One of the topics for today is self knowledge.

This is our answer to ‘why did we take incarnation?’ Your heart knows it all. Your spirit essence knows it all. It knows the secrets of the days and the nights. It knows all about life, living, about changes, about evolution. But your ears thirst for the sound of this knowledge which your heart knows. It wishes to experience this knowledge. It’s like seeing a movie about how beautiful Europe is, reading about it, knowing all about Europe. But then, there comes a thirst "I want to go there. I want to experience the sounds and sights and smells of Europe that I have only seen or read about but which I haven’t experienced." And that’s exactly what this incarnation is all about. We know it all, but there is a thirst "I want to experience this wonderful, wonderful ‘Europe’ of the solar system. A place that is so diverse; different languages, different people, different sounds, sights and smells, and attitudes and behaviors. I want to experience it all." And that is the purpose of incarnation….Self Knowledge. You would know in words, that which you have always known in thought. The spirit essence doesn’t speak, doesn’t have words.

In fact the other day Divyaa and I were just discussing that we need to coin some new words because our experiences during our course of spiritual evolution are so vast that words are very limiting and can’t communicate the essence. We were specifically talking about the word "LOVE" and how the word has been misused for so long that we have now been conditioned to think that "LOVE" is a verb, an action, "to LOVE." LOVE is a noun; it’s one of the most powerful of abstract nouns. It cannot be a verb. You cannot ‘LOVE’ someone. LOVE is a force that can only be experienced. And unless you experience this you will always be conditioned to think that LOVE is an emotion that is only soft and gentle. That is not LOVE at all. That is fondness. That maybe attraction. That may even be lust, which you may not want to acknowledge. But it is not LOVE.

LOVE is a force so powerful that it cannot know compassion as we understand it. If it did, it would not be able to draw unto you that which is traumatic, that which is ‘unfortunate’, that which you consider as the world collapsing around your feet. It is a force so strong, that it knows that often the only way out of a certain situation is a huge earthquake. Were it to be ‘compassionate’, were it to have any false idea of mercy, LOVE would think of the number of people who would die, the children who would lose their parents, people who would lose their homes, and would never be able to cause that earthquake. But LOVE does. That is the force of LOVE. And you have to experience it, tangibly, in a very real manner, as I have been fortunate enough to do, in order to know it.

You know that there is air in the room only if there is movement. That is its experience. That which lies intangible and yet so real within you has to make itself known, and it does by using the force of LOVE, to make movement and shifts in your life, which you cannot ignore, which you have to heed.

So many people have said "You know, I used to dream of this so many years ago and then suddenly something happened and the dream actually comes true." That is the experience of self-knowledge. Your soul already knew it. And years later you experienced this knowingness.

Experience is essential. How else will you infuse, for all eternity, into your cells the knowingness of the universe, unless you have actually lived it? How would you show compassion to an orphan, unless you have been one? The memory of having undergone that experience (whether in this or a past incarnation) is now in your souls which, when you see an orphan, draws on that cell memory. How else would you know it?

This is so important for us. Let there be no scales to weigh this treasure. "She knows more and I know less. He can see but I can’t. She can hear voices and that I can’t do. It means that I am not as evolved." We weigh our whole process of wisdom and evolution against a measure that is completely ego based. "She can see. She is clairvoyant. She is telepathic." All these things which we feel are so marvelous and wonderful are just aspects of the ‘ego’ which for you may lie dormant in this lifetime, but for another have arisen to their full strength, in order to be used for some purpose. And the purpose need not always be for the good of others.

Sometimes question yourself. "Am I being these so called gifts in order to test how I respond/react to these gifts which others do not have? Is it in fact adding to my arrogance? To my vanity? " We had an eye opening session in Pune the last time I was there where the Master spoke of mediumship. We were provoked to ask ourselves: Are they giving us enough rope to hang ourselves with. Question that. When I read that transcript I was instantly moved to inner silence and very honest introspection. The Masters are giving us access to enormous energies. Is it truly because we have grown enough to access them? Or are they giving them to us as a temptation to fall into greater and greater ego traps? Only you can answer that, if your ego permits you to be honest and does not lead you down the path of utter self deception.

