Studies in Being, A Lecture by Mark L. Prophet – October 9, 1969

Studies in Being, A Lecture by Mark L. Prophet
October 9, 1969

LECTURE TRANSCRIPT

Good afternoon, friends of the light that never fails.  [over music]

Our program this year will be a little different than in previous years.  We are not going to give you our welcome until tonight.  Isn’t that nice?  [“Um-hum.” “Yes.”]  We’re going directly into our opening sequence here.

There is, however, a brief announcement that I have to make to you which I think will be interesting and helpful.  It is to tell you that we have with us in the building now a very important man from India.  He will be here for the entire conference.  This man is Sri Sankaracharaya, Swami Rama, who comes from the Himalayas from a cave 11,000 feet in the kim, in the Himalayas.

Swami Rama is a remarkable person and it is our intention to give you a bonus in this program.  Now the reason this is possible, the reason the Summit Lighthouse can bring you this type of bonus is because of our lack of bigotry.  We are open to the Father and uh, we accept peoples of all races, of all creeds and we have love for all these people.

We have practiced for as many years as we possibly could the principle of the Christ consciousness.  And when I say is, as long as we possibly could I mean that until we knew about it we couldn’t practice it.  Everybody has to learn, you see.  And when the time comes that people learn then their eyes are open.  Before that they still have the scales on their eyes.

But I have learned through the years that there are veils.  You know, some people are looking for one door to swing open and they say, “Well now then when that door opens, then I will know everything.”  And when that door opened for me I found out how little I knew and then I decided that there were more than one door that you would have to pass through.  Oh, of course Jesus said, “I AM the Door.”  You know what I am talking about.  The Christ is the door.  But you know, after you pass through or sometimes even before you pass through there are many other doors that are preliminary doors and sometimes there are doors they’re not exactly preliminary but they’re postgraduate doors.  Let’s call them that, you know?

After you have passed through this important door of the Christ conscious­ness then you come to the door where something else happens to you and it keeps on going.  It doesn’t stop and that makes it very interesting.  So, this is why the Summit Lighthouse could bring you this man because we have no conflict, you see, with uh, any organization.  We recognize the world as full of people and these people have much to offer.  Of course, we have to use discrimination.  I mean you can’t just open the door wide and say, “Well, anything, come in.”  We have to be careful.  And this man that we have welcomed here today that is coming here, he is a wonderful man and I know you are going to enjoy him very much.     So, I’m going to get on here with the opening of the program.

I think There’s a program here somewhere.  [papers shuffling]  Well, I’ll leave that.  That’s all right.  Well, OK.  I want to just briefly go over the program with you.

[papers shuffling and 10-sec. pause]

We’re going to start with “Studies in Being” in just a few minutes.  And Elizabeth will be giving you “Studies in Musical Meditation” at three.

At four we have our “Studies for Neophytes.”  Now any of you people who feel that you are not interested in the “Studies for Neophytes,” why, you don’t have to come to that.  I’m going to teach that and it will be a beginner’s class.  Uh, so uh, we’ll see how many come to it.  [audience chuckles]  See how many beginners we have.  One of the ladies uh, came to one of my beginner’s classes one time and she said she’d never miss one after that.  [audience chuckles]  I think she was pretty advanced, but you never know.

Our welcome will be this evening and the reason we have switched that around is that we have so many people coming in.  Uh, everytime we have a conference you start in the daytime and an awful lot of people don’t get here until clear seven or eight o’clock tonight.  And so, we’ve decided that we waste all of that good welcome juice, you know.  [laughter]  So, we’re going to give it to uh, them tonight and to you, too.

Holy Communion will be served this evening.  Those of you who have white clothing may wear it if you wish.  Those of you who do not may wear what you have.  How’s that?  [audience chuckles]

I want to announce that we are making a film which is a very expensive film.  It’s been in the processing now for over a year, almost to the second year.  As a part of the film we have color and sound film here which they’re going to take tonight of the dictation of Saint Germain.  Now, the reason they want to take that is they’re only going to use probably one or two minutes or maybe three minutes of it in the whole film but they’ll probably take maybe a half-hour.  You see what I mean?  This is the way moviemakers do.  They take an awful lot of film and they, they select the best part of it.  So, this is an inconvenience.  Tonight you’re going to have very powerful lights in here, they may hurt your eyes.  But this little sacrifice that you people make tonight is going to make it possible for thousands of our members all over the world in little groups here and there to view the headquarters, to hear a dictation or a little part of it, to see how it functions and we think that the inconvenience that we suffer will be worth it because we are sacrificing that we may be generous with others, you see.  So, bear with us tonight and tomorrow we have no intention of any movie making.  There’ll be more chairs in here and George Lancaster who usually sits in that corner will be able to once again sit in his favorite corner.  [laughter]

