by Hilda Charlton
Based on a speech she gave
at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City

Do not ever lose the feeling that you are important in the scheme of life. Have you ever lost that feeling? Of course you have! You began to think you were nothing. I don't know what God bothered to make you for then, to make the image that is you, if you were not important in the great scheme of life.

Each soul is individual, yet a part of the whole. Each person must stand straight and tall, unbending, not leaning left or right, conscious that he or she is important to hold up the tabernacle of life. We have to be straight, like the columns of the Parthenon, so that the roof of life can be put on top. If one column is leaning on the other one and another is leaning another way, the thing is going to topple. We have to stand straight to make the whole.

Yes, never lose the feeling that you are important in the scheme of life. You are God's idea. Do you understand that? God's idea. You came out of God's infinite mind. His essence manifests down here. He/She has a plan in store.

Sometimes we lose sight of the blueprints of our life. That is the part a teacher or a guru plays, to once more make clear the path for you to who you are. That's all a guru can tell you. That's all a teacher can tell you. You can sit at their feet forever, but all they can do, if they're a good teacher, is remind you who you are. They can't make you into something else. You have to make yourself into something else. You have to clear the debris out of yourself and become once more that which you were at one time, before you got mucked up with the Earth and its vibrations.

A young man, trying to clarify the blueprints of his life, asked me to speak on human and spiritual love. I know that's a vital thing to all of you, is it not? Because it gets you muddled up, especially when you're wondering what to do: "Hilda is only talking about God all the time." Nowhere in the scriptures of the Bible did I ever see Jesus talk about marriage. He only talked of the Absolute. And I just talk of the Absolute. But it's a vital thing to you to be able to know what this person asked me — what is human love and what is spiritual love? Because you get muddled up. You think, well, you have to be spiritual, so you have to give up all relationships. Let me speak on it tonight, not only for that one person, but for many.

I cannot compartmentalize. There is only one love flowing from the Source. How we use this essence is the question. Love is a gift from the heavenly heights, yours to use as you wish. It never diminishes, never fades. Only man blocks the rays with the clouds of thought he makes. Love within you is, and it has never faded.

Sometimes you think it has. You go through a hell. Someone leaves you or hurts you and you feel that love has ceased. Love has not ceased. You have only made clouds over the rays of light in your heart. To have love for another human means you must take the good and the bad. If you're going to love down here — putting your love on another human being, say in marriage or companionship — you have to make up your mind to take the good and the bad. You must think outward, and not inward to "I" — "I want, I like, I desire" — if the love is not to be blocked off as it flows down from above or, should we say, is released from within.

To have what humans call spiritual love is to be love. Do you understand that?

To have what humans call spiritual love is to be love, be love itself, unhindered and unbound by human frailties. The only difference between human love and spiritual love is that the love down here is hindered by your frailties that block it. In between, there is a love which fluctuates between so-called human and spiritual. What is this division, this separation? All love stems from the one source, God.

Human love is the same as spiritual love. Love stemming from attachment is like the sun's rays that come through a stained glass window and become colored by environment. When God's love flows through you and you have your frailties and you have your angers and your fears and your doubts and all the things that make you miserable and quarrelsome, it's as if the rays of God's love are coming down and coming through a stained glass window, and it comes through the color that you make it. But it still comes through. Because of human frailties, the purity and clarity of love gets colored by the emotions of the moment.

I hope this is potent to you, because it is meant for everybody — not only the young kids falling in love and out of love, but the people who are married, people who have had divorces. It's potent to everybody who has had any relationship in this world, even business office relationships or those from church or from coming to this meeting. Any relationships.

The saying, "I've fallen in love, I've fallen in love" — oh, in every song when you turn on the TV, the radio, you're "falling in love again" — often means just that, because it is an attachment which often takes people from the height of their Godhead. It should not. Rather, a person should say, "I have met someone and I have risen in love." I've risen in love!

The love within never decreases or diminishes. I repeat: the love within you never decreases or diminishes. Rather, the situation of what you term human love very often brings out the selfishness, the desires, the pettiness, the frustrations, and sometimes even the hate, envy, anger and jealousy. All these are generated from the ego being curbed by another's ego. Do you understand that one? You have just met somebody, you're with them, your love is flowing beautifully, and everything is wonderful. It doesn't have to be a romantic love, it can be any kind of love, but you've met someone that you love, somebody who's very close to you in spirituality or whatever, and then all at once they do something — they rub you the wrong way or they rub your ego, and that love begins to cease to flow so beautifully after a time. Is it not so? The frailties of man, his ego, get in the way, and you each rub each other's egos. And after a while, instead of loving, you're quarreling.

