Meeting 15 4\/18\/1975

April 18, 1975

SERENA SAYS

SERENA: Did anyone happen to think to ask the young man who is downstairs outside the door passing out pamphlets if he knew what we were passing out in here?

Yes, we asked him.

SERENA: And what did he say?

We talked to him for quite awhile.

SERENA: It's really strange. Here we are. A group of people that have gathered together to worship one God that we believe that all of mankind is worshipping, no matter what they call Him, and yet we seem to be doing something wrong.

I bet if I were a lecturer who was talking about black witchcraft, everyone would come and talk about how they felt like perhaps they needed to hear about what it was in case they ever ran into it.

But if all you propose to give mankind is God, then not so many people show up. It is really a strange thing. I walk around in this world, and I see a lot of people, a lot of people who are unhappy, a lot of people unsatisfied, and everybody is needing something and they can't figure out what it is. Until mankind turns to God, there will be no happiness. None at all.

And mankind is doing something wrong because look at how many churches we have in this area, how much God is spoken every week. The clergy are really giving it all they have on Sunday, and everyone is attending and building nicer churches, but yet I don't see people making it to God. They are still unhappy.

Mankind is not putting what God has given us to live by into effect. We know it but we are not living it. And until we live the very words of God, we're dead. We are walking around, and we are dead. There is no life except the life in God. There is no love except the love for God. There is no happiness except the happiness a man finds with God.

How long is it going to take us to realize? God has given us all these things, and we just look in this room and see quite a few. Blessing after blessing He bestows upon us and we don't even know who it is who is giving us these things - not really. God has given us all this to work with, all this to experience through, that we might better know Him.

Now it is true that we have to experience hate and love, all the opposites, all the so-called evil and all the so-called good. We must experience it. It has to become part of us and we have to recognize that it is. But we don't have to take these experiences too far.

The truth can set a man free. You can say, "I must experience anger," but if you experienced anger yesterday, then you need not experience it tomorrow. Learn from your experiences. The more lessons you put into your book that is within your soul, then the faster you can find your oneness with God.

The truth can truly set a man free. If we leave this world, shed this physical body, and go into the other realms in what is termed death, and we still have all the cravings, the desires, that are upon this world, then we are in trouble over there too. If we can't let go of the desires of this realm, then when we pass on to the other side as it is called, then we so need this world that we keep being drawn back to it.

And when we get drawn back to this world and we still need to smoke and we still need to drink and we still need to do this and that, then we seek vessels that we can experience through. So if you have a drinking problem, and you pass from this world into the next, then you hang around bars, and every time a man or a woman drinks, you try to experience through them, like clinging to them as long as we can. And if we leave this world and can't give up smoking, and we are so bound to smoking, then we go into the next and we need to smoke, and so we will find a heavy smoker on earth and cling to them and smoke through them, and try to derive pleasure. All these things can happen just because we fail to look at illusion for what it is - illusion.

God created both reality and illusion and He didn't put one beside the other or one on top of the other, He put them within each other. To get to reality we have to discern between what is illusion and what is reality. We put the two in categories and then we reach a point where we see that there is no illusion and there is no reality, there is nothing but loving God, serving God, and becoming one with God. All we have to do is to start right today and put God completely in our lives.

I've met so many people since I have started, so many, and everybody knows so much and people don't want to hear what I have to say because I don't say anything new. They are wanting shocking truths so that they can say, "Oh, she's' really something. She told me something I didn't know." You will probably never hear me say anything you don't already know, because you keep adding knowledge on top of knowledge in your heads, everybody has libraries, everybody has books, people are learning and people are getting intelligent, but nobody is getting to God.

So I'm going to keep enforcing what's been around on this Earth since the Earth has been here, and was here before then. If we would just live the way God would have us live. Oh, we can say that it's all part of the plan that we're like we are today. That's true. But it's also part of the plan that you become who you really are tomorrow, starting today.

