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Spiritual Evolution By Richard Kieninger Introduction “Great problems evolve
great people; worthy challenges elicit growth.” Such seems to have been the
guiding philosophy of the Angelic creators of our planetary environment. We find
ourselves continually having to work in order to grow and survive. No picking
bananas off the trees for us! Fortunately, we as humans
have developed an effective and apparently essential means for meeting the
challenge of evolving ourselves to cope successfully with life. We call it
civilization. The basics of security and the fulfillment of bodily and
emotional needs are provided only by interaction and interdependence with
others. Civilization enables the social linkages with others that we seem to crave;
linkages of affection, compassion, shared goals and shared beliefs. A highly
developed society provides the opportunity for the social interactions that
are essential to our spiritual advancement. Responsibility Among the many essential requirements
for forming a civilization, one is an attitude of personal responsibility. An
individual who has assumed personal responsibility for what is occurring in
his environment will immediately recognize other individuals who have also
assumed responsibility. Only such as these can truly co-operate. Only such as
these have any concept of the meaning of the word trust. And what then is the
definition of responsibility? It is closely related to the word, ownership.
Responsibility is perhaps best seen as an attitude toward oneself and one’s
environment. Responsibility implies awareness of events and forces in the
environment. It implies an appreciation of those things that are most
important to attend to in relation to those things of less importance. Responsibility
is the ability to establish a hierarchy of importances for decision-making
and action in the flow of environmental events. Such an awareness and ability
requires Discernment, Precision, Courage, Efficiency and Patience.
Responsibility therefore implies the practice of the twelve Great Virtues as
an individual relates to problems and to other people in the environment. A responsible person says;
“Now I will do this”; and then he actually does it. He will confront an error
of his own or any other person’s as a problem to be solved. He will say, “I
did it;” and then he will fix it. The responsible answer to any error is—“fix
it.” Self-blame and the blame of others is a distortion of responsibility. A responsible person is
someone who deals with his environment as though he had ownership of it. Not
exclusive power over it, but stewardship of it. A successful farmer does not
stomp on his crop if it is poorly, nor does he blame his neighbor and curse
the weather. He tends to his crop, he helps his neighbor, he bows to the
weather and he attempts to steer his course in as serene a tone as possible.
The earth has taught him this. A responsible person does his work and
co-operates with others in mutual endeavors like a successful farmer deals
with farming. The benefits to be enjoyed
from the co-operation of responsible people await us as we continue to evolve
ourselves; since co-operation is a more civilized, more harmonious, and more
happy way to be than are the currently prevalent political struggles. (As an exercise, test the
validity of the following statement in various areas of your life: “A person
cannot be denied control, either operating or co-operating, of that part of
his environment for which he or she is willing and able to be responsible.” Where
does this seem to be true and where not? Why not?) Love The most crippling disease known to man, which most surely blocks any hope of spiritual evolution, is the lack of love. Human beings are social creatures because of their dependency on each other for the love which nurtures the emotional aspect of their Egoic minds. Our psychological make-up purposely was created with this need.
Striving for power or
material gains becomes a substitute for love for some persons, but the
majority suffer a malaise of spirit which keeps them from being successful at
anything. A sense of unworthiness dogs the person who experiences no love,
and this results in depression and defeatism. It is difficult to learn
how to love and be loved if one enters adulthood without having acquired a
loving nature in early childhood. However, many grown persons have
determinedly managed to learn how to love. Acquiring this ability is
intimately tied to one’s achievement of emotional maturity and mental health.
The crux of the problem lies with the fact that most babies are given no love
because their parents are incapable of loving. There is a far cry between a
person fulfilling their paternal/maternal instincts and being able to love
their child. A child is intended to take
in love along with his mother’s milk, and he quickly learns to love in return
at a tender age. The emotionally mature, loving parents rear children who
learn how to love by example, and the children come to expect that the world
is a loving place. Such children are a delight because of their own loving
nature, which is a reflection of their environment. They are well on their
way to becoming capable, confident, outgoing youngsters who will engage with
life in a zestful, creative manner and be able to cope successfully with the
problems of life. Moreover, these healthy-minded people develop a sense of
acceptance of themselves because their successes engender a sense of personal
worth as well as the ability to love themselves. When a person is feeling on
top of the world, when he can find joy in everything he does, and when he
finds good in everyone he knows, then he expresses love in the most expansive
terms—he loves God and man and needs not hoard his or her love. We all tend to envy the
loving person because he is so attractive to others. How, then, does one
learn how to love and thus attract even more love into one’s environment? The
key lies in developing self-worth, and this depends upon performing and
accomplishing in accordance with one’s higher ideals; so we are talking about
an aspect of emotional maturity again. Acquiring the Great Virtues, being
recognized for one’s contribution of skills, practicing love of Christ, and
accepting responsibility in serving others are the paths to self-worth and
self-love; and these in turn eventually allow one to give love and become an
open channel for it. Love supplants fear and hate; and inasmuch as bodily
