Now, let us speak about the greater work. The skills that you have developed in the past and skills that you are developing now have future application. In this, you must place your trust and confidence. The greater work is dependent upon your development and the development of others who are destined to be engaged with you. Your success or failure will determine the outcome, not only for yourself but for them as well. This is a collective effort. It cannot be fulfilled by one person alone.
But take heart because every step you take in The Way of Knowledge you strengthen the ability of those key individuals to take that step with you because your minds are already joined. If you fall away or if you give up, they will be inclined to fall away or give up too. This is why at certain times when you seem to lose heart in your greater purpose and you cannot understand why you feel the way you do, perhaps they are losing heart at that moment and you are feeling the effects of their decision and their difficulty.
As you learn to see that you are part of life rather than separate from life, you will be able to see this dynamic in yourself and in others as well. And you will have a greater appreciation of your responsibilities because it is not only your welfare for which you are responsible but the welfare of your Spiritual Family, and specifically those individuals who have come into the world with you. If they are able to build a foundation for Knowledge and respond to the deeper and greater inclinations within themselves, they will find their way to you and you will find your way to them. Failure is possible here, however. So take this matter seriously. Take your own development seriously. If you do not build an adequate foundation, you will not be able to accept the presence of these individuals in your life or assume the greater duties and the greater work that your relationship with them, once realized, will initiate.
You are here to be a part of the world’s emergence into the Greater Community. You are also here to be a part of the advancement of the human race, which is necessary for your world to emerge successfully into the Greater Community. Your role will not be grandiose. You will not be a saint, a god or a goddess. Your tasks will likely be very mundane. Yet they will serve a greater need, and they will be imbued with a greater purpose and a greater Wisdom. You will realize that if you are here to serve, then you will want to give yourself where your skills, your abilities, your nature and your design can be most effectively employed and applied. This will give you the greatest satisfaction and the greatest confirmation as well.
However, if you look at your current state of mind, you will see that it will take awhile to gain the openness and the willingness to have your life be directed. It will require great trust in your Creator and in your Spiritual Family. It will require a great bonding with Knowledge within you. It will require an understanding that anything you try to do alone and without Knowledge will only lead to confusion and failure.
This great understanding takes time to develop. Simply having a belief in it is not enough. Simply holding great ideas or great ideals does not enable you to actually walk the way and travel the road ahead. That is why your foundation building is so essential, and that is why it must be your focus now. There is greater work ahead for you, but you must prepare, and you must build a foundation— within yourself and within your life in the world.
Greater work requires greater resources, greater courage and a greater willingness on the part of its participants. Do not think that you are ready today to do what tomorrow will ask of you. Do not assume that you have learned enough or that you are strong enough or that you have the adequate relationships to carry on a great calling in life. You have a calling in life, and you are responding to it. That is why you are reading this book. And that is why you must focus now on building the foundation and accepting what this requires of you.
To respond to a calling and to actually be able to take on the calling itself are two different things. They represent two different stages in your overall development. You are responding, but that does not mean that you are fully capable. The Creator’s Plan is not only to give you greater work in the world, which was given to you before you even came here. The Plan calls for your preparation and the preparation of those who will be essential in your future endeavors. The preparation takes a lot longer than the greater activity at which it is aimed. Consider examples in the world. How long does it take to prepare a great musician or a great athlete or a great statesman? How long does it take to prepare a person to do something important in the world which entails a great deal of responsibility?
Indeed, a life of Knowledge will require even more than these examples, for it requires not only training your mental and physical abilities, but the expansion of your inner capacity. Here the body must serve the mind, and the mind must serve the Spirit. And it can take a very long time to bring things into the right order. Here you must have a foundation of experience in order to give real substance to your faith and to your determination. Here you must find people who can support you and assist you in this great matter, people who are themselves building a foundation.
This seems to take a long time because people are very unwilling to relinquish what they have, even if what they have troubles them or disorients them. The emphasis in the world is on acquisition, and so you want more and more and more. And if you are unhappy with what you have today, well, you want something new and different. You want more. But having more is not the answer. If what you have is not meeting your need, then having more will only compound your confusion and dilemma.
It can take a very long time to come to terms with this within yourself. We wish to shorten this time as much as possible because you are needed in the world. You have come to serve the world at a very great turning point, perhaps the greatest turning point that any race can face. You have come for this. So do not take forever to come to terms with your deeper inclinations. We call for a greater honesty within you, an honesty that responds to Knowledge and is not governed or controlled by your will or your ambitions. Then the time it takes to come to terms with what you really know and what is really genuine in your life can be effectively shortened, which saves you time, energy and a great deal of suffering.
When you are ready for your real work, it will begin to emerge, and it will emerge in stages. You must be successful in each stage to go on to the next. You cannot leap from where you are into a new life, with a new understanding and a new set of abilities. It has taken you many, many years to get to where you are today. Now you can move faster and more quickly, but it will still take years. But if you are successful and self-determined, and if you are honest with yourself, then you will make great strides. Indeed, you will find that you will be learning as fast as you can. You will be taken to the limit of your ability to learn and to integrate new experiences and new ideas.
Perhaps you are beginning to feel this now at certain points in your life. Your life is being accelerated, but the real preparation still takes time. You are learning to gain a new position with yourself in the world, and you are learning to find the real order of authority within yourself. You are turning away from the world’s teaching to learn something mysterious and wonderful. This cannot be done in a day, a month or a year. However, your life can and will become accelerated as you approach this wholeheartedly.
Your greater work will involve the expression of Knowledge because Knowledge will be its source and its guide. It will involve relationships where dedication and honesty are a living reality for you and for others who are engaged with you. It will involve an understanding and a sense of determination that is greater than anything that you have experienced thus far. You are preparing for this, within yourself and in your life. Through your work, you are building skills and abilities in dealing with people.
Your work in the world is not meant to be fully satisfying because it is not yet your greater work. Perhaps it is leading you in that direction. If it were totally fulfilling, you would not advance. You would become satisfied before you had reached your real goal. Your work in the world may be challenging, frustrating, demanding, and on occasion confirming to you. But it is not the real work for which you are preparing. Accept these limitations. In the future, you will realize how important they are in terms of building character and capacity and preventing you from assigning success to your life prematurely.
