The Law of Grace

Writer's Comment: [In theology, grace contains the belief that in man there is the presence of God, and that through the grace of God's presence will flow streams of love whereby man may be raised to heights of freedom. In this theology, grace is the point of contact between man and God through a purely gratuitous gift from God. Grace is God's way of meeting man and of providing the essential presence of God in man. Grace is an object of faith that for many remains a source of hope in an age of anxiety. l'he theology of grace was first debated between St. Augustine and Pelagius early in the fifth century. (Pelagius was a British theologian who taught in Rome in the late fourth and early fifth centuries) Augustine regarded man as totally evil and by himself could only sin. Grace, following repentance, was essential for man to perform any good or to escape damnation. Pelagius taught that man could take steps toward salvation by his own free-will efforts, apart from Divine Grace. Theological debates on the relationship of grace to free will have continued off and on through history ever since.

In the material written from Granger on the 25 February, 1978, the following statement was made, "There is no way of repenting for a lifetime wasted, or damaged by greed, or impeded in some other way. All the repenting in the universe will not change the rags on your back if you have lived the wrong kind of life." This statement seems to be in conflict with the concept often referred to as the Law of Grace. I asked Granger for clarification.]

(Granger): We will answer the question as to the nature of the Law of Grace and its relationship to the February 25 statement, that repenting will never remove the rags off the back of one who has lived a wrong life. First we will explain the nature of the Law of Grace so that each reader has a clear understanding of our accepted meaning. Indeed, he or she may have some other shade of meaning or understanding relative to this concept. We will clarify the terms within which we are using the words so that we leave no unnecessary misunderstanding.

There are various shades of meaning and purpose and intent attached to the idea referred to, through religious writings in particular, as Grace and The Law of Grace. Part of the reason for various shades of meaning is located in the hundreds of years in which the idea has been developed and written about, and cast into a plethora of dogmas and creeds of a variety of religions of different civilizations and periods of history.

Almost always when any race, religion, or period of history takes the spiritual concepts of the High Mind of Being and writes them into canons or defines them in laws, the original meaning and intent will be lost to some extent. This re-definement almost must happen. Whenever any group of people, with the very best of intentions, starts out to organize a new religion, or to improve upon an old one, they must create some form of a structure. This structure in its intent and purpose is not unlike that, in physical terms, of a bomb shelter or an air raid shelter. Clearly, a bomb shelter is not just a place to keep things (people) in, but its purpose is also to keep things (bombs) out ...no good to keep the people in if you can't keep the bombs out. The essential purpose of any religious organization is to provide a set of concepts that, if applied properly, will keep the people, the members, safe. They are the saved people. However, when we have saved (or safe) people, then we must, by inference at least, have some lost people somewhere. Otherwise the concept of the saved people has no meaning. The lost people are, of course, the ones who do not accept the concepts, creeds, or doctrine of the religious group or denomination. So you see, we always end up with a sort of religious bomb-shelter with the safe (saved) people inside and the lost people outside. The structure that separates the saved from the lost is the statement of faith and the blessing given.

Now that we have established our safe structure, the creed or code of our beliefs for our religious order, we must proceed to write all the "Laws of God" in such a way as to fit them into our religious order or doctrine. Effectively, we must bring God inside our shelter, inside our structure, inside our faith. He must become at one with us. We, along with God, are now all safe on the inside; God's Laws all belong on the inside with us. And the Grace of God must apply to those on the inside. If the Grace of God were to be applied to those on the outside, to the lost people, then the whole purpose and meaning of the religious structure would be lost. To gain the benefit of the Grace of God, the Law of Grace must be presented to state that it will apply only when and after one agrees to first enter our religious structure. Accept the faith and receive the Grace of God or reject our faith and you lose the benefits of the Law of Grace.

Here, in essence, we encounter our ever-present problem in the religious mind, ...the Gordian knot of religion. Man takes a universal law, written into all of consciousness, and applies it as though God were the man living next door. We cannot take universal laws and pour them through a funnel into our own particular bottle of medicine, to be placed on a shelf with a label, "Thus Sayeth The Lord God". The difficulty, on the other hand, is to establish some order of thought and some basic concepts that the human mind can reach out to and grasp. There is little practical benefit to the man in the street, or in the gutter for that matter, to tell him there are certain concepts and laws of consciousness that will help him if he will first obtain his or her degree in philosophy so that he or she can get to understand them.