Seeking to see God. I don't know how many times I've said that since I've been speaking on Earth. Seek to see the face of God. And everybody keeps going "Tell me something else." After you seek to see the face of God in everything. I had a lady ask me, "Why do we have wars?" A war is a way of God showing us a lot of truths. We have wars because it shows that any man can be a fighter. There are people that are giving their all for their country. God is teaching their soul, "You can also give your all to me," God says.

We have people that are enduring great periods of suffering because of their country. God is telling their soul, "You can also suffer for me." Suffer along with your brother man, for me. Men and women today are making great sacrifices for their country. God is saying, "You can also do the same for·me." We need wars and there will always be wars and rumors of wars. Because God is going to show mankind, "You need me." Man is so bound to the physical realm. We are so bound to our physical bodies that we can't perceive anything greater. Heaven upon the earth. Any man can have heaven if he seeks to find it. How many times just this week as you think about it right now did you say something that could have been said a little differently and could have added a little brightness to someone's day rather than making it gloomy. How many people did you see this week that the thought registered, "You don't look good today. Why don't you wear your hair differently?" How many times?

All this is unnecessary. We could be spending that time in praising God within ourselves. God is all that matters. Mankind says, "I know. I know." But you don't know. If you really knew. If you really had acknowledged that, then you are on your road to experiencing it. And once you experience that all that matters is God, then that's just the way it is, for evermore. Give yourself to God today. And mankind keeps thinking, "Well, if I give myself to God, then I have to get rid of this and this and this, and I can't do this." That's not true. God will take nothing from you, but he will let you give him everything. If you seek to love God, and if you eat too much, and you find yourself not wanting to eat, but you have the desire to eat. Why don't you go sit down and just say, "God" over and over and over. Use God as you would any food. Any time that there is a negative thought which enters and you know that you should be housing yourself with God, why do we not just take that negative thought and just repeat silently God's name over and over and over.

Sometimes when I am walking around downtown, and I see all these people, you almost get the impression from them that they don't need God because they are so busy, and they don't want to hear about Him. And sometimes I feel like saying, "Well, God, I think we lost out on this world. Want to try another?" But then I know you need God. And somewhere deep inside you know it also. But we just can't seem to put him into our lives. All you have to do is "love ye one another as I have also loved you." Love every man equally. This whole town (I'm just going to use this as an example because I have been staying here) and everybody, oh, they just know so much, and if my name was not Serena Divine Beloved then they would probably come tonight. But I'm not going to change my name. And I've walked down the street, and just because people know who I am, I don't get treated as nice as someone if they didn't know what my name was. But yet the church goes on, and people won't even go to church. Nobody is satisfied; nobody could do anything right for anyone.

We build churches. We have men of God in them who preach about God and study about God to give to mankind, and the people go to churches and they come out and they say, "I don't like the church. It doesn't give me what I want."

No one can seem to find anything that they truly want. That's because until we live the words that God has given us, it is not going to do us any good to hear any more words. Mankind has had too many. Thousands upon thousands of years. Jesus came, and when He came nobody knew who he was. They didn't believe him: "You don't look like God." So he gave them absolutely everything He had, over and over again, and they weren't satisfied until they took the last thing he owned to give them - a physical body. And then when they had absolutely taken just everything He had, then they still weren't satisfied. And now we're going to sit in the world in 1975 and we are going to say, "It· would have been different if I had been there. I would have known who he was." But is that true? If he walked in the door right now would we know Him? If he wore blue jeans or if he wore a suit, would we recognize him as anything spectacular?

And if he came up here and took the microphone away from me and said, "Thank you everyone, I've come. I'm your Messiah." What would we say? I'd probably go, "What? If you want to talk later, wait until I've finished." Is that what we would do? But why can't we just do what he said for us to do? We want peace to come upon this planet and yet this group of people right here we say we unify our religions and people didn't want me to put Buddha over here, "Don't put Buddha here or you're going to offend people." Those who get offended are offended before they come in. I put Buddha here and I put Jesus up there on the wall, and I wanted to put a picture of everyone else who has been down here. And yet the people that I talk to they don't believe that anyone else in the world knows God. How can this be true? God is everywhere, and it is impossible to think that there could be someone that God hasn't touched on the earth. If we acknowledge that He is touching us. Mankind can join together today. We won't have peace upon this world until we find peace upon ourselves. When all of mankind can turn to the rest of mankind and say, "I love you." and really mean it, not as something nice to say, but just as a feeling that is so overwhelming that you have to tell them.

