The Text - Section 246
246. TRADITION: ITS DIVINE AND DISTORTED ASPECTS
My beloved friends, you are in the presence of Christ, He is here, always with you; you have
God's blessings. Reach out so that you can be helped where you need it most, when you are in
disturbance or disharmony of any nature.
Many of you find yourselves in turmoil because you feel that I now "bring in" Jesus Christ.
This is an error in your perception; I have always talked about His existence, from the very
beginning of my task with you. There was a period in which we had to emphasize your inner
processes; you had to learn the subtleties of the unconscious processes in order to explore
yourselves in depth. Only through this exploration can a belief in God and a commitment to all His
aspects become meaningful. Only through self-exploration can you find out God's truth.
Otherwise you are superimposing a belief, covering up whatever unconscious material there may
exist in you that you need to deal with.
I am a spirit of truth, my friends, and I could never, I would not, lead you astray. If I speak of
Jesus Christ's reality, which is an aspect of God's reality, it is so only because you no longer need to
erect barriers of any sort. Barriers can take many forms. We have worked with barriers of a subtle
nature, for many years. All I am asking you now is to open yourselves up to new considerations and
possibilities; I am not asking you to accept my words blindly. If my words are not truth, you should
not accept them. But if they are, you must not barricade yourselves against them. For it is necessary
to know, to grasp, to experience what-ever truth exists so that you can attain your full potential and
be who you ultimately are.
The topic of this lecture is the meaning of tradition. Let us first examine what tradition means
in its best sense, and then what it means when it is distorted. Many human beings have distinct
images about tradition. These images trigger off conditioned reflex reactions as soon as this term is
mentioned or when human conditions reflect adherence to tradition either in its real or in its
distorted sense.
Tradition in its real sense means the continuation of faith in eternal truths and values. Once a
cosmic reality has been discovered and has been expressed in human life, those who experience the
inevitable beauty, goodness and rightness of it, logically attempt to continue its expression. Please
keep in mind that all true values, values of whatever nature, must have been at one point in time a
breakthrough from the world of spirit.
To keep these values alive, it is necessary to feel and inwardly experience the particular truth in
question. Ritual celebrations can do this, but they are not necessarily a guarantee for the continuous
aliveness of a specific truth. A ritual can be an empty gesture. True tradition is therefore a
continuous re-experiencing of the original breakthrough from inner worlds or other realities, a re-
experiencing today of a dynamic aliveness, no matter how long ago the tradition may have been
formed. Tradition, in its best sense, means adherence to eternal values or to certain aspects of these
values, depending on which particular tradition we have in mind.
Tradition in its distorted sense means a dead weight, a meaningless carryover. This does not
necessarily mean that a specific tradition did not contain eternal values and truths at the time it came
forth. But at the present time its true meaning may be disregarded or forgotten, the rituals involved
may be mechanically repeated and thus the tradition has been deadened; its reality has become
flattened or even totally obliterated.
Tradition in its distorted sense might involve a meaningful truth, an experience, a custom that
was valid at a certain time in history, under certain conditions and in specific circumstances.
Continuing these same acts or attitudes or customs under completely different circumstances, under
conditions where the meaning of this tradition has been lost is therefore a process of death, rather
than of life. Carrying over a tradition in an unthinking attitude, adhering to a blind habit that does
not make sense, that fails to elucidate through acts or attitudes the divine truth contained in the
tradition in question, signifies death. Aliveness always means a dynamic thinking process, an
awareness -- not blind repetition.
So you see, my friends, tradition can be an intensely meaningful reality, or it can be a
meaningless, dead repetition of the past that no longer has any application in the now.
Human responses to tradition are deeply embedded in the personality. All aspects of society
are influenced by each individual's attitude to tradition; whether a person is aware of a tradition's real
meaning as applicable today or whether he or she is in distortion and is merely repeating an act out
of habit, makes a great deal of difference. Politics and religion, to name but a few aspects of life, are
very clearly influenced by and also reflect a specific society's attitude to tradition.