Another thing I want to tell you is that you are going to have another treat [coughing] besides the Swami.  On Sunday we’re going to have a wedding.  [murmuring]  A Summit Lighthouse wedding performed here.  Two of our staff members are going to get married to each other [laughter] but then I guess that’s the proper thing to do.  They’re very lovely people and they were brought together by Saint Germain.  The young lady herself was not here at all but Michael Wilson was and so Michael Wilson is going to marry Mary Jean Donner on Sunday at 5:00 and you’re all invited.  How do you like that?  [“Wonderful.” applause]  So we’ve got a lot of treats.  In addition, we may even have treatments for you, who knows. [laughter.]

Tomorrow uh, we’re going to start the classes for Swami Rama at 8:00 in the morning.  Now we cannot take this prearranged program–and he not, he understands this–we cannot take it and throw that program out the window.  This would not be proper.  The Masters have arranged it.  Nor do we want to deny you the privilege of having the great wisdom and blessings of sitting in the classes of Swami Rama also who is supporting the light 100 percent as we support him because after all, dear friends, the light is one.  The light is not in conflict with itself.  So the best thing we could do is to work him in at 8:00 to 9:00 in the morning.  This will mean that you’re going to have to get up earlier but I think it will be worthwhile because he can teach you some marvelous things on breath control.  He can teach you how to calm your mind and that way you’ll be able to enjoy everything more.  He is really a real adept.  I have seen him perform miracles in Detroit, Michigan.

Uh, then at 10:00, the lecture “The Slender Thread.”

At 11:00–take note of this, dear hearts–Keepers of the Flame Business Meeting.  [coughing]  This is for members only.  If you’re not a Keeper of the Flame now, you can still join and it’s a very simple thing.  It’s very inexpensive and you’ll get a great blessing out of being a Keeper of the Flame.  How many here are not Keepers of the Flame?  One, two, three, well, we’re pretty solidly—are you putting your hands up over here?  Four five.  There’s about four or five people then that are not Keepers and I would investigate this by talking with our secretary and perhaps Reverend Harper or any of the staff on this.  It’s a wonderful thing.  Uh, all in favor say aye.  [“Aye.” chuckles]  [“You’re reading Saturday’s program.  Do you mean Friday’s?  Do you need to be reading Friday’s program?”]  I’m very sorry.  Because of this new format I did start on Friday’s, on Saturday’s.  I’ll take Friday’s right now.

On Friday, October 10th then, which is tomorrow, we will have the Swami’s class at eight; at nine, the early decree class; at ten, the lecture, “Thou Art the Fairest of Them All,” and at 11:00 the dictation of the Angel Deva of the Jade Temple.  There will be then two hours—no, there won’t be two hours, there’ll probably be one hour break, a very short break for lunch tomorrow.

Then at 1:00 a violet-flame intensive preparation, “The Art of Practical Trans­mutation.”  We’re going to show you a few things on intensifying the violet flame.  This’ll help you through the whole conference.

At 2:30 pm tomorrow we are going to lecture on the “Lure of the Wild.”  It’s a study in obsession.  This is a particular lesson that some people may not like because we’re going to have to go into some very deep aspects of the mind and we’re going to have to show you some of the problems that are existing in the world today and how they can be cured and how you can protect yourselves against forces that some of you may not even know about.  It will be more or less a study in insanity and in abnormal states of consciousness.

Now, I assure you that in the opinion of the Brothers, of the Masters, this, this is important for everyone.  I hope that you have a strong stomach but I want to assure you of this, [coughing] that I will be very careful to try to soft pedal any of the aspects that I feel would disturb anyone [coughing] but at the same time if I’m going to give you anything that will help you, I’m going to have to come out and tell you [coughing] what the score is.  This will be quite an interesting lecture.

At 4:00 following it to take all the sting out of it and restore us all to our perfect balance, Kuan Yin will come in, the Goddess of Mercy and pour the drops of her healing mercy over everybody and we hope over the world.

In the evening we have the Great Divine Director, the Prince of the House of Rakoczy.

Then on Saturday–I’m sorry about that–“The Slender Thread.”  The Keepers of the Flame is on Saturday.  The Keeper’s Harvest luncheon.  Tickets are available for this and they’re for uh, Keepers of the Flame only.  [coughing]  Keeper’s dictation is sandwiched right in between there.  And 4:00 we reopen to those who are not Keepers with a lecture, “The Meaning of Knighthood.”

Seven pm, the lecture, “The World in Peril–Its Cause and Cure.”  And at eight, a dictation by beloved Chamuel, the Archangel of Love.

