My Story

Hilda Charlton • Pioneers of the Soul • Chapter nine

Tonight I'm going to tell you some stories. I've come here to share with you some ways to get over the last little things in us. I can see that you're far advanced, but it's the last little bit, that last little climb up the mountain which is the hard part. The first part is easy because, oh, gee, it's so much fun. Miracles are happening. You call me on the phone and you say, "You know what happened to me? Oh, I got a new car. I prayed and I got it. Somebody gave it to me." We're into what I call pseudo-religion. Sure, we should have some miracles. I just adore them. Wait until I tell you about Sai Baba's miracles — they're wonderful. But they are not the final goal.

Yes, we can give up all and yet not really have given it up in the deep recesses of the caverns within, which we have been afraid to face, because we have a feeling of unworthiness. So, tonight we will take up this deep cleansing.

Hilda Dancing

What I have to give comes from great teachers that I have met on this plane and on other planes which people call heavens, or lokas. I am talking about the Masters of the Great White Lodge. When I started on this path, I was a young, ardent dancer. One day I went to a church and there were only about six people in the church. I was so flabbergasted that nobody was going to church because I had been agnostic and had just started to get into this thing of churches. When I came home, I decided to change my whole dance routine completely and to make it spiritual. I decided to take God to people through my dance if they wouldn't go seeking God out at church. As I said, I was young and ardent and full of pizzazz — I guess you would call it divine pizzazz — because I had read that God spews out of His mouth the lukewarm. Boy, that is something — the lukewarm, the half-way people. I prefer to say I had an obsession, but what an obsession — a divine obsession for God. That is what you here, all of you, also have or you wouldn't be sitting in this meeting, especially on the floor, when you could be sitting comfortably at home.

Let's start with the Masters, or a few I've had the great honor and privilege to know and be with. Would you like to hear about them? It's not who I met that's important, but the fact that in your own lives somewhere, maybe in the Himalayas or some place in the heavens, somebody is watching you and looking over you. Do you understand this, everybody? You are being watched and as you expand, they give you more and more teachings when you go to sleep at nighttime.

The first teacher I met was supposed to be a yogi, but he was a bogey. But what a bogey! He taught me wonderful things. He taught me Vivekananda. He taught me Ramakrishna. He taught me Jesus. And he taught it beautifully. He didn't live it, but then, that wasn't my problem. You see, he put me through the most austere things that anyone could go through.

Eliza, Hilda’s Mother

We were a nice household. On the first Thanksgiving after Dad had passed on, we were sitting at dinner when we found out that Mother was into something. A short time before, our dog had gotten lost. Somebody who was into the Bhagavad Gita brought the dog back and invited Mother to the meetings she was holding. So we were at this Thanksgiving dinner with guests, and my mother stood up and said, "I have to go now," and she walked out. We all looked at each other and said, "Where's Ma going?" You know, in the middle of dinner. But what that lady had said was, "If God is not more to you than a Thanksgiving dinner, then you aren't into it. I want everybody at the meeting on Thanksgiving." So, my mother went. What do we put first? What's our priority? Is it God or the world? Is it God or our family? In Jesus' case, when people said to him, "Your family is at the door," he said, "No, my family is in here." Do you remember that from the Bible?

Then a yogi who was on his way back to India was staying in town. Mother said that there was going to be a class, and I said that I'd come and listen. From then on, it was hell-bent for heaven for me. He said, "Sit down on the floor." I sat, and he pulled one leg over and the other leg over into a lotus position and said, "Don't move until I tell you." Two hours later I thought I was going to die, but I didn't move. I felt I couldn't move, that I mustn't move. I don't know — it was something inside me. I didn't know what this was all about, but I knew it was something.

Then he said to me, "Would you give one hour a day for peace?" I thought that behind this there was something going on, and I was a little scared to say yes because I thought it was going to make a big change in my life. I was a dancer, and I was full of fun, having a nice time on Earth, and life was just great. I thought for a while and I said, "Yes," and the moment I said yes, I knew that I had signed up with the right gang, on God's side. Do you understand what that meant when I said, "Yes, I will give an hour a day for peace"? I've given more than an hour a day for peace since then — I've given twenty-four out of twenty-four.