There are those who put so much value on tradition that all common sense goes overboard
when a tradition is at stake. They believe that only what conforms to tradition, to the past, is of any
value. They rigidly reject any change, which is of course a most foolish attitude, because the very
tradition they adhere to now came into being at one time through change. Without continuous
change, alive unchanging verities cannot be lived. True tradition must therefore always be coupled
with change. The healthy balance of the soul of the earth can be attained and maintained when
tradition and change interphase in a harmonious dance.
Those who follow tradition blindly and meaninglessly create extreme orthodoxies in religion
and politics -- and of course within the human soul. Such orthodoxy imposes on society a heaviness
and a resistance to change. It springs from the misunderstood message of the soul to preserve the
truths, the beauty, and the values that were given in the past. But it is forgotten that these truths
came as a result of the soul's struggle to find divine meaning and because of the personality's
willingness to overcome the fear of change.
There are also those who rebel against all tradition; they rebel against its meaningless, dead
manifestation, just as much as against its real, alive manifestation. This blind attitude is a result of
the belief that only new findings can be of value, that all that has existed in the past must be inferior
or invalid. It overlooks the fact that eternal values have always existed and will always exist and can
always break through to consciousness, provided certain prerequisites are being fulfilled.
The new-age person will neither blindly worship tradition, nor blindly rebel against it. He or
she will take every specific tradition, as it becomes an issue in his life, and will examine it with
intelligence and self-honesty. Do you have a personal stake in maintaining this or that tradition?
Does living this tradition make sense in your life now? What does it mean to you, and why are you
adhering to it or rejecting it? When you examine life's issues in that way, you will find the most
constructive way in which you can continue your traditions and make them new most meaningfully.
If you have the right attitude, you will never rebel when an old tradition is discontinued, or when it
is replaced by new customs, rituals and celebrations. Ask yourself if the old tradition has been
superseded by truths and values that are more meaningful for you today or not. With this attitude
you will live in a dynamic now; you will be able to value what deserves to be valued from the past,
but you will also be able to let go of the past and thus create a new future, rather than a dead
repetition of the past.
On this earth sphere you talk about old and new. Often these words carry positive and
negative connotations. It can be either way. Some people think of the old as all good, all benign,
unthreatening and full of values, while anything new they regard as threatening, disrupting, wrong,
bad. These people are, of course, the traditionalists. There are also those who see anything old as
outdated, undesirable and bad, while anything new is totally desirable and good. I hardly need to
point out that here again you are face to face with an apparent duality which you can transcend
when you see the positive and negative possibilities in both extremes.
On a level of deeper spiritual reality, neither of these terms makes any sense. There is neither
old nor new, and there is both. Everything already exists and always has existed, and always will
exist. What is new on earth is that a certain aspect of ultimate reality "vibrates through" into the
world of matter. You must remember that the level of matter is a condensation of finer vibratory
forms. These forms exist already in what you may call spirit. All life pulsates, expands and
contracts. Matter comes into existence by spiritual forms pulsating "outwardly." When the
contraction occurs, life withdraws and matter disintegrates. Although I have spoken about this
before, you often forget these ideas and do not think of your life in these terms. The more you can
remind yourself of this truth and the more you feel it in your life and in your ideas, the closer you
will come to being in truth.
The forms that exist in the world of finer vibrations do not only manifest as objects, although
objects certainly bear witness to the existence of these forms. There is no object on earth that does
not have its origin in spirit, where it is perhaps "used" in a different way, because of the different
conditions that exist in the world of spirit. Its essence is "pulsated through" into matter, and there it
recreates its original form in a modified way, in a symbolic way, in an adjusted way that fits the
circumstances on this level of reality.
