonstration? How can the kingdom of God come on earth if it doesn’t come as individual man, raised up to his Christhood?
Nothing will change the human race from being in a state of bondage and ignorance except the realization of the nature of Christmas, the truth that the seed of God is planted in individual consciousness and that we must bring forth our spiritual identity. There is no other way. Education does not create morality or integrity or a spiritual sense. Only the realization of the spiritual nature of our being can do that. Only the lifting up of the Christ in us can make us a world of people inspired with high spiritual and moral sense.
There is only one way that peace can be established on earth. If I can find the peace of God in me, I will attract to me a little group, and they will find the peace of God established within them. The peace of God established within them will draw it forth from others. Nothing else will accomplish peace. The secret is that peace is locked up in you, and you must release the Prince of Peace from within you and let It do Its work in the consciousness of all those who may be ready and receptive for the experience.
Don’t ask the world to be better than it is. Let us, individually, release the Prince of Peace within ourselves and let It go before us to do Its work. There is no spiritual value in all of our words or the lessons we teach. The grace of God does not reach human consciousness by moralizing. We must find peace within ourselves and become a center through which the grace of God can escape to be an invisible Presence that goes before us to make the crooked places straight. Our greatest value to the world is in our periods of silence, secrecy, and sacredness.
Every time we see an individual and realize that the Grace of God is within them, we have become a light unto the world. By looking on an individual and realizing, “There too, is the Son of God,” the imprisoned splendor is released. The Master said we must pray for our enemies, and we can do this by recognizing, “There goes the Son of God” – not the human, but the divine seed planted in the midst of them. This seed will remain a seed forever until it receives the spiritual nourishment of recognition. When I look upon you and realize, “Within you is the Son of God, the I that I am, the divine Presence and Power,” I am the light, rain and sunshine to that seed, and it begins to sprout. There develops in you a search for God until you find the message that reveals, “Seek no further. That which you are seeking is within you. It is the divine Reality of you. All of the sacredness of the Son of God is established within you – the eternality, the immortality, the infinite nature of God’s being – because you and your Father are one and all that the Father hath is established in you. This is the revelation of Christmas – that God has planted his Son in you.
[1] John 10:10
[2] John 5:31
[3] John 5:30
[4] John 6:35
[5] John 11:25
[6] John 6: 38-39
[7]Galatians 2:20
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