Discernment

2000-5-11 11:33:00


Take John W. for instance. Sometimes he will write me a fairly lengthy letter updating me on his forum, activities, comments sent to him about my articles etc. Even though I greatly appreciate these communications, I sometimes feel bad that I only send him a short reply, and often days after his mail was received.

The majority of my free time is devoted to writing and dealing with the group as a whole. Fortunately, I am not the only servant here. More are stepping forward all the time and assisting others in their questions and needs and for this I am grateful.

Let us review the Principles of Discovery covered so far. They are:

(1) Take the things you know (for reasonable surety) to be true and use them as a foundation or stepping stones for testing additional truths.
(2) Be willing to let these foundation beliefs be either altered or dropped as some of them are replaced by higher vision.
(3) The teaching should be in harmony with common sense
(4) It should increase the power of Decision and free will.
(5) It should bring you to a new level of awareness and usefulness.
(6) Seek out true sources of knowledge, study and incorporate them into your life. Knowledge dispels error and illusion.
(7) Gather all the reliable information you can about a subject of interest and try and see the principles suggested by the data. Then draw conclusions and run the conclusions by your soul and see if you receive a response.
(8) Follow all the aspects of the Will of God that is within your perception, and your sensitivity to the truth will increase.
(9) The Process of Elimination. Eliminate those things that are definitely not true and contemplate on that which remains.
(10) Effective Communication
(A) Communication through perception of the outside world.
(B) Person to person communication.
(C) Communication through the soul.
(11) Truth is in harmony with spiritual principles; therefore, we discover that which is true through the application of those principles.
(12) The principle of planting and harvesting.
(13) "The Law of Correspondences." The principle behind it is "as above so below," and visa versa.
(14) Take that belief which is embraced by the world and look in the opposite direction. In this opposite direction much truth lies hidden.

In relation to our recent discussions on the soul, I have been contemplating the name of the current principle revealed, and have decided on:

(15) Discernment. In particular the disciple should seek the power to discern beyond physical seeing so he can see the difference in effects from the astral/emotional world and the world of the soul.

The seeker can read all the books in the world, attend all retreats, sit at the feet of many gurus and teachers, but until he develops the ability to discern between emotion and spirit, truth and error, the good and the bad, he will be at a standstill in his progression. Now some may stop in their tracks here and say there is no good and evil - that it is just a point of view, but remember the definition of good and evil as given by the Brotherhood. Good is that teaching or philosophy, which when applied takes us forward in our progression upon the Path, and evil is that which when applied moves us in retrogression.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of power to discern, many people call good evil and evil good just as predicted by Isaiah. " Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20) David wrote in a similar vein: "The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Psalms 14:2-3) In ancient times the teachers were frustrated that the people had such little power to discern, that good and evil became so confusing that the common people called that which was evil good and good evil. The confusion was so great that often, not one of them was accomplishing any good.

Now we have been talking about principles that assist in the discovery of truth, but if we were to list principles that lead the masses to error, the herd mentality would have to be at the top of the list. The spiritual group produces a higher life, but the herd instinct causes many to give up their power of thought and identify with a lower elemental life form that needs to be dominated by our power of decision. This herd instinct causes people to join a destructive mob, to support strange religious doctrines, or to follow a political view without thinking about the reason why.

So, let us look out upon the world today, exercise discernment, and ask: What are three things commonly believed to be good that are really leading to retrogression, and three things believed to be evil that may in truth lead to progression?