Aside from objects we are of course dealing with concepts, abstract ideas, values, truths, laws,
and so on. It is often hard for a human being to imagine that an idea existed in finer vibratory form
before it reached his or her consciousness. The many abstract concepts and laws I have discussed
with you throughout the years of our work are realities in our sphere of life. Like objects, concepts
often differ in application and meaning in the two spheres, because on your plane you only perceive
very simplified and cruder manifestations of these ideas, concepts and laws.
To return to the concept of tradition: Tradition in our world describes merely an aspect of a
certain specific reality. It refers to the reality of valuing eternal truth in its manifold manifestations,
or perhaps in a certain specific manifestation. As this attitude vibrates through into your dimension
of reality, it becomes diminished, modified and separated from its entire meaning. This is inevitable,
since your reality is limited. In the fourth sphere a unity is split into a duality, whereby much of its
original meaning is lost or distorted. It is always possible for you to recapture the original meaning
and thus open up to a further influx of various levels which together will depict a more complete
reality. Such openings occur through specific mental attitudes and activities, and are the result of the
struggle to see beyond the limited confines of your world.
The other aspect -- counter-tradition -- also exists in our world, in our dimension of reality
that is always ready to break into your reality and thus to expand your reality. It exists as the
constant movement toward renewing and giving new life to the eternal truths and laws. So the old
and the new exist in the timeless reality of eternal now -- not as old and new timewise, but as
concepts or attitudes with a specific meaning and expression behind them.
Let us consider the movement of your path, this particular path I first brought to you a few
years ago. When you look back, you will see a spiral movement, which is the movement of the great
life currents. You see certain repetitions in the spirals, phases re-encountered on deeper levels with
new understanding. These aspects appeared as new when you first gained them in the previous
curve. Thus the old truth, learned in the previous curve, makes new sense because of the additional
material you have learned on the way. What was once an entirely new truth, a revelation, later
becomes renewed in repetition -- an old truth under new light. But the renewal could take place
only because other truths -- new and old -- have been discovered along the way. They are new in
the sense that they have been unknown by the individual; they are old in the sense that they existed
before they were known to the individual.
The same spiral movement exists in the personal development and growth process of each
individual. You cannot fail to see it if you observe it clearly, with full consciousness. The material
of the lectures, which is the groundwork of the rhythm you follow, lays the plan for this movement
that is very organically adapted to a much greater reality than what you can perceive. Every
expansion you have ever experienced on this path -- and there were quite a few -- always meant the
incorporation of hitherto unknown -- new to you -- aspects of inner reality and therefore a new
approach to your work. The organic movement brought about seemingly miraculous changes of
personality in the best sense; it brought new fulfillment and the awakening of previously dormant
potentials. A new abundance made itself more and more noticeable, on all levels, in many
individuals and in your path as a whole, as an entity.
Yet there was also great resistance to expansion of thinking, to each innovation, each new
approach, method, or spiritual concept I gave you. Each new approach or expansion of seeing --
witnessing the world in a new light -- has always created a sense of threat. You wish to hold on to
the old familiar approach which is known to you, to keep the confines of thinking and perceiving
untouched, unexpanded. Here you become a traditionalist. In the distortion of the personality all
principles exist in distortion, just as in the purified part of the personality all principles exist in truth,
faithful to their real meaning.
Each new phase is greeted with rebellion against the authority that presents you with what
seems to break the tradition you have become accustomed to. Tradition is created wherever human
life takes form. It exists on the largest social scale and on the smallest, most temporary scale. The
path as you have known it, say until two years ago, had established a certain tradition with which you
had begun to feel somewhat comfortable. This tradition had to be broken -- renewed -- by adding
new truths to it -- new to you, but not new per se, for these truths have always existed. Only after
your accepting and trusting the new truths did they become incorporated into the body of the total
work, the path. So a temporary "new" tradition came into being until the next breath of the great
pulsating movement the organism was ready for vibrated into matter. When you trust the new/old
truth and do not obstruct it, you incorporate it in your life and thus your entire consciousness is
widened and expanded; wisdom, freedom and abundance is added on to you.
