The Odyssey of Self, A Lecture by Mark L. Prophet – October 12, 1969
The Odyssey of Self,
A Lecture by Mark L. Prophet
October 12, 1969
LECTURE TRANSCRIPT
The Odyssey of Self
“The Odyssey of Self” is our subject, and it has to do with the journey of the soul into form and the various problems that are encountered by the emerging ego.
We are all aware of the fact that God has created man in his own image. But somewhere along the line we have a vision of duality. We constantly think of ourselves as a separate individual. We feel that this separate individual is limited. We accept a constant sense of limitation about this separate individual that is not linked with God. And this sense of separation is actually responsible for the severance of the being of man from his Real Self.
Therefore, if we can heal this breach, this sense of a broken tie‑-and that’s a strange expression, isn’t it?‑-a broken tie. You see, it was a tie that God made. He wedded the Self into one. Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder references the union between the duality. And this has been broken; but not in his eyes, only in ours.
But because we have asked for free will, because we have said, “Father, I want to be able to govern my own life, my own world, my own thoughts, to decide what I will do,” because we have asked for this; then, you see, he has given us free will. And it is this free will that has created the severance, the sense of limitation, the odyssey, the journeying away from God.
Some of you have heard of the mystery ship called “The Flying Dutchman.” Man is almost like that. It is as though he is driven by the winds of desire. But man does not understand that the one greatest desire of all, the greatest hunger of all, is the reunion, the reuniting, the retying of the contact between himself and God.
For example, everyone at a certain age becomes activated by the glands of the body. The glands of the body actually flow, and they flow forth an energy. It is not just a physical matter. It is a real, genuine spiritual matter, this flow. And the flow of the glands activates power within the being of man, the creative power; and this creative power drives the youth, young man, young men, to go out into the world and seek for themselves to find a mate.
And, of course, the being of man says to himself: “I am going out to find myself a mate. I have this hunger. I have this need. I must be reunited with someone.” But what is it that causes this? Do you know what it is? It is really the hunger for God.
Now, we will take, we’ve talked about sex very briefly; now we’re going to talk about drink, about strong drinks. And I would like to relate this to Samson, because Samson was no different at his birth than any of you except that he was born a Nazarite‑-I believe that’s correct. You see, no razor had come upon him. And there was actually a significance in this that allowed the creative power of the angels to work through him. He knew certain secret methods whereby he could draw strength from God, and he could wrap his arms around the pillars of a temple, a stone temple, and pull it down‑-what no man could ever do. He was the first superman, you see. And he really was; he really existed, and he did these things. But what man has done, man can do.
And one of the reasons why people love to drink is because it is a temporary substitute for the inhibitions and limitations people have established upon themselves. When they drink, the inhibitions are released temporarily; and they feel good and they are much stronger physically for a time and even a bit more alert for a time. But it is a very short time before the stimulation passes into a torpor, a state of sleep or sleepiness. And the strength does not endure because it’s phony, it’s shoddy.
It’s like a benny that the truck drivers take. They take these amphetamines. And once again we have a state of chemical induction. And this state of chemical induction causes them to feel not in the least bit sleepy; they’re not tired. And once again, energy is released, but where is it released from? It is released from the storehouse of energy that we have and it is depleting what is known as nature’s reserves.
Every human being was built by God with a reserve system, and this reserve system is almost like if you were driving a large truck with a fifty‑gallon tank of gasoline; and then you have another tank of gasoline that has fifty gallons in it. So you use up your first fifty gallons and you’re quite a ways from a station yet, but you know you have enough in that reserve tank to get there; so you open the reserve valve and you continue to drive. But remember, it only has fifty gallons in it. There is a limitation to it.
And this is the way with people. While God has a continual system developed of recharging man, at the same time, if he uses up his normal energy supply and then he uses up, in addition to that energy supply, his reserves‑-honey chile, there ain’t any more after that’s gone.
