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What is the true spiritual meaning of the statement, “To those who have, more will be given, and to those who have not, what they have will be taken away?” Does this refer to faith, or what does it refer to?
The Guide: It refers to all spiritual qualities. Take love, for instance. To those who have love, more love will be given, because it is the nature of all pure spiritual qualities to regenerate the same quality from themselves. If you have love, so much more comes to you, and you can give it to many. But if you have very little of it, and this little is diluted by impure currents, you will lose the little you have. It wastes away.
The same applies to all other divine aspects, not only to faith or love. So you must break the vicious circle. Everything goes in cycles, as I always say, both negative and positive. The negative cycles work as long as you are in the state of mind in which you break the respective spiritual law. Then the negative currents in you are so much stronger that you lose the little positive quality you have. But if you break this negative circle and set up a positive one, then the positive quality becomes inexhaustible. The more you give then, the more will come out of you.
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Another saying of Jesus has been misunderstood, I believe. It has been distorted as meaning injustice. The words in Mark 4:25 read: “For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.” This seems to refer to the principle of the vicious circle.
The Guide: Exactly. You see, my friends, I believe it almost impossible for anyone to truly understand Scripture, unless one does this kind of work on the Path. With this work of self-finding, the sayings will have a very clear meaning for you. You now know quite well that wherever a deviation, misconception or conflict exists in you, vicious circles result (Lecture #50 The Vicious Circle). They snowball. They become bigger and bigger so that you continually worsen the situation.
That which you originally wanted to run away from gets much worse. Out of this evasion, you create conflicts and wrong attitudes which result in bringing more misery than you would have without such evasion and cowardice. The bargain you wanted to make by assuming a defensive, wrong inner attitude has much stronger repercussions than you realized. That is exactly what Jesus meant.
On the other hand, when you are in health, in harmony, whether in minimum or in optimum state, no hardship would have to come to you. I venture to say that anyone who has progressed somewhat in this work has personally experienced this to be true, at least to some degree. Only then will the spiritual teachings of all times be understood in their true meaning. Only then will you see that God does not sit on a throne above you, arbitrarily handing out reward and punishment, fortune and misfortune.
In your health, in accord with reality on all levels of your being, you produce more and more happiness. In your fullness, you progressively attract more positive experience. In your soul-sickness and error – productive of fear, pride, arrogance, ignorance, darkness, confusion – you are not only unhappy, but with these trends causing unhappiness, you compound the unhappiness.
Thus, from the poor will be taken away. The poor meaning the sick, the ignorant, the ones in error and darkness. The rich meaning the ones who understand.
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