September 6th 1970
The long march is over and thou art marking time. Because before thee stretches another road. You have walked along the road of life, of human existence and experience. You have turned so many times from the main highway, or have sauntered, and walked, and meandered along the byways on either side.
But always have you turned back, for there has been nothing there to help you or to benefit you Spiritually, and you have realised, you have been able to see, that this was not yours. Even though you grow weary and tired of what we will call the straight and narrow path, because this straight and narrow path must be at times monotonous and dreary to the physical senses and to the physical eye. And for a change, for something different, you are apt to meander and turn off.
And if you look back, you will see quite clearly, and you will recognise the times in the past when you did these things. And you will rejoice with us that you turned and came back. But now, at last, you are marking time. You have come to the end of a certain stretch of the path and the doors will open into a different stretch of road. And this state of mind, this time of marking time, is a very, very, important experience you only go through once, as you have gone through all the other experiences.
But, there is no turning off. You have come to the end of a very particular and very valuable stretch of the road. And now the time has come, to turn around, if you wish, and look back and so and understand all the things that have gone before. And you will find that you have been accompanied on your journey all along the way. When we had to stand and wait at the corner, as it were, whilst you went to look at this and look at that. We wondered sometimes how long we would have to wait, because we do not know, we did not know, your precious will was your own.
And this is a very beautiful and a very comforting thought, that at last there will be no more turning off. And when the doors shall be opened at last, or shall we say the silver cord is severed, thou shalt see a place well known to thee, because although in the ordinary conscious life, the every day life, you are marking time, as it were, on the outside when sleep holds you the doors are open and you are free. And you have talked and walked with all your friends and loved ones. You will not be a stranger. You will know exactly where you are.
But we do not want you to find this time and this experience of your Earth life tiring and monotonous. Now is the time to look around and take your bearings, and to measure up, and to take comfort from the thought of the long stretch of road of life which is behind you. For indeed, there are many elderly people who cannot ever reach this stage, this state of mind, this time of marking time, because their heart is full of fear, and they dread what they call the great unknown. And because of this they will not be so at home in their new surroundings when the silver cord is severed, for the simple reason that their fear, their lack of faith, has kept their etheric body or their Spirit very near to the physical body. Because, being in this ignorant state of mind, this fear and lack of faith, this ignorance, has held them back, has held the Spirit back, although it is capable of being absolutely free.
But the law of the physical body holds, and decrees that the free will of the brain, of the physical, cannot be interfered with, even at this stage. But those who know, whose eyes have been opened to the truth of survival, even they need not be extraordinarily Spiritual, even these, because the psychic door has been opened, they have recognised the truth of survival, even these can go quite a long way. It is those with the locked minds, those that fear death, those who are afraid, those who lack faith, who must for a time, perhaps a long time, hover, as it were, on the threshold. Although they may seem to be happy because they will most certain people there who have not ventured further, they will feel that they are in heaven or in paradise, or in the Summerland. But this very, very substance faith, will just not be there to help them for quite some time, as you know time.
And so we bring you these words of comfort because you know, and because even while the body holds, your Spirit is free when sleep holds you because you know. You expect to go. Your Spirit knows the whereabouts of it's own proper place. Recognises, and is free to go among it's own kind. The light like that has attracted you because of the like. There abides in this place perfect peace. We invite you once again to come up higher.
There are times, especially when one is getting old, upon the Earth plane, when the trials and tribulations of the body become almost more than one can bear. We understand these things. But the one who has searched will find that through all these things the Spirit is climbing higher and higher, and getting, as it were, whatever, who has further and further away from the body and from physical things and physical attractions. And when sleep holds you and you come hence, and we stand and talk together it is like unto standing on a high place and looking down and down and down. And you realise that the higher one reaches, the higher one gets, if one stands at the top of a very high mountain, on a very high place, the objects below seem very, very small, miniature, almost unreal and far away, and of no import.
As the Spirit becomes more and more in control, the heights of the Spirit, the high reaches of the mind which are one find oneself in, will enable one to feel these things, which seemed so very large and so important, in the ordinary, everyday, waking life, you will see then at these times to be so much smaller, almost unreal and far away, and of no import.
