by Ernest L. Norman
Greetings dear ones: It is nice to share with you some of the quiet moments in which we can discuss that all-important personal question, your evolution — the various factors, ways, and means in which we can constantly attain a higher elevation of life. Tonight I should like to discuss a particular topic which I shall call the Battle of Armageddon. Now, I am sure that all of you have heard or read about this particular prophecy, which supposedly describes the forces of evil or darkness which have gathered, and opposing them are the forces of the higher Worlds of Light and the Angelic Kingdoms; and the great pitched battle which will take place between these forces, supposedly on the hillsides of the Holy Land.
Now, of course many of the old parables and prophecies which we read about in books like the Bible are quite difficult to decipher and interpret into their true meaning. Very often the prophets and various other people who first gave these prophecies, or those who repeated them afterwards, were prone to exaggerate, or perhaps they were carried away by the emotions of the moment. Actually, the Battle of Armageddon, as it is so described, will not even occur in that particular manner or fashion; in fact there is a much deeper and greater meaning which can be interpreted by each of us, inasmuch as the Battle of Armageddon will, in truth and in purpose, be fought individually by each person as he progresses along this pathway of evolution.
The forces of evil or darkness can be said to be always with us; these are the things of our past lives, the many lives which we have lived in the past. These represent all of the various emotional vicissitudes of which we have woven our little tapestry of life as we have lived these various past episodes. We have emotionalized in such particular portrayals of personal aptitudes which can be termed hate, jealousy, greed, anger, lust, and the other different dogmatic, critical, or nagging attitudes of life; yes, even the many insecurities which have vaguely distressed us, are all part of these old emotionalisms in which we have lived in the past. And so you see these phantom forces, which are supposedly gathered on the hills of Galilee, are really our own thoughts and emotions which we have impounded in our psychic anatomies in these various past lifetimes.
The same holds quite true for the future and it is quite probable that it will be a long time before you are ever freed from them. Needless to say that until some indefinite time in the future arrives where you can more clearly equate and recognize these emotional vicissitudes on the surface of your consciousness, progress in a constructive evolutionary manner will be impeded. In fact, it could even be reversed, should these phantom horsemen from out of the past succeed in penetrating your consciousness to the extent that they can continuously strike blows against all of the constructive knowledge and evaluations which you have made up until this particular time.
It would be well to note that these phantom horsemen, as they use their different emotional swords or spears, can appear in your consciousness in a very subtle manner. You do not really recognize they are there except until that time when you acquire a certain particular knack of learning to recognize them immediately the moment they appear.
When you do so, and you can see they are the old emotional vicissitudes and the vices from the past, that you will no longer countenance them nor have anything to do with them, and by adopting some of the many more positive attitudes you will naturally adopt in the concourse of time in dealing with these things, you will see that they will vanish just as the mists of the morning vanish before the rising sun. In the future you will become more and more free of them, and your mental atmosphere will be consequently much clearer and less impeded by these obstructive and destructive forces.
This is indeed the true Battle of Armageddon. For, as you have approached that mystical land, such as was depicted in this prophetic description, the holy land of your own particular evolution, or as I have sometimes called it, “the threshold,” when you are becoming consciously aware of the great spiritual worlds of Light, which are somewhat into your future, you will learn how to acquire a more satisfactory and suitable life by which you can live in these higher worlds.
This is all part of the stress, the turmoil, the questions, sometimes unanswered, sometimes answered wrongly, which you will constantly encounter in an endeavor to climb into these higher spiritual worlds. It will mean many lifetimes of this same turmoil and strife; various attempts to differentiate between the past, the present, and what should be concluded as a rational motion or solution to the problem at any particular given moment. As I have described then to you, the past of course represents these mystical, evil phantom riders which are also described in this parable.
This is the true Battle of Armageddon, one which every human must go through in his evolution before he can evolve into a higher state of consciousness and live in one of the spiritual worlds. In other words, it is a millennium — a time of death for the old lives which you have lived and a continuous effort to reinstate yourself in the higher or more progressive spiritual aptitudes. But whether you call your personal fight your personal Battle of Armageddon, or the millennium, or just the battle of the old self, it is one which requires constant alertness. You must always remember that your life upon this material plane was primarily predicated upon these various emotional reflexes which mandated any particular reaction in your normal concourse of daily life. This is true, not only of the immediate or present physical life, but much more so as you re-created backwards, we shall say, into the more primitive beginnings of your evolution.
Overruling the host of various emotional complexes, which were the normal concourse of everyday life, was the great primitive law — survival, or survival of the fittest. The earth is normally a place of great stress and strife. This is so because in the eye of the Infinite Creator, all forms of life must be continuously sublimated in a more progressive manner, that out of the numerous plant and animal species which inhabit these terrestrial planets, there is always this continuous and never-ending evolution. This is all part of the way in which the Infinite Creator expresses Infinity; just as the great Infinite Creator is so expressing the progressive re-creative evolution in the higher spiritual worlds and in manners and forms which would be indeed difficult or perhaps impossible for you to conceive at this particular time; and we shall wisely leave these things where they belong — in your future.
