Three principal factors of growth

http://http://www.anandgholap.net/Lives_of_Alcyone-1-AB_CWL.pdf

http://http://www.reversespins.com/soultravel.html

I have read that Atlantis a race once existing had a high development of evolving or growth but ended in cataclysmic destruction. Their "myth"? was related in the works of Francis Bacon and Plato.

In deciding the actual case of rebirth three principal factors come into play.
First and greatest of all comes the influence of the Law of Evolution. The Deity
wills man’ s advancement and that Will exerts upon him a steady and ceaseless
pressure.

The second factor which comes into play in deciding where a man should
be born is his own Karma -- the result of his past actions. If uncontrolled the Law
of Evolution would give him the best possible opportunities for development; but
his past lives may not have been such as to deserve those opportunities. For
that reason it may not be possible to give him the most suitable place, so he has
to put up with the second best.

The third factor which influences the rebirth of a man is another variant of
his karma – the links which he has made with other egos in previous lives. All
the minor good and evil that we do goes into a general debit and credit account,
and is worked off impersonally; but if we so affect the life of another as
considerably to help or to hinder his evolution, we form a personal tie with him,
which necessitates another meeting later-- sometimes many other meetings.
Unselfish love is one of the strongest forces in the world, and it draws egos
together again and again, thereby largely modifying for the time the action of the
forces of evolution and of karma.

Brihat … Now the Master Jesus
Venus … Now the Master Rogozel(or
Rakovsky),the Hungarian
Adept,’the comte de St Germain
of the eighteenth century.

From other lines of study we have realized the existence of three
great
factors as determining the place and time of each man's
birth. First, the
force of evolution, which places each man where
he can most readily acquire
the qualities in which he happens to
be deficient; second, the law of karma,
which limits the action of
that first force by allowing the man so much as he
has deserved;
third the law of attraction which brings the man again and
again
into connection with the other egos with whom he has formed
links of
some kind. We find these laws acting usually in the order
above assigned
them; and that order conveys their relative
importance in the case of the
great mass of humanity.

While it is unquestionably true that the instances of such sudden change
of station as is suggested by the poet, they are comparatively rare and must not
be taken as representing the ordinary course of a line of lives.

There is however another type of higher class egos who do not habitually
take their sub-races in order, but have rather a tendency to return again and
again to one sub-race. They devote themselves principally to evolution through
that sub-race, and make only occasional excursions into others in search of
special qualities. It is found that this type has usually a shorter average interval
between lives -- an average of about seven hundred years instead of a
thousand.

Mit Brennender Sorge pt 6

http://http://www.papalencyclicals.net/all.htm

The above link contains the papal encyclicals of most all,if not all of the popes of the past.

The truths of Catholic primacy are here stated with scriptural justification. The national churches are a seduction to the faithful and the myth of race and blood perverts the moral order of G-d,so is asserted here. Other national churches are evidence of their own paralysis and sterility, so the encyclical is stating. Distortion to profane use of revelation must be guarded against at all times. Revelation distorted for the use of race and blood to irradiate a people's history is equivocation of revelation . Immortality is part and parcel of the moral order and cannot be limited to terrestrial existence.