Personality clash. Personality clashes come in when you live closely together or work closely together. Sathya Sai Baba calls this situation being "sandpapered." He has married people and sometimes he's said it will sandpaper them off and get the rough spots off them. Well, it will either make or break them, that's for sure.

Through these rampant emotions, a companionship or marriage sometimes becomes merely a sex drive for release of the emotions. One partner uses the other one to release uptightness. That's very clear, isn't it? After a while the beautiful relationship — we're talking about marriage now, and companionship — gets into a sex drive rather than the love of companionship and sharing, because life on Earth here makes you so uptight. One or the other is using the other one, and then one gets sick of it and says, "I want out!"

Where is the love that was there flowing beautifully? The original love which most humans have felt is lost in the jungle of everyday living. True or false, kids? Isn't it true? Those of you who have gone through this and those of you who are beginning to go through this — you don't have to suffer! You don't have to hang on to the old and make yourself ill!

I knew a woman whose sister was murdered, and all she wanted was to find that murderer. Her whole purpose in life was to retaliate! Her sister was gone! And what would she end up with? In the end, sickness, ugliness — it's not worth it. Love is the only answer.

Two meet in altruistic love and the love gets trampled in the undergrowth of the emotions and tensions of living. Life in the city or anywhere on Earth is pretty heavy for the emotions. People go to work eight hours a day and they come home and they're pretty uptight, and that wonderful love that used to flow doesn't flow any more. It gets trampled in the undergrowth, the undergrowth of the emotions and tensions of living.

The original beauty of the love flowing from the heart towards another was as spiritual as the love of a saint. Do you understand that, kids? The original love of two people — let's take lovers, shall we, because we're talking of human love — was as beautiful as any saint's love, in the beginning. But what was the difference between the saint and the ordinary person? I'll tell you. The saint had this love for God and a person has this love for the God in the other person. Because what is it that you love in another person when you meet them? You love something that's unnameable in them, don't you, when you first meet someone and you rise in love? But the saints did not lose their way through the labyrinth of life. They kept their eyes on the light ahead and did not waver. They did not let disappointment or anger defeat their marriage or communion with God.

I'm thinking of Little Flower now, Saint Therese of the Little Flower. She could have had every bitterness in her heart, like many nuns and monks and yogis do. They start out with this enjoyment, with a great desire to love their God and their Jesus. And then what happens? Well, what happened to Saint Therese. The other nuns used to say, "Since this little one came here, our place is dirty, the garden is full of weeds." And Saint Teresa of Avila, as she walked down the corridor, the other nuns would open their doors and throw holy water on her so the devil wouldn't come out of her onto them. Do you think those saints couldn't have become as disappointed? Couldn't they have become just as disappointed in their God, in their convent, in their religious life as any human in another human? But no. The difference between a saint and a human — and listen clearly, kids — is that the saints never allowed the disappointments and the meanness of others who were trying to make mischief come between them and their lover, God.

They never allowed those things to come between them and their lover, Krishna. Look at Mirabai. They tried to poison Mirabai. They tried to do everything to her, but her love for Krishna flowed on and on and on.

Do you see that that is the only difference between a saint's and a human's love? They didn't lose faith in their God or faith in their fellow beings around them. They kept their love flowing.

If you're going to have love, kids, don't have it human. If you're going to love another human being, then for God's sake, make it a saintly love that cannot diminish when the other person changes a little and you see some human traits.

I say there is no human love. Human love, when it ceases, is not human! It's not even love! Only spiritual love exists. Place it where you may — on another human being and have a companion, a marriage if you wish, have children if you wish — but don't lose your Godhead in it.

Many a saint has gone through what is called the dark time of the soul. When despair came upon them in their hearts and they felt they were lost in the world of darkness, the saints kept their minds on the razor-edged path which leads to the goal of everlasting love and bliss. You do the same. You do the same.

