Seeking and Seeing the Truth
Click on headphone icon at left to listen to audio of transcript
Transcript
Class by Father Paul Blighton
Tape 803 11-22-1968
Did you come seeking any particular thing, information? (speaking to a visitor) Just a minute.
Tonight I’m going to talk about those of us who approach and are approaching the time mentioned in the Testament as the coming of the new world, the new earth and the new heaven, as it is put. There are many people seeking to understand some of the – what they call mysteries and revelations, whom have not even approached the Testament as a text. For in these teachings man is told that there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, various other sundry statements which mean absolutely nothing to him, and he is left out in the dark, because few of the clergy and few teachers will approach the prophecies as given in the New Testament or in Revelations.
Those things which were given to us in Revelations are things of this time. The difficulty with understanding them is the fact that so few understand those things which were taught in the old Kabbalah, such as the Tarot and some of the things which are in astrology, and those things which have to do with symbolism.
When one reads a chapter out of Revelations and they feel that they’re reading something out of one of Grimm’s fairy tales or out of some book or message which is bringing to us a grave disaster. But this disaster is not a disaster as most people have looked for.
Many things have happened in the past few years which have brought to our minds some of the quotations in Revelations. Now I am not going to talk on Revelations as the book itself and discuss the words that are there, but I am discussing the book as you would discuss a book which was written and that you understood, but you were discussing something which you understood with another person. In other words, revelation being discussed in relation to the time, and what to look for.
The symbolism in Revelations is a standard symbolism and, of course as usual, we look for something that we can’t understand, and we must it complicated.
If I were to sketch on the board here a woman with the earth at her feet and just leave it at that, and I’d say, “Well, this is in Revelations” — and it is — and ask you what it meant, you wouldn’t know. And yet it is so simple; if you will look at what you see, the pictures that are drawn, and not try to make them complicated, you would know that this particular thing was speaking of the time of the Mother of earth, and how she brought into birth the new Messiah and the Lord and Master who was taking over this earth.
It’s so strange to see people struggle against anything so simple. If I handed you a picture of my mother, you wouldn’t feel at all complicated about this. You’d look at it and say, “Well, now that is probably your mother or your sister”, and you’d think nothing of it. But because it’s in the Testament, you’ve got to make it complicated. Nobody could have written anything as simple as that.
Even when you see a picture of the earth in front of you, you can’t accept this. Because all of these great mysteries must be real deep and they must be real complicated. If you will just learn to be simple and take things as they are, as they’re stated. And when you see, when you read in the Testament that there was a crown of seven stars about some figure, well, now that’s something really from the higher heaven, isn’t it? Did you ever stop to think, or don’t you, that there were seven planets known at the time that Jesus was here, and accepted, on this earth? It’s so darn simple, and that’s why you forget it. And that’s why you can’t understand it.
If I put the pictures on the board of this: (symbol for Venus) you would probably understand that that was a symbol used in astrology for Venus. A very simple — you’ve read it, you’ve seen it in a paper, or you have seen it someplace in a book or a magazine or something, and you found out it was Venus. But, if I asked you what it meant, you’d say, “Oh, I don’t study astrology.” Do you have to study astrology to understand that?
This circle — and of course my circle’s poor — has always meant the sign of the Father, hasn’t it? The cross, the staff with the Law, a person who is able to give completely of her Father’s presence; and that means love.
You see, we go through life always seeking a mystery. Well, why seek a mystery when you’re seeking the answers? When you seek the answer to anything, never seek a mystery. Seek an answer. Or otherwise you will just find a mystery, and another mystery.
In the Testament it tells you, even outside of Revelations, it tells you there is a new heaven and a new earth at this particular time — that is, at the new age, at the return of the Christ. Now, “at the return of the Christ”. Well, this is the Aquarian age, and you’ve said so. You’ve all acknowledged this. It is the time when the Son shall take over. This has been demonstrated, this has been accepted. This is the age of Man. You’ll accept this, because this is what the Aquarian age is referred to, as being its most influential function.
