I would like to speak about mastery – about learning, preparation and cultivating the experience of Knowledge. Mastery has become a very popular subject. It is promised as the result of many spiritual study programs that are available now, and people have great expectations of themselves, of the educational processes and of their teachers in this regard.
Now we will speak about using power for good. We say “using” power, which is very different from “having” power, and we say that power can be used for good. So, in order that everyone understands what we mean by power, let me give you a definition which is relevant to my discourse: Power is the ability to transfer energy from one domain to another.
When you are with Knowledge, you can afford to be kind because you are not rushing about the world trying to fulfill your goals and assure your security. You are able to be in present time with far greater effectiveness and far greater presence of mind.
We would like to speak about freedom, a very important subject and one that is given a great deal of attention, in certain societies in particular. But we must speak about freedom now in a larger context and give some ideas that will be very thought provoking to you. Perhaps they will challenge some deeply held ideas and confirm some deeper inclinations as well.
The Greater Community of Worlds is a subject that may be difficult to comprehend intellectually. Yet if this message stirs a deeper emotion within you, that would be good. When We speak of factual matters that are beyond the sphere of individual concerns, it is most important that you not speculate according to your ideas, for ideas alone cannot account for reality. That is why if you feel stirred in your deeper feelings, it is good.
The message that We are presenting in this book is of the greatest importance, and yet you must find out for yourself. You must discover what you know, and you must be able to see the world clearly. You must be able to see with your own eyes—not the eyes of your culture, not the eyes of your religion, not the eyes of your family, not the eyes of your friends, but with your own eyes and with the greater Mind that is within you.
The coming of the Greater Community may seem overwhelming, but really it represents the greatest possible opportunity that humanity could have at this time. Humanity needs something to enable it to overcome its internal bickering and conflicts, to rise to a greater occasion, to restore its integrity, to preserve its resources, to unite its people, to establish its common needs and common bonds within the human family. Only the world’s emergence into the Greater Community could provide such an impetus and such a requirement.
Because the Greater Community represents such a vast network of societies and such a tremendous variety of environments and races and natures and so forth, spirituality must take on a more universal character, a more essential nature. If it is encrusted with cultural images, if it is intertwined with the social history of certain cultures alone, then its essential nature becomes clouded and more difficult to access.
Gaining a Greater Community understanding and perspective is certainly quite essential in preparing for the Greater Community itself, but alone this would not be enough. Here you could not rely simply upon the power of your intelligence or your will in order to gain the discernment that you would need in order to function within a more complicated mental environment. You would need more than mental power or will power in order to function successfully in this environment. For no matter how powerful you might become as an individual, your power will be insignificant compared to the power of the group mind that represents the real dynamics of interaction in the mental environment within the Greater Community itself.
In order to give you a clearer understanding of what life is like in the Greater Community, and more specifically what motivates most of those who are coming to visit your world, it is important that We speak further on this subject.