The Importance of Giving Glory
2021 Gathering, Part Twenty-Three
(Commenting on the statement of Jesus “I can do nothing.”) We know we can do so some things. We can eat, we can walk around, we can write stuff. Technically, we can, literally, we can do some things, but what do you suppose Jesus meant when he said, “I can do nothing?” Because we know everyone can do some things, right. But that’s not what he meant. What did he mean? Yes, Joshua?
Joshua: Well, I guess he wasn’t at the stage of being overshadowed by the Christ where he was experiencing that consciousness, but part of where D.K. talks about how the Master has ceased desire and that the vehicle of manifestation in normal people is created by desire. But when you become a master, or maybe it’s higher than that, you don’t have that anymore. And you know, creating a mayavirupa from will, so when you’re at that level, it really is . . . you’re not doing it of yourself, you’re doing it of the, you know, oneness, spiritual principle, not the desire, ego, personality thing.
JJ: Yeah, all the higher spiritual powers, you cannot do from the viewpoint of the ego. It has to be done from the higher mind. So when he says, “of myself, I can do nothing,” what he virtually meant was “I can’t do anything that really means anything.”
Sure, I can maybe write a book, or I could walk a mile, or I could jump up and down or whatever. I can do a few things but doesn’t really mean anything. If I want to do something that really means something in the real world, in the real spiritual essence, I have to rely on God, or the Spirit, or the higher mind, or however we want to define the higher realms, but without the higher mind in contact with Spirit, we can do nothing of eternal value.
Rebecca: You know, I struggle with this really bad because I probably have a huge ego, but I struggle with the concept of self-value, you know, valuing self, seeing your higher self, seeing yourself as part of God. Yeah. Seeing yourself as nothing. There’s duality in my mind that I, I really haven’t been able to straighten out.
JJ: Okay. What is it about it that bothers you most concerning seeing yourself as nothing?
Rebecca: Well, I think that there’s a point where seeing yourself as nothing becomes unhealthy because you’re letting everybody run over you.
JJ: Okay, Well, he didn’t let anybody run over him, though, until the crucifixion. Yeah. So that’s not what he was saying. He wasn’t saying be milquetoast and let people run over you.
Because when he confronted the Pharisees and Sadducees, they were not able to run over him. They were not able to get the best of him. And they said he was so powerful in his presentation and said, no man dared ask him any question from that time forward because they were intimidated by the guy.
But the great part is, is that if you merge with the spirit and your soul, you will be something. I mean, you will be more . . . you will be more than human. You will be more than just the average guy on the street. You will be something, but your lower self is what you need to negate.
There’s the ego that’s trying and trying to go for glory and exalt itself above the God within you. That is what is supposed to be nothing.
Rebecca: So just for verification. So would it be correct to say, I don’t know, it’s just confusing. I’m not very good at verbal expression.
JJ: No problem.
Rebecca: So is it like finding your value in your connection with God? So with God, I am valuable. But when I’m not connected with God, I’m nothing. Is that the correct way?
JJ: Right. Because you don’t want to interpret it to the point where you don’t think you have any value. As an entity, as a son or daughter of God, you have tremendous value.
Rebecca: That’s what I’m asking.
JJ: It’s like A Course in Miracles says, “without you, heaven is not complete.” That’s what it says, and I think that’s a true statement.
Rebecca: So is it seeing yourself as valuable and valuable but not setting yourself above others then or by God.
JJ: Right. There’s the real you and then there’s the shadow of the real you. I mean, how much value is in your shadow when you’re walking around? It really doesn’t do you any good. It’s there, and it’s just following you around.
The ego is the shadow of your real self and of itself, the shadow can do nothing. But if the shadow joins with you and the shadow says, I am one with Rebecca, then me and Rebecca, we have everything.
Either you are one with the ego and you have no value in the eternal scheme of things, or you’re one with God and you’re invaluable. You are a piece of the puzzle that makes heaven complete.
Curtis: Yeah, it’s also called the reflection or the instrument. If the instrument says to the doctor, I have more value than you who manipulates me . . . that’s what it’s talking about. You’re the instrument or the shadow or the reflection or the lower self. But there’s still a link connecting the personality and the soul and the monad. So yeah, you still have value, but you have no power unto yourself as that instrument.
Rebecca: That’s great. Thank you. I appreciate that interpretation.
Curtis: So anyway, as far as the principle of glory goes, it’s interesting how difficult it is to take glory unto yourself. Let us suppose that you’ve worked really hard on something, and you think you’ve accomplished something that’s really important. If you go to people and you announce, Boy, I’ve really done a great job putting this together. What are people are going to think?
Oh, what a blowhard, and they all find things wrong with it, because when you have somebody brag about how good they are, people automatically want to take them down a notch.
I mean, that’s just the nature of things.
JJ: So if you want to if you want to get recognition for a work you’ve done, the best thing you can do is just put it out there. And if people accept it, fine. If they don’t accept it, fine. That’s the attitude a person has to have.
If he has attitude that “People must accept it, if they don’t accept it, I’m going to tell him, give them a piece of my mind. Listen, that painting I did it was really beautiful. Can’t you see that it was genius on my part for putting that together?” And people say, “it may be good, but if you have that attitude . . .” people are going to want to take you down.