So when you ask for these things, and when you put others up on a pedestal because you think they have what you don’t have, question it a little more. What scales, am I using, to compare myself to another? What scales am I using to compare one and the other? Haven’t you noticed that as soon as a person is even slightly psychic, there is a tendency to feel that the person is all empowered, all-knowing? Why? That person has a gift just like an artist has, a musician has, a chef has, and an accountant has. Why don’t we put them up on a pedestal? Doesn’t it make you question, how you judge people?

Signs of having telepathic sight and hearing and knowledge, is not a sign of spiritual growth. In fact, I have seen it happen in the past, and I am seeing it happen in front of my eyes in the present, that the greater the telepathic communication the less is the truly spiritual growth of those who cannot handle power of the TRUTH that this ‘gift’ brings. I remember the choice ‘Bright Light’ placed before me very early in my training: "Do you wish to be a telepathic medium or a truly spiritual one? Anyone can be a telepathic medium, but very, very few can be spiritual mediums." Question yourself next time when you are weighing yourself and others.

This is our vanity kicking in. "Oh, the Masters told me this. And this wonderful great energy has been given to me." My dear, dear, friend, you are not the only one who has received it, so get out of that space of vanity. And have you ever considered that though it may be a ‘great’ energy for you, it maybe something quite insignificant for many others, and thus you have only now been opened to it, whereas others may have it already ingrained in their very cells. Rather a humbling thought isn’t it? Takes all the vanity out of the ‘gift’, does it not?

Yes, dear friends, you have found a truth, till you reach a point, where all these little, "a truth moments" leave you detached and untouched. When you touch "THE truth" you will not have a single moment of "Wow!" As soon as the ‘wow’ comes in, even if it may be unexpressed to others (or to self) it is still only "A truth."

You can’t ever find the path of the soul. There are so many. What do you mean by "THE path?" There are so many (especially wives), who have come to me and said "I don’t know what to do with my husband; he is so materialistic. He has so much money and he just wants to keep making more. He doesn’t bother about spiritual truths." One person even told me "Ell, I made him read some of your transcripts and he said – what rubbish is written here." (Laughter) And I said "isn’t that wonderful? He is following the path of his soul so completely. He needs to be totally immersed in materialism. And if that is his path and he is following it so closely, one must respect this soul for having the courage not to be swayed by other paths that often only seem prettier, till you have finally walked it yourself and then you realize, its not for me."

There are several paths of the soul and when you find something that works for you, don’t, in vanity, label it, "THE path." No, it is only a path your soul is walking for a short period of time; till it decides that it has walked this path enough and its time to experiment another. And that other path may go through the darkest valleys of human emotion. But so what? If a soul has chosen for a short period, a path of murder and greed and arson and plunder and loot, and lives that path to the fullest, and has not vacillated as you may have, at the end of its journey, it will have attained its fullest goal mission for this lifetime, whereas you may have not even started upon yours. Again ask, what judgment am I passing?

Each layer is shown to us individually. Each incarnation is only one petal of that lotus, and it is so foolish to judge one petal as being prettier than the other. All the petals add to the beauty of the flower.

That is why the next topic I prefer to call ‘judgment’, though the book places it under the heading ‘crime and punishment’.

Again makes us think about our scales. We put people on a pedestal, thinking we will never reach there. But that person cannot be higher, than the highest you can be. And the rapist and the murderer cannot be lower than the lowest you can be. So even in this incarnation, you are the saint and you are the sinner and everything that lies in-between is also you.