22. Faith in the Church cannot stand pure and true without the support of faith
in the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. The same moment when Peter, in the
presence of all the Apostles and disciples, confesses his faith in Christ, Son
of the Living God, the answer he received in reward for his faith and his
confession was the word that built the Church, the only Church of Christ, on the
rock of Peter (Matt. xvi. 18). Thus was sealed the connection between the faith
in Christ, the Church and the Primacy. True and lawful authority is invariably a
bond of unity, a source of strength, a guarantee against division and ruin, a
pledge for the future: and this is verified in the deepest and sublimest sense,
when that authority, as in the case of the Church, and the Church alone, is
sealed by the promise and the guidance of the Holy Ghost and His irresistible
support. Should men, who are not even united by faith in Christ, come and offer
you the seduction of a national German Church, be convinced that it is nothing
but a denial of the one Church of Christ and the evident betrayal of that
universal evangelical mission, for which a world Church alone is qualified and
competent. The live history of other national churches with their paralysis,
their domestication and subjection to worldly powers, is sufficient evidence of
the sterility to which is condemned every branch that is severed from the trunk
of the living Church. Whoever counters these erroneous developments with an
uncompromising No from the very outset, not only serves the purity of his faith
in Christ, but also the welfare and the vitality of his own people.
23. You
will need to watch carefully, Venerable Brethren, that religious fundamental
concepts be not emptied of their content and distorted to profane use.
"Revelation" in its Christian sense, means the word of God addressed to man. The
use of this word for the "suggestions" of race and blood, for the irradiations
of a people's history, is mere equivocation. False coins of this sort do not
deserve Christian currency. "Faith" consists in holding as true what God has
revealed and proposes through His Church to man's acceptance. It is "the
evidence of things that appear not" (Heb. ii. 1). The joyful and proud
confidence in the future of one's people, instinct in every heart, is quite a
different thing from faith in a religious sense. To substitute the one for the
other, and demand on the strength of this, to be numbered among the faithful
followers of Christ, is a senseless play on words, if it does not conceal a
confusion of concepts, or worse.
24. "Immortality" in a Christian sense
means the survival of man after his terrestrial death, for the purpose of
eternal reward or punishment. Whoever only means by the term, the collective
survival here on earth of his people for an indefinite length of time, distorts
one of the fundamental notions of the Christian Faith and tampers with the very
foundations of the religious concept of the universe, which requires a moral
order

.

In 1997, a film, "Woman on a Bicycle," based on her resistance work was released as part of the three-part drama,

http://http://movies.tvguide.com/rescuers-stories-courage-women/review/133329

In 1997, a film, "Woman on a Bicycle," based on her resistance work was released as part of the three-part drama.

Here is also the letter from Archbishop Saliege of Toulouse:

PASTORAL LETTER FROM HIS EXCELLENCY MONSIGNOR SALIEGE, ARCHBISHOP OF
TOULOUSE
On "human dignity", read out from the pulpit on August 23, 1942
without comment.
My very dear Brothers,
There is a Christian morality, a
human morality, which lays down duties and recognizes rights. These rights and
duties stem from the nature of man; they come from God. One can violate them...
[but] no mortal has the power to do away with them.
Children, women, men,
fathers and mothers being treated like a lowly herd; members of a single family
being separated from each other and carted away to an unknown destination - it
is our age which was destined to see this dreadful sight.
Why is there no
longer any right of asylum in our churches?
Why are we the defeated?
Lord, have pity on us.
Our Lady, pray for France.
In our diocese,
moving scenes have occurred in the camps of Noe and Recebedou. The Jews are men;
the Jewesses are women. The foreigners are men and women. One may not do
anything one wishes to these men, to these women, to these fathers and mothers.
They are part of the human race; they are our brothers, like so many others. A
Christian cannot forget this.
France, beloved Fatherland; France, which
bears in the consciences of all your children the tradition of respect for human
dignity; chivalrous and generous France - I have no doubt that you are not
responsible for these errors.
Yours devotedly, dear Brothers,
(Signed)
Jules Gerard SALIEGE Archbishop of Toulouse
Source: AIU, CC-26, CDJC,
CCXVIII-72
Source: Yad
Vashem

Catholic priests and Nuns who were heroes of the holocaust

http://http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/catholic_stories/cs0058.html

The archbishop of Toulouse was one of the first to oppose the actions of Vichy France in deporting the Jews to their deaths and wrote a letter on their behalf which I quote below:

The letter he wrote was a supremely courageous one and was duplicated in tone and spirit by many other bishops in France at that time and was read over Vatican radio as well.

Marie Geneste joined the underground in 1942.Her house became a center for refugees and the underground and she was involved in the forging of identity cards. She lived in Mantauban and saw children torn from their parents, but was unaware of the holocaust until after the war. Her picture is given in this post. She is one of the heroes of our time recognized by Yad Vashem.

