A William Samuel Excerpt

 The following is an excerpt from what was for me an extremely meaningful talk given by William Samuel.  I have transcribed the entire audio tape and would be happy to provide same to anyone who is interested.  (Rose)

"...We were talking bout the honest message, the honest truth message.  The honest truth message, as we said, lies in one that turns one to discover himself within, one that turns one within where the real discoveries are made, to turn within to the secret place, to the holy of holies, to the Shekina and there find the true message.  The beauty of such a message, it seems to me, lies in its fulfilling the function of way showing but doing it void of theory, void of speculation or commentary and it’s a message that doesn’t bind the seeker, it doesn’t induce guilt nor encourage the veneration of the messenger or the messenger’s words.  The childlikeness of such a message encourages one to find the beauty and power and the wonder of his own words and to express the discovered life within.  Such is the work the Child does.  The place is within.  The place is within, within Consciousness, the place is within this very Awareness that listens to these words.  It is not in any scientific metaphysical system and it isn’t in the semantic games we play with the words of others.  If, as is the case with nearly all organized theology, the message speaks primarily of healing and demonstrations and of altered states of consciousness, and all of those peripheral events, such a message can be as stultifying and misleading as it is helpful.  Therefore, it isn’t worthy of identity.  Ultimately, we have done with following the messages of others to become the finder or our own Messiahship…we find our own message.  Salvation lies in this action and in no other.  The first freedom and the last freedom lie in self-discovery.  That discovery is immaculate, untouched by anyone else.  It is a virgin discovery and recognition of deity within and without.  Any message that has one following a personal leader or teacher for anything longer than is absolutely necessary to find the authority that one himself is, is a distorting, thwarting teacher.

 I’m not saying that we don’t follow the instructions of others, that we don’t read or listen to others, that’s what we’re doing right now, for goodness sakes, but the ones to listen to are the ones who tell us that the messenger lies within and that we go there to find it.  Those who speak of levels of awareness, of states and stages of consciousness, of spiritual hierarchies, as though they were outside one’s very own awareness right here and now, are liars from the beginning.  Their teachings confuse the world with false hope and robe the innocent with false pretense.  We are done with that to find the word that is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. 

In this regard, you may have heard me say this before somewhere, but Norman Cousins, with whom I corresponded, editor of the Saturday Review, at one time--Norman Cousins quotes Albert Schweitzer.  Dr. Albert Schweitzer is telling him that inside each person is the real doctor.  “The greatest service any doctor can perform”, Dr. Schweitzer is quoted as saying, “is to stand aside and let the doctor within do the work of healing.”  Yes,  yes…deity within is quite able to tend its own qualities and attributes appearing as tangibility.

I’ve been told by those who first heard these words, “I can’t believe there’s much wisdom in me, I can’t believe that my message is the message and yet everything that one does is predicated on his own words.  The words that one believes most fervently are his own words.  But, since when does Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence need messengers with messages that point to themselves rather than God and that’s what we’re turning to when we don’t turn to the self within. Where is the leader that is needed to teach the sparrow out there the song imprinted in its heart?  Why, those little birdlings are born and shortly they’re singing and where was the messenger needed?  And where is the teacher that teaches the seed how to grow, or the azalea here how to bloom?  Where is the angelic leader and minister who exhorts the bud to open and give its fragrance to the earth?  Who teaches the animals to prepare for a winter that they have no knowledge of, no intellectual knowledge of.  Why must man, of all creatures, why must man insist on ignorance?  Until he has studied system after system after system after system, finally…finally, only to surrender from the anguish of all of it and when he surrenders from the anguish of all of it he is quick to awaken to the wisdom that is already himself.

Oh boy, there are many messengers abroad on the land.  The one to heed is the one who says to look for one’s own messenger within, and then this, that’s all-important…and then makes it plain on the tables precisely how this is done for one’s self.  And listen, listen, those qualified to do this use their own words, they don’t give you backing-up  references from 100 other sources to try to prove their words to you.  They use their own words and they tell you their own story, which they have lived, and their own story is the proof of their word.

