“Now what about salvation? Traditionally the interpretation of this word leaves a lot to be desired. It lends itself easily to misunderstanding, although the more enlightened among religionists do perceive the truth. Salvation means, among other things, Christ’s endless forgiveness and acceptance. It means that you can always find your way to God, no matter what you have done, what your lower self still wishes to do. The door is always open, you are never, never closed out. All you have to do is knock. Ask for the bread of God’s mercy, love, forgiveness, and personal help in all ways, and you shall not receive a stone. Ask to know yourself, your lovability, your nobility of spirit, your beauty of your true being through His redemptive love of you, and you shall receive it. That is salvation, all that, and more. God’s personalized aspect has brought it about. The incarnated Christ has made it possible for all other incarnated entities to be saved from their painful state of untruth (sin) and consequent destructiveness of self and others.

“Let us now discuss some aspects of salvation that create a lot of confusion and contradictions among mankind. I would like to give three elements that are all a necessary part of salvation. One without the other cannot function. I now mean by that, a specific aspect of salvation, namely the salvation of man’s personal soul. As I said before, there are other aspects of salvation that go beyond that. To repeat, they have to do with the possibility of every created entity to leave behind the state of consciousness that might be called hell, or various lesser stages of it: states of consciousness that reflect error and therefore suffering, the wheel of death and rebirth, with all its attached fears due to a break in consciousness. Christ’s demonstration of supreme love, forgiveness, and mercy, of acceptance due to the deep penetration of His vision into man’s ultimate nature, opened all doors that were closed to man before — not closed because God punished man and therefore locked the doors, but closed because man was deeply immersed in the conviction that he cannot be forgiven and that he is therefore doomed to suffer eternally. This, in turn, took all his incentive away to work on any process of self-purification. Where there is no hope, there also lacks will and incentive. Through Jesus’ life and death a new modality was created within the mind of man, a new model was created that enabled human beings to choose the path the Master has shown. He has said that He is the way, He is truth, He is life. It was no longer futile to try. Forgiveness for all sins, for all transgression exists already because God recognizes in much deeper terms why you are driven as you are, why you must go through your sins in order to recognize them for what they are, so that a new incentive spurs you on to the great journey you, here on this path, are now embarked on.

“The personal aspect of salvation seems contradictory to the mind that is steeped in the dualism of either/or. Let me cite these three aspects. (1) Only you yourself can effect your salvation. It is your responsibility. (2) You cannot possibly do it alone. You need the help of others who share the journey with you, who may often see what you do not see. (3) Without God, without the personal assistance of the personal aspect of God, the undertaking is too vast to accomplish it.

“Yes, it is obviously true that your salvation is your choice, your intent, your responsibility, your will, your effort — and often what seems to be your sacrifice. It seems, at first, a sacrifice to give up time and energy for the undertaking of your self-work. It often seems even more of a sacrifice to shed a habit that stems from your lower self and gives you some lower self gratifications for a while before higher pleasures can take root in you. No one else, not even the Creator, can make you do what you do not wish and choose to do. This would go directly against all spiritual law whose author, after all, He is.

“Yet, you are often too involved in your misperceptions of your reality and too blind as far as your role in your interaction with others is concerned to be able to set distorted perceptions right. You need the mirror of others; you need to learn being open to them; you need to learn giving up your pretenses and therefore your defenses in your relationship with them. You need to show yourself as you are, with all your vulnerability and total inner truth. This in itself is already an integral part of your journey toward self-realization. You need to learn receiving even though this may make you at first feel weak and vulnerable, for only then can you give of yourself. You can give many things before, but you cannot give yourself unless you can receive in the sense I mentioned.

“Working with others, being open to and with them, fulfills the law of brotherhood. I spoke about this many years ago. There are spiritual aspirants who deceive themselves to reach the goal by seclusion and separateness. They have their rationales. But the truth is that they never want to expose themselves to others, and thus whatever their “success,” it can, at best, be only a half measure that cannot last, that is never grounded in spiritual as well as practical reality.

“And how could you ever overcome the hurdle of your self-hate that festers underneath all your defenses if it were not for the experience of Christ’s personal love, forgiveness, acceptance, and total vision of you? How could you learn to love yourself without at least knowing and finally experiencing His love for you? How could you activate the power to change involuntary aspects that do not directly respond to your outer will? The outer will and the outer aspects that respond to it need to be aggressively activated by your dedication to your path; by the many decisions every day to face the truth in difficult or confusing situations; by your choice to fulfill the law of brotherhood and overcome the initial resistance to show yourself as you are. But then comes a point in which you deal with involuntary emotions, responses, reactions, and even beliefs that, no matter how sincerely your outer self wants to change them, do not respond to that level. So you constantly need the higher powers to help you find the way into those deeper levels and effect a change that your own mind, alone, cannot bring about.

“All this also teaches you the wisdom to distinguish between where the self is the master and where you desperately need the Great Master without whom nothing can be accomplished. ” (PL #258)