Now, why and how would the Aquarian age be referred to this and where would we get the idea that this is a new heaven and a new earth? Well, in the first place, it says so, and he says “there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and the old heaven and the old earth shall pass away.” And immediately everybody says, “Oh, earthquakes, catastrophes, fire, burnings.” This is ..?.. Everybody right now is going through a change. A new heaven and a new earth is now being formed, because there is a constant increase of energy in our atmosphere, there is a constant change in the density of the molecular structure of all things on this earth.
And someplace along the line in Revelations it says — and one other place too — it tells about the time when the sun and the moon will be needed no more, for there shall be continuous day. There’s only one way that could happen, of course, and that is that there was enough light here all the time. Well, this isn’t beyond understanding, because if the density of the earth gets light enough and it contains enough light and energy, why, it would be light all the time. We wouldn’t even notice the difference whether we were revolving around and had our one side toward the sun, or not.
And of course you probably don’t fully understand this, but it’s a reality and a real fact that if you turn your body to one side, to a stream of light, I suppose you think it’s just hitting that side of your body. Well, it isn’t. If that light is of any nature which it can absorb, the whole body gets it, because it will be picked up by the vital body or spiritual body of man; and it will be entirely infused with light, as far as he can pick it out, according to its nature. It won’t be just the side of the body that it’s on, that’s turned to it.
So you see it would make no difference, because there is a spiritual body to the earth, and the Lord of our earth, the Master Jesus, is here, and it’s under his influence, guardianship and directorship, and that is the Lord and Master who was born in the twelfth chapter of Revelations. Look it up, read it, and you’ll learn something from it. I can take and put it here and I can repeat it and read it for you, and you’ll learn nothing. So look it up for yourself and you will learn something by it, reading it and listening to the little explanation I’m going to give you about this.
Because everybody always looks for either a dire thing to happen, or a complicated thing to happen. If it isn’t destruction in some respect, it is not understandable.
Now you’re all getting new bodies, and of course none of you know it. And those who don’t get them, or that obstruct them, well, they won’t have much trouble with them too much longer, because they won’t be here. It’s that simple. And it hasn’t got anything to do with any fiery God reaching down and clonking somebody on the “knoodle” with a rod of judgment either. Because we’re too darn small for Him to do these things with — He’d have to do that in a microscope, you know. Just think it over. Read the first chapter of Genesis and read how He said that He made man in His own image. Well, how big is He? Think about that. Read the first chapter of Genesis.
I’m going to give you a lecture tonight that’s going to be a lecture of puzzles, because there’s things you can learn if you want to make the effort. And if you want to look them up in the Testament, you’ll learn something from them. And read it; you don’t have to be able to understand the Bible. If you understand English, you can understand the — you can understand what’s in them. You don’t have to be a theologian to understand the Bible. That wasn’t what the Testament was written for in the first place. Because the Master never came here to build a church in the first place, so he couldn’t very well be interested in theologists. That was an aftermath that came along.
Just like the great Master Buddha came and tried to help people to raise their consciousness up at that time and, lo and behold, he had a worldwide church after him. He didn’t want that, he wasn’t interested in that, he wasn’t interested in teaching that. He wasn’t interested in a new faith in the East. He was just interested in getting the people to follow the faith they had. Well, the same thing happened with the Master Jesus when he was here. He was not, did not come to form a new church. He did not come to form a new religion, he came to bring the people into a better understanding of what they’d already been talking about, and which they weren’t practicing.
Now metaphysics, mysticism, occultism, and all the other things put together, are absolutely worthless unless they’re used. You’re wasting your time if you’re just listening and not doing, because it’ll do no good for you unless you do. You have to do something or it can’t do anything for you.
The Master, when he was here and he was with those who were in the temple, when he was twelve years old, taught them of the many things which they wondered at. Now of course he came into this world with a consciousness of that type, and wisdom, but why was it so easy for him to understand? Because he approached this, the things that he knew, he approached this with the simplicity of a child, and therefore he could understand.
