The Message From the Baptist (Rabel)

(Back) Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant Woes Upon the Cities (Next)

Matt. 11:2-19 Luke 7:18-35 H.G p.57 pp. 73-76 of transcript.

(Interpretation centered on the analogy of the children sitting on the market places)

Here we come to a scene wherein Jesus is confronting a group of persons who are muttering and complaining about about Him and His personal life, and I am sure about His teachings. I've rather doubted that they were complaining about His teachings but many of these people had done the same thing in regard to John the Baptist, they had become his followers with much zeal and enthusiasm; and then they began to criticize him as a person, as a personality, and evidently then dropped their affiliation with him and now simply switched their affiliation to Jesus and we are now in the process of the story repeating itself. And so we have these words that Jesus spake to them.

First He talks about John the Baptist, how great he was, how worthy he was and so forth but then He says, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear." (Ed continues reading Matt 16-17 and Luke 7:31-35.) This is a rather ironic parable that Jesus is using here. He is calling attention not only to this people but to all mankind; he is calling attention to a ridiculous trait that has become rather typical of human nature which has not achieved certain level of spiritual understanding, a childish habit, kind of a throwback in an evolutionay sense to a more immature, state of mankind in general and this is the almost irresistible impulse in human nature to voice objections all the time.

Just because there is a difference or mode of preference or mode of expression or a manner of choice, much of human nature seems to think this causes a necessity for becoming objectionable. I use that word meaning that you vocalize and intrude your objection on what is going on. There is a great difference between your God-given right to reject that which you will reject: I don't care if it is in a Unity class, a church, a marriage or any other situation, you as an individual always have your God-given right of "yea, yea; nay, nay," and you may reject that which your superconsciousness tells you. "The idea of no is appropriate here." And so you form your thought on that and your renunciation faculty does its job and you are allowed to reject, or eliminate, or disconnect yourself from that which appears to you worthy of that kind of a response; but there is a big difference between that God-given freedom and the impolite, inconsidered compulsion to voice objections all over the place or in any place because you feel the impulse. It is really more a matter of consideration and politeness than it is high metaphysics; and yet high metaphysics are intimately connected with proper, considerate behavior even on just the social level.

He uses an illustration to make this point, which I think is quite entertaining. It is easy to imagine the scene of a bunch of children sitting in the market place, and, of course, the market place would be the symbol of any area of giving and taking in human activity, especially in the realm of human relationships. In this area, the art of giving and taking is very important and so, in a sense, the market place could be primarily the area of human relationships. Notice what the children are doing, they are crying to other children and they are saying, "I piped and you didn't dance,"or "I am piping and you are not dancing," and then, on the other side of the coin, "I am wailing and you are not weeping, you are supposed to weep because I am wailing, you are supposed to dance because I am piping." In other words, I want you to act according to my expectations of you. Piping and weeping represent emotional and whimsical expressions, and if others don't comform to our mood of the moment we feel compelled to voice our objections.

When in our life have we been what others would term our most objectionable time? When others act different, then we object to them acting different, or thinking different. This comes up all the time. This is more subtle than any of us realize, but it happens all the time. But you see? Objecting is a behavior, it is a human nature reaction, response, and not an absolute, like the God-given right of rejection. So, since the act of voicing an ojection is a behavioral thing, is a human being reaction and expression, then it is totally relative, in other words, there is a right time and there is a wrong time, there is a right way, there are certain circumstances under which it is appropriate but there are other circumstances under which it is totally inappropriate, it a matter of maturity of viewpoint and consideration of other person's sensibilities.

Jesus presents the dilemma here but He does not suggest an answer directly. Within the body of all his teachings is found the answer, and one of the ways in which he presents an answer to this dilemma is in the John the Baptist's baptismal incident where He could have (if He were strictly in human consciousness) objected to have to go through a ceremony like that, since He didn't need it; but then He wouldn't have been the Christ, so He had to function as the Christ. But in any case throughout his teachings are all the Truths that help the person overcome this dilemma and it is surprising how a little bit of conscious practice of the alternative which is within Truth will be effective almost immediately when we begin to apply personally. (Look for personal examples). The important thing in these situations is that you remain faithful to your own inner convictions, and if your inner conviction is "nay, nay", then don't make waves whan waves aren't necessary: if they become necessary, God will make the waves, Spirit will make the waves. You don't have to be objectionable in order to exercise your God-given right to reject or to accept. There are ways to say, "nay,nay" which are not wounding, and there are ways to say, "yea, yea" which are not submissiveness. What will guide us as to propriety of each? Spirit, Superconscious, the Christ Mind within us will help us if we connect ourselves to the Christ Mind willingly.

