by Ernest L. Norman

Now that we have made adjustments, may I speak a little more please. I believe I was talking about the progression of the individual through the various material planes of existence and about his acquiring such materialistic philosophies and knowledge as pertained to these dimensions, which will enable him to progress further in his evolution into the higher spiritual domains. In order that my remarks may not be misconstrued or erroneously interpreted, I do not advocate that a person should purposely set out to undergo sinful experiences with the idea in mind that such experiences will further advance his spiritual growth. Such is not the case. The determining element is what you think is sin or error. We say that the ordinary experiences in the material world are, in themselves, largely sinful. There are many things about you in your earth life which lead to guilt complexes. We could say that things which induce such complexes are sinful in nature. Because of the complexity in a concept of the food which mankind eats, one man says eat flesh; another says abstain and eat nothing but vegetables; others say this is good or that is not so good. As a result, you yourself become confused and you believe that your stomach is constantly upset by what you do eat. Consequently, you have a neurosis and you have suffered sin. We might say that the association of man and woman in the field called sex is also conducive of a great number of guilt complexes and neuroses. Each person has his own concept in regard to his conduct in the relationship of sex. No two people seem to be able to agree on one or more points in their own individual translations. The various conflicts in this field give rise to some of the greatest and most deep rooted of the guilt complexes of human nature.

Now, it is sinful if a person indulges in some heinous crime, such as murder or robbery. This is perversion. It is perversion of the principle of the Intelligent God Force which created the individual. It is not purely sin, but is something which needs a stronger word than sin. So my classification of sin relegates mankind into the more simple and natural experiences of his existence, because in his life on the earth plane, he has no criteria to determine which is sin and error. As a result, he is constantly confounding himself in his daily life by listening to the prattle of his fellow men in regard to what they consider their interpretations of good and evil. Therefore, man has so imbued into his subconscious mind the conflicts of the various natures of the individuals about him that he becomes neurotic and extremely activated in his subconscious mind with the conflicts of guilt complexes, with the thought that this is sin and that is error. Any of the earth philosophies or any of the spiritual philosophies, for that matter, which give rise to dissatisfaction, unrest, unhappiness, or even physical disease in the body of a human being is, in itself a sinful practice.

One does not necessarily need to commit an act in a physical sense to commit a sin; to think murder or to inflict harm in some way on one’s fellow man, even though it is done mentally, is just as evil and sinful as if it were done in a physical way. After all, it is merely the absolute concept of what takes place in the individual’s mind. It is the obsessive realism of such an act of violence, an act of crime, which takes place in the individual’s mind; whether he actually carries this through in a physical sense is of secondary importance. Therefore one must refrain from any destructive tendencies, any perversions of mentality which might detour him from his true path of evolution; he must not be concerned with the translations of what is sin and error by his fellow man. No one is so absolute in judgment, in wisdom, or in knowledge, to determine what is sinful and erroneous in the conduct of another’s daily life.

This decision is a determining factor in your own consciousness. You may call it the still small voice as was previously given, but whatever you call it, it is the Superconsciousness, the combined voices of your Guardian Angels and of those who are associated with you in your spiritual dimensions. It can also be the voice of the vortexes from your psychic body which speak through the consciousness of your objective mind, and which will in some strange vague way warn you to deter from perversions of mentality. So long as you listen to these warnings, so long as you take the absolute stand that you are progressing spiritually and that you must always retain the consciousness of that motivating vital spiritual voice within the Superconsciousness, as long as you realize that you are connected through the Christ Force within you to the Central Vortexes of God’s own Infinite Nature, then, my brothers, you cannot detour far from the true path of progression.

There is much more I would like to discuss with you; however, in looking over my remarks to you in these past few moments I believe I left nothing which can be falsely misconstrued. So, for the present, we shall return to our respective dimensions and seek our own life. Your true friend and brother, Lao-Tzu.