And I want you to know that there is a very definite relationship, according to Doctor Cowles, with the drop of energy and various psychotic states‑-schizophrenia, paranoia, manic‑depressive states are all induced by the selfsame thing, the dropping of energy.
Man needs to have a certain amount of sleep, and it is essential that he have it. To take, then, a chemical compound and tie into our reserve supply and burn it up is a dangerous thing in itself, because it can permanently or semi-permanently interfere with the normal functions of the mind.
Now, in the odyssey of self we should understand that while we are driven by desires constantly‑-and we are‑-the greatest of all desires that lies behind every desire is a desire for reunion with our Divine Self so that we are free from the limitations that we have accepted as separate human beings.
In some of the demonstrations that Swamiji has made here, you are seeing a self‑realized man, one who realizes God. I think the primary important thing in all of this is that we understand this not as a phenomena that is happening to him but as a phenomena that is our own birthright, each one of us.
Some people are glamorized by the idea of masters, and the masters themselves are not at all interested in the worship or the attention of people for the sake of worship or adoration. They want to impart the reuniting factors to the souls of men so that these men can have the same gifts that they have. But the gifts that they have are not the manifestation of phenomena but the manifestation of union with God. And union with God enables us to enter naturally into the state whereby all things are possible.
You remember Jesus when he stood before the multitudes and said, “All power in heaven and earth is given unto me.” In this odyssey of self I am going to have to tell you something because I feel that this is awfully important. The mayic forces of the world, the forces of delusion, Ahriman‑-call it anything you want to, doesn’t matter. Call him the Devil, call him Maya, call him Satan, Darkness‑-whatever you want to call him. He does seem to have cunning, and we find this cunning in the beautiful, symbolical allegory of the serpent in the garden.
Now the serpent was more subtil than all the beasts of the field. If this thing I am speaking of was easily discovered, no one would be tricked. So you see, the problem involves the faculties of vision. We have the faculties of vision; it is like the retina of the eye. It is like a huge concave mirror, you see. It doesn’t matter‑-this mirror, if it is interfered with, what happens to you? You go to the eye doctor and he corrects this in the lens. But sometimes conditions are so bad in the retina that you cannot correct these matters in the lens. This is because you’ve gone beyond the tolerances of correction in the lens. The only way you really could correct it would be in the retina itself, you see.
I hope I am getting this across to you all right. There are limitations, is what I am trying to say here, to correcting things. And for this reason we have to be very careful with our God‑given faculties of spiritual vision, is what I am trying to convey to you. Because if we introduce the principle of warp, to a certain degree even though we can bring it back, if we have altered the structure, put in too much warp, we may be saddled all the rest of our life with this problem. Do you see what I am talking about? In other words, don’t play with these conditions. Try to preserve your God‑given gifts of both physical and spiritual vision. This is your responsibility.
Now, the dark forces of the world, which I referred to as the Devil and so forth, are very, very subtle; and naturally, they are going to use this subtlety, this craftiness. I had to almost laugh out loud when Swamiji was telling about this maya and about how the master had shown him this demonstration of entanglement, because these things are very entangling, because it is the warp in our vision, our perception, that causes us all these problems.
And I want to recommend to you, then, what I will call spiritual and total honesty. Somewhere along the line many times, people get into a state where thy feel the need to deceive themselves. Now, if this self‑deceit were practiced openly on themselves they would never be able to come out of it; it would be a total entrapment. You see what I am talking about? So be very careful in these matters where you start to deceive yourself.
There is a point along the line when you start to deceive yourself where you know you’re doing it. But after a while it becomes almost a total entrapment because you no longer know you’re doing it; it becomes subtle. It becomes so subtle that you can’t see the self‑deceit, and at that point you are in danger.
Now, it is not enough that God loves you so much that he wants you liberated; it is not enough that the angels love you so much that they want you liberated; it is not enough that your family loves you so much. No one is able to prevent or to cure these conditions at one point after you’ve gone so far, except you.
