Why do we need the teachings of the ancient wisdoms?

The following work contains the master teacher's thoughts on why the gatekeeper's path is needed in today's world, as channeled by Mary M Ross.

Our society today is in great peril. All around us there is dissonance and unrest. Every where we look, and every where we go, we find people in peril.

For some, the peril is outward and open, distress to the eye of each passer-by. For others, the peril is inward and quiet, but one look into their eyes will show the terror that resides there.

For many, and for most, the peril lies in sleep. Not the sleep of our dreams, the world of rest and ease, but the sleep of lack of awareness, lack of knowing, lack of caring. Sometimes blundering, sometimes speeding forward with grace, the sleeper passes through life unaware of the chaos swirling around him. Moving forward, yes, but sleeping still.

The blissful grace of darkness enfolds the sleeper as he works his way through life, counting one attainment upon the other; a job, a home, the family, "having it all" until the final day approaches and the sleeper looks back, and realizes "I have done nothing."

Our nations move to control us, and to use us as pawns in the game of power they play to fulfill their egos and land lust. We willingly, if albeit begrudgingly, allow them to do so, and worse yet, we give them the very justification they need in order to continue with their acts: we refuse to take responsibilities for our own actions. Everywhere, the words "It's not my fault. I'm a victim." are on the lips of those around us.

We refuse to own our own souls. We rush headlong from stranger to stranger, begging someone to take responsibilities for our lives, begging them to take from our hands the heavy burden of Self which we carry.

Everything we touch begins to fail us. Our love lives lie in puddles of tears at our feet. Our children disregard our teaching and view us as ancient relics with little or no value beyond the money we empty from our wallets and place into their hands.

Our employers see us only as warm bodies to occupy a space and respond to a jangling telephone, doing that work which they are not willing to do themselves. The merchants we trade with each day see us not as valued customers, but rather as a necessary evil. They desire the money that lines our purses, but don't want to give thanks to the being and work that placed it there. They treat us in ways that they would not tolerate being treated.

The day passes, an endless series of discontent after discontent, of expectations unfilled and pleasures unrealized.

And still, yes, we rush, stranger to stranger, seeking someone to own our souls that we might be relieved of the burden they bring.

As we rush stranger to stranger, the others around us, too, rush stranger to stranger, and we face the mirror, we are faced with someone like us, demanding that we take up the heavy burden of their being. Hidden within us, for a moment, the angels of our Good Will stretch their wings and inspire us to do something outside of our selves, and we do. We reach out and take up the burden of another's being. And we carry it.

We carry it with us, as we continue, as yet, to rush, stranger to stranger, now not only seeking someone to take up the heavy burden of our own souls, but alas now we must also find someone to help take up the heavy burden of other's beings that we have added on to our own weight.

We begin to demand of others that which we are not willing to do ourselves, we begin to ask for gifts which we are no longer willing to give from our own hands.

And, then, glory be, one fine day, the light dawns! "Awaken," the man will cry, "bring me your soul. I know you are tired, I know you are ill. I know life isn't treating your fairly. It's too much of a burden for you. Bring it to me, give it to me, and I will make you whole again."

Like the spring rain refreshing a drooping and thirsting flower, we perk briefly, and obediently follow the Promising Voice. For some the Promising Voice beckons them to a path of religion, or a new career. For some, unfortunately, all too often, it beckons towards a self-imposed death. As we cry out in our anguish, others of us, surrounding us, hear the sounds of weakened animal passing. Like creatures of prey, they gather, anxious to feed off of the desperate need and searching energies we give out as we cry out.

We listen well. Not only do we listen to the Promising Voice when it calls to us, but we also listen to the other influences around us, including the media and the voices of those who seek to draw us in for whatever benefit they can drain from us, standing poised, ready to drain us of our last drop.

We begin to believe that we deserve to live the life of glory, right now. Not next week, but right now. And by gosh, we've already struggled so hard coming up the path to get to where we are now, we believe we shouldn't have to do anything more to gain what we seek. We've worked for it, we've earned it, we deserve it, and by gosh, we want it.... right now.

We start to look for easy, fast solutions to the craving hunger in our depths that has developed as a result of the incredibly hard work of carrying around and carrying for this incredibly heavy soul we have.

The Promising Voice convinces us of our right to relief right now. The Promising Voice tells us to give our all to them, and then they will give us the world, delivered at our feet, immediately. No work. No problems, no efforts. Give and you will receive.

And thus we give, we give all we have. We willingly hand over the heavy burden of our own souls and the heaving beings of others unto the Promising Voice. Our extended hand waits, and waits, and remains..... empty. The Promising Voice becomes an empty laughter that eludes us and runs scampering down the path.

We give chase for a while, angered, and then eventually return to our place of origin, returning to find waiting there for us, our original burdens, still as ever as heavy, but now even more so, as we and they have been drained of whatever value and pleasure-granting energies they had previously contained.

We cherish our anger. We love it, for we believe it protects us, and gives us strength for the fight. We hold up our anger, righteously, and use it as a shield between us and others, as protection, and again begin our rush from stranger to stranger. Sometimes the anger turns to open hostility, no longer used as a defensive shield, but now an aggressive weapon.

Hacking our way through the vines of arms reaching out and begging us to take up the burdens of other's being, we sometimes develop a hunger, and the hunger tastes the anger, and it fills the empty belly of the soul. The sweet relief from the aching emptiness is good, we think, and we feed again and again, not realizing that the sweetness with which we fill ourselves conceals one of the greatest poisons of our time.

So, thus, we arrive, angry, hungry or our bellies filled with the sweet poison of our own anger, tired of carrying our burdens, and looking for a place to dump them. We don't want to carry our own souls, let alone help with the carrying of another's being. We want to be vindicated, to be made whole, and we want it now.

For some of us, the pain is too great, and we seek to dispose of it by imposing it upon others.

Some of us seek the blissful darkness of the way of the sleeper and find therein the relief we need. As we sleep, the rest of the beings continue their rushing, stranger to stranger, anger to anger, need to need, until we have a world that has worked itself into a tangle of chaos that is in desperate need of healing.

The time has come now for us to seek that healing, and we must do so working from what we have already learned, and in acceptance of the reality that not all is peace, grace and ease. There is work, and there is much of it to be done. If only we could learn that our own souls are our gifts, as well as our burdens, and that in order to have it as a gift, we must learn first to carry it as a burden, then we would be able to do so without being broken down by the load. As well, then, too, we could not only have the strength and fortitude to carry our own souls, but to help others who are weaker build their own strength so that they might carry their own souls with grace.

Thus, therein, lies the purposes of the ancient wisdoms. To build within us the strength to carry our own souls, to teach us to help others build their own strengths so that they, too, might care for their own being.

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