Vol. 33 No. 3 - Serapis Bey - January 21, 1990
A New Year’s Retreat
III
Motivation
“What Is the Most Important Thing I Can Do
to Become a Candidate for the Ascension?”
Hail, sons and daughters of ascension’s flame!
Awake to your ancient heritage of the Sun!
Let the veils part for this moment. Remember the point of origin. Remember the Great Central Sun. Remember that you did descend by the same white fire whereby you shall ascend.
I come in the Divine Love which gave birth to that sacred fire, which is life everlasting. Though the white fire be the intensity of Alpha and Omega, know that that intensity is the fullness of the sacred fire out of which the whole of the creation did spring.
Elohim keep their appointments in their courses and in their coursings. My beloved, you also have appointments, dates that are set and appointments from God that are assignments.
May you be seated, then, to consider the hour of responsibility, the hour to respond to your ability to fulfill your divine plan. All of you have the ability to fulfill that plan in this life.
I, Serapis, keep my notebook. I have your names, beloved, for some of you are candidates for the ascension and some of you are precandidates, preparing to be accepted as candidates. Some of you know how much preparation is needed to get into the finest schools and universities of learning in this earth. Thus, beloved, you also prepare as candidates for our retreat and for this victory.
I tell you that the ascension is possible for many more than those who attain it. Those who do not try are those who think that they are still too human, too possessed or obsessed with their human creation. Beloved, it is not so! You must know and understand that all of you can [make your ascension], if you will it so. You may begin this day with your resolutions according to the priorities set.
Beloved, the highest priority is the ascension. The assignment at hand is the means–the means for the preparation of all faculties. To accomplish, therefore, this current assignment and not to see it as the means to the end is a pity. This preparation is not an end in itself. War or nonwar is not an end in itself. War is the means whereby the individual may show his courage and what he is willing to give to pay the price, even to buy time for his countrymen and even to lay down his life for that purpose.
We remember! We remember Sparta and Thermopylae, and so should you. Will you be the thousand or two thousand or five or ten [of whom it will be said,] “They held the pass”?
What is this pass, after all, beloved? Is it not the pass that you hold and do not give up and maintain that is the means whereby many evolutions may pass over into the Mystery School, into the Teaching, into self-mastery? Consider, then, that you hold the pass for evolutions who are not yet ready for the sacrifices required and who do not particularly desire the victory that is to be gained.
Now, then, let there be a stilling [of your four lower bodies], beloved; and those who are not able to refrain from their coughing had best exit at this time. It is a question of the thread of contact, and the holding of that thread is the responsibility of the Messenger. And therefore, intrusions of sound that crisscross the room do not help this challenge.
What I have come to say, beloved, is that it is possible to ascend in this life. Some who know the Messenger know that the Messenger has often greeted them with such words as “What can I do for you?” “How may I pray for you?” “What would you like to tell me this day?” “Is there anything that I should know?”
Beloved ones, so often when chelas hear [such questions] they are overcome in the presence of the Messenger and cannot think of a thing to say or ask. So I will tell you what to ask the Messenger when you find yourself in the way with the Messenger, and this includes those who have a familiarity by more frequent or intimate contact.
Blessed ones, you must ask, “What is the most important thing I can do to become a candidate for the ascension?” I can assure you that you will see the Messenger pause and listen and receive from my heart the pinpointing of the condition of the mind or consciousness or the life-style [that requires your attention for an alchemical change that cosmic law mandates if you are to be accepted as a candidate for the ascension].
Blessed ones, I have longed to be able to transmit this [message] to you, for you need the spoken word and the direction. But this question should not come to the Messenger [in the form of] a letter or any other type of [written] communication but should simply [be spoken by you] when you happen to find yourself in the way with the Messenger. Thus maintaining the stance of propriety and politeness, you will not, I am sure, interfere with the Messenger’s comings and goings but you will understand the perspective in which I give you this counsel [and the circumstances under which it is or is not appropriate for you to exercise your option].