And when we forget about the I, Me, My, and Mine, and start giving, then we will find happiness, and not until. That is just all that can flow through me to talk tonight. Just that one thing. I think I could just sit here and say it over and over, Love God, love your brother because he is God, serve your brother because he is God, be your brother because he is God. Now are there any questions? Anything you've just always wanted to know but never had a guru to ask? Another group of people who knows everything, right? They're all over.

QUESTION:. Serena, it is so interesting that I had formed a question in my mind, and I thought I would write it down so I would have all aspects of it, and You just answered it. I think that you must have perceived that the question was hanging there.

SERENA: One line tells me what it is. And now that you have a Master, let me be your Master. I don't think this town quite understands perhaps what I stand for, what we are trying to do. I think there are a lot of misconceptions.

QUESTION Have you seen us as changing?

SERENA: Yes, I do. That's why I thought we should talk about it.

QUESTION: I didn't hear. What was the question?

SERENA: She asked if I saw this to be changing in this town and in this world today. The people who get ideas from other people, and none of the ideas seem to be exactly what we are trying to do.

QUESTION: Do you agree with the statement that the only thing that is permanent is change?

SERENA: Yes, thank Goodness. I do. That's very nice. Very profound.

QUESTION: But there is only one truth, which never changes.

SERENA: But mankind will change. He constantly changes. That's all I meant. One truth, and that's just God. However you can conceive God to be, and however you know to love God, however you know to serve God, however you want to serve God. That's the only truth there is. Just so there is God in there. Anyway you want God he is willing to give you just what you want. Knowing that that's all you will ever take.

QUESTION: But now you seem. to be talking in contradictions, because on the one hand you say that certain things must be done or not done, and on the other hand you say that whatever we conceive of God and whatever we want to...

SERENA: Right. If you live the words of God, people aren't living them. They know them in their heads, but they haven't put God in their lives. If you will put God into your life, really into it, you can have God anyway you want, any way you conceive God to be, if you live God. I guess I should have said that. I'm sorry.

But God has no limitations. We have the limitations. When we try to conceive God with our little finite mind, and we close them all up, and say that there is only one way, that's alright too, if you live what has been given. But people sit and say things to me and they are not living the words of God. They're just not. And until mankind does, there will be no peace upon this world. There will be more teachers coming. I think we need quite a few just in this area. I'm going to see what I can do about that, too.

QUESTION: You said even the teachers need teachers.

SERENA: That's true, too.

QUESTION: Serena, we talk about truth, yet we only can perceive a certain distance. And this goes for scientists, businessmen, economists and world leaders, they can only see a certain distance ahead, and what they perceive as the truth is truth to them, but that doesn't mean that it is all truth. I think that is the misconception.

SERENA: We have to open our minds.

QUESTION: Truth expands as you get more.

SERENA Right.

QUESTION: You spoke about our limited, finite mind. I believe you meant it's limited in the present. Don't you agree that we have an unlimited spiritual growth possible?

SERENA: Yes, you do.

The limitations that we put on ourselves are what keep our minds finite. We refuse to look beyond what we see right here. We are so bound to ourselves that we see that no other thing exists, and you look around the world and you spend a great deal of money to bring people to earth, and we spend even more on funerals, to get them out. And we are so bound to bringing them in and getting them out, that we are just bound to total existence. We don't see beyond birth and death. A man watches a body breathe and speak and suddenly one day it's gone. So man says, "Aha, life ends there. I see that." And when we stay right there we don't see the whole thing.