And sometimes we find that people in the odyssey of self, in this journey along life, are permitted to deviate so far that the deviation creates such an anomaly, such an irregularity in life that it makes them aware of it.
Have you ever traveled along the road and come to a bridge? Just before you got to the bridge, you noticed a huge, a bunch of ridges in, on the roadway, or maybe you’ve noticed yellow lines painted one right after the other for a certain period, and then another set of yellow lines? The yellow lines didn’t work too well, the highway engineers found out, so they actually put ridges in there so that your tires go over these ridges and they almost shake you up. They wake you up because many people were killed by hitting bridge abutments, you see. So they put in these ridges in the road.
And I think sometimes when people deviate very greatly from established norms, it is perhaps an easier thing to detect than when they deviate only a little. I am not recommending to you that you do a lot of evil in order that good may come, now. Don’t misunderstand me. I am merely saying to you that these little subtleties can be a great drain on our consciousness.
One of the masters in one of the Pearls recently pointed out a factor which most chiropractors are familiar with: how that the tie‑up of pain that comes in various parts of the body will engage the energies of the mind. You have a pain in your ankle, we’ll say. Well, your attention flows to the ankle, and at that moment you are tying up a certain percent of your total energy and energy reserve just in having your attention on the pain. This is what is so wearing in illnesses is the fact that the energy goes to the pain and helps to sustain it.
And what is the pain? The pain is only actually a symptom and it is not at all the actual condition. It’s not the cause of the, of the matter at all. You may have a pinched nerve; you may have an acid condition in your stomach. Buy why do you have it, you see? Why do you have the pain? You have the pain because you have the acid condition. But why do you have the acid condition? You have to learn to go back a little bit in this journey to determine these things.
It’s rather difficult for people to get the idea that by reunion with God all their conditions can vanish away, because they don’t all immediately cease the moment you start to follow the spiritual path. You have a residual karma. And I have learned over the years that the mercy of God is almost beyond belief.
I have seen people whose karmic record involved murder, murder of a human being in this life. I have known such people. And I have seen them come to the spiritual path. And I have seen them be able to open their spiritual senses. And I’ve seen them develop discrimination and knowledge of the sacred scriptures of the world. I have seen them develop a love for the masters. I have seen the masters bless them. And I have seen them make changes on the Path in this life.
These people took life. They deprived other human beings of life completely and finally. Yet they have changed and repented. And now God in his great mercy is helping them to find him. This shows how very merciful God is.
And yet, somehow or other along the line, the dark forces of the world have tried so hard to create a terrible image of God. And do you know why they created this terrible image of God? They created this terrible image of God because they were determined to prevent men from coming into their freedom, and they knew that their only chance to obtain freedom was to understand the love of God and the hope that God had for them.
So they have created‑-these angels of light‑-a frightful image of God in the minds of men. And these men who have created this image, these angels of light, are really quite good men. But the evil that lies behind them, that sees to it that they get all this television time and that they seem to be doing so much good work‑-this evil that is behind them is very subtle, very deceitful, because these men don’t realize what they’re doing. They think they’re doing God’s service by creating a bad image of God and making people be repelled by it. Another thing that they do is they give people a false sense of righteousness.
You will find today in the phenomena of our times, some of the great self‑styled saviours who are, to quote almost their own words, “Bringing people to the knowledge of Jesus Christ,” are actually doing a double‑edged sword on the people, and they don’t know it. The men don’t know this themselves because they create a bad image of God on one hand, and on the other hand they create an image of absolute righteousness, self‑righteousness in the people, because the people listen to them.
And they tell them‑-they take one verse out of the scriptures here in America‑-they say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Now that is true, but belief does not mean just an act of saying, “Yes, I believe that Jesus lived. Yes, I believe that Jesus died for me. Yes, I believe; I just believe in God.”