Yad Vashem, which in 1969 declared Saliège as Righteous Among the Nations,
notes, "Overnight, the document became a manifesto; hundreds
of thousands of copies were made and were circulated by members of the
Resistance throughout France." The letter was received by all
priests in all the churches of Saliège's diocese and, consequently, read from
some 400 pulpits at Sunday mass on August 23,
1942. The written protest was "vastly
influential in the abrupt turnabout in French public opinion at the time, in
which support for the Vichy regime plummeted," Yad Vashem cites
historians as noting. Saliège, then 72 years old, was ordered and
threatened to retract his remarks. When he refused, feeling "It is my duty
to teach morals to the members of the diocese and when it is necessary to teach
them also to government officials," he was persecuted and underwent trying jabs
to his character and reputation.
Archbishop Saliège's letter had wide
implications. It was read for four days on Vatican Radio, and the BBC
covered news of Saliège's protests. Following the example of Saliège,
Monsignor Pierre Marie Théas, Bishop of Montauban, France, wrote a letter for
the priests in his diocese to read to their parishioners during mass on the
following Sunday, August 30. Théas' message mirrored that of Saliège's:
"In Paris, tens of thousands of Jews have been treated with the utmost wild
barbarism. Even in our own regions, one witnesses a disturbing spectacle:
families are uprooted; men and women are treated as wild animals and sent to
unknown destinations, with the expectation of the greatest dangers. I hereby
give voice to the outraged protest of Christian conscience, and I proclaim that
all men, Aryans or non-Aryans, are brothers, because created by the same God. [I
further assert] that all men whatever their race or religion, have the right to
be respected by individuals and by states. Hence, the recent antisemitic
measures are an affront to human dignity and a violation of the most sacred
rights of the individual and the family."

Kimel acknowledges the Archbishop of Toulouse, France, Jules Gerard Saliège,
as being the "first to raise his voice in the defense of the Jews," particularly
through his use of written documents as a form of persuasion. The
Archbishop wrote directly to the Vichy authorities, protesting their
ill-treatment of the Jews. He was particularly influential and afterward
especially remembered for his pastoral letter which read, in part, "There is a Christian morality...that confers rights and imposes
duties. These duties and these rights come from God. One can violate
them. But no mortal has the power to suppress them. Alas, it has
been our destiny to witness the dreadful spectacle of women and children,
fathers and mothers treated like cattle, members of a family separated from one
another and dispatched to an unknown destination –it has been reserved for our
own time to see such a sad spectacle. Why does the right of sanctuary no longer
exist in our churches? Why are we defeated? ... The Jews are real men and women.
Foreigners are real men and women. They cannot be abused without limit. ... They
are part of the human species. They are our brothers, like so many others.
No Christian dares forget that!"

Jules Gerard Saliege was the Archbishop of Toulouse, France during World
War II and gave his full support to the rescue of Jewish people.
The
Holocaust is a story of indescribable tragedy and horror. No nation ever
attempted the systematic mass murder of people as did Germany in World War II.
It is estimated that 11 million people were victims of Nazi genocide, 6 million
were Jewish, the others were Gypsies, people with disabilities, Germans who
resisted, and thousands of others.
In those times of chaos, it was extremely
dangerous and difficult to organize rescue activities. The Nazi Gestapo and
secret police were vigilant and quick to punish anyone who tried to save Jewish
people. Aware of the terror and cruelty of the Nazi regime, the Catholic priests
and nuns who engaged in rescue activities did so at the risk of their own lives.
Rescue activities took many forms and included hiding people, helping them
escape, and providing false identities, food and shelter. These activities had
to be carried out in secret, there was always the risk of being discovered. The
rescues that took place are a tribute to the power of goodness over evil.
Rescuers who were caught were arrested and sent to concentration camps and
prisons and many were killed. The stories of the heroic priests and nuns who
risked their lives to rescue Jewish people have been documented, they have been
honored by the Catholic church and the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Documentation
Center in Israel, but they are not as well known as they deserve to be. They
must never be forgotten. This article is based on documented accounts and
briefly summarizes the rescue activities of courageous priests and
nuns.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Discipleship

This book The Cost of Discipleship is an exposition of Mt 5-7 the sermon on the mount and the cost of following Christ. The monastic movement later prevalent in the Catholic church became emblemized as status quo the very antithesis of costly discipleship. The narrow following of Jesus the Christ was never really understood as to cost and this book makes clearer the cost of this calling yet the yoke is easy and the burden light.

There are several excellent sound mp3 downloads I have heard on his life and thought as well as his execution at Flossenburg.

