CHAPTER VII

     THE SECRET OF CONSCIOUSNESS

　"WTHAT is the power of the spirit?" the guide was once asked. "The power of the spirit is invisible,” said Silver Birch. "It does not conform to any of the recognised standards of man. It has no length, it has no breadth, it has no height, it has no weight, it has no colour, it has no size, it has no taste, it has no smell. And so, by all the usual methods of calculation, it does not exist, according to those purblindmaterialists to whom reality can only be appreciated when it comes within the radius of their five poor scales. Love is unseen and unheard. Love is colourless, without taste or measurement, but love is real, as those who experience its deep emotions can testify. But great as is the power of love, so infinitely greater is the power of the spirit.

　"You live and move and breathe, you think and reflect, you decide and judge, you ponder and consider, because of the power of the spirit. You see and hear, you move and walk, you think and talk, because of the power of the spirit. All that you do, all that you are, is due to the power of the spirit, for your whole world of matter, and your body of matter, is dependent upon that vital, energising influx of spirit which gives it being, purpose, direction and life. Nowhere in the world of matter itself is to be found the secret of consciousness. Nowhere through the labours of the scientist, or the chemist, or the physician, is to be dis-covered the motive power of life. It does not reside within matter, for matter is but its temporary dwelling.

　"The power of the spirit is the power that you call God, even though you do not understand what the term means, even though you have misinterpreted it and give it finite limitations. The power of the spirit is the power that breathed life into a world that once was all fire. The power of the spirit is the power which raised man up from the slime of the earth and endowed him with the qualities of divinity. The power of the spirit is the garment that the soul wears. The power of the spirit is the power which fashioned all lite, which controls every motion and muta-tion of natural force, the power which regulates all the seasons and governs the growth of every seed, of every plant, of every flower, of every bush, of every tree, the power which is respon-sible for the whole scheme of evolution in all its intricate phases.

　"It is a mighty force, the power of the spirit, for not only is it to be seen ceaselessly at work through myriads of material mani-festations, but also in the higher realms of life, where it governs all spiritual activities, in worlds upon worlds whose existence at present is unknown to you, but where life is made manifest in forms far more radiant than anything known to you. But mighty as is that power, wondrous its many forms of activity, it has its restrictions, for it can be expressed only through vessels, through instruments, through intermediaries, channels, mediumsーuse what word you will. Those are the limitations placed upon its majestic flow. You determine the extent to which it shall be made manifest amongst you.

　"You have always heard me urge you to banish fear, to radiate confidence, to live your lives upon a foundation of un-yielding resolution, knowing that the power, the mighty power of the Great Spirit would never fail you. It is because in such an atmosphere and in such conditions that it can the better operate amongst you. Earthly powers may fail and fall. Man's king-doms are but transient. Those who now occupy high estate may tomorrow be classed among the lowly. But the kingdom of the spirit endures for ever. The nobility of the spirit is unchanging; The power of the Great Spirit can never wane. But you can, and do, determine the extent of its operation.

　"Often I hear those who have knowledge say: 'Why has not the world of spirit done this or that?' when they themselves fail to provide the means by which the world of spirit could have fulfilled their requests. In a world that is full of anxiety, full of darkness and stress, be like beacons of light, so that, in their hour of trouble, men and women can come to you, attracted by the light of confidence that they see, and find a refuge and a sanct-uary, a harbour of peace amidst the troubles of their days. You have the power to still the tempest of their mind and give tranquillity to their souls."

　"At what time, as far as you know, does the spirit enter the body?” he was asked, and this was his reply: 

　"As spirit, you have always existed, because spirit is part of life and life is part of spirit. You have always existed. Because you are part of the Great Spirit, which is the life-force, you , have never had a beginning, but you as an individual, as a separate, conscious individuality, must begin somewhere even in the stream of life. When conception takes place, the cells of the male and female meet and provide a vehicle for a particle of the life-force to begin to express itself through a physical body. The life-force is un-expressed until there is a vehicle through which it can manifest. That is what the earth parents provide. From the time the cells have coalesced and formed their union, the tiny particle of spirit has naturally attached itself and begins its expression in your world of matter. And I hold that that is the dawn of conscious-ness. From that moment it begins its conscious individual life. Thereafter it will always be an individual entity of its own.''