As [a rule], beloved, most people have a blind spot concerning that which does keep them from the daily victories whereby they could achieve the goal. Thus, it is apt to be the very least thing that is on your mind that may be the point [on which] you should focus the ray of your I AM Presence.
I say this, beloved, because the possibilities are almost without limit as to what you may accomplish in this lifetime. Many more of you than think you are even on this track can make it. But I kid you not! It does take all of your striving and your love and your trust. It is a trust that says, “I know my God will do the very best for me if I have the courage to face my karma and to do my duty.”
Blessed ones, there is a saying at our retreat among the wise ones who have had ample experience with me, “If we do our best, Serapis will do the rest.” There is a great confidence in this commitment of the Guru to the chela and the chela to the Guru. And those who have proven this Law again and again do not fear to give their most and their all, knowing that the reward will come as surely as the pendulum of life does swing.
Now, therefore, beloved, understand that there is a science to the withholding of the gift, the gift that you are capable of giving, whether it be a service or whether it be a new level of attainment to offer to your Guru. The science of withholding is the following. Individuals are unable to give or to give of themselves because there is a tie-up of energy, there is not the complete flow of [the energy in] the chakras [that there should be]. Blessed ones, the flow of the chakras does come up from the center and form a complete circle and thus establish the circle of the aura, and it does continually and perpetually flow in those who have that particular attainment.
Where there is a block in the chakras, that energy is simply stopped up because there is not a balance, because there is not a purification. The blocks in the chakras effect the blocks in the organs, in the spine, in the central nervous system. So where there are blocks in the physical body, the individual does not feel the flow and cannot extend the heart and the givingness and the joy and the caring and the forgiveness.
One needs to have this flow in order to be a Bodhisattva.
Thus, beloved, take command of the physical body. Take command of all of the bodies and look after those areas that are creating the greatest tie-up of energy preventing the self-givingness unto God and one another and to oneself. The withholding of the kind word, the withholding of forgiveness, the withholding of information that is needed, the withholding of a helping hand, all these things show the blocks that are there from karma, from fear, from records of death, from whatever line of the Clock you may find yourself positioned on.
So, blessed ones, as you continually prime the pump on the path of the Bodhisattva ideal, you find that you are pumping greater and greater rivers of life that flow forth from you, and you can truly embrace many with your helpfulness and become the divine helper.
There are those, beloved, who have this flow in reverse. <1> They have somehow found the means whereby they act as suction cups and, [in order to have a flow of energy in their own worlds, they] suck the light from others and allow this to circulate through themselves to their own adornment, their own satisfaction, their own life; for they have not had the heart to develop their own sun center [in their heart chakra] as a source [for the transmission of the universal energy to their bodies].
Beware such individuals, beloved, for they also move among spiritual communities and they are there only to suck the light, to create a counterclockwise spiral that is a false and pseudo self and identity. These individuals become enangered, therefore, when they are threatened with the thought that they may be cut off from the Lightbearers by some means or another.
Blessed ones, it is time to reverse the spirals and let the Light be primed from the pump of Life, sacred fire of the Mother, the Light of the I AM Presence. The more you pump [and] the more you intensify, the more you give; [and the more you give,] the more you are infilled with the sacred fire breath and the limitless energy of virya, which I know you shall pursue, as Maitreya has spoken to you of this very special quality.
So, beloved, the key to the path of the ascension is that one has given oneself two million times and more, for that is the key to right decision. [The “two million right decisions” that Saint Germain is famous for among his chelas are really his giving of himself two million times.] And in the giving, beloved, so much light has flowed through the body and the being that that light returning as positive karma has truly filled all of one’s house, all of one’s house. And the zeal of the house of your Mighty I AM Presence has eaten up the karmic self, the lesser self, <2> and one is all Light, all Light, all Light, perpetually in the mode of filling, giving, infilling and self-emptying.
