The Acceptable Time

The title is taken from these words from Isaiah, prophesying the coming of Jesus.

Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;

There are certain times when the clock strikes and we are thrust into a totally new way. I would like to look not only at this phenomenon, but also what happens before.

Sometimes a watershed moment happens with absolute recognition and we yield to that dividing point in our life with a sure and joyful intuition, if not a total outward knowing. For many Niscienes, meeting Ann Ree was such a moment.

Many of us can relate to what the disciple Matthew experienced when his life came to the ripe moment when he met Jesus and united with his soul calling:

Matthew, on being called by Jesus, did not need conversion; he did not enter into any intellectual discourse with Him. He followed Jesus without question.

Upon meeting Jesus, Matthew recognized that his soul hour had struck.

At other pivotal times we are pulled out of old situations by a much needed, though painful, crisis into an aftermath of something unexpectedly wonderful and new. Jonathan had that experience when a crisis prompted him to seek out Ann Ree and totally redirect his life into its destined course. When he described the situation that led to his calling upon her, she shook her head slowly and said, “Karma.”

Though Divine Interventions seem to be “out of the blue” they must in reality have some kind of incubation or preparation. There must be a reason for the clock strike being at “the acceptable time” and not another.

God gave us free will because we can solidify our learning in no other way but by direct exposure to cause and effect. If everything is done for us, we are not human beings, but robots. But He doesn’t let us destroy ourselves or upset His Plan. There seem to be ebbs and tides between free will and the moments that say, “thus far and no farther.”

In one dream I checked out three books from a library. One was on a technique of reading, another on mathematics, and a third, whose topic I no longer remember, but which had a picture of children in flowing robes. Ann Ree interpreted the dream and said that these pertained to three lives. One was a memory of life as a child in Greece, and the one on mathematics related to research on the timing of karma, how much we work out, where, and when.

At a moment that the soul knows is perfect for our experience, we are exposed to good karma (called grace) or bad karma. A quickened soul is one who has shorter periods between key timings of grace or karma. Being quickened doesn’t mean we can’t or won’t err - only that we can are ready for and can bear lessons and use grace that are more frequently spaced.

The world as a whole was ready for our Saviour 2000 years ago. Ann Ree wrote,

Christ Jesus, the Son of Man, would thrust those who have readied themselves throughout the ages onto the forward points of the new manifestation. The time is indeed at hand when He who came in the “acceptable time” would reveal to man his birthright and the Plan under God.

Since His coming, the world has experienced rapid karma and rapid grace. An atom in our foreheads was quickened enabling us to learn more rapidly. Those not up to this quickened pace will be prepared for more slowly paced eternities. The symbol of Pisces, into whose age Jesus was born, is a fish swimming to the left and a fish swimming to the right. These are symbolic of the separating of the sheep from the goats.

At “acceptable times” we are presented with a tangled situation presenting a key puzzle which we must decisively solve or fall back. If we can work at untangling the knot, we free the lesson. There are karmic knots we have made and golden knots that God gives us as divine puzzle and golden opportunity. The untangling of either knot releases energy. A golden knot is called a stele by Ann Ree in her book, The King. She writes,

To unite with the king one must first unlock the stele or the engraven lock protecting the centered self. The stele is an unceasing, vibrating identity-tone which keeps intact the grace.

It is our duty as Niscienes to unlock the instruction we have been graced to receive from Ann Ree. Despite errors we have made, I have to hope that the time may still be at hand, to borrow a phrase from Revelation:

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

There is a myth about the knot of Gordias. It was prophesied that who ever could untangle the knot would become king of Asia. Alexander the Great, it was said, came to Gordium and struggled to untie it. In a fit of frustration, he drew his sword and cut the knot. There are times when we must summon the will to cut through the karmic knots we have made by tangled thinking and see a simple solution to what seems difficult. The opportunity for the world to unite with the Niscience archetype, I believe, must be seized fairly soon and perhaps with something as drastic as a sword to the knot made by comfortable and complacent thinking.

It is my prayer that some in the current generation may discover the beauties of Niscience and carry it forward.