The Challenge

You are sent into the world to do certain things, to meet certain people. Doing these things and meeting these individuals represent the greatest opportunity for you to fulfill your destiny here.

But while this sounds simple, it has many challenges. There is the challenge of meeting your fundamental needs in life, a challenge that is overwhelming to so many people in the world. And that, in part, is why humanity cannot progress because most of the people in the world are not able to contribute their greater gifts due to poverty and political and religious oppression.

It is as if the growth and evolution of humanity is stunted by this alone. The great inventors, the great humanitarians, the great teachers, the great physicians—they will not come into their power and their purpose for the most elemental and fundamental reasons.

The women of the world are oppressed or socially repressed, dominated. More than half of humanity then cannot contribute. The possibility for them to do certain things and to meet certain people is denied. The Calling cannot arise within them because they are not in conducive circumstances—locked in place, held in place, held back.

Why is it humanity cannot overcome its difficulties and meet its challenges and seize upon its great opportunities? If only five percent of the world’s population can respond to a greater calling and have the possibility to express it in the world, then how can you expect humanity to advance? Of course, that puts greater pressure on that five percent.

Amongst the few who have the opportunity, who have the freedom, who have the education, who have the possibilities, they must now speak for all those who cannot speak. They must act for all those who cannot act. And that is why purpose and calling is no mere pleasure or indulgence for the wealthy, the affluent and the indulgent.

That is the first challenge is to overcome meeting the requirements of your basic needs, food and shelter, clothing and security. But there are many other challenges beyond this—the challenge of being able to respond to the power of Knowledge, the deeper Intelligence within you in the face of your cultural or religious or political restraints that exist all around you. Included in this is public opinion and the opinion of your family and other people who have great influence over you.

Even in the free nations, people are not free. Bound by convention, bound by the need for approval, bound because they must serve others who cannot understand who they are and why they are in the world. Bound, as if they were in chains, pinned to a wall. Oh, yes, they are free to consume. Oh, yes, they are free to express themselves, but only within an accepted band of expression.

The challenge: Can you speak? Can you think? Can you entertain a new idea? Can you express yourself to those around you? Yes, you have food. Yes, you have water. Yes, you have perhaps security. Yes, perhaps you can move about freely and make decisions. But the reins of repression are now more invisible and difficult to discern. The forces against you are harder to recognize, but they are powerful nonetheless.

So even amongst the five percent, the five percent of the five percent have a possibility to respond, to overcome their social conditioning and obligations. For if you must please your parents, and you must please your spouse, and you must please your children, and you must please others whose support you feel you need, well, how can you please those who sent you into the world and respond to their communication and follow the guidance of Knowledge, which is leading you to a place in life where you can respond, where you have the possibility to respond?

Therefore, the Calling is everywhere, but who can respond? For the rich, it is more deceptive, for their restraint is immersed in their pleasurable pursuits, in their indulgences, in the need for them to build their wealth and protect it. They are afraid of the Presence. They are afraid of the Word. They are afraid it might ask them to do something else, and they have invested so much previously. Can they respond? This is the Challenge, you see.

Then there are dark forces in the world who oppose the emergence of Knowledge in the individual—invisible forces that will focus on those who hold the greatest promise, dark forces that you must learn to contend with, and that you can contend with, with the Power and the Presence that is within you and around you and for you. All of Heaven is counting upon your response. But the world speaks of other things, and the minds of people are focused elsewhere.

The challenge to hold yourself back from prematurely committing yourself in marriage or relationship, to step aside from meeting others’ expectations for you, to hold yourself back because Knowledge within you is not ready to give itself to this person or this situation—who can do this, with all the pressure and all the allurements?

People are married at a young age. They have no idea who they are. They have no idea what they are here to do. They know nothing of themselves. They are strangers to themselves. And already their lives have been signed away. And they will enter a kind of servitude, even if they have affluence. Even if they appear to be free and have great benefits, they are in servitude already. Their chains are invisible, but equally powerful in oppressing them.

Do you see the challenge here? Do you see the challenge within yourself? Do you see the challenge in others? Do not condemn others for their foolish decisions and mistakes, but learn here. They are teaching you the consequences of not following the true voice within yourself. They are showing you that there is only one true voice within you. They are showing you the cost and the sacrifice and the lost years and the empty promises and the hopeless pursuits—saving you time, adding to your commitment to the truth. Do not condemn them. They are a part of your liberation.

