Vol. 25 No. 59 - Beloved Paul the Venetian - August 27, 1982
Retreat of the Seven Chohans of the Rays
V
Message of the Chohan of the Third Ray
The Next Step
As you listen, my beloved, to the cadences of the music, you hear another anthem of the free. <1> The repetition of the theme in joy and in acceleration is understood by the free to be the repetition of the mantra whereby the beats of the hours and the days and the years must reconfirm in this Matter vessel the true freedom of the soul.
I AM the power of light that makes you right.
I AM the power of light that makes you right.
I AM the power of light that makes you right.
The fiat of the I AM is a descent, a continuous stream of spheres of light—each one itself a world of love, each one containing the very necessary I AM affirmation for the confirmation of your liberty in this hour.
This I would teach you: that as you are one with the inner Guru, the Christ Self, and communing under your own vine and fig tree, you must begin to generate the mantra of the Word of Love—the mantra that affirms the very next point of attainment, the very next step, until you come to the place where you no longer think and exercise deliberation in taking that step, anymore than you would in merely walking down the street. It becomes the response. The thought before the act is already contained in the act in the state of descending—right, left, right, left.
And thus, you see, there is an I AM affirmation for the next step that you see on your path—a door that must be opened by your hand, a step that must be taken.
Therefore, in the motion of the descent of the spheres of light, there is also the mantra, the I AM affirmation that affirms that right step just before the moment the step is taken and also congruent with that step. And therefore, when you listen to the music of Beethoven, you hear a thousand million cadences of the rhythm of your heart pronouncing the I AM Be-ness, the I AM affirmation that “I AM the fullness of perfect love in this act, in this. To the right, to the left—I go, I move, forward marching!”
And thus, you see, when you are not in form and not fit, physically or otherwise, sometimes you tend to contemplate the next step from the armchair of life. But it is a bit too much of an exertion to get up and begin those exercises and begin the movement of the heart. And therefore, sometimes acts are performed mentally or in the future. And they die, never coming to full physical manifestation, because there is a confusion concerning action and thought.
Thought is action in the process of formation, but it is not action and therefore cannot yet be counted for good karma until the act truly is the fullness of a deed—heartfelt, contemplated, affirmed, and thrust forward.
Thus, I come as the Chohan of the Third Ray. Some of you know me very little and some not at all. Some of you know me only in your own exercise of the prerogative to manifest the action of love.
Now, the fullness of love cannot be love unless it is action. Contemplated love or the mere repetition of words may occupy one’s fancy, but love in action is the measure of a heart united with mind and soul.
Therefore, as I come, I bring to you perhaps an understanding of your own soul’s psychology in relationship to El Morya and beloved Lord Lanto. For you see, your hearts wax fervent in love for the will of God, in joy in the presence of El Morya, and in the study of the wisdom teachings. But there is a general confusion, if I might say, among the students (which is akin to the confusion on this planetary home) that the contemplated action, the happiness, the enjoyment of another’s attainment is the equivalent of the attainment of the third ray, love itself.
Some actually suppose that the words “I love you” carry the full force of its commitment and fulfillment. Not so. It is a mantra that must be fulfilled by a keen perception of the needs and demands of every part of life and what ought to be the next givingness of self. Therefore, you see, it is easy to mistake one’s contemplated love of the masters, the activity, the messenger, and so forth with an inaction that does not complete the cycle.
Here, then, we roll up our sleeves and realize that the love of the third ray and its chohan, its disciplines, its chelas—must now carry forward those plans, those teachings, those advices given, already recorded, that now deserve to be made physical. And the measure of everyone’s cup of love must be that which is brought forth and brought to the full flowering and the fruit of the Tree of Life.
Let us, then, carefully define what are those spirals yet to be completed—the contemplated life’s journey. Each one has a sense of self-knowledge of that which is to be accomplished. Do not think that thinking about it will make it so! Thinking about it and yet not achieving will result, in the hour of transition, in the necessity of going back to begin again, to start again, and once again to understand that the mighty work of the ages must be here on earth a shrine to the living, to the free, to the little ones, and to the LORD himself who dwells with his people.