Growth is not possible otherwise. It can only exist when this movement is intact and as
unobstructed as possible. Growth must combine the old and the new. It must retain tradition and
renew and enliven it.
These are eternal verities and principles that hold true for everything, for every conceivable
aspect of life. I spoke about this quite generally and abstractly, but would now like to address myself
more specifically to the new phase of expansion you are going through and the attitudes in you that
make this expansion unnecessarily painful. In your fear you confuse issues; your thinking becomes
muddled and disconnected in your very attempt to rationalize your rebellion against something new,
when you endeavor to maintain the comfortable confines of this path as you have known it till now.
But it would not be this path if it could remain static. The path is a movement, a journey, that
comes to a halt when the movement is obstructed. Stagnation was the fate of many spiritual,
religious, psychological truths that have been filtering through into your world of matter. Stagnation
has been the fate of so much that once had deep value. People stopped the movement due to their
fear of antagonizing those who obstruct further movement, change and expansion. They lacked the
vitality to withstand opposition to further expansion and movement. This is why so many seemingly
new organizations, orientations, or schools of thought, arise constantly. The old is either being
calcified by the distorted concept of tradition, or totally disrupted by the distortion of seeking
change, seeking the new.
So far we have succeeded in keeping this path on course in this respect, combining tradition
and change in their best sense, thus keeping the spirit pure. Opposition to both these aspects --
tradition and change -- has existed, exists now and will exist, of course. But the nucleus of this path
has kept a steady balance. We pray to the Lord for His grace that this will continue.
Let us make a brief review, from this point of view, about the various phases of this path until
now. I will give a general outline to help you to evaluate where you are at this juncture. Before
doing so, let us restate what this path is, so as to avoid any possible confusion that may have arisen
through the turmoil of your mind. This entire turmoil is an artificial creation. Be that as it may, you
again need clarification.
The aim of this path is to effect personal development to the utmost of the individual's
potential, on all levels. For this growth to take place, a variety of approaches are necessary. The
mind needs to be totally emptied in the sense of a recent answer I gave to a question. All
preconceived notions need to be challenged and examined -- this means openness to change. In this
open state, some old opinions, beliefs and ideas will be reinstated because their truth will become
discernible on a deeply felt level; this means preserving tradition. Then the old truths will live in a
new way in the consciousness of the person; this means enlivened, renewed tradition. Other old
beliefs will be discarded because they no longer make sense -- and this again means change.
On the emotional level a similar process occurs, but it needs to be approached in a different
way. In order to cleanse emotions and make them life-affirming, rather than life-destroying, you
must have clear and truthful concepts. Emotions cannot live in a void, without any mental
processes because the human being is a thinking and discriminating creature. Humans are not
meant to live by blind emotions. To develop their emotional nature, they need to go through the
process of accepting their feelings, no matter how destructive they may be. People must learn to
find a way to express them without damage to themselves or others. Once people learn to accept
even their destructive feelings they can begin to change them. This requires their full intelligence
and the maturity of their mental processes so that a proper evaluation of the feelings can take place.
It requires their physical nature to become healthy and enlivened by creative energy. Last but not
least, such change requires spiritual influx and help, without which neither the strength nor the
wisdom to direct this ever-changing process can exist.
Throughout the years I have constantly focused on showing you these various levels through
many teachings and on helping you through guidance, inspiration and advice, to alternate from level
to level. At one time you would have to concentrate more on the emotional level, learning to accept
and deal with feelings whose force you inordinately feared and denied. At other times you had to
concentrate on your mental processes and images, in order to recreate more realistic thoughts. At
yet other times you concentrated more on your body, to make it a fitting receptacle for truth, love,
wisdom and service. At times you concentrated more on spiritual understanding, on a new outlook
of creation as a whole, and on learning meaningful prayer and meditation.
