And so it is good to gather with you once more to share this hour of meditation. Let us have a moment of devotion: Our gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the assurance that as we let Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven there are many factors which begin to take form far beyond the range of human vision. Many things begin to work which the human eye cannot immediately see. Many opportunities begin to develop which cannot from an outer sense be immediately foretold. And that as we remain steady all of these things begin to come to focus in the Divine Pattern of Being, that we may begin to so let Thy Kingdom and Power have meaning in our lives, that Thy Glory may appear because of alignment and coordination established on earth. So that opportunity and that which is necessary to the fulfilling of opportunity may come to point at the same time, in all spheres of Life, with respect to all those things by which the children of men may be blessed and Thy Kingdom extended on earth. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. Aum-en.
We have been at various intervals considering the basic principles of Being. Tonight I would like to continue this particular pattern of meditation with you. We have already covered the first part of the Beatitudes. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2023/12/blessed-are-meek.html] And there is much more here worthy of our meditation as we consider those factors which make it possible for us to have the attitudes which will let us be instruments in the hand of God for the accomplishment of those things which are according to the Divine Design. The Master’s words in many places had for their particular purpose the revelation of the means by which human beings could move out of the sphere of mediocrity in relationship to the spiritual life. A practical life on earth. No human being likes to be classified as being mediocre. And yet human inconsistencies, which nullify individual efforts and bring futility, produce the net result of mediocrity.
The adjustments necessary in the individual life, which would allow fulfillment to come, are generally speaking, for those who are classified as good, who are seeking to live good lives, comparatively speaking, very slight. The human consciousness is generally speaking blind to its own necessities of adjustment. Perhaps in some major respect there may be some recognition but from the standpoint of the more delicate adjustments essential to individual and unit fulfilment, there is a failure to see, to recognize. If we have a delicate instrument we can expect the necessity for delicate adjustment. If we have a comparatively crude instrument, we might say a heavy duty machine, it might appear on the surface at least that there would not have to be delicate adjustments. But consider even such a thing as a road grader. The operator must become expert in establishing the right angle and the right height or depth for the blade. And if he ignores certain necessities of his work, he can spoil the road instead of making it better. So there is precision necessary in the operation of a road grader. However, when we think of the human being, we should have a consciousness of a delicate mechanism—not only with respect to certain organs of the body but with respect to the correct function of mind and heart.
The larger adjustments most people accept and are considered to be socially acceptable. When we speak of a delicate adjustment, many people think of something exceedingly frail, something not too important. But if we think of power plants with any understanding, we recognize that there are certain delicate adjustments necessary to the correct functioning of a powerful engine or motor. Delicate adjustments do not necessarily indicate frailty. Many people think of delicate adjustments as being unnecessary. Why be bothered? “Why can’t I do it without those delicate adjustments? Why can’t I accomplish what I want to without paying attention to all these little things? If it’s something big, all right I’ll listen.” But the delicate adjustments that are essential, what of them? Our attitudes with respect to these delicate adjustments go a long way toward determining whether we are going to be mediocre with respect to our particularized individualized patterns of life or whether we are going to be effective or perhaps brilliant. It is a common feeling that one is functioning adequately if he is not below the common level. But the common level does not permit the needed change in the lives of common people.
These attitudes which the Master outlined go much deeper than might seem to be the case on the surface. For instance, these words: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” The mind may think of the brutality which is common in Soviet Russia, the brutality of slave labor camps in Siberia. And one may think “Why can’t those guards be more merciful? Why can’t those people be more merciful to each other? Why can’t the judges be more merciful? Why can’t the rulers be more merciful?” But what about us? Perhaps we can see something of the need for mercy somewhere else. But what about the quality of mercy yet on Sunrise Ranch? From observation and examination, I would say that generally speaking the meaning of the word mercy escapes most human beings. They imagine that if under some peculiar circumstance they might have another human being under their power, to let that person live or condemn that person to death, that then they would be merciful. But does one have to be in such an extreme situation in order to let mercy have meaning? Is there a day, is there an hour, in the practical living of life where this quality of mercy should not come into play? If there are attitudes of resentment, what about the quality of mercy? What about the attitudes of judgment, one of another, in little things? What about the quality of mercy? The human mind may say that such and such a course of action is justified, but what does one lose using the quality of mercy? [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2014/05/from-nature-and-work-of-shekinah-uranda.html]
To what degree do you need to have mercy extended to you? Here is a clear pattern of the Master’s teaching, expressed many times in many ways, where that which one expresses becomes available to oneself. That which one expresses returns. Sometimes human beings do not like it when it is returning because they have sown that which they would not reap. But they have to reap it anyway. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” Where? Merely that God up in heaven is going to be merciful to you when you die? All too often that is about the only aspect of mercy that human beings think about, that God should be merciful. But what about the quality of mercy in expression through us day by day? Here is a key, a fundamental key of Being with respect to some of those delicate adjustments essential if human beings would stop defeating themselves, stop maintaining an arbitrarily established level of mediocrity. Generally speaking, human beings do not come anywhere near the expression of their own true potential. Generally speaking, the individual cannot say, “If circumstances were different, if I had this, if I had that, if people around me were different, then I could express, then I could experience, more than I am.”
