August 29, 2007

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   This is the second meeting of Silver Birch and the Minister

  "Is it possible for people' on earth to live perfect lives, to be sanctified and made holy?" was the minister's first question at the second seance.  "Is it possible for us to love everybody?"

  "No, it is not possible, but you can try," said Silver Birch. "All the efforts you make are very important in the building of your character. If you never were angry, never bitter, and never lost your temper, you would cease to be human. The Law is that you are put here to develop your spirit, so that it can grow and grow. It never stops growing in your world or in mine.

  "What did Jesus mean when he said: 'Be ye perfect even as your Father, which is in Heaven, is perfect'?"
  "He meant you must try to be perfect," replied the guide.  "That is the ideal you should try to express in your life to express the Great White Spirit that is in you."

  "The passage I quoted occurs in the last verse of the 5th chapter of St. Matthew," explained the visitor.  "It comes after Christ was speaking about universal love, and he said that 'certain people love their neighbors and some people love their friends, but be ye therefore perfect, ye are the children of God.' The idea is that God loves everybody, and we should love everybody. Do you think that Christ would have given us a command which we could not carry out?"
  "You want to make all the world like the Nazarene!" exclaimed Silver Birch.  "Do you think that he lived a perfect life in your world?"

  Yes, I think he lived a perfect life."
  "Do you think he was never angry,"
  "I think he was disgusted. with certain things that went on." "Do you think he was never angry?  Persisted the guide.  "I think he was never angry in the sense that it is wrong to be angry."
  "That is not the question I asked you.  I asked you whether he was ever angry; not could you justify it, because you can always justify anything."

  One of the sitters recalled the incident when Jesus turned the moneychangers out of the temple.
  "That is what I meant," said the spirit.  "You must not try to read into the life of the Nazarene something that did not happen.  He was very angry when he saw people in your world desecrate the temple of the Great White Spirit, and he took whips to whip them out.  That was anger.  I do not say it was not justified, but it was anger, and anger is a human passion.
  "I only tell you that to show you that he had some human qualities.  When you try to follow the example of the Nazarene, you must understand that he was a human being in whom there was a great manifestation of the Great White Spirit a greater manifestation in his case than there has been in other cases.  Is that clear?" "Yes."

  "I am only trying to help you. You must not think that the way to please the Nazarene is to put him on a very high pedestal where nobody else can reach him.  You please him only when you make him like you and like every other man in the physical world. He does not want to be above. He wants to be with them. He wants to be an example, so that everyone else can do the things he did.  If you put him so high that no one in your world can follow him then all his life is in vain."

  "Do you think we have free will?" asked the minister, changing the subject.
  "Yes.  Free will is the law."
  "Don't you think that sometimes a man is made to do things under impulses over which he has no control?  Is he impelled to do things, or has he free will?"
  "What do you think?" queried the guide.
  "I think we are free agents," said the minister.
  "You are all given free will," Silver Birch explained, "except that you must live all your lives within the Law of the Great White Spirit.  The laws, which are laid down by His love, for the use of all His children, are there, and you cannot change them.  Within all these limits you are free."

  "If we are free, then sin is a terrible thing," declared the visitor.  "If a man sins willfully, it seems more terrible than if he were impelled to do it."
  "I can only tell you this: Whatever wrong is done in your world, the one who does that wrong must put it right.  If he does not put it right in your world, then he must put it right from our world."
  "Do you think that some people have very strong hereditary tendencies in things that are not ideal?" asked the Methodist.  "It is easier for some people to be good than others."

  "That is a very hard question," confessed the spirit, " because each one of you has free will.  When you do that which is not right, inside your heart you know it is not right.
  Whether you resist it or not depends on the character which you have grown for yourself.  The sin is bad or worse only according to the harm that it does."

  This immediately brought the question: "Doesn't that cut across the idea that sin is, an intellectual thing?  If sin is only bad in relation to its consequences, then sins of thought do not count at all."

  "All sin is sin," was the reply.  "Whether you sin with the body or the mind or the spirit, it is all sin.  You asked just now whether man acts on impulse.  Where does the impulse come from?" "From thought." "Where do the thoughts come from," asked Silver Birch. The minister hesitated and said: "The good thoughts come from God." "Where do the bad ones come from" persisted the spirit. "I don't know."

  "The Great White Spirit is in everything," declared Silver Birch, "in that which is wrong and in that which is right.  He is in the sun and in the storm; in everything that is beautiful and everything that is ugly.  He is in the sky and the ocean, the thunder and the lightning not only in beauty and goodness, but in sin and ugliness.  Do not you understand; you cannot limit the Great White Spirit?  The whole world is His creation, and His spirit is everywhere.

  "You cannot cut off anything and say that does not belong to the Great White Spirit.  You must not say that the sunshine comes from the Great White Spirit and the rain, which destroys the crops, comes from the devil.  The Great White Spirit is in everything.  You are like an instrument, which can receive thoughts and send out thoughts, but the thoughts that you receive depend upon your character and your spirit.  If you live what you call a perfect life, then you can only receive the perfect thoughts. 

