A Talk Given in The Temple by,
Eleanor L. Shumway, Guardian in Chief, on November 8, 2015
I have spoken before about The Healing Meditation and The Words of Force. We hear them so often that I think we need to examine them at regular intervals, putting the Light of consciousness on them, each time investing these powerful tools with new awareness of their authority and majesty.
Here in Halcyon we hear the Healing Meditation at least three times a week: “We will now hold the Healing Meditation, calling in the healing forces of the Lodge. With the Power of the White Light let us surround the Guardian-in-Chief, Temple Officers, all members here and elsewhere who are in need of help; all who have sent in their names for the Healing Bowl; and everyone who is searching for the Light.
“May the Master purify us that we may more worthily perform this service. In the strength of the Christos do we repel all evil from this Thy Holy Altar and sanctuary; and we pray our Heavenly Father/Mother that Thou wilt send Thy Holy Angels to help us build a Spiritual Temple, through which Thy Strength and Blessings may be poured forth upon the world.
“To Thee, Almighty Father/Mother/Son, Creator of Life, spiritual and material, we lift our hearts in faith that, if it be according to Thy Will, the Sun of Thy righteous and omnipotent Love may shine upon and within us, lifting the fallen shadows of disease and suffering, and restoring us to mental, moral, and physical health.
AMEN”
What in the world are we actually doing when we say or hear this? What do these words mean? Do we even really hear them any more? Would we be upset if they disappeared? Who cares? I think I can truthfully and resoundingly say, “We do!”
Let’s take a careful look.
We have been told many times, in many ways of the creative power of sound. The Bible, announcing the formation of the known world, tells us in the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God, and God spoke the world into being. Our own Teachings are full of references to the power of Sound.
So why do we speak the words of the Healing Meditation? We tune into the creative power of this primal, Divine Force. In order to use it for healing, our motive must be a sincere desire to help everyone, including ourselves, to meet the challenges facing us. That motive must be articulated within each person present as the invocation begins, “We will now hold the Healing Meditation.” This articulation can be instantaneous, for thought happens faster than the speed of Light.
Remember, when we hold a meditation, instead of sending “out” light, or prayers, we need to go within. See yourself following the Light deep within your heart and suddenly it opens out into the real world containing the essence of everything in manifestation. As we go within our hearts we conserve energy, becoming more and more effective in our role of partner and co-creator with the Masters and God.
Next, we tap all the good, all the positive forces of the Great White Lodge with the words, “calling in the healing forces of the Lodge.” We acknowledge the Love, the Guidance, the Presence of the Masters and Their Love, and our right to call upon Them. Even though we are never actually outside of that presence and Love, we must ask each day for the spiritual food we need to keep us spiritually healthy and connected. This is our responsibility in the partnership we have with All That Is, or God.
We make the connection, then we state, “With the Power of the White Light,” by which we acknowledge, that as part of the team, we are going to use that Power of the White Light creatively under the Higher Law to do the following: “let us surround the Guardian-in-Chief, Temple Officers,” note this is not by personal name, but rather by the point made manifest by the office itself. We are asking that the White Light enable each office to most effectively function its duties. The personality currently occupying that point is included in the following “all members here and elsewhere who are in need of help.” We see not only ourselves but each person in our Temple family surrounded by the White Light, helping us all to meet whatever challenge we face. Then we spread this beneficent Light in ever increasing circles to: “all who have sent in their names for the Healing Bowl; and everyone who is searching for the Light.” This effectively covers the world and beyond. We must actively engage in this process. Our responsibility is not met by just listening and drifting along, we must see ourselves as being a power station, actively engaged in helping to send the Light in all directions.
Nelson Mandela expresses it so clearly:
“Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness,
that frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t
serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened
about shrinking
so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the
glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us,
it’s in all of us.
And, as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously
give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated
from our own fears,
our presence
automatically liberates others.”