Now on Sunday the closing day, we will again on every day, we’re going to have the Swami on at 8:00 and I have considered for those of you who sit in his classes at 8:00, that if you like his classes well enough, which I think you will, we may go to [coughing] having a little class after the whole service is over each day [coughing] to give you the benefit, you see.  Those that want to stay for that will be able to.  These will be announced specially.  [cough]

Nine o’clock on Sunday then we’ll have decrees for “Freedom and Progress into the Golden Age.”  At 10:00, “The Odyssey of the Self.”  This will show you advanced work.  A dictation from beloved Master El Morya.  Two o’clock, “Studies in the Great Pyramid” and at three we’re going to be treated to seeing the slides of the Holy Land taken by Reverend Larry Schwartz, Unity minister from Tucson, Arizona.  We’re very happy to have Reverend Schwartz with us also.  He’s an old friend and loves the light and is doing a great deal down in Tuscon and through Arizona to try to promote good will and peace on earth I’m sure.

At 4:00, “Freedom from Density–You Can Travel on Wings of Light.” [cough­ing]  We are going to then deal at 4:00 on Sunday with various methods of changing your consciousness and even your physical body and affecting yourselves so that you’ll be able to uh, enjoy yourself a little more in this world, in this universe by understanding how you can escape from the bondage of the body and the various states of consciousness which actually sometimes cause us all great distress.

And then in accordance with the mottoes of the Boy Scouts, “Be prepared.”  Seven o’clock we will lecture on “Be Prepared.”  And the final dictation on Sunday night will be from beloved Sanat Kumara, the hierarch of Venus and his daughter, the Lady Master Meta.  This will be a double dictation to close the conference.

So, we’ve covered that subject now.  I made my extra announcements here.  [inaudible]  I’m sorry, would you… [“first time class instruction, for those people who haven’t heard a dictation before, you going to use the neophyte class” [inaudible]  I think I’ll use the neophyte class for that this time and it will be necessary then that every one who has not attended a conference before sit in the neophyte class whether you like it or not.  [laughter]  And the reason for that is that no one is allowed to hear a dictation unless that person has attended a neophyte instruction class.  So, rather than have you sit out here in the hall and listen for an hour and a half to our instruction tape you just sit in the neophyte class and you’ll get what you need.  We’ll waive that.

“Studies in Being.”

Now, we’re going to open this afternoon to “Studies in Being.”  And this is going to be conducted along the lines of a classroom technique rather than a formalized lecture.  I want to point out then that the very word, “being” denotes action.  [papers shuffling]  It is not a passive activity this business of being.  It is an active activity involving the total man.  But, there is something else that goes with it and this too is active [coughing] and this activity is believing.

Now, if you notice carefully–and I wish I had a blackboard but I’ll have to do without it by using your minds as blackboards–write the word, “being” down.  B-e-dash-i-n-g.  Be-ing.  Then write the word, “believing.”  B-e-l-i-e-v-i-n-g and in believing you have faith and mind being activated by the principle of belief.  Now faith and mind being activated by the principle of belief are also activities or actions.  These are OK.  They are good.  It’s perfectly all right to be, which is in Latin, “esse,” “to be.”  And it’s perfectly all right to believe.  This is a good activity but there is a dangerous activity which is called passivity.  And I think I can show you why it is dangerous.

The word, “passivity” has in connection with it p-a-s-s, pass.

Now, those of you who are familiar with football know that a good football player can pass the ball and he can do it by throwing it or he can do it sometime by just tossing it or bunting it or kicking it in different ways you can pass the ball to someone who will take it from you.  Now, just what is it that can be passed into our world when we’re in a state of passivity?

Tramp modes is what I call that which can be passed into your world.  I call them tramp modes because I remember when I was a boy that tramps used to come to our door to get food and they’d be people from all over the world and that is exactly what you get when you get into a state of passivity.

If you just sit in a room and don’t think of anything or you’re sort of in a state of inertia, this state of inertia invites tramp thoughts or tramp modes to pass through your mind.  And here is a strange thing about these modes–moods, modes, states of mind–you think that they’re yours.  You believe that these ideas that come to you come to you from yourself, but they are no more a part of yourself than the tramp who comes to your door as a part of your family.

So, passivity of consciousness is a dangerous state and there are only certain ways that you can use the passive state.  You can use the passive state if you know what to do but I’m not gonna get into that right now.  I’m simply going to tell you that being should be active and belief should be active.