  But because you are human, you receive all kinds of thoughts--just those thoughts, which your soul and your mind are capable of receiving.  Is that clear to you?"
  "Yes, I think so," was the minister's comment.  "Suppose anyone gets on in life and finds that he has received and followed the bad and neglected the good.  He is about to pass over and his life is worrying him.  What is your opinion of the peace which people profess to experience when they accept the words, 'By faith are ye saved'? What do you think about the doctrine of conversion?"

  Without hesitation the spirit replied: "I quote words from your book, 'What shall it profit a man if be shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' Then there are some more words, which say: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.' You know those words Well, but do you understand them?  Do you realize that they are real, they happen, they are the Law?  You know those words which say: 'Whatsoever a man soweth, he shall reap.'

  "How can you cheat the Law of the Great White Spirit?  Do you think a man who all his physical life has neglected his opportunities to help his fellow beings, can, on his deathbed, be converted and his spirit alter in one second?  Do you think he can blot out all the things, which he should have done, which register themselves on his spirit body?

  "Do you think that in the sight of the Great White Spirit a man who has neglected his own spirit is on an equal basis with the man who strives all his physical life to work for the Great White Spirit and for His children?  Do you think the Law of the Great White Spirit can be just if, because a man says he is sorry, be could wipe out all his sins?  Do you think so,"
  To this the minister said: "I think that God, in Christ, has provided an escape.  Jesus said--
  "But Silver Birch interrupted: "My son, I asked you a very straight question. 
  I want a very straight answer.

  I do not want you to tell me what it says in a book, because I know what it says there.  What do you think?" "It does not seem fair, but it is just there that the greatness of God's love comes in," said the cleric. "If you walk down this road, you come to a big building where they administer the laws of man," declared the guide.  "If the law were administered as I have just explained it, that a man who sins all his life and the man who tries to do good all his life are equal in the eyes of the law of Man, would you say that the laws of man were just?"

  I do not say that the man who has walked in the straight road all his life," the minister replied, "and has loved everybody, and has acted in an upright way, and trusted in Christ all his life, I do not say--"
  Again the spirit interrupted: "He sows, and what he sows, he reaps.  You cannot escape the Law.  You cannot cheat the Law."

  "But what message have I got for a dying man if I have to tell him be has made a mess of things and must make up for it?" the parson asked.
  "Tell him this from me," Silver Birch answered.  "If he is a real man, in whom there is something of the Great White Spirit, then he, as a man, will want to put right all the things which he put wrong.  If he wants to escape from the consequences of all his own actions, then I say he is not a man; he is only a coward."
  "When a man confesses his sins, don't you think he is doing a thing that not everyone has the courage to do?" was the next question.

  "It is only a step in the right direction, said Silver Birch.  "But the confession does not wipe out the sin.  He had free will, and he chose to do wrong instead of doing right.  He cannot escape the consequences.  He must put it right.  He only cheats himself by thinking he can say a magic formula to gain escape.  He must reap what he has sown; that is the Law."

  The    minister persisted: "But Jesus said: 'Come unto me and I will give you rest'." The    spirit asked the minister if he knew these words: 'The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.' " Then he added: "You cannot take all the words and say that you must accept their literal meaning, because if you do, there are many things in that book which you do not do today. You knew that."

  Once again the parson quoted: "Jesus said: 'The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.' I always preach the doctrine of forgiveness, implying that if a person accepts the forgiveness that Christ offers, and at the same time he tacitly admits that the whole law of Christ governs his life, his life is then one great offering of love."
  Then Silver Birch forced home this lesson: "The Great Spirit has implanted in you some of His own reason.  I plead with you to use that reason. 

  If you do anyone a big wrong and you confess it, that confession helps your spirit, but it does not alter the fact that you have done some wrong, Until you have put it right in the eyes of the Great White Spirit, the sin will remain.  That is the Law, my son.  You cannot alter laws, not even by quoting words from books, which you say the Nazarene said.

  "I tried to explain to you before.  Not all those words were said by him, but many of them were added afterwards. When you say ’The Nazarene said', you mean you think the Nazarene said those things. What I want you to try and understand is that the same spirit, the same inspiration, the same force of the Great White Spirit which made the Nazarene the great master that he is, is waiting for you, if you open your heart to receive it from the Great White Spirit.
  "You are apart of the Great White Spirit.  All His love, all His power, all His wisdom, knowledge and truth are there waiting for you.  You must not go back into the past for the Great White Spirit.  He is here now; just as much the Great White Spirit today as He was in the time of the Nazarene, and the same powers He had then, He has now.

  "There are very few instruments through whom He can give His teaching and His power.  Why should your Christianity be dependent upon one human being of two thousand years ago?  Why cannot all you men of God receive the same inspiration that he did?  Why must you go back to what he said?"