Your problem is the present. It is also wise to remember that you will have no other moment in your life, either in the future or in any other manner and form which is not the present; for the present always determines the future. It also determines whether or not you will renege and go backwards into your past; for this can be done also, if you refuse to give up the power of the old self which has overruled your various motions through the past. For this material or temporal world has been, as I have said, so mandated as part of the particular regenerative spectrum. And so you see, dear ones, that each time one of these phantom horsemen gains access to your consciousness, he will, if given the opportunity, slash and hew away at the goodness or virtue which you have impounded in your psychic anatomy.
The trick, as I have said, is to immediately recognize these phantom horsemen or these old emotional vicissitudes, the moment they appear in consciousness. At this particular time when we feel the duress of the moment creeping in, if we become antagonistic, spiteful, hateful, resentful, critical, or any other of these various destructive emotional reflexes, then we must immediately, make sure as a counter measure to realize this is the old past, and take that all-important positive attitude toward them; they are the old past shadows of our former lives, they no longer hold power over us, we dismiss them. We must not let them have power over us in the moment of consciousness, and the longer they endure in our consciousness the more damage they can do us.
Perhaps I could point up this discussion by repeating the words of Jesus in the Holy Land 2000 years ago, when he said, “We must approach the Father as little children.” In other words, this is a somewhat different angle to look at the way in which I have discussed this all-important question. The Father is, of course, the Infinite Creator, and as such, He is not involved with us in a personal manner. We are part of Him and He is secure in that particular bit of constructive information. However, you are not secure in your thoughts with Him; that is, your past life has necessitated the constant manipulation of various life factors in which you were involved at that particular moment, as was quite true in any particular lifetime.
However, approaching this threshold, this mystical land of Armageddon, or the Holy Hills of Galilee which is actually, of course, the threshold of your spiritual consciousness, then you begin to envision this great Infinite Creator. And vaguely in some way, you can within your own consciousness, be somewhat overwhelmed with the magnitude of it all. At that time, should you revert into your past, and use the various subterfuges which you have used in those past lifetimes, then, quite naturally, you will not get very far in your evolution into the future which the Infinite Creator has, in a sense, spread before you. For the Infinite Creator is your future. Or, we can say, if you tune yourself in, as is done in a similar manner with your radio, to the various wave lengths of energy which are stemming from out your past, then quite naturally in thought and consciousness, and in reality you will go back into the past. There is only one way to progress into the future; that is to constantly keep yourself attuned to the future. Of course, when I say constantly, I am using the one hundred per cent plus figure. Actually it is quite impossible for you at this time to use a one hundred per cent attunement with the future. This will have to become a way of life for you in some of the lifetimes which shall follow this present one.
For the moment this will be a continuous rejustification of all of these old past emotional vicissitudes with the Infinite future which lies ahead, and in the higher spiritual worlds you will not function in an emotional way; instead you will function in a much more logical and reasonable attitude of life, a logical attitude which merely means that you attune yourself, as I have said, in a radio-like manner with the various constructive evolutions which are ever functioning about you. In this manner you will accomplish two different dimensions of expression. You will be polarizing your own particular expression with the Infinite Creator, and also you will be polarizing a constructive psychokenetical expression into various less positive attitudes and ways of life which are still being lived by your fellow human beings on lower planes of expression.
This higher way of life is quite different from the emotional life which you have lived on the earth plane up until this time. It will take a tremendous amount of orientation of a constructive attitude. It will take a tremendous amount of sheer will and determination; it will require a tremendous amount of giving up, if I can put it that way. Actually, of course giving up is a blessing in disguise; for while you think it hurts or that it is painful for you to give up many of your pet emotional expressions, your various opinions, and things which you have held dear to you, up until this moment, in giving them up, the Infinite Creator can fill this void with a much greater and a much higher degree of expression. You will have new treasures, so to speak. You will find that your house of life is furnished in a much more harmonious way. The windows will be clean and bright. The doorways in and out will work well and be forever open to the visitors from the higher worlds; and they shall be forever shut to these dark phantoms which come from the past.
In this more serene and more complacent attitude, you will be able to reach out into the Infinite vastness of eternity which lies ahead. You will begin to rationally and consciously integrate the Infinite Creator into every thought and motion in your life. In this manner and form you will awaken to the beauty of the spiritual worlds which are ever about you. You will see the beautiful lights, the auras, the Luminous Visitors who come to see you in these moments. Your life will be filled with serenity and security which will surpass all descriptions. These are not idle predictions or promises but they have actually happened to many people who have taken this road; they are happening now to the various students of Unarius; many of them have already become illumined with the higher spiritual worlds and the people who live in them.
Life has gained much more luster, so much so that even the casual observer has noticed something unusual and different about them. These individuals cannot praise enough, the way they have taken; they can never cease to give enough thanks, nor be grateful enough for what has happened to them; for now truly their faces are turned to the East. They are facing their eternity. They are walking through the “no man’s land of Armageddon” and approaching these higher spiritual worlds. Like “Jacob’s Ladder” they stretch ever and anon; so many golden steps which will be taken by you in your future; steps which will ever lead you higher and into more luminous realms of Light and consciousness; worlds which defy description and the people who live in these worlds would be as living flames of Light. For this is the way of life — our evolution, our Battle of Armageddon; always learn to recognize the past, and if you are successful then you may be assured of eternal life in the Higher Kingdoms.
Excerpt from Infinite Perspectus
See Part II here.