You come to the truth because you are disappointed. You are shocked and dismayed with the pursuits of the world and the condition of the world and the thoughtless endeavors of people. Their unresponsiveness, their dishonesty—you are shocked and dismayed, and this brings you to a greater power. You are shocked and dismayed at your own behavior and the degree to which you have forfeited your integrity and your dignity to others.

You can condemn yourself, or you can benefit from your experience, for it is teaching you there is no alternative to a greater power and purpose. And if you are free enough to respond to this, if you are amongst the five percent, then you will look upon your wealth in a very different way—as a unique opportunity, as an opportunity that few have, an opportunity that will become ever more rare in the future in the face of the great change that is coming to the world.

You will not squander your time. You will not squander your energy. You will not squander yourself on hopeless romances and dashing endeavors, but be observant and objective, listening, watching so that when the Revelation comes to you, when you come to God’s New Message, you will be ready.

You will not be afraid of it, afraid of what it will require of you or how it may change your life and circumstances. You will be ready. This is what you have been waiting for. This is the key. You have already faced some of the critical challenges, and you have escaped servitude sufficiently that you can respond at the moment of Revelation for you.

The Word of the Creator will not be lost upon you. The intention that comes with the Presence will not be lost upon you. You may be confused and uncertain. You may be baffled. You may fall into doubt and confusion, but you can be reached. For Heaven, this is celebration. “Ah, this one We have been watching is beginning to respond. Ah!”

You are coming out of the dark dream of Separation. But the journey ahead has further challenges, for you are not yet strong enough with Knowledge to follow it consistently and to avoid the traps and the pitfalls, the times of despair and the self-doubt that will haunt you. For your own demons will follow you as you cross over the hill to a greater calling. Oh, yes.

At some point further along, you will have to deal with the darker forces that will try to amplify your doubts, try to separate you from your calling, that will try to discourage you and dissuade you. “Ah! Promises of romance here or wealth here” or “You should be doing what these people are doing and not wasting your time on some ineffable pursuit.” No. The world’s seductions will not leave you, and you will have moments when you will feel their pull and influence.

If there were no challenge, well, everyone would be involved, and the world would be very different from what it is today. It would be more like your Ancient Home. Very different it would be.

But that is not the world, and that is not the reality of physical life in the physical universe. That is not the reality of life in other worlds. People hope that life in other worlds would be so much better, but in ninety-nine percent of the cases, it is so much worse.

So here you are, in this world. There is no escape. You have the gift, the promise. Knowledge is within you, but it is beneath the surface of the mind you have been building all along. And the challenges are before you. They are here for you today.

What will you listen to? What will you follow? You, who have been blessed to receive the Revelation and learn of its presence in the world. My God! You do not know what a blessing this is. Just to know of it. Just to hear of it.

Those who were with Muhammad in his days on Earth, were they not blessed to know him and of him? Were they not impacted by his life even if they denied him? And are they not the envy of everyone who followed, who are of his Teaching? Are they not envied that they could live at the time of the Messenger by all who would follow?

Your challenge is great and will continue, as if you have to pass through various gates and thresholds along the way. And there will be some tests. Not everything is a test, but some things are a test. And they come when you are about to make an important decision that would advance you and bring you closer to your purpose, calling and goal.

You will be tested by the world. You will be tested by the Angelic Presence to make sure and to see how strong your commitment is, to see if you can be entrusted with a greater responsibility and a greater employment in the world.

For should you fail in the future, not only will your life be severely damaged, but you will damage others severely. That is why tests are given at times of transition, at the gates, the thresholds, to see if you can stand uncertainty, if you can abide with the unknown, if you can trust that which only intermittently speaks to you, if you can overcome self-doubt and self-repudiation to abide with a greater force and power that you will not experience every day.

Can you face the dark forces and learn through the Revelation how to deal with them? Can you be trusted? Are you dependable? Or will you fail and fall apart at the first challenge, the first discouragement, the first rejection in the world? For you will have to face these things, most certainly, regardless of where your purpose and calling are taking you.

If the world loves what you are doing, you can be sure you have not found the truth yet. You are only accommodating others, and your talents have not yet found their true course.

God knows that the challenges are great, and that is why Knowledge has been given to you because without Knowledge, you could not overcome them. They would defeat you, sooner or later. Everyone would be defeated. The world would be hopeless, and there would be no real possibility of redemption. Contribution would dry up, and humanity would become like so many other races in the universe—servants and lords and nothing more.

That is why Knowledge is so important, you see, and why you must take the Steps to Knowledge and build your connection to the one true voice and distinguish it from all other voices no matter how pleasant they might seem, or how encouraging they might be, or how frightful and discouraging they so often are.