Our difficulty and great task today is to pick up the books that we read, and read them with that simplicity. Now there are thousands of volumes of good writing and it’s no trick to get a Bible these days, that I assure you. And if you stop thinking of the Bible as a book that can only be approached by a priest or minister, you may learn much from it, especially the New Testament. It’s an informative book, a handbook for those people that would like to learn more about themselves and the universe they live in. It is a book which will teach you how to use the many things that you come in contact with every day, and how to control them. It is a record of the law, it is a record of some of the mysteries and predictions of today, and even the Master said, “I shall come like a thief in the night”, and that’s just about as quiet as you can come into a place. And he said, gave this statement very distinctly; and that’s just what’s taking place.
He said another very interesting thing — and these aren’t from scattered chapters, they’re all on the same subject. I’m not pulling out a verse here and there like the evangelists, and using them to suit myself. These can be found. They’re right there in the book and they’re in the New Testament. He also said, “Woe unto him whom when I come has not his cloak in readiness.” And that’s just what I got through telling you a few minutes ago when I said that those that could not control and handle their own bodies would not be here. Those that did not develop some higher consciousness — I’m not talking about sprouting wings, but some degree of higher consciousness and sight — just won’t be here. That’s all there is to it, it’s that simple.
Now this thing will go on. And there is an increase in many things that are not being seen, there is an increase in death rate. You can’t find it out though, unless you go out and start to rummage around amongst the undertakers and things like that, and then you’ll find out. Because it’s very carefully handled so that the public don’t find it out, and they don’t know what these people are passing on from. It isn’t cancer and it isn’t heart failure, and it isn’t brain damage; it’s some other darn fool thing. Oh, there’s some people got caught in a crash or something, but I’m not talking about those. Those are more or less natural casualties that you expect. We don’t want them, but they – percentage wise they happen. But the rest of them are the ones that we’re talking about, are the ones that, they just happen for no reason at all.
Now there is only one thing on earth that a person can be interested in any metaphysical teaching or any Bible teaching, or would even be interested in at all in even coming into this house to listen to a lecture. Because if you aren’t interested in how you can control your own physical being, make your life happier and prepare yourself for a journey, a conscious controllable journey when you leave this shell, then forget about it, because you’re only going to agitate and disturb your own self. You’re only
going to keep on seeking for what and for why. You’re only going to keep on probing for something, and it’s useless. There’s nothing to gain except that.
Of course if you’re just listening to resist and interested in being amused, well, it’s a nice amusement. Sometimes the words are pretty, but not too often here, because we don’t read much poetry and we don’t set and daydream. We’re factualists; we do. It’s a strange thing, I know, but we do. So we do do. And if you’re not interested in doing, and this is something that those whom are here as scholars want to remember, that when they’re teaching, if the individual, the individuals that they’re teaching on the outside in classes or something and aren’t interest in doing, you’ll save them a lot of grief and a lot of trouble if you will just tell them about it, so that they don’t have to bother wasting their time. Because people spend many hours in discussion, debate, reading, ah, theological discussions by some people, that is, Bible discussion, talking of —
Some people spend a lot of time going to church and that’s as far as it gets, and they leave it at the door. But this is a waste of time. For you have to start everything from a useful base. And the first thing that is necessary is to get simple. Simple enough to read simple English and understand it in a simple way. The way a young man, a young woman, or a young teener would understand it when he reads English.
If you can’t accept things on that basis, then you have a problem, because you will not find any truth any other way. The reason that we have what is called the Christian mysteries, or the ancient mysteries — Christian mysteries actually, that’s the way the original terminology was, the things that are taught to the priesthood and the things that are taught in the inner temple as they used to be. The reason they were called mysteries is because they were entirely covered up by their simplicity.
I don’t know whether you’ve ever tried any of these little idiotic experiments or not, but one time I was in Buffalo, New York, and there was a very close-knit neighborhood down there in the city; and I was helping a couple of churches out. They were having a lot of trouble with tongues wagging all the time telling all kinds of stories. I said, “The trouble with you people is, you’re trying to keep things from people, and if you want to keep a secret, just go out on the street corner and tell it.”