Keep your mind on that goal of love. Let nothing cheat you of your love, kids. No matter what your relationship in this world. No matter what your life, your business life, your love life. Please don't be cheated of your Godhead in the midst of the world. Those seeking the world, when they come to that stage where there are disappointments, where there are despairs, they put a shield over their hearts and no longer have love flowing through. Their marriages and companionships and friendships and everything fall apart. They should not lose their love for their fellow beings. Haven't you all suffered in the night? I don't think there's one here — maybe a few, I don't know — who has not suffered through human relationships, suffered in the night, had sleepless nights, worried about losing someone, even if it be a member of the family. You can all understand what I am talking about.

There is no human love. There is only love. There is a seeming loss of love, but there is never really a loss of love. There is a closing off of the heart through hardships, but then love comes back again. The heart opens up again and you see somebody else that you love and then you go through it, over and over again, until God becomes your lover. That does not mean that you cannot have relationships in this world, that you cannot marry, that you cannot have children and have a life and a household, but it means — I beg of you — to place, like the saints, love into your home. Do not get so dried up as the years with someone go by that you just hang on and no longer feel love. Let love ever flow. And if you have to, put your mind on God and bring it down to the one that you're having a hard time loving. Never lose love in this life.

What you are really wanting is an object to love, a person to love. Are you wishing to love them unconditionally or conditionally? "If you do so-and-so this way and that way, then I shall love you. If you do not, then I cannot love you." It has to be unconditional. It has to be like the Ganges that flows from the heights of the Himalayas and never stops. It doesn't matter whether it goes past ugly ground or beautiful ground, it flows and flows. And so must your love flow at all times.

Not so easy, you say. No, not so easy. You have to train yourself to open your heart so it will love. If it were so easy to be unconditionally loving, then there would be no change when conditions change. No, most people are looking to receive, and when the other person changes from a sweet, loving person — a near-saint as you saw it in the beginning when God sprinkled that gold dust in your eyes, an angel from heaven, as the songs say, that came to minister to you and to help your life — when they change into a human being in your eyes, a human with the same frailties as yourself, you wilt in disappointment. If you had truly loved, it would not change with a changing of the winds. Your love would flow with understanding of the other's needs: that they may need love more than you love.

An angel from heaven come to minister to you particularly — and they change all at once into a human being with the same frailties you have, and then you don't like them because they've got your frailties. You see yourself mirrored there — that's why you don't like them. You wilt in disappointment, but if you had truly loved, their needs would release in you compassion — compassion and patience — and that would bring forth the best in the other. If you really love, the other person will love.

No, I say, there are not two kinds of love. I say love is from God and is part of God's essence. Life in its fullest is the art of finding out how to tap that essence, that love, and keep human traits from hindering the flow.

On all planes of existence, love can flow through if you practice the art of living. On all planes of existence — that means in human relations such as marriage relations, companionship relations, mother/father relations, child relations, whatever relationship it is — love can flow through if you practice the art of living that I teach here. Practice the presence of God in your life. Nothing, no one, should deprive you of your Godhead, your birthright.

That doesn't mean you've got to run from someone that you find is a little cranky in your house. It means no one is going to deprive you of your Godhead because you're not going to let them deprive you of it! Do you understand that one? Don't say, "I've got to get out of this house. I can't meditate. They're so mean. They're so horrible. I have to get away!" No, that's not the way. When you have a roommate and you find that they are a nuisance to you, are you going to stop loving them or will you start helping them through love to come around? There are too many people running from other people. Karen told us last week about the time the roof caved in at Sai Baba's. There was no drinking water and when she finally found water to drink, she got sick because it hadn't been boiled and had so much bacteria. No, she didn't run from it. She stayed there and although she had gone there thinking she would find peace, her love didn't change with the changing of the winds.

Remember, you are a prince, you are a princess. Sai Baba tells the story of a prince who had a dream. He went to sleep and he dreamed that he was a beggar, that he was in rags crying for some food, holding out his begging bowl, and nobody would give anything to him. People were kicking him. He yelled, "Help, help, help!" He woke up and found he was in a palace and he was a prince. And so with us. You've forgotten that you are a prince, a princess, and that your Father is a King. Children of the Supreme King, you have a right to your royal inheritance, and your royal inheritance is love.

