We think of sacrifice as painful, but in fact it’s said to the soul, sacrifice is pure bliss.
Robert: Welcome to Inner Sight. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way with new eyes, so stay with us and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Our topic for today is spiritual law — part 3. Another subtitle might be the laws of the soul or group life. We have a thought here from Alice Bailey, the founder of the Lucis Trust organization. She has written twenty-four volumes of literature and all of the dialogue that emanates from this show is based on the writings of Alice Bailey. This is a thought from one of her books: “The urge to sacrifice, to relinquish this for that, to choose one way and thus sacrifice another way, to lose in order to gain, such is the underlying story of evolution.” It kind of reminds me of that poem by Robert Frost, The Road Less Traveled, where he more or less in symbolism refers to his own life, where he chose to be a poet. One can imagine how difficult that must have been at the time, as he had no forethought or a crystal ball that would have predicted that he was going to be a famous poet. That’s the thought that it triggers for me, that he avoided a lot of the paths that we usually take, that are more typical of people. Why is sacrifice said to be the easiest law to understand?
Sarah: Sacrifice is something that we learn whether we choose to or not, because it’s part of the experience of running one’s head into a brick wall over and over again, which is how life teaches us. Many of us who have strong wills and perhaps a slow learning capacity, we learn the hard way through our living experience that looking out only for self-interest simply does not work. Another aspect of sacrifice that is taught so quickly to us is that we, most of us, grew up in families. We grew up with parents and brothers and sisters and perhaps cousins, aunts and uncles. Family life is a wonderful training ground for learning to sacrifice because you realize at a very early age that you’re part of a larger group and that you’re not the only, or even the most important part of that group; you’re just a member and you have to adapt yourself to the group interest, the group good. Then you go to school and you’re part of a class of twenty to thirty kids and you find that you have to share and adapt. If you join clubs, if you play on sports teams, you learn further that sacrifice is part of being a member of a group. So, life from a very early age has a way of teaching us. It’s also something deeply embedded in the Judaeo-Christian culture and in Islam, too, because the whole story of Abraham, which lies behind those three religions, is the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac to serve God. And so, it’s a deeply embedded thought form in our whole cultural and spiritual psyche, I think.
Dale: Yes, and that deeply embedded thought form goes even further back, I would think, to the higher aspect of ourselves, our soul selves, because that’s really why we’re in the world: to undergo certain sacrifices, to act in the redemptive capacity, and that takes a lot of sacrifice. So, even at the soul level this law comes into play.
Sarah: And it is a law of the soul, that’s right. It’s a law of group life and a law of the soul that’s imposed by the soul. Sacrifice isn’t something that happens to one that’s unfortunate and unavoidable. It’s actually an experience that the soul undergoes in order to render itself a more adaptable, more sensitive part of the whole. That’s accomplished through learning sacrifice. Sacrifice means literally, I believe, to make sacred. And our more traditional reaction to the word sacrifice is something like “ow” or “oh no,” but to the soul it’s “oh good,” because sacrifice is to make sacred in all of the polishing and burnishing of life experience and of sometimes pain and suffering, honing the vehicle, the individual, into a fit instrument for the soul’s will and plan. That’s the whole point of sacrifice. It’s a joyous experience, in fact. We tend to think of sacrifice more traditionally, not only as something that hurts, but as a kind of a bargaining with God. I think Abraham tried to strike a bargain, but as I recall, God would have none of it.
Dale: He stayed his hand, but yes, we tend to see sacrifice from our personal standpoint of what we’re going to give up, and if we’re going to sacrifice we have to always give up something. But really it’s what is being gained that is of more importance to consider, the greater light that is being gained in the process of sacrifice and this is the very expressed purpose that the soul comes into the world for, the gain that can be accomplished for the whole in working out the plan of God.
Sarah: Christ touched on that, didn’t he, when he said to Nicodemus, “He who would find his life must lose it for my sake”? That’s, in a sense, a bargain but it’s also a realization that you give up in order to receive something much greater.
Dale: Yes, at the soul level. There is an esoteric definition of the Law of Sacrifice. It has to do with those who are willing to die, meaning to incarnate and come into this tangible, physical world. To the soul, this is undergoing such limitations and imprisonment that it’s like death to the soul, but it’s a welcome sacrifice because it has much greater implications to it.
Robert: Is it accurate to say, based on the works of Alice Bailey, that if one is truly on the path to higher evolvement when one makes a choice that it should not be from one’s own ego perspective; choose according to what you genuinely want, but also choose according to what’s good for the group as well? Is that correct to assume that’s the way it works?
Sarah: If you put it in that larger, wider context of how it would serve one’s group, whatever one thinks one’s group is, yes, then it hopefully makes one’s choice more worthy and a richer gain to the soul than just thinking of what’s in it for me.
