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Contents |
THE SEVEN PURPOSES
Chapter XIV
OF the messages that may be quoted, there
remain only a few detached statements, re-
moved from their personal context, but re-
produced because of their general interest or
significance.
"Don't worry about C____" was one bit of
specific advice, given in March, before any of
the Lessons had been received. "She will have
her troubles, but she must dree her own weird.
You might save her some pain, but life's pur-
pose may not be taught. It must be fought
for, with blood and sweat. Let C____ get
her wounds in her own way. You may then
soothe the pain. But don't try to spare her
the fight. That has to do with the larger ques-
tions of life and eternity."
"'Life's purpose may not be taught,' but
the laws underlying the search for it may be?"
"Of course. We are trying now to wake the
world to consciousness that these laws exist.
Most people, broadly speaking, have forgotten
them, in the general contempt for laws where
they are not enforced, and in the general [302]
hatred of them where they are enforced in
oppression and fear."
A few days later, another person, writing of
another and much younger girl, said: "She
may have a hard time over the conflicting
purposes. Everybody does. But with you
to give her a foundation, I do not fear for her.
. . . Her struggles will only make her stronger.
Do not try to save her from pain. Remember
that it is her mother who says this. Let her
meet life fully and work her way upward.
She will always yield in the end to the sublime
purpose."
On a later occasion, this same person said:
"We help all we can, but even when you want
us to, we are unwilling to hold back the larger
and vital development in order to hasten some
smaller conclusion. Even when the small con-
clusion is important to you, it must be your
own choice that helps you; and if the choice
is wrong at the moment, it still helps in the
end."
"She's too sympathetic for her own good,"
was said of another young woman. "She'd do
the vicarious atonement act for all creation,
if she could. What she needs is to have this
purpose business driven into her. Every fel-
low has to do his own fighting, and his own
atonement, and his own climbing, and take [303]
what's coming to him while he does it. She's
always trying to soften the path and take the
swipes herself, and it can't be done. She gets
the blow and the strain and the struggle, all
right, but it impedes her and gets the other
fellow nowhere. It helps nobody to save them
the consequences of their own choice. The
way to help is to call to their constructive pur-
pose and give them a chance. If they choose
not to take it, then let them take all the con-
sequence that's coming. If that doesn't teach
them, there's nothing more to do, except to
turn them over to somebody who can arouse
their purpose, if they have any. Anyhow,
making a buffer of yourself just batters up
good material for no gain in force or purpose."
Again, another person to another group.
"Let any fighting force do his own fighting.
Suggest, enlighten, encourage, but don't try
to carry the burden of another's life. You
can't hurry their development, and you im-
pede your own and that of others of your own
purpose. . . . You are like the fellow in the
fable, who finished by carrying not only the
pack, but the donkey, too. It's a very sweet
and unselfish disposition, but do you think it
improves the donkey for his station in life?
Not that I'm calling S____ a donkey, but like
all mankind, he carries a pack. You can't [304]
carry both, and he won't learn to apply his
force evenly here if you do it for him there.
Lots of people develop unevenly and have to
even up somewhere. Why delay the process
by vicarious labor, especially when it only ex-
hausts you and doesn't develop his muscles
any? Selah!"
"You can train O____ to carry physical,
temptations, if you begin early," a man said,
writing of his nephew. "Don't let him yield
to impulse or desire when it is destructive.
Make him build his body first, as a boy.
Make him respect it and its promise. That's a
bully thing for a boy to know at the beginning.
He reasons from that to other things. A boy
is a brute first, but a thinking brute. If he re-
spects the flesh, he respects all things in time."
"What is my purpose?" a young man asked,
one day.
"Building. You are going to be 'him that
hath.' Build with your possessions. Begin the
foundation now. Build. . . . Build as a pro-
ducer, or as a healer, or in any way that
makes for progress, keeps you growing, de-
velops forces for construction, and gives the
other fellows a chance to do their best also.
. . . Not for yourself alone, but for all who may
climb by your ladder of opportunity."
Maynard Holt, writing to a friend here, [305]
spoke of him as a good fighter, and when this
person said that he would not have been
able to fight at all, but for the little hand of
a lady on the next plane, Maynard returned:
"I know you fought hard, though in darkness,
before you found that hand. That's one reason
we count on you now. A man who will fight
continuously in darkness is a . . . a . . ."
