"SPIRITUAL CITIZENSHIP"

..."What is entailed within the meaning of the word Citizen? You give what you possess because you are citizens of your country; but in return you take far more than you give. You take protection in many forms; you take the safeguarding of health, you take the schooling of the earth mind, and you take other things which so often you forget to remember; you take the banishment of foul diseases because you give of that which you have, because you are a citizen of the land to which you belong.

"Do not always think about yourselves. Remember those many who are citizens in other lands. What do they give and what do they take? Throughout history there have been many who have given their all for their country; they had their liberty taken away from them, yet they gave lavishly to the land of their birth. But they are not taking that which God intends.

"Widen your mind, try not to count your trials, your own losses, your own hardships, but rather, as a spiritual citizen, think of the lot of those many who are powerless to help themselves.

"There have been many countries where God has been overthrown by those in authority. There are many helpless victims of those who will suffer in the extreme when the body is no more, for they have sown with knowledge and they will reap the fullest penalty of that which they have wrought.

"However, remember this, it is not vengeance, it is mercy in its highest form. How can anyone become a spiritual citizen, an inhabitant of the bright spheres, when darkness is within them. It is tantamount to that which is named evil. Those who abuse their power, those who turn from the sweet Voice of God, will have to undergo a suffering treble in strength to that which they inflict upon the ones under their care.

"It is hard to root out the seeds of self - it needs that which is like a spiritual pickaxe to break the rock of their stony hearts. But in time - because Jesus the Christ is the Saviour of us all - in time even those who are most bound will stand free from their chains, and there will be joy in heaven over their return.

"Those who are free from the body understand your hardship. But the Great Consoler draws close to give you His sacred power. You have assented to undertake much during your earth stage. Your life may be hard. Remember you are training yourself to be a spiritual citizen.

"There are many who forget that the earth life is like a training school. There are so few who can remember when the earth body is no more, that they cannot pass from materialism into a spiritual state just by the wish to get out of their trials and tribulations.

"Therefore, you are entreated to revise your outlook upon life, and allow the Light which streams from God to make all things clear. Everyone, young and old, are assailed by material troubles. Know that you are training yourself for that Happy Land where power will be given to you in a way that you cannot grasp. How can you draw to yourself spiritual gifts if the price has not been paid? Those who take their way giving to themselves all that the lesser self desires, those who are free from anxiety, those who escape the knowledge of physical pain, what do they know of life as life is represented to thousands and thousands of people.

"Your trials and troubles are not the workings of an unkind fate. They are literally your stepping stones to God; they are stepping stones into peace and into a spiritual achievement which shall make your heart rejoice when the body is no more. Whether your life is hard or whether your life is smooth at this same stage, know that these times are charged with meaning.

"If trouble has passed you by, then do not congratulate yourself about this but rather allow your sweet sympathy and compassion to pass to some other who is hard beset. To be free of responsibility is a catastrophe from the spiritual point of view. To be free from all material anxiety has a deadening and hardening effect upon the spiritual equipment which you possess. Struggle gives life; struggle gives that 'something' which so-called comfort and happiness can never create.

"So we come nearer to reality. We push aside earth values; we push aside that feeling of rebellion which is indeed a denial of the Love of God. We say to ourselves 'I know - because the road is steep, because my burdens are heavy - that God is preparing for me my spirit’s desire'.

"There are some who take on great responsibilities for the love of God. It is possible that these people could have lived a life of ease, could have had material pleasures; but the soul within cried: 'Arise, cast aside your comfort, cast aside your freedom from anxiety, and take the path of the pioneer so that others may follow'.

"Thank God that they answered the call. Thank God that they said within themselves: 'I will do what the King of kings ordains'. There may be months of anxiety, at times things go very wrong, yet in the darkest hour the light which shines from the Holy Spirit shall illumine their way, and the obstacles shall disappear. As their will deepens, as their determination grows, those obstacles shall be no more; for the angels of the Most High will have gone before to clear the way.

"Whether upon the earth or in some other world into which you will pass, these same tests will come. There will lie before you the choice of ease, the choice of that which may seem like gladness - and the taking on of heavy responsibilities, the shutting of the door upon the pleasant life, and treading the pilgrim’s way in faith even though at times doubt assails the mind.

"Therefore, remember this: If struggle is not your lot while the earth body holds, it will be your lot when you find yourself in some other garment than that of the flesh. When your test comes, when the choice is laid before you, then you will know that you have been proved ready for so great a responsibility.

"The life of ease is for the child soul. The life of pleasure too is for the one who has all their lessons to learn. But when the soul gains something of domination, when the spirit within has come into its own, then the scene is changed - the earthly brightness seems to disappear or is clouded over, and it is work for God, the banishment of self, and at times the giving up of the heart’s desire.

"The heart’s desire is so poor a thing in comparison with the desire of the soul within; you give up the lesser to gain the greater - it is not loss, it is glorious gain.

"To those who are hard beset - rejoice - you are numbered amongst the burden bearers, you are honoured; for you have taken a road that is difficult in the extreme.

"To the young who know little of this great truth, the time will come when reality will be forced upon them. The time will come when they will go back over their lives and find that these words are true. What is their ambition now? It may be to have their rights as a citizen of the land to which they belong.

"That is good, as far as it goes. But if they draw to themselves only the material possessions and hold them for themselves alone, if they hold a position of authority and take pride in that authority and forget the responsibility that the position entails - then woe to them. They will find that they have bartered their greater self, they have been fooled by unseen enemies of the Light, they walked with those they did not know who tempted them and they fell.

