Sydney Goodwill Goodwill is love in action
Journey of a Lifetime: A Group Story is an account of the journey of a group through more than thirty years’ work. From February 2018 a chapter is being posted each month. Here is this month’s chapter. Please Note: Copies of the book are available from Sydney Goodwill.
CHAPTER FOUR You Are Invited to a Meeting
In the first year of the Group we agreed to keep the focus on the work and not enter into discussion or conversation about families, friends, and other personal issues. In year two we agreed to eliminate reference to an individual’s work, or service outside of the group work. At times, during esoteric discussion, group members could hop back into their personal world and become immersed in their wish that their own children, families and associates understand the world that we all shared.
Unnoticed by those in the midst of this, yet in evidence on the subtle level, it was obvious that they recognised it would be more comfortable for them if those in their everyday environment were familiar with and in support of the work they themselves were doing.
What to do? One of the Group who felt something seriously needed to be done about this situation suggested that we all visit an elderly man who lived in the next street and talk with him about esoteric matters. The rest of the Group were stunned at the thought that there should be any suggestion that we enter into such imposition and challenged its author who asked, “Don’t you think this is a good idea?” The Group looked even more stunned and responded, “No!” She then said, “So, why would you impose this on your families?”
This is a common problem encountered in group life. Disciples may see themselves and others as souls rather than personalities except where close family members or associates are concerned. This is likely to be repeated lifetime after lifetime until we find the capacity to release our hold on those closest to us. The failure to address this difficulty is also a cause of the inability to maintain that necessary protective silence around the group work. When not observed this can allow a faltering in the group point of tension or the entry of forces necessitating a re-balancing.
It was becoming imperative in view of the nature of our work that the Group learn to work from the inner plane.
The Art of Mock-Up
The story related above is a simple demonstration of the Art of Mock-Up which is a very useful tool. It contains within itself the element of surprise and the presentation of ‘what is not’. It stretches credibility and can add fun and humour in group life, all of which are essential ingredients in freeing the group from any fixed state and into the free flow of life as it expresses anew. ‘Mock-up’ creates an energy shift, the movement is felt throughout the group, people respond and are transported to a new place, see afresh; new light, new life, is focused on any matter and upon the moment.
We have been so dependent upon teaching, upon instruction, but the movement of energy has always been the essential aim. An accumulation of information does not move our awareness anywhere but rather is inclined to box us in. Could we but know it, the Being that we truly are needs no instruction.
The Art of Mock-Up is most useful when we encounter an impasse often caused by a fixed mental position, acceptance of a belief system, or the adherence to one particular philosophy. Whenever people believe they have irrefutable or final information about any subject the way is blocked to the discovery or recognition of that which is newly emerging. The Art of Mock-Up has the capacity to jog the participants out of their ‘comfort zone’, or prison, opening the way to the possibility of apprehending that which hovers on the threshold of revelation.
It is quite a challenge to find methods or wording to present the new in such a way that does not allow the hearer to relate immediately to their previous interpretation of the subject. A presentation of ‘what is not’ identifies all that has to be left behind or that is partial or insufficient.
We ourselves, as personalities, are the ‘ultimate mock-up’. Our challenge is to identify with the true Being who uses form, learns through form, expresses through form. Form: a created ‘mock-up’ that enables the Being to express upon the outer plane of life where each individual arrives with a particular set of vehicles ‘earned’ or constructed from the experience gained throughout many lifetimes and endowed by ourselves with an assortment of characteristics and response mechanisms according to the nature of our living of life in the outer world. Each time we put in an appearance we find we are surrounded by the conventions of that particular society we have entered.
All the while the vehicles are being refined through experiment and experience but they can never be perfected by following any set of conventions. We can become so stuck on the conventions that we destroy the possibility of knowing who we truly are. Once we know who and what we are, we are free to live and to work focused beyond the world of form in our true estate. We are free to work consciously and at will with form and through form while honouring the necessity of the rules that guide and protect society. We can no longer think to prescribe what others should believe or do.
Knowing our journey through time, how can we possibly believe ourselves to be the personal entity, the mask that we wear? How many times we have incarnated in this world! Which mask from these many times do you choose to believe you are?
This realisation sees us express and live differently because we are not dealing with life conventionally. When we arrive at this recognition we have the understanding with which to assess any situation in group life and to create some form of ‘mock-up’.
Roles of Individuals in the Group
It is fully understood in such a group that leadership emerges and is not achieved by a process of nomination, appointment or self-promotion. A true leader is comfortable taking a back seat when necessary so that everyone’s capacity is incorporated and nothing is wasted. A true leader does not promote self but the work. A true leader makes sure that tasks are covered by those capable and not by those seeking position or status.
We see the new group work in operation when everyone in the group takes responsibility, when no one is possessive of the work or any aspect of it. And yet it is also important that those who know what they are doing, know what is needed, who have understanding, a fine discrimination and all those valuable soul qualities, take up positions. And we know that when we are truly working in this manner then everything comes together and into place by the attractive nature of the energies we emanate and those energies thus evoked that come to our aid – to the aid of the work.
In addition, because everyone within the group is a participant in the field of energies, those of which the group is comprised and those which flow into the group, each is inevitably recipient of the energies which flow equally through every member of the group, qualified only by the individual’s capacity to respond. In other words, everybody receives the same and it is what they do with it that counts. This is true for any group.
Very early in the Group’s life, the special qualities of each individual were evident. Each person fitted naturally into position within the whole of the group expression. There was no impulse to volunteerism or the necessity for assigning of tasks within the group ranks. For example, one of the group members maintained a steady, stable vibration within herself that held the Group constantly in the same steady state. Nothing ever threw her off balance and she was recognised as ‘anchorman’.
The focus upon the work was so entire that a few years into the work all were amused to realise that not all knew the surname of one member and for that matter, all were unaware of, and in fact disinterested, the personal details of others in the Group. This allows a space in which the work naturally reveals itself as each member, identified with inner being, spontaneously adds his or her own special quality and contribution to the group expression.
If we can take a wide enough view of this process in emergence we will recognise that these new groups have undertaken, before entering incarnation and under the Law of Destiny, the responsibility to outpicture and anchor the new truths and the expanded spiritual presentations which the world in our time awaits.
The Ageless Wisdom is the Ageless Wisdom and we are not throwing out any of the truths that have been taught, but only the non-essentials which have been added – those beliefs that have separated person from person, nation from nation, culture from culture, down through time and have held the race back from expressing the true freedom of our spiritual nature.