We are bound to existence. We are bound to birth and death, and there is much, much more. There is a life which continues eternally. We never die. Death is merely an interval between incarnations. A resting period, for what we are going to learn next time. Maybe not in this world. You don't have to believe that there is reincarnation, but you have to believe that we live eternally, because we are fragments of God. Fragments of the whole, and we can't be separated, although we try to separate ourselves. That's why all of us have bodies right now. This is the soul's attempt to separate itself, separate itself from the whole. And when we try to attain the unity again, then we bring ourselves closer to breaking this chain of birth after birth after birth. The experiences end when we learn what we are experiencing. All we have to do is seek to acknowledge that within ourselves. We are fragments of God. Fragments that are never separated from the whole of God. And as soon as we acknowledge this and recognize it, then there is where we will find our oneness. But we have to look for it first. Really look for it. We try to find God, and we try to find him in books and things like this, and we are not going to find Him there. You'll find that your brother is the God you are looking for. Because to love God is to love your brother. If you can actually love other people and try to acknowledge at least inside yourself that that is a fragment of God also, then you are learning divine love. And when you find yourself thinking more and more of other people than of yourself, you are learning service.

It is said that there are two kinds of service to our fellow man. One is what we give them to benefit their life, and the other is what we can take away to benefit their lives. If we can give the best of ourselves then we are helping them. If we would take away the worst of ourselves that we give to them, then we are also benefiting them. Mankind has gotten so complex, that now God looks organized, too. And it's not totally that way. God is love. And look what he has given to us and we never even think about repaying him. Until we learn to love each other, we won't know God, no matter what you read, no matter if you know exactly in every little detail how the universe is constructed, that won't show you God. When you can look at your brother, and love your brother despite all the good things in him and all the so-called bad, then you are beginning to know God, and not until. Until we seek God, we won't know God. Simplicity is the key. Love and do not expect to be loved. Serve and never ask to be served in return. Give unceasingly of yourself and don't expect any kind words or any man to give you anything back. That's how it has to be. That is fashioning ourselves in the image of God. He does exactly that for us. He loves us eternally, and when we do something wrong, we can say,"God, forgive me." and it's done. But how many of us are like that? If someone does something to us, how long does it take us to forget it? I was talking to a young lady the other day, and she wanted to know what she could do about her brother-in-law, who was really giving her a hard time. She knew he didn't care for her. And I said, "Jesus said, 'When thou be smitten on one cheek, turn the other.'" "Oh, I can't do that." And I told her several things that Jesus had said to do. "I can't do that." And when she left, she turned around and she said, "I wish you could give me an answer." "Yeah, me too." But she couldn't do that. And I tried to explain to her, "Don't you see, you'll just have to love him?" "Love somebody that does me wrong." I'm glad Jesus didn't say that.

What if all of a sudden, right in the middle of his mission when things got really rough, he said, "I'm not going to do this any more. These people don't like me. They are really out to hurt me. So mankind, I'll let you just get it on your own." But if all the teachers who had ever come to earth and suffered to give us words of wisdom that would lead us to God, what if they all changed their minds. The first couple of times that it got rough they could say, "Oh, forget it. I'll go live in Pisgah National Forest, and nobody will ever see me." They could have said that, but they didn't. They kept right on going. And we have to do the same thing. God keeps right on loving us no matter what we do. He keeps right on giving to us, no matter if we give nothing in return. He just lets us go around down here with all these things he has given to us and with all these miracles that are occurring every day, people loving each other, people needing each other, those are the miracles. Did you ever think of the miracle of two people living in different places on the earth, and one day they find each other and they fall in love. Is that not a miracle?