　The next question began: “Through no fault of their own, innocent babies are born into the world victims of hereditary, venereal and other diseases. This does not seem quite fair, as it is not the fault of the child that it has inherited such a disease. Can you say something about that?"

　The guide answered: "'Those who talk of unfairness are still thinking in terms of bodies, of a world of matter, and not of an infinite life. The spirit does not suffer from venereal disease. The spirit is not crippled or misshapen or bent. The spirit is not suffering from any hereditary traits or any of the acquired characteristics of the parents. These do not change the individual, although they do affect the body through which the spirit mani-fests on earth. Whilst you can quite possibly argue that, from the earthly point of view, looking at life solely from a material standpoint, the one who is born into a diseased body has a much worse time physically than the one born into a healthy body, those opinions do not hold in regard to the spirit which is behind the body. You will not automatically be poorer in spirit because your body is diseased, and richer in spirit because your body is healthier. Indeed, it can be argued that your spirit will be richer because you will have learned the many lessons of pain and suffering which are all part of the equipment of the spirit in its essential evolution."

　"What, then, is the urge to improve this world?" the guide was asked. To this Silver Birch replied: "The urge comes in-herently from the free will which the Great Spirit has given to all children so that they can be co-sharers with the Great Spirit in His infinite creation.''

　This answer produced the comment: “If the spirit is improved by physical suffering, why do anything to alleviate it?"

　"I am not advancing that," said the guide. "I am saying it could be argued so in order to demonstrate that there is infallibly a law of compensation at work. You cannot point to two bodies, one discased and one healthy, and say because of those conditions the souls suffer accordingly forever. The lesson I am trying to draw is that it is not the body which determines the state of the spirit. The spirit has its own path of evolution to tread. No matter what body is provided it always must be subservient to the twin laws of compensation and retribution."

　Here someone interjected: "But it would always be better for the body to be born free from disease.”

　"Of course," was the spirited rejoinder. "It would be better that your world were free of slums, but slums are caused by part of that self-same free will which could enable your world to be a paradise on earth. If you have free will, then you must allow for its misuse and its correct use.''

　Another pressed his point by saying: “But it does seem that one would lose one's incentive to make the world better if one knew that suffering may help the spirit.”

　"There is nothing in your world that has not got its compen-sation," said the guide. "It would be a grave mockery of divine justice if you could say that man has power so to thwart the Great Spirit that he could condemn the spirit and prevent it reaping the harvest which is its inherent right. I am pointing out that there is a law of compensation and that even were man work-ing against the laws of progress, setting in force laws which are not in harmony with the laws of the Great Spirit, even when he has done all that, he has failed to thwart the divine plan, for there is a divine compensation.

　"But it also must be pointed out that if you were to remove all the causes of present suffering, man, of his own volition, would still, out of the very complexity of his civilisation, introduce fresh causes which enable more suffering to take place. Life is a series of infinite gradations towards progress. You have to create steps one at a time, but do not think that the process of creating ever achieves a stage of finality.” 

　"Disease of body may improve the spiritual evolution of the individual,” stated one member of the circle, "but it can also do the reverse. It can worsen their character."

　"Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not,” said Silver Birch. "The case can be stated either way. You have disease because you break the law.''

　"Then you are surely stating that there must be disease or its equivalent," the guide was told.

　"No, I do not say the equivalent of disease, but the equivalent of some suffering," Silver Birch declared. “You cannot have free will without having its pleasures and its pains. Surely you agree with that?"

　"Yes," said the sitter, “because if there were no suffering, there would be no happiness. It seems to me that if you insist that there must be this, that or the other in place of something else, why worry about changing the world?"

　"How else would you have it since man has free will?" asked the guide.

　The answer was: “I would say, leaving out this terrible war, that the world today is much happier than it was 300 years ago, and in most countries, even with war, they are much happier now."

　"Yes, but how does this defeat what I say?" inquired Silver Birch.　

　"We are always improving the world,” the sitter replied.