The video portions are on my other site at www.myspace.com/edwardsgallery

One of the most important parts of the book deals with the distinction
which Bonhoeffer makes between "cheap" and "costly" grace. But what is "cheap"
grace? In Bonhoeffer's words: "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, baptism without church
discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is
grace without discipleship,
grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." Or, to put it even more
clearly, it is to hear the gospel preached as follows: "Of course you have
sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the
consolations of forgiveness." The main defect of such a proclamation is that it
contains no demand for discipleship.
In contrast to this is costly grace:
"costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a
word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly
because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is
grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." "

After his return from America, Bonhoeffer would play a large role in the
Confessing Church. Although Bonhoeffer was originally a Lutheran, he
became frustrated with its "liberal theology" after discussions with Karl
Barth, an eminent theologian. Barth believed that "liberal theology"
(understood as emphasizing personal experience and societal development)
minimized Scripture, reducing it to a mere textbook of metaphysics while
sanctioning the deification of human culture. Barth and Bonhoeffer often debated
rationalist and Hegelian-derived theology
against Reformation doctrine, and Barth won over Bonhoeffer. Although Bonhoeffer
would never totally abandon liberal theology, he did feel it was too
constraining and responsible for the lack of relevance in the church. Bonhoeffer
and Barth became main figures of the "neo-orthodox" movement
mid-20th century in German- and English-speaking Protestantism.Bonhoeffer
lectured on theology in Berlin and wrote several books. Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, Karl
Barth and others established the Confessing Church. In
August 1933, he co-authored the Bethel Confession
with Hermann Sasse and others.
Between 1933 and 1935, he served as pastor of two German-speaking Protestant
churches in London: St. Paul's and Sydenham.
He traveled to India to study non-violent resistance with Gandhi, and returned
to Germany to head a seminary for Confessing Church
pastors, first in Finkenwalde and then at
the von Blumenthal estate of Gross
Schlönwitz, which was closed at the outbreak of World War II.
The Gestapo first
banned him from preaching, then teaching, and finally any kind of public
speaking. During this time, Bonhoeffer worked closely with numerous opponents of
Adolf Hitler

The Stair Landing: Favorite Poem

The Stair Landing: Favorite Poem

Poetic truth and Isabel Allende

http://http://www.isabelallende.com/curious_speeches_frame.htm

The great truths are always totally fresh and perennially reborn although there is nothing new under the sun. All life events can be transformed with the use of the poetic imagination which is necessarily poetic. The tired soul can be reinvigorated. It is truly as stated below beyond the appearance of things. Isabel was truly a prolific writer employing magical realism, truth beyond the literal events themselves.To experience the mystical or the desire for mystical experience is really an obsession of a tired soul not for the novel, but for the perennial beneath the facade of the spurious and the shallow to capture the fleeting essence of the sublime. We have to be wedged out the comfort zone of our drab "existence" with the stimulus of suffering and shattering events such as war, revolution, holocausts. That may be their value ,their wedging effect. To feel a constant presence, as Allende alludes to she would have to be nurtured to that point of sensitivity.

Isn't this the playful substance of literature?... An event transformed by
poetic truth. Writers are like those good thieves, they take something that is
real, like the letters, and by a trick of magic they transform it into something
totally fresh. That is the best part of writing: finding the hidden treasures,
giving sparkle to worn out events, invigorating the tired soul with imagination,
creating some kind of truth with many lies

Good fiction is not only the thrill of a plot, at its best it is an invitation to explore beyond the appearance of things, it challenges the reader's safety, it questions reality. Yes, it can be disturbing. But there may be a reward at the end. With some luck, the author and the reader, hand in hand, may stumble upon some particles of truth. Usually, however, that is not the intention of the author in the first place. The writer merely suffers from an uncontrollable need to tell the story. There is nothing more to it, believe me.

The home of my grand-parents, where I spent my childhood, was inhabited by wild pets, strange humans and benevolent ghosts.
My grandmother was a charming lady who had little interest in the material world. She spent most of her time experimenting with telepathy and talking to the souls of the dead during her séances. This clairvoyant lady who could move objects without touching them, served as model for Clara del Valle in my first novel, THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS. She died long ago, at a young age, but like my daughter Paula, she is a constant presence in my life. My grand-father was a solid Basque, stubborn and strong as a mule, who gave me the gift of discipline. He could remember hundreds of folk tales and long epic poems; he spoke in proverbs. He lived to be a century old and during the last part of his life he read many times the Bible from cover to cover and the Encyclopedia Britannic from A to Z. He gave me the love of language and stories.