I think we are waiting on something more. But that is the greatest thing that could ever happen. When two people need each other and want each other, that is a miracle. All these things that God has given to us, and we use them and we take advantage of them, and we never think to question who gave them to us. It's all right to say, "Yes, I believe that there is a God." But if anyone really asked you who is God, what is God, what do you say? You can say God is everybody, God is everything, but what is God to you? When you pray, what do you pray to? Do you just send words up in the air? Or do you really have a close relationship with some being or some higher power? As soon as God becomes like our best friend, then we will know God. There is a God that is in everything that we see, but that's useless knowledge until you see it yourself. I can tell you that when I look at you I see God within you, you can go, "Far out." But you won't know what I am talking about until you look at me and see that also. All we have to do is seek. Really with a pure intent, seek God. And we'll find Him. It's guaranteed. But a lot of people aren't looking. We say one thing and do another. We have to think of what Jesus said. He said, "I can't sit and tell you who I am. The proof of who I am," He said, "will be in my words and deeds. Come and follow me and watch. Watch, observe, and then tell me who you think I am." Because Jesus knew that he was one with God. And that He could only be what man could conceive Him to be. And Jesus showed us that God would give himself to us any way that we wanted him. Because he gave to each man exactly what that man needed. He loved them all the same. He didn't have any favorites. What if we started and every time you even drank a glass of water, you to yourself said, "God, this is to you." What if we just directed every thought, that doesn't seem like very much. No, that couldn't be very important. The only thing that is important is that we put God into our lives. And I stress that, because that is how you find God, and you must find God. All these other things are illusion. That's another thing that wars teach us. People build great cities and they have many possessions, and there are men of wealth there, and men of fame. And when a war begins, another man walks in and takes everything that the other man has. It is all gone. I had the fortune not too long ago of staying with Harriet. I walked down to the lake. I had been there before and the lake looked so mighty and so powerful, and you just wouldn't want to do anything to it. It was too big. You couldn't walk out into the middle of it. You couldn't put your arms around it. You couldn't kiss it. It was too big. There was too much of it. And then one day, a man decided to pull the plug, and when I went a couple of days later, I could walk out in it, I could master it. Then it was only about so deep. The earth looks big and it looks mighty, and all these things we keep building bigger buildings. And everything we do on the outside is due to what we feel on the inside, and mankind keeps feeling smaller, and we keep building things bigger, and mankind feels ugly, so we throw our trash on the road, and that is an unconscious way of saying, "I feel ugly inside, so I'll make my surroundings ugly and get rid of these things within me." When you pollute the ground, you are actually trying to rid yourself of what you feel inside and put it somewhere else. If we find God we won't need to do things like this anymore. I went way up in the Forest last week end. Really going to get away from it all and get up there and see nature. I sure am glad we took a trash bag to pick up the trash on the way up so that all the other who wanted to get away back but where it was beautiful. After we picked the beer cans, and the Pepsi Cola cans, and various other papers and bottles, then we could enjoy it. And everywhere we drove, all these camping areas for people to get back and relax, gigantic dumps of trash were everywhere. All these things. And you know why it is. I look at that trash and I know that it is because somebody is unhappy, and when you are unhappy, you many times you're miserable. And when you are miserable on the inside, why not be miserable on the outside. And if you are miserable on the inside and the outside why not make everybody else miserable? We'll just all do it together. So when I see trash, I see disharmony. And disharmony tells me that there is lack of peace there. And when there is lack of peace, there is lack of happiness. And when there is not any happiness, that means there is no love. And when there is no love it takes me back to, you need God. And we all see all these things. And yet everybody I talk to says, "I don't throw trash." Somebody has to. I couldn't have been fortunate enough to talk to all the people who haven't. It's just impossible. So start today putting God in your life. Putting Jesus Christ, putting Buddha, putting anybody that will get you to God. Anything that teaches of God is of God. And if we fail to see the unity of all religions in this world, then the fault lies in ourselves, not in what God has done. When we fail to be able to love another man with Divine Love, it is not because of something he does, the fault lies within ourselves. When we keep searching and going around from place to place and we can't find peace, it is not in our surroundings, it is within us that we need this peace. So if we find these things, then we will be complete. And when we find peace within ourselves, then let's guide other men to peace. And when we find love within ourselves, let's love everybody, equally. Giving all men opportunity. We can do these things. You are a part of the whole of this earth. A very important part. And one day a young lady got very upset with me because I told her that her purity would show on the child that she had. If you yourself become pure, your children will become pure. And if they are not born pure, if they still have problems, then people will turn to me and say, "Well this isn't right, you said that they would be pure." But wait a minute, in that impure child is the purest of all children that is waiting for you to show them the purity within them. We all have a hand into the consciousness of this planet. If you seek God, then when you have children, they shall also learn to seek God in the truest and the best way. We are holding the future of this earth in the palms of our hands right now. Not just young people - everybody - old people, young people, children, teenagers, it doesn't matter. We are all holding this world together. If we give our all to God, then that's one hand that is holding the earth that is devoted to God, so that makes a fragment of the earth given to God. And if ten people do that, that's ten more fragments of God. And when everyman does that, then we will give the earth back to God, who has had it all along. We were talking today about an inner voice. And as I have said so many times, you should listen to that voice within you that will tell you what it is you need to do, and what you need to learn, and what you need to seek. We were talking of the three voices inside you. The first two are conjured up by your mind. There is one voice that tells you to do exactly everything that you have ever wanted to do, and tells you that it is all right. There is a second voice that tells you exactly everything you want to do, not to do it. That's a frustrating one. And then there is a third one, that balances it all out, and really tries to help you. So look through the veils that the first two give you and find your voice. The voice is called the Holy Spirit. The voice within you is the Mother aspect of God, leading you home. So seek out that voice and listen to it. It will guide you. That voice can become like the best friend you have ever had. And when you need to talk to someone you can talk to it. It understands. And the more of yourself that you give that voice, the more it will give you. So seek out that voice, and follow it. It will guide you. That voice can become like the best friend you have ever had. People on the earth today aren't quite as still as they could be, as they should be, or would like to be. We are all moving so fast trying to keep everything going, that everything is just getting away from us.