ills, insanity, bigotry and warlike tendencies spring from fear and hate, the
loving person is free of these destructive, crippling conditions. Indeed, he
or she becomes attuned to Christ’s work for mankind’s spiritual evolution. Self-Discipline Just as our personal
spiritual evolution requires attunement to love, as well as a firm sense of
personal responsibility for the direction of our development, so too the
advantages of self-discipline need to be clearly in mind in order to overcome
lifetimes of Edenic procrastination. Without making an
investment in emotional discipline, one cannot enjoy peace of mind; without
training oneself to achieve self-excellence, one is bound to mediocrity;
without fortifying oneself against the demands of life, one is cast about
helplessly by it. Self-effort and self-disciplining are the keys to achieving
the truly worthwhile advantages life has to offer. Indeed, no one has ever
achieved Initiation in the Brotherhoods by waiting for his innate potentials
to bloom of themselves. Enlightenment must be fought for, and victory over
one’s smugness and laziness is universally hard won. The person who earnestly
seeks to improve himself attracts the assistance of the Brotherhoods. When he
really begins to make headway over his shortcomings, he begins to encounter
circumstances to test him and make him grow. The more successful he becomes
in acquiring the techniques of self-advancement, the more strenuous are the
challenges to stretch his growth in a more accelerated way. However, the
extent of the difficult circumstances brought into the aspirant’s life is
limited by design to effect optimum growth and to not crush or break. The challenges presented to
those who would achieve Initiation into the Brotherhoods are not harsh but
they are exacting. When a man or woman becomes a Brother, the devotion expected
of him or her is total. The Brotherhoods know that one who has been selected
as an Initiate can carry out assignments and will not deviate from the work
for which he is made responsible because he has proven himself many times
over. The task of returning true
civilization to our planet is complex and the timetable precise. Failure to
preserve civilization at this critical time could mean the loss of the
opportunity for further advancement of hundreds of millions of deserving
Egos. The battle against evil entities demands unwavering strength and faith
in every Brother, and Melchizedek has ever been wont to expect that a Brother
give everything to this most important of all programs—establishing the
Nation of God. There can be nothing more vital to mankind. As Christ,
Melchizedek frequently called for His followers to give up family and
comforts and even to risk being martyred for God’s work. The main purpose for
creating the Brotherhoods thousands of years ago will come to its
consummation in our lifetime. The efforts of millions of Masters who have
studied the successes and weaknesses of man’s every attempt at civilization
are being focused upon the Great Program at hand. This vast concerted power
of the Holy Spirit now being brought to bear upon the problems of preserving
mankind became possible only through the dedication and discipline of its
Members. Every person who would like
to control his own destiny, emotions and environment is really seeking to
bring order into his or her life. This requires that he comes to understand
himself and his relationship to others in the context of his society, but
first of all he must make the effort to study himself and analyze his
situation. (As an exercise, list ten
essential factors for building and maintaining an environment which would
lend itself to enhancing the evolution of your maturity, wisdom,
consciousness, creativity and ability to love. Using this list of essential
pre-requisites, how would you describe the active process of spiritual
evolution in your life?) Growth Egoic growth is the
accumulation of knowledge by the Ego over many, many incarnations. The sum of
this knowledge, which must be acquired by actual experience, is referred to
as the soul. An Ego is created by God with all the mental attributes needed
to acquire knowledge and to retain the essence of all he learns. An Ego is
eternal, and his or her soul is built by knowledge. An Ego’s character is
acquired through the practice of the virtues by his own efforts. The mind is
the exclusive agency of Egoic soul growth. The Ego is individualized mind,
and conscious mentation is the tool for his self-enhancement. The physical
world and our physical bodies have been contrived by our Creators to impose
growth-engendering experiences upon us from infancy on, and these experiences
are the opportunities and avenues for acquiring knowledge about ourselves and
the Universe. But it is not those experiences themselves which provide soul
growth but rather how we respond to those experiences and what we think about
them. This knowledge survives the mortal vehicles we occupy, and therefore
such growth is spiritual as well as a function of a given brain’s memory.
Spiritual growth, soul growth, and Egoic growth are identical and proceed
exclusively from conscious awareness and analysis. The bringing into balance
one’s mentality, practicality and ideality is a measure of one’s spiritual
evolution. A key to rapid Egoic
advancement is one’s development of self-esteem by becoming demonstrably and
self-evidently useful, needed, and important to the Great Plan. The
acquisition or realization of self-esteem opens channels to the power of Love
emanating from God. This indeed is like opening a magic door to human insight
and oneness with God. The Christ Consciousness Within spoken of by the great
Masters is simply the ability to receive Love, to let it flow through one’s
Egoic being, and to become a concentrating focus of Love, which naturally
involves redirecting it. Therein lies the ability to truly love one’s fellow
men and feel the joyful emotions which love engenders as it manifests through
one’s mind. Those persons who have opened the channels of Love find all other
powers naturally and easily added unto themselves. Their practice of the
Great Virtues ceases to be a struggle. Those who have acquired a Christ
Consciousness no longer need laws imposed from outside of themselves, for
they do not do hurtful or selfish things to another person or allow
themselves to leave Christ’s Work undone. |
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