One has become an Ascended Master in the process. Like Saint Germain, one has hardly taken note [of the alchemical change from the unascended to the ascended state]. For when Saint Germain stepped forth as the Ascended Master, as you have been told, there was scarcely a difference in his being in the before and the after, and so he himself did scarcely notice the change.
Blessed hearts, this may sound incredible to you, but you must know that there comes a moment when you are yet in this octave when you are so filled with Light for the very love of every part of life around you that truly and indeed all that remains [for you] is the ritual of the ascension itself. This is possible. Do not deny that present possibility by rehearsing the frailties and the limits of the personal self.
There may be some among you whose karma decrees another embodiment, perhaps a shorter embodiment. But, beloved ones, what is that? It is nothing. That is still the present as we count eternity.
Those who are engaged and truly engage with their hearts and minds and beings in this walk with God that we have prepared for you in these mountains and in these valleys and in the austerity of this climate so that there is nothing but you and God and a growing relationship in the heart of God–those who truly are willing to lock gears with this God consciousness and manifestation, you, beloved, you can achieve this end. You are achieving it and you should not so lightly turn aside opportunity.
Opportunity knocks, beloved, but opportunity does not knock all day and all night. Opportunity knocks at opportune moments in your life. Do not take for granted her knocking.
Now, beloved ones, since I am known as the disciplinarian and [since] I command legions of light untold in my office, I too have come to prepare the troops for the victory and to prepare you to enter in to the willingness of the divine union. [14-second pause]
Out of my chakras the Light does pour. I am assisting you, beloved. I am helping you in the self-sealing process. And this was also the purpose of El Morya’s coming, to motivate you to seal yourself unto the heart of your Holy Christ Self.
Your Holy Christ Self is the only avatar that really counts in your life. Though Maitreya may come, Jesus may come and the Buddhas may come, unless you become your own avatar through your own Christ Self, carefully remaining under the tutelage of those who have attained that goal, there is nothing that can be gained by having associations with avatars. This is why the Ascended Masters are not physically visible. For when the pupil is ready to become the Christ of his being, that very desiring does impel the presence of the great ones [who are] specifically tied to that one’s lifestream.
Motivation, then, is the name of these two dictations. We are giving you our very best heart so that when you pass by the Messenger momentarily, you will have accomplished the best you can accomplish of the sealing of the soul unto the Christ by your own surrender to your own Christhood.
As you know from the writings of Saint John of the Cross, the soul’s approach to the Inner Christ is a painful process of desiring acceptance and yet hearing the word, “Not yet, not yet.” Blessed ones, be not the soul who fears to try again and again to receive the love of her Lord. Your Lord loves you and the closer you come to this sealing oneness, the more you will see of yourself that cannot enter in to the Holy of holies.
But your soul does pant after the living God. And the soul reaches the moment where no other desire fulfilled can equate with being received by the Lord. In that moment, beloved, there is an aloneness and a loneliness that is indescribable, for no one else can experience [with you] the mourning of the soul who is separated from her God yet almost entering in. That is why it does require special counsellors, special ministering servants to counsel those who may become, in moments, despondent; for they are so very near to that alchemical marriage and yet not quite.
Beloved ones, until the Divine Husband, the Bridegroom, has finally stretched forth the hand to say, “O soul, enter,” one is in a state of fear that one has been rejected, one is not acceptable, one is not clean enough, one has not measured up to that level. In a human sense of the word, many have experienced the rejection of a human lover or the friend or the parent to the ultimate sadness and agony. Beloved, this prepares one for the rounds and the many rounds one must make until finally the Bridegroom steps forth with outstretched arms to receive the waiting bride. <3>
You are indeed the waiting brides of Sanat Kumara. <4> The full sealing cannot come in a day, but this is your self-sealing day. This is the day you determine that when your Bridegroom proposes to you, your mind is made up. You will accept. You will accept.