"When the earth life is over and they go back over the past, they will see with great humiliation that they were not as clever as they thought. Indeed, they demonstrated their foolishness because they built the earth life.

"But the earth life is only a moment in time; the real life goes on for ever. They threw away their spiritual stock in trade; they were so interested in the earth that they lost the vision to think of the conditions into which they would pass when the earth body was no more. So in the next stage, with sorrow, they will take their way.

"So, walk warily. Let the spirit within instruct you. Be spiritually ambitious and you will find that the things of the earth are not denied you, for that which is necessary shall be given to God.

"Days and years pass by, and many are ashamed of incidents in their past, the wounds of sorrow have scarcely healed and they shrink from the yesterday of life. This is an indication of what will be the case when the earth body is no more if God’s laws have been ignored. But then you cannot escape. Set into the conditions of your home will be the past; you will see your mean thoughts and your mean actions manifesting as something real, something loathsome to you. Before you can know peace, you must set to work them out and to plant in their place beauty-deeds instead.

"While the body binds, you can train yourself to forget. When the protection of the earth garment is no more, you cannot forget although you will wish that you could. What is it to you when you are free that you held high honours? The only thing that counts is how you rendered your stewardship. What is it to you when the body is no more, that others admired the tools of the earthly mind? You shall see that the knowledge you possessed was as a grain of sand in comparison with the mountain of spiritual wisdom that lies open to the humble, faithful and patient soul.

"This knowledge is given to you so that you may be wise in time, so that you may commence to fit yourself to be a spiritual citizen of the Realms of Light. As you take your daily way doing your best, turning out the work at hand as the spirit within desires, as you contemplate your days, as you look upon your neighbours with kindness or compassion - you can indeed visualise for yourself that, point by point, you are preparing your mind, you are preparing your heart for the fuller, freer life of the Spirit, and you are building things. You are casting out those weeds which in the past had gained hold, and in their place the sweet blossoms of God shall bloom in all their beauty. You are a child of God, and you are indeed a citizen worthy of the Realms of Light.

"The very best is desired for you. You cannot turn away from the truth. Do not let self hold the mind.

"There are the unseen that draw you out of safety into the wood of pleasure, into the entanglements of self. You hearken to them, but you do not know who it is that speaks to you. Why is it that at times the chains of self are cast asunder? Why is it that at times you feel out of harmony with all that which is good and sweet and beautiful? Is it not that an enemy controlled you - something within which was impressing upon the mind of the body those dark thoughts, those enemy thoughts? But there is also an angel waiting to give to you that spiritual guidance which God means shall be your own. How plain it is.

"It is desired by those who love you who are no longer in the body, that the home you will enter shall be the very best. They want you to be a citizen with full power, to be one who is free from all that which binds. They want you to pass out of one condition of freedom into another where freedom is greater still. They want you to have the will and the choice of entering into those planes of life where the sorrows of the past, the wounds of that which caused your heart to ache, where all that will be blotted out for evermore.

"But the only way to gain that which is so sweet is the Christ Way. By being patient, following the path of duty, taking up the burdens and - even if the shoulders seem to bend to them - still to have the will to carry the burdens to the end. These burdens shall be seen as your greatest gift of all - as a power that no one can take from you.

"It is also required that others should have the very best as well. Therefore, you are called upon to open up that missionary spirit within you, and to instruct others and to show them the way. Telling them about your own experiences; telling them that you have proved the promises of God are kept. You have tried the Christ Way, and although it seemed to break your heart at the beginning, now you are free from sorrow and all that which tortures the human mind. Only by experience can you help those who have not trodden the path to God; only by personal experience can you prove to others that the God Way is the sweetest Way of all.

"Thus laid upon you, children of the Light and children of the half-Light, a great responsibility of the knowledge of the meaning of Life in its fuller sense is laid upon you. You are a citizen of your country. Long before you were a citizen of earth you were a citizen of the heavenly spheres.

"The time must come when you must render an account of that which you have wrought. The time must come when you will meet your Creator in the semblance of Jesus the Christ, and then it will mean all in all to you if you tried. The time must come when the Love of God will be in every soul of everyone, which will be seen through the dedication of their work. Be patient, be brave, be understanding.

"The Cross of Jesus the Christ rests upon your brow. This little cross of Light is a gift to you. Whether you value it remains with you to decide. Remember that the tomorrow of time will surely come. Remember the Love of Christ is close to you all, and seek to render something of that love in return.

All rights are reserved and may not be used or reproduced, neither in whole nor in part thereof, in or on any form of media, including the Internet. The providing of direct hyperlinks to Greater World website copyright material is welcomed, thereby fulfilling any intended aspirations for anyone concerned whilst maintaining the integrity of the well-intentioned, deeply-considered and long-standing ideals of the Greater World.

The Greater World has sole copyright for the Zodiac Messages and came into existence as the Greater World Christian Spiritualist League in 1931 (U.K. Registered Charity No. 212369). The Greater World was originally established purely because of the Zodiac Messages and their introduction into earthly life by the Christ Messenger Zodiac and the further revelations of the Christ Mission expounded therein. The inception of the Greater World was for the preservation, as received, of the Zodiac Messages and the prudent dissemination of the spiritual philosophy, consequently perpetuating the incorruptibility, distinctiveness and uniqueness of the Zodiac Messages and the teachings contained therein.

Download 9 chronologically-ordered digital books of earlier Zodiac Circle sittings (1923-1928)