Belief, when it is properly practiced, involves action. And of course, these people will hasten to tell you that they are involving people in righteousness and in action. But in an examination, now, of close to forty years of examining people myself, I have found that there is more self‑righteousness involved in these phenomena than genuine God‑centeredness.
I am not going to apply this to everyone wholesale, nor do I apply it even to individuals; but I asked God with all my heart as a child to give me a vision, and he gave me inner vision and it works. It is not a pseudo thing. It’s not a condemnatory thing. I don’t use it to condemn anyone. I have truly tried, and he has shown me how to exhibit the quality of grace toward men. I can’t help occasionally that someone misunderstands me.
People will misunderstand Swamiji. There were many people in Detroit, Michigan, that saw him there that were not too overly impressed with him. Ridiculous thing, of course. I say this not because for one minute I would ever deprecate him. I would never do that. I think the world of him. But I say it to show you that some people do not have any vision to recognize his mastery.
You see, the vision is in ourselves. And in the journey of becoming more than just this limited half a man, we must be able to develop, first of all, the power of an educated vision.
But by whom do we wish to be educated? Out of books? By some person that has no realization? By a teacher in a university who may or may not have the knowledge of God? No.
Now I think it’s fine if you have a professor in a university that has God’s knowledge. This is ideal, this is wonderful; this the ideal thing of the coming age, will be the professor and teacher who has a faith in God. This is the key to the salvation of our young people.
But coming back to my point, who do we wish to have educate our vision? I say to you that the sages, the sages who know‑-and you have to be careful who you select‑-and those that you can hear that have had experience for themselves; if they’ve had no experience for themselves, how can they tell you? Would you want to be operated on in a hospital by someone who had read in a book how to perform surgery, or would you rather be operated on‑-if you had to be, God forbid‑-would you rather be operated on by someone who was trained by a master surgeon and who started practicing perhaps under the direction and tutelage of this surgeon, and finally now, after many years of practice, was proficient in his art? I am sure you would take the latter.
But in matters of the Spirit, people commit themselves to the most ignorant sadhu who proclaims that he is a self-appointed great soul. He’s going to show everybody how to find God. And most of the time what are these people doing? They’re showing people how to find bigotry. And this is absolutely true.
I remember, several years ago‑-and I think I will interrupt this a little bit just to tell you this story‑-I was in Washington, D.C. wearing the army uniform of the United States Air Force. I was walking down the street. A man came out, standing on the sidewalk and he said, “Look at this sign.” I looked and it said “Morning Cheer Coffee Center.” And I said, “Yes.”
And he said, “Soldier, we have coffee upstairs and doughnuts, all free.”
“Well,” I said, “I am not very hungry.”
“Oh, come on.” He grabbed my arm. He says, “Come on, it’s free. Come on. Go upstairs.” I didn’t know that I was walking into a religious trap, but I was going into a religious trap. There was a spider sitting in there, and I was the fly. [laughter] So I gingerly walked in, you know, went up to the counter‑-I was quite young and a little embarrassed, strangers bothered me a little, I had an inclination toward timidity.
And I went in and the lady poured me the coffee, and almost with shaking hands I grabbed this cup of coffee, I took a doughnut, and I started for my chair and I sat down there.
I was just pulling myself into a state of peace when suddenly I looked across the room and, and there a man about the size of Hans Schmidt. Is Hans here? [laughter] Is he here? [response] Right here. Well, Hans is a good‑sized man‑-he was about Hans’ size and he had a Bible almost as big as he was. He came running across the room and he took this huge Bible and he hurled it down on top of my table‑-[“thud” sound] like that‑-and the coffee almost jumped out of the cup [laughter] and he said, “Brother, are you saved? Do you know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour?” Well, this was the first, this was my first attack in this manner. And I call it an attack because I looked up at him.
And then I regained my composure and I said, “Yes, I do know him. I am quite well acquainted with him. In fact, he’s a good friend of mine.” And this so startled the man that he almost dropped his false teeth. [laughter]
But he said, “How come, how does this come about, how come you know him?”
