June 2nd 1969
It has been written that a child of the Father cannot be given a stone, will not be given a stone, if he asks for bread. But you must remember that before a parent can understand the needs of his child, the child must ask. And it is the same with one's Spiritual progress. If one would have the bread of life, if one would take unto himself the living waters, then this one must show, by his way of life, through his prayers, through his desires, that he needs, and would partake of, the bread, the life force, the essence, the power, of love.
And this must needs be earned, because it has the potential of a lifting up to the very, very highest. But if eaten ravenously by one whose stomach is already full of other things, this very bread would cause sickness of body and of mind. Therefore this bread, this essence of life, this knowledge, this love, this wisdom, this understanding, with all its potent power, cannot be given, cannot be fallen upon, indiscriminately, but must be kept in a safe place, away from the so-called little ones, who understand it's potential not. Therefore, it must be asked for.
But, from the very beginning, all children of God, all children of the Father, all mankind, everywhere, have the inner need, the latent desire, for good, for love, for bread, and for the living waters. And because this need, this realisation of one's relationship to God, cannot possibly be stifled altogether, but again and again cries out through the being of man, for itself, knowing not that in the larder of the being, is bread.
Knowing not where it lies, knowing not just exactly where it is, but filled with the need of this unknown something. This Spiritual food all men search, all men cry out, all men look for, this something they know not of. And one who knows that it is peace of mind that he needs, and yet has not searched, has not studied, as it were, the scriptures of the great sages and teachers of the past.
With his physical eyes he looks around, and because he has the wherewithal, the physical coins of the material world, he goes to a place where he can purchase a stimulant of one kind or another that will arrest, as it were, the gnawing, nagging pain within, the unease of his mind, and this, because he has not asked for the bread of life, because he understands not the power of the living waters, takes unto himself, not the bread, but the stone, the stone. And this will for a little while, numb the senses, take away the nagging, gnawing fears, of his own ignorance, make him, as it were, insensible to all that around him, and he thinks for a little while, "I have found peace." For a little while he has been stunned through the power of the stone.
But the one who can see things clearly, who has opened his eyes to reality, who has rubbed away the sleep of the physical and the material….
This transcript reads a familiar promise — "ask, and it shall be given... will he give him a stone?" (Matthew 7:9) — with unusual precision about what "asking" actually requires. Bread isn't withheld arbitrarily; it must be earned and asked for specifically because it's genuinely potent, capable of "lifting up to the very, very highest," and dangerous if consumed by someone unprepared for it — "eaten ravenously by one whose stomach is already full of other things," it would cause sickness rather than nourishment. Withholding, here, isn't cruelty but proportion: the gift matched to the readiness to receive it.
Its sharper claim is that the underlying hunger is universal and cannot be silenced, whether or not anyone recognises what it actually is — "all men search, all men cry out... this something they know not of." Someone who feels the ache of that hunger but hasn't searched for its true source will inevitably reach for something to quiet it anyway — and the transcript names plainly what's reached for instead of bread: a "stimulant of one kind or another" that numbs rather than nourishes, mistaken, for a little while, for peace. This is a strikingly direct acknowledgment that addiction and self-medication are themselves a distorted, misdirected form of the same spiritual hunger these transcripts describe everywhere else — reaching for a stone because the bread was never recognised as available.
The distinction drawn is not between good people and bad, but between the numbed and the awake — between one who has taken the stone and mistaken stillness for peace, and one "who has rubbed away the sleep of the physical and the material" and can see what was actually needed all along.