Without this constant interfacing, without the inclusion of all these levels, development would
be lopsided and would therefore finally come to a halt.
The aim of this path is a development of consciousness that is almost unprecedented. But in
your world only a relatively small group of individuals is indeed ready for this evolution of their
personal being, thus contributing to the evolution of your entire sphere of consciousness. A renewal
of this kind brings about an untold expansion of personal happiness and fulfillment. Yet personal
happiness and fulfillment must not be the primary aim. The primary aim must become, at one point
along the way, service to the greater cause. When this happens, the willingness to sacrifice soon
turns out to be the most fulfilling act of life. Sacrifice appears less and less a sacrifice, until it
becomes evident that God's will coincides with your self-interest in the best and most far-reaching
way. The Godman or Godwoman -- the New Person -- evolves out of this work that includes the
totality of the individual: the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual level of being,
until they are all integrated into one whole and no longer separated. Thus the thinking is the feeling,
is the bodily sensation, is the prayer. This wholeness represents the utmost of liberation, power in
the best sense, individuation, and, what may appear as a contradiction, total surrender to God's will,
which is the individual's will.
So, this path is many things. It is a psychology, for you obviously work on your psychological
attitudes, your feelings, your unconscious processes. It is a philosophy, for you adopt new ways of
seeing the world. It is a physical orientation, for you work with your body. It is a sociology, for you
learn new modalities to function in your social environment. It is a new political system, for you
learn to combine both tradition and change in a very new way. It is religion, for you learn about
Creation, your part in it and your new relationship to God. It is all and it is none of these things. It
is the creation of a new planetary being, with new values and with old truths renewed. This new
person will gradually overtake and influence, step by step, those who want to obstruct this
development.
When you look back on the material I brought and taught you, you will easily see that I have
emphasized this alternation systematically. I have concentrated on different levels and different
aspects at different times, only to come back after a certain period of absorption to the previous
levels. I have started by giving you an overview of spiritual reality in the most simplified way. I
have then gone on to convey new concepts, most of the time aimed to bring the split of duality into
a new unity -- just as I do now with tradition and change. I have then entered into a new phase of
exploring inner, unconscious levels and attitudes. I have taught you how to experience pain,
helplessness, rage. I have helped you to see and accept your mask and your lower self. I have
opened up to you the vista to your higher self. I have re-entered into the spiritual realms with your
thoughts and feelings.
You have worked hard along the way. Phase by phase, spiral movement after spiral
movement, we have followed this journey. Each phase seemed new and was always opposed by
reasonings that were always rationalizations. Each phase was of course also old, because no eternal
truths are totally new. They may be new here in their application and combination. When your
mental processes were challenged, there were always those who did not want to tamper with them
and resisted. When it came to working with your emotional processes, there were always those who
resisted "psychological therapy." When spiritual truths were discussed, there were always those who
did not want "religion." Each of these arguments came from the fear of expanding into who you are
meant to be, who you potentially are on the unmanifest level of reality.
At the present time, the mention of Jesus Christ elicits the same resistance that has always
existed when an extended approach, an old/new truth was introduced anew. When unconscious,
irrational feelings were lifted to the surface, many of you were terrified; some friends left the path.
The same thing happened when responsibility for the lower self became an essential aspect of the
pathwork. When prayer and meditation were explained in detail and its dynamics taught so that you
could use this essential tool, again many turned away with resistance and rebellion -- always
rationalized, of course. When the body was included into the total work, the same reactions came
up. When different spiritual realities were emphasized -- Jesus Christ is one of them -- this, too, was
used as an opportunity to avoid the total revision of personality aspects, the healing of the soul. Yet
none of these aspects was a surprise, since all of them were foreshadowed and discussed at the very
beginning of my manifestation through this instrumentality. I also explained that concentration on
these various levels of being will alternate and follow a certain rhythm.
