The Spiritual Exercise for the month of March from the Dream 2 discourse required Ariel to read from The Living Word Book 1, 2, or 3. Before Ariel did the Spiritual Exercise, she asked the ECK for help with one particular passion that seemed to have taken hold of her. Gossiping!

Random flipping of The Living Word Book 2 brought her to page 60: Dreams, Your Road to Heaven. The passage that lit up for her read:

“When the Mahanta wanted to remind her to avoid gossip and honor the Law of Silence, she had a dream in which something unpleasant was in her mouth.”

This passage certainly held a special meaning for her as it was the answer to her request for help regarding gossiping. The ECK then gave her several experiences to test her adherence to the Law of Self and the Law of Silence.

Ariel worked at a Simulation Center where she was assigned the role of patient chaperon to a lady named Margaret. This lady, ‘Ms Know It All’, seemed to know everything about the management and was nonchalant about putting them down. Ariel tried not to participate in her chatter but was so tempted to gossip about her after the assignment.

First, she wanted to bring to the coordinator’s attention the fact that Margaret was not attired in the button-down shirt which all participants were instructed to wear. Before she could broach the subject, someone wanted to speak to him. That timely interruption was the hand of ECK at work. Ariel was grateful for this disruption as it gave her time to reflect on her negative intention.

Then at the lunch queue, she was tested again. She tried to talk about Margaret to another friend but he advised her not to discuss cases as the students were about. That was the second time divine intervention saved her from gossiping. Later, when the gossip-mongers tried to engage Ariel about Margaret’s performance in the examination room, Ariel very honestly admitted that although she was tempted to gossip about her, she had chosen not to.

All these three consecutive episodes about not letting the ego take precedence were a walk on the razor’s edge. Nevertheless, Ariel was grateful to the Mahanta for being there for her and helping her overcome the subtle lure of the negative force and ‘the little self’.

The Law of Self states that each must understand and act to solve the mystery of their little self before they can solve the mystery of God. Rebazar Tarzs adds that the little self can be a stumbling block when it expresses ‘…a greater sense of outrage over the faults of others than at our own. Excusing our own weaknesses and shifting our blame to others. Like gossiping.’

By giving her these experiences, Divine Spirit was making Ariel aware of the play of ego and vanity. And one sure way to side-step these insidious traps were the Spiritual Exercises of ECK!

♥