Now, therefore, I would converse with you concerning the step not taken—the step contemplated and often resisted until resistance itself becomes habit and a momentum and a coil wound tight around the spine of being. And this pole of being, then, once set with that habit, becomes an act no longer reviewed or questioned. It simply becomes a self-acceptance, “Well, this is the way I am. People will have to accept me the way I am. This is my level of service. This is all I intend to give. Others will have to do the rest.”
Well, the fallacy in this is not self-knowledge and defining one’s potential, for it is good to understand one’s capacity and not to commit more than one can. But the fallacy is, beloved heart, the sense that one can rest on any plateau or arrive at a set of definitions for one’s life or personality, seal them with a sealing wax, make the imprint of the seal of oneself and say, “As it is, so it is. So be it. I have spoken.”
Now, this is the human ego that would hold captive and prisoner the soul to a certain level of the knowns, a certain level of stability. But unknowingly it would keep the soul there, and it would convince the soul that no other progress can or should be made and that its current level of attainment is sufficient unto all things.
How can this state of mind, I ask you, be reconciled with the upward-spiraling, self-transcending movement of the galaxies, of God himself, of the ascended masters and their circles of chelas, all of whom and all of which are moving through cosmos at colossal speeds toward the Central Sun?
Let us take care, then, that self-assessment does not result in the inertia of rest and that such inertia is not confused with the lawful state of samadhi or of nirvana. Contrary to any human opinion whatsoever, these higher states of consciousness are those of movement even within the point and the heart of the rest.
I trust, then, that you will understand when I say that I have come to spin your tops! I have come to increase the movement and to give you the inner sense of timing, a timing that reflects now your I AM Presence and the inner vow to become all that you are. Why, becoming all that you are—this is what you sing and dance and pray and live and work about! But this becoming is a movement, requiring diligence and an intimate knowledge of the ruby ray, which is always self-sacrificing.
Each day when you come before the altar of your I AM Presence, remember: it is the hour of sacrifice. It would be well to consider, “What shall I sacrifice upon the altar this day?”
Perhaps I needn’t tell you but I shall, that in order to set now a new forcefield and point of the eye of this mystical body of God moving together, we must first, of course, have had to accelerate and adjust the alignment of our own messenger. And therefore, it does become apparent in her heart that many who come here come desiring to bring bag and baggage of a former life, considering that the former attainment is also acceptable for the new matrix.
It is as simple as this: You cannot pour the old wine into the new bottle. <2> You cannot say, “Montana, here I come, just as I am. Take me or leave me, but here I am!” You must also realize that there are certain ways of consciousness, certain devious ways of avoiding the encounter with your own Christ Self, that simply must go. They must go into the flame if you would truly find a new place in the sun.
And if you would truly rise in chelaship and follow the seven chohans to the heart of the Maha Chohan, you must come up higher. In fact, this higher ground is a compelling of the LORD that will also keep away those who have thought to indulge the outer senses in the presence of our angels.
And therefore, see how the mountain calls! And the call of love is to those who respond to a vibration that is compelling. And contained within itself is the ray of love that shows each one the blessed teaching, each one how to do better and more and therefore unfold that golden light which Helios and Vesta hold in store for each and every one.
My service to life and to you, then, is to show you the way of love, especially to coalesce the teachings of the Lords of the First and the Second Ray. For here at the point of love is the leap, then, into the fiery core of Serapis Bey, and then the going forth therefrom to bring into precipitation, by the light of the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh rays, all that has been builded from within.
Why, this is the moment to step forth and to realize that no longer are thoughts or dreams or wishes to be left in jars upon a shelf and admired as a collection of some long-lost culture of ancient Egypt or Greece or China. Now these vessels come alive. They are dancing vessels! They are the singing hearts of chelas. And the mystery of the within, the message of good fortune, the mantra that is stolen away, hid there by Buddhists who also pray, may now become a daily experience. And this, ah this—this, my beloved, becomes the magnet to draw here, then, other souls and magnets who are of those who espouse the sacred labor and, not in words but in the labor of the soul and the heart, do teach what is the component of being and of life.
Let us begin, then, at the beginning. For the Lord of the First Ray does teach to refrain from all criticism, condemnation, and judgment. Yet, when individuals choose, they will criticize the director of their group or their teaching center or someone put in charge of a committee.