Knowledge is not impressed by beauty, wealth and power. Can you say the same for yourself personally? Knowledge is not attached to romance or to the seductions of the world. Can you say the same for yourself personally? Knowledge is not afraid of disapproval and rejection, discouragement and disappointment. Can you say the same for yourself personally?

Of course not. It is okay. God knows that without Knowledge, you cannot really succeed. That is why Knowledge is so very important, and that is why it is part of the New Revelation for humanity. It was part of earlier Revelations, but it is hard to find within them now unless you have a very wise teacher who can distinguish the essence from the form, the true path from the pageantry and the parade.

Without Knowledge, you cannot prepare for life in the universe. And you cannot overcome the Great Waves of change in the world. You can only do your part and be a light unto others, to be a source of encouragement, honesty and integrity.

You do not have to be great and produce great works of art, great pronouncements, great achievements, great inventions—oh, well, maybe for some people, they have to do these things, but there are only a few things you must do and a few people you must meet.

They may be on the other side of the world, not in your neighborhood. You may have to go find them, and they may have to go find you, and that is why the Calling is constantly there to keep you from settling down, giving up on the side of the mountain, [thinking] oh, you are going to just get comfortable here. It is good enough for you.

But not for Knowledge, no. It is going to keep you moving. It is trying to get you somewhere, trying to get you to your rendezvous with these people and these circumstances that represent your greatest opportunity in life. And if you are amongst the five percent who can respond, well, the energy and the focus upon you will be so much greater.

Then you can walk through the slums of the great cities and find the ones who must respond, the ones who will be the greatest. But who will leave their pleasant abodes to do this? Who has the freedom to do this? For this is what freedom really means. Otherwise, you just become a sophisticated consumer, a bigger rat in the race. And you will feel like a rat, despite your pleasant appearances.

Great is your Calling. Great is your opportunity. But do not think you have to be magnificent or pure or utterly advanced and enlightened, without attachments and completely engaged. Well, that is not how Heaven looks upon your life.

Yes, you will have to advance. Yes, you will have to pass through thresholds. Yes, you will have to be successful when your life is being tested to see if you are strong enough with Knowledge and clear enough in your understanding to proceed to the next step. Yes, you will have to step apart from others who cannot or will not go with you. Yes, you will have to make some difficult decisions. Yes, you will have to free yourself from entanglements and hopeless relationships.

You will have to do these things because that is the price of freedom. But it is a small price compared to what it yields and what it offers you and those who will benefit from your progress and presence in the world.

Heaven is not fooled by the machinations, the indulgences, the complications and the complexity of human engagements. When you leave this life, your Spiritual Family will be waiting for you, and they will say, “Well, did you make the connection that you must make?” And at that time, your mind will be free of all worldly concerns and distractions and you will know instantly if you achieved your goal or not. If you did not, there is no condemnation. It just means this part of your work is not complete.

They will not care about everything else you did. They will not even care if you are a nice person. They will not care about the things you care about today. They care about whether you fulfilled your mission to the best of your ability and if you made the effort. Even if your mission could not be accomplished, did you make the effort? Did you play your part sufficiently?

We share this with you, people of the world, and you the individual, so that you will understand that your priorities must be rearranged and that your greater goal must be left undefined so that Knowledge can take you to where it can be realized and expressed, because before that occurs, you cannot really understand it.

You understand the journey by taking the journey. You find the goal when you find the goal. You realize you have arrived only when you have arrived. You will know those you are destined to meet because you will know them when you meet them.

This is the challenge. It is being honestly expressed to you. It is not easy, but it is much easier than failing. It is much easier than living a life of compromise, a life where you are dead to yourself and to others, a life of servitude. That is hard. That is a punishment without end.

Success is so much easier than failure though in the moment failure will become more attractive and seem to require less effort. You must make the effort. You must get yourself up this mountain.

You have the voice. You have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. But they are not the eyes you use today. They are not the ears you use today. But they are within you, waiting to be discovered.

Heaven watches, waiting, following those who are responding. At a time of Revelation in the world, which is such a rare occurrence and a rare event, this is the greatest opportunity. For the Creator has provided the clarification of what it means to be in the world—the nature of your purpose, calling and presence here.

Free from human history, free from human interpretation, free from the abuses and the errors committed in the name of religion throughout history, this then gives you a new opportunity to see, to know and to respond. That is your challenge. And a great blessing it is, greater than you yet realize.