“Well,” I said, “do you think that you’re the only one that knows him?”
And so we got into quite a session there, and he found out that I was a mystic. But he didn’t like mystics. They had to have come through the Baptist or the Methodist or the Presbyterian or the Episcopalian or some church with which he was familiar. He didn’t like mystics. So he said, ” I think that you’re a little bit too hot for me to handle.” He didn’t tell me that just in those words but he said, “I’d like to have you come and meet my pastor.”
So I said, “All right, I’ll go.” I said, “Where’s your pastor?”
He says, “Out near Brandywine, Maryland.”
Well, I didn’t like the name very well, but I thought, “All right, I’ll go out there.”
So we went out in the car and I found his pastor, who was a nice young man with a pair of spectacles on‑-and I didn’t wear them at the time‑-and so I shook hands and he looked like a scholar and a gentleman.
So he said, “Why don’t you stay for dinner with us tonight?”
So I said, “All right.”
So I sat there and this was the approach, now, of the Christian church on me. I am sitting there having dinner with them and I enjoyed my meat and potatoes, pickles and bread and everything else, and just as I came down to a huge piece of chocolate cake, the man looked at me and he said, “You know, in the Christian Bible here it says that I am not supposed to eat with anyone like you.”
Oh, happy day! [laughter] I had the fork ready to cut the chocolate cake and I laid it down. I looked at him and I said, “I will have no more food and if I had any way of getting rid of what I have eaten, I would give it back to you [laughter] because this is the last thing in the world that I want to do,” I said, “is to eat with you if you don’t want me to. And may I say to you, sir, that I think you are very rude and a very rude person and a very unspiritual man because,” I said, “if this is a principle that you loved and that you believed in, then,” I said, “you should have told me before you invited me to eat, because you knew it then‑-not after I’ve eaten your food and embarrassed me publicly before your friends.”
I says, “Do you believe that this is Christ?” I said, “I don’t believe it’s Christ.” And I said, “If you will please excuse me, I’d like to leave your home.” So I went to the door and I stood there, and I said three or four more things on this order‑-not mean, but just determined and firm. Well, I got approached by this huge big man two or three days later downtown, and he said, “You know, you really hurt our brother.”
I said, “I am very sorry. What happened?”
He said, “Why, he prayed all night after you talked to him.” And he said, “You know something else?” He said, “He prayed to God,” he said, “for forgiveness because he realized he was wrong.”
“Well,” I said, “I am very glad.”
Now the reason I’ve told you this story is to show you that by the basis of common sense people are often aware, completely separate from dogma, that they are right or wrong in their own conscience, you see. Do you understand that they know themselves whether they’re right or wrong, what, what action they’re taking? And people really want to be good.
This is why these ministers that get up on television with all of their campaigns that seem so helpful to people are really doing such great harm because they will be the first to tell you that God has a hell where he punishes people, a hell that burns with brimstone; that you have only one life, therefore you better watch out because if you muff this one, brother, you’ve had it in this odyssey of self. You are going to burn for all eternity. And they usually say this with their tongue rolling around their mouth as though they relished the idea. In other words, they relish the idea of your burning rather than their burning. [laughter]
Now I am not so foolish, nor do I think you are, as to realize‑-and I’ve done this on some of the rides in fairgrounds where you get on one of these rides and you go up in the air and you say, “LORD, I am on this ride and I am up here in the air and there’s nothing I can do about it. If it breaks, it breaks. I am going to sit here and tough it out.” [laughter]
I know I am delaying with a superior force, and I have recognized this many times in my own life. I’ve said to God, “Now you’re God, and I know very well that if you wanted to put me in hell that you could do it, and there’s nothing I could really do about it, not really. If my desires to do wrong were so strong that I would insist on doing wrong, I would insist on it, you see, regardless of the consequences, well, then, I am sure that what you say you can do is true.”
