Yes, I'm glad that W [wife] could share this book this morning, and you should try to find an English translation for H [husband], too.

Once you have started to live in the life of the spirit, you will never be satisfied again with the things that satisfied you before. There is no turning back, unless you want to live in denial of what you have experienced. This is indeed a selfish action, a greater selfishness than that of those who never had an experience of spirit, simply because they know a more limited level of reality (consciousness more centered on the outer realm), and selfishness is quite expected at that level.

But for one who has begun to open the eyes of the spirit, to open the heart to that inner realm that is higher and more essential, and then to deny this opening and go back, is more truly selfish because it represents a more conscious rejection of that high path--and the pain will be greater. I have no desire for any of My children to live in pain, but the price has to be paid if one has rejected that of greater value. And until the price is paid, the person cannot come around again to that point and continue their path. So, more learning, sometimes quite painful learning, is necessary until they can come back to the path. This is a point I wanted to share with you initially.

Yes, H, in terms of your getting up in the morning, you notice many times that your mind is not automatically preparing for the day, but most times you awaken in a more subjective or chaotic state. You've been wandering, perhaps, in your dreams as you slept, but when you awaken and the physical self becomes active, spirit and body come back together--it's a kind of a bumping of the two realities, the day reality and the night reality. It's just like two people bumping into one another:

They have to stop for a moment and shake their heads to figure out what happened. That's why it isn't easy to instantly focus yourself in the morning and why most people take a while to fully wake up. But it is at that time in the morning when it is most important to have a recognition of coming into line with Me or putting yourself straight with Me as you begin the day. When you are still half asleep and still suffering the effects of quickly waking up from having been in a different state, it is easy for your mind to race somewhat out of control.

You will find yourself singing meaningless songs in your mind, or unimportant things will be racing through your consciousness. It is in these beginning moments that you need to spiritually calm yourself and let your mind settle down and become silent. Morning time is so important for our connecting. But there are so many who simply just physically wake up in the morning, run for the coffee, run for the newspaper, put on the shoes, and run out to work without having gotten in touch with peace or with the silence in themselves. From My perspective, then, there has been no real "awakening," but simply a passing from one form of sleep to another. It is tragic, but so many of My sons and daughters spend most of their lives in this arbitrary state of being.

Now, as you shared about this book, W, it's very important in terms of teaching the value and importance of the inner life, that so-called "great life" as the book says. Unfortunately, so many people, both Eastern and Western people, are completely unaware of this realm, that is the true life stream, that is the great life as compared to the routine, daily outer life. That which you call the outer life has become unconscious of the inner life. The person taken up with this outer life and its concerns is incapable of integrating the inner and outer lives. It is only the individual who has, by whatever means, begun to become aware of this inner higher existence who has any hope of integrating the inner and outer lives into one harmonious flow.

H, you realized as you, too, were listening to W, that one should never judge the work of another when it pertains to Godly work. And just for the sake of anyone who may share this later on, this book, Beyond the Himalayas, about monks in Tibet who live far up in the mountains and who physically have very little contact with the outside world, is showing how they actually have a lot of influence.

For someone who is in a movement that is more traditional Christian in its method and convictions, these monks may seem selfish because the concept has been that we should spread the word, go out and share the "Gospel" with the people. These monks don't seem to do that. Instead, they may be sitting and staring at a wall for many hours every day, and to the Western mind this seems like a huge waste of time, almost absurd. But, from My point of view, their work, in its own way, is every bit as important as the work of any Western missionary who ever existed, and there were great ones.

And I'll tell you why. It's because the work of evolving the human soul deals with far more than just verbally sharing from person to person the Gospel or some great truth as written in a book, because people in general are in a state in their daily lives that is relatively quite undeveloped, quite low. Now, I don't speak of criminals or obviously evil people only. No. I mean "normal" people who are going to work every day, meeting friends in the restaurant, shopping, going to sports events, going to the theater, people whose level of being is very much concerned with the immediate need: physical, social, intellectual, emotional.

If you share the word of God with these people in the more Western sense (in other words, they are witnessed to and eventually join a certain church), yet they don't learn on the internal level how to daily and consciously elevate themselves, then in time the real meaning of that Gospel or set of principles they learned will be unconsciously altered by them to justify their own limited state of being. (How did the level of Jesus' teaching turn into the level of the Inquisition?)

