Grace Calling

Lorraine Sinkler’s 1981 Palm Beach Class

Tape 1, Side 2: Catalog No. 8102

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There comes a time in your experience, and in the experience of every person, when you take a turn in the road, away from living out from the world of effect, away from putting your faith, trust, and dependence on money, on people and on things that you have thought of as tangible and real. That defining moment may spring from some problem of disease, of lack or limitation, or great unhappiness which has come upon you, and you are at that rock bottom place where you feel as if every reliance has failed, and the whole world has crumbled around you.

Out of this experience there emerges from the depths of your being a question that you have buried but which has never stopped nagging at you: “Is there something greater going on than this that I now know?”

If you seem to find no answer to this question, it is because you are still looking upon your painful experience, your difficult problem, your human limitations and weaknesses as a failure, or as something disastrous, when all the time it is Grace appearing.

You may wonder at this last statement, but have you not heard many times, that life is a school, and that we are here on earth to learn? Be assured that this is the truth. So we must ask ourselves, what is it we are to learn? If we go within for that answer, if we listen to our deepest longings and soul stirrings, the answer comes very quickly. We are here on earth to learn to rise higher in consciousness, to learn what is the reality of our being, and of all being, to learn who we are, and what we are, to learn the truth about God and what it means to have God realization.

If you penetrate beyond the wish to avoid your problems and pains, you will realize that these problems which come to you, this recognition of a frail and failed humanity, is really Grace pushing at you to find an answer about who you really are. It is Grace pushing at you to find the true center of your being, that center within, which has been knocking at the door of your consciousness lo these many years, and which you have not heard because you have been too busy “out here,” distracted by the things of the world.

When all goes well, beware, that is the most dangerous time of all, for right at that moment you may lose your way. Since life is easy, you may think, “I don’t really have to do this work. Look how good things are! I don’t have to be aware.” You may not even think that, you may simply do it, and even though you have been awake for a little bit, you will go to sleep again, dreaming that you are a human being.

This reminds me a little of a story about the Buddha,: One day while the Buddha was sitting in meditation, a traveler walked by and saw his beautiful countenance, resplendently serene. “Are you a God?” cried the man, smitten with adoration. “No,” replied Buddha. “Well, are you the great prophesied Bodhisattva?” “No.” Well then, what are you?” Buddha answered, “I am awake!”

“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.” That is the message we are given, and that is the difference between the person on the human level of life and on one the spiritual level. The person on the human level of life is asleep, dreaming that he is a vulnerable material being, living in a limited material universe. We who are beginning to live out from the spiritual level are waking up to the truth that this is a spiritual universe, unlimited and unfettered. We are opening our eyes from our deep slumber to see that the source of all good is the Consciousness that brought forth this spiritual universe, that It is the actual substance of the universe, and of our very own being.

In our moments of tribulation we wake up to that; we are made to see that the God we have been seeking all these years, and from who we have mistakenly thought we were getting all these blessings specially directed to us because we were so “good,” that God is not afar off, is not “out here,” but is within us.

When we are awake we are not deluded by the suggestions on every hand of some problem, or some power “out here” that can be harmful or hurtful to us. For we are resting in the truth of one Presence and one Power, which is so all embracing that there is room for nothing else.

We see that every problem we have, stems from a sense of separation from God, from a belief that we have a life and a self separate and apart from the One Life. We see that our “goodness” or “badness” has never influenced this Blessed I within us, which is our very own being, they can’t, for we are told in no uncertain terms that “His rain falls on the just and on the unjust.” Therein lies our salvation, and the salvation of all this world.

Wake up! Wake up thou that sleepest, listen to Me at the center of your being. I am with you always. I will lead you through this valley experience, never doubt that I am here, do not fear, trust Me, trust this Spirit within.

That’s what we’re asked to do, to recognize that there is This within us that is greater than any thing in all the world, a He that is within us that is so mighty that It has no obstacles, It knows no barriers, It knows no power. It does not need a power because It is the All-power.

When you are sick, have a problem, a pain, a disease, a sense of separation from God, whatever it is, look straight at it, and see it for what it really is. It is the dream without Substance, the hypnotic picture without Cause, the mirage on the desert without Law to maintain it or sustain it, it is nothingness, a no thing-ness.

Have the discernment to see that underneath this picture filling you with fear and dread is Grace calling you to recognize the Presence within, to recognize that I that will never leave you, nor forsake you. It is asking you to leave behind this human sense of self, this human sense of world, this “veil of tears,” and to wake up! Wake up to your spiritual I-dentity, and the spiritual nature of all being, all thing, all condition.

When that is your realization, you can see that all this time the problem was really Grace appearing, God’s grace revealing Itself that you might take another step forward on your spiritual journey.