They do not consider it criticism but only “constructive suggestion,” while the one criticized is bowed down with that condemnation and therefore not able to perform his best. His performance may indeed become worse and worse while others, their voices becoming shrill and dissonant, will continue to cry out in condemnation. This often occurs where the best servants do their best and can do no more, for life or breath is not available to them, as they have already given their all.
In some areas these servants might well be God-tutored and shown a better way by those who think they know better, and sometimes do, but have not drawn that full measure of devotion from the very fountain of the heart to fill their own cup and then give to drink of that brother who is servant in our retreat.
I would say this then: that it is high time that those who think they know better come then and join and give their service willingly, and realize that whatever the office that you aspire toward—whether teacher or minister or any other level of professional esteem within this activity—you must come and begin at the beginning and become the servant of all. And resist not, then, that service, nor expect others to do for you what only you may do for yourselves.
Now, there is from time to time created, by the absence of love or a true acceleration on the Path, a schism between those serving on our staff and those serving in the field. This, however, is not created by the devotees themselves who are the tireless ones but often by those who are offended in themselves when they see such servants and cannot themselves bring themselves to give that measure of service! Therefore, they must find fault with our staff, concluding they are fanatical or impersonal or too solemn or too busy to give them the time of conversation.
Well, perhaps their busyness is a path of initiation that ought to be tried out. And perhaps their labor is long and hard-spent because they also need reinforcements. But they would never ask for help in that task. They themselves understand that the calling must be from the heart and there must be the response of the heart.
Therefore, let not those who have chosen a way of living, a living therefore which is lawful in the keeping of their own households and families, disparage a service and a countenance of those who are facing other situations and other tests.
These two paths are lawful in their own right. And, as a matter of fact, the keeping of the flame of family requires a great deal more than many have put to it who have chosen it as their way. And if they were to do so, they would find themselves also far more busy and in need of greater devotion to truly bring forth the fruits that they ought to bring forth in the exemplary way of the following of, in imitation of, the divine family.
Let us realize, then, that when we are on different rays, the seven rays themselves require, each one, its own discipline and its own several initiations. Let us be their understanding. Let us therefore have an understanding, one with the other, that some of you must accelerate with individual chohans in order to expiate past karma and gain a mastery you do not have. This calling ought to be respected, whether you are on the staff or not on the staff or any form of membership in this community.
The messenger and the ascended masters give to all the freedom to establish themselves at any ring of fire in proximity or distance from the sun. As you can see, the planets are also so arranged. And you are free to be on any one of the seven rays. And the chohans and the messenger will receive you and attempt to give you that for which your soul is asking and that which you may need, though you know it not.
I am certain that you can all remember the wonder and the awe of entering the first grade, graduating from kindergarten and coming into that first grade in the first day of primary school—your eyes full of wonder, not knowing or even being able to imagine what could be coming in this schoolroom or what you might be learning or what would qualify you for the second grade. This is something that each must also understand in the path of chelaship.
When you take a hand of one of the chohans lovingly and you also understand the messenger as your guide, do not be surprised that the tasks and the exercises and the ABC’s of that classroom might be thoroughly unknown to you, unexpected, perhaps distasteful. You may remember being set in the corner or put out of the classroom because you refused to do your mathematics or your sums of addition or to do your penmanship properly.
Thus, we find the little child is ever-present in the soul, no matter how old the adult, and sometimes resists the first steps of the lessons that must be taken and taken again until they are perfected. And therefore, adults who have become sophisticated in other areas are sometimes more difficult to train and discipline, especially in our retreat of the third ray, because they cannot believe that they do not have the attainment that they think they have.
They cannot believe that they do not have the ability to assess their own position on the Path or their own vibration, that they do not know the difference between criticism that is utterly destructive and that careful analysis and constructive contri-bution that ought to be given from the wisdom and compassion of the heart. Therefore, you see, we have those even of professional standards that expect to be received on the basis of the training of the outer mind when, in fact, they must begin with Jesus, before the hierophant of Luxor, at the very first steps of application. <3>
I go over these as the first notes of the piano, the scale of C major, so that you may realize that there is a time to begin again and to review the very first lessons of life—to realize that when you come complaining and throw energy because things are not as you expect them and heap upon our staff that criticism, it does not go unnoticed. And you place yourself on record with the recording angels that you have not understood what is energy, what is discord, what is the release of a little bit of tantrum, a little bit of an emotional thrust from the belly to intimidate and to demand that others should march and dance to your tune immediately.