If you believe in God or you believe in the Masters it should be an active belief.  It should be motivating.  It should move you because if it doesn’t move you, you might as well not even believe.  Do you see that?  What is the purpose of believing anyway?  The purpose of believing is so that we can be activated and improved.  Now you’re not going to be improved just by reading something and say, “Well, yes, I believe that’s true.”  See this is nothing.  When we say, “I believe this is true.  I think this is right.”  Unless we ratify our belief–it’s like exercising your right to vote–unless we ratify our belief, we haven’t accom­plished anything with it at all.  It becomes more or less a tramp thought from ourselves passing through our mind.  It doesn’t do anything for us.

And we are interested in this class in learning how to master ourselves.  We would like to see every person that comes to this class go away from this class, not only a better person but a much better person, and this relates to the statement that God made in the Genesis where he says, in the beginning the Lord God created, and then it says, he saw the creation which he had made and it wasn’t just good, it was very good.  And this is exactly what we wanna see happen here.  And it’s not a case of a, of goodiness, a sort of a ushy-gushy sort of goodiness, you know, as people say, the kind that makes people think that you’re so wonderful.  It’s the kind that is derived from your source.   And I would like then this afternoon to have you stop for just a moment and think, who is your source?  Your source is God you say.

Metaphysically, we come to the idea of God and we say, “Oh yes, this is God.  He created everything.”  But we are not very enthusiastic about it.  That is, we are not enthusiastic enough to really change our way of life, our thoughts.

When then we are able to really get the idea of God as an intimate part of ourselves, in fact the allness of ourselves and when we are able to develop the idea that the allness of God is actually contacted by us, just that idea is dynamic.  It is a dynamic principle.  The very thought that God, the great ocean of God has come in touch with us.  But you see, there must also be utilized what we call the principle of flow.  It’s not enough for me to plug an electric fan into an outlet.  We must also be sure that that outlet is energized and if the outlet is energized, we must also be sure that it is flowing, once again the “ing” denotes action.  Flow-ing.

So, when we sit back and we say, “Oh, it’s wonderful, God is.  It’s wonderful, I AM.”  But we are not aware of the passing of the flow from what we could call a passive state to an active state.  We are not really energized and we must be energized.  We must be energized in order to really have the nature of being communicated to our vision.  We must see God acting in ourselves.  We must feel God acting in ourselves and we must not be afraid to be God acting in ourselves.

Some people are afraid that if they submit to God that they will lose their identity.  It’s almost like a little solitary swimmer diving into the ocean.  He feels in diving into this ocean–especially if he can’t swim–[chuckles] he feels that he may drown.  And I think some people feel that they may drowned in God.  They don’t realize that this would be a good thing if they did.  You see, they want to preserve that identity and Jesus himself gave the key so very beauti­fully.  He says, “He who seeks to save his life, he shall lose it.  But he who loses his life for my sake, he shall find it again.”

And so, dear hearts, the one thing that you have to do and be willing to do and develop in your consciousness is the willingness to dissolve the self in God and not care what happens to it.  This is the whole trouble.  We care so much about what happens to ourselves.  But should we fear throwing ourselves into the ocean of God?  Should we really fear?  Well, most of you would say, “Why no, not really.”

So, let’s then develop the consciousness of being as the active principle of God and belief as the active principle of faith in God.  You see, the one activates the total man–being activates the total man–and faith activates the mind and heart.

Now, we’ll return momentarily to passivity and the tramp modes.  All of these tramp modes are controls.  Controls of ourselves by other forces which seek to control ourselves.  You don’t probably realize that but let’s take the opium smoker in China who is in a state of stupor.  Now an adept, a great yogi, a great master teacher, he spends years and years and years to learn how to leave the body, how to open the spiritual eye, and how to do all these things, but the opium smoker all he has to do is have instant evolution and just smoke his little pipe and he can exit the body you see and be floating around in the atmosphere.  Very alluring.  He doesn’t have any drills, no preparation, no mastery or control of the mind.

The Bible says, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by storm.  This is what the opium smoker does.  He takes it by storm and so he opens up centers in his body without any degree of discipline or self-control and then in comes the forces of darkness into those centers and the man himself eventually becomes a control.  He is controlled.  He controls and he is controlled and the first thing you know in these opium sleeps, he’s floating around and seeing that space is no barrier, he winds up in America.  He may be here he may be anywhere in the world.  And you’re passive, so his con­sciousness is very easily intruded upon your own.  This accounts for the thoughts that people have sometimes that they’re ashamed of.  They’re not always your own thoughts.  Sometimes they are your own subconscious thoughts.  We have all had bad thoughts at some time or another which we shouldn’t have had but we’ve had them.  And of course there’s nothing so bad as thinking makes it so and of course, this is the trick that the dark forces have used.  They have taught us to look in the wrong way upon everything.  And by looking at things the wrong way you see, we make things bad instead of making them good.