Robert: It’s a good choice for me, but is it good for the whole group? Is it good for humanity in general? Okay, that’s an interesting thought. But in being that way, sometimes it can be kind of painful because maybe our smaller ego wants something that may not be good for the group, so it can be painful. Why does it have to be so painful at times?
Sarah: I think it has to do with the fact that we’re beings with will and desire. We have powerful desires that are anchored in our emotional life and many of us with even half a brain have a developing will and that will gives us a sense of a goal, a purpose, a mission. If we are self-centred and selfish in our orientation then all our energy is going to go into fulfilling this goal in terms of self-interest — like you just said, to answer the question of what’s in it for me — and that’s where all our suffering comes from. We think of sacrifice as painful, but in fact it’s said to the soul, sacrifice is pure bliss. It’s to the separated individual that sacrifice can seem to bring suffering because the pain and the sorrow that are felt are the self-centred individual’s little plan in his rebellion, in a sense, against the greater will of God, which is always to integrate that individual into the larger whole. That’s the entire purpose of evolution: to integrate every little atom into the larger, greater plan of our world. If we’ve got self-interest and self-will, we’re going against that. That’s rebellion and that’s where our pain and suffering comes from.
Dale: Yes. We really don’t have to undergo all of this pain and suffering, but as you say, once the realization comes that greater integration with the soul, with the higher self and the values that are expressed by the soul, then this pain becomes less and less as time goes on. Also, this is essentially what the purpose of the Buddha’s teaching was, to help us overcome the suffering that is so prevalent in the world. In his Fourfold Noble Way and the Eightfold Path, there are the lessons that help us if we are willing to follow them; there is teaching there that can help us eliminate a lot of the pain and suffering.
Sarah: It’s also helpful to remember that sacrifice pervades all levels of our world. It doesn’t just pertain to the human level. The mineral kingdom sacrifices its quality, its contribution to the vegetable and animal and human kingdoms, through the minerals that leach into the soil that then are absorbed by the vegetable kingdom, which is then eaten, sacrificing itself to the animal kingdom and so on up the evolutionary ladder. Sacrifice is the giving up of the lesser to the greater, and it’s a great mystery. Unfortunately, humanity has tended to view sacrifice in the evolutionary or natural sense, as giving mankind its just due. But that’s a very crude and human centred view of what is really a deeply spiritual principle.
Dale: Yes. And I think there’s evidence that this law of sacrifice and salvage and salvation, if you will, is already making a presence in the world and we can see it in such things as the instinct of betterment that drives many people forward; they’re always trying to better their conditions. The urge to progress and the efforts in the population to ameliorate any conditions that they see as painful. There’s the tendency to philanthropy that’s also an aspect of this law coming into play and the growing sense of responsibility. So, there are indications already that we’re responding to this great law of the soul and it’s been growing more and more prevalent.
Robert: Well, there are so many spiritual insights from a multitude of religions — and you mentioned Buddha before — which indicate that we are all one and of course spiritual law has set forth that idea for so long — spiritual philosophy and Alice Bailey — and now it’s confirmed by quantum physics. Maybe it’s not such a sacrifice, or maybe nothing’s a sacrifice if we key into the reality that we’re all connected and that we’re all one and redefine the answer of what the definition of the self is, which is a show we got into once before. Another thought that I like from Alice Bailey is that she says service is a life demonstration. What does she mean by that?
Sarah: Service is another one of those laws of the soul and of group life. Just as it’s a law of the soul to sacrifice, it’s also a law of the soul to serve; it’s as natural to the soul as breathing is to the human body. When she said that service is a life demonstration, she was suggesting that it’s more of a display of an attitude or of an orientation to life than of an activity or a particular behaviour. So often we think of service as doing good, and that’s part of serving, but you have to be careful because sometimes doing what you think is good might be interfering with someone else or imposing your own viewpoint upon them. Probably the most powerful example of service is the example of good character of someone who can live in right relationship with others. So being able to just witness how a person lives his or her life and how he or she responds in times of crisis can be the best form of service, so that’s what it seems to suggest to me.
Dale: Yes, it says service is a life demonstration. Think of it in terms of a demonstration of this energy of life or think of life as an animating and conditioning energy that flows throughout all of the evolutionary plan that’s working out on this planet. Life demonstration is a soul urge and the thing to bear in mind is that alignment with the soul allows the energy of life to flow more freely. The life of the soul is then expressed and less of the life of the personality, and I think that is the key to having an expression of the life demonstration of the soul.