And I feel this is absolutely true, that God can do what he wants to do. But I do not believe that the Father has in mind doing this anymore than I would with my son Sean. If Sean were to do evil and I would have to punish him, then punish him I would. But throw him in an oven or tie him hand and feet and cook him alive is something I would not do no matter what he did that was wrong.
And to attribute to the heavenly Father the quality of wanting to burn people forever and ever and have them suffer in pain when God is such a beautiful God, has made such a beautiful world to believe that such a Machiavellian picture of God could still be alive today in the twentieth century is beyond belief, and the only way it could be sustained is by the powers of darkness.
The powers of darkness have tricked our young people quite successfully because the young people are absolutely right in rejecting a religion that conveys such false teachings. And of course, the enemy knew this when he created the teachings. He knew this. He knew how to drive people toward the wrong way. He knew how to drive them to drink, to sex, to dope, to everything‑-when the reason why they go to drink, to sex and dope and all of these things is to try to overcome their limitations, temporarily, to feel important, to have enjoyment.
Well, if they can have enjoyment in God that far exceeds these other matters‑-and I can certainly tell you, you can‑-Swamiji will tell you you can, and any self‑realized person will tell you they can‑-well, if you can, then why in the world should you seek out these other things that will only pull you down karmically to a place where your lives will hardly become worth living?
If you don’t believe that, you look at Bishop Pike’s son. He’s dead. And why did he die? Why did this son of a man who is world famous, this son of a man who had everything‑-had plenty of money, he could travel all over the world and the finest education‑-why did this son see nothing in life that was worth his living here?
And why did his father with all this great, gigantic span of wisdom not have enough wisdom to be able to detect in his son that these things were coming in time to, to stop it and save him? It shows obviously, then, that the intellect itself, which is the intelling‑-it’s really the intelling of the powers of observation of the man according to his own capacity to observe life and evaluate it.
That’s what the intelling is, the intellect. This is different than the mind which is linked with the Christ and with God. You see, the mind has its own native ability; the mind has its own capacity to reach out and know everything. The intellect has to get everything through books and through the five senses.
Some of you are aware that I was Professor Longfellow in my last life. But do you know that I never even finished high school in this one? Now, do I seem to you to be an uneducated person? [response] Do you think that I am? Now, I am not bringing this out for self‑glory, and I know that you people know that. I mean, you know better than that because I wouldn’t stand a chance of deceiving my God if I stood up here and I said to myself, “I am going to make these people think I am great.” Do you think God wouldn’t know that?
And there’s enough people in this place (including Swamiji) that would soon detect my awful consciousness of self‑ego, and I wouldn’t have gotten to first base. I wouldn’t even be able to sit in this place with you. I wouldn’t be worthy of sitting here, let alone being up here talking to you.
I am your servant because I am his servant. And all of us, in our service to life in this whole journey, this odyssey of self, are going to be able‑-when we cut ourselves free from delusion, when we, as Saint Paul said, “Gird up the loins of your mind,” when we begin to pull ourselves together and see what a bundle of reality we are instead of a bundle of unreality‑-then this journey will be a controlled journey instead of an uncontrolled one.
At the present time, you see, we have a situation where we’re going down a great river, and as we go down this great river we come around a bend and suddenly there’s a huge waterfall, a rapids, below. When we hit this rapids our boat is bobbing up and down, and we’re fighting for our life. Well, we get through the rapids all right after a terrific struggle and we come to a very calm pond. Now we row across the pond.
When we’re in the rapids there, we’re fighting for our life. We’re very unhappy. We’re struggling. When we hit the pond then we’re all very calm and sweet and well‑behaved. Here is the whole thing in the odyssey of life. Anybody can be well‑behaved on a still pond, but can anybody be well‑behaved on a rapids? This is the test of the man. This is the test that comes to us in order to show us that we have mastered the calmness of mind that God is.