The pencil paused, and after futile efforts to
proceed, retraced its path, apparently to cross
out again and again the last letter. We were
talking and paid no attention to its movement,
but when it ceased again, we discovered that
Maynard had drawn a five-pointed star. Then
he proceeded: ". . . luminary of force himself,
when light breaks."
There were many interesting characteriza-
tions, both of persons on this plane and of
those on the next.
"E____ is a fine force, but A____ is a force
multiplied and refined to power," was said of
one couple.
A striking example of the determination of
our "fantom friends" to convey their mean-
ing despite obstacles, was indicated when some
one had told me, during an interview, of a
boy's objection to his mother's activity in one
of the recent "drives" connected with war
work, on the ground that it "made her con- [306]
spicuous."
"M____ is an entirely tra . . . trem . . . tr
. . . normal and tra . . . tremulous youth, where
his mother and sister are concerned," was his
father's humorous comment.
Apparently, in this case, the connection was
imperfect, no intimation of his meaning reach-
ing me, and only by altering the form of his
sentence was he able to get it written.
"Miss T____ has much to learn and much
to suffer before a teaching based on unity of
force or purpose will reach her forcefully," we
were told, on another occasion. "She must
learn the shallows of self before she can sound
the depths of individuality, in the larger and
eternal interpretation of the word."
Following one of the numerous discussions
of Germany and her purposes, a question about
a man of German parentage brought this
reply: "B____ is American. The national
taint of docility is not in him."
The meaning of purpose and its application
was stated many times in many ways. One
of the most characteristic of these expressions
came from a famous humorist.
"There are things brewing here and among
you there," he said, "that are going to make
the wars of the tribes of Hohenzollern, Haps-
burg and Mephisto look like a village prayer [307]
meeting. The carnage of Verdun and Mons
and the whole show since his little nibs was
assassinated is a picayune proposition com-
pared to the losses of time, purpose, force and
saving grace that we're all going to feel, if
we can't wake you people up to pull together
against the devil's crew."
Some one asked whether a husband and wife,
not too congenial in this life, were together
there, and was told that he was "flocking with
birds of his own feather," and that she had
"peacefully and tranquilly found her own."
Another member of this family group was with
neither of the others, it was said, "because
she found her very own, for which they were
only a substitute."
"Have you seen Jim? Is there any feeling
about his wife's marrying again?" was a ques-
tion which will interest many persons.
"Jim is here and very happy. He has no
resentment, and wishes Alice to be happy.
They are both of the forces of progress, but
not of just the same purpose. They harmonize,
but do not touch."
Again, some one asked whether one party
to an uncongenial marriage regretted the
other's rejoining him so soon.
"She didn't," was the reply. "He hasn't seen
her yet, and won't. He is willing to work with [308]
her purpose, but not eager to touch her force."
"What about Laura?" a woman asked.
"She is coming to us soon, but do not be
afraid, dear. She will be tenderly met and
guided, and will be much nearer you all, much
happier and more helpful, than she is now.
Never grieve again for death. It is birth, and
so happy."
Within a few weeks, this came to pass.
When I asked Mary K. for a message for a
mother bereaved by war, she said: "Tell her
we will send for her when he has grown accus-
tomed enough to talk to her. Tell her that he
is cared for tenderly and guided, and that she
must not grieve. She hurts him and herself.
Make her understand that she can help him
by knowing that he lives and loves her and is
near her, and that it is part of her work as
a mother to help him in this . . . to find his
purpose more quickly through her love."
We were afterward told that he had not yet
learned the "free communion," but that from
the moment his mother began to "lift her
spirit to meet his," this young man's develop-
ment was hastened.
Frequently, when telling about these revela-
tions, I have been asked: "What do they say
about reincarnation?"
"There is no possible reincarnation," Mary [309]
K. said, when I referred the question to her.
That is a dream of the Orient. The idea of
reincarnation is regressive. Not destructive,
but deterrent. Not progressive. It is born of
bodily desire."
"Is it like the desire of old men for youth?"
"More. It is a mask, covering material
desire with spiritual semblance. It is taught
from this plane by deterrent or partly deter-
rent forces, lacking free vision."
In another connection, but with similar
meaning, David Bruce said: "Some persons
hide their love of the flesh by an exaggerated
expression of spirituality, and then think of
ways of insisting on the flesh."