You have a right to love, but this love depends on no one. This love depends on no one. It must flow unhindered through you, filling the Earth around you with peace and light and harmony and bliss. Wherever you walk there should be a light around you. That is your right, that is your inheritance — to be a radio station. What do you think I went overseas for, to Greece and to Egypt? Why did I go to Jordan and the West Bank? What did I go to Israel for? To Jerusalem? I went to walk on those lands to try in my own tiny little way to put a little peace there that we would see the Egyptians and the Israelis come together. I saw them hug the other night on the TV, and my heart was filled with joy, but I could hear in the ethers, as they were hugging, that this was only the beginning, because there were going to be a lot of people putting monkey wrenches into this peace thing. I could hear the letter S for Syria, and L for Lebanon. So we have to go on working on that. That's why I went and that's what I want you to do — walk the streets in love. Don't be worried about the noise of the town, the sirens going by. Walk in love and fill the world with a little love.

Be lighthouses in this world. That's a great thing to do on this dark planet. You have come to Earth for that. You came through a womb for that. You stayed nine months in the darkness of a womb so you could come to Earth to fill the Earth with light and love. For this you took birth, you took a form. I care not which path you choose upon the Earth — marriage, companionship, motherhood, fatherhood, whether you be an artist or a teacher, whether you're in the business world, a healer or a householder — all make up the symphony of life. I only care that you do not lose your inheritance by acting in lower ways. There is no lower way or upper way unless you make it so.

Do you understand this, my beloveds? Does this clarify anything for you? I hope so. I thank the person who asked me to speak on this.

Don't let anything of hate or lust or greed eat out your heart and cut off love from flowing. Why live in the dregs of life when immortality is at hand for you? Don't let the thief of your emotions steal your inheritance. Do you all know what that means? Don't let the thief of your emotions steal your inheritance, because if you`re having anger you can't have love flowing through, which is your inheritance. You can't have peace flowing through if you're having jealousy and envy, if you're having fear and doubts. You can't have it all. You can't have God and Mammon, too. You can't straddle the path, kids. You can't have one foot over here and one foot over there, one on Mammon and one on God. It doesn't work that way. You've got to walk on that razor-edged path, one foot after the other.

You become attached to a person in love, and they seemingly change and start showing their human colors. People call it their true colors. Well, I don't think it's their true colors. I think if they showed their true colors, they would be pink and blue and white, the colors of the soul's truth!

They show their human colors and you feel cheated, don't you? How many have gone through that, feeling cheated? Sure, I'll bet every hand could go up. You feel cheated because you had seen something in this person or this experience, in this way of life or whatever you were choosing, and you thought you had gotten the perfect being by your side or the perfect — what should I say — teacher? guru? ashram? And then that person or place was taken from you. How was it taken from you? Because it wasn't up to your expectations, what you believed it to be was stolen from you. Do you understand that? It was stolen from you because you thought it was going to be something else, and now you feel cheated in life. A person who made you feel secure was taken from you, because they changed.

Does it mean something to you for me to talk about this tonight? It's right down to the nitty-gritty, isn't it? It applies to everybody. You think Hilda sits up there in those silk gowns as if she's on a throne. "Maybe she wants too much of us. Maybe she's demanding too much. Maybe she wants me to be a yogi or a yogini and go sit on the Ganges or in a cave. Maybe I'd better not go any more." No! I say wherever you be is your cave! Wherever you are, whether it be the subway or even in Italy when they're pinching your behind. Sure, my female students got pinched over there, right in the airport! So I pinched little Shanti, age 13, and said, "I wouldn't want you to go out of Italy not being pinched, kid."

If you go into a human relationship, then, like the saints, pledge your love for life. I didn't say pledge your relationship, did I? No, because you might grow out of the relationship. You understand that? You might grow out of the relationship in time. But I said pledge your love for life. That's a different thing. I think nearly everybody has grown out of some relationship. Your old friends sometimes don't like you any more. They think you're nutty, crazy, loony, wacko, and you don't like to be around them any more. No, you're interested in different things, you've grown up a little bit, and the little baby rattles no longer interest you. You understand the things I'm talking about here, so therefore you've grown out of those other things. But I say, even if you've grown out of that, don't grow out of love for that person or that experience that sent you onward, upward.

Like a saint, pledge your love for life. Even if your ways part, keep the love flowering. You do not have to love the wrongs, the limitations of a person or a situation, but do not let those things steal your heart's love and close it down. Is that clear to everybody? Take this to heart tonight because it will take you up the path a long way if you understand this and put one of these things into action.

