According To Thy Passion

According  To  Thy  Passion

Sunrise Service Number Forty-Four

Uranda   January 29, 1950

“A pure heart is a passion-filled heart”

Passion can overcome passion. To my mind that opens up such a wide field of consideration and meditation that it is questionable how far we can get in an hour or so. Remembering the Law of the Positive and Negative, remembering the Principles of Polarity, we can recognize that passion in the wrong direction carries one downward; passion in the right direction carries one upward. There is no such thing as true Response without feeling. Man's heart and emotional nature, purified, allows one to see God. The pure heart is a passion-filled heart, but with pure passion that is attuned to God. The heart is always filled with passion of some kind, to some degree while there is any life or feeling.

We remember, in The Song Celestial, there is the expression describing one who sits “passionless.” Now, that has led to a certain amount of misunderstanding—passionless in the sense of the destructive passion, but that attunement with the Divine, if it be real, cannot be without passion. Let us consider another Principle for a moment. Unlike things do not readily correlate. There must be some similarity, some likeness, some point of meeting, if there is to be an influence from one to another. If there be no point of meeting, If there be no point of correlation, then there can be no influence one to another.

We have recognized long ago the necessity of eliminating destructive passion from our lives. When the deep current of feeling or passion comes because of self-centeredness, and a wellspring of resentment creeps into the heart, there is destructive passion. When a person feels self-pity, when a person feels that he has been abused or neglected in some fashion, there we have destructive passion. There is, of course, lust, which is likewise destructive, but too often people think of passion as being lust. Lust may be passion but passion is not necessarily lust. Anger is passion. Any deep feeling of any kind whatsoever is passion. If that deep feeling be destructive, then we are moving in the wrong direction. When a person gives way to temper reactions—anger—we have destructive passion.

Now, remembering our point with respect to correlation, and recognizing that there are these unhealthy, destructive passions in the human heart that has not been cleansed and purified, the unregenerate heart, by what means can we establish that contact which will allow the cleansing? It Is obvious that passion cannot be dealt with without passion; otherwise, there would be no correlating point, no connection, no means of transferring influence. If there be no passion, passion cannot be changed. We have recognized these destructive passions and we recognize, then, according to the Principle and the Law, that destructive passions cannot be dealt with without passion.

What is the nature, then, of this passion by which cleansing and purification can take place? If we undertake to make the heart a void, a place where there is no feeling, we cannot do it, and the infilling of the heart with that which is Divine can come only from God. If we try to fill the heart with human strength or mind, it will be filled with something destructive. The pure heart is a passion-filled heart, but it is pure, Divine Passion, unmixed, untainted, unsoiled with the destructive passions to which human beings so often give place in their hearts. No man, no woman, can purify his or her own heart. It cannot be done. Until the heart is pure, the individual cannot truly see God, and if there be no contact with Divine passion there is no starting point for purification. One may listen to words of Truth without much feeling; one may hear words of Truth when there be no Response, and those words may seem hard—but the Word is: “God is Love.” If there be love then there is passion, for you cannot separate love and passion; it cannot be done. The Power of Purification is God's Love and it must be felt, and we must feel it more deeply than anything else. As long as any ill thing or any supposedly ill thing can engender a greater feeling reaction in us than is established by the passion current in God's Love, we are obviously subject in the wrong direction, but passion can overcome passion. Praise God that it is so.

From whence springs this passion? It springs from God's Love, and when we recognize that feeling currents that are destructive have no rightful place in our hearts, and when we open our hearts willingly, gladly, to the passion of God's Love, then that passion cleanses away all other passions, pushes them out until the heart, being filled with Divine Passion, is pure because it is not a place of mixed passions but a place where the passion of God's Love abides continually—and the Master truly said: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” The pure passion of God's Love, filling the heart, makes the heart pure. When the heart is pure, filled with the passion of Divine Love, do we stop living effectively? Some people seem to think we would. Some people seem to imagine that they have to have the passions of hate, the passions of fear, the passions of resentment and all the other destructive passions if they are going to maintain individuality. If the individual is going to try to maintain independence from God such things are essential, and he will have but a short time in which to play the game for such things lead to death and oblivion, but if the human being stops being so concerned about maintaining his independence from God and is willing to let himself be absorbed into God, that he may become one with God, even as the Master said: “My Father and I are one,” and even as He prayed that the Father should be in Him and He in the Father—He in us, we in Him, Oneness—does that Oneness obliterate true individuality? We have seen, in our studies in the Third Sacred School and in our experience, that it does not do so, but, rather, it allows the true individuality, unsoiled, to begin to appear.

We go back to that oft-repeated statement of Truth: According to thy Response so be it unto thee. Where rests the passion? That determines the direction of movement. That is what is being said in that statement, for there can be no response in any direction without passion. We could translate it, then: According to thy Passion, so be it unto thee, and if thy passions be of God's Love, then shalt thou arise and shine, but if thy passions be of the self-activity of the human mind, then shalt thou move in the paths of darkness until the tomb shall enclose thee.