They looked at me in amazement. I said, “I mean that really.” Every time that these people would have a little personal, private session amongst themselves, with their ministers or some of their group, things that they didn’t want to try to teach the public or something, they somehow or other everybody got hold of what everybody was talking about. And of course, they didn’t understand what they were talking about anyway, and they’d had a thousand reasons and meanings for things, and it would always foul up everything in the understanding between people in the organization.
So one day — I’d heard considerable about this — I said, “Now, I’m going to prove something to you. Stop trying to hide things. Forget about it, just forget about it. I’m going out and I’m going to take a story.”
And I told a story about something, just a little story. I said, “I’m going round the corner and I’m going to tell everybody I meet in the neighborhood this story. And I said, “I’ll bet you that we’ll never get this story back…”
So I did. I took off my clerics, I took off anything that would identify me, and I — anybody that I didn’t know I told the story to, that was around there. It was short enough so that I — but it was about the church.
I had to leave that area for about two months because I was doing some work in another city in another building, another church. And I came back, and the group gathered together, of the church, the people that were always there. I said, “Well, how many have heard the story yet?” Their faces dropped a little bit. And I said, “Did you really try to find out what was said?”
You see, I hadn’t told anybody what I said, because I didn’t want anybody to have any ideas. And I’d made up a ridiculous little story that didn’t have any particular sense to it, in a way, only it really told some truth. They could test something and they could take several different meanings out of it. I had to be pretty careful how I made it up, too, because I knew the church, but I hadn’t preached there right along. …another job by helping them get back on their feet.
And they said, “We’ve even asked some people in the church and they didn’t know.”
“Well,” I said, “you see, you went through a lot of work and a lot of trouble to cover up things. If you just wouldn’t cover ’em up, they’d never know what they were, and they’d never see them. And the easiest way to keep something under cover is just make it plain and simple, and,” I said, “you’ve got ’em all licked.” And this is true. This is true.
I have never tried to hide anything in my life; and I think that if it ever happens, then I’ll bet you that to the people that know me out there in the world, I’m still a man of mystery, because nobody ever believes or says anything about things that I might tell. Because there’s no mystery to it, so they forget about it. Simple.
Any time you want to keep a secret, just tell it right out on the street somewhere, to anybody, don’t try to hide it, just broadcast it. Inside of five days it’s all forgotten about. Nobody’s interested in it, because they haven’t found out a secret. And they may have found out the greatest truth in the world.
Now this is really — this sounds ridiculous to give a lecture on this, but this is the very kernel of all truth. Now the Holy Bible is not the only book that has truth in it. Many books have truth in them. There are very many wonderful people, there were many sages who had truth. Of course, some books, people have got their sticky fingers into the stories and into the facts and had to put their little bit in there so they wouldn’t be forgotten. You know, you can’t pass anything around unless you forget it. Put something of your own opinions into it, you know, you’ve got to do that, you know. Never mind the people, whether they get the truth or not. You’ve got to put your little five cents in.
Now this is true, of course, but there are still truths in these things, but the reason you can’t find them is just that, and that alone. And this is why people spend years and years and years and years seeking the Truth when it’s right in front of them, if they would only use their simple reasoning and think, and look at things simply. But if you look at something in a book, and because you haven’t been taught that, and say, “Well, I couldn’t understand that”, well, naturally you can’t understand it and that’s all there is to it.
And all the way down the line of teaching and understanding of truth and God, the same thing happens: illumination, realization, all the rest.
If you have a cup and you want a cup of tea, you go to the source, the teapot, and you fill it full of tea. Nothing mysterious about that, is there? If you want Christ illumination, to become an illuminated one, you fill yourself full of light. Nothing mysterious about that, is there? Now is there? No, I don’t think so. I’ve told you the whole process that men have sought many years for in just those few words. It’s that simple, and it’s true, because if you accept something, it will come into your being.
Jesus said that too. He said, “Thy word shall become flesh.” Did he mean it? Yes, he meant it, just what he said. Exactly what he said. No conditions: that’s it, nothing else attached to it.