They’ll say, “Oh, I’ve seen better than that, like kindergarten painters,” you know. And so they’ll try to pull you down if you try to bring glory to yourself. It’s an interesting thing that if you watch people . . . think of people you met in your life. You’ve all met people that have tried to take glory to themselves.
And when you’ve met these types of people, their friends will talk about them like, “yeah, he’s a big blowhard, you know. And they’ll talk about him that way because people just don’t like people bragging about their own abilities. So the best thing you can do is put it out there. You have to be the observer that D.K. talks about. Just put it out there and watch what happens.
Phillip: Rebecca and I had an experience that fits so perfectly with what you’re saying.
Rebecca: It’s an embarrassment.
Phillip: It was an embarrassment. (laughter) But it was really awesome. It was one of these really cool experiences that you just are like, wow, and you learn from it.
So we were heading out to Eastland, and a . . . a big, long drive. And as we’re driving Spirit Angels, or whatever you want to call it, comes to us and says, “okay, now we’re going to teach you how to walk on water.”
JJ: Oh yeah.
Phillip: Okay, this sounds really interesting, okay. And they gave us some dot points and they explained that each dot point, um, some really important concepts. And like one of them, for example, was, ‘this is a miracle.’ And, by the way, this is my perception. If you ask Rebecca, she’ll give you her perception. And we bring them together. (laughter)
JJ: You’re covering your bases there, Phil. (laughter)
Phillip: Exactly. So one of the principles was ‘this is a miracle.’ You don’t have to understand how it works. It’s a miracle because you don’t understand how it works. And another point was . . . the concept was ‘what threat are you going to give the water that if it doesn’t obey you, you’re going to threaten it with something?
JJ: That’s an interesting statement.
Phillip: Are you going to hit it, right now? What control do you have, the means of then you threaten it and use negative authority to try to get control over stuff. And the concept was ‘you can’t threaten the water. What are you going to do, slap it?’
JJ: Yeah.
Phillip: You can’t do that. So you have to persuade the water. And maybe the water doesn’t know how to become hard enough or to hold you up.
And so are you going to try to tell it, try to imagine the solution for the problem? And we were told, “no, you don’t come up with the solution. You tell the water to go to source. You just ask the water to do something persuaded to support you. But it’s the water’s job to figure out the solution through its own revelation. You don’t get the revelation to tell it what to do, the water gets its own revelation.”
Anyway, so, we were walking through all these different little concepts, and then one of the concepts was you didn’t do it and you don’t take credit for it. And so that was this is taking the glory. Because you don’t even know how it happens. You’re just telling the water, get a revelation, you do your own thing and I believe you can do it. And I really support you in doing this love and gratitude and everything.
So anyway, we get to where we’re going and the hotel had a pool, so we go down into the pool to try this out and we’re trying it out . . .
Rebecca: It was late at night. Nobody was there.
Phillip: Yeah, nobody was there. It was just us. And the water’s getting harder. And at first, you’re just pushing your hand through the water, but then it starts giving resistance and then finally, you can’t push the water down. It’s like the edge of the pool, except it’s in the middle of the water, up four . . . four and a half feet. And Rebecca says, “I think I can get on this. I think I can actually get up on it.”
JJ: Really?
Phillip: So she’s in the pool and I’m probably two feet away watching it. And she says, (inaudible). So we’re in the pool. And she says, “I think I can get on this.” And so she gets up and she puts her knee up on it and she’s leaning . . .
Rebecca: I put my foot on it.
Phillip: And she pulls her other leg up on it. And I’m like, “whoa!”
JJ: She’s actually standing on the water?
Phillip: Not quite standing, but kind of kind of kneeling.
Rebecca: My foot was just coming up. And I was just kind of getting my second foot up.
Phillip: And she looks at me and she says, “I did it!” And it was like somebody hit a dunk tank. (laughter) Where you throw the ball at the dunk tank. So she’s up on there and she looks at me and she says, “I did it!”
(Inaudible mixed comments.)
JJ: But you knew you were sustained for a minute.
Asaph: But she said, “I did it.”
Phillip: But she took the glory.
Rebecca: My feeling was I did it.
Phillip: And so, yeah, but she didn’t do it. And that was that was one of the main points that we had been told was that you aren’t doing it. You can’t take the credit. You can’t take the glory and say, “I’m doing it.” It’s not you doing it. And if you take the credit . . .
JJ: Maybe that’s what Peter did, “oh, I’m walking on water! Help!” (laughter)
Uh, Joshua has something to say there . . .
Joshua: Oh, it’s just you’re talking about the blowhard guy as an example . . . when you’re taking the glory, there’s no space for anybody to give it to you because you’ve already taken it.
JJ: Yeah, that’s a good point. You can’t really say . . .say you . . . Phil and Rebecca wrote a book, right? You think that’s the best book that ever written, and you tell everybody what a great book it is and what a great writer you are. Then, even if we read it and thought you were a great writer, it’s . . . we think, well, he’s already grabbed all the glory for it. He doesn’t need a pat on the back. So you don’t get the positive feedback, even if even if your work was really good. It’s interesting.
Well, that’s interesting about your story there, Phil. Yeah, you notice when Jesus walked on the water, he didn’t say, “hey, I’m walking on the water, everybody, look!” (laughter)
He just walked on the water, and it was just the cool and natural thing to do. And, yeah, the scriptures, the New Testament is a really great example of one man who lived, who has lived, that gave glory to God in every instance.
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