This yogi put me through things you wouldn't believe. Whatever I did was wrong. If you don't like people criticizing you, you should have had him as a teacher. But, you see, I believed that he was a God-man, and I believed that he was testing me. Because he was testing me, whatever he did or said was okay, and I had to do it. If you only knew, my beloveds, that somebody is watching you and testing you at all times, you wouldn't fall under ego, pride, any of those things. Do you follow this? They are watching.

He would say, "All right, now you be master of ceremonies." Afterwards he would say, "You spoiled the whole show, you spoiled it completely." If a tear ran down my cheek, he'd say, "Don't be a fool." In front of everybody, he'd call on me, and he'd put an extra "a" in my name. My name is Charlton and he'd make it Charlatan, "Hilda Charlatan." There'd be all these eyes looking at me. Then he'd tell me how horrible I was if I reacted in any way. I remember once we were all in the country and I happened to turn my head to look at a flower. He said, "All right, don't move. Meditate. Don't move." For the next two hours, I had to meditate in that position. If you've never meditated with your neck crooked, just try it for fifteen minutes. I couldn't get it back straight again after he said I could move. He put me through these disciplines.

Once he said, "I'm going to test you. You are not to speak a word until I give you permission," and he gave a two-hour lecture. He threw a power at me that all I wanted to do in the whole world was to interrupt him. I wanted to, but I bit my lips, I held my lips. I did everything I could do to keep from talking. All I wanted to do was to interrupt that bogey, but I didn't. At the end he came up and said, "Well done." Because as the energy comes up, if it comes out the mouth, uncontrolled, it can't go up to Mount Everest, the crown chakra. It has to go all the way up. The energy that's in the lower part goes up the spine and goes up to all your chakras. If it hits the navel, it's power. If you get stuck on power, it's too bad if you haven't got love. That's what many, many teachers who come here from the Orient get stuck on — power. After the third chakra, then the energy goes up to the heart, the fourth chakra, and you have love. When you mix these two, then you've got something. When the energy gets up to the throat, you speak divine words. Then when the energy gets to the third eye, it has to go on all the way to the top of the head.

So, those were the tests he put me through, that first yogi. I was so delighted when I saw him off on the train after three months. I couldn't wait to see the train pull out. Why? Because I wanted to try some of the things he had taught me. I wanted to put them into action.

Yogananda

The next teacher I met was a true master — Yogananda. Would you like to hear a little bit about him? I went to Santa Barbara to see Helen Bridges, who was the artist who drew Babaji, the great master, under Yogananda's guidance. She had a room about the size of this small stage as an ashram for Yogananda, Paramahansa Yogananda. He came in — there couldn't have been more than ten of us there — and when he was talking, I saw a light coming out of his eyes and entering me, just light entering me. At the end he was standing at the door to shake hands and I thought he'd say, "My beloved, you have come." He didn't — he just shook my hand and I went out into the air of Santa Barbara in ecstasy.

Later, because I was overdoing my yoga, I became quite ill. If they said breathe in for seven counts and hold for fourteen, I thought if I breathed in for fifty and held for one hundred, that would be better. I just wanted to make it fast to the goal, but you can't make it fast to the goal. You can't pull a rose open. It has to blossom on its own — you just can't pull it. You have to let yourself unfold.