The Bible says, "Be still, and know that I am God." But we say that we don't have the time. Let's take time. Take time for that inner voice, which is actually the voice of your soul who is one with God, that is wanting to help you. A lot of people now are experiencing what they term E.S.P. That doesn't have to be called E.S.P. Why don't we just say, "I am tuning myself to God, and God is talking to me, and it all comes out right for some strange reason." That's what we hear a lot of, E.S.P. and psychics. I don't believe in them. Because they get carried away too far sometimes. Why don't we just call it God? Wouldn't it be nice instead of someone saying, "I feel this or I feel that," they just said, "You know, God has given me a message right now, and I feel that I should tell it to you." Don't say, "I'm psychic," just say, "I'm in love with God." Don't say that I have E.S.P., just say, "You know, sometimes I really do believe that God talks to me." That is what it should be. That's what it is. You see, as long as we say, "I am psychic," that's right back into the I, me, my, and mine. And· you're just binding yourself to it even more. The more things that happen to us that we actually turn around give God the credit for, the farther we are going to get. We acknowledge ourselves too much.

Now are there any more questions? Well, maybe you learned something. I think I did. I hope there are many more nights like this.

QUESTION: I think that we should feel very humble and gracious to you. I surely am ashamed of myself. I certainly have tried to let God come in. (Group discussion) QUESTION: Suppose someone would say to you that in the competitive environment we work in, people are struggling against each other day to day in the business world. There is one order out there to be gotten and 100 people out there trying to get that order.

QUESTION: That is really a good question. One I have wrestled with. How do you reconcile love for your brother with the realities of the business world. Because in any business transaction almost, there is a winner and a loser, and when you make of your brother a loser by winning, you know, how do you reconcile that. If you are into sales of any kind then right away you have this.

SERENA: Well, first of all, you should never do anything that your heart tells you not to do. And if you keep yourself in the business world to make a lot of money and all the time inwardly money is not what you really want, well I can say you are not ever going to know God.

QUESTION: Everybody is in this dilemma.

SERENA: Right, but you don't need to let every little thing bother you. I mean, if you do what you feel like you should do, in the best way you know you should do it, then there shouldn't be any regrets.

QUESTION: But this country runs on competition, and as long as we are in this system, you cannot help but be a part of competitive activity if you are in any kind of business at all.