But when one awakens the every day chores await and this has to be done, and that. And at these times during waking consciousness they have got to be real. They have to be attended to. And this is why, this is why the safety valve appertaining to the brain, the physical brain, as it were, is turned on. And like an animal, because while you are in the body you are partly animal, you can only see and know and feel concerning the things which will safeguard you and help you to survive upon the physical, human level. This must be. Because the true Spiritual ecstasy, this high Spiritual vibration which you manage to achieve during meditation, and Spiritual exorcises, or in times of peaceful quiet. You could not possibly live in the world, and do your duty in the world, and help others in the world, without leaving this state and coming back, as it were, to Earth. But if a Spirit becomes more and more free, as the body and the physical desires succumb more and more to the demands, the gentle demands of the Spirit, you feel, time and time again, that you are standing on a very high place, looking down at the very very small things in the valley below. And you will wonder at these times why you allow them to worry you and depress you when you are down in the valley on this vibration.
But for the sake of the body, for the sake of the physical experiences which are essential at this time, anxieties and depressions are almost part and parcel of the precious experience. Because you would not value or realise the importance of the fleeting Spiritual upliftment which you get from time to time without these physical, darker, more cumbersome experiences of anxiety and depression.
But all this is inevitable and as it should be. Because without feeling, without becoming involved with other human beings and other human minds, you cannot possibly progress, and because of the very nature of the search which you have made, has created and developed the sensitivity. This makes the rubbing shoulders, as it were, the coming close to other peoples vibrations and environment, more and more difficult.
But you cannot have Spiritual progress, Spiritual experience, you cannot squire wisdom and understanding and love, without becoming involved, without the feelings becoming sharpened, and the sensitivity developed. And these things cause, help to cause, depressions and anxiety states. But there is no man, who has developed to any Spiritual height whatever, who has not suffered in this way, even the Christ, even the Buddha, were men of great sorrow, both wept, both felt, for the other. Both were sad and sorrowful because of the ignorance and fear around them, emanating from the minds of the ignorant and the fearful. And although they had in the palm of their hands the pearl of great price, they could not, loan it, give it, or part with it to others who had not earned it. They could only, through their own high state of development point the way. They could not walk the path for another human soul. And neither can you. But you have the knowledge, you have the faith, and you know. But you are still in the flesh. The Spirit is still dependent for a little time on the body. It must remain housed in the flesh for a little longer, but freedom of the spheres to which you belong are yours when sleep holds you. And even now, in your consciousness, when you are not asleep in the physical sense, you are able through your thoughts, through your faith, and through your prayers….
"Marking time" is a soldier's phrase — stepping in place, not advancing — and the transcript uses it precisely: not stillness for its own sake, but the specific pause between one completed stretch of road and the next, "you have come to the end of a very particular and very valuable stretch of the road." Looking back is invited now, not as nostalgia, but as recognition of every earlier wandering off the "straight and narrow path" that the transcript treats with real gentleness — not failure, just the natural weariness of a long, sometimes monotonous walk, always eventually corrected by choice.
Its most striking claim concerns fear specifically, and what it costs: those who reach old age still afraid of death, still lacking faith, cannot achieve this same freedom, because fear itself holds the etheric body close to the physical one even while sleeping — not as punishment, but as consequence, "the free will of the brain... cannot be interfered with, even at this stage." Such souls, on passing, may find themselves genuinely happy in early paradise, yet the transcript is careful to note something quietly sobering: real, substantial faith "will just not be there to help them for quite some time," a limitation carried forward from a life spent avoiding rather than facing the question.
Its central image is a high mountain: the more the Spirit rises above ordinary daily concern, the smaller and less consequential those concerns appear from that height — worries that feel urgent "down in the valley" become, from above, almost unreal. But the transcript refuses to let this become an argument for escaping the valley altogether. Anxiety, depression, and the friction of daily human contact are named directly as necessary, not regrettable — the very sensitivity that causes them is inseparable from the sensitivity that makes real spiritual progress possible at all. Even Christ and Buddha, the transcript says plainly, "were men of great sorrow" who wept, precisely because they could feel deeply enough to grow — and neither could hand their own hard-won peace to anyone else. They could only point the way. Difficulty, on this account, isn't a flaw in the design; it's the cost genuinely tied to the growth itself, paid by everyone who has ever actually made it.