I was feeling ill and I thought if I could only get to that Yogananda. A friend and I were going into Santa Barbara. I told her not to drive me to where we were going, but to drive me up to Helen Bridges'. When we got there, a car was waiting, and Helen said, "We have a place in the back seat. We're going down to see Swami Yogananda in Encinitas and we're waiting to see who belongs in the empty seat." I said, "Well, I do." All the way down, I was so ill I thought I'd never make it there. They put me in a glorious room with satin curtains overlooking the ocean. I was sitting there thinking that I was dying when there was a knock at the door. I shall never forget it. I'd never dreamed that the Master would come to my room. I said, "Come in." The door swung open and there was Yogananda, around him a light, an effulgence that filled the doorway. I was instantly healed. He didn't have to say, "Get healed." It was fantastic. Then he asked, "Do you want to learn?" I said, "Yes, I'd like to learn." So he said, "All right, come with me to Mount Washington." So I got in the car and rode with him. Now, I don't know how you people are, but I always thought that holy people should talk holy, they should talk God, you know, heaven. All he talked about on the way was that I should drink carrot juice and eat carrots and raw foods. He was really holistic. I thought, what's up with this yogi? Where's the spirituality? All he's talking about is food, about eating the right things. Yet, every yogi I've ever met has told me the same thing.

So I went to the Mount Washington ashram, which was a great big place. One time I made an appointment to go and see him. I was supposed to have an appointment at seven in the evening. It got to be seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, one, two. At three in the morning, they came down for me and I went up to where he was. It was just a heaven up there. He didn't really sleep, you know. He slept maybe one hour a night. We had our interview about 3:00 in the morning. I sang for him. I did some Mayan chants that had been given to me in meditation and he said they were genuine. He said, "Would you stay with me? I will have a place for you at the ashram." I thought about it the rest of the night, and I had to say no to him because I didn't want to, what shall I say, be caught in anything. I didn't want to join anything. I wanted to be a free soul. Do you understand that? To be a free soul, not to be bound by any one thing. It's too limiting. I felt it was too limiting for me. So I went my way, and much later, when I was going to India, he gave me letters of recommendation and we had a lovely talk.

Siva Yogaswami of Jaffna

Then I went off to India. Because I didn't have the money to go to India, I went as a dancer, a classical dancer, danced everywhere in India and then I stayed there. I was in Ceylon for a while. I will tell you just a short story of a yogi — Yogi Swamy. He was exactly what you would think a yogi would look like — soft gray hair, grey beard, elderly, wonderful. When I used to go to see him, I would travel all night on an old train to Jaffna, where all the warfare in Ceylon is going on now. This one time I had brought some camphor. The day before, my friend had taken somebody there who wanted to know about a lot of worldly things. When this person went in there, the yogi had asked him, "What have you got behind your back?" The man had said, "Camphor," and the yogi had said, "Burn it on your own tongue." Yogis could be tough, kids. Then he said to my friend, "Why do you bring people of that caliber here?" So I came in the next day. I had some camphor behind my back. I had just heard this story. He asked, "What have you got behind your back?" I said, "Camphor," and he said, "Come right in, come right in." See?

Every time I went there, he would say, "How much money do you have?" It was just like Yogananda with the food — I would think, what kind of a person is this? I would give no answer, and then he would know I had no money. He would ask, "What is your salary?" Well, I didn't have any salary. So one day I was honest with him and I said, "I don't have any money." He said, "Oh." He had a boy take a book and read, and as the boy read, this yogi sat there moving his hand a certain way. The boy read, "There is an upper jaw and a lower jaw and the tongue is the conjunction. The tongue makes the sound and the sound is prosperity," and the yogi said, "What is that word? You mispronounced it. How do you spell prosperity?" The boy spelled it out. All the while the yogi was moving his hand, doing something, you understand? I never had money trouble after that. I want you to know that you have the same opportunities. Do you understand this?

One time before I went to India, I was taking care of my mother's house. I had been living in Santa Barbara and had come back, and I was doing housekeeping for her. She was in the real estate business, and I was taking care of the money, the household money. I was spending this money on household things, and when I got down to three pennies, I took the three pennies. The Masters, the invisible Masters of the Great White Lodge, had come to me by then and were training me. I heard my Master say, "If you steal three pennies, you would steal big money if it were ever put in your hands." I said, "Oh, rot," and I took the three pennies. I went out that day in my old jalopy and — putt...putt...putt — it ran out of gasoline. I walked to a gasoline shed and I said, "Give me one gallon. That's all the money I've got." But inside I said, "No. I have abundance." I went back to the car, poured the gasoline in, looked in my purse, and where there had only been just enough for one gallon, my purse was full, because I had declared that I had the abundance of the universe. I went back to the gasoline shed and without counting, I said, "Give me five gallons." And guess how many cents I had over when I paid for the five gallons? Three cents — and did I hear the Master laugh! I heard him chuckling, "Ho ho ho ho."