If this is to be a community of love and a community of our co-workers that can carry the day and deal with the planetary counterforces moving against the Christ, then each one must come to grips with the third ray of God’s love, with me as its anointed chohan, with the Maha Chohan, and with the love attainment of all other ascended masters. For I assure you that none enter heaven without passing through the most arduous disciplines, ranging from the petal pink of the love ray to the intensity that reaches finally the piercing, almost sharpness, of the ruby ray which, when the sacrifice is not forthcoming, must enter in and strip from the disciple who calls himself disciple those things which, my beloved, ought not to be.
Let charity, then, and givingness be without dissimulation. And let us realize that pride itself, pride in one’s own ability to direct and correct others, is the first condition that must go before the ascended masters and before their chelas.
Let each one then consider starting at the bottom of the stairway of love and enjoying each upward step. Let there be a savoring and a resting at each step, as with each Montessori exercise so joyfully entered into. Let us not skip the steps and leap and bound with pride that we may move as a mountain goat or a she-lion. But let us know that every step contains the lawful angles and the mathematics of life; and fifty steps higher, one will need the fortitude gained on the second step of life. Therefore, let us not overlook these lessons.
Alas, beloved ones, it is almost without exception that here and there in past embodiments you have skipped a step or two. And this is why you find yourself sometimes doing something for which you have such a stinging remorse within your heart, as the hot tears run down your cheeks and you realize the word that has escaped your mouth or the sharp feeling that has crushed another. You long to draw it back, and you say to yourself, “How could I have let go of something that so easily has hurt another?”
Well, my beloved, have compassion for your own soul, and self-correct. It is because of a lost step. Go back, then, and learn the art of patience and of the lever of control of the movement of forces in your being. Do not allow yourself to be triggered by sudden information that someone brings to you about another which may or may not be correct, exaggerated, distorted. But rather hold the reins of an emotional fury. Hold back then, and in wisdom consider all things. And let only the word of the innermost presence of love be the healing in every situation.
This, then, this great determination of my heart to make you one and to bring you into a closer bond, is truly what I long to do and what I must do. But as I said in the Pearl of Wisdom which the messenger read to you1—which some of you heard and some of you did not, for you do not have all the control of your thoughts that you ought to have, and therefore the mind wanders and you do not hear each cadence—thus, I reiterate that we cannot teach those who are not willing to be taught, who do not acknowledge the need to be taught, who do not incline themselves, and who do not reach forth, then, and understand that the step must first be taken, as the boot must be tried on for the boot to fit, and the step taken to become the realization of self-mastery.
No one ever learned to ride a bicycle without getting on and beginning to pedal down the street. So it is with the next step in life. We are here to teach, but if you are confirmed upon your level of the rock and say, “I will build my fortress here, that none may enter and move me where I would not go,” I assure you, the masters do withdraw and you are left in your fortress on the rock for a thousand years or more, as long as your soul desires not to move on.
This, then, breeds attachment to the rock and to the house and to the castle and to all the pets inside. Somehow the longer you stay, the more opportunity there is for the moss to grow. And so we say, A rolling stone gathers no moss. Perhaps it is good for those who contemplate the larger initiations of the third ray to remember so simple a statement so common in your land.
I AM Paul the Venetian. I have waited to take your hand for many a year. In the name of the chohans, in the name of the Path, you have rejected my hand and said, “Aha, I have free will, beloved Paul, and I will do my thing now for this year and the next. And when it suits my purposes, I will come, and I will lay my thing upon the altar of God.”
Well, blessed hearts, the proving and the refining of all things must be ongoing. And therefore, indeed by free will you may be preparing a precious gift for God. But sometimes the giver of the gift does not assess the need of the one to whom the gift is to be given. And often we are given gifts that we do not need at all, while our children on earth suffer and have great need and are hungry and crying in the streets. But somehow there is not sensed in that seemingly mundane or menial task that herein lies the greatest glory of all—to be the servant of the orphan, the widow, the needy, and the humble of heart.