　"But there will always be individuals with a desire to improve the world,” said the guide, “because they are allowing their natural, divine, inherent talent to be expressed. It is because they are part of the Great Spirit. If tomorrow, by act of law, you introduced legislation which gave you all that you ask for to-day, it will not be satisfactory. The restless evolving spirit will be dissatisfied, and rightly so, because it knows, within itself, that there is a greater perfection to be achieved. The suffering of to-day is largely due to man's abuse of free will. Always there are checks and counter-checks. Always there is progress and setback. There is an ascending evolution, always going forward and falling back. There are those in advance of their time and those behind their time. One rightly helps to push the backward ones forward, and the backward ones rightly act as a check on those who are too far in advance. There must be a constant striving for perfection. But do not lose sight of the fact that there is compensation all the while for all miseries and misfortunes of life.''

　"There is so much to be righted," said one.

　"There are millions in your world who, despite your much-vaunted boasts of freedom, are far from free," declared Silver Birch. "Look at all the coloured people, still regarded as inferior subject races, even by your own country which loves tolerance better than almost any other land in your world. That is why I always say that you should never be satisfied. The world could be much brighter, much fairer and much happier.”

　After Silver Birch had explained, from his viewpoint, the operation of natural law, these questions were sent to him: “If struggle and distress are essential for spiritual progress, are not these necessary in the next world? Yet you teach that there is no evil and ugliness in the Beyond."

　The guide replied: "This questioner has not quite interpreted what I said. I said there were two kinds of evilーI never like the word 'evil-and uglinessーthat which was caused by the vested interests of the selfish and that which was due to man's imperfect development. There is no ugliness in our world, except in those

very low spheres, of course, where dwell the people whose lives were so impoverished that they have no beauty to enhance their conditions here. But with that exception of the grey spheres, evil and ugliness have no existence in a world where the causes of evil and ugliness have been removed, and man's spirit is free to engage in those pursuits which are natural and necessary for its orderly development, growth and progress.

　"Struggle and distress there will always beーbut it depends how you interpret these words. There will always be a struggle in your world between the two forces which seek to control man, his animal ancestry, the force of the brutish beast that belongs to his physical evolution, and the divine spirit, the breath of the Great Spirit, which unites him with the infinite processes of creation. Man's free will decides in this constant struggle in your world which will obtain the mastery and succeed in holding it. When you come to our world, there is struggle, in the sense that there is a constant effort to overcome faults of the lower nature, to give rise to the higher innate qualities of the spirit; the struggle towards perfection, towards the light; the struggle in which you are discarding all the grosser elements of your being, as, strength-ened, purified, refined and tested, the pure gold of the spirit gradually emerges.

　"There can only be temporary distress in my world, because souls are dissatisfied with their progress. But these are only temporary adjustments, part of the long march of progress towards perfection."

　Here someone interjected: “But always, in the other world, there is struggle, progress, and the need for effort.”

　"Yes," agreed the guide, "that is why I said it depends on interpretation. Always the higher seeks to eliminate the lower. It must be so, otherwise evolution would cease to be a truth. Man is a progressive being, growing from lower to higher states. In order to achieve growth he must constantly struggle towards the light, and that struggle is part of the process of growing. What I was trying to say was that there is a great deal of un-necessary struggle, a great deal of unnecessary striving, because man, by abusing his free will, has created needless conditions of squalor, disease and slums which make the task of the spirit all the harder in your world."

　Then dealing with a further question, the guide said: "He wants to know if the Great Spirit is perfect. What does he mean by the Great Spirit? I can only deal with the Great Spirit as I regard the Great Spirit—the eternal, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, natural law. I am not aware of any imperfections, faults or blemishes in that law. It is perfect in its sequence of cause and effect. It is perfect in the provision it has made for every aspect of a truly complex universe. When you consider, to take but one example, the myriads of creatures of varying sizes, shapes, colours and organisms, all of whom are provided with their sustenance by natural laws which overlook nothing, then you begin to see how truly comprehensive, how perfect in its conception and in its organisation is the law of the Great Spirit. To me the Great Spirit is the law, the law is the Great Spirit. The law is perfect, the Great Spirit is perfect. But you are living in an imperfect physical world.