I was into pseudo stuff then, you know, what we call demonstrating. I had this jalopy and I would say, "My gasoline tank is always full. My gasoline tank is always full." And sure, it was always full. I was manifesting it. But one day it went bomp, bomp, bomp and stopped. Somebody came over to help me, and I said, "Is there any gasoline in the gasoline tank?" He said, "Yes, it's full, but the gasoline is not running into the engine. The fuel line is blocked." Do you understand the power of that? When we pray, we've got to pray the right way. I only prayed half a prayer. I only prayed to make my gasoline tank full. I didn't say, "Run my car, God." Be careful of your prayers because you'll get them answered, but they had better be a whole prayer of what you want.

Now to talk about some of the other Masters. I would like to talk about Mahadevananda, who was my yoga teacher. He was 160 and he looked about 45. He was wonderful. His body had decayed and he had lost his teeth and had gone to the Himalayas and regrown himself and had come back. When I met him, he was about 160. He belonged to an order that never looked at a woman for the first 90 years. He said he didn't know what he had been missing until the 90 years were up. He was wonderful, just simply a wonderful, wonderful person. I could talk a long time about him. Even now I have a photograph of him, and once in a while, if there is any concern going through me, I can hear the photograph say, "Don't worry, Hilda, don't worry." I hear him speak through it. I could talk a long time on each of these Masters, but we have to get on with the lesson.

Nityananda's is a wonderful story, and this is the story I want you to understand. Nityananda — he was not a man. He was God. He was found under a bush, not born through a woman, and a harijan, a poor woman, picked him up and took him home. She couldn't make him eat anything. She was going to put him in a basket — like Moses' story — and put him on the river near where he was found and let him, this tiny baby a few days old, float away because he couldn't eat. Then a holy man came along and told her to put a bit of crow's meat in the baby's mouth. At the same time that the holy man spoke, a man came along with a crow. The woman just touched the baby's tongue with the crow's meat. Do you understand what that did? It brought his vibratory rate down from the ethereal into this plane of consciousness which we call the physical.

Now if any of you get too ethereal, don't eat crow's meat. Just eat soya burgers, but eat something, just eat something. A person called me one day and he said, "I'm so ethereal, I don't know what to do. I'm bleeding from somewhere." I forget from where, his mouth or something. I said, "Well, go and eat something." He said, "Well, oh, good, I'll eat a lettuce leaf." I said, "Oh." I sent someone out there to teach him how to eat — how to eat lentils and beans, how to eat properly, holistically, a balanced diet. So when you're getting too ethereal, and you're walking up above the Earth and your feet don't touch the Earth, and you're getting nervous, go and have a good meal. Do you understand? I'm giving you practical stuff now because I'm not likely to come to Princeton again. So gather it all in.

My own story with Nityananda is wonderful. I was in my house in Oakland, California, breathing in and out, breathing in and out. Oh, my God, I had read in Vivekananda's book to breathe in so many, hold so many and breathe out so many, and I was doubling it and tripling it, and I was feeling a fire inside me. I was burning myself to pieces with this ardency. Then, boom, in the corner of my room appeared a yogi and he even brought a tree, under which he was sitting. I looked at the yogi. It lasted for maybe forty seconds, maybe a minute, and faded away. Then I could breathe, I could hold, I could do everything. He gave me grace. He looked over from India where he was, in Ganeshpuri, and saw this fool of a girl, blowing herself to pieces, and he said, "Let me help her." So he helped me. There will always be someone to help you. Do you understand that? There will always be someone to help you. I am telling you this. You are never alone. Never alone.