SERENA: But how many people in competition as to thinking about getting ahead of the other man, think about getting to God. I know you have talked to me about this, but all I can say is, try to put God in your business world and see what it does.

QUESTION: I would think that it is a reality that people have to compete, but if they do it in the manner that all they do they do in the name of God. If they are going to go out and really try to cut somebody down to reach their goal first, then...

QUESTION: It doesn't matter how fairly you compete. Because I've been beaten fairly, but I feel bad even though it was fair. So I know that even the man I beat fairly, I am making him feel bad.

QUESTION: But you do it in a way that you are helping to serve this man, because if you (inaudible)

QUESTION: I always feel like I am serving my customer, the man that I am selling to, because I believe in the thing that I am selling, and I believe that I am doing the man that I am selling to the right thing, but I know that just before I was in there was another man who was trying to sell something that he also believed in, and if I sell mine, he can't sell his.

SERENA: But why should you feel bad.

QUESTION: But I am not doing unto others, because that others is out there not getting the sale.

QUESTION: But he's growing through the experience.

QUESTION: It's still very hard to..

QUESTION: But this is your job. You came down here to do this job, and if you truly believe that the product you sell or the work that you do or have to do, that you are convinced that this is a good product, then you have to go ahead and do this. This is your job. If you are deliberately,... if you go out and sell a product that you know is no good, that there are much better products on the market, well then you have your choice, either get out and get a better product, and leave it instead of going and cheating a man knowingly, but you .. don't do that. This is your job. Go ahead and sell them what you firmly believe is a good product. That is all you can do.

QUESTION: Regardless of where his head is at, if he believes the same thing I do, that he is doing the best thing, and also he's got a family to feed, and he feels bad when I take that bread out of his family's mouth by me making the sale, so I'm not doing unto others no matter how good I am doing to my customer. You know? Somewhere there is a dilemma there. I see it every day.

QUESTION: Isn't the only thing you do is present your product to the customer and he presents his to the customer and the customer chooses.

QUESTION: All right. But I really feel for what the man said back there, because if a man is in business and doesn't feel that dilemma, I sure would like for him to really lay it on me and explain to me how he does it.

QUESTION: Serena, I have always tried my best to operate my business on the basis that what I sell gives service and if there is any problem with my product, I always go the second mile in correcting it, to let them know that I want this product to serve them, and if something happens and it doesn't serve them, I'll make it right, and I think if business men would when they work on deals, as we call them, if they keep in mind constantly how we can serve best, then if the other man, the customer chooses the other man, then you have offered the best service you know how, and should not feel bad. And if he chooses your product, then you are doubly thought of , because you proposed to give service, and he allows you to give service, and then the third point, the realization of what it means to serve then comes too.

QUESTION: That's good. I agree with what you are saying if we could only get the other man, the man who lost the sale, to get his head in the same place so that he didn't feel bad as a result of my action then everything would be cool all the way around.

QUESTION: We misjudge other people and other people misjudge us.

QUESTION: Maybe I can say some of the thoughts that are in my head. Maybe it will answer this question or maybe it will elucidate it somehow. I was just in an A.M.A. (American Management Association) seminar where I was a chairman for 2-1/2 days and I had to speak, and you get graded on these things. There are all sorts of opportunities to (inaudible) to come out ahead, which in the past I always was concerned about, but this time I wasn't concerned about it at all. And I decided somehow that I had lost this edge for competition, thus it was my own attitude and my own fears in the past that expressed competition. (inaudible) I think you can very well be in business without feeling beaten and without being fearful of losing and therefore get into some harmony with others, and it's hard to do (inaudible) when you are on the Path to see all this. SERENA: Right. You must get within your heart.

QUESTION: I just wanted to say that if you are concerned with the others, I think that is wonderful, but he is a salesman as well as you are. You don't go in there to your customer expecting every time to get a sale, neither does he. Sometimes maybe he will be going in, and hoping because he needed a sale, really. But I wouldn't think that he would begrudge any other salesman who would walk in there. I think that if you are a salesman, then you have to take into consideration and say, "Well, I can't walk into every business establishment every time and expect to make it." That's what a salesman has to actually be attuned to.