Religious orders, churches, and denominations express man's attempts to bring the mind of God into focus for all people to comprehend. Now that is certainly an excellent objective and essential to the very core of man's nature. The area of concern here is that whenever you place a structure around something and you decree it to be universal truth, in essence you say that everything else is a universal falsehood. The dilemma of religion is how to present the concepts of the Source Mind in terms suitable for ease of comprehension without destroying the very essence of the universal truth. The history of religion in the earth has been that man in his best efforts to seek out the mind of God, through religious organizations, has sooner or later found himself walking through a valley of dry bones.

Do not assume that the Laws of God are given to man in the earth alone. The concepts of the High Source are to be thought of as universal laws in that they apply to life in all its dimensions. The High Mind does not set out one little set of laws for man in the earth and another for life in some other plane. Whenever you encounter a religious order, or a religious mind, that says you must do so and so or God will throw you out of Heaven, then I say, for heaven's sake and for your own, do not get too concerned. Redirect your mind to finding the essential truth of life. And dear reader, don't give up on us; we need a little more background relative to understanding the concept of the Grace of God.

The human mind in the physical earth tends to think of everything as being "some place." Everything must be on that shelf, in this room, in that house, on the street by a certain name. You must not think of a God-concept in that way. There is no place where you can point to and say: "There! Over there, that is the very centre of God's presence; just follow this vector, stay on this course for this many light-years and you will surely arrive at the very threshold of God's presence." Now while there is no place where we can say that God is, in any sense of central location, there is no place anywhere that we can point to and say, "God is not here." You see, God is all things, all things are God; but God is more, much more than all things.

Get the idea! Grasp the concept! Think of all being everywhere, not just the physical universe, but everywhere, everything, all life, all being, alive in its essence and energy. There is no being that is not God. There is nothing you can point to or think about that is not another expression of God-in-being. God is all being and more. Now someone will want to know how much more.

While it is true that this God-nature is never changing ...the laws, the concepts of yesteryears are still valid, and the old time religion is as true today as it ever was; however, another aspect of God-being is in a vast, dynamic state of movement. God-consciousness moves out consistently in all directions, in all forms, in all concepts. There is one form and one form only of death. Death is that which does not move; that which gives not out and takes not in energy; that which responds in no movement. That is death. God is not dead, believe me! The God-being is bursting in movement, beyond comprehension. Each time you move or change or develop a new idea, God changes to that extent. Yet, the God-mind is not lost, is not out of control, is not inconsistent with the past. All is well!

Now we come to the point of comprehension essential to this morning's topic. You, in the physical universe, and we who once lived in the physical earth and now live just beyond it, and those who have never lived in the physical universe, we all, each and everyone, have no meaning, no being, no existence beyond the extent that we are part of the total God-consciousness. You see, we are of the God-essence because there is no other being, and no other existence. No child or bird, no rock or tree, no flower or cloud, no spirit or mind exists outside of the patterns and mind and being of God, by whatever name you prefer. The name is not important; the concept is everything.

There are many in the earth who truly comprehend the concept referred to as the Law of Grace. In its essence it means that there is no division between the mind of man, his soul, and the high mind of The Source of Being. Man has no being outside the mind of God; therefore, in its essence, life is a multidimensional expression of God. The Law of Grace resides in the reality that God-consciousness cannot turn against itself; God-consciousness will not destroy itself; God-consciousness cannot annihilate itself from itself. Within the sacred freedom of choice, freedom of the mind to choose, freedom to accept life and support it, or to hate life and attempt to destroy it, there is always the abiding and ultimate acceptance of the mind of God of that which is of its own being.

The mind of God does not cut off the infected or diseased member of its own being; that member must be healed and restored to its rightful place in the intended pattern of consciousness. A High-soul sends the person of the personality into the physical life. The mind and will of that person has a sacred freedom to choose the way in which it will go. Ultimately however, the purpose of the High-soul will be achieved, the pattern will be completed, and the assignment will be carried out, if not in the physical lifetime, then thereafter.