Years later, in India, I was in a taxi cab where I saw a picture of a holy man. In the Orient, the cab drivers will have a picture of their guru in the taxi, and they'll put Christmas lights around it. Now, if someone here took a taxi cab and put Jesus' picture in it and lights around it, I'm sure that cab driver would be called into the office and given his pay. But there, they do that and the lights go blinking on and off. So I was in this taxi cab and saw this picture and I said, "Who is that?" The driver said, "It's a great, great Master, way up in the jungles outside Bombay." I made up my mind that I'd go and see him — and so I did. I went to Shirdi Sai Baba's shrine and there I met a lady who said, "Let's go to Ganeshpuri." When I got there, who was it? Well, there's a story before that that I want to tell you.

I was up in Delhi. There were three of us, a man who had been in an airplane accident, his sister and I. I was just asking myself, "What is this all about? Why don't I go back to the world?" In the hotel I started to walk up and down like a mad woman. I said, "If I don't see my Krishna today, I'll never see him in this life. If I don't see my Krishna today, I'll never see him in this life." I went down the hall of the hotel to my friend's room and I said, "We're going to Brindavan." I didn't know where Brindavan was, but it was Krishna's place. So the man said, "I'm sick, I've had that accident." I said, as I thought at him with concentration, "How do you feel now?" He said, "Well, I feel better now." I said, "Well, let's grab our luggage, let's go." So we got to Brindavan and we got in a tonga, which is a two-wheeled cart. The driver was taking us to the temple. I went crazy again. I said, "This tonga is taking us to the wrong place. Ask that man." The man on the street was kind enough to jump in the tonga with us and take us to the temple of Krishna. When we got there, he said, "I have to leave you now. I'm going to my master." Again I went mad. I said, "Then take us to your master." He was embarrassed. He said, "Well, I don't know that I can," but he did.

So we walked through the streets of Brindavan with him. Oh, kids, in India you walk through the streets at six o'clock and out of every house is coming the smell of incense. Everybody is lighting incense and the streets are full of it, especially in Brindavan, the land of Krishna. When you come to Brindavan you see Krishna everywhere. Everything is Krishna. People drive cabs for Krishna. People dance for Krishna. People live for Krishna.

So the man took us up to the master. I had an awful sciatica pain from being in Delhi in the cold and not having proper clothes, so I was sitting there and leaning back. This master said, "Sit up and don't be lazy." Did I sit up! Then the ida and the pingala went "woooo woooo" up my spine. He did it for me and he kept me on the path.

And so later, I was in Bombay, and we decided to go to Ganeshpuri. As soon as I got there and looked at the Master, Nityananda, I knew he was the one who had helped me in Oakland, California, ten thousand miles away, and in Brindavan. Do you understand this, my loves? There is somebody looking over you. No matter if you feel deserted or as if you have nobody, if you are striving, you are not alone. There was a line of people that went past him, and he would just sit there. He was just God Almighty, that's all. I froze. Perspiration dropped off of me and I couldn't move. I went into samadhi standing there, and the people went around me. When I came down, I ran around, got into the line again and came through again to see this great being because I had found my own at last. I knew I didn't have to look any more. When you find your own, you know it in your heart. Your heart stops looking around. It may be Jesus, it may be yoga, it may be just a truth inside yourself, but when you've found it, you don't have to look any more. It's wonderful.

After that, I would go and see him. I'd ride the old third-class train with the women and the fish mongers and the smell of fish and the yelling of "mahla, mahla, mahla," which means fish. Then I decided to go stay there for a year. I thought that I would go there and just make it to God. And I heard him say, "Write and ask how I am." I wrote to a man who was the head of the Iron Department, who was his disciple, and he said Nityananda had passed on. I went to Ganeshpuri, and I stood in front of his chair and I said, "What did you do this for? I was coming here to stay a year with you. Why did you do this?" I heard him say, "You shall never see me again except as the Atma, or God, in your own heart." He was a tough one, I'm telling you. He was the best teacher possible. We talked mind to mind. We didn't talk with words. We didn't use words. The only thing he would ever say was to grunt "Unh, unh." I met a person much later and I said, "You knew Nityananda? Did he ever say anything wonderful to you?" He said, "Yes." I said, "What did he say?" He said, "Unh."

