September 15th 1966
".... little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.".
You are aware of the faith of a little child. A child who is with his fond parents, feeleth he knows not fear. In this one or that, mother or father, his faith is absolutely complete.
And in the knowledge of their love and their nearness, that little one is absolutely at rest and at peace. And even so, as this operates on the physical level, so indeed does the same idea apply spiritually. And the one who accepts, who is aware of his relationship to the Father, God, to the Mother and Father, God, cannot know in his heart real fear. And he accepts the course, the natural course of nature. He understands the law, he understands that by violating any law, retribution will follow, and a person that is unafraid, that is fearless, is always a happy person and finds it easy to love others, and to help others. Because, in himself, he is at peace.
And although things that happen in his environment may upset for a while, and ruffle, as it were, the surface of his life, underneath, in the deep depths, there is that place of calm and swеet героsе. And this one can think of so-called death as something to look forward to, a natural event of nature, a natural change. And those who have passed hence, into the so-called Summerland, paradise, heaven, Abraham's bosom, what you will, seem to the child of God, to the little one who has opened his heart to truth and to love, that one has found a heaven on Earth. Because of this knowledge of the relation-ship to the Father, will not, cannot fear death, and can tune in and feel at home and at peace, with those that come back to serve, to guide and to help. And there is no fear or happiness in these so-called natural things.
But there are they in your midst, who come to turn away, who seem reluctant to even speak of these very things which seem to thee, normal and natural. And the reason is this: They have not yet become as a little child. They have reached the stature of an adult, as far as the Earth life is concerned, and they have matured, as they think, to a full man or woman. And in this and this alone does their faith and their confidence rest. They say, "I am," and they think they are, but in very truth they are not empty but full of the lower self. This does not mean that they live ungodly lives. This does not mean that they are spiteful or vicious, But it does not mean that although they go to church regularly, they talk of Jesus the Christ, but all this is something outside of themselves. And they feel that they must rely, when it comes to the very last report, on themselves. And this is why they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is why they cannot attain a mental state, whereby they feel free, empty, and at peace. They are afraid. They are afraid to talk about anything that they cannot see with their eyes, hear with their ears, or feel with their hands.
And because they cannot become as a little child, with absolute faith, in the divine Parent. It is because of this very fear of the unseen, the unknown. They cannot face up to come face to face with reality.
And this children, is the very reason why our beloved sister cannot talk, or discuss this very great truth. She feels that she must be able to rely wholeheartedly on her tired, weary, little self. Although God is real to her in a sense, she has not grasped the true relationship of the Spirit to the spirit. And she feels that this would be for her, a form of conceit. A form of conceit. It is a humility wrongly conceived, if you can understand. It is a humility misdirected. She just simply has not staked her claim, spiritually. And if once this can be brought home to her mind, and this is what we are aiming to do through your prayers, to show her her true relationship with an all-loving parent, who loves, forgives, is over waiting, to receive His little ones.
Already, she is seeking to find her greater self. But looking in the wrong direction. But your prayers and your desires are not in vain. And because we are trying our very utmost to bring about this freedom and this pence, there will be a greater restlessness, a greater desire which will appear troublesome for a time. But eventually, and we hope, before you leave the Earth, Mary, that you will know this, that you will be able to see it and recognise this blessed state.
"Suffer little children to come unto me" (Matthew 19:14) grounds the transcript's central image: a child's absolute, unafraid trust in a parent as the model for the soul's trust in God. Where that trust is real, the transcript says, fear itself becomes impossible — not because nothing difficult happens, but because beneath the "ruffled surface" there remains "a place of calm." Death, on this account, loses its terror entirely, becoming simply another natural change rather than an ending.
The transcript's more interesting move is diagnosing why some people, otherwise good and even outwardly religious, cannot make this trust their own. It isn't wickedness — the person discussed here is loved and respected — but a self-reliance mistaken for maturity: having grown into adulthood, she has learned to depend on herself alone, and experiences the idea of leaning on something unseen as a kind of failure or conceit rather than the deeper humility it actually is. The transcript names this precisely: "a humility wrongly conceived... misdirected" — self-sufficiency masquerading as modesty, when true humility would mean admitting the need for a trust beyond the self.
This is close to what Kierkegaard called the strength of subjectivity mistaken for its opposite — his account of faith requiring a person to give up the security of what can be proven or grasped, a "leap" that looks, from the anxious, self-reliant standpoint, like recklessness rather than what it actually is. The transcript's own remedy isn't argument but patience: the "greater restlessness" that will come before the peace, described here as the very sign that the search, however uncomfortable, is already underway.