June 27, 1999
The Parable of the Secure Foundation
I received a criticism of the Song of the 144,000. The person thought that the mentioning of destructive forces was negative and should be replaced with positive words. After this I gave a silent prayer and asked, “Would the Song be better if it was 100 per cent positive?”
The voice of the Spirit came unto me and spoke: “Joseph, my young brother. The principles I have taught already have illustrated the importance of preparing for the negative as well as the positive.
“Do you not remember the parable of the house built upon rock and the other of sand? This teaching I have taught to many in numerous renditions according to need. Now the need has arisen again. Take the parable written anew that I have put in your mind and heart, and write. Write so a child can understand yet a man of learning will be silenced by the wisdom. Write with the sword of Spirit and Truth that penetrates all hearts that do not resist.”
The Parable
There was once a loving father with two sons who had just taken wives and had need for a home of their own. He therefore, called them to him and spoke.
“My sons. The time has come for you to have a home of your own and I am willing to help you obtain this desire. Each of you may choose a parcel of land from any part of my vast estate and partake of the building materials I have available. You will have to build your homes yourselves with your own labor. I would encourage you to work together as some of the labor is difficult for one alone.
The two sons were enthused about this idea and they both traveled the Father’s estate looking for the ideal place to build their homes. The sons traveled to many locations and finally to the most pleasant part of the estate, a beautiful sandy beach graced with pleasant splashing waters, fresh salty air and sunny skies.
“I love this place,” said the second son. This is where I will build my house and live a life of sweet enjoyment. If you build your house here also we can have a fine association. We can live off the wild fruit that grows nearby, do a little fishing and hunting and have much free time relax, play, travel or whatever we wish. What say you my brother?”
“That sounds tempting,” said the first son, “but I have several concerns. Presently the weather is peaceful and sunny, but I have heard from nearby residents that in times past there have been some fierce storms, even hurricanes here and that every home that was made upon the sandy beach was swept away never to be seen again.”
“Do not fear my brother,” said the second son. “If such a storm did happen it was a long time ago, but times are different now. Tune in to the spirit of nature and you can feel the peace and inwardly know that the God of nature would never send such a fabled storm as long as we live here in peace together.”
“Why do you think such thoughts?” asked the first son. “Twenty years ago a storm came here and killed over 100 people and left more hundreds homeless. Are we somehow better than they were?”
“Not necessarily better, my brother, but wiser. You see people who are destroyed by a storm have their lives ruled by fear and worry. They accept turbulence into their lives through that which they accept and decide. I refuse to see storms and turbulence inside and outside and because I chose the path of peace I can live in any location and no storm will be drawn to me. I refuse to let it become a part of my reality.”
“Where did you get such a philosophy?” asked the first son. “Our father never taught us such things?”
“Maybe not, but while you have stayed at home and worked in Father’s fields, I have traveled to other lands and learned much wisdom.”
“And what is this wisdom?”
“I met a wise old philosopher who lived in a cave and he took me under his wing and taught me a great mystery of manifestation.”
“And what is this mystery?”
The second brother paused and continued: “He taught me about the power of thought and that thought creates reality. People draw fearful things to them because of their fearful thoughts. If I can eliminate my own fearful thoughts then nothing will manifest in my life that has not been created by my thought. Therefore, if I build a house here I will think only peace and good weather shall be a continual thing. I worry about you though, my brother. Because of your fears you may draw storms to yourself.”
“You misunderstand me,” said the first son. “I do not fear any storm; nevertheless the season of storms will come whether I believe in them or not, or fear them or not. You have not thoroughly tested this philosophy of yours and yet you are willing to bet your life and that of your family on it? I believe it would be wise to make preparations for storms, then we can live in peace even though we have an awareness of turbulence. Your false philosopher teaches you to be in peace through denial of reality. As for me and my house, we realize that there are destructive forces in the world and we need to make necessary preparations to withstand them.”
“How little you understand,” said the second son. “The wise man taught me that destructive forces are illusion and that to prepare for them is to acknowledge their existence and feed them with power. The future is so simple. All I have to do is to not feed the forces of evil and then there will be no evil or turbulence or storms in my reality.”
“But you fell and hurt yourself the other day,” said the first brother. “Were you doing or thinking an evil that caused this to happen?”
“I let my guard down. Also there was a lesson that I needed to learn from the fall and I was not hurt badly so all ended well.”
“Well, to prevent a hurricane is a much greater accomplishment than preventing a fall. If you have not achieved protection on a small scale what makes you believe you can achieve it on a grand scale?”
Because of what I feel and receive within myself,” said the second son. “Inside myself is a great peace and I know that nothing will disturb it.”
