Vol. 44 No. 32 - Mark L. Prophet - August 12, 2001
Comments on Criticism
Part 1
This morning we would like to speak of many things and of a few things that I think will stand out in order to enable us to do God’s will more perfectly....
There is some subtle inward hope that has kept spiritually seeking people together down through the centuries. They have gathered in grottoes and caves, the catacombs of Rome. They have been thrown to the lions literally and torn limb from limb. Atrocities and cruelties have been practiced against them. In modern-day society, even in the name of Christ, various religious groups all bearing the name Christian have shattered one another with feelings of enmity and competition. And the world has not expressed the Christ-love that the Master demonstrated.
None of us today can lift up our head and say, I have not been a part of that. None of us can say, whether we actually entered into the doing of these deeds or not, that we have not perhaps at some time or other consented to it, either by our silence or by an inward rejoicing that something happened to someone or something that we did not approve of.
Certainly in a world as big as ours, it is inevitable that there shall be differences of opinions. There are very few households where families live together in this land or any land that do not have differences. I am sure that all of you realize that. There are differences within the board of deacons governing most churches, and the College of Cardinals at the Vatican has its differences. Some of the popes, for example, have deliberately opposed the policies of their predecessors.
It is, then, an absolute fact that all of us work with, live with and know that differences of opinion will occur. For that matter, we differ many times with ourselves, and our former state does not resemble our latter state. In other words, what we are today in most cases is better in its concepts than what we were fifteen years ago, ten years ago, a year ago, yesterday, thank God. So, we move forward whether we realize it or not. And yet, when we come to evaluate ourselves, we sometimes feel that we have not moved at all, that we are simply standing still while the rest of the world goes by. This is not true.
Now, humility and looking honestly into our own world are necessary for us all. Condemnation should be cast out the window. The only use that condemnation might have is to prod us into the momentary admission that we have made a mistake so that we can correct it. We should not abide in the vestments of condemnation either of ourselves or of anyone else, because condemnation itself requires thought and energy. And this is a practice (and I’m referring to condemnation) that has existed down through the centuries. This is a very old force.
A Laggard Civilization on a Planet Similar to Earth
Long ago another planet similar to our earth had lifewaves of people where a great portion of the evolutions achieved self-mastery and made their ascension in the light. On that planet a large number of people, however, as parties of the opposition using their own free will, decided that they preferred to live in the flesh without taking their ascension, that they were having a very good time, in their own vernacular.
They loved to eat and did not like the idea that in the ascended state they might not be able to taste food. They did not understand that the masters have every taste quality that humans have and many that humans do not have. They did not understand that God was not going to rob them of anything by raising them up into a higher octave. They simply thought and feared that in the losing of human consciousness and the entering into the divine they would be losing themselves. And this they did not want to do. They wanted a life of their own, an exclusive life. And many of them sided together and they became the so-called laggards of that civilization.
Quite naturally, there was a time when these laggards did express a certain harmony among themselves. It’s very difficult, you know, to revel alone. You can’t make merry alone; you have to have someone with you. And so the men and women of that time and in that civilization got together and they tooted their trumpets and they unrolled their paper ticker tapes, and so forth. And they drank and they ate and they made merry and they married and buried and they did everything that people do. And they naturally did not ascend with the rest of the people.
Materialism Creates Competition, Envy, Condemnation
What happened is the inevitable that happens in all materialistic civilizations: through turning away from the opportunities of soul expansion and entering into materialism, they entered into competition. People began to compete with one another to see who could win. Now, this is fine as long as when people win everyone applauds them with this statement: “This could have been me and therefore I am so happy that they have excelled. I will applaud them. I will clap for them. I rejoice with them.”
Not so. The feeling of envy came into being in many of the people. And they began to envy the person who had won and to go about discussing this at first only with themselves and then gradually talking to other people and finding flaws with this person who had won some either minor or major victory. And all types of sinister and negative forces were born.
It started, then, upon this planet where the people would not go on. There was created, then, a momentum of jealously, of condemnation, of hatred, of egoism, of viciousness, of maliciousness, of destruction and of every type of wicked force (which I don’t care to name) that is actually inherent within our civilization today.
The Opening of the Mouth of the Demons
The laggards eventually brought about the total nuclear annihilation of their planetary home. A remnant of souls considered salvageable were allowed by cosmic councils to embody on earth to work out their karma. Now, the cosmic councils hoped that when these laggard souls came to earth, they would learn from the civilizations of earth what they ought to do. But the reverse happened, as most of you know, and mankind opened Pandora’s box. <1>
Pandora is a word that is very, very important because the word pan means “wide strata” and ora comes from the word orifice, meaning “opening” or “mouth.” And therefore Pan-d-ora--the d in there is for “deity” or “demon,” whichever you choose to assign to it--means, in this case, “the opening of the mouth of the demons.” And that is exactly what happened.
All of the venom of the sinister activities of these laggards became assimilated by the people of earth and they began to mimic and imitate the laggard races rather than influence the laggard races to mimick and imitate them. The result was the Noachian flood, or great deluge, which you’re familiar with and read about in your Bible.
I say all of this for one reason only: to historically relate the creation of all forms of negative energy and to show you that this is a very, very old force that you may not necessarily have created. You may have had no part in it. Some of you may always have been a part of a very benign lifewave. It’s possible.
