What follows is taken from Volume 3 of "Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East" written by Baird T. Spaulding. The books are full of similar, enlightening passages. It's some of the most interesting and inspirational material I've ever read. These are the words of Jesus Christ:

"In first taking up this work (of seeking perfection) and perceiving the truths or the fundamental scientific facts underlying all life and the way of attaining thereto, you take the first step, and the exhilaration and enlightenment are so far beyond anything you have hitherto experienced that you decide to go on in the work. Then doubts, fears, and discouragements are allowed to creep in and your on-going seems to be retarded. You struggle first one way, then another, and you seem to be losing ground. The struggle seems to be too great for human beings to accomplish and you begin to look at the failures all about you."

"You say God's children are dying on every hand and none within your generation has accomplished the ideal of everlasting and eternal life, peace, harmony and perfection which I idealize. You say that accomplishment must come after death; so you let go and find for a time that it is much easier to drift on and on with the human tide on the downward trend."

"Again, the race (or human) consciousness has had another setback; another who had a great spiritual enlightenment and understanding and could have succeeded, has failed and the race consciousness has another binding hold upon humanity. Generation after generation gives it a still greater and tenacious grip. Is it any wonder that human nature becomes weak and frail; and each in turn follows on and on, in the same eternal treadmill, the blind following the blind, on and on into eternal oblivion; and into the great vortex, where not only the body is forced into dissolution and decay, but the soul is ground between the never-relenting millstones of human perception and mistakes?"

"If you would realize, as I did and as so many have done, that it is far easier to work out your own problem in one earthly experience than it is to go on and on and accumulate a race consciousness of good and evil that soon becomes an encrusted shell; that has been added to, layer by layer, upon an encrustation by each succeeding experience, until it takes superhuman force and sledge-hammer blows to break the shell and release your true self."

"Until you do break the shell and release your true self, you will continue to be ground in the same vortex. You can work until you have released yourself sufficiently to get a glimpse of the horizon's "grander view." Here again you cease to struggle, your mental vision is cleared, but your body is still encased in the shell. Realize that the newborn chick , when its head is free from its shell, must still go on with the struggle. It must be entirely free from its old shell or environment before it can grow into the new, which it has sensed and perceived as soon as it has broken a hole through the shell once encasing the egg from which it grew."

"You fail utterly to see that I, as a boy working at the carpenter's bench with my father, perceived that there was a higher life for the God-born so-called human being that to be born into a human existence for a short time and, during that short existence, be ground between the millstones of man-made laws, superstitions, and conventions and thus struggle on through that existence for perhaps three score years and ten, then pass on to a heaven and a glorious reward of harps and psalm singing that could have no logical existence except in the gullible minds of those preyed upon by the priesthood of my day."

"You fail utterly to see that, after this great awakening or realization within myself, it took long days and nights of struggle in seclusion and silence, all alone, right within myself and with myself. Then, when the self was conquered, it took the far greater and more bitter experiences of personal contact with those I loved dearly and to whom I wished to show the light that I had perceived; knowing it was the light that burns so brightly, lighting the path of every child of God that is created or that comes into the world."

"You fail utterly to see the great temptation that beset me to go on and be the carpenter I might have been and thence live the sort span of life allotted to man by hierarchy and orthodoxy; instead of taking up a life which perception had only given me a glimpse of, thus allowing me to see through the murk and mire of superstition, discord, and disbelief."

"You fail utterly to follow the bodily anguish, the ignominious insults that were heaped upon me by my own kin alone, aside from those to whom I strove to show the light I had perceived. You failed to see that this took a will stronger than my own, which sustained me through these trials. How little you can know of the trials and struggles, temptations, and defeats that beset me. How, at times, I struggled on and on with clenched fists and set teeth, seeing and knowing that the light was there although there seemed to be but one last flickering ray and, at times, it seemed that that last ray had gone out and a shadow was cast in its place. Even then, something within me was ever strong and dominant, that back of the shadow, the light was as bright as ever. I went on and cast aside the shadow and found the light burning even brighter because of the temporary dimming. Even when the shadow proved to be the cross and I could see beyond; the final awakening of a triumphant morn that passed beyond the understanding of mortal man, still immersed in fear, doubts and superstitions. It was the very urge of this perception that sent me on, determined to drink the cup to the fullest draft, that I might know by actual experience and contact whereof I spoke; that man by the free will of God, coupled with his own free thought and pure motive, could prove for himself alone that God is divine; and that man, His true son, born in His image and likeness, is as truly divine as the Father is divine; and that this divinity is the true Christ that every man sees and perceives, is in himself and in all of God's children."

"This true Christ is the light that lights every child that comes into the world. It is the Christ of God our Father, in, through, and by whom we all have everlasting life, light, love, and true brotherhood-the true Fatherhood, the true Sonship, of God and man."

"In the light of this true understanding of Truth, you do not need a king, a queen, a crown, a pope or a priest. You, in the true perception, are the king, the queen, the pope, the priest; and none but yourself and God stand alone. You expand this true perception to take in the whole Universe of form and shape and with your God-given creative ability, you surround them with the perfection that God sees and surrounds them with."

It's been six months since I began this site, and the journey has helped me discover many wonderful truths. Some of the most important are contained in this series of books. They can be read again and again for inspiration and understanding. They further explain the doctrine that Jesus expounds above. I plan to follow their teachings to develop that Christ conciousness that dwells within myself, and each one of us, in order to accomplish what Jesus says is possible for us all. May God bless each of us on our journey.