There are other elements of the true nature of consciousness that could be referred to as laws. One of these is: All things must be restored to the rightful owner. This means that whatever is taken away from another; whatever damage is done to another; whatever obstruction is presented in the way of another, preventing the development along the pathway to the goals and purposes of that soul, must be returned or compensated for. All those things must be restored to the rightful ownership of the personality from which they have been taken, or the obstruction placed in the way must be compensated for.

What we might refer to here as a third law is: The assignments and purposes of each High-soul shall be achieved. That means that each person entering the physical earth life, yes each and every one, has an assigned purpose and goal to be fulfilled. When these goals and experiences are not entered into and accomplished in an adequate way in the physical lifetime, they must be accepted by the mind of that person at some later time and be fulfilled in some other dimension of life. (The best advice I can offer to anyone in the earth, out of a desire to give you my right hand of help, is to suggest that you seek within your own mind for your purpose in life, and seek to the best of your ability to pursue the fulfilment of those goals.)

Let us say now that we have three "Laws of God" and let us write them here, one below the other, so that we can see them clearly in our minds:

1. All things shall be restored to the rightful owner.
2. The assignments and purposes of each High-soul shall be achieved.
3. Consciousness will not destroy itself; all shall be restored. (This is The Law of Grace.)

If we read these laws very carefully and together we will see a pattern of consistency. In fact, they support each other. Indeed, they are different aspects of the one and same higher law. Let us write it down:

Consciousness, In All Aspects, Exists In Harmony

Let us go back now to our three laws. First, whatever is taken away from another, when we obstruct another, when we turn another aside from his or her rightful pathway, we must restore the damage we have done to that personality, to the person of that personality, somehow, somewhere, sometime.

Second, the reasons for which any High-soul creates a personality and sends it out into physical or any other plane of life shall be fulfilled. The soul shall accomplish its own high purposes through the assigned goals and objectives of its personalities. There is a consistency in these first two laws. We must replace any obstruction we place in the way of another person in his or her pursuit of the goals of the soul of that person. If we turn that person aside from their rightful purpose, then we must find ways ...in the physical life, or in the one to follow, of restoring that which we are responsible for having removed. The reciprocal of this law is that when we assist others along their rightful pathway, freely and with an open mind, we obtain the benefit in our own development.

The third law, the Law of Grace, is consistent with and supports the first and second. It means that there is no life, no mind in any state, that cannot out of its own freedom of choice, look back into the Source of Life and say: "I wish and desire, out of the depths of my mind and awareness, to begin the journey back, to seek out and to follow the given meaning and purpose of my being as assigned by my High-soul." Keep in mind that each one of us is responsible for the obstructions and destructions created out of a free choice against our own being, as well as for those we place in the pathway of others. Ultimately, all must be put back into place, all must be returned, all must be restored, and the journey continued toward its rightful goals. The Law of Grace says the doorway is open, the way to restoration has not been removed. But do not misunderstand. The Law of Grace applies to others also, and what is taken away from others must be returned to them out of a free and willing mind.

In summary, let us return to the words of the statement: "All the repenting in the universe will not remove the rags from my back if I live a wasted or wrong kind of life." You see, the Law of Grace does not say that you walk away from damage done, or the life wasted. It says that out of a free and open mind you do indeed recognize the damage done, the life wasted, the harm to others and that you are ready to set out on the return journey. Out of an enlightened mind, you no longer wish to see others deprived because of your deeds, your obstructions, your misleading of purpose. It says that you, now recognizing your rightful place in the patterns of life, are ready and desire to restore that which you took away, or prevented others from receiving. It says that, having recognized the rags on your back, you are ready to get rid of them and return to your rightful place in relation to the purposes of your own soul. It says also that the Source, The God of Being, keeps all doors open to those who seek entrance out of an open mind. It says that you have now recognized and entered into the fulfilment of the fourth and highest law: Consciousness, in all aspects, exists in harmony.

You have at this point entered a higher level of consciousness, the desire, the will, the thrust of life, by free choice to restore the harmony of life as you return to your rightful place. God- consciousness and the harmony of your own soul will direct and guide your journey.

The personality giving the information of the Law of Grace has now completed the writing. We believe that it is presented in a clear and precise way, giving the essential background, and explaining the harmony of the laws of consciousness. Now we will complete the writing for today, Granger.