THE SCHOOL OF TRUTH LECTURE PUT YOUR PROBLEM DOWN

The most difficult aspect of Truth is trying to know health when your body is racked with pain, or happiness when you feel alone and deserted. I know. Yet, among us, we have had so many demonstrations that prove the immanence of God, so many manifestations of His love and care of us when, in spite of the problem, we have turned unconditionally to Him. No teacher is going to tell you it is easy. Pain is so very real. It is worse than hunger, worse than sadness, and the more you fight it the more it fights back. Nevertheless - and I know it is not easy to accept this - we must not, under any circumstances, judge according to appearances. We must make righteous, or right, judgement. What does this Power within us mean to us? Is it something impersonal, something that is not cognizant of what is going on in our lives, and in our bodies particularly? Or is this inner urge, which is called Divine discontent, calling us to Itself within us, urging us to close our eyes to the appearance, to the condition? It says to us "This cause which is too hard for you, you shall bring to Me and I will hear it." You have to choose between God - Who constitutes every cell of your being, Who is life and health - or the problem, which denies the reality of God. You are torn between the two choices, and the problem is the more pressing, because it is causing you great discomfort, while God within you is silent. You cannot resolve it. But God enjoins you to do just one thing for Him - put your problem down. "Put your problem down and let Me fill your mind and heart with My presence." "But..." you argue. There are no buts. The experience through which we are passing we have invited into our lives for the building of greater awareness of Godas-us.

Some people imagine that once they have had a demonstration of God's good, that is the end of their learning; they will have no more problems, no more challenges. It is not so. As you advance your problems become more difficult. You carry His torch deeper and deeper into the darkness that accompanies the great gift to you of freedom of choice. Many people say to me "You are so lucky" and I reply "I do not understand the word 'lucky'." "You are so blessed" they say. "It is easy for you to assure people because you already have everything." It causes me to look back at my life, at all the traumas, the heartaches, the anxieties, the tears and the pain. And I had no-one to whom I could turn for assurance. I could not make an appointment with a teacher of Truth. The Voice within me said "I have chosen you; you have not chosen Me. You dare not, you cannot, fail, and you cannot escape from this problem. You have to face it." If you come to me with a problem of ill-health, I can tell you that I have experienced a "terminal" condition. If you come to me with your unhappiness and frustrations, I understand because I too have experienced these. I too have experienced poverty. But I have learnt one basic lesson - not to complain about the problem but to keep my mind and heart centred on God. He is giving me the living waters. His presence is not up in the clouds - It is me. I must survive. The problem must be resolved. I do not resolve the problem; I do not know how. If I am sick I can take medicine, but that is only a temporary help - the cause is still there. It must be God first, last and all the time. That is why my heart breaks at times when I see what is going on in the world.

When I was involved in animal work I saw the terrible things that were being done deliberately to animals by people who did not know better, and it taught me great humility, for to some or other degree we are all still beginners in consciousness, all tread the same path of Truth. In 1979 certain events in my life made me think it is maybe time for me to give up. I asked All-knowledge within me whether what I had been teaching was really Truth. Should I stop teaching? Was this uncertainty a lesson in what others feel - so that I could know what encouragement to give them? It was tempting to conclude "You have shown me. I do not have to continue this public work." I could go and relax in Cape Town where I have a little home that someone gave me years ago. But you all know what happened. - I had to face life. I had to continue teaching others, not out of books but out of my own experience. I received a letter last week from a well-known spiritual lecturer asking me to help him with his health. He has a vast storehouse of information and is a splendid speaker. He has an intellectual concept of God but has not uncovered God within himself. It is true, just as shadows are necessary for us to appreciate light, that unremitting sickness may be necessary for us to appreciate health, suicidal unhappiness for us to appreciate joy, ravenous hunger for us to appreciate abundance. We live in a material world and it is material experience that enables us finally to impart the immanence of God, the love of God, Who does not walk for us but Who walks as us. When one of the Master's great followers declared "God is Love" he could just as well have said "Love is God." How could Love desire to hurt us, cause us pain, make us suffer? You and I, who are only human, would not cause an animal to suffer, and is our love greater than All-in-All? Is not the compassion within us the very Love of God trying to come into expression through our restricted minds and hearts? We all have to make our own choice.

There are no grey areas in Truth. You can only use Truth; you cannot bend It. So if you are now going through an experience that is too much for you - and my heart goes out to you, for I understand - do not give up. Ask yourself what you are learning through this experience. Ask yourself what you are teaching yourself. God IS. You are His presence - you are the temples of the living God. You live and move and have your being in Him (or Her or It). Do you want to run away from these experiences? You cannot - because wherever you go you are still the same person. I take myself with myself and I take my experiences and my challenges with me. Face them with courage - it is never too late. You feel the eleventh hour is upon you, but it is like the deep dark hours before dawn, when you can cut the stillness with a knife. Then a gentle glow begins to appear on the horizon, and then there is sunrise. It always, always, comes. So it is with us. We go through the fires of affliction and feel that we cannot go on. What is the end reward of this experience - I do not mean in some life hereafter, I mean here and now? "This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Today is my experience.

If I contrive to avoid it, it awaits me wherever I go, even on the next plane of consciousness. People commit suicide because of fear, perhaps fear of punishment for what they believe is their fault. But Love does not punish. Love understands and is forgiving. It lifts up the fallen, does not stamp on them. Love is the common denominator whereby we all face one another. I do not care whether you are Jew or gentile, white, black or yellow, Protestant or Hindu. We do not all look through the same peephole at the infinite vista before us. It is good that there is variety. The problem that you are facing at the moment needs your own enlightenment. The choice is yours - you can have the problem, or you can have the living waters of God within yourself. Which do you want? If you keep your mind centred on God you will find fulfilment. He brings you surcease from pain. He lifts your burden and sets you free - if you put it down and allow Him. You obstruct Him, He never obstructs you. It is only when the hand is open that it can be filled - with love, or life, or health or happiness, or any good. People who are tense and afraid have clenched hands. If you watch athletes before they run you will notice how they loosen themselves to get rid of the tension in their minds and bodies. Even if they do not realise it, they are affirming God within them. So today use this affirmation - "This cause is too hard for me but, as I put down the lies of negation, God's presence in me sets me free."