These and, after the pause, the remaining four words, Love, Light, Word, Power, are from Ann Ree’s mantram, Mighty is the Love. Being part of a perfectly worded mantram, I thought, they should have particularly deep meaning. Indeed, they seem to form a trinity of initiation.
Some things we do are out of necessity. They simply have to be done. We find ourselves in circumstances where the consequences would be dire if we didn’t find a way to meet the Need. The consequences may be the loss of health, possessions, or some other thing or person dear to us. Sometimes a thing fighting against our wants is exactly what we need to shape our stubborn, resisting will into something more within God’s Will and Need.
There is also a call, the magnetic attracting principle. Something saying, “Come to me.” We are not dragged helplessly against our will, but find something inside that desires a good thing very strongly.
Finally, there is the child of these two: the activity. The Need and the Call together produce most, if not all, of creation, which is the joyous reward of sweat, tears, and love.
Although the Need, in the sense of something inescapable like karma or fate, is often personified in mythology as feminine (for example, the Roman Necessitas or the Greek Ananke), I am talking about something more akin to Destiny and Purpose, hence the electric, prodding Father Principle.
I’ll start with one need we all have: to earn a livelihood. On any day, regardless of whether we would love going into work, or whether we wouldn’t, it is an ever present need. This also applies to a mother working in the home. We have to establish constancy even when the tide of desire is low. I don’t remember where I heard this, but the story was told that the Master would not appear to Ann Ree until she had cleaned the floor and met her physical responsibles of the day.
This can apply to our practices as well. Some days meditation is a bliss experience, other days our mind is distracted by things of the world. Regardless, we are taught that this is a spiritual need. It is God’s need for us. Really, we are taught to work not for pleasure principle rewards, but for accomplishing something good and useful in the world - a higher reward. In one talk, Ann Ree talked about doing something each day she didn’t like - and then trying to like it. In each struggle, evidently, there is a benefit so wonderful that we would be grateful for it if only we had the consciousness to see it.
Necessity is the yoke that binds us to our path of learning. While inescapable it doesn’t have to be looked on as a burden. Jesus said,
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30
All can be light when we have joy in our hearts. Ann Ree wrote the following beautiful words in the Soul and the Ethic,
The soul is as a great sea with incoming and outgoing tides ...
One is inspired to do immortal things when he responds to the incoming soul tide. He is renewed; his vision is illumined; he is stirred to create, to fulfill.
When the soul tide is low, one feels strangely desolate, forsaken; he often yields to delinquent ways. When one is aware of the importance of the soul tides in his spiritual life, in selfless industry he utilizes the dry times, and thus prepares himself for the incoming tide of his soul.
Next, after the Need, we have the magnetic Call. Even if we have a vocation that is a struggle, some speak of an avocation that is not a struggle against, but a struggless struggle of joy for the sake of something we love. Vocation comes from the Latin Vocare, to call. We speak of finding our calling. While a calling can involve sweat and tears at times, behind it is always an inner desire. We just want to do it. We will pay any price to get it. This beautiful parable of Jesus describes it absolutely perfectly:
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Matthew 13:45-46
In a dream, when we are in a store, Ann Ree says we are learning the value of things, what they cost, and eventually, when we have a true sense of values to sell all for the pearl of great price.
There is a particularly poetic dream that my mother had about a call.
My son was inside a (strange) building alone and calling me. I ran first up one stairway and then another, not able to locate him. He calls and calls. I finally find him.
Ann Ree’s interpretation:
You are relating yourself to your son’s true soul correlating to you.
Jesus used the calling to attract His disciples. Another example of a calling is that of the mystic Jacob Boehme. He was working in his master's shoe-shop when he was approached by a stranger about the price of a certain pair of shoes. The stranger seemed poor and was dressed as a peasant, but he had a radiating glow about him and "great eyes which sparkled and seemed filled with divine light." The master of the shop was out and the boy trembled to name any price. The stranger pressed him for a price and Jacob named a very large amount. Surprisingly the man immediately paid him and took the shoes. When a short way down the street the stranger turned and cried, "Jacob, Jacob, come forth!" Frightened and astonished Jacob ran out of the store and to the stranger. The mysterious man took him by the right hand and prophesied: "Jacob, thou art little, but shalt be great, and become another Man, such a one as at whom the world shall wonder. Therefore be pious, fear God, and reverence His Word. Read diligently the Holy Scriptures, wherein you have Comfort and Instruction. For thou must endure Misery and Poverty, and suffer persecution, but be courageous and persevere, for God loves, and is gracious to thee."
The paths many of us found to Ann Ree seem very much to be from a call that our souls answered.
Finally, we come to the third element of our trinity, organized activity. I’m told by many couples who have a child that the child becomes the organizing principle behind most, if not all, their activity. Vacations are made when the child is free from school for the summer. Shifts are traded when he is very young. Moves often have to consider the child’s stable environment at school. Savings are planned for his college. Much as the Christ Mind becomes the intelligent organizer for our thoughts, so do Father Need and Mother Call produce a lasting understanding. I think of the Joseph and Mary organizing their activities around Jesus, who brought the Christ Mind closer to men. The third of any trinity is some aspect of the Christ Intelligent Activity. There is no other need for initiation than to produce a certain kind of consciousness and creation. Our lives then become purposeful and dedicated toward the fulfillment of a greater Plan.
If we are resisting and resenting our troubles, we are not stopping to ask, “What is God’s Need? What is my true Calling? What consciousness am I supposed to gain so that I can produce creation or dramatic activity testifying to the Good?” Failing to learn sidelines us and is a great time waster. How often have we heard Ann Ree telling us to step into our troubles?
Ann Ree wrote in The Third Music,
Gurus say, “Go into Nirvana and disappear.” Jesus says, “Go into your troubles and lift the world.”
As Niscienes, knowing ones, we are given the priceless instruction to break open the genie of understanding hidden in the confining bottle of our resistances. This is the Christ Way for us.