To bring this story up to date, in New York I went shopping by myself recently, something which I never do. I came out of the store alone with my money purse open, and this guy came toward me to grab my purse. I went at him like this, "Unh." Did he run! I'll tell you, it's better than guns. It's better than mace. It's better than anything. Nityananda did it inside me. Do you understand? Then I turned around and the guy was coming back. He was looking at me. I went "Unh," and that poor guy was scared stiff. He ran. I don't blame him, with that noise. Nityananda took care of me. I was such a fool to stand with my purse open on Broadway and 103rd, which is a bad part of town. You don't do those things where poor people are, because you make karma for others. You make karma for others if you're careless with your purse.

After Nityananda passed on, someone told me about Sathya Sai Baba. I wanted to go to his ashram. I went to buy a round-trip ticket. The station manager at the railway said, "Have you asked the Master?" meaning Sai Baba. I hadn't gotten there yet so I got a little irritable. I said, "Asked the Master? What for? Give me a ticket back in three days. I am going back to America." He said, "I can't give you a return ticket. You didn't get permission from the Master." I stayed about fourteen months straight with Sai Baba.

When I finally got there, it was very late at night, after the lights were all out — the lights go out at 9:30 at his place. I didn't know where to sleep or anything. It wasn't as organized as it is now. It wasn't organized at all. If you wanted to go to the bathroom, you'd walk to the mountain, find your favorite rock, and that was your toilet. I had a favorite rock.

Because I got there very late at night, they put me on the hospital veranda. When I woke up, there was a mangy dog sleeping with me. I woke up about 4:30 a.m. with a power coming at me. It was the same power that I had felt at Nityananda's, at 4:00 in the morning, when he had sent this "wooo" as electricity through me. Not very comfortable electricity, either. I had looked around, and everybody was sleeping. I had said, "What's the big idea, Nityananda? I mean, everybody else is sleeping, why wake me up?" I had tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. I had to sit up and meditate. So the same thing happened at Baba's. This "wang" came at me and I said, "Boy, I've hit the jackpot here."

Sathya Sai Baba

Usually you wait maybe weeks and weeks and maybe years to get an interview with Sai Baba, but I just walked out there that morning and he came out. He motioned to me, but I didn't know what he meant. People said, "He's calling you in for an interview." I said, "What's that?" They said, "Go, go, go," so I went in. He looked at me and he said, "That's yogic heat. She has yogic heat." From overdoing, you understand. Then with a motion of his hand he took some halvah out of the air — it was still hot out of somebody's pan — and he said, "That's heat, this is sweet, eat." I ate it and my whole system cooled off. He did many, many things for me, many, many miracles. People say that if you're a high soul, you won't do miracles. Well, believe me, I enjoyed those miracles, and it didn't do any harm. When he was criticized for doing miracles, Sai Baba said, like a little boy, "Why shouldn't I take from Sai stores? Other people give presents, why shouldn't I take from Sai stores and give to the people presents?" I'll tell you, miracles awaken you into another dimension. When you first see him wave his hand in the air and holy ash or a ring or something else comes in his hand, you burst into a fourth dimension of consciousness. It makes it seem that we are living in such a dull, clucky way down here. We live in three dimensions, and if somebody goes into a fourth dimension, we say he shouldn't do it.

