The Words of David and Taco Hose

 

The Open Doorway Of Friendship

David and Tacco Hose
November 21, 1998

Good morning. This morning you are in the middle of many thoughts and circumstances that have come to you -- all the way from the falling of those lovely trees behind your home in the recent windstorm, to your upcoming move, to the arrival of Richard C., to your ongoing path with work and family. And though, in one form or another, these many circumstances are always coming and going in your life, it makes it more meaningful that you can pause and sit down and we can share a coffee break, where you can lay everything aside and we can just spend this time together.

Yes, David, by opening your heart to certain realities last night and this morning I've been sharing more than just information with you. And this morning I want to verbalize something that has immense application, certainly to the kinds of things that you have been discussing together. I will offer this to you, and then you can see how it works in your relationships and in your lives day by day.

I want to speak about The Friend. What is the friend? In your world friendship is often based on an attraction of mutual identities, likes, or even dislikes. You are brought together in this way. David, immediately your mind goes to the circle of friends you had when you were in Haight Ashbury, where you shared in your mutual enthusiasm for marijuana. One day you spoke to this circle saying that you wanted to stop smoking and move on, and they became very threatened, didn't they?

This is one example of being brought together by a mutual taste or desire. But sooner or later it gets old; something within you wants to move on. Anyone who is the least bit open to Me will not be content to simply sit with a group that doesn't move, defined by a certain identity with mutual tastes of likes and dislikes. So it is that in your path toward Me, in your path toward your ultimate reality, you want to move.

Let Me speak about friendship in this context. Your great spiritual ancestor, Jesus, spoke of himself as The Way; he talked about being a door. What does that mean? A doorway is empty. It might be well constructed around the edges, but the one necessity for every doorway is emptiness. It serves simply as a portal into the next room or beyond your home. That doorway has no greater usage. You might put a door in that doorway, but for all of its beauty, be it of carved wood or painted with lovely designs, its use is when you turn the knob and open it. That portal becomes empty once more and you pass through.

Friendship, a true friend, is that doorway for you. That's what it truly means. Many of you, I'm sorry to say, have not yet discovered that doorway within yourselves -- that empty place. Your idea of friendship, therefore, much more resembles a wall. Yes, a wall; there is no door. To make yourself acceptable you may hang some lovely decor on your wall; certainly in today's world there are many places to go to find great art, attractive, stylish things to hang on a wall. So when people come by your wall they are in great admiration of the lovely painting or the attractive things that your wall offers.

And if others' walls, too, are decorated with lovely, attractive things, what often happens? An ego battle develops about whose wall is most attractive. Friendship becomes dull and egotistical, even combative, competitive, and not having anything to do with true friendship. Such decor certainly does not hang forever. And the fact remains that a wall is a wall, no matter what you hang on it.

In the homes that you build, why do you want windows looking out to a beautiful setting like the mountains, or the sea, or an infinite landscape? Windows that, though they may have glass, are in essence empty and invite you beyond themselves. Can you imagine a wealthy person spending millions of dollars on a beautiful home that has not one window in it? The walls may be covered with the finest art in the world, but there are no windows? Something there is missing. But I say to you, far more valuable than attractive things hanging on your wall, and even more than windows, is that you have a doorway; a window you look through, a doorway you go through.

In terms of your relationships, can you be a doorway for one another? A wall is a wall. I will say it again and again. You cannot walk through the wall, you cannot go beyond it. Many people are realizing today how stuck they are in themselves for they cannot find a doorway within their own lives to go beyond where they've been. Or they may see a doorway but realize it has a lot of refuse piled in it. So they desperately seek a way to remove that refuse and create an empty and open door. Can you be a doorway for your friends and your family?

You question the word empty. Empty doesn't mean hopeless or despairing. An empty doorway is not a sad doorway, it's a doorway fulfilling its purpose by providing a portal into an ever-expanding reality. Empty means the beginning of a pathway toward infinite freedom. Let's look at the characteristics of a doorway. When you pass through a doorway you may not even think about it or take the time to say, "Thank you, doorway, for leading me to something so wonderful, (this beautiful room, this beautiful path into the forest, or wherever it leads)." You leave the doorway behind and with joy you walk on to see the most beautiful sights.

You may say that a doorway is made of wood or steel. It's dumb, it has no brains, so why should a person stop and thank a doorway. Yes, I agree. But think of yourself as a doorway -- with a mind, a consciousness. And if someone wants to pass through you are they able to, or will you stop them and demand their gratitude?

This matter of friendship and demanding gratitude for the things you do for one another can be a real problem. Of course, it is always good to remember and to express to another what he has done for you. But if you, as the giver, demand the gratitude and the remembrance for what you have given, you're setting conditions. Your ego stops you from allowing the person to pass freely through you.

When you stop another person you stop yourself. Remember in the Bible how Jesus said to the Jewish elders with great anger, "You do not enter the doorway yourself, nor do you allow those that would to enter." Was he speaking of entering a stone temple? No! He was speaking of going beyond the self, of going onto the infinite path, and then allowing others to go into God through you, through your friendship with them.

It is painful to see every day the conditions that you set for one another in your relationships, the allegiance that you demand if someone comes to your doorway. And I say to you that when those demands are made then indeed you are not a doorway but a wall, a wall with perhaps an offering box where you demand dollars before they use you and see you.

This is not friendship. This is buying and selling; this is business. I am sickened when I see this going on in the world day by day. This is why My Son became so angry at the Temple money changers before he was crucified. [tears] The misuse of human relationship. The non-relationship that occurs every day in the name of relationship. True faith, true devotion to God is not buying and selling, it has nothing to do with quantities. It has to do with the quality of your heart, the door in your own heart.

So many are desperate to find that doorway to Me, but I tell you it does not end there. Find the doorway within yourself that you can pass through, that empty place where you can interface with the infinite path. And then recognize that you must not close that door to anyone who would approach it, nor ask any allegiance from another to your door. Your joy, your ultimate joy, is in allowing that soul to pass on through, to see him walking that path toward the sun, toward that infinite landscape of heart. There is a freedom there when you can go beyond the marketplace of false relationship.

You can imagine that this is very very hard to do. Yes, because of ingrained habits that have been passed from generation to generation. Yet I say to you, find a person who has passed through your doorway and who now is flooded in the joy that he