And this is why many of the yogis know this in the caves of the Himalayas, that they have devotees over there who can do all the most wonderful things. But as Swamiji said, he would not be able, he said, to live in the civilization that we live in without, of course, his periods of meditation and his achievement and his attunement, you see. Yet we are doing it without his achievement, without his attunement, without all of this development.
So I have long contended, in the matter of disciples coming here to live in this ashram, I have long ago contended that if they stayed at home in Nebraska or Tennessee and lived in a little house up in the hills somewhere where they didn’t have any contact with people, that their dispositions would probably be very calm and sweet. But when they come in here where they are rubbing elbows with everyone else, that then the ego is tested to see whether it can really be capable of manifesting sweetness.
Now, to be very honest with you, these qualities are not your own. A person that comes in here and masters his life here in the Summit headquarters, a person that becomes a complete devotee of the light, when he makes his victory, it’s really done through God. I will kid you not.
But at the same time everyone that comes in here says first of all, “Well, I am going to try to see if I can do it.” Well, they can’t. None of us could. No one can, even the great swamis; they know this. The greatest of them know that man himself cannot do it.
But God has created a mechanism in the universe‑-not just one but a series of mechanisms. He has created a series of saints that are real. And all of these people, together with the mechanisms, when they’re properly utilized, will enable us to understand how we can navigate the subtle world. And when we can navigate the subtle world, then life and death are meaningless to us as far as being a curse or ugly. They become beautiful. Both death and life are the same.
This is how you foil the power of yama, you see, the power of death. You foil it because‑-what does the Bible say? “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
But what did the psalmist say? “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
“Thou preparest a table…in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
What does the world do with that? You know what the world does with that? They say, “The Chevy is my auto and I shall not want another. It leadeth me beside the repair shops; it vexeth my soul. Its rods and its pistons annoy me. It has a breakdown in the presence of mine enemies. If this thing shall follow me all the days of my life, I shall dwell in the bughouse forever.” [laughter]
This is what people say. You see how they turn the sublime into the ridiculous? And we’ll all laugh at it because it is funny. But how many of us can actually live in the consciousness of the calm flow of the river and be a calm river regardless of whether we have the rapids or whether we have the rocks or whether we have the calm sea?
You see what I mean? This is the odyssey of life. You take it. You live it. Thank you.
END
NOTE: Bold = Bible quotes. This Lecture, “The Odyssey of Self” was given by the Messenger Mark L. Prophet during the Pyramid Conference on October 12, 1969 at La Tourelle, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Mark Prophet – the Ascended Master Lanello
Mark Prophet ascended on February 26, 1973 and is known as the ascended master Lanello.
Behold! I AM Everywhere in the Consciousness of God!
Mark Prophet opened the door to heaven for us all. That’s how we know what we know about the Brotherhood and the path of the ascension. This is the meaning of the thread of contact.
He held it for us and never let go of it until he could place it in our hands and trust us to not let go. This is the meaning of hierarchy and the lineage of all who go before and after us. This thread is fragile and so is the grasp upon it.
“Behold! I AM everywhere in the consciousness of God!” That’s the mantra of Lanello. And one day you can wake up and be there—not in the afterlife but right here and now, forever there and ever here. You can live in two worlds at once—in God’s consciousness and yet fulfilling your physical responsibilities on earth.
This mantra is, was and ever shall be the communion of the saints that transcends all octaves and time and space, worlds without end: “Behold! I AM everywhere in the consciousness of God!”
Mark’s Hope: Contact Your Higher Self
Mark’s hope for us was and is that our souls will rise in a burst of joy and creativity through the discovery that we can truly contact the Mind of God through the Christ Self and the sacred fire raised to the crown chakra. His hope for us is that the Mind of God in us will be the open door to eternity and to the fulfillment of the spirals of our Causal Bodies here on earth.