Love all, for some teach you what not to do, and that's for sure, and some what to do, and that's for sure. All are our teachers. If you have a wife who's nagging you, then let her be your teacher. Touch her lotus feet and say, "I bow to thee. Thou has taught me to keep my mouth shut!" Everyone we meet or come close to in our walk through life is an opportunity to hold our tongues, control our emotions, and let us experience being at peace in the midst of chaos. "Wow! Peace in the midst of chaos? Oh, Hilda's asking too much now! I thought she'd bring us up into peace and it would last a week and we'd be all right."

You've got to have peace in the midst of chaos. You've got to find your own peace. Saint Therese said, "It is easy to love someone who loves you, but it is divine to love those who are difficult to love." So when you find your beloved is off-key, should you be off-key too, or is not that the time to love, to prove your love? That is when they need it, is it not? When a person is cranky, mean, hopeless, angry, is that not the time to send your love to them? Or is that your time to come down to their level and get hopeless, angry, despairing, with them? And that's what you do, because your aura gets colored by them. I'm going to teach you later tonight how to clear your aura a bit.

Think. Is receiving love the greatest feeling, or loving? Which is the greatest for you? Think now. Come on. Which is the greatest? Loving, of course, and I'll tell you why, shall I? The love you feel is within, sparked off by kindness outside. Do you understand? The love that you thought came from another person was never outside. It was in you. It was sparked off by someone's kindness and the twinkle in their eye and their sweetness — patting your head or something — and you said, "Wow!" and love flowed out. It came from you, not from them.

Long ago there was a person I knew. He and his wife were very kind to me. He was a great fan of mine when I was still very young. One day I thought I could feel this person pouring love to me, and I was so grateful! Oh, I thought, this person is so kind to me, filling me with this divine love of the Masters. I went along the street and I passed a car and there he was, sound asleep in it, snoring. He wasn't pouring it out at all. It was coming from me, do you understand? It was I who was loving, nobody else. The love you feel from another only kindles your love which flows outward through you, and you feel it. You are the enjoyer of your own feelings. Got that? You are the enjoyer of your own feelings. But what do you say? You need an object to start it going? What shall I tell you?

I was thinking of a saint the other day, and as I said this saint's name, oh, I was filled with ecstasy! Bliss divine! Every part of me, from my toes to my head, was billowing with pink love. And I thought, "Hey, I'm going to try the wall," and I said, "I love you, wall." Oh! I was in ecstasy! I was billowing with pink love. And then I thought, "Hey, I love you, floor!" Wow, it was marvelous. And then I looked at that rotten dog that drags dirt all over the house and I said, "I love you, dog!" And Wooo! I found the love was me all the time! Do you understand? I can look on anything, an insect, a cockroach — and say, "I love you, cockroach," and oh, it just kindles the glory and fills me with ecstasy divine.

And that's the way it is, kids. That's the way it is. Open up the floodgates of your heart and let the light of God's love flow through it! Do it now! Do it now! Don't just go away and say "I'll try that next week — when I get through hating that one person who let me down. Maybe next year I can get over that one. But I sure hate that husband who took all my money and my house and my this and my that, and that wife who walked out on me, and that lover, he just ripped me off. Oh God, I won't love this week. I want to hang on to that one." Open up the floodgates of your heart now and let the light of God's love flow through it. This is the answer to Earth life. Without love on this dark planet, there is only despair.

Love all and let love flow. Get a sense of humor about life down here. If you don't, kids, you're lost before you start. You've got to have a sense of humor down here. It's so stupid down here. Did you ever look around at the stupidity of it? First we go and maim a lot of people and then we quickly send some people over with red crosses on them to fix them up fast and then we get doctors to sew them up again. Then we go and shoot them down again. This is the nuttiest Earth you've ever heard of.

So, then, why did we come here? Well, so we could love unconditionally in the midst of this crazy rot. Get a sense of humor about life down here. Go through life with a chuckle in your heart. Life here is fleeting at the most — a flick of God's eyelash. Blink! A whole lifetime is not a split second in eternity, but each moment builds up into a life. Each moment that's flicking away — tick, tick, tick, tick — is building your lifetime. When are you going to start living and loving? Oh, are you going to live next life? "Well, let me see, I'll work hard now and then tomorrow I'm going to go to Europe, I'm going to do that thing and that thing. I'm going to start living tomorrow. I'm going to start loving tomorrow." Tomorrow never comes. When you get to the end of your destiny here, are you going to leave Earth still wanting and waiting to live? I see people spending their whole lifetime waiting. All they do is work to make money, work to get a position, work to get some degrees after their name, and they never live. Will you start living this night? Start living this night. Not living it up, you know, but living, loving. Start loving tonight. Don't wait to live and love.