On the other hand, most of us had some part in perpetuating the negative qualities as well as the good. For let it be known that our civilization is not all negative or all evil. A far cry from it! The benign qualities of our civilization are great. There are many wonderful qualities in the human heart.
But the fact remains that the negative qualities do exist and you can’t deny this, any of you, for you can read it in your newspapers. It’s behind all of the viciousness that happens on the streets of the world. It’s behind the wars that we have fought--three wars in this generation. It’s behind all the actions of criticism and things that occur in politics.
Criticism: A Popular Sport That Is Easy to Get Snared Into
Now, let us look at this thing honestly, because this force is very powerful in the world. It is something that the world does not like but it still practices. People do not like it when it hits them, but they practice it against others. I’m certain it’s done ignorantly many times. I actually believe and I know it, for I was a part of it, too, very definitely.
I can recall many years ago (and I’ll tell on myself), early in the time when I was trying to get more and more deeply into the spiritual path, I attended conferences in various parts of the nation. And after they would have their meetings, they would usually get together and have coffee and cake. Sometimes this was in a cafeteria in Chicago or other cities and other times it would be in a private home or in a hall.
Invariably the popular sport that they engaged in after their meeting was to cuss and discuss individual personalities in their very own movement. Now, because I knew some of these people and knew their foibles and weaknesses as well as their strengths, I would sometimes be drawn into it, too. And I found this condition very prevalent.
As I said before, I was guilty of partaking of it, not, I know, with malice or forethought, because my heart and motives were pure. My hands were clean of any desire to hurt anyone. But I entered this sport because it was very popular. People were doing it. I don’t think they were malicious. I don’t honestly think so. It was mere conversation.
But I understand it because I went through it. I found that it is a very easy thing to get snared into. And once you get snared into it, things can be said that you never intended to say.
Hurts Deposited in the Memory Body Trigger Unkind Words
Sometimes a little point of jealousy in your own world that you didn’t even know was there will spark you on. It may be a little hurt. You know, when you get a group of people together, it’s possible that sometimes someone won’t shake hands with the other one or they’ll give them a dirty look. It may not even be because they had an ill feeling in their heart toward the other person. It’s possible and is many times true that people may have some trouble in their own world or household. And because they have this trouble in their household, they will be thinking along a line a little bit negative and they’ll look at somebody else and they’ll look at them with a dagger. But it may not be true that they have any ill feeling toward that person at all.
So this thing gets picked up, this hurt gets deposited in the memory body, the etheric body, and then at the right time it enters the emotional body during a conversation. The person feels just a little bit on edge. They’re sitting there. The vibration is going down as people are being discussed. It keeps dropping all the time. And pretty soon it gets down into the level where the etheric shoots in this arrow, “You remember the time you were at this conference and they wouldn’t speak to you or they walked away from you?” Right. I do remember it, you say to yourself. Boom. The feelings rise up and something is said about this person that is not kind or complimentary.
Cliques Wrap a “Barbed Wire Fence” around Themselves
Now, the whole world lieth in this wickedness--all of them. <2> And I can truthfully say that the religious activities of the world, including the large activities and great big churches, are guilty of having cliques--little groups that are friends. They get together and one clique is played against another. This has caused disunity and inharmony down through the ages.
I am convinced that what we call the sinister force, the negative force of the world, the rebellious force, the laggard force, the materialistic force, the communistic force--all of that is linked together in an armored column, as it were. It’s a contrast to the golden chain mail that the master talked about to insulate us from the psychic. <3> This is a sort of barbed wire fence that the human race have wrapped around themselves in their little groups so that every time anyone tries to break through from one way or the other they get cut on the barbed wire of human conduct. There is no question that this is not godly, and yet I’m also convinced that the world is caught in this no-man’s-land of oppression practiced against peoples.
We are no exception to this. But I say we can be because the ascended masters, when they began to work with the Theosophical Society (and I’m going back to Madame Blavatsky), found that they had to cope with this problem in the release of spiritual truth to the world. And I’m going to tell you why.
A Smear Campaign Intended to Destroy a Movement
When the Theosophical Society began to bring forth the tremendous truths that they have, the established religious movements (that is, the orthodox) were naturally very much opposed--very much opposed--to the bringing in of these great truths. So they did the same thing that political candidates do. They began a smear campaign against Madame Blavatsky because she was a cigarette smoker, as you probably know, and she had other faults in her work. She was an excellent channel for the masters to use (they could get almost direct image contact from their thought to her thought), but she was not a perfect woman in her outer life. She had many faults.
Therefore they attacked this woman, hoping to destroy the movement by attacking her personally. Well, they certainly did keep out a lot of people who were interested in it. And they certainly have ever since caused a certain amount of difficulty for the society. But they did not stop the society itself from growing and expanding and being somewhat the forerunner of many of the mystical groups in America. Even the I AM Activity, for example, has sprung from the society.
to be continued
“Comments on Criticism” was delivered by the Messenger of the Great White Brotherhood Mark L. Prophet at the September 13, 1964 Sunday service, held at the Dodge House, Washington, D.C. Throughout these notes, PoW is the abbreviation for Pearls of Wisdom.
2. I John 5:19.
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