SERENA: If you dropped out of the business world today, the business world is going to go on. I mean that's true of any man. I mean if you are going to be in there and you're competing with another man and the intent in your heart is not to get ahead of him, not to get him out of the business world, not to ruin his product, but if your .intent is to actually serve, then are you better for staying in there with right intent or are you better to come out to give your place to someone else who doesn't care. "I don't care what the other man does, I've got to make my money so I can feed my family." So you can either stay in there and do the very best you can, or you can come out and let somebody else go in there. I mean, there is no changing the world right at this moment. We have to accept the positions we are in right now as where we should be or we wouldn't be there. And if you feel you shouldn't be there, then get where you should be. We should be trying to do the very best that we can where we are now. Not that now I am going to leave this place because it is all just crazy. It is going to continue. It is better to be in there and giving a little bit of God into it while it continues than to drop out and let it continue without you. You can serve anywhere. You can love God everywhere. And you can be God almost everywhere.

QUESTION: You just said all that about the great leaders that have come upon the earth. They had to make the same choice.

SERENA: They could have dropped out. They could have said, "You know, I'm really putting all the other gurus out of business."

QUESTION: Is it true a coward dies a thousand deaths?

SERENA: Yes. Accept the world as it is, because dreams about changing it won't change it. Men have been dreaming for many thousands of years. But we stop dreaming and wake up to exactly what we have here and recognize that we have a hand very much involved in earth. We can begin to change it now. Don't dream about it, just do it. Not plan it, just give your best, and when you give your best, that is exactly what comes of it, your best. We have to accept it now. Tomorrow is only for daydreamers and make-believers. Start it today and finish it tomorrow. Your world can be however you want it today. It is however you feel inside; it is whatever part of you that you see when you look at yourself. And if you don't like yourself that's not benefiting mankind, and that's what service is all about - so no one will burden but to benefit. And when we learn to benefit ourselves, then we can benefit others, and not until. This is the age when every man can turn to God. Everyman can't leave his job and go live in a cave. We are not in that time anymore. Monks aren't popular anymore. There just aren't that many of them. Because when we are entering the new age it's not that they are old, it's just that that was in the past. Today every man has opportunity for what any other man does. It has always been that way, but this time we are going to wake up to it. And it is true that every man has opportunity and that every man can't drop out and go live in a cave and never see anyone. That means that you have to stay right where you are, and give it the very best that you have. Don't seek to hurt anyone; and you won't be held responsible for hurting another man. Sometimes we can't judge what we are doing. Is it right putting another man out of business? Or is he really giving it all he's got? Does he need this experience? If he does then anything you do will not change it. But you have to recognize who you are, that you are God, a fragment of God, and if you seek to do that, to know it, to put it into your work, then that's what will come out of it. Every man turn to God where you are today. So wake up.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

SERENA: Love your enemy. That's true too. Maybe that means that if you can love the enemies within yourself. If you can like yourself and all the so called negatives that are within you, then no matter what man you meet on the street he's not going to have anything wrong with him. We should learn to take care of that which is within us. Love your enemies and then you will have no enemies.

QUESTION: Serena, God gave us so many joys on the earth and we all partake of these and yet we forget that God is the giver and the gift all rolled up into one.

Serena: Right.

QUESTION: I think one of the Masters has made the statement that joy is a special wisdom, which it truly is. And if we ever put it into our everyday life when things seem very confusing and miserable, if we could try to find one point either within or around us that just shows a bit of joy, no matter what it is, a flower, a bird that we see or anything that we can think of at this time that is beautiful and joyful and simply hold onto this, I think this would be a lesson in disciplining and bring joy right then and there, and we can overcome the other much easier. Because t.he soul knows nothing but joy.

SERENA. Why don't we close in prayer. Father, thank you for this day; for the many thousands of days which you have given us. May we seek your face in all the things we see. May our hearts become so filled with you, that they have no room for anything but you. Teach us Thy Way. (End of tape)