Therefore, it's very easy, for example, for historic Western Christians to say, "Jesus paid the price for me and I'm just a sinner who was forgiven by grace. If I commit sin, still I know there is a loving God and Christ who will forgive me." Now in one sense this is true because of My heart toward My children. I can't help Myself when I look at your situation, to be there for you and help you. But, on the other hand, when the child takes advantage of that heart and says, "See, my father is there for me, my parents are always there; they'll forgive me," then the child is too often telling himself or herself that, "It's okay to go on with what I'm doing."

Actually, in this conditional and insincere state of mind a child will never experience the tremendous power of forgiveness (or My love behind it) and, as the result, they themselves will never learn to forgive. Yet, in the case of these Tibetan monks, they have been opening a path of very strict discipline of personal and subjective desires. This way is not just for the sake of conquering those desires, but for the greater purpose, as that book says, of opening to the great life within and beyond themselves. And that is the realm of spirit, the realm of heart, the realm of freedom, the real realm of Christ.

When we say realm of spirit, I have to tell you that so much of the spiritual world, much like the physical world, is still unconscious of Me. As you know, there are atheists in the spiritual world, there are beings in the spiritual world who are still just taken up with trying to selfishly fulfill themselves. And how completely contradictory this is, because if they are living only for themselves they cannot truly fulfill themselves, they can't join the greater fulfillment that is the fulfillment of all, the fulfillment of God, the fulfillment of humanity in the greatest sense.

That means they have to go out of themselves and out of that small world of "give me this" and "give me that." And so, truly, those monks are pioneering a very important path. And beyond that, as they go out into that world of the great life beyond themselves, even sitting looking at a wall, meditating, that old monk, who has perhaps lived that lifestyle for 30-40 years, is consciously a part of what you call restoration.

How do you know that the spirit of that monk who is sitting there in the Himalayas is not consciously working in some needy part of the world to try to elevate a relatively unconscious humanity? I tell you this is so. When you think of the forces of goodness in the spiritual realm, forces that come from the great spiritual lights of history, that are consciously working with and through people on the earth, then those monks still on the physical earth who have lived their lives with this great purpose of spiritual liberation and unity, with that great source of good that ultimately you call God, who is to say that they are not also part of those forces of elevating and lifting up a world of ignorance? Of course they are! Of course they are. Therefore, the conclusion is obvious:

Do not judge anyone's path toward Me. If you judge anyone, you'd better examine yourself day by day and see if your path is with enough awareness on your own part. And I do not speak just about how much outer work you do every day for God, but about the quality of your realization and how much that depth of realization enters into your daily life. How much does that wine of realization fill the glass of your life? This is important.

There is a conviction that you and many others have experienced that it is not enough to bring numbers and to have this and that project for God if, indeed, each of you is simply on the level of achievement--in other words, on the level of numbers and various quotas in the external sense. And this is as it should be, because as you mature in the life of the spirit, or as you hunger for the life of the spirit, you realize that numbers mean very little if indeed the inner spirit is not there. When you think of some of the great churches of the world, there are millions of people who belong to those churches, but I ask you, what is the inner realization of those people, both high and low in position, in regard to their church and to the work to which their church has called them?

What is the inner realization? I do not judge, because some people have a high realization; others may not. But I ask you simply to question. As you look at your own affiliation, ask yourself that same question. And realize that on that invisible level those monks, the highest realms of spirit, and in essence Myself, are working to bring each individual, as each one opens up, to that place of higher realization so that they no longer depend on an outer religious structure but have become independent in the sense of inner spiritual motivation and have joined the stream of that great life. This is when the church can evolve beyond itself and truly great individuals may start to guide this world. This world was not made or designed for churches to guide it. They are only a starter engine for a much more powerful source of power, and that is within the individual soul, in the individual being, in its relationship with Me. So, please recognize this.

And again I say, do not judge the spiritual life of any person. The better thing is to examine the eye, which so freely likes to look outside. There is another eye with which to look within. If you would apply those powers of investigation toward your own soul and toward your own daily path, you will find amazing ability to quickly bring yourself to a much better place. Please understand the core of this and the importance of the elevation of the individual.

Finally, I want to remind you that it is in this quality of the heart that the key to life lies, not in how many things you did but in the heart with which you did them. One great act, an act that truly comes out of the realm of heart, is far better than a thousand acts that come only from identification or identity or a certain concept. And in the long run, the result will have far more impact on the elevation of humanity.

I leave you with that today. Please have this transcribed as soon as you can. I'll ask H to pray.