Is not life a preparation for this moment? This is the hour of the sealing of your heart. Press your hands to your heart, to your heart chakra, and feel your hands press in upon the heart. And let your will be made known to your heart by the pressing in of your hands, saying:
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O Be Sealed, My Heart |
Thus, beloved, it is well to admit that certain thoughts and feelings, actions, accusations and conditions of consciousness are indeed not acceptable to the Holy Christ Self. You must get over the terror of such a consideration and deal with the reality that you are in this octave precisely because there are elements [in your personality] that are not acceptable [as a part of your Personhood in God].
So the great psalmist did pray, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my [Strength and my] Redeemer.” And did not the poet say, “Yet in my flesh shall I see God”? Are not these words of souls in the earth a testimony of their absolute faith and trust that God is ready to receive the soul with outstretched arms and that the soul has the ability for self-perfectionment and that God will not condemn the effort but God will surely isolate and show the striving one what are those elements [of error] that this day must be plucked, taken away, put into the flame?
The Lord’s Spirit is a Spirit of noncondemnation! Come, little ones ([I call you thusly,] for the soul is also the little child)–come, little ones, fear not this process.
This day you may press your hands to your chakras and seal what you have to seal in God, and on the morrow seal again what you have to seal in God. With this self-sealing, with this believing, with this knowing, with this confidence that you shall leave behind the rags of karma, that God will receive you and that you can win the prize, you will have truly begun a walk with God, beloved, that may take you into the valleys of despair and the astral plane and again exalt you into perceptions of heaven.
Whatever the road, know it is God’s road. Stay on the road, beloved. Remember those words. Do not get off the track. It is almost as though you would imagine yourself in a giant amusement park on a toy train that should carry you through every type of climate and land and even into the darkness with simulated horror and astral-plane figures and screeching ghosts and then again pass through realms of angels and [angel] choirs.
Remember that you are in God’s cart on God’s track and you are on a journey through your karma, good and bad. If you jump out of the cart and your cart is derailed and you begin wandering in your attachment to a particular scene, round and round in that scene, well, you see, beloved, you will go nowhere.
Keep on the road. Keep on the track. Stay in the car God has given you for this journey. And whatever you pass through, don’t let it stick, beloved. Don’t let it stick. Look at it objectively. Direct the sacred fire into it. And see to it that by the time you pass through that place, that trial, that problem, that group of people that you are involved with, you have so intensely directed the sacred fire that your last glimpse of that situation is an aura of violet light, transmutation and no more attachments or ties or entanglements.
This is what life in the stage of the reaper can be. You are reapers. The day you determine to turn and face the Sun of your Mighty I AM Presence, you are reapers. You reap positive karma and negative karma. The mathematical equation, beloved, is to transmute the negative karma and send out such a Light that that [Light] shall return to you as positive karma. And pretty soon you [will find that you] are receiving on a daily basis more returning positive karma than negative karma.
Blessed ones, it is good to get over the sense that life should be easy and if it gets tough, life is not for you. You need to flex the muscles of the mind, wrestle with Zen koans and the conundrums of the day that seem nigh impossible to crack. You will have to crack the nut without a nutcracker. You will have to solve the puzzle and put the pieces together without directions. You will have to follow the treasure map to the treasure without compass and without specific locations defined. Such is the test, beloved.
Accept the known course. Accept the path of the Great White Brotherhood and do not pull against the Lord when the Lord gives you today a mountain of karma to shovel and move. [Whenever you are required to work] under the most arduous conditions, remember that the children of Israel were required to make bricks without straw.
May you understand, therefore, that God gives you a mountain of karma while you have your vigor and your ardor and the fire of your body because if it is not balanced today, on the morrow you may not have the strength to deal with it and disease and old age may overtake you before you have won your victory. Therefore shirk not the difficulties of the day but greet them as the wisdom of your Lord, Maitreya.
Thus we have spoken of the sealing of the soul. Let us speak a bit of the saving of the soul. There is a part of your being, the part of you that senses the presence of your Christhood with you, who must be the saviour of your own soul, who must take the soul in hand and with great firmness command the soul to come up higher. There is a part of you that must speak the fiat for the binding of the dweller. That part of you is the charioteer in the very center and centeredness of your being.
