The New Year

When it seems that today is one of those days which, from the earth point of view, has gone a little wrong, it simply means that the Spirits, as messengers from the Most High, have been allowed to bring a little more than their share into the conditions; and so from the very beginning be assured that the Holy Work will be carried through as usual.

Although it would seem appropriate, the Spirits are rather hesitant to touch upon the subject of the New Year and all its glorious possibilities from a spiritual point of view. At that moment memory is too keen over the past. Christmas, unfortunately, has a way with the vast majority of turning up old soil and of revealing the bones of past years, which should be left uncovered, to the cheerful sun.

It is the custom at Christmas time, that beautiful time of peace and of close communion with the Divine, it is a habit with the children of the earth to go back in their minds over the past. When it concerns happy days then it is all well and good! When it concerns hard times and scarce-healed sorrows, then these thoughts should be ruled out unquestioningly.

You find it difficult! It is not easy with the inexperienced to bring down the blind on this and on that. But in the house of your mind you should reverse the custom with the houses made of brick and stone. The careful one draws the curtains or the blinds to keep out that health-giving, that most precious gift of the sun. As a caretaker of the Spirit you should reverse this order of things. You should pull down the blinds on the side which is sunless and throw them up and the windows wide open, where that which is of God is held out to you. Not only the physical happiness but that far more definite thing, the joy of the soul in touch with its God.

The Spirits are trying to guard you from all the snares of the shadows! If you could see things as they see them you would know that these memories, sanctified perhaps by sorrow, are wounds deliberately torn open by the evil which seeks to block out the vision of God's Love from your aching eyes. It is in every truth simply an act, a destructive act of the shadows which makes you and countless thousands turn over the leaves of the past and reread them until once more the tears start to flow and the wounds in heart and mind, which you have laboured hard to close, are torn apart and you have to start again.

It sounds strange to you that the way to God should present so much grief. There are those in your mind who seem to have been struck again and again, and yet you can testify that they have done their best. Do not think that God and the Spirits criticise you for these questioning thoughts. To you, so blinded by the world's view, indeed it seems over hard, and in spite of your best endeavours to be fair to Divine Love the mind cries out; why!

These beloved of the Great Father are strong and sturdy souls and they are determined to carry on until the end, in spite of the protests of mind and body. There is not one of the chosen, there never has been and never will be, who has not found the road both hard and steep, and because these instances are constantly being forced under your attention it means that they have not only been chosen but that they have heard the Call and have answered with unflinching spirit. It is beside the point that the physical mind complains, so long as they go on.

And yet what does this reluctance of the physical mind represent? Unconsciously, they are praying against the Spirit; unconsciously they are setting the physical will against that which is Divine, the Divine within. The struggle is fierce indeed, for the Spirit has no intention of retreating one step. So the battle goes on, wearing out both body and nerves, and still the Spirit fights on! Just this and nothing more or less.

To some this sounds almost like a tragedy, and so it is, but not in the way you think. It is a tragedy that the children of the most High should suffer so; it is a terrible thing for Perfect Love to witness, and there is one point which should draw your attention because it will show you that in the Saviour you have that direct contacting point of sympathy and understanding.

Once and once only, for a brief second, the Lord felt the same. In the narrative as laid down in your records do you not remember when, in the garden, that the Christ, the suffering Man, was faced with the complete denial of His life's work and purpose by the children He came to save. He was brought up against the most terrible thing of all; the betrayal by those He loved so well. In that moment of isolation and of grief He voiced the one entreaty: "Father, if You be willing, remove this cup from Me." In that test, that most drastic test of all; the crying out of the physical, the revelation came and, as you know, He added: "Nevertheless not my will, but Yours be done."

This is rather against the physical mind, but consider it as it stands in all its beauty of abnegation.

Can you not see that if the Christ had not been through that period, brief though it was in His case, of struggle between the physical and spiritual the children of the earth could rightly declare that God could not enter into their feelings in this respect. All your experiences have been lived through and conquered by the Christ Jesus your Lord. So take comfort from this, and when you hear of, or see, those in your own circle of friends shrinking from the experiences they have undertaken say to yourself at once that God will understand and understanding will help.

Yet something must be forthcoming from the individual concerned. These periods, when the task taken on seems too heavy and life altogether too unkind, could be shortened if you would only concentrate more closely on the mind of Love. In the world today you have got to reckon with that which is not of the world in any sense there could be, the things of the Spirit which are all around you, and which intermingle with the physical and even the material. These beautiful conditions which are so expressive of God are weaved into your daily life, and so it is that when the physical mind prays against the decrees of the Spirit immediately, as a natural result, disharmony is brought about in those conditions which are all around.

