Your Relationship with the World

Your relationship with the world is quite important for your advancement because you have come to serve the world in its evolution. Your individual contribution may be very small in the greater scheme of things, but it is essential and significant nonetheless. You are sent to give something to the world. Ultimately, your relationships with others are meant to serve the greater relationship that you have with the world.

The world is a physical environment and a mental environment as well. It is a place of moving objects and an environment of mental forces. In a way, the world is very much a larger demonstration of what you are individually, for it has a body, a mind and a spiritual nature as well. It is a larger you. If the mind of the world, the collective mind of the people, misuses the body of the world, the world’s ability to support the human family will be eroded, spoiled and eventually destroyed. If you look upon people’s activity in the environment, you will see this being demonstrated in many ways. You must learn to care for the world as a learning environment. In this, you realize your relationship with the world.

While you are away from your Ancient Home, the world is your home. It is your little, temporary home. It serves you through its demonstration of both truth and error, as do your relationships with others. It provides the environment in which you can reclaim your Knowledge and contribute your gifts, as do your relationships with others. It requires that you be objective and use discernment and wisdom, as do your relationships with others. It requires that you have a greater understanding of yourself in relationship, as do your relationships with others.

Everything you do for another and with another’s well-being in mind serves the world. For the world, at any given moment, reflects the changing balance between forces for good and forces for conflict. The condition of the world reflects the impact of the forces that further human evolution and those forces that oppose it. The condition of the world reflects the results of people’s contributions to others versus the results of their selfish pursuits. In a cumulative sense this is true.

As you begin to think of your relationship with the world, you will realize that you want to give something to the world. It is likely that you do not know what this is yet though you may have some important clues. It is likely, if you are already thinking of contributing to the world, that you are grateful to the world for what it has given you. Perhaps your gratitude is not yet great, but it will become greater as you recognize the world’s service to you.

Like your relationships with others, the world is showing you everything you need to know. The difference here is that it may be more difficult to personally relate to the world. The world does not have an individual personal mind. It has a collective mind, which is an impersonal mind. Its value here is very special for you because it shows you that you too must discover your impersonal mind, which is the greater mind of Knowledge within you. Discovering this greater mind within yourself enables you to become a real contributor in life. God has an impersonal mind because God is not a person. The mind behind your mind is an impersonal mind because behind your mind you are not a person. Being a person is a role you play in the world. This is very important, but it is not your Greater Reality.

When you learn to experience affinity with others, you will gain access to your impersonal mind, and you will see that it contains a greater love, a greater contribution, a greater comprehension and a greater expression than your personal mind. You do not need to create a complex system of beliefs here but only understand some basic ideas that are essential for right thought and right action.

The world requires your care and contribution, as do your relationships with others. Here you must also learn to give with discernment, choosing carefully where to give your gift, allowing Knowledge to direct you so that you do not give your gift where it is not meant to be placed. It is important to realize here that you cannot understand your gift until it has found its right recipient. You cannot find your gift within yourself. You cannot open your gift yourself. Your gift will emanate from you once you are correctly engaged with others. Here your gift will give of itself, for it is designed to do this. You are like a messenger with a secret message that you yourself cannot open. Yet once you have found the right recipient, they will know how to open it, and it will thus reveal its contents to you.

Your fulfillment in the world is very much dependent upon the right contribution of your gift. The right contribution of your gift very much depends upon your engagement with others. Here you can begin to see the necessary emphasis on relationships. The world needs your gift. It poses difficulties and obstructions, but these can be eminently useful in teaching you the discernment you will need to be able to find where your gift must be given.

Your relationships with others are built upon your engagement with the world. Real relationship is dependent upon compatibility and compatible engagement with the world. Here you may experience a spiritual resonance with certain individuals but not be able to participate with them. This is because relationship is based upon compatibility and a compatible engagement in life. It is not based upon spiritual recognition. Spiritual recognition is not relationship; it is only recognition.

Relationship is determined by what you can do together. Your relationship with the world is based upon what you can do in the world. It is not based only on how you see the world. Seeing the world clearly is very important, but this is not what establishes your relationship with it. This only initiates your relationship. Once initiated, your relationship must be established on what you can do. That is why, next to personal relationships, finding your place in the world is so very important.

Regarding your relationship with the world, you have one thing that can serve you and one thing that can deceive you. You have Knowledge to serve you and your idealism to deceive you, just like in your personal relationships. However, the simplicity of this understanding makes it challenging. In essence, the simpler your understanding of what needs to be done, the more challenging it can be to achieve. Think about this. Complexity may not require a great deal from you, but simplicity does. Simplicity requires forthright action, immediate decisions, greater self-restraint and a greater commitment to relinquish that which is inappropriate. What is complex can make things more vague. This keeps you in a state of speculation, which is not a state of knowing.