There is a part of you that must go after that which is lost, where in conditions of extreme trauma the soul has been fragmented <5> and must be put back together again as Humpty-Dumpty. There is a part of you that must become a fiery magnet to magnetize the elements of self lost in the sea of samsara and [that same part of you must] also magnetize the elements of the Higher Self into this lower octave so that you are not forever dealing with the silly and supercilious conditions of repetitive misdemeanors of the human consciousness.
This Charioteer is the Christ and more. The charioteer of your being in this octave is your spirit, and this is your spirit as opposed to the soul. It is not the spirit with a capital S, which is your I AM Presence, but it is your spirit with a lowercased s. And that spirit is a certain masculine identity that you have built, internalized and become in all embodiments.
Thus, the question is asked, what is the spirit of a man? <6> And some will say, “That one is laconic or melancholy or perpetually pessimistic or overly optimistic.” We are speaking of the spirit of the individual. Some may say, “The spirit of that man is evil,” or “That man has a jealous spirit.” It is the abiding presence of a certain identity in this octave. And that spirit of the individual must overcome the poisons with the antidotes of the Buddhas.
That spirit has will and freedom. That spirit is already the charioteer with a lowercased c, directing the course of that one’s life for good or for ill, going off the course and going here and there and sometimes driving the horses wild.
Thus, you see, this charioteer must become one with or at least invoke the mantle of the Christ Self and be in that position of being the director of life, of schedule, of the day, of purpose, of getting things done, of accomplishment so that it may be said of you, one and all, “The spirit of that man is a spirit of victory, of accomplishment, of success in all things. I will go to that man, for I will always receive a wise counsel. For that man has a spirit of wisdom.”
Thus, you see, it is that developed identity that is becoming the unascended master. And it is that very one that must command and compel the soul to rise and to be who she really is. Thus there is, as it were, in the lower self, the masculine and the feminine self. And the masculine is the spirit and the feminine is the soul.
Thus, the spirit of an individual as that cumulative identity is in a position to be the one who decides what the progress of the soul will be. How very important it is, therefore, that that spirit be a positive one, else what can be done? What can be done for such individuals whose spirits [produce only] the flowers of evil?
Thus, Maitreya does speak of “karmic potential.” And the karmic potential of an individual is measured by the quality of the spirit and how that spirit perceives itself, [and how that spirit] will submit itself to the refiner’s fire; how that spirit will compel the soul to rise, will make the decision of the mind not to give in to the old ways; how that spirit will determine to drive the four lower bodies and compel them to a performance of excellence.
When you awaken in the morning, the spirit of yourself that is truly strengthened by the sacred breath determines whether to get up, whether to stay in bed, whether to overcome the lethargy of the body and the mind and to charge or to roll over and play dead. Such is the spirit, beloved. And there is a conditioning of the spirit by the conditioning of the body. For the spirit is one with the body and the spirit does leave the body at the moment of death.
Thus, beloved, know the difference between the spirit and the ka, which is the astral sheath, which does contain the dripping emotions and the records and the past, et cetera. Let not this astral self overwhelm the self with its heaving emotions, its sobbings and sighings and terror in the night. Let the spirit command it, “Peace, be still! Peace, be still!” You see, when you are in that posture, beloved, [the spirit] is you. It is your spirit who commands and it is the expression of your free will.
And therefore the determined ones have overcome; [they] have overcome enormous adversities, infirmities, weaknesses of the body. They have accomplished far more than those who have had perfect health and all things in life that they wanted. If you could have seen the saints, beloved, and what they bore in their bodies and by the will of the spirit what they achieved, you would understand that there is nothing in this octave that can stop a warrior who has this true spirit. And this truly is a definition of virya.
Virya is more than physical strength, even more than the will of the mind. It is this presence of the spirit of a man and the spirit of a woman.