So these people then, and there are thousands of them that are in the astral world.  They are floating around everywhere.  No matter what country you’re in, it doesn’t make any difference.  They come in through this great passivity where one does not exercise his control according to God’s grace.  This is why it is so important that you learn to control your mind, that you learn to do the things that you really want to do and not become a puppet to someone’s will.

I’ll bet you that thousands of times in your own lives you have had thoughts even about people–you’ve been walking down the street and you’ve met a man.  Someone says, “This is Mr. Smith.”  And you’ll say, “Well, I’m glad to meet you,” very hypocritically because you don’t like him on sight.  And he’ll say, “I’m glad to meet you.”  He doesn’t like you on sight.  Neither one of you like each other but you very polite to each other.  But you don’t realize that the only reason you don’t like each other is because there are entities, there are forces that are coming in and telling you that you shouldn’t like this person.  And these entities and forces are ridiculous.  They are ridiculous but they’re very effective in creating inharmony in the world.  And as we become smarter we learn how to control these forces by recognizing what they are.

God doesn’t work to spread viciousness.  God doesn’t work to spread hate.  The Masters don’t work to spread hate and discord.  The Masters spread only love and truth and righteousness in the world, so these thoughts are not from the Masters.

Oh, you say you want to take the credit for them.  You say, “Well, evidently I’m a very impure person.”  So you say that about yourself and you know what happens when you say that?  When you say you’re impure you are energizing the quality of impurity around yourself.  And you know what happens next, the next step?

This is very fascinating, the next step.  First, you go ahead and condemn yourself.  Then after you’ve condemned yourself, then you begin to feel very inferior and you know what happens next after you become a person that feels inferior?  You say to yourself, “I can’t stand it.  I can’t stand to feel inferior.”  And this is perfectly natural because God made us and he didn’t make us inferior so we, we feel inferior and we don’t like the condition.  It’s like a teeter totter.  You know, you’re down and you wanna be up so you throw some weight on the other side of your teeter totter here, enough to bring you up and what is that?  It’s a superiority complex.  But how does this superiority complex assert itself?  It asserts itself by making you do things to belittle others.  You must belittle others.  You become irritable.  Why are you irritable?  Because you’ve condemned yourself and you feel bad inside and when you feel bad inside in this state of irritation everything around you becomes disturbing and it is not a climate where God can come in and commune with you.  You cannot really absorb the Christ consciousness.  You cannot make progress spiritually.

You know this in your own heart.  You feel the truth of these things but at the same time you have not always known how the process worked because this is the funniest thing.  You know if this happens to me, even though I’m teaching it to you and I know it and I’ve been taught it by the Masters, I’ve had it happen to me and when it’s happened to me it would be maybe an hour before I realize that I was falling on, into the same trap, and then suddenly I would wake up and I’d say, “For heaven’s sakes.  It really doesn’t make any, any difference who it is.”

You see energy is impersonal.  Impersonal energy.  Whatever you do with energy it will do with you.  It’s the golden rule.  It’s also a very bad and malevolent force if you make it such.  You see what I mean?  Energy is either, neither pure or impure, it’s just energy.  But once you qualify energy, once you turn energy into goodness or badness, into harmony or inharmony, into love or hatred, it becomes whatever you make it [coughing] and that’s how we create moods of being. but these are not our real self–these moods, are they now?  You know very well they’re not our real self but we think they are.

If we are caught in an ugly mood, an unhappy mood.  When we’re unhappy, if someone contacts us and this is very unfortunate for them–if they contact us when we are unhappy, we may not react properly to them, you see and that’s why this study in being is important because while you may forget part of it you’ll probably do just like I do.  Sooner or later you’ll learn to develop the habit of catching it before it’s too late.

The minute you start to condemn yourself, begin to turn within and analyze the whole situation quickly and you can easily decide that if it’s something you did in the past that you’re a little sorry for and you’re condemning yourself for, well you obviously can’t recall the past can you?  If you’ve done a deed–now, if you walked out of a grocery store with an extra dollar that someone gave you, you’ve got that dollar in your purse and you know that it was a dollar too much in change–you can go back and give them the dollar back, can’t you?  But, if you poisoned their pet cat and the cat’s dead, you can’t do very much, can you?

What I’m trying to say is there’s some things you can remedy and some things you can’t.  Now if it’s within your means to make restitution I would do it by all means, but if you cannot make restitution then do it by a karma yoga type of action where you do something good to the universe to make up for it.  Ask God to give you forgiveness.  It won’t even hurt if you can to ask the person to forgive you, tell them you’re sorry you realize you made a mistake.