Are you still thinking to do something sometime? That's a goody, isn't it? Whenever I would dance, people would come backstage. Sometimes they would be old and they would say, "I always wanted to dance, but my parents wouldn't let me." No matter what age they were, I would say, "Why don't you start now?" I said it to a ninety-year-old and she took me at my word and joined my class. Why not? Instead of thinking that someday you'll find someone to love and then getting disappointed and moving on, in the name of God who created you, live now and love now. Take the bad and take the good, kids. Take the bad with the good and laugh at it. Take the joys and the sorrows, but live here now while still in your body.

You know, you're not going to get away from the bad and the good, because they're here on Earth. As Baba says, "When great good comes, great bad comes to bang against it" — the negative and the positive banging against each other. You have a lot of love, and somebody is going to come and knock you around. So what do you care, kids? I don't. I've had people glorify me and I've had people you-know-what. So what? Let "So what?" be your mantra this week.

Be free in the midst of chaos. Free your mind from bondage — the mind is where the bondage is. Life's hard, you say? So what? Life's good, you say? So what? Praise and blame, all the same. Good and bad, the pendulum of life. Can't you see it? It swings over to one side — good. You can be sure that pendulum is going to swing to the other side — bad, and back — good. You've got to get above it all. Climb off the pendulum, get up where it no longer swings, and be the manipulator of life! You hold the pendulum the way you want. Climb up above it, don't go back and forth any more, and, above all, laugh at life.

Laugh loudly at yourself. And when you get sad and self pity weighs you down, say inside, "Is itsy-bitsy me sorry for myself?" And laugh! "Is itsy-bitsy me sorry for myself?" Stop bitching! You only make life worse! Stop scratching your itch caused by being allergic to life. Bitching and scratching do no good. Laugh and love and be free — then life will be yours to command. You will then have earned your diploma of life and have earned the letters after your mortal name. You'll have a Master's degree, G.O.D.

The lesson for this week is love in the midst of Earth life. Love unconditionally. If you can't love, laugh. But don't laugh out loud, because if you do, you're going to have somebody socking you! Laugh, chuckle inside. I've got a chuckle deep inside me. No matter what happens, I've got a chuckle.

Thank you, kids. Thank you for the love. Thank you for the vibration. Thank you for the unity this night. Thank you for the peace I feel here. Thank you for the oneness. Thank you for being you and for coming here. I love you very dearly, kids, especially this night. I don't know why. I guess because love was the theme this night.

Try to live in peace in the midst of chaos because there will always be some chaos trying to take your peace away upon this Earth. There's always darkness that will try to snuff out the light. But make a determination in your soul that you won't let it happen this week. It will try to.

I promised you I would try to show you how to clear your aura a little bit. By clearing the aura I don't mean just clearing the aura, but also getting rid of the darkness from around you. Sometimes I will be filled with this light and somebody calls on the phone. They tell me about their sickness and it comes over the phone. If anybody is watching, they will see dark spots come around the edge of my aura. So what I do is just breathe in and I breathe out, push it out.

I'll show you one way of doing it with your imagination now. Close your eyes. Think of your aura as very big. Just for tonight, let's think of it being about four feet out all around. And think of a dark color, like a dark red, on the outside of it now. Red is not a bad color, but it is a heavier color. Build a curtain of red around your aura. Hold it in your mind for a moment. Now, with your mind, put a light within your aura and hold this light within your mind so it pushes upward, all around you. Let this light start to fill your aura and see the red disperse into whiteness in your imagination. You can take a big deep breath in. Now breathe out, and as you breathe out, you'll fill your whole aura, and it disperses that color. Then breathe in again and breathe out again and fill your aura until that red becomes absolutely clear white. Every bit of it. In this way, you can push off any heavy thoughts when they come upon you during the day.

Breathe in again, and breathe out. See all that dispersing. Now, do not go out. By this I mean you sit within yourself. Always sit within yourself and work from your own center. Do not go out psychically. I don't teach the psychic. Do not flow out, but sit within and let the power flow from within out. Is that clear? That has to be absolutely clear. Don't be going out. Pull into your solar plexus, a little below your heart, your solar center, just under your rib cage. Pull in now.