Let your children develop that spirit with courage, with self-effacement, enjoying the Work of the Lord and the Word. Give them the opportunity to excel ultimately, to flex their muscles, to study hard, to love with all their hearts, to give, to rejoice and to experience the true joy of victory. Deprive not your children of their daily victories by indulging them in lesser states, giving them lesser hurdles when they are capable of accomplishing so much more. Do not praise them for what comes easy. Let them strive and show you they have the fortitude to earn what is hard and to enjoy the prize and to know the self-confidence of gaining a victory that was tough.
Blessed ones, you are creating the progenitors of a new race. It is folly not to set the standards high. We have sent you stallions, Arabian horses. We have sent you the finest! Do not treat them as mules. Do not treat them as ordinary horses, beloved. They require a very special training. And they will love you and respect you. They will obey their inner spirit and they will obey their Master when he comes to claim them.
And fear not that the Master will come to claim them! You who have indulged your own so that they would not even hear the Master when he came, you shall regret this for long time to come, even in those embodiments to come that are necessitated [solely] by your improper dealing with those lifestreams who have been sent to you. <7>
Such a pity, beloved, that some have thought that their children needed the indulgences that they [themselves] had from their parents. We are determined to break this spiral in this Community, but parents must see that this generation is capable of much more. And you only build in them resentment and the spoiled-child syndrome of anger toward the parent when you do not give them the true challenges that they are capable of meeting.
Thus, we begin with what we have and we say, rise to the level of the challenge that is set before you! And let each day be an accomplishment whereby you can see that by striving your attainment is greater than yesterday’s, your love is greater than yesterday’s, your selflessness is greater than yesterday’s. No one will ask of you more, not the least your own Bridegroom. An inch of progress that is kept is a diamond, a diamond on a strand.
Save your diamonds, beloved. They are for barter. Thus, when the Guru comes you may offer him diamonds. And thus, the Guru may receive you in kind–and receive in kind and give in kind.
Only the proud attempt to scale the wall, fail, fall back, give up and say, “It wasn’t worth the effort anyway. It wasn’t worth the effort anyway.” Then there are those who are so proud that they do not even deign to try, beloved, for fear that their peers or those whom they deem lesser than themselves will watch them fail. They are so afraid of failure that they do not even take a step. This is the only despicable consciousness I know. There is nothing despicable about the chela who tries and falls and gets up and [tries and] falls and tries again.
Every newborn child is a chela. He does it a thousand times until he learns to walk. His urge to be is far greater than any sense of embarrassment as to how many times he is getting up and down until he can walk.
Save your soul, beloved, for you must present that soul at a certain level before that soul is permanently tied to Maitreya. Thus, the hour is come for the sealing.
May my words be pondered [and] listened to and may you read your notes in your notebooks to remind yourself that I have spoken. For there are birds of prey who enter the mind. As ravens they come, beloved, to steal the precious gems of wisdom as though you had never heard them <8> and to replace them with baubles and trinkets that the mind will fondle in place of the gems of Truth.
I am Serapis. I AM Serapis! I AM WHO I AM Serapis Bey.
May you also be who you really are. [55-second pause]
Serapis Soleil.
This dictation by Serapis Bey was delivered by the Messenger of the Great White Brotherhood Elizabeth Clare Prophet on New Year’s Day, January 1, 1990, 5:32-6:21 p.m. MST, during the six-day conference A New Year’s Retreat held at the Royal Teton Ranch, Park County, Montana. [N.B. Bracketed material denotes words unspoken yet implicit in the dictation, added by the Messenger under Serapis Bey’s direction for clarity in the written word.] Throughout these notes PoW is the abbreviation for Pearls of Wisdom.
3. 1985 PoW, p. 300; 1981 PoW, pp. 307-26.
6. I Cor. 2:11; 1988 PoW, p. 591; 1989 PoW, pp. 187-88.
8. Matt. 13:3, 4, 18, 19; Mark 4:3, 4, 14, 15; Luke 8:4, 5, 11, 12.
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