I spent a long time with Sai Baba. He took me around with him, and I never became so dull that I didn't like miracles. You know, after a while, you can say, "Oh, he made holy ash," and then the next day, "Oh, he made holy ash. Oh yeah, he made some holy ash." But never with me. For me it was, "He made some holy ash! Oh, wow! He made a locket — wow!" One time a girl gave him a gold locket with the symbol "om" on it and he said it was a rotten om. Then he said, "Would you like an om or a picture of me?" She said, "I would like a picture of you." With that, he went like this — whooh — and where there had been just a plain little locket, there was a beautiful thing with his picture with twenty-three diamonds around it for the twenty-three years that this girl had been with him and had served him. As he blew, it made me feel what it must have been like when God blew us into creation.

This ring I wear is Sai Baba's. He made it out of the air. I had been going around to temple after temple and gathering holy ash for healing work for when I came home and had been putting it in my trunk. Nobody knew this. The last day I was with Sai Baba, he called me up and he said, "Hilda has a trunk full of holy ash for healing. I'm going to give her a ring." He did this "shoop" and the ring was there. He said, "If you look in it, you will sometimes see me or sometimes it will go into the infinite and it will just turn into light." And it has. There have been hundreds and hundreds who have looked into this ring and have seen him in color, walking. It has been a magical ring.

It isn't the trinkets. No. It is not the holy ash. No. It is what we are coming into in the Golden Age. Do you understand this? This is what we're going to be. It's a forerunner. All I can say is that you are being watched and loved. If you are sitting here, you are known. When a light of aspiration and inspiration comes over your head, the Masters say, "There's one we must teach." They will take you at nighttime and not let you wander around on the astral planes, but will take you and teach you. There is a place where the Masters teach us at nighttime. You know all these things, but you've got to have the desire to go ahead.

I'd like to remind you about one more thing. Look in the mirror in the morning. If you're ill, if you're feeling sick, if you think you're ugly, if you think everything is going wrong for you, look in the mirror in the morning and say, "I am beautiful. I am radiant." If you're forty-two, say, "I am twenty-four." Turn it backwards: "I am twenty-four and wonderful. I am healthy. I am glorious. I am wonderful. I am wonderful. I am wonderful." Start your day like that, looking in the mirror. So use the mirror positively to reflect your true, wonderful divine Self. The Master said not to look to the outside of people, but to look to their souls. No matter how they're acting outside, look to their souls. And so, look to your soul and see your perfect Self.

Why should we be miserable? Why should we be sick, when we have a mind that can create a new life for us? If you haven't got a job, go to the mirror and say, "Oh, thank you, God, for my wonderful job." If your boss is mean, you say, "Oh, my boss is so wonderful." You'll go down and he'll be wonderful. Change your life. Be the master of your own life. Do you understand me clearly? Hallelujah! That's the extent of my evangelism.

Be not afraid of anything. Come into the heart. Come home and accept yourself just as you are. Will you accept yourself just as you are? There's no one up there who judges you. No angels judge you; no Jesus judges you, no Mary judges you, no Moses judges you, no Elijah judges you. We are the stupid fools that judge ourselves, and we go on judging and judging and judging.

Will you give up your iniquities this moment and say, "I will not judge myself. If they don't judge me, I won't judge myself anymore"? Accept yourself this moment just as you are. With every bit of sin that you've done, everything wrong that you've done, accept it as stepping stones to this moment. It is only a school down here. Does Jesus not say, "Come unto me all ye who are heavily laden"? Those who are heavily laden, place your burdens at his feet tonight, at those sacred feet that were bloodied for us. That Jewish man went upon the cross so that we could be turned toward another direction, a new direction, and a life abundant — abundant in love.

Take the words as I say them — just loving for love's sake, not depending on someone to love, just love flowing for the sake of flowing, working for work's sake, and living lives for the sake of freedom. Oh, beloveds, you are indeed blessed. Let us turn our backs on the ways of Adam. Adam was our father. When Adam fell, what did he fall in? Not into a fig leaf, my kids. He fell into self-consciousness, and we have been self-conscious ever since. If you ask somebody, "Who are you?" he'll say, "I am Bill." He doesn't say, "I am God." We lost God-consciousness with Adam. When Jesus went on the cross, he went as a ram, as a sacrifice on that cross. Before that he had a conference with Elijah and Moses, and they discussed it, the three of them. He said, "I am going to do this to break the Adamic law of self-consciousness and transform self-consciousness into God-consciousness."