The world’s mechanism is complex, but your true function in the world is not. The essence of the world is not complex. The essence of who you are is not complex. Here you must distinguish between two realms of existence: the realm of action and the realm of Being. Mechanically speaking, action is complex. But that which directs action and motivates action is very simple. Therefore, if your relationships are complex and contradictory, you may be assured that you are not yet properly engaged. You have not found the right person at the right time for the right activity.

Your spiritual purpose is not necessarily the practical work that you do in the world. This is especially true at the outset. Here, if you are a student of Knowledge, work is merely a way to provide for yourself while you undergo your spiritual preparation. This is necessary. You will also find that the work that you are drawn to do may have great benefit, particularly in the future. However, here it can be very difficult to determine or justify your activities. For only when you arrive at the discovery of your spiritual calling, which is an advanced state of being a student of Knowledge, will you understand how everything you have done has served this advancement. It is then that you will look upon your past and upon the world with gratitude and with true discernment. Error is to be avoided, but sometimes it can serve you. Do not embrace it, but do learn from it.

The world is a greater learning ground and an essential one as well. Because the world has a body, your body is related to the world’s body. Because the world has a mind, your mind is related to the world’s mind, which is the accumulation of all thinking in the world. Your Being has a relationship with the Being of the world, which is the Presence of God in the world. Here you maintain your physical activities in the physical environment, and you learn to do this with wisdom and objectivity. You think within the mental environment, and you learn to do this with self-restraint and discernment. Spiritually you function in the spiritual environment as you allow your spiritual nature to reflect its greater power.

What is physical is not mental, and what is mental is not spiritual. This is an essential perspective. Though there is a relationship between these three levels, the laws which govern each are unique. This does not need to become complex. Yet it is necessary for you to see that you must treat the physical realm with objectivity, the mental realm with discernment and the spiritual realm with devotion. Here you approach that which is physical in a practical way and that which is spiritual with reverence. Then you will not be confused. You will be able to have spiritual power and yet be a functional person in the world. You will be able to deal with the world on the world’s terms. You will be able to deal with the thoughts of others at the level of thought. And you will be able to deal with spiritual powers at the level of spiritual power. Here all things within yourself fall into their right and natural order. Here you are able to perceive the world in its three dimensions. This does not require a complex philosophy or a cosmology. It only requires that you look, see and know.

Here it is important not to try to become practical about God because God is mysterious. At the same time, do not treat the physical world as a mystery because it is concrete. If you can make these distinctions, you will avoid innumerable forms of self-deception and mistakes that will impede you in your progress. The world is a physical place; it is hardly mysterious. And God is hardly concrete. Here if you do not confuse the temporary with the permanent, you will not confuse that which needs service from that which gives service. You will realize the right relationship with all things, and all things will be blessed and served as a result.

Your Inner Teachers are in the world but not of the world. You are in the world but not of the world. Yet you share the world’s reality because you have a body. You also share the world’s thinking because you think with the world. Your Inner Teachers have been freed from thinking with the world; therefore, they can think with God. If you can learn to think with God while you are in the world and yet allow your mind to think with the world when that is appropriate, you will become a bridge from the Divine to the world. This is one way of expressing your true function.

Your mind is the medium, the world is the canvas and God is the creator. Within this greater understanding, your physical, mental and spiritual natures are all confirmed and brought into right relationship with one another. This balance is simple to understand yet very challenging to achieve. Here you are being given the short way, the direct way, the expedient way. This is the way that does not require constant deliberation, the way that does not require constant comparison and study. Here you are being shown the open door to truth. Therefore, this is the challenging way, the immediate way. This is being offered to you in order to save you time and therefore suffering. All happiness emanates from the fulfillment of your purpose in the world. All sadness, anger and confusion result from the denial of this purpose.

You are a piece of the puzzle. The world is the board on which the puzzle is constructed. The puzzle is the mirror where the face of God is seen. When you experience your right relationship with anyone, your individual piece will reflect the face of God, as will all other individual pieces. This is what awaits you in the future. At this time, it is your task to find where you fit and belong. Once you find the right people with the right purpose, your contribution will be called forth from you, it will give of itself and you will begin to experience spiritual power and movement. You will experience purpose, meaning and direction in your life ever increasingly as these relationships are accepted and cultivated and as you dedicate yourself to them.