“You have one witness, a witness I also have. Internally,” said the first son. “I have peace also and my communion tells me that dualities exist in this world and we must make preparations for them. In addition to this I have a second witness and that is my observations of the outside world. I see that storms do come periodically and preparations must be made for them. I do not fear them because I am ready for them when they come. You do not fear them at present because you are in denial, but if you do not prepare you will fear when you are forced to face that which you deny.”
The second son replied, “We shall see. You are just caught up in old beliefs, but for me I am letting them go and will build my carefree home on sand and live and play amongst the lovely beaches, not allowing the thought of a storm to cross my mind.”
“I am going to build my home several miles inland,” said the first son. “I know of a place that is shielded by mountains and trees. There I can lay a house on a sure foundation of hard concrete so it will be impervious to any storm.”
The two brothers drew up their plans and met again in the hope of working together as the father had said.
“This is not fair,” said the second son. “Your house will take ten times the work to build as mine. My foundation is sand, yours is concrete. My roof is grass, yours is heavy expensive tile. My trusses are branches, yours are fine steel. And many other time consuming items you have added. You are really fearful about a storm aren’t you, my brother.”
“I keep telling you that fear has nothing to do with it. To make preparations to deal with possible realities is caused by a sense of responsibility and such responsibility destroys the possibility of fear. Do I fear when I drive down the highway even though there is the possibility of an accident? No because I drive responsibly in such a way that accidents are avoided. Such prevention of destructive forces eliminates fear.”
The second brother kept staring at the plans. “This will not do,” he said. “You are going to have to build your house and me mine; otherwise I will spend ninety per cent of my time helping you.”
“That doesn’t have to be,” said the first son. “I can see you are determined to build here by the beach. How about if we set back your house a little where there is some solid ground and I will help you build a house like mine with many reinforcements? Even though you have no shield from mountains and trees here we can give you a good fighting chance if a hurricane comes.”
“Not necessary my brother. I desire the simple life and if I spend all my time building a house such as yours I will not have time to enjoy this beautiful place. I can throw up simple living arrangements in a few days and my wife and I will soon be living the good life while you work away at unnecessary protections.”
The first son looked on in sorrow. “I do not fear for myself, for I will make sure my family is protected, but I do have great concern for you, for you are my brother and I love you and want no harm to come to you.”
“And I worry about you not having a life,” said the other.
Thus the two brothers failed to work together as one and went their separate ways and built their homes.
The second brother finished his simple home quite quickly and when he was finished he spent many leisure hours by the beach, fishing, boating and enjoying the sun. Even though the peaceful rays of the sun were nice he grew bored and decided to pay his brother a visit. He found his brother working hard on a sturdy, but beautiful home that was about half finished.
“I knew this was going to take a lot of work,” he said. “Who is this guy helping you?”
“I can’t do all this alone,” said the first son, “so I had to hire someone help me do that which you would have been doing if we had helped each other. We are working many hard hours here, but I have great joy in my labors because I know that we will have protection from all destructive forces that will ever rise against us.
“There you go worrying about destructive forces again.” Then he got a little agitated. “If you would just let go of your fears about these storms that only exist in your mind then we could enjoy some great fishing together.
“I’ll have my whole life to fish when my house is done. On the other hand, I think it may be you and not I who has the fear. I perceive that one of the reasons you are in denial about the possibility of a storm is that you fear it. By burying a belief in current reality you think you can bury fear, but you are deceiving yourself. A buried fear sprouts and grows forth like a weed and eventually looms much bigger than ever.”
“There is no denied fear in me, but only peace and love.”
“I hope so,” said the first son.
“Even if I do lose my home, which I won’t, but if I do I will not lose much for I have little investment. But look at you. You have made a great effort and have much to lose if something happened to your home.”
“A home is more than an investment. It is a means of protection and that protection is worth any investment necessary.”
Time passed and the first son finished his home and had children and raised them there. The second son also had children and raised them at the beach.
For a long time it seemed as if his philosophy was working for the weather was peaceful for a number of years and the second son grew secure in his safety by reason of his thought process.
Then came a day that a great storm gathered. This storm had a life of its own and recognized the thoughts and intentions of no man. The storm drove across the first son’s residence, but was resisted by the mountains and trees so when it passed over the home the foundation and secure beams held everything in place. All during the storm the children played inside with their toys with smiles on their faces as if the sun were shining outside.
The storm passed on to the beach and as the second son saw it approaching his heart began to fear. He kept telling himself over and over to not fear and to have peace, but nothing seemed to work. The storm was upon him and there was nothing he could do for his family. His home was lifted up like a frail leaf and blackness was all he saw.
After what seemed like an eternity he awoke on the beach with several people working to bring him to life.
He got up and looked for his family, his wife and children, but the storm devoured them and they were never seen again. He looked up at the skies and shouted “Why God! Why did you allow this to happen?”
He shouted it out three times and then hung his head in silence as he thought he heard a still small voice reply:
“My son. Why did you allow this to happen?”
Copyright by J J Dewey
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