  "I talk of the work of Christ in me," was the parson's reply.  "I believe it is possible to have inspiration."
  "Why do you limit the Great White Spirit to the Nazarene and to one book?" inquired the spirit.  "Do you think that the whole of the Great White Spirit was expressed in one person or one book?  I am not a Christian.  I lived many years before the Nazarene came into your world. Did not the Great White Spirit make any allowance for my spirit to enter into His peace?

  "Do you think all the Great White Spirit can be put into a few pages in one book?  Do you think that when that book was finished, He had no more inspiration for His children?  Do you think you have come to the end of His power when you have turned the last page of your Bible?"

  "I hope not," said the minister.  "I sometimes feel that I am inspired."
  "One day you shall go unto the Father also," declared the spirit, "into one of those many, many mansions that you are preparing for yourself in your world today.  I want you, who are a man of God, to understand that you cannot limit God, He is everywhere.  The lowest criminal in the lowest haunt of vice is linked with the Great White Spirit as much as the highest saint who ever lived in your world. 

  The Great White Spirit is in each one of you.  If you try to express that spirit, and if you will make your heart open, the Great White spirit will pour through you the power and the revelation that will bring light and comfort to all those who are in your corner of the vineyard."

  "How do you explain the fact that the only calendar that has survived to any extent is the Christian calendars was the next question.
  Silver Birch replied: "Who told you that?  Have you not heard of the calendar of the Jewish peoples in many other places there are still calendars in existence that date back from the beginning of their own religion.  I do not try to belittle the work of the Nazarene. I know the work he dose, and I know the Nazarene dose not want to be worshipped as the Great White Spirit. The whole value of his life is as an example to be followed. Until the worshipping of the Nazarene stops there will be little inspiration in your Christianity.”

  The minister then said: "We cannot find out when it was decided to make the date of Jesus' birth the beginning of the calendar.  Can you tell me?"
  "I must answer in my own way," said the spirit. "A few days ago, a member of this circle went to the North. There he stayed with many of the children of the Great White Spirit. They are not people in high places. They are men who, if they have physical work, work very, very hard.  When they have finished, often after digging deep into the bowels of the earth, they receive as recompense a few physical pennies.  They live in what you call houses, which are a disgrace to your Christian civilization.

  "In the same town there is what you call a house of God. This house of God is so tall that the houses near by, when God's sun shines are in the shadow. They have more darkness in their lives than if the cathedral was not there. Do you think that is right?"
  "I used to live in Durham," said the parson.

  "I know," was the answer. "That is why I told you."
  "I am very sorry that they have to live in those houses," the cleric declared.
  "Do you think the Nazarene would be pleased that they should?" said Silver Birch.  "Do you think he would ask questions about the calendar as long as there were houses like that, and men who have to work like that, men who only have a few physical pennies, while all the time there are others to whom thousands of physical pennies do not matter?

  "Do you think that he would ask for money for cathedrals and ask about calendars and talk about good books when people lived like that? What do you think of a Christianity that goes on using his name and still allows these things to operate in this country that is called Christian?

  "You ask questions about texts.  Religion has much more important and greater work to do.  Do you not see that the Great White Spirit wants all His children to receive His bounty?  In some parts of your world they are throwing away the necessities that other people starve for.  Can you talk of Christianity while Christians do these things?
  "I have a much closer touch with the Nazarene than you imagine. 

  I have seen his tears as he watches, because so many of his people and his ministers close their eyes to all the disgrace which goes on in the shadow of their own churches.  How can you be content to build churches which are supposed to be the houses of God, fill them with jewels and stained-glass windows, and boast of the building when all the time, in their shadows, there dwell children of the Great White Spirit who have not even necessities of life?

  "Many of them have not even a proper place on which to put their poor tired bodies when they have worked all day and sometimes into the night for a few physical pennies that are not enough for their bread.  I do not speak with any bitterness to you.  I am only filled with a big love for you, and would do anything to serve you.  But I am in the spirit world and have few opportunities of talking to men like you, who can go out into your world and stir up things so that you can put right so much that is wrong.

  "I want you to understand there are more important things than texts in the Bible.  Not every one that saith, 'Lord, Lord but he that doeth the will of my father.' He taught you that many years ago.  Why cannot you make all people see that is the only thing that matters?  It is what you do that counts
  .
  "As long as you countenance all the wars, the iniquity, the starvation, poverty, and unemployment, you are all failing in your Christianity, and you are not following the example of the Nazarene.  You have come away from a big conference, where you have joined, in the last twelve months, three sections of your church.  Unless when they are united they strive in unity to alter those blots on the Law of the Great White Spirit, your unity is nothing.  I speak very frankly to you.  I do not want any misunderstanding.

  "Some years ago, we threw open our schools and collected money in the churches to provide things for the unemployed," said the minister.  "We cannot do everything, but, according to the number of people who go to church, don't you think we try very bard?"

  "I know your heart is good," the spirit commented, "otherwise I would not come back to talk to you again.  I see in you an instrument, which can be of service.  The people who go to your churches are very few, but did not the Nazarene teach you to go out into the highways and byways?  You must not wait for people to come to you.  You must go to them."
   

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