The one thing you mustn’t do though — oh, this is a no-no … : when you find out a truth, for God’s sake, stop thinking, because that’s the most guaranteed way in the world never to find out anything. Because you can cut off God and Christ and all the great truths in the world if you get that dam mind — and that’s just what it is, it’s a dam; it shuts off everything. That’s the truth, unadulterated truth. Because you start to think and, boy, will you find all the reasons and you’ll get into the confutations in just about five minutes, and you’re done for. Forget it. Go on, forget it. You’ve got just exactly what you want, confutations. You’re not looking for facts. That’s the truth.
Any time you’ve got that little brain of yours working, you’ve got troubles, because it will tell you more ways of getting into trouble than you’ve got imagination. Believe me, it will. It’ll throw out more facts that any other thing or any other person in the world could bring in, and there’s no way of getting around it.
I’ve watched the logical minds and I’ve watched the scientific minds, and oh, the laws of science are alright. I’m not saying anything against them at all, because they prove what I’m talking about. All basic formulas are extremely simple, don’t let anybody tell you anything different. Don’t let anybody tell you anything different because they are, extremely simple. You can sit down and reason any one of them out, if you’ve got a childish mind and thinking. You don’t have to be a mathematician either to reason and think of them. But just get that beautiful brain of yours a-going, and mind, and you can find more reasons why you can’t understand plain, simple scientific arithmetic than anything in the world and it will take you ten or twenty years to get to be a good mathematician, because the only thing it takes ten or twenty years for you to do is to learn that you do know anything in the first place, and you stop thinking about it and then you begin to know something. Now that’s the truth, that’s no paradox.
If you want to really know God, you stop thinking about trying to know how all to do it, and just act on it. Just act on it. Take the few simple little statements out of the Bible, about six or seven of them altogether. You can probably take six or seven verses out of the New Testament and forget the rest of them; or you could take six or seven of Buddha’s statements and forget all the rest, and just act on them, live on them. Don’t try to figure it out though, because if you do, you’re licked right away. You’re licked.
Now, there’s only one thing in the world that we ever teach the voluminous amount of words we do sometimes — just one thing — that’s to keep the ministers and the students busy, so you can keep their mind off the reality so we can reach them with the Light, you see. Otherwise, we’d never get them through illumination. And if we can keep them busy enough thinking about things they can’t figure out, really, then I can go to work at night, and I can get … I shouldn’t have told you that though, yet. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. You see, this is a very hush-hush secret I’m telling you. Now you shouldn’t know this for at least fifteen years. If you’re with an Eastern master learning something, you can’t know those things, it takes fifteen, twenty years to learn this. It’s just this, (good evening), with just this which I have taught you, you can change your whole life. Very simple fact.
But the thing that keeps you from being simple and following the simple truths after you’ve read them is usually one thing and one thing only. What if you went in to see one of your friends and you said, “Well, I’ve found what I’ve been looking for for the last five or six or ten years.” “What did you find?” “I’ve found the key to understanding how to read these things, and read the Testament and the other books, and understand them.”
And he said to you, “Well, tell me. You know I’ve been looking.” And you said to him, “It’s perfectly easy. You’ve just got to be simple and read and take just what, the way things are said, and look at the words just the way they are said, and look at the symbolism simply. Don’t start in to them licked. In other words, don’t think that you have something that’s mysterious. Just be simple like a child.”
You know how much of a debate you can have on that for these people that set and argue for hours and hours and hours? And you know the poor existentialist, he’d have the most awful time in the world, wouldn’t he, because he’s got no meat to talk about. It’s basic, it’s the essence of things And the essence of things could be put on that much paper and you’d have all the fundamental truths of the universe right there. And of course, your friend would not be thrilled at all.
So if you do find it out, it’s my personal advice that you learn a lot of five-dollar words and it will dress it up, and then you can have something to argue about and you will be a very intelligent person then, from that time on. Yes?
Q: Of course, if you learn all those five-dollar words then you’re liable to lose the reality that you learned to begin with.
Oh, well, you wrote that down so you can forget it, you see. Give the other one to the other guy, and let him tear it out.
Q: So how do you put something in words that you can’t write down?
Well, of course, that’s another thing, so let’s not talk about that. They’re not supposed to say anything about that one.
Well, I think I’ll shut up for a minute or two and I’ll ask if there’s any questions.