EASTER SUNDAY LECTURE April 17, 1949

Christ is risen; the stone before the tomb has been rolled away. Where does your
mind go? To a historical character? To symbolical representation?

Let us examine our English word Christ; it comes from the Greek, but the Greeks
used two words that have produced a great deal of confusion among modern Greek
scholars. They had one word, Chrestos, and they had another word, Christos, with
only the change of one letter in the two spellings; the "e" in the first spelling is changed
to "i" in the second spelling. Here in mentioning the Greeks, I am referring to the pre-
Christian era when the Gnostic teachings were the predominating teaching on the
planet, as Buddhism is today. There are ninety million professed Christians, but there
are five hundred million Buddhists on the planet. Christianity ranks third, because
Taoism is second in numerical following. In the pre-Christian era, the Gnostic
teachings was predominantthat is, the most outstanding teaching.

Gnostic is the adjective form of the Greek word Gnosis and it means that which
pertains to the Wisdom teachings.

Sharply differentiate between information and knowledge or conceptual

understanding and Wisdom. It is quite important to sustain this sharp differentiation
for accurate thinking. We can accumulate ideas about 'things'; we can even accumulate
ideas about 'life', about 'things' and 'objects', about this and that, etc. All of that
constitutes information, but does not pertain to knowledge. You might learn the
structure, the various colors, the gunas of units of energy represented in what we call a
flower, but you do not know what it is; you only accumulate about it. That
accumulation of ideas about a given 'thing' is merely information and relative to
wisdom, it is nescience, ignorance, lack of scientific understanding; lack of knowledge.
So, the Gnosis mean wisdom; it has no reference to conceptual ideas. By Gnosis we
mean the accumulated functional consciousness of Reality.

For instance, going back to that which we call a flower, you could perfect and
catalogue information in respect to the germination, the propagation, the cultivation,
the structure, even carry the information regarding structure into the molecular, atomic
and electronic phases and catalogue the wave length and frequency which creates
certain colors (gunas) and carry information that far, yet you could not functionwith
all that informationin the forces which produce the flower. Whereas another one,
and more than likely from the Deva line of evolution, without any information
respecting the seed, the germination, the propagation, the structure, etc., may be able to
function in the frequency world and consciously function in the manipulation of forces
and create the flower which the nature spirits do with no information whatever. One is
conceptual information; the other is wisdom, knowledge.
 Now I am pausing here and deliberately laying a foundation respecting the
Gnostic teaching, the Gnosis, the wisdom, in order to explain the way in which the
Greeks used these words Chrestos and Christos.

I should put in at this point that those who developed the wisdom teaching, the
Gnosis in the pre-Christian era, were the adults of a former cycle of evolution, because
it is a serious error to think back to the Periclean Age of the Greeks(450 to 200 B.C.), and
prior to that, to Pythagoras and Heraclitus who were the precursors of the Periclean
Age, without thinking of the Sages, Rishis, Wise Men from the East, who did not
belong to the cycle of evolution to which we belong. They belongs to an older cycle,
like we would say an older family, an older generation which passes and a new
generation comes. There is no one from the beginning of a cycle to the end of that
cycle who has the ability to rise to the heights....It is only at the close of a cycle when
maturity is being reached that the ability and faculty and development is reached. That
is why, until the members of this present cycle have reached the maturity stage, they
have to resort to the Perceivers of old, the Prophets, the Sages, Rishis of the older
humanity to learn from them, to help us in perfecting our course, to run our cycle to its
completion. So when you look back to the pre-Christian era, remember that they were
adults left over from an older humanity as teachers, parents, guardians of an infant
humanity coming on, and we are that humanity now reaching our adolescent stage in
development. That is encouraging to me, because as we grow older, we will outgrow
this adolescent period of inconsequential activities.

But let us go back to the real Perceivers who developed and gave the Gnosis, the
wisdom, and see how they used these two words Chrestos and Christos.

There is a natural order process which governs every configuration that cometh
into existence, whether on this planet or Venus or Mars or some remote galaxy in the
sidereal universe; that natural order process is invariant. So on this planet from cycle
to cycle, from age to age, the natural order process is invariant, and that constitutes its
greatness from the human angle of evaluation. It is dependablethe same yesterday,
today and forever; that is invariant. So the Perceivers who created the Gnosis, given as
the wisdom teachings, which is as valid today as it was then or will be in cycles to
come, understood that the Individualizing Process epitomized the cosmic processor
better said, the Individualizing Process represents an epitomization of the whole
cosmic process, which simply means, "as below, so above." That which transpires in
the plant, transpires in the animal, and in the man; the only difference is that the
animal carries it further, and the man carries it still further. But it is a recapitulation in
the process even in the animal and in the man. So, there is an epitomization of the
cosmic process represented in the mineral, the plant, the animal and the man. There
will be that adult phase of development in which the cosmic process will be carried on
beyond man, a man has carried the process on beyond the animal state.

The process of individualizing was divided into two divisions (not the structure
that was divided). First, they symbolized astrographically that means, they referred to
the stars and used them as symbols. They label the

Note: A page is missing here. About Ezekiel's wheel, etc.

...this psychic nature, even at its best, that personality has been encased in a pneumatic
ovum, within an autonomous field, within an ovum in the womb of the World Mother,
the genetrix, the creative, generative force of the planet, the solar system, the galaxy or
only one flower. The life germ is always encased within an egg. Study the germinating
of anything and try to find one exception.

Here in the study of the natural order of the cosmic process, it is all portrayed right
before you and it is going on right before your eyes constantly. The mystery of life is
here we tread upon it when we walk across a field. I am calling your attention to the
understanding that the life germ is always confined in a chrysalis, an egg. As a person,
you or I are not any exception to the order of cosmos, and the life germ is enclosed
within the egg and the growth and development of the psychic nature represents the
embryonic person before the awakening of the life germ to its own awareness. This
(chart)is the way it would look functioning in the psychic nature. When the generative
force is no longer spent in generation (seven ). That is brought up
and used in developing the cytoplasmic substance of the egg. (Cytoplasmic substance
brought up???) is the substance of the Light Mother. There on that level it bursts the
periphery of the confining egg, it pips the shell, rolls away the stone, literally Light
bursts forth and it becomes conscious of immortality and is a Be-ing.

Our third chart represents the resurrected one, the great awakening, in the Christ
consciousness. Let that Mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, our Lord. This
is the resurrection that means something to you and me is the crowning achievement of
Gethsemane, of the Crucifixion in sense, the great awakening, the true resurrection.

*****

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