–Nelson Mandela
In The Healing Meditation, next we ask that the Master help us clear out the garbage inside ourselves that could get in the way of our being an effective instrument or partner in this process. “May the Master purify us that we may more worthily perform this service.” We begin with ourselves, then we move inward to the specifics of the task at hand. “In the strength of the Christos do we repel all evil from this Thy Holy Altar and sanctuary;” We see ourselves standing guard, upright, strong, and invincible, as a Warrior of Light. As that Warrior, we do not raise a sword or gun, we simply ARE the Light. We find that evil, or the shadows, falls back defeated. Then, “we pray our Heavenly Father/Mother that Thou wilt send Thy Holy Angels to help us build a Spiritual Temple, through which Thy Strength and Blessings may be poured forth upon the world.” We ask for help in our inner building process of becoming a conduit through which that help may reach us as well as all others.
And finally, we make a passionate plea, asking, like the warmth of the physical sun, that the warmth and nurturing of the Spiritual Sun will shine on us helping to dispel the shadows of disease and suffering. As we do this, we move into our Divine mental, moral, and physical health. “To Thee, Almighty Father/Mother/Son, Creator of Life, spiritual and material, we lift our hearts in faith that, if it be according to Thy Will, the Sun of Thy righteous and omnipotent Love may shine upon and within us, lifting the fallen shadows of disease and suffering, and restoring us to mental, moral, and physical health.”
We address these words to the Father/Mother/Son, Creator of Life, spiritual and material. We acknowledge the threefold unity of being, the Creator of all Life. We must understand that there is no way to be outside of this Creator, looking in. We are it, we simply state that we understand we live according to Divine Law, knowing that we are not victims of blind chance, but an active partner in the creation of all Life as we know it. With the help and guidance of this threefold expression of Divinity, we will gain the heights, and help others to stand beside us. We state that “if it be according to Thy Will,” thereby recognizing the Law of Karma, which is balance and Love or God in action.
The vibratory rate of the words of the Healing Meditation bring us into alignment with the Forces of Divinity, thereby helping us to function more effectively, restoring us to mental, moral, and physical health, which together spell spiritual health. We are irrevocably connected with every other atom in the manifested universe, therefore, as we seek and find mental, moral and physical health, we send that increased balance to every other part of God. When we feel this is too much of a responsibility, we are too weak, too tired, and/or too busy, remember the power of a small candle in a dark room. When we all light our small candles we create a powerful Light, the Light of Love, the Light of God.
John Varian calls this power, Sun Power:
Through me sunlight shooting outwardly into the world-darkness;
Through me warm, wholesome love to the Hungry-hearted;
Through me balanced independence into the serf-minded;
Through me heart strength and endurance to the lost.
From me happiness to the sorrow-ladened;
From me courage to the weak-souled;
From me perception to the blinded;
From me expression to the dumb.
Radiance to the world,
Peace to the earth,
Truth to the Law,
Love to the folk.
THE WORDS OF FORCE
At regular intervals during the last three or four years of her life, my mother would say, “Why don’t you write a talk about the Words of Force?” or “Why don’t you study the Words of Force in a class?” I can remember looking at her rather blankly wondering how one could fill a talk or a class with one sentence. I would say, “Oh, I’ll think about it”, or “That’s a good idea,” and then go on about my routine. She may be gone from the physical plane, but I really feel she is still nudging me. I wrote these words several years ago and want to share them with you again.
“Out of the Darkness shineth the Light of the Glorified Triple Star, into the hearts of Humanity, raising the pulse of the Cosmic Heart, and driving the shadows into the blackness of the Great Abyss.” This one sentence, entitled Words of Force, is repeated in Temple meetings every week, and used as an affirmation by many people during daily meditation. What does it mean, and how does it operate in our lives?
The title, Words of Force, gives us the first clue to the power inherent in this affirmation. “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God”. All of manifestation came from the Word, the differentiation of God into the parts of our world, to grow, evolve, experience, and return to God self-conscious in our Unity with the One. The Force is that energy inherent in the Word; the strength, the vigor, the power of Fohat, which is the universal propelling Vital Force, which is at once, the propeller and the resultant. So as we say these words aloud, alone or together, we are invoking or calling on the Divine within all manifestation. We need to be focused when we do this, alert, and aware, in order to properly absorb the force as we become attuned to it. We are told we always get what we ask for, sent to us in terms of our real needs, and on a Divine time schedule.
