1972
...that find it. Each man, as you know from experience, must seek for himself if he would find. There can be no other to seek in exactly the same way as he himself. For each individual must, in very truth, find his own way.
And the reason that the way be so narrow is because it is only created for one man to walk alone. And each man walks his own individual, narrow, path. With certain specialised experiences along this narrow, lonely, way which has been created just for his very own self.... Therefore, in panic, they clear away clear away the rubbish, quickly and forcibly, that is around them, find this very narrow clearing, and fall almost headlong onto the narrow path. But still for a long time they are unhappy and in a strange place. But in a little while they find that the path becomes clearer, they seem to know where they are going, and these are they who seek eventually through shock, through sorrow, through the realisation brought very suddenly and forcibly into their lives that the jungle is not the proper place. That this they worshipped and thought to be at home in, was a strange and foreign place and these also seek and find the narrow path but by a different way and by a different method.
But the Father, the spirit, welcomes at all times the one who walks quietly away from the jungle of his own accord. Because, being a loving Father, the spirit of love itself, He would not have His children suffer unnecessarily. Therefore, we welcome you and we want you to realise that although there is at this moment in your life a very awkward and difficult bend or corner, call it what you will, in this narrow path, and you feel at this same time, to be hedged in with problems which seem at times almost insurmountable. You cannot see through the hedge and you cannot see too far in front, but we want you to look back. Look back, along this narrow way which you have walked alone for such a long, long time, and you will find, looking back, that there have been the awkward corners, and the high hedges, and the almost impossible situation which have now passed and which have been overcome. And you have found that all these things pass.
And now, that which is in front of you, in your earthly life, is but another natural change. But one which has got to be overcome and experienced, as all the others have been overcome and experience And we ask you not to grieve concerning others, for those who love you, Naturally and automatically receive our help, and the strength will be given to all who love you to help you and they shall all receive the guidance to do that for which they are best fitted.
You believe in the law. You know that it is perfect. You know that he who gives shall receive, and he who loves and tries to take away the burdens from others shall receive this measure, pressed down, unto himself. What have you to fear? If the law is perfect, and you know it is.
Do not feel guilty concerning, shall we say, your lower vibrations, which are caused only through the strain and the stress and the tiredness of a wearisome body of flesh.
You left the jungle, Mary, because you saw, through the darkness, the flickering light of love. That light has not vanished. It has
not gone. It looms brighter than ever and you are nearer to it than you have ever been. But those things which cloud your vision are simply the things of the earth which are very, very quickly fading away. Then thou shalt know full and perfect freedom.
This transcript makes a demanding claim about spiritual searching: the path is narrow specifically because "it is only created for one man to walk alone" — no one else's experience, however similar, can substitute for one's own. Two different routes onto this path are distinguished without ranking one above the other: those who leave "the jungle" quietly, of their own accord, and those who are forced onto it "through shock, through sorrow," a sudden realisation that what once felt like home was, in fact, foreign. Both are welcomed the same way; only the manner of arrival differs.
Its practical comfort, for someone facing a difficult stretch of the path right now, is to look backward rather than forward: "you cannot see too far in front," but looking back reveals a string of earlier "awkward corners and high hedges" that once seemed insurmountable and have since simply passed. The present difficulty is treated as one more instance of a pattern already proven, not a new kind of trouble requiring new faith.
Its closing reassurance addresses guilt over low mood directly and gently, distinguishing it clearly from spiritual failure: "do not feel guilty concerning... your lower vibrations, which are caused only through the strain and the stress and the tiredness of a wearisome body of flesh" — the same separation of mood from spiritual standing reached in "Personal Message For Mary" and "On Depression" earlier in this collection. The light that first drew someone out of the jungle, the transcript insists, hasn't dimmed or vanished; what obscures it now is only "the things of the Earth," already fading, with clearer sight close at hand rather than far off.