This type of humility will never hurt you.  The greatest Masters have always become greater by humility.  Everyone is benefited by humility but don’t let it be a false humility.  Don’t let it be a belittling humility.  Don’t let it be the kind of a humility that destroys the whole fabric of your being.  Let it be a sincere humility.  Mean it, but realize it’s like everything else, if you fall down you should also get up everytime you fall down.  For goodness sakes, if we are going to become one with God–I said one with God–if we’re going to become one with God.  We know very well that we’re already one with God as far as he’s concerned but if we are going to realize it, the minute we realize that we’re not one with God, what do we gotta do?  Tell ourselves it isn’t so?  Well, of course it isn’t so but the way we’ve been acting would make us to believe that it was so.  So we have to reverse our action.  Isn’t this true?  We reverse the action and we must be willing to do it.  This is really an important business in studying the being of man.  What is acting in man’s world?  Who is acting?  You see?

So we come back to control.  The control of others, of us can be a directed control or it can be an unconscious control.  I want to point this out to you because it’s very important that you know the difference.  Supposing it’s an unconscious control.  Supposing that I want swiss chard so bad for s, dinner tonight that I can taste it.  And I go to my wife and she’s gonna cook and she has everything else but swiss chard.  So I go up to her and I say, “Well, I want swiss chard tonight.”  She say, “Well, I’m not having it.”  [audience chuckles]  I’ll say, “Well, uh, you know it really means a lot to me.  I would like to have this vegetable.  You know that I always like it.”  And maybe I’m not actually trying to directly control her.  You know what I mean.  I may not intend, I’m not trying to hypnotize her.  I’m not trying to force her to do it.  But what am I doing?  I’m simply trying to influence her and sometimes influence becomes excessive without our realization of it and the first thing you know we have more or less made it a mandatory thing to someone that they must do exactly what we want them to do.  That is not directed, it’s unconscious but it’s intensive.  That’s one form of control.

The other form of control is directed control.  We intend to do it.  “I want swiss chard tonight and if you don’t cook swiss chard tonight, I’ll cut your food budget in half, [laughter] or I’ll hide your fingernail file or I’ll put pepper in your face powder.”  [laughter]  I’ll do something, you know.  You see, we intend to influence the other person.  We’re going to force the issue.  That’s directed control.

Now directed control is not too well liked.  People resist this, don’t they?  But sometimes the subtle form of control we yield to it because we want to please the other person.  It is very important that you, in order to study your being so that you are a master of your world learn what kind of control is being used on you by the other person [someone blowing nose] so that you can decide whether you really wanna do what they’re asking you to do.  You have to learn to turn within and you have to have a mind that is capable of grasping these principles otherwise you’re becoming a puppet and as a puppet you are not really gaining God.

In order to gain self-mastery and mastery over your situation you have to be able to be free from influences in the world that you shouldn’t be affected by and you have to be able to turn of your own choosing to those influences that are good in the world that you want to be influenced by.  Do you see the difference?  It’s very simple.  This is not complicated.  You think this is a complicated lecture, Reverend Schwartz?  [“It’s, it’s very understandable.”]  It’s quite understand­able, isn’ it?  [“Sure.”]  And uh, I feel that it is practical.  And we have to give practical facts to the people in order to face the business of everyday living and attain mastery.

Now, as you know we’re going to have these classes in yoga from our beloved Swamiji that I’ll introduce to you later.  Well, what good would it be if you didn’t have an understanding of all these practical things?  He’s going to teach you practical things [coughing] and contacting God is practical and learning how to control yourself is practical, you see.  this is what the Masters want.

This is the purpose of this whole conference is that we learn how to master our worlds individually.  Well, some people may say, “Well, I’m pretty contented just the way I am.  I don’t really care about all these things.”  Well, of course I could say that I could easily fall into that same rut but then I think of Grandma Moses at seventy years old or something she started to study painting.  I don’t care how old you are or how long you’ve been around.  If you’ve been around too long in this world as far as embodiments go, shame on you!  You should have graduated from this school before.

That was real funny.  I was up in California near San Francisco and there was a man there who’s a, a relative of one of our members that’s here and they wanted him to come over and meet me.  So he had his mind all prepped up that these people had said so many good things about me that he was determined he was going to smash me to the ground.  So, he posed the ultimate question, he said, “If you’re so good”–and I hadn’t said that I was good but he said it–he says, “If you’re so good,” he says “what are you doing down here for anyway?”  [laughter]  So I said, “Beloved Morya, how do I answer this one?”  Master Morya said, “Very simple.  Just tell him that God doesn’t skim off all the cream.”  [laughter]  He leaves somebody down here to teach.  He leaves somebody down here to help.

