June 24th 1966
We greet thee in the name of the Master whom we humbly serve. Children of the light, we indeed greet you with love, and with deep compassion.
We have been trying to help you during the last talks, Trying to encourage you to a greater faith, greater strength, during the trials and tribulations of your daily life. And as we have told you before and will tell you again, that the cause of the great darkness is ignorance and fear. Remember the words, "The darkness was all around them and they knew it not." That is the sad part about the whole thing. They know it not. Their ignorance is profound. Causing and breeding their fear. And instead of being relaxed and still and quiet and waiting upon the Lord, they seem to charge continually, eternally into battle, to fight for the things they think they want. And unrest, chaos and greed is all around. And the true masters of these masses are ignorance and fear.
And there are those who realise this and who follow the path which you call the occult. And they study and learn and meditate, and so many suffer much to acquire for themselves the so-called supernatural power. They realise that there are certain laws which must be obeyed, psychic, mental, and spiritual, and that there are virtues that must be attained before this power can be made their own. And they have heard of the miracles performed by the great ones of old, but even these, those experts, these adepts, in the occult, sometimes fail to see the inner meaning of these so-called miracles.
But we will unfold to you what we think is a great secret. The true lovers of men's souls are not interested in the occult as such. They are concerned with the development of principle and character. They do not give praise to those who for themselves seek power. And we will remind you of the teacher, the Chinese teacher, Tsu, who, when one of his pupils said, "Master, after fourteen years of starving, going without, self-discipline, even tortures, I now find that I can walk upon the waters."
The great and learned master said, "My son, thou canst do no more than this straw. "
And you would think that to be able to walk upon the face of the water would indeed be a miracle. It is. It is. But, the inner meaning of this miracle is this. The waters of life are deep and dark. Even as the cavernous depths hold their mysteries, so do the waters of life. There are strange currents therein, strong and turbulent, powerful whirlpools which deceive and drag down. And there are the tiny ripples which flow very near to the shore which you can see. The faults and failings, the kindnesses, and the goodness also of the ordinary folk whom you meet every day. But, as children of the light, as seekers after truth, dear children, you must learn to walk upon the dark and troubled waters of everyday, human life.
This is a spiritual miracle. Because very, very few people attain to it. We have been leading up to this over the last few weeks. Trying to help you, trying to teach you to do just this. Do not allow yourselves to be dragged down through the faults and failings, the ignorance and fears, the stupidities of others.
If you can honestly say, "I love thee, God, with all my heart and mind. I love my fellow men. There is no hate within me. But I am truly sorry for the mistakes I can see all thy children making. I have made many, but thou hast helped me to rectify each one. I have paid with bitter tears and I am truly sorry. But at last I feel thy presence within me. I feel thy peace. But at the same time I long to share my treasure, to share the knowledge it brings with others."
We say unto you, if you can honestly say all these things, you must walk upon the waters.
Through the long years you yourselves have been in the deep depths. You too have been caught up in these same vicious currents. You have felt the pangs of envy, of resentment. You have felt that you, yourselves could hit back. Then, at last, you began to search, and slowly but surely you rose to the surface and you said to yourselves, "I'm weary. I cannot fight any longer." And slowly jealousy and hate left you, and love began to fill your being. And in this mental state one begins to float, to leave the current and to come to the surface. Helpless, quiet, with a feeling of defeat. There is not the feeling of victory, but just a great tiredness.
And yet it is faith, simple faith, that brings this feeling of floating into being. And it is in this mental state that we rescue you. We also have had to learn to walk upon the waters. We could not come down into the depths to lift you out. But we have to wait until we can see the very form beneath the surface.
And then we know that this is a fish and that we are fishers of men. And we can, at this time, with the law fully on our side, lift up, lift up. Are you beginning to understand? Nothing can be rushed. Nothing can be quickened. This is where patience is indeed a virtue that must be acquired. We have to do this. We look down into the depths and see the tragedies, the sorrows, the horror, fear. But we cannot, we must not allow ourselves to go below the surface.
And now we are telling you, dear children, you may even pass from this world without acquiring this mental state, but we are telling you, that if you really want to feel the power of peace, you must do just this, we're not saying you will, but we are explaining, we are showing you. But there is all eternity. You will learn. But how many have the opportunity of this teaching. How many seek? How many open themselves for this? Thou hast taken the trouble to do this. Hear. See. Know.
And now, because we have been so very near to you in our thoughts, a humble servant, Brother Lawrence, will just add a little postscript.
Sisters in Christ. Let us go into the garden, for as it has been said, and rightly so, that one is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else in the world.
And we will go to the vegetable patch and we will look upon the peas in the pod. All round and perfect. All ready, as it were, for the pot, seemingly all the same, but there will be one here and one there that will be chosen for a very different fate.
That one will be kept on one side, it will go through a long process of slow heat, of drying up. Ah, how well I know process of drying up. It will become shrivelled up, and apparently lifeless, and then it will be put in a dark place until the one, who is thoroughly experienced in these things, will take it again into the sunlit world, and place it in fertile ground, and that poor little lifeless thing, apparently lifeless, dry and hard, shrivelled up and old-looking, will bring forth a hundred more.
So it is, my sisters, many die and give up their whole wonderful, healthy beings to the world, but others choose to wait, and to suffer awhile, so that they may bring forth life more abundantly.
It is good, it is good in your little wooden hut. Simplicity, quiet, peace, keep faith, keep faith.
The real miracle this transcript describes isn't walking on literal water — it's walking, unsunk, across the "dark and troubled waters of everyday, human life": the ordinary daily contact with others' faults, ignorance, and fear, without being dragged down by them. This, the transcript insists, is the harder feat. The Zen story it opens with — a pupil boasting that years of austerity let him walk on water, met with "thou canst do no more than this straw," the price of an ordinary ferry crossing — makes exactly this point: literal power over water is a lesser thing than staying afloat, in love, amid the genuine difficulty of other people.
What keeps a person from sinking is not detachment or superiority, but where attention is placed. The transcript pictures the waters of life as holding both "strong and turbulent, powerful whirlpools which deceive and drag down" and "tiny ripples which flow very near to the shore" — the ordinary, visible mix of faults and kindnesses in the people one actually meets. To walk on the water is to keep sight of the kindness and the goodness, to recognise God and love even in difficult conditions, rather than being pulled under by focusing on the faults and failings. It requires real compassion for others' mistakes — "I am truly sorry for the mistakes I can see all thy children making" — without absorbing their darkness as one's own.
To do this metaphorical walking on water, is however just as difficult as literally doing so – and it may take lifetimes to learn.