October 8th 1967
"Ye are the salt of the Earth, but when the salt has lost its flavour, what use, what use then?"
There are many that started the search, and who feel within themselves the spark, which of their own endeavours they would fan into a flame, but for so many the world is so strong, and the flesh invariably proved stronger than the spirit. And it is easy when one is young and full of hope, when the body is strong, and one can will this, and do that, and accomplish the other without pain and without effort. But this is the time when this one and that can be called the salt of the Earth. But as time goes on and the trials and tribulations of everyday life bear heavily on this one, then the test becomes more and more difficult.
And we bring you words of comfort, because, although you yourself have been wracked with pain, and the ordinary, everyday cares are becoming heavier as the days go by, you come hence into this quiet place and you ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for the lapses into depression. And you thank God for the blessings you have received. And you pray for patience and for tolerance. And you pray for others, and you send forth compassionate thoughts towards all who are suffering. And your compassion is greater for those who have to bear the same pain, because through experience, you understand.
To whom are you speaking? To whom are you praying?
Who are you thanking for all these blessings? You are thanking and showing appreciation to the Spirit of God within yourself. He is the patience, He is the tolerance, He is the understanding, He is the prayer, He is the blessing, He is the Spirit within yourself.
And we see not a sick and suffering body. We know that it is there, and we know and understand the effects of the causes which have caused this pain and suffering. But we see and know only the real, only the everlasting, only the spirit, and we rejoice.
And we would remind you, as we have reminded you before, that it is easy to do these things, to say these things, to pray, and to show one's appreciation when all is well, and one is walking in the bright sun of the noonday of life. But one who can pray and think, and live in this way, in this way, truly the salt is as strong and full of flavour as ever. In very truth, it is maturing as it were, becoming more of itself, reproducing more of its own particular spirit, with time.
We come with a deep and lasting love.
Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13) is used here to draw a sharp line between spiritual conviction that costs nothing and spiritual conviction that has actually been tested. It's easy, the transcript says plainly, to be devoted "when one is young and full of hope, when the body is strong" — that ease doesn't disqualify the devotion, but it hasn't yet proven itself either. The real test comes later, as "the trials and tribulations of everyday life bear heavily," and pain and age make what was once effortless genuinely costly to keep.
What matters, on this account, isn't the absence of struggle but what continues through it: gratitude offered even from pain, compassion for fellow-sufferers made sharper rather than dulled by one's own suffering, forgiveness sought honestly for the lapses into depression rather than denial that they happen. The transcript's central move is to locate the object of all this directly within the one praying — "to whom are you speaking? To whom are you praying?... He is the Spirit within yourself" — so that endurance in hardship isn't proof of strength borrowed from outside, but evidence that the salt was never dependent on ease in the first place.
Its closing image reframes ageing and difficulty as something other than decline: salt tested by hardship and still holding its flavour isn't merely surviving, it's "maturing... becoming more of itself" — the trials not eroding the spirit but concentrating it, the same distinction drawn a few transcripts back between the psychic dryness of the true seeker and mere breakdown.