Sarah: Service is also closely linked with sacrifice in the sense that we can serve others by giving up or relinquishing our tendency to criticize or to analyze and adjust their work; we all of us find ourselves doing that in the workplace, in our relationships with others. We can serve others when we relinquish or give up the sense of responsibility for their choices and their actions. So many well intended people live for the people that they love. They try to guide and dominate in a sense, the choices and values, particularly of their children, rather than letting them learn through their own experience and through their own inner wisdom. And we can serve others by giving up or sacrificing that sense of pride that so many intelligent people have that makes one think that one’s own point of view and one’s own interpretations of a situation are the right ones, and not imposing that on others. So, service and sacrifice are very closely interlinked. We can serve others by leaving them free to evolve and experience on their own. We can serve others when we express joy in living. Think of the people that are most joyful. They serve just by their radiation.
Robert: That’s very interesting; they’re serving humanity just by demonstrating a joy for existence, a joy for life and respect for all life forms. What are the characteristics of a true server?
Dale: I think it goes back to what we’ve said earlier about integration with the soul. Where those soul qualities begin to emerge into the outer life, then you have a very definite expression of love and of sharing and of goodwill and as you just said, expressing the joys of life. I’d say those are some of the characteristics.
Sarah: Harmlessness would be another characteristic. Someone who can express himself, react, choose, in such a way that they don’t sacrifice their individual integrity, but at the same time they don’t wound or harm others. We’ve talked before about harmlessness and how hard it is to build it into our character but it’s such an important part of service.
Dale: I’m just going to add to that a little bit. Harmlessness helps prepare the way for the inflow of life. It dissipates all obstructions to the flow of love, so that’s one of the outstanding characteristics of a true server. They allow this flow of love to flow through them and into the human consciousness.
Robert: What effect does service have on the mind and the emotions?
Sarah: I think probably a great deal of impact because a lot of service is accomplished when one is really stretched to the limit. Real service probably doesn’t occur when you are just going along comfortably with handling whatever is comfortable and convenient for you to handle in terms of responsibilities and challenges. I think the service that really tests and hones the power of the soul is the service given when one is really stretched to the limit and at those times the emotions and the mind are put under a significant testing and stress and that’s where it can help to develop the power of the mind and to calm and integrate the emotional body. It doesn’t come easily, but it’s through the very stress and testing.
Dale: Yes, and it depends a lot on where one is in his or her focus of consciousness, how they respond to this law of service and impulse to serve. Because in the beginning service can be a lot of busy work, it can be going “hither and thither,” as they say, and doing all kinds of good, which is fine, I’m not putting it down at all. It’s a start and people tend to serve because it makes them feel good. That’s okay but we have to realize that there is more to it. You keep going at that pace and as the soul qualities begin to make more of an impact on one’s consciousness then that self-centeredness tends to disappear.
Sarah: Oddly enough, sometimes when one is most emotionally unhappy and upset, you could look back on those times and see that you really did give of yourself in spite of the way you felt emotionally; that was only a small part of it. The fact was that you were able to give and to put others first, to give up something lesser for something greater. I think we put so much attention on how we feel emotionally that we sort of use that as our barometer for evaluating everything, when in fact, if we could learn to just ignore how we feel sometimes and go on in spite of that, we might see a great deal being accomplished and feel a lot better about things if we didn’t make being happy and content the be all and end all — I don’t know if that makes sense.
Robert: No, it really does. I think it’s so hard not to harm other people because one of the issues that you and Dale set forth, too, is the idea that even our body language or our giving in and being self-indulgent to our own negative feelings, will affect those people around us and we may hurt them. Much better to set forth the idea that, okay, let me suppress my feelings and generate an idea of strength and happiness in spite of the fact of how I might feel. Is that more or less what you’re saying, because you affect the group that way?
Sarah: I think so, yes. When you start to realize how you affect the group, you realize how much harm you can do. But that’s also when you really start to serve, when you put what you do and are in the context of the group. I suppose most service begins with a sense of mercy and compassion, and then you serve because you have to, because of an inner compulsion, and then finally the true server serves simply out of love—love for humanity, love for life. So, we go through these stages of service and we stumble and we make mistakes and thereby we learn. It’s a learning process. The programs that we’ve done in the past on the Seven Rays, all of those rays provide guidelines for how we can most appropriately serve. It’s quite a fascinating subject to think about and to reflect on. We can’t all do the same things, which is probably pretty good in terms of a nice orderly planet, but we all have something to give.
Dale: Yes, I’ll just drop this in too — you mentioned about group service and I think we have to realize that one is benefited by working in a group and that the atmosphere of the group also affects one’s inner ability to serve, so it works both ways.
Robert: That’s about all the time we have for our discussion today. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we’d like to close with the world prayer called the Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight”. This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
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