Now see here, we are not messengers.  I certainly don’t claim to be a messenger.  We are the message itself Identity Is.  We can all say “I am Life Itself” and that is what the honest message has been about from the first.  We are Life, not possessors of life, we are wisdom itself, not a personality who may become wise if...if…if… he studies this and that and something else.  Beyond the pale of humanhood and its many instructors lies a perfection already spread over the earth, already the whole and healthy body of God, functioning perfectly in absolute harmony.  I have found the nature of that Joy and I sing its song.   Right now, I’m singing its song.  To whom?  To the selfhood I am alone.  And who listens?  The selfhood I am alone.  Where’s another?  I am her because the Self is itself and there is no other.  The meek of myself needs spiritual exercises maybe only for the shortest time.  The journal is a spiritual exercise.  Keeping the journal is a spiritual exercise but it’s needed only for the shortest time.  The meek and the childlike of myself do not have to struggle to understand the intricacies and paradoxes of being.  That battle has already been fought and won. As I sit down with pencil and paper I have good tidings to tell the children of myself, that a simple harmony and a happy perfection are here now living as this life we are.  Binding up the old thinks broken-hearted followers, awakening enthusiasm within the husks, elevating thought from struggle and apprehension and morbidity and death into the conscious awareness of eternal Life.  The message that says, “turn within”, this message proclaims liberty to all and it delivers, it delivers, by George, it delivers.  This message has one turn within and discover the Godhead, primal word from which identity and all tangibility flow. 

An old man by the name of Shirpee Hawn (phonetic) was a venerated Daoism sage with whom I happened to live in China for nearly three years.  Oh, what a grand fortune that was.  He told me once, “the song one sings to himself is carried around the world” and when I asked him how he told me “perhaps by the whispering trees and the nightingale”  So, if our words are carried around the world, hadn’t we best start to examine them, to look at them?  How better than by keeping a journal with thoughts and ideas.

Well, there you go, I’ve said it, as best I could again.  I might mention two or three little thoughts that come in passing.  I just had a letter from a lady with whom I’ve studied much over the years and she said, ‘spiritual exercises never appealed to me but now I see, now I’m forced to admit that my life has been the open Sesame, the avenue to self-discovery.  I might add that that lady has published her fourth or fifth book.  Another gentleman I’m thinking of has published at least two books and has others soon to be published or awaiting publication, and he said that his most joyful time is the time he sits to be still and write in his journal.  I know of another lovely lady who was told these things 15 years ago and today she is editor of a publication of truth and I know many others who are now published writers, all began with a journal with their own thoughts and ideas rather than the words of others.  So, if fruitage is the proof, we’ve a whole tree of delicious apples.  Maybe I should say peaches instead of apples.  And since that can be misconstrued too, how about oranges instead of peaches.

One more thought, it seems very important to me about your journal keeping. It isn’t necessary to write religious things in it…it isn’t necessary to fill it with all metaphysical stuff.  We write what is worthy of God, which includes beauty, tenderness, joy.  So, we can write of the twinkle in somebody’s eye that we’ve seen, two elderly people holding hands in the park - what a joyful site that is, children tumbling in the park, redwoods blooming in the spring.  Light, light shining through the wings of a butterfly.  What can be more worthy than that, what is more worthy of the ineffable Godhead than to speak of beauty and joy and uprightness and love ?  So the journal becomes a joy when we don’t have to put the clinical antiseptic terms of metaphysics, but not ignoring our metaphysics either, writing what science allows us to write.  Well, almost 40 years of journal keeping has allowed me to learn lots of little secrets that I can tell you but I save that for our face-to-face discussions.  Tangible how-to-do-its are explained here on this tape but there are many others that I’d be happy to talk about when we  meet face-to-face.