Well, of course I don’t feel that way.  I don’t feel that I’m the cream or the skim milk.  That’s for you to decide and it’s for God to decide and that’s true of all of us.  But nevertheless, the Masters are pretty clever with their answers, but it didn’t win the man’s attention anyway.  It didn’t even win.  It just made me feel better.  [audience chuckles]

So, you see you have to be very honest in all these matters and someday this man may find the light.

There are certain forces besides words and thoughts that are used to control people and I’m gonna tell you what they are.  One of the things that is used to control people a great deal is our own memory.  In the ancient Egyptian instructions in the inner mysteries we called it the tablets of mem.  We won’t go into that too much but it is, has to do with the polarities and the way the memory is inscribed on the inner vehicle.  Many of these memories should be temporary.  Many of these memories should be blotted out.  There’s an awful lot in memories.  Some of you people are worried about your memories say, my memory is poor.  Well, sometimes we should say “Thank God” because some of the poor memory is a fortunate thing.

But then, there’s a lot of things we should remember you know, and we wanna be able to choose what we should remember but there are many things in our memory that sometimes comes up like these tramp thoughts.  Sometimes it’s the tramp thoughts of people floating in the atmosphere that affects our mind like the Ruhmkorff coil, then again it is the memory processes coming out of our sub­conscious mind.  That’s true.  Then again, it is art forms and music forms that affect us.  So-called music.

Some of the music today–I won’t go into this long–was just actually created in various institutes in Moscow and was actually exported to the United States.  Some of these so-called musical compositions, I believe were manufac­tured by the demons of the whole cloth and I believe the effect they have on people is to absolutely destroy the fine qualities of the soul.  The same is true of art forms, good art forms, good sculptury.  This is very important.

The ancient Greeks, they used these magnificent statues that you see in certain parts of Europe, in Rome and in Greece.  They used these statues for the pregnant mothers to look at during their pregnancy.  The women would sit there and envision the lines of the form, the strong muscular structures you see, the God-like qualities, the straight spine, all of these wonderful qualities.  The mothers would think of these things and consider them divine.  They would consider these were godly qualities and they would build these qualities into the embryo within them during the period of gestation.

These arts are lost to the average person but they will restored in the golden age now coming.  And people will be taught how to produce beauty of consciousness, beauty of art forms, beauty of music, all working together to build the, the real God-qualities into the people of this world from the beginning, from the cradle on, you see.  It’s so much easier if you have this.  You don’t have to go through all of the metaphysical drills and all of the other works to develop these qualities in people if you never destroy them, do you?

If you take the primal power of God right from the beginning and evolve it in the child’s consciousness, he doesn’t have to unlearn what he never learned does he?  You see the point?  It’s very true.

I have ten minutes left and I’m gonna keep on schedule.  We’re gonna try during this conference to do that.

The purpose of life then is dual.  It’s to gain knowledge and to gain experience and you need both.  But you need the right kind of knowledge and you need the right kind of experience and both knowledge, the right kind of knowledge and the right kind of experience will be adjuncts to freedom.  They will be means whereby you can achieve an end and the end will be personal freedom and mastery of yourself.  Do you see that?  It’s really very simple.  Right knowledge, right experience.  What is the end result?  Freedom.

A very important thing in studies in being is who is acting.  You have to learn to determine what force is acting, so ask yourself this question.  Ask yourself when any thought comes to you, who’s thought is that?  Is that my thought or is it someone else’s thought?

If a person is acting in dealing with you, try to determine what their motive is, briefly.  Then learn to take dominion if you feel the wrong condition is acting.  If the influence is not right, but don’t be premature.  Learn to remember one thing–that you don’t have to accept an idea the minute you hear it, but you don’t have to reject it either.  It’s just as dangerous to reject an idea as it is to accept an idea.  If you can see the clarity for your divine mind, your inward attunement through God, if you can see through God that the idea is right, accept it though, don’t delay.  It’s only when you’re in doubt that you should not either accept or reject.  Put it to one side and say, this bears study.  Don’t be afraid to do this.  Don’t be afraid to, to discriminate.

And so, I come now to what I will call the circular staircase in the nature of being.  The circular staircase.  Down at the bottom of this stairs, down at the very bottom we have the embryonic evolution of man.  We have man starting out as a spiritual baby, a little child.  Way at the top here we have the Ascended Master graduating from the evolutions.  In between we have various Masters and we have various people who are mastered.  People who are mastered and there are Masters.