Q. Where then will you draw a line in the case of somebody is going in a pathway erroneous to the Truth and it is detrimental to other people involved?

Ed: You draw the line in that realm of yourself called good judgment and good taste. If it is your kid, let's say, that is definitely heading toward disaster or is doing something that either must be corrected or loved. You will handle him the way that your judgment and your good taste and all your sensibilities, as a parent with the responsibility to that child, which will be probably an entirely different way from the way you were voicing your objections, let's say, in a classroom situation. You might yell and shout at the kid but that is appropriate for that relationship, at that time, at those circumstances. Something in you will comfirm this if it is right or you talk very softly and very sweetly and hand out a candy bar, or you might hand out a spanking, but you, will know the difference between that and such a thing as a classroom situation, a board meeting in your church, or a faculty meeting at Unity School. Your good judgment, your sense of discernment knows where you are wounding and hurting unneces- sarily or when your chastisement is because "the more loveth chastise it whom you loveth." Mr. Fillmore says in Jesus Christ Heals, "no two cases are ever alike, exactly alike," and either we do believe we have divine guidance and good judgment or we don't, or we'll just say, "well, all cases are alike and what is applicable here is applicable everywhere" and that is a cop- out, for good judgment is a faculty.

Q. You said that when it is time to make the waves, God will make the waves. Isn't that the time when we find ourselves saying words that we really wonder where did they come from, and we see things starting to move and things start happening?

Ed: Yes, This is an interesting question and I have thought about it. What I am doing folks, is mostly sharing with you observations of my own experiment, this is as far as I do go; but I have noticed that when I am in a situation where wave-making is necessary I find that then I am in a position where I don't have alternatives. Spirit simply seems to remove all alternatives and you say then what appears to you that has to be said, and I think this ties with the previous question. Let's say that in the situation there is no room for dissention here, the person has to be called to attention; then in that situation, and if it is your business, the alternatives are removed from you and it just has to be what it has to. The thing that we are learning here is to discern the difference between the right I have as a spiritual being and an evoling soul to reject what I feel needs rejecting. I also have, up to a point, a right to voice and express these rejections in the form of objections or in the form of refusals but right here is here we want to be sure we don't to do this in rude impulsive emotionalism. I think the knowledge of the twelve faculties will be invaluable here: good judgment, love and order. Let them work to express what needs to be expressed, if all alternatives seem to be removed from this situation the, "God I place myself in your hands and use me whatever way you wish." What do you think would be the point of a teaching like this? Remember Jesus always had a spiritual point behind all of these instructions for the pur- pose of greater consciousness. The answer is blind emotionalism expressed as inflexibility toward others' points of view: Emotionalism. This is the thing that many persons are victims of but do not see it as that. They say, emotionalism is good because all people have emotions, but there are emotions that are negative impulsiveness which is based on selfishness, on self righteousness. To get more free of that and to make room in our minds that the other guy, though different, can also be right.

Q. Is there any difference between feelings and emotions?

Ed: Yes, there are, but I want to say that in our culture we use the words feelings and emotions as synonyms, so that to the average congregation you will not bother to make a distinction: but among professional metaphysicians, so to speak, there is a difference, and when one is careful of his vocabulary, uses the right word. Now, in the pure metaphysics feelings are all good, because feeling is the word we use to designate the feminine aspect of the expression of all the twelve powers, any or all of them. On the feminine mode of expression of the twelve powers we designate the word "feeling", you have a feeling of love, you have a feeling of understanding, you have a feeling of order, you have a feeling of life; you take all twelve and the word feeling in its pure sense means feminine or passive mode of thought or expression of the twelve powers. On the other hand, the word emotion is usually used to designate a purely personal projection of the current state of your feelings either true or distorted, either positive or negative, either violent and malevolent in intent or peaceful and benevolent in intent. The emotions, for the most part, and I think most psychia- trists agree with this and almost all metaphysicians agree with it, are predominantly negative, while the feelings are always good.

Text of the original transcript from the second paragraph of page 73 through the second paragraph of page 76.
Transcribed by Nita Strauss on September 25, 2013