In regard to praying against the Spirit you have a two-fold responsibility; and yet before you touch upon that understand fully that the Spirits, and certainly much more so the Christ, do understand that, to the physical comprehension, life represents an enigma which has yet to be solved. It is so entirely natural that when "undeserved" trouble comes, as you regard it, the shrinking should be there. It is perfectly natural, but it is not spiritual. Because of that at once you enhance your own unhappiness, for that within, which belongs to God, separates itself from the reluctant mind and, closely allied to the Father, goes on its way leaving that other self rather on its own.

It explains much, it explains those periods of darkness with which all God’s children are familiar; it explains also that unless a tight hold is kept on the physical mind these periods of darkness are not lessened but are increased. Yet it simply means, when they pass, that for the time you are estranged from the greater self within, but in no sense does in mean that you are estranged from God or that the Father is separated from His child. If you could once get that glorious truth firmly fixed in your physical mind the Spirits should never more be placed in the position of grieving over the grief of God’s children, and it is just that healing thought which the shadows are determined shall not be there. But you have fought many big battles and have overcome, and so it means that the day will dawn when the physical mind will no longer hamper the brave, pioneer Spirit within; when you will have worked through those chains of the earth and, in your new-found freedom, will not only rejoice but will be able to free others, by the fact that you have been through the same yourself.

You find it impossible to grasp, in its completeness, the necessity for such experiences in order to help others. Yet, so inconsistent is the physical mind that again and again you exclaim at the lack of understanding some have over other people's sorrows. All who are out in the busy world are struck by this, the total inability of the vast majority to enter into the thoughts and the deep anguishes of others.

The Spirits could not have contacted with anyone who has only sailed over the smooth seas of life. You cannot teach the things of God to the uninitiated, and that's what you forget. It is like talking in a foreign language to one who understands only their mother-tongue; it would be wasted effort if the Spirits had chosen those who had not passed through dangerous storms and deep waters of physical experience.

Once more when you bring things down to a common sense level the knots are found to be in imagination only. Tell the one who is mostly in your mind that they, out of their wider vision, have chosen the short, steep road to God. As in nature storms are succeeded by calm and calm by storms, so you shall find that the little boat of life shall be led safely out of that which threatens to wreck, into the great wide sea of God's most perfect understanding.

In thinking things over will you try to bear in mind that it hurts the tender heart of the Beloved when you pray against the Spirit. Do you not understand what the Great Parent feels in regard to His children when they, treading so blindly their uphill way, fall over stone and rock, and produce nothing in the way of advancement but only damage to heart and mind and body. The Father, so comprehensive, so unlimited in His Love, suffers in a way you little understand; suffers when His children pray against that wonderfully strong and sturdy Spirit which is within. He longs to give you peace, He longs that joy should be held closely in your arms, but, in His Divine wisdom, He knows that only by unity between the physical mind and the greater you within can perfect happiness be made your own.

You have had various little struggles, but what does it amount to, nothing serious at all. You went on! Now and again, of necessity, you pause to build up the power and that is all; so it is with your physical life today. The shadows seek to hinder you, and, sometimes, not realising it is the shadows, you stop and listen. But never mind! Presently you go on again; and each time the battle is fought and won so, all unconsciously to yourself, you are building up strength in the Spirit. That strength shall stand you in good stead, not only in the years to come but in the Great Hereafter when you will find it impossible to go back in thought on the discipline which you have taken on.

Those who you come across in your daily life will need help; help and encouragement too, and if you will give out of your best you shall find that the help and the encouragement has become your own.

Once more you finish stronger than you began. See in this that far-reaching Love of the Father; read between the lines and be positive that this is going to be worked out in detail; in your life and in all that relates to them. God’s children have been tried and tested, and if they have fainted by the way what are the Messengers of God sent for but to revive, to re-charge with strength and to lead them on!

Let the New Year bring this message to you and all. God is not mocked; and although the evil seems to strike and strike again in reality the Christ stands between you and that which would harm. There is no danger of land, of sea or of air; of forces known or of those unknown which can pass the Saviour! Now and again, it is true, certain souls take on for their experience such things as you call "accidents" to limb and to mind. But with the Christ in command you shall find not only in regard to your own life but also in regard to all those who have been gathered in, that only in pretence was the blow there; the Christ stood between you and evil, and will do so for ever more.

There is much that will be explained in the days to come, and when that explanation comes you will see with that not only was the discipline self-chosen, but it was also Love in that infinite sense, which had escaped your physical understanding until God gave you sight and hearing. So, on the keynote of hope and faith and determination, fight through the last remaining barriers until freedom is your own.

© The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association 2025

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