Dear Friends,
This week's quote is from spiritual awareness class CQA 11, which was published in Volume 10 of The Living Light Dialogue. The CQA series of classes were given as part of the Serenity Spiritualist Church devotional services, which were attended by both the students of this philosophy and members of the general public.
"We have a statement in this philosophy that says, “O suffer senses not in vain for freedom of thy soul is gain.” Now, when we hear the word suffer and suffering, I don’t know of anyone who smiles and appears to be pleased at what it brings up in their mind. What does suffering mean to our mind? To most of us, if not all of us, it means deprivation, pain, doing without the things we desire—doing without the things we desire. That’s what it means to our mind. What does it reveal to us? If in the experience of not having the things we desire in the moment we desire them, that causes us suffering, then it reveals to us that we have lost control of our mind. We alone have lost control.
We look at a child and the child has a desire. Perhaps it wants a new fire engine. And any mother, any parent knows when the child has the desire, you have to do something, because if you don’t, the child will certainly do something to you. Because you alone allow it. Now we look at children and we justify, “Well, they’re only a little child. They’re just a child.” They have a desire. They want it fulfilled this minute, the moment they experience the desire. Not next month and, God forbid, not next year. Right now. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have the money to purchase the item to fulfill their desire; that means nothing to the child’s mind. It doesn’t matter that you can’t get the money right away, that you’ll have to work for several months to earn it; that matters nothing to the child’s mind. The child only knows that it, number one, has a desire; number two: that something inside of its mind demands that the desire be fulfilled; and number three: the demand is now. Right now. So we justify and we excuse the children. For we say to our self, “Well, they’re only little children. They haven’t had the experiences of life as we have had.”
But then we look around the world and we see these little, wild children in great, big, adult bodies, and we wonder what has happened. [Many in the congregation laugh.] Where did the growing stop? Was it at the second year? Or the fifth? Or the seventh? At what point did these people stop growing mentally, emotionally? When did they stop? We must ask our self that question. For the same experience, the demand for the fulfillment of the desire right now, without the slightest interest in how it shall be fulfilled is still taking place 40, 50, 60, 70 years later, because the effort to become aware of the mechanics of our own mind has not been made.
And so we see many adults filling the psychiatric couches in the world because of what is known as frustration. In this philosophy it’s called the frustration years of the forties, for that’s when, usually, man takes a look and says, “Look at all the desires I have and have had that are not yet fulfilled. I’ve got to go back to when I was twenty. Somehow I’ve got to get back there to make up for all that lost time. To experience the fulfillment of all these desires that I’ve had to be great.” My good friends, there’s something within all of us that’s already great. What is there in the chasing of being great? That’s the illusion. Our mind doesn’t know what that greatness is, but that greatness is there. It’s greater than anything in the universe, for it is a part of the Infinite.
And so, the one thing I’m sure we’ll all agree on, we all need, badly need what is called discipline, so we don’t have to suffer. Discipline, self-discipline. For without it, there’s no self-control. And without self-control, there is no freedom, there is no fulfillment. So if you want to stop the suffering that you experience in life, start the self-discipline and the suffering you’ll no longer experience.”
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Sincerely yours,
Russell Fitzgerald
Vice President
Serenity Association
P.O. Box 4187
San Rafael, California 94913
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