Similarly, writing through her husband's
pencil, Mary Kendal said, when he asked her
what had become of persons like Caesar, Luther,
Cobden, Archimedes, and others in general:
"There is a great difference in the length of
time people stay in this plane nearest to that
of the earth, which depends not only on the
stage of development which they have attained
when they come here, but also on the character
of work they are best fitted to do. If they
can be of more use in direct or indirect con-
tact with your plane, they stay here sometimes
many years, as you measure time; but if they
are retarded in their development when they [310]
arrive here, they have a long road to travel
before they can go on to any other plane.
There is no such thing as transmigration of
souls as you understand it, but that idea is
akin to what actually does happen, in the sense
that such individualities have to pass through
stages of development which are relatively
inferior in status to those that they might
enter into, coming from your plane, if they
had made greater progress there. or had fought
a better fight on that plane."
When he said that his idea in asking about
specific individuals was to get concrete in-
stances by which to check up the general law,
she returned: "The danger in that is that
your idea of what those individuals really were
is very apt to be wrong, and starting from
wrong premises you could hardly avoid reach-
ing wrong conclusions. . . . Martin Luther was
a mixture of purposes. He did great work for
progress in fighting the conventions and bind-
ing tendency of ecclesiasticism in his times,
but he had personal motives which were de-
terrent, and which he spent a long time in
working out when he left that plane." Of
Napoleon she said: "There have been few in-
stances of greater prostitution of great talents
and great opportunity in history, and he paid
—and is paying—the penalty, or the conse- [311]
quence."
To the many inquiries as to how direct
communication may be established between
persons here and the dear ones gone before,
this message of David Bruce's to his wife con-
tains the briefest and most comprehensive
answer.
She said: "I wonder what he's going to tell
me?"
"I'm going to tell you to be calm and serene
of spirit, no matter what seems to be happen-
ing to disturb you. Most of the disturbing
factors of individual life on your plane are
ephemeral—things of the moment and of the
place. Others are more important than they
seem. I am not always able to tell you about
them. It delays you, instead of helping you,
when the decision is not your own. One way
that I can truly help when you are troubled
is by what we can best describe as the free
communion. When you are perturbed in spirit
and full of doubt, it is difficult for us to reach
you. . . . Open the door of spiritual force to
forces here, and we can always help. That is
what we hope to establish as a recognized
truth in your life there. That a force as yet
unknown to science is operating between the
planes, and can be developed and used in your
life there—to a less degree than in ours, but [312]
still with great effect. It is for this that we
work in this communion, which is more definite
to you now and less so to us. We know the
limits to which material manifestation like this
is confined, and are eager to teach you grad-
ually the freer and fuller way."
Chapter XV
"A THOUGHT that will occur to many persons
is that the truths we endeavor to teach are not
entirely new.
"Truth is fundamental and eternal. There
is no new truth; there is only new understand-
ing and application of truth that has always
existed. No great teacher has ever told new
truth. No great teacher has ever told truth
in a new way, until the older teachings had
begun to lose their hold on the minds of
men. No great teacher has ever found an
audience for his new interpretation of truth,
until the minds of men had groped through
darkness toward a light dimly perceived, if
at all.
"The time is ripe now for the crystallization
of new application of eternal truth. Men
hunger for bread of the spirit, and thirst for
the waters of eternity. This is the answer of
eternal forces to their search, and it comes,
for the first time, not through a teacher or a
prophet, but through a human instrument
sensitive to a high degree to the influence of [314]
the force that is life's motive power.
"There are many conditions affecting the
application of that force in these communica-
tions, that cannot now be explained; many
conditions influencing its direction, that you
do not understand. Some day your scientists
will discover and prove by experiment certain
laws now unrecognized, and these days of
doubt and scoffing will disappear in a past filled
with denial and discouragement of almost every
discovery now called modern and progressive.
"Two things only we have striven for through
you: to prove to a group of intelligent persons
that this force exists and may be practically
applied between your plane and ours, and to
warn mankind of the nature and eternal im-
port of impending struggles. We have more
to tell when they are ready to listen, and upon
the choice of them who hear this truth the
immediate progress of the world depends. It
is a warning to unite and prepare for combat.
"This is the truth. Heed it.
"MARY K."
June 13, 1918.
THE END
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