“Out of the Darkness shineth the Light of the Glorified Triple Star . . .” Coming from the Darkness of the unmanifested, the undifferentiated, pours the Light from the first trinity, Father-Mother-Son, the Red Star, the Blue Star and the Gold Star, the Glorified Triple Star. Combining and recombining, constantly in motion, interpenetrating all of the Cosmos with the synthesis of all colors, the White Light of the Absolute, this trinity powers all that we know. This trinity, the Glorified Triple Star, has other names: Desire, Will and Motion; Love, Will and Wisdom; Light, Heat and Electricity; the Thinker, the Thought and the Expression; Atma, Buddhi and Manas. All these names are an effort of ours to describe the nearly indescribable.
The Light of the Glorified Triple Star pours out into the hearts of humanity. As the light of the physical sun pours down upon the planet we call home, without distinction, without choosing one place over another, so does the Light of the Triple Star constantly bathe each and every one of us. As local weather conditions can obscure the sunlight temporarily, so can our choices of negativity, hatred, malice, self-centeredness, and greed obscure the Light of Love that continues to surround us without discrimination. It simply IS. This Divine Light raises the pulse of the Cosmic Heart, the Heart that connects all of us with every other thing and being in the Cosmos. We cannot escape this connection, no matter how separated we feel, one from the other.
Our point of responsibility in this affirmation is that of staying connected with all manifestation. The Master tells us on page 325 of Volume 1 of the Teachings of the Temple, “Tear down the barriers, children of my soul! Shut out from your hearts nothing in the Universe save the thing or creature that would separate you from other human souls; for only in union with those other human souls will you ever find God–find Love Incarnate–find Peace and Fulfillment. Every barrier you build between other human souls is a barrier between your God and your own soul, between your Higher Self and you.”
Dr. Dower emphasizes this responsibility when he writes, “The mistakes of our brothers or sisters are our mistakes and not one of us can fall without causing pain for all of us. When we keep this unalterable law in mind we find the courage to hold steady, to keep the faith, and to endure that the rest of us may not suffer because of our limitations. When we can see each other with eyes so steady that neither light nor shade, joy or pain, can keep from us a realization of our oneness each with the other and thus replace condemnation and criticism with patience and understanding, then indeed can we open the Place of Refuge to the Avatar and make radiant with understanding love that Dwelling Place.”
Alice O. Howell, in The Dove in the Stone wrote, “There are as many miracles to be seen through a microscope as through a telescope. Start with little things seen through the magnifying glass of wonder and just as a magnifying glass can focus the sunlight into a burning beam that can set a leaf aflame, so can your focused wonder set you ablaze with insight Find the light in each other and just fan it.”
When we are actively participating in the process of the Light pouring in on humanity, raising the pulse of the Cosmic Heart, we are nourishing not only ourselves but all of manifestation, and strengthening the power of the Light. It is, indeed, a most profound symbiotic relationship, a Cosmic “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” situation! As this process happens the shadows of negativity, of doubt, despair, separation, and self-centeredness are driven into the blackness of the Great Abyss. The Great Abyss is that place of oblivion, of absolutely undifferentiated matter, of total non-being. Nothing is every lost, just recycled in its proper time!
With the words, “Out of the darkness shineth the Light of the Glorified Triple Star into the hearts of humanity, raising the pulse of the Cosmic Heart and driving the shadows into the blackness of the Great Abyss”, we are affirming our recognition of the way the Divine Light pours into the hearts of each and every one of us, indeed, of all manifestation. Inherent in the recognition comes the acknowledgment of our responsibility to the process. We are an integral part of the evolution of consciousness and we must become more and more aware of the process, reaching toward the Light and helping to drive the shadows in ourselves into the Great Abyss.
When one considers the cyclic nature of all manifestation, from darkness to Light and back to darkness, this one sentence tells the story of manifestation in a manvantara and then withdrawal into pralaya, or rest. One short sentence, one incomprehensibly long period of time. Yet another paradox!
In closing, let me read this from Sue Bender in Plain and Simple, “The Amish love the Sunshine and Shadow quilt pattern. It shows two sides—the dark and light, spirit and form–and the challenge of bringing the two into a larger unity. It’s not a choice between extremes: conformity or freedom, discipline or imagination, acceptance or doubt, humility or a raging ego. It’s a balancing act that includes opposites.” It is the balance point we strive for. Out of the darkness shineth the Light. We are becoming that point.
—-Eleanor Shumway