Blessed ones, we recognize in the overall pattern that there must be changes before we can come to the fullness of that which God would have us to know. But let us be honest in facing the fact that we have not achieved anything like all that is possible under the present circumstance, within the scope of the present factors of limitation. Once you fill the factors of limitation, or the area established by the factors of limitation, with the fullness of that which is possible to you under the circumstance, the boundaries are going to give way. But if, because there are factors of limitation, we say, “What is the use of filling this area? By itself it couldn’t achieve very much. What is the use of doing all that we can in the face of all of these obstacles?” Of course there are obstacles. Many of them. There are limitations. There are many things that ought not to be as they are. But if everyone says, “I will wait until the unit does some more growing. Or my neighbor does, my husband does, my wife does, my friend does, then with a better circumstance I will begin to grow, then I will achieve something.” With all having that same attitude we will never rise to a higher level.
Someone somewhere, even here, has to dare to move into a Higher Pattern of Being, without regard to the supposed limitations established round about. When you can come to me and convince me that you have filled your available opportunities, taken full advantage of them within the scope of present limitations, you can convince me of it, then I will consider the possibility that you are being held back by someone, by some person, some group of persons, the unit as a whole, or circumstance. But be sure that you have completely achieved all that is possible within the scope of the present pattern of limitations.
What has this to do with mercy? You say that if you were governing Russia, for instance, you were set there as a ruler, you wouldn’t be so cruel, you would be more merciful. You wouldn’t send so many people to their deaths. The firing squads wouldn’t be so busy. The torture chambers wouldn’t be in operation. The Siberian slave labor camps wouldn’t be needed anymore. I wonder. Did you ever stop to consider the extent to which you now in your present pattern of living and action are condemning other human beings to misery, suffering and death? To what degree you are responsible now? If you would be merciful in the true sense, is it not necessary that you begin to recognize that if you fail to do everything you can to cause the Kingdom of Heaven to have meaning on earth, you are condemning other human beings to suffering and misery and death as surely as if you are a ruler or a judge in Russia. What is your quality of mercy? Is there any concern about what others must suffer if you do not fulfil your responsibilities? If you only delay the Program, not perhaps for a year but for a day or even an hour? If you slow down the operation for a day for some unnecessary self-centered reason? Do you think that that can take place without causing others to suffer?
What is the quality of mercy in you? Do you ever say anything that places an unnecessary burden on another? Do you ever do anything or fail to do something? Many of the failures to be merciful result from failures to do, just non-doing, just putting something off, just waiting for some more convenient time, and others can get along the best they can. If God’s service is slowed down on earth, well, what difference does it make? Have you ever examined the picture as it relates to yourself? Are you in expression on earth all that you ought to be from the Divine standpoint? Any moment of delay, unnecessarily engendered, with respect to your accomplishment of that to which you are called, the fulfilling of your duties and responsibilities in the Divine Design, is an expression of a lack of mercy, a heartlessness.
Merciful? What does it mean to be merciful? To live in a little self-centered shell, ignoring your opportunities of extending mercy? “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Do you think that now or in some future time you might need mercy? How often I have seen individuals fail to be merciful and then start begging God for mercy when their own failure to be merciful caught up with them. Then it was a different story. They wanted to obtain mercy but they had never sown any mercy, they had never shown any mercy, the seeds of mercy had not been planted in their Garden of Life.
Sometimes firmness is mercy. If I took the attitude toward you collectively or individually, “Well, now, I’m going to be merciful. And by merciful, I’ll have to be real gentle. I’ll never put any pressure on these good folks that are trying to do the best they can. I’ll never put them in a corner where they’re forced to see the truth. Oh, I’ll be so gentle with them. I’ll be real merciful and just let things slide along.” Would that be merciful? No! That would be a failure on my part to at least undertake to head people off from moving in the wrong direction. If I am not firm and, sometimes to the point of hardness—compelling—then I am not merciful. But if by firmness I establish those conditions which make it possible for you to avoid unnecessary suffering, difficulty, delay, so that you in turn can, by living effectively, so that you in turn by your daily function can be merciful, then you can obtain mercy.