As I mentioned before, you must understand that every one of these truths exists in the spirit
reality and is thus neither old nor new, and yet is both. It is old, because it has always existed. It is
new, because it now breaks through into your level of reality. These aspects of reality may not have
the same name, for in the world of spirit names do not exist in the same way as in your dimension of
reality. But their essence exists and what you experience and perceive here about any and all of
these approaches and realities are merely segments. For it is hardly possible to experience a total
reality on your level of consciousness. This then leads to naming the thing; to creating often false
associations to the thing; and to partial and therefore distorted vision of the thing.
When psychology made its appearance on earth, it was for you entirely new. Yet in the world
of spirit, these levels of consciousness are open, visible, observable and accessible. They cannot
possibly create the controversy that the appearance of psychological realities created on your earth
sphere for a long time. Psychology then often came to mean an opposition to spirituality, a
contradiction which, of course, is utterly false. So you still find spiritual leaders, ministers and
priests who are against psychological depth work.
By the same token Jesus Christ has always existed. He is, always was, and always will be the
Great Light that directly emanated from God, the manifestation that God gave form to; the most
divine embodiment in the universe. For many of you who strongly react in the most negative way
when you hear the name Jesus Christ, this fact in itself would not, could not, carry any negative
connotations. The ancients, long before the birth of Jesus Christ, always knew of this great light and
also knew that it will one day manifest as human form. Why is this fact being resisted so? At one
time the resistance was entirely political and power-oriented, just as new and honest political
approaches are resisted now. Those in power would be disadvantaged by them and thus would
oppose them.
Your personal irrational reactions to the truth of Him who was foretold by your very
forefathers but then denied, is solely based on false tradition, which is nothing but fear of change.
Thus your reactions are emotional and irrational. They do not allow a calm, open, fresh approach
that can question the issue objectively and make room for the possibility that your forefathers have
erred at a certain point of their evolution. They have halted their process and interrupted the line of
their inner movement -- individually and as a people. This happens constantly in human
development, in many other areas, with many different individuals and peoples.
Why is this possibility so stubbornly rejected, so as to not even permit consideration of it?
You do not permit your hearts to be open to a truth that you felt hitherto disinclined to accept. But
truth can fill you only when you remove the tight so-called "knowledge" and make room for a
different knowledge. If this open attitude exists and if your originally believed-in truth is indeed
truth, you will come back to it anew. But if it turns out to be faulty, you will remove an obstruction
that can only limit and bind you. In either case, your liberation and your selfhood, the discovery of
inner truth that is both personal and universal, can only lie in this openness and willingness to let go
and consider different possibilities. Your fear that you will thus lose your autonomy is totally false
and irrational. Real autonomy must rest on what is cosmic and universal truth, not on a personal
and possibly false opinion about universal truth.
The personal longing that brought you to this path, regardless of what you had consciously in
mind, can only be fulfilled when you bring your personality into alignment with spiritual truth,
whatever that may be at any given time of your evolutionary journey. Some of you violently struggle
against this movement, but ignorantly so. The deep reason for this struggle is, as I said, fear. The
tragedy is that while this fear is entirely needless and unfounded, there is everything to fear from
obstructing and not even considering a larger truth you have not allowed into your heart as yet.
With this, beloved friends, I deeply bless you and pray with the angels and the spirit helpers
on my side that all of you may find the courage and wisdom, the openness and freshness to give new
considerations to old truths and thus flow with the beautiful rhythm of your inner journey, so that it
may be in harmony with the larger and vaster cycles that permeate the universe. You thereby create
tradition in the best sense and change in the best sense. You retain the values of the old and
constantly eliminate values no longer applicable. This follows the same laws of digestion and
elimination that apply to the body. The system could not be kept cleansed and working well if this
process were not allowed. The healthy body lives positive tradition and positive change in its
marvelous apparatus of digestion, elimination and assimilation.
A great blessing and energy influx sweeps through your community, through the earth,
through all hearts that are open and receptive and willing. God's love envelops you all.