Now, this great circular staircase is leading form the lowest stage in evolution to the highest.  And you know something real funny?  Most of us see only one ring.  We see one ring and you know what?  We don’t understand that this ring has molds.  So I would like a dinner plate sent for.  Will someone bring me a dinner plate?  I am going to show you with a dinner plate exactly what I mean by the molds of evolution because this pertains to you, to your advancement.  And when you understand it, you’re going to feel better at the end of this lecture you’ve ever felt before.  You know why?  Because you’ll understand something about yourself that you probably have not clearly understood before.  I think you knew everything that I’ve said today.  The only thing is you weren’t able to put it all into focus and what’s more, I can’t put it all into focus i, either.  Though we can start.  That’s why I called it “Studies in Being” because being is relative.  Being is not ultimate right now.  It’s only ultimate in the mind of God and the ultimacy of the Mind of God is transcendent.

[plate is delivered to Mark.]  Thank you.  Many, many people think that the nature of being is like this, that it’s absolutely calm and balanced.  It is not.  Many times it is tipped, but you see, you can tip it this way.  You can tip it this way at the same time you’re tipping it that way or you can tip it this way, tip it this way or tip it this way.  You understand?  I mean all the different varieties.  This is the only way I could really show you.  You could even have it this way.  It’s like a flying plate.  Not a flying saucer.  [laughter]

So, when you are down here in your evolution one down here on the ring, when it’s tipped, you see?  In order to be up you have to come right on around don’t you?  But this is really false in one sense, isn’t it?  Because you’re assuming that this is all there is.  You think the only evolution you have is just this circle, this life.  But you see it has spirals stacked like plates stacked all the way in the circular staircase leading all the way up to God and what you have to understand is that these sometimes become tipped for various reasons.

In other words, they are not normal.  You do not have a perfect circle.  You do not have a circle placed perfectly in space.  If you did, you know how it’d work?  It would work as a circular staircase.  It would be a spiral.  One ring and then that ring goes up and then that ring goes up.  You see, it has to tilt a little on a plane as it goes up.  You see what I mean?  [“Um hum.”]  That’s the way it would go up.  But it doesn’t work that way because people sometimes start out on life right at this point and when they’ve gone the whole circle of a lifetime they haven’t gone anyplace.  This is a treadmill.  They don’t, they don’t actually evolve.  The next life they may make up for it.  Maybe they’ll go way up, you see.  Sometimes they go down but the spiral never goes down.  I want you to understand this.  The spiral of being, the total spiral never really goes down.  It’s always ascending, but what you have is a tipping that’s brought about by a configuration of circum­stances.

Take your karma, for example.  Supposing that you decide you’re going to pay off all your karma in one lifetime.  I knew of a man who did that.  He said, “Oh God,” he says, “I want to be a Master.  Please let me pay off all my karma right now.  I’m asking for it.”  Brother, he got it.  [laughter]  He got it.  It come down.  All of it.  Now this is all right if that’s what you want.

Some people say, “Father, give me what I can bear.”  Jesus said, “Not my will, but thine be done.”  That’s the way he took it.  When he knelt in the garden and he knew that on the morrow he faced the crucifixion.  What did the Master say?  He sweat great drops as of blood and he said, “Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me.”  He didn’t want the karma.  Do you see?  In a way he didn’t want it.  But he said, “Not my will, but thine be done.”

And this is the right attitude in the, in the nature of being is to try to develop so that we can absolutely understand this circular s, staircase.  We don’t have isolated rings.  The rings may be subnormal in their mode or they may be normal.  Or they may be supernormal.  Take note of this.  They may be supernormal.

Some of you people in this room have a higher evolution than others.  Some of you have a lower.  Some of you are so-called normal.  It isn’t important to categorize either one of you no matter what state you’re in or it isn’t even important for you to categorize yourself because you have one little ingredient that I’m going to tell you about in closing.  You have God-given free will and you today, if you want to can say, “Father, I have been running around in circles.  Now I want to get down to the serious business of mastering my world.  Father, I ask you to help me.”  And you can change.  You can speed it up.  You can change from a little turtle crawling along to into a hare that can bound and leap.  I won’t guarantee you the turtle won’t get there first and he surely will if you don’t go ahead and keep on running.  You can’t be overly confident but in this business of living, in the studies of being, you yourself are your own teacher.  You can learn from others but in the final analysis the application of what you learn is always dependent on yourself.  God bless you and thank you very much.  [book and paper noises]

Two o’clock right on the head.  [laughter]

We will then have Elizabeth in “Studies on Musical Meditation” a change of pace and I’ll take the plate.  You see, I didn’t have anything to eat.  I went to the airport and picked up Swamiji and Mr. Schein and so now I’m gonna take the plate and fill it.  [laughter]

Thank you.

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This Lecture: “Studies in Being” was given by the Messenger Mark L. Prophet during the Pyramid Conference on October 9, 1969 at La Tourelle, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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