Holding back, just human stubbornness generally speaking when its brought down to its real nature, just holding back and refusing to do that which one could do to further the work of God on earth is one of the most prevalent ways in which people show their merciless attitude. Just stubbornly holding back and saying, “Well, if it works over there, if they can prove this, if they can do that, if they can achieve something without my help, then after a while I’ll come in and help, then I’ll do something.” I wonder sometimes how much it would take to convince people of the truth. Of course it’s little or much on the basis of whether the individual wants to be convinced or not. If the individual does not want to be convinced, then he won’t be convinced, because he knows that if he were convinced, some change would have to take place in his life and he thinks he doesn’t want to change, he wants to keep things as they are.
What is the greatest obstacle to forward movement, whether with a group such as this, or with the state or with the nation? Those who want to make it worse, are they the ones that are the greatest obstacles? Those who would like to tear it down and make it vile in some way? No, they have precious little influence, actually. Who are the ones who prevent more rapid progress? The good people who want to maintain the status quo. They don’t want any change. They’d like to keep it about like it is. “If it doesn’t get any worse, it’s not too bad. And if we do thus and so we’re not sure it’d be better. We know what we have so we better keep it this way.” They object to change. They want to maintain it as it is. “It’s pretty good just this way.” And what happens when such an attitude is taken? There begins to be loss. Why? Because of disintegration. And generally speaking human beings wake up too late to save anything. They hold back, and resist, and say, “At some more convenient time, or when it pleases me betters, or when I’m more thoroughly convinced, then I will do thus and so.” How are you going to be convinced if you do not step in and share the building, share the doing, share the accomplishment?
If we consider our Program here as having enough value, enough meaning, to cause us to gather for an hour of meditation such as this, who is supposed to accomplish what? Is it just me? Or just a few of us here? Or is it all of us together? Certainly it’s all of us together. And it is not by holding back but by a full and free expression of our whole potentiality to the degree that it can be expressed at the present time—by doing. And a failure to do what one could have done is one of the most merciless things. Those who show no mercy in Russia generally speaking make no pretense about being something that they are not. They just go ahead and they are that way. But all the millions of good people—and there might even be some, well not more than ten miles away—of all the millions of good people who stubbornly refuse to do what they could, refuse to step in and share, they are more merciless, more brutal, than that obvious brutality in Russia.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Until we learn to express mercy—how? when? Constantly, in the fulfilling of our responsibilities, by doing what we can do, by refusing to remain mediocre, refusing to be satisfied in the common herd. Blessed are the merciful, those who dare to do, that the mercy of God may be extended into the earth. From whence does mercy come? From God. Are you going to be merciful and just not make as much trouble for other people as you could, if you had a mind to? You may say, “Well, I’m being very merciful. I could make a lot more trouble for other people than I do if I just had a mind to. I sure could.” Probably you could too. So you’re going to be merciful just because you don’t make as much trouble for other people as you could.
If we do not so live that the current of that which is of God flows through us in a vibrant, creative, active doing, we are not being merciful. Until we do everything we think we can do and a little more toward letting the power of God, the spirit of God, the meaning of God’s truth find expression through us or because of us we are not being merciful. If we give just a little of what we can give, just enough to soothe conscience and give the right appearance, “Oh we’re going to maintain a pattern of goodness.” No. We must do all that we can do and more, and keep doing it, not just for an hour or a day or a week or a month or a year. If what we are doing is not being willing to do that without any assurance as to how long it will take, then what is the value of life? What is the gain for anyone? Why even live? If we would be merciful, then in this time, in this hour, in these days, we need to be causing all that we possibly can of that which is of God to find expression on earth.
It seems so easy to the human being to forget the hungry and the thirsty ones out there. I’ve been maneuvering, doing everything I could, to work out a Program to make it possible for me to visit other groups, to hold some services in certain places to which the public would be invited, but so far I haven’t been able to do it. Why? Well, actually, there isn’t any reason except that a lot of people are not merciful. They do not care whether the blessings of God reach those people or not, or whether it reaches them this summer or next summer. And if they die in the meanwhile, well it’s just too bad. “I’ll do so much and no more. I am not going to do all that I can. I’m going to look after myself. I’ll be merciful to myself.” You will, will you? There might come a day when your own mercy for yourself is not enough mercy for you.
“Blessed are the merciful.” What of all the others in the world? We here are not the only people on earth. Not by a long ways. Is that which we live for, is that to which we are dedicated, is that upon which we meditate of any value to anyone else? If it is, then everyone here can do more. Not just part of you. Every one of you can do more toward making that possible to others. And in making it possible to others, you will be merciful. Suppose it were turned around. That other person were here and you were there. And you were waiting, hungering and thirsty, for the privilege of hearing what you are privileged to here. Yes. And if we did not do all that we could to make it available to you then, would we be merciful?
Of what value are the things of God to you?
Do you have the capacity for taking everything for granted?
These hours of meditation, how much are they worth to you?
