RELIGION AS SEEN BY SILVER BIRCH

　　　　　Chapter Eight

RELIGION AS SEEN BY SILVER BIRCH

The very last place to find the power of the spirit is in the churches where it should have primary position. Man, no matter how high his ecclesiastical attainment, has turned his back on the source and foundation of his own religion and for some inexplicable reason prefers the bare, withered bones to the living truths of the spirit.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　SILVER BIRCH

It is sad that in the time of your world's great need the custodians of religion are unable to speak with the authority of the spirit because they are completely insensible to its ability to manifest in their churches. Not only are they completely unfamiliar with the truths of the spirit, but their foolish beliefs have become so encrusted in their beings that they form an impenetrable wall which prevents the light of the truth, the wisdom and power of the spirit from effecting any lodgment within them.

　How can the spirit find its way through all the hidebound ritual, dogma and doctrine which are so sterile? These churches are empty of the power of the spirit. And so you have the whited sepulchres again, the dried bones, the magnificent buildings, beautiful architecturally, but dead, cold, sterile, barren, because there is no illumination of the spirit within them. What is worse, they resist any attempt on the part of the spirit to make itself felt within their repositories, not of religion but a collection of dry theological doctrines.

　I hope that does not sound too stringent, but it is the saddest of all that the ones who should be the spiritual leaders are very much in the rearguard so far as these great truths are concerned. They are good men, who try to live blameless lives, but they are completely impervious to the very power of the spirit upon which all religion is based. Without the spirit there can be no religion. The spirit giveth life; where it is absent there is no life.

　If the churches had fulfilled their purpose, if they had not departed into theological, creedal, ritualistic and ceremonial bypaths, it would not have been necessary for beings like us to return and restore those links which are essential if your world is to maintain its proper place in the divine scheme.

　These men of God, as they are called, know the least about the Deity, the way in which the Deity works, or the natural laws which control the vast cosmos. And these are the foolish men who resist and oppose every attempt of the spirit to make its mark and work its beneficent will in the world of matter.

　Why is it that these people will accept stories describing how the power of the spirit manifested centuries ago, but will not believe that the same power can manifest today? What they teach has nothing to do with the Nazarene.

 You are privileged, as are others, to do some of the greater things that the Nazarene said would be done, but this is regarded as heretical. If they knew how the Nazarene wept at the way the churches which are named after him con-tinue to betray him.

　The power of the spirit operates as part of a plan. For ages, it tried to be expressed through the religions of the day. Here and there a receptive instrument was found. The result was what the ignorant regarded as miracles, but which were vital demonstrations of spiritual laws at work. These were the same phenomena that you have witnessed in the presence of powerful mediums today, the same healing, due to the same spirit of which you are the instruments. It is the same spirit because it all emanates from an unchanging Great Spirit. It is as simple as that.

　After each outburst of the power of the holy spirit, the men of the churches, the creed-makers, the theologians, the scholars, with their sophistries, got together. They replaced inspiration, which is divine, with formulas emanating in the minds of men, which, however learned they may have been, were bound to fail. The spirit gives life. All theology, by its very nature, is sterile.

　After countless efforts had been made, the advanced beings in our world decided that the power of the spirit should flow outside the established religions because it could not make itself felt within them. There were raised up ordinary men and women, like yourselves, to become the vessels of this divine power, each in his or her own way demonstrating the same gifts of the spirit as the Nazarene did, producing similar phenomena.

　No matter what the people who rule through churches, or chapels, the temples or synagogues may have to say, the power of the spirit is here to stay. None can banish it and none can thwart it. It will continue in ever-increasing power to encourage more and more throughout the world. That is what must be. Nothing will stop it.

　I am all in favour of spreading knowledge of spiritual truths and realities, but I am not so concerned with institu-tions or with buildings. I am concerned with people, the children of the Great Spirit. As I see it, the divine plan is to help these children to come into their own, to understand their spiritual heritage so that they may fulfil their divine destiny. Our task is to direct individuals, to guide in the best possible way, with all the means at our command, so that they are brought to the stage where they are spiritually ready. At that moment the seed will begin to grow.

　There are those who are concerned with influencing the men of the churches as individuals. It is right that any means should be essayed to help them to understand themselves, the power that brought them into being, the meaning of their existence and what it is they have to achieve before they quit the earthly scene.

　Empires have risen and fallen. Dictators have come and gone. Churches have flourished and crumbled into the dust. The Great Spirit will go on, and the power of the Great Spirit will continue to manifest. There is no room for pes-simism.

　If established churches do not see the light, then they will be obscured and enveloped by the darkness. It is good to try to spread knowledge. But I stress that the paramount task, as it has been shown to me, and I speak only for that which has been revealed to me, is to raise up individuals with the gifts of the spirit through whom this power can be made manifest.

　How privileged we are to be in any degree the ambassadors of the divine. This is something the churches cannot be. They mouth ancient formulas which in their hearts they do not themselves believe any more. They repeat the stereo-typed phrases and the worn-out ritual and ceremony that have long lost their meaning.

　These churches, cathedrals and temples are sterile, barren and dead because the power of the spirit cannot function within them. It is the spirit which giveth life, and they deny the spirit, the Holy Ghost, time and time again. And so this divine power has to use us who wear no strange vestments, who stand in no pulpit, but who merely offer ourselves as channels for divine power to stream through us so that we can serve, and show that no one is neglected or overlooked in the divine plan. '

　　　　　 ★        ★        ★

True prayer is something that comes involuntarily from the heart. It is not an organised, automatic means of addressing the Great Spirit. There is no virtue in those who call themselves Spiritual-ists unless they are living in their lives the implications of the truth they have received. We do not worship labels. It is not what a man designates himself that matters; it is what he does.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　SILVER BIRCH

※ シルバーバーチの言葉 

過去を忘れてはなりません。歴史を繙いてみることを忘れてはなりません。一個の組織が、それみずからを束縛する無用の絆からどこまで開放し得るものであるかを読み取らなくてはなりません。残念ながら国教会の歴史は数多くの黒い汚点によって汚されております。

そのうちの幾つかは血生臭い色さえ呈しております。貧しき者、困窮せる者、見捨てられし者、抑圧されし者の味方を標榜（ひょうぼう）する国教会にどこまでその資格があるでしょうか。その手は清らかであると言えるでしょうか。その動機に汚れがないと断言できるでしょうか。残念ながらその歴史は反証に満ちております。この度の運動においてその動機づけとしている〝目的〟そのものを何世紀にもわたって阻止してきたそもそもの張本人が国教会自体だったではありませんか。

　〝家の中〟を清掃する用意はどこまで出来ているでしょうか。みずから組織内の不平等と不公正を廃止する用意がどこまで出来ているでしょうか。みずからの努力でかち得たものでないものを含めて、その特権のすべてをかなぐり捨ててでも、いま高らかに宣言した改革運動を成就する用意がどこまで出来ているでしょうか。

文字通り国の教会として内部の対立と制約、魂を拘束し足枷となるものを全て排除する勇気があるでしょうか。今のお偉方にはたしてその新しい社会での存在価値があるのでしょうか。無意味な儀式と祭礼、仰々しい礼服、ストラ（袈裟に似た掛けもの）にミトラ（主教の冠）、その他、幾世紀にもわたって宗教の真髄をぼかし続けてきた飾り物が何の役に立つのでしょうか。

まずみずからの信条を再検討し、その中から公正の成就を妨げるものを排除する勇気がどの程度まであるのでしょうか。まずみずからが真の平等と正義の妨げとなるものを排除しなければなりますまい。