　"You who are living in physical bodies are at the moment ex-pressing yourselves through finite minds, limited in their cap-acity to understand or appreciate even the world in which you dwell by your five senses of matter. These five senses determine the extent to which you can be aware of all that is happening around you whilst you are manifesting through a physical body. It is therefore impossible for you to grasp infinity. It is therefore impossible for you to understand perfection. It is therefore impossible for you to appreciate the Great Spirit or the operation of the Great Spirit's law, as long as you are restricted to your five senses. Though it may sometimes seem, because of your limit-ations, that the law is not perfect, with greater understanding and knowledge, viewing the same problem with the perspective of added wisdom, you do begin to realise that your former outlook was wrong.

　"The world of matter is in a state of evolution. As part of that process, there are all kinds of developments, some quiet, some violent, which are part of the constant interplay of natural forces which are moulding the world in its growth. There are checks and counter-checks all the time, because you must have the two opposites in motion to produce the natural means of being. It is very complicated, I know.”

　"You say that we are part of the Great Spirit," interjected one sitter. "As we are imperfect, does not that say that the Great Spirit is imperfect?"

　"No," was the answer, “because you have the seed of per-fection, but that perfection cannot be expressed until you have the perfect means of expressing it. But your expression is at present imperfect. When you have evolved the perfect instru-ment, the perfect spirit body, then you will express perfection, but it will take infinity before you can do it."

　"Will it also take infinity before every part of the Great Spirit reaches perfection?" the guide was asked.

　"No," he replied, "the Great Spirit is perfect, but that portion of the Great Spirit which is at present expressed in human beings in a world of matter is imperfect, but it is struggling towards perfection."

　"It is like an idea wrongly interpreted and used in an organ-isation; the idea is right," commented another sitter.

　"Yes," said the guide, “but it has to be expressed gradually, stage by stage, getting better all the time as it approaches the ideal. It does exist, in the same way as you have always heard me say that you are expressing only a tiny fragment of the real you. If you were to judge the real you by the fragment that you express, you would really have a very poor opinion of your-selves. But that is only a small part of the real you. There is a larger you, a larger consciousness, which is still related to you, but it cannot express itself until you have provided it with the correct vehicle."

　"That seems to get away from the idea of the Great Spirit as a single entity," a member of the circle said. “Is there a Great Spirit?"

　"There is not a man seated on a great white throne," declared the guide. "There is not a person. There is a law.”

　"With a mind?” he was asked.

　"Mind is not always restricted to bodies like yours," Silver Birch said. “It operates through law. You must dissociate mind from brain matter. Consciousness is not focused in the grey matter and cells of the brain. Consciousness exists apart from the brain altogether. You must not think of mind in terms of your little brain box. Mind exists in itself. In order that you may be aware of mind, you must have a vehicle through which it can express itself for you. You have bodies so that you can express yourself. If it were possible to visualise a state where there were no bodies, you would still exist, but you would have no means of manifestation.

　"It is hard to explain to you," said the guide, “because you can only think in terms of beings. It is impossible to explain in your earthly words that which is beyond words or symbols. You are dealing now with the stuff of creation. I cannot say there is a focalised force which is the Great Spirit. It is not that at all. The Great Spirit is the perfect mind, the perfect law which operates throughout eternity, without beginning and end. I cannot say that one day there was no light and the next day there was light. Life is a circle, without beginning and without end."

　"Would you say there is as much of God in all of us as there is anywhere?" the guide was asked.

　"The Great Spirit has no existence apart from the totality of the Great Spirit which is manifested in all creation," he replied. "Unfortunately, your world still retains this idea that creation began somewhat like the story of the Garden of Eden. It is not like that at all. There has always been a process of evolution at work; it is not that the universe had no existence and then it suddenly began to exist. The universe has always existed. Life in some form or another has always been made manifest, and life in some form will always continue to manifest.”.

　This is what Silver Birch thinks of spirit truth: "How fortunate are you to possess this knowledge which will enable you to give rich service to a world of darkness. How fortunate are you to possess the key to the many riddles which have puzzled great minds throughout the centuries. How fortunate are you to have the wisdom which will illumine your pathway and make you understand your rightful place with the eternal, divine scheme of life. You should be proud of the knowledge that you have earned, for it will help you to rescue the many who are buried beneath the debris of false teaching, so that you can point the way to knowledge and understanding. And yet, how much greater is the responsibility that lies on your shoulders, for in truth you are standard bearers of the Great Spirit. You are the instruments of the most high. Upon you rests the responsibility of doing nothing that will dishonour or besmirch the sacred cause to which you are dedicated.

