December 7th 1969
It is written that he who loses his life shall find it. And it is difficult to understand these words. So many people are apt to think that one must give up the ghost, as it were, to lay down and die and give up the physical body altogether. But we do not see it this way.
There are they who live from day to day, and who feel that they are doing their duty to their friends and neighbours, because they remember them at certain times of year. And if they are asked to do this task or that, when there is trouble or tribulation, then they are very kind and they do their best. And they do that which they think they ought to do. And they are content, and when the trouble is over, completely forget and go their way.
But even though they are doing what they can and the best they can, so many people just cannot feel, they cannot become involved, to such an extent that their actual aura is impinged upon, because they have not developed their sensitivities. They are not sensitive. But they are beginning, because they will do, these are not altogether selfish, because they try, and they do, physically, help to carry at certain times, another's burden. But to the sensitive, who must be one that has searched, or is trying to seek, things are very different. They cannot cast off, they cannot come out of a condition so easily as the one who has not sought and has not developed this sensitivity.
Now when one is so sensitive that they feel that if they could relieve a loved one or another person of their trial and tribulation, they would almost be thankful to take it unto themselves. Because, to watch another's sorrow and grief is almost more than they can bear. Now this one is losing, or has lost his own life, and always, unbeknown to that one because of his condition, because of his spiritual progress, he knows not, thinks not, of the glory, of the wonderful treasure in heaven that he is storing up for himself. And this sensitivity must develop and be a part of one's training towards spirituality in it's true sense.
But, the truly developed, as we have told you before, will reach, and it is possible to reach a state, whilst on Earth, it is very rare, but it happens, and we rejoice when it happens, this one can see, and know, and feel, still strongly for others, but because of true enlightenment, and because they have learned to discriminate, and to see the light and the love of the Father, through all things, even the sorrowing, sad experiences of others. Through all this they can see the light and the love and the power so strongly that they can still be quiet. They can still be at peace.
And at such times an individual will feel split. He will still feel that he would give his all to relieve the pain and sorrow of this one or that, and his own inner strength of which you yourself now, will make him say, “I could bear it better, I could bear it better,” and this is a sign of true spiritual development. This one has lost his life. And by so losing has gained and saved his deeper, truer, self - his true life. And only because subconsciously he's aware of this, can he honestly say, 'I would take it from you. I could bear it better.
Because they have lost, they have thrown away, they have given up the false, the unreal. They see things as they really are. They are face to face with the true spirit, with the one, with the universal, with the absolute, with the all.
The only thing which they cannot give to another who is in trouble, who is suffering, who is in pain, who has been humiliated, is their own courage, their own faith, which they have earned through heartache. This is inevitable - bitter experiences, and great sorrow at one time or another. This is the pearl, this is something they have earned. It belongs absolutely to them, and it cannot be given. But this thing in itself radiates, draws to itself and radiates, the greatest power imaginable, the power of love, the power of God, the Spirit of the Christ. And this one can give, without telling the other, who would never understand. But this is the reward, as it were, this is the natural gift which one attains who has lost his life - one who has lost all that which is not real, untrue, false, perishable, stupid. Of the earth, earthy.
Now we want you to know this, that as long as you remain in the body, you will feel the pangs, you will feel the onslaught, of all these psychic conditions of madness, pain, tension, frustration, and fear, and this is what causes you to be depressed. But fear not because you say, “I could bear it better”. If the other one concerned, bless them, bless them, because they are all children of God, and our hearts ache for them, could say the same, then where would the ache be? Where would the pain be? Do you see?
But the tenderness of your love, the feeling, the sadness, all this is part of the great, glorious Love, the giving up of the superficial life for the real. And you will be there, you will be there when this other soul passes hence at one time or another, even if she enters into the world of Spirit first. You will laugh together one day, you will talk about the sadness, and then you will remember the others that are still in these conditions upon the earth. And because you have been prepared to lose this co-called life, then that which you have gained will be power to your elbow.
This transcript names something very precise: the wish, felt by anyone truly sensitive to another's suffering, "I could bear it better" — not pity from a distance, but a genuine willingness to trade places. This feeling, the transcript insists, is itself proof of real spiritual development, even though it comes wrapped in real pain rather than serenity. It distinguishes this from ordinary, decent kindness — people who help when asked and then, "when the trouble is over, completely forget" — not to diminish that kindness, but to name a different, costlier thing that only develops through sustained inward searching.
Its most exact description is of feeling "split": able to see clearly, through real enlightenment, "the light and the love of the Father... through all things," including someone else's sorrow, and still, at the very same time, aching to take that sorrow away. The transcript treats this split not as failure to achieve pure detachment, but as the actual shape spiritual maturity takes in a sensitive person — peace and grief present together, neither cancelling the other.
Its most honest limit concerns what can and cannot be transferred: courage and faith earned "through heartache" cannot simply be handed to someone still suffering — "it belongs absolutely to them, and it cannot be given." What can be given instead is its radiance, felt by the other without being explained or understood by them. And its closing comfort is a quiet, logical turn: the very ache of wishing to bear another's pain instead of them is, the transcript points out, only possible because the other cannot yet say the same for themselves — "where would the ache be?" — so the pain of loving this way is itself evidence of standing somewhere further along than the one being grieved for.