Now put a blue, a deep beautiful blue light, around you. You can do this mentally — it's a mental exercise I'm teaching tonight. Feel that you've got this blue around you, a protective blue. Breathe in, disperse it, and turn it into white. Come on, do it. Play this game. Come on. It's a good game. It makes life a little fun. Breathe in. Stay in your center. Center yourself. Now breathe a big deep breath outward and as you do, pour the white light and let it disperse the blue. See the blue breaking up like clouds until you have only white light again.

Now do the same with gold. Start with yellow. Place a yellow light around you and this time breathe in and push gold out with your breath and turn that yellow into a brilliant gold. Feel that wonderful gold, almost like a candlelight, as Sai Baba calls it. Now breathe that light into your forehead. A candle flame — let it fill your head. Use your imagination. Now let it flow down through your shoulders into your heart center. That means your fourth chakra in the middle of your chest, not your physical heart. And now let it flow right down your legs, this golden substance, down your left arm, down your right arm. Now you're filled with it and it's beginning to shine out from you like a sun ray. Come on. Use your imagination.

And as far as you think to the left, rays of golden light are shining from you. Follow it into infinity. As far as you can think to the right of you into infinity is this golden substance of light. And as far back as you can think this light is shining from you. You're like a great sun or a Buddha sitting here with the rays of light shining in back of you. And let the light shine as far in front of you as you can think — but don't go out! Sit within yourself like Masters, and think out and see the light pouring outward as far above you as you think. And now down below. Feel you're sitting in the middle of the universe and the whole universe is one glow of light, like a sunrise, filling the whole panorama with gold. Sit within yourself.

Now come to your heart center. Breathe in a deep breath and breathe out love to the world. Breathe in once more, a deep breath, breathe out, and feel that you are sending love to the world. Let a peace come over you. There is a peace coming now. Take this peace that's coming in the room now. Sit quietly.

If your emotions are getting a little upset, sit quietly and say you demand to know this peace. Pull yourself into God consciousness this moment, free from all the worldly feelings of pettiness and worldliness. Pull into a state that you think God might dwell in this moment. Take an interest, come on.

Think this moment what you're going to give up this week of your little self to take one step upward on the path of life. Some little thing you're going to give up. It doesn't mean a material thing. It might mean your tongue, talking back, a curtness. It might mean pettiness, jealousy. It might mean any dislike. Give me a gift this night! Give me a gift. Give me a gift this night of something that you'll give up. Somebody has given me apples here and some tomatoes. I want you to put on this table the gift you give me, or put it on the altar over there with the flowers. There are three candles. Place it in one of those candles. Give me a gift this night of something you don't want — a white elephant in your life and consciousness. All right. Give it away. Gift-wrap it. Make a heart on it that says, "Love to Hilda." Tie it with a big bow and put it up here, and don't take it back this week. Don't take it back, this week or ever. If you decide to take it back say, "No, I gave that away. I cannot take it back. I gave it to God that night" — for I've placed it in His hands. I keep no gifts.

Let's go into a little more peace now, a little more quietness, a little more stillness. Let love flow this night. I'm going to sing a chant of love, an Aum of love. Let the love flow down from far above. Open your hearts like a chalice and let it flow in. Let peace fill your nerves, fill your mind, fill your flesh, fill every cell. Let the heavenly lands above flow down their gifts to you this night. Let peace reign in your heart. Know and take your inheritance. Don't be too great, too old, too young, too intellectual. Be like a child.

Peace on Earth and goodwill.

Peace on Earth and goodwill.

Peace.

Let this peace caress you. Let the light that's shining from above meet your light and the two meet within your heart. Push forth the light upon your path this night. Ah, beloved ones of light, fill your hearts with love. Radiance is a light shining upon you this night. A glow from the heavens fills your space. Heaven and Earth have met in love, and in love you will know God's face. Peace is its name. Glory is its fame. Shambala. Shalom.

Let this peace that you feel this moment go forth to Egypt. Let politics cease and brotherhood begin this night. Let your love go forth to Israel, who has suffered long, that good may come, politics cease, and brotherhood begin. Let the lights of your hearts go forth this night to all the Arab countries, to Syria, to Lebanon, to Jordan. Oh, I plead with all the heavenly powers to bring peace upon this Earth. Let Chief Joseph on this night win, that we may say, as he said, "Let us war no more forever."

Let your love go forth, Children of Light, this night.