　"Your world needs this knowledge, because it will illuminate the whole of life and make what was incomprehensible easy to understand. It will enable men to cease to be tortured by all the crudities and inadequacies of erroneous teachings that have for too long acted as a brake on progress. You are living in great times, for history is being written before your eyes. You are helping to shape its course towards that freedom which is the goal of every soul. You have a spiritual contribution to make. You have to disseminate this knowledge to ensure that the children of the Great Spirit everywhere are enabled to build on true found-ations that will endure amidst all the storms and stresses of life everywhere. Those who oppose you are gradually dwindling in number. The formidable opposition of yesterday has become but a pale shadow today. The tasks which faced the pioneers of another age have now lessened, because of their labours. Yet there is much work to be done, and upon your shoulders falls some of this great task.

　"Hold your heads high. Stand erect. Be proud of your con-tribution to freedom, to progress and to enlightenment every-where. You are helping far more than you know to set souls and minds free, so that the children of the Great Spirit can dwell, not in the darkness, but in the light of truth. A new spirit is making itself felt. Men and women everywhere are turning their backs on old systems which have failed them in the hour of crisis. You see now how the old order has been shattered. There has been an acceleration in the amount of disrespect that is given to the old because it is the old. Men look for new formulas, for new systems of life. They turn their eyes towards the light. Their hope is pinned on a future from which they expect a great prom-ise for the children who will come after them. Dissatisfied with the past, they yearn for this truth. It is for you to supply that need, to bring them into touch with their own beloved who will guide them, step by step, and enable them to acquire that know-ledge and that power that will equip them in the tasks of recon-struction that lie ahead.  

　"Labels are losing much of their attraction in your world. For too long men have worshipped titles and names, but now they have become disillusioned. There is a new spirit, a spirit of inquiry, a spirit that demands to know truth, that does not believe in authority because it styles itself authority, that does not believe that there is truth in the past just because it is the past and is supposed to be a record of divine intervention. When the fighting comes to an end you will be called upon to give service to far many more than even approach you today. There is a cataclysmic upheaval going on. You will see how many of the old institutions of church and state will disappear. There is so much that you could do—so much that you will be called upon to do."

　Advice on preparation for spirit communion was given in these words: “Learn to be passive, quiescent, receptive. You cannot command the power of the spirit. Its manifestations have to be prepared in orderly fashion. The transmission requires certain essential conditions. If you block the channel, the inspir-ation cannot flow, or else it becomes tainted. The great lesson to be learned is to keep your balance amidst all the turbulence and turmoil. If you have not absorbed that from our teaching, then some of it has been in vain.

　"You are part of the Great Spirit with a vast reservoir of power on which you can draw. Amidst all the storm and stress, amidst all the noise and clangour, amidst all the chaos and confusion you can stand still and know that nothing can disturb the eternal, divine, infinite you. Difficulties have to be overcome. It is in the overcoming of them that your characters are moulded, that your spirits grow, that you find your real selves. There is much work to be done by all of us. This horrible war, this mass killing of bodies, this orgy of destruction, this sorrow that streams all over the world, creates great difficulties. But the war will not last for-ever. When it comes to an end, we can go forward again to accomplish the mission which is part of our lives.”

　Then in words which all the guides could address to their many instruments who are aiding the spirit plan, Silver Birch went on: "The work will be done as long as you are patient, sympathetic and understanding. I have spent a long time guiding your footsteps. I cannot begin to tell you of the many occasions on which I have whispered into the ear of your con-science to prevent you making false moves that would have led you away from the paths of service. After some labour which has ranged over many years you have been brought together so that the work can be done, the work which will teach the children who dwell in the world of matter how to order their lives so that their spiritual natures function as the Great Spirit intended that they should. That work will go on unless you decide of your own free will to turn away from the paths on which you now swand.

　"We must use whatever talents the Great Spirit has implanted within us so that we can reach the largest number of people. At first we began with a few, but the trickling drops, as they col-lected, soon became a stream which in time will emerge as a mighty ocean. It has taken almost a century to arrive at the position in which the numbers of those who can say “I know' are to be counted in all the lands. In another century, the numbers who will join the mighty ranks will be far in excess of those who are today still regarded as pioneers."