That's what we are coming into. No longer are we going to be self-conscious from this night onward. We are to turn our backs on the way of Adam. That was when we as a race became self-conscious, egocentric personalities, I-and-me-conscious. It has all been a big nightmare for thousands of years, a terrible dream. Let us awake and know help is at hand this very night. The climb is steep, but the rewards are great; the air is fresh and rare. Jesus has trod this pathway ahead of us so we cannot go astray or get lost. When he left this Earth, not through death, but by rising above the density of the Earth, he sent the Holy Spirit to comfort us until he returned. This is his dispensation and he shall come again with Moses and Elijah by his side.

I'm going to ask that the Holy Spirit come to us this moment. I would ask you to do one thing. I would have you close your eyes and do some work. I want you to see down below in a valley a muddy stream, and I want you to see yourself up on the mountain looking down on that muddy stream of earth. Ask God this moment whom you should help out of that muddy stream. Look down there and you will see somebody. Put your hand out mentally to the person. Drag the person out of that mud and mire at this moment and it will happen out in the world. You do it intellectually and spiritually here, but it will happen to them out there. Put your hand down to somebody that's in drugs, in drunkenness, or in travail. Let God show you who it is that you have to help tonight. Put your hand down deep. Walk toward that mud, but don't fall in it. Start pulling people out. Pull them out onto the mountain, and keep pulling them up until they are safe. It might be somebody you love and can't help, who won't listen to you talk about God. We'll do it this way.Ask God again, "Is there anybody else down there I need to pull out?" Put your hand out. Drag them out of the dirt quietly, with love. I'll be silent while you do it. Oh, yes, God, we're on Your side, God. We're going to save as many souls as we can that they won't have to go into the hell of what is coming.

With your eyes closed, just listen to me. Those who would like to make a commitment to their own soul's perfection and ask to be bathed in the light of the Holy Spirit will have a great opportunity in this next minute or two. Think what your obstacles are that the Light can dissolve. I will chant the sounds of God from the ocean of God.

I ask that the Holy Spirit be here. All of you, ask for the Holy Spirit to be here that we can feel it. I would like to feel it, God. I would like to feel it like a cool breeze upon us. I haven't felt it yet. Please, God, let your Holy Spirit descend upon us right now. I will chant to the holy angels and call them.

O Great Infinite Hierarchy, look down upon us and bless us. Bless each one here and look into each one of our souls. Please enter us into the Book of Life. Please let the Holy Spirit come upon us. Let it descend upon us. Believe. Let there be no doubters here. It doesn't cost anything to open our minds and allow the Spirit to work. I will ask the Great Spirit to descend upon us from the heavenly heights as love. May it blow upon us this night into our hearts. May the holy angels cleanse our desires, our bodies and our minds. As the heart directs you, as we sing "Amazing Grace," you may stand as a monument to God. If you don't want to stand, pray for the others who are standing, who have the courage to stand. Those who remain seated, pray for the others. Don't stand until you feel like it. Can you feel coolness on your skin?

Oh, praise the Lord! The Spirit has come.
Oh, amazing grace, that saves souls like us.
Oh, God, I love Thee, I love Thee so much, God, and I love Your children so much.

This moment say: "God, I dedicate my soul. I want my soul to shine in this world. I want to go out and help people. Give me the strength to help people, give me the words to help people, give me the love to help people. Take away all my obstacles inside and let me know that I am forgiven everything I ever did from the time of Adam on. I'm not going to have unworthiness any more. I know they never condemned me up there in the Hierarchy, and I'm not going to condemn myself. It is better to walk with two feet down here on Earth, not condemning myself and helping others on this path."

We will make it, kids. Come what may, we will not be afraid. I hold this candle, for it is you. The light is you. The light is the light within you.