This is a true moment of personal responsibility. The wrong doer cannot commit a wrong, unless it is with the silent agreement of us all. Hitler did what he did because we gave him the permission. Mussolini did what he did. Stalin did what he did. And closer to home, look at Afghanistan, look at Iraq. Every time you hear of a suicide bomb squad, so many people dead, please give one moment of acknowledgement "I permitted it." If you hadn’t, it wouldn’t have happened. For even the smallest leaf in the tree to be yellow, the tree must permit it. The conifers don’t permit their tree to turn yellow, the deciduous trees do. And that is why the conifers are ever-green. The tree does not permit the leaves to turn yellow. Ask a botanist and he will tell you that the conifers have a physical substance which stops the process of yellowing.

We are one leaf each of a vast tree; a tree that has permitted its leaves to turn yellow, to turn brown, to decay, to rot, to fall. But unless the tree gives you the permission, you can’t BE. And isn’t every leaf a part of the tree? Can you say the leaf is different from the tree? So when you say that the Tree knows ALL and permits ALL, are you not really saying that each and every leaf knows it all and permits it all?

Whenever you pass a judgment, whether it’s in praise, or in condemnation, make one acknowledgement, "I PERMITTED IT." In that acknowledgement, all criticism will die, all false adulation will vanish. How can you criticize someone, if you have permitted that person to do what he has to do? How can you place someone on a pedestal if you have given him the permission to be ‘gifted’?

Do you see how closely judgment and self knowledge are connected?

Great responsibility again. Is spiritual growth purely ‘personal’? Because we are more adept at walking, should we not make an attempt to look down at the path and see if there are stones which we can move aside, so that others do not fall?

You know after my mother is dead and gone, I don’t know what other memory I will have of her, but there will be one memory I will always carry which will bring a smile on my face….. my mother doing a little ‘side step’ every time she walks on the road. I used to find it extremely embarrassing when I was younger. She’ walks a few steps and then gives a sideways kick…and this goes on and on and on. (Laughter) What was she doing?" She was moving aside every banana peal or anything else that she thought someone would trip over or slip on. Today some may feel that I am further up the ‘path’ than she is because I walked faster, but I truly question whether I am more sure upon the path than she is… because she took pains to remove the stumbling stones which I didn’t." And that is why this memory will always stay. That which really irritated me when I was young has taught me a big lesson today that I live by. Remove the banana peals. Help others not to fall.

When someone falls, take the responsibility, "I didn’t remove the stone when I could have." This person has fallen because of ‘me’, and he has fallen so that the hundreds walking behind him now may see that there is a stone and be careful. Every human being’s fall is a moment of great glory for all of humanity. Glory in the acknowledgement that we didn’t do what we could have done (there is glory in acknowledging one’s weakness because out of that comes further growth). And glory in the acknowledgement that one ‘leaf’ of the tree of humanity, had the compassion, the expansion of spirit, the growth to fall, so that others behind him would not.

Friends, let us know ourselves more and more. Let’s not have a moment of embarrassment to acknowledge our weaknesses and faults. There are so many who come up to me in surprise "Ell, how do you share all your faults with us so openly?" I share them openly because I acknowledge mine and yours as being the same. We are all on the same journey; we are all at the same place. We have all done the same things; just done them differently. I am only sharing mine with you, so that it may be a trigger for you to open a shut window. Where is the humiliation? If you judge the faults of others, then you will not want to share your faults with others because you will think, "I will be humiliated, I will be judged, I will be condemned." If that is what you do to others, that is what you will expect others to do to you. But where is the degradation? We have all fallen, we have all risen and we are all going to continue falling and rising. And if in the fall of one, hundreds others can ‘see’, then why must it be kept hidden?

When you are inexperienced and immature, you do not understand what another is doing in service. You tend to criticize. I was too inexperienced and too immature to understand what my mother was doing. It is now that I understand service. Similarly, are we too immature and inexperienced to understand the service done by those who fall, by those who commit crimes that we judge as heinous? Are we too inexperienced for that?

Today’s lesson has given us all a lot to go home and question ourselves about.

Thank you.