This is Gamaliel; I was standing by listening to Lao-Tzu and his very fine discussion on some of the principles of Christianity on your earth plane. I do believe that the subject is very broad in all its facets and concepts, as it is related directly or indirectly with the concepts of many other religious philosophies which are, and have been, in existence on the earth for hundreds of thousands of centuries. It might be well to discuss further the concept of the Christ and of the personal relationship of man with the Christ consciousness within himself.

We can begin first by drawing something of an allegory; we say a man lives in a house; therefore, we say that the man is the house, because a man is living in a body; the body is the man. In your Christian Bible you begin with the concept of the beginning of man. God gathered up the dust of the earth, formed a body, and breathed the breath of life into him and he became man. This is a parable, but strangely enough, it is almost factual. We see on your earth plane, as on other worlds of such nature, the growing things of the earth in their productiveness, become the foods and the elements of sustenance to the animals which exist in these worlds. Man feeds upon the animals and the plants. Since the body is constantly being reconstructed and rebuilt, is not man therefore built of the elements of the earth and of the earth itself? Only the added elements of sunshine and of the aerobic contents of the air about him enter into the construction and become the catalytic agents which are combined with the life forces which stem from the psychic body.

However, the body should not in any way be confused with the man. The man exists in direct association with the body, or he is within the body, just as the man is within the house. The body is merely a mechanism, a bony structure, over which is stretched various muscles, compounded to form levers and fulcrums, which motivate the various structural forms of the limbs, hands, arms, legs, and feet, to enable man to have locomotion. He has lungs to breathe the gas from the atmospheric envelope which surrounds the earth, and which enters into the compound metabolistic processes which carry on the force within the body. But what is the motivating force behind the life force? There again is the psychic body, which links itself to the Superconsciousness of the individual himself.

The individual is the Christ, the Christ within everyone. It is this Christ, and the belief in and the knowledge of this Christ, which saves all men from the iniquities keeping them in the lower levels of physical expression. So does not Christ save each man? But only the consciousness, the knowledge, and the wisdom of this Christ will enable the individual to work with this Christ Consciousness. This Christ Consciousness is in itself a part of the intelligence of man which links him directly with the great God Force. If you study the histories of the seven great Avatars who have lived on your earth plane, you may ask if all of them are not Jesus, or are all of them not the Christ? Yes, indeed they are all the Christ in the simple way in which I have explained this concept to you; for they are individualized personifications or individual Christs. They have merely attained in their spiritual development, a more conscious workable continuity of consciousness within them; as a result, they have become Christ-like in their being and in their expression.

In traveling through the various evolutions or reincarnations, and rising in the processes whereby you are initiated into these various spiritual concepts, you begin more and more to be a person of two beings. You are overshadowed by the Superconsciousness, as was true of the Man of Galilee whom you call Jesus. He was so overshadowed by His Consciousness, His Christ Self, that this continuity of thought and structure in the philosophy of His life enabled Him to perform the many miracles, because it linked Him immediately with the great God Force.

Is this explanation not better than to believe, as does the man who sits on a pile of brick, that if he sits long enough his house will be built for him? We might tell the story of the man who lived in the house with the leaky roof; the traveler who passed by when it was raining asked the man why he did not fix his roof. He answered, “I can’t; it is raining.” Later when the sun was shining, the passing traveler again asked the man why he did not fix his roof. His reply then was that there was no need since the sun was shining. Thus it is with people in their spiritual philosophies. They are constantly procrastinating for one reason or another. They must be led by those who would so exploit their weaknesses, that they are led into false channels which subject them to the opiates of procrastination, the self indulgences of philosophies whereby someone else can do it for them and thus they have no need to do it; all they have to do is to believe. This philosophy is not true, my friends. In your spiritual evolution you will progress only by the conscious continuity and understanding of the principle of the Christ-Consciousness; the individualized personification of God, which acts in the uppermost reaches and thus, in an indirect way, into the conscious or the objective mind of every individual.

Peace be with you, Gamaliel.

Excerpt from The Voice Of Hermes

See Part I here.