As Confucius said, let us start. <4> Let us begin at the beginning where the need is greatest. Let us come to understand the need of the Lord of Life who dwells in the heart of the little child, of one’s companion, of the friend, the stranger—and last but not least, the need of the heart of the messenger and of the masters. For all have needs, and in filling these the entire body of God moves forward.
You see, when the needs are not met—as you know in your own soul, if you are hungry, you cannot work; if you are tired, you must first rest; if you are cold, you must warm yourself before you have anything to give—and therefore, if the needs of the total community and the organization are not met, you cannot crack the whip and strike the one nearest you and say, “You are at fault. Things are not as they should.” Look only to yourself to light the candle of love in the midst thereof, and see how this body of love may be multiplied for you and for me by your own presence, which is so needed.
I have a chart and a course for those to follow who would be ministers of life—washing the feet not only of the pilgrims but of the competitors of the Word, washing the understanding and bringing that understanding of each one to the necessary point of self-revelation.
Now then, as I stand before you, I ask you to contemplate not past achievement, not even the glorious celebration for which we have gathered, but always to remember that in the turning of the worlds, one must know the next step. And it must carefully be considered: What is the next step?
Let us sacrifice for it. Let us sharpen our virtues. Let us soften the rough places. Let us respond to the call of another’s heart in the intimate way that that one will never know except that a new day has appeared, and now all things are possible because there is joy and communion and understanding of hearts. For this understanding, I am with you.
The ascended masters are not beggars, and yet in the name of Jesus and Kuthumi, beloved Magda pleaded for the publication of the teachings of the Mother on habit. <5> These have been delivered by dedicated hearts. And therefore, you may take with you this wondrous teaching, that I trust will make plain all that I have tried to communicate to you in love this day, on habit—the teachings from the seminar of the Mother of the World, dedicated from the heart of the messenger to the taking down of the sons and daughters of God from the cross. <6>
Is this not the office of the Mother to which our Mother has dedicated her life—that you might be taken down from the cross? Who will take you down but the Mother of Love, the Mother who fills all universes from the beginning and the ending in the heart of Mother Mary and each one who so embodies that flame.
Each and every one in all octaves needs the love of Mother. But when you know the Mother, you will know that her love is also wisdom in action, teaching you by love how always to be more of yourself—greater dominion, expanding the sphere, seeing more of God’s universe all inside of you! This is the love of which I speak, the love that presses on and pushes you, as Mary, too, beckoned Christ at the marriage of Cana in Galilee. <7>
Understand the resistance to the forward step. It must be there because there is a creative tension in all life! And therefore, a summoning of the will to break through the resistance will give you that thrust for precipitation which you need, my beloved.
No new work was ever wrought
Without the gathering of momentum
And its precision release!
Nothing was ever born or framed or fashioned,
Nothing ever took form or could stand the test of time
And the beating of the elements
Without that sense of thrust,
That destined purpose of the moving of the hand
And the will and the tongue and the eye,
All in consonance for the leap that flies
And the single thrust of the eye of God.
Into the eye of God! Into the eye of Life! Life beckons. And the fifth ray as the handmaid of love—as Pallas Athena embracing the Maha Chohan, as I, with the emerald-green lining in my cape as the sign of the love of truth—these two rays as one perform a mighty action for the deliverance of worlds.
Lest I weary you in words, I conclude my message. For I, too, must go forth to work a work of love this day and lay my sacrifice upon the altar. For God will not receive me tomorrow as I am today. He demands that I, too, come up higher.
And when my chelas see me move up to the higher rock, they also make their swift sacrifice and climb with me. For they desire not to lose me, nor I them. And therefore we are grateful for the flame of self-sacrificing love that finds us each day made more in the image of his Christ whom we adore!
NOTE: This dictation by Paul the Venetian was delivered to the Messenger Elizabeth Clare Prophet August 27, 1982, during the Retreat of the Seven Chohans of the Rays at the Inner Retreat, Montana. Prior to this dictation, the messenger read Pss. 24.
4. Confucius, August 26, 1982, “Let Us Start.” Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 25, p. 459; cassette B82109.
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