You have a like story of the path of the soul’s progress told in the Gospels of Jesus, and most
plainly revealed in the three temptations*. In the temptation of the bread, the tempter said to
the Lord: ‘Turn this stone into bread to satisfy your hunger,’ wanting Jesus to use his recently
acquired power to change the material atoms of the stone into bread (which he could easily
have done) thereby satisfying his hunger. He refused, for it is certain man shall not live by
bread alone, nor yet by physical things alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God. In other words, man lives by the Breath and the Word of God. It is hard for
you to believe this is true. It takes a long, long time for any soul to attain to such a degree of
spirituality. It is nevertheless the way which the son-daughter of God has to take; it is a lesson
that has to be learned. Again, you do not live by breathing air only, you live by the love of
God which is in that air and causes you to breathe in the breath of God, which is your life. In
those temptations Jesus was told if he would fall down and worship the tempter—the tempter
who pointed out to him the glories of the kingdom of the world—he should possess them.
Interpreting that in every day words it means that if you will put possession of wealth, position and all the material things of life first, you will be worshipping Mammon. You have
to say: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ In other words, you have to learn discrimination and
discernment and to get your values straight, realising that the first thing is the spiritual aspect
of every situation. If you have a problem, never answer that problem by the material senses,
but look it squarely in the face and say: ‘Now, what is the spiritual value of this?’ Always
accept the spiritual value. Pray for true vision, and remember too that in helping others, as
you all long to do, the first thing to consider is whether your action is going to help your
friend’s character or spiritual development, to help him to grow nearer to God. If you can see
that good will come out of it, then stand by him as he crosses his bridge, but do not indulge
him in things which are going to satisfy him only for the moment.
[*Matthew 4:1-11]
Lastly, comes the temptation in which Jesus was commanded to throw himself down from a
high place. The tempter said: ‘For it is written God has given His Angels charge over thee to
bear thee up lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ Again Jesus refused. This is very
puzzling. People like to think that whatever they do, their guides or angels will protect them,
but it is written: ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’* This means that if you do foolish
things like overstraining your body or overworking your digestion by crowding it with wrong
food, if you go out into a cold East wind without proper protection, if you risk danger by
heedlessly dashing across a road or perhaps risking your life in some other foolish way, if
you say then: ‘Oh, but my guide will protect me’, the answer is ‘No.’ Thou shalt not tempt
the Lord thy God. If you do you will suffer. This is the only way you will learn how foolish it
is to go against the natural and the spiritual laws of being.