11th November 1970
By the lovers of men's souls through the ages, that no man can do a greater thing than to lay down his life for his friend. Surely the mental state of a human being is reality when that one is in the body, as it were, encased in flesh, the mental condition is the thinking part, the thinking machine, of the human body. And as a man thinks, so is he.
And if one becomes involved in the affairs and the conditions of others, and if one is filled with compassion, concerning the trials of others, and if one has developed their sensitivity, and understand at the same time the psychic and the Spiritual Forces in and around their conscious, every day world, then it is only natural that they should feel to much an extent for the suffering of others, that unless they are very highly developed, and have the technique, as it were, of casting things off, not absorbing, then this one will become conditioned through and by these people who he or she is trying to help.
They will find themselves, if they are not very careful, in a.... condition appertaining to that of the person concerned. And is this not a laying down of one's life for another?
You know, from personal experience, the mental anguish, the mental torture, of the mentally disturbed. You have both lived through this condition although it was not your own. And at these times you have laid down your life. You have not been living at those times a full, normal life, because you have been overshadowed, as it were, by the one who is filling your thoughts, for whom you are praying, and whom you crave to help.
And at these same times, you have lost your life, but we have been told that he that loseth his life shall find it. This the Christ promised. But who can give us back this life? From whence cometh this new life? which we have lost, or which we have laid down?
It can come only from the Christ. Not even from Jesus the man, or Jesus the Spirit, but from the Christ Spirit within yourself. From the Father within yourself. From the power within yourself. This is when one becomes into the state, the mental state of the stone. We have talked so much about it, so much about the state of the rose and the state of the stone, and yet you have not really acquired it, whilst you feel guilty and sad and depressed. The feeling and the emotions are still in control. The state of Holy indifference has not been reached.
You must remember this, that if all people would try to find the true goal, if all people would but begin to search for the truth, if only people upon the Earth would train themselves for old age as you have tried to do, then your burdens would be lessened. You would not have to worry about the fears, the anxieties of the other old folk around you. You would know that as you sat in the silence, releasing, as it were, in the peace of your own home, the Spirit, you knew that all these other people were doing the same, and great forces of peace and contentment would be emanating from all these human minds, bringing a pier, as it were, of pence, contentment, and power. All joining forces with your own peaceful, confident, hopeful thoughts. But this is not so, this is not so. Therefore, the small shaft of light is piercing a great darkness and is alone. But nevertheless it reaches forth through the darkness to the places where darkness has no power, where there is light and love. And it meets and becomes one in these higher, wonderful spheres of enlightenment and light. And brings back to itself, to that faithful, humble, fearless soul, still in the dark world, power to overcome, great meekness to accept, and the faith and the trust is recharged, and hope can spring again in that tired, human heart.
But this is the autumn, this is the end of the year, and the brown and the gold leaves, and the shining red berries around you denote the casting off of what is finished with. That is all. And in the twilight of one's life, which we call old age, it is the same thing. Just a shedding of that which has done its job, which has been beautiful, which has given the Spirit the opportunity upon the Earth which it needed for Spiritual progress. Just the casting away of the old, ready for the now. The springtime in the world of Spirit. And as silently, as obediently, as leaves turn, change colour, and gently fall, and the berries form and disappear, so will the body, just as quietly, just as naturally, go to it's proper place, knowing it has made way for the new, for the strong, for the perfect, for the true.
All is love, dear friends, all is love. Let us pray together that out of the chaos of the moment, when the new generation upon the Earth, through so-called better education and enlightenment concerning material things, are refusing, refusing to accept the traditions and the religious thought of the priest, and the political notions of the politicians, let us pray that soon they will pierce the darkness and see that for which they are seeking, love in its true sense. wrongly taught in so many ways, but let us pray that the young will enquire in the right direction, and that they will be guides to the teachers, to the enlightened ones, who are, in very truth, so very few and far between.
This transcript takes "no man can do a greater thing than to lay down his life for his friend" and reads it inward, as a real, ordinary experience rather than a heroic exception: absorbing another's mental anguish so completely that one stops living one's own life for a time, "overshadowed... by the one who is filling your thoughts." This is the same absorption warned against in "Spiritual Dryness" and "Backs Against The Wall" earlier in this collection — but here it's named as a genuine laying-down of life rather than only a weakness to guard against, which sits in real, unresolved tension with those earlier cautions.
What's unusual is the transcript's honesty about not having fully arrived: "the state of Holy indifference has not been reached... the feeling and the emotions are still in control." Rather than presenting the state of the stone as achieved, it names, directly, the gap between the teaching and the lived reality — guilt, sadness, and depression still present, still influential, even after years of striving toward equanimity. This candour is worth its own moment, since so much of this collection presents its teachings as settled; here, near the very end, the transcript admits the work remains genuinely incomplete.
Its most consoling image is autumn itself: the falling leaf and the fading berry aren't loss but "the casting off of what is finished with," and old age is drawn as exactly this same quiet, unforced shedding — not decline for its own sake, but a body that has "done its job" making way, as naturally as a season turning, for what comes next.