According to thy Passion, so be it unto thee, and if there be no passion there is nothing. How often have I sought to stir up your pure hearts in the passion of God's Love, only to see you largely unmoved, accepting the Word of Truth abstractly but to such a high degree unmoved, saying within yourselves, “Yes, but I feel this and that, and I feel such and such a thing, etc., etc.”—excuses, on and on. “Oh, I do not feel good physically,” or, “I am depressed in my mind, and I feel these things so keenly that I cannot be expected to feel the passion of God's Love.” How human beings excuse their dullard attitudes! “If so-and-so did differently, and if such-and-such a thing were changed,” then the individual thinks he would not be caused to feel such things so keenly, and maybe there would be a little room in his heart to feel the passion of God's Love; but, lo, as soon as one thing is changed something else demands attention. The human mind never gets around to the point of not being able to find something else to feel destructive passion about—left to itself, from the beginning to the end of life it can always find something to feel destructive passion about. So man goeth to his long home—dust to dust returning—but when the mind is stilled and the passion of God's Love begins to have meaning the individual finds that all these other passions are as naught.

There is no passion like unto that of God. There is no passion that can withstand the cleansing passion of God's Love, and when we let our hearts be filled with God's Love, so that only the passion that is of God is found in us, then our hearts are pure and the passions of this world have passed away, and then we can see God. But, when the passions of the human heart hold sway, what does the individual see? He says, “I see so many things, that I cannot be expected to see God. I see evil here and evil there. I see dark, foreboding things. I see such ill things in my neighbor, in my wife or my husband or something else, that I cannot possibly see God.” Yes, unbridled passions of the human heart blind the eyes, and blind-folded the individual walks his darkened way into the ultimate of darkness—but there is no necessity of being blind-folded. We are not asked to be as a candle under a bushel, but as one set on a candlestick that it may give Light unto all that are in the House. “Let your light so shine,” but can there be a shining of the Light without a flame, and can there be a flame without passion? No, if we are to be obedient to the Master's Command, if we are to be true to that Name by which we are called, there must be the flame of passion burning in our hearts from whence the Light may shine, for there is a “Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” but it is that tiny spark of Divine passion which, when fanned to flame, begins to cleanse and purify, driving all earthly passions hence, that we may live in the Kingdom on earth.

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” If I had come before you in these years gone by without any passion in my voice, without any passion in the current of my expression, how far would you have been influenced? Perhaps I could have used brilliant words without any passion. Intoning them without feeling. Hark back to a single time you have heard me speak and tell me there was no passion there! Can you name one single time? I think not. Without that passion you would not have been influenced. Your heart would not have been touched. You would not have been moved along the Way, the Truth and the Life. There is hope for every individual who lives and breathes, and anyone who says, “There is no hope for me,” speaks a damnable lie, using his mouth to voice the vaporings of the serpent. So long as life is manifest the Way is open, and anyone who says, “I cannot,” only lies to God and to himself. “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, or maketh a lie.” What is it that defiles? The destructive passions of the human heart, and those destructive passions live on as long as the human being listens to and voices the lies of the serpent.

We must let the Truth have meaning if it is to bring Liberty in Reality. The beautiful Patterns of Truth must be seen in the Fire of Divine Passion, and According to thy Response, so shall it be unto thee. According to thy passions, so shalt thou go, and if thy passions be governed by the bigotries and the pettiness of the human mind, then the path leads downward, but if thy passions be to God, if thy passion is to the Passion of God, letting the Fire of His Passion find expression in every thought and word and deed, then shalt thou be lifted up, even as He said: “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32) Can you imagine those words spoken without feeling, without passion? What would they mean, what would they do, be they ever so true? No, you know that when our Master spoke those words the Fire of Passion was burning in every sound of His Voice. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God,” and, according to thy passions, so be it unto thee.

I would read a portion from the Master's Prayer in concluding His Ministry [John 17: 18-23]

Can you imagine these words spoken? If so, you know the Passion that filled them

“As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us;

that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me.

And the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

“I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect In one;

and that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me.”

O LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, I thank Thee for these Blessed Ones who are beginning to let Thy Passion fill their hearts, that they may know truly the Way, the Truth and the Life, that they may let the Flame increase until the Light shall shine, giving Light to all who are willing to open their eyes to see the Path that leads into the Kingdom here on earth. I thank Thee that the increasing Current of Thy Passion in their hearts draws them closer before the Gate, that being blended in the Eternal Flame they may walk into the Kingdom and abide therein, to Thy Glory and to the Blessing of the children of men. I thank Thee, O LORD, that it is so established, IN the Christ, now and forever. Aum-en. The Peace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you now and always as you abide in the Light of His Eternal Passion. Aum-en.

Divine Passion is always controlled.

Human passion is characterized by the fact that it is not under control.

Divine Passion is characterized by the fact that it is always under control.

© emissaries of divine light