Why Mark Prophet Ascended
One of the key reasons that Mark took his ascension was to see to it that the children of the light upon earth might traverse the dark abyss of the astral plane and arrive at their proper position, either in the etheric plane or in the octaves of light.
He wanted to collect all of us together. And the only way he could do it was to be everywhere in the consciousness of God. And so he took his leave of us and ascended.
Mother gave us a message of hope after Mark’s ascension. She said, “I know that through the sacred heart of Jesus and the immaculate heart of Mother Mary, Mark, as Lanello, has a direct tie to every soul of light on earth. I know that you can pull upon his mantle at any hour of the day or night and speak to him. Tell him of a need, personal or planetary, and he will answer that need to the fullest extent that the Great Law will allow.
“And I know that he is as fiercely dedicated to liberating each one of you here today and all who shall ever read these words as he was and is to liberating my soul unto the final victory of the ascension.
“For those of you who are beginning to understand the meaning of the fusion of heaven and earth through the Presence of Lanello, know that you have a Guru that you can hug. Know that you can hold on to that mantle and that you can tug. Know that you can talk to him, whether about the most mundane and simple things or about the most complex laws of the universe.
“He could explain the stars and he could point out all of the plots and ploys of the fallen ones designed to make us indulge our human consciousness and to detract us from the path of life.”
Mark Prophet Loved People
Lanello is a man who always loved life and loved people. There is nothing that would have delighted him more than to have remained in embodiment for two- or five-hundred years going all over the planet, loving people and talking to them. He just loved to talk to people and never ceased to be interested in people of all sorts.
Mark used to travel across the country. And wherever he would go—a café, a drug store, a gas station—he would stop and talk to the working people. He loved the working people. Mark Prophet is the guru of the little people, the farmers, the laboring classes all over America—as well as everybody else’s guru.
And so for him, to ascend was the ultimate sacrifice so that we could arrive at this point to serve in our mission. Mark worked hard and he worked long. He loved enough to master himself. Self-mastery is the key to adeptship. And Mark certainly demonstrated this.
Lanello, our Ever-Present Guru
And now as the Ascended Master Lanello, he still holds this love for us all. You may contact the magnanimous heart of Lanello, our Ever-Present Guru, through playing the melody “Greensleeves.” The keynote of his identity is contained within the notes of this musical rendition.
Those of us who knew Mark have formed the habit of writing letters to Lanello, telling him of our wants and desires, our burdens, our hopes and wishes. We place these short notes either in our copy of Climb the Highest Mountain or in the Bible and leave them for Lanello to fill. And do you know, he answers almost all our ordinate desires—those that are in accordance with the will of God.
The answer is not always instantaneous, but it is fun to look back over our lists after a period of time and see how many have been answered. Perhaps you would like to join us in this exercise. It is not too late!
In Lanello we have our model for victory. He is our living Guru. Always remember that he is saying to you and to me, “You, too, can make it if you TRY! You can make it in this very life!”
Saint Germain has told us, “Death is either the doorway to infinity or a point of reentry whereby man must eventually return to the finite to undo and redo and to finish that which he has left undone.”
For Mark Prophet, death and hell were swallowed up in Christ’s victory. Truly, Mark lived and died and ascended for his principles and his loves, which were God’s. He exchanged the body terrestrial for the body celestial (1 Cor. 15:40) that we all might live. We have come to know one who walked among us, who knew God and who became one with his everlasting consciousness. He bids us do the same. He takes our hand. He shows us the way.
And yet, Mark traveled a long and hard road in this embodiment to find his way. It was not easy. He began a long, personal search, with many experiences and great disappointments in searching for God.
He found that the religions of the world, and even the alternative movements, were not always what he thought they should be. But he kept right on searching. And somewhere along the line, the Ascended Master El Morya made his appearance. We have all heard, “When the pupil is ready, the Teacher appears.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE | SONG 514 TO OUR BELOVED LANELLO | CLICK HERE TO WATCH MARK’S MOVIE
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