and all his living. He said that in the very beginning there was nothing in the universe but peace, that this peace reached everywhere, and everyone was in peace with everyone else, and they talked to God, and God answered them in the voice of a small child, a very gentle child, not much older than themselves, because he was speaking to common people and not to great scholars. And they were all peaceful until along came Lucifer, and Lucifer was self-will, and by self-will fell the angels. And when Lucifer asked deity for certain privileges, he was a faithful cherub at that time. God spoke again in the voice of the little child and said what was necessary, and Lucifer said, Oh no, I don't like this. I don't want to have to live in a universe that is ruled by a small child, and if the deity can't speak out the great and glorious words I want to hear, I'm going to take over the job. Remember, this is a low Dutch in Germany, so he

uh said, I'm going to take over. I'm going to run the universe now. So he challenged deity and said, But I'm not going to do these things if you're just a puny little deity living within a space without anything around you except a baby voice. I'm going to show you how to run this thing. And at the moment that he said that was the moment of the great disobedience. And in an instant, the heavens completely changed. Everything changed. The sky was filled with great spiritual powers. In the midst of them was seated or placed the ineffable deity of all power, all splendor, all skills, and the thunder and rumbling voice that could be heard everywhere. And it is thus that the pride of Lucifer opened the abyss of the self, opened the world of sorrow and pain, because he tried to take over the management of the universe and because he could see no god until he disobeyed. And then the whole glory of heaven broke upon him. Now there's something about this. It's almost a beautiful myth or legend that

can be carried right on down, folks, by man taking over the universe because God didn't seem big enough to handle a job. It is something that we all might think about occasionally. Also, in all the problems that we have, when we think of the universal divine plan as too weak to handle us, to take care of our problems, so that we have to suddenly become helpers in this deal, we may get into serious trouble. But baby was essentially a great mystic, and he pointed out that when the human being becomes aware of the realities and uses them properly, the great grief of the great sorrow fades away again, and man and God live together in infinite community, always man obeying that which was eternally ordained to be obeyed. So, in this way, Ramey had his statement of silence, of peace, that was disrupted by the rise of human faults, human emergencies, and the forever human optimism and complacency, so that to be still is to know the universe as stillness, to be still is to hear the voice of God in the voice.

of a small child to disobey is to bring down upon oneself the thunder of an absolutely immutable power to obey. We do not know there are laws. When we break them, we discover to our sorrow that we have not been very wise. So we're going to try to think in terms of a quietude that is free from ulterior motive. And this was what Zen attempted to do in India, and this is what Taoism attempted to do in China. This also was the mystery of Neoplatonism and the ideals of Pythagoras. It was the idea that man only comes into trouble when he does it wrong. As long as he is right, he doesn't know there are any laws because by keeping them perfectly, everything is serene and well-balanced. But the moment self-interest takes over, the power of these abysses is loosened upon us.

Manly Hall - Lucifer

Manly Hall - Lucifer