Would you be merciful?
We cannot take the things of God for granted, merely to satisfy ourselves or to fill some personal need, and say we are being merciful. If there was a fountain of water in a desert place and you found out about it and you were thirsty and you went with your little water bag and got some and then went off where nobody else could see you, so you could sip it all by yourself, would that be mercy? Or would you know that back along the way somewhere there was someone fainting, falling and dying for lack of water. Would you fill your water bag and hasten back along the path, saying “Here, I bring you water. Keep going. There is water. I have brought you some. Keep going.” Would that be merciful, to convey as much water to others as you could? Water is the symbol of Truth. The world is in desperate need of that Truth. Can we take it for granted? If we do, are we merciful? And if we are not merciful, think you that we shall obtain mercy?
Blessed ones, I can look at any one of you here and see in relationship to you where you have been subjected to difficulties, limitations, problems, that were absolutely unnecessary, they did not need to be. But you were not merciful. You did not function in a manner which would allow the whole Pattern to come to point, so only a part of a Pattern appeared, and there were difficulties and problems, and loads and worries, and unhappiness of various sorts, limitations. Limitations that did not need to be. We have them all around us right here on Sunrise Ranch. Limitations that do not need to be. And when shall you obtain mercy so that you do not have to live on a basis of where you have to contend with these limitations? When you become merciful. All too often the human attitude is, “Well, someone wasn’t merciful to me so I certainly won’t be merciful to that person; I’ll just show them.” Oh, yes. And what happens? It only destroys, prevents the outworking of God’s Design, spoils opportunities, spoils the beauty of life, prevents the expression of Life itself.
Blessed ones, when shall we hear the sweet, vibrant voice of our LORD sounding down through the centuries, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”? The individual who says, “I will do what I have to do but no more. If I can get out of doing something, I’ll let it slip by. I’ll be careless of my responsibilities. If I’m late on the job, maybe somebody else will have most of it done and I won’t have to do too much.” Is that being merciful?
What is it to be merciful? To express the fullness of the potentiality of your own Being now, in these days, in service, in blessing to others. And if you do not see a return appearing immediately, you’re going to quit, are you? I’ve seen so many people throw away the blessings of their own labors because they wouldn’t stay steady, hold true and carry through. There are certain ones right here within the sound of my voice—of course, it’s your neighbor. I’ve seen you all throw blessings away, blessings and opportunities and privileges, just because you refused to be merciful, just because you refused to do what was required of you the way it should have been done—really carrying through in the right spirit, in the right attitude. Oh, I do not say that always it has been so. You have received certain blessings, certain blessings that have made it better than it was before. You have obtained some mercy, but not enough. Of course if you decide you will be merciful in order to obtain mercy, it probably will not work. You can’t bargain with God.
But I pray that the day is not far away when I shall not have to watch so many people throwing blessings away, spoiling the outworking of the Divine Pattern because of a more or less take it for granted attitude, a holding back pattern, a refusal to be merciful and to really consider the needs of the waiting ones. Opportunities are coming to us so much faster than we are able to take care of them. Why? Because those who are supposed to be sharing this ministry, this service with me, have not yet learned to be merciful. They have not yet learned to be truly thankful for the blessings extended to them. And that could include someone on Sunrise Ranch. It could include someone here as well as someone out there.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Let us be merciful. Not because we are so concerned about getting mercy but because it is a Divine Attribute and we have the privilege of letting this quality of God find a much larger expression in our lives than we have so far. Until you begin to let this quality of God characterize you in the expression of your life, you cannot begin to know the joy of an ever-increasing service to God and to man, that you may see the victory appearing in others. To see others finding God and obtaining mercy—there is such a joy in the privilege of seeing others obtain mercy. And that is one of my primary concerns tonight. Perhaps you can say it is a bit selfish on my part, if you wish. I would like to have the joy of seeing you obtain a larger measure of mercy. And you need it, whether you know it or not. But if you would obtain it, you must be merciful. And begin to have a larger view of the possibilities of your own service to God and to man. Let us let this quality of God have a larger measure of expression through us in our dedication to the ministry of our LORD and KING. And let us never forget our responsibility to those who hunger and thirst, for those who seek the Bread of Life and the Waters of Truth.
Heavenly Father, I thank Thee for these blessed ones here gathered and for all who are with us in spirit, for all who are turning to Thee, whosoever wheresoever they may be, that as we release human boundaries and human concepts of limitation, we may by our unified patterns of action accomplish that to which we are called, that through the reality of our ministry to the children of men, in Thy Holy Name and by Thy Power we may of a truth be merciful, that Thy Glory may increase in the earth and all who will may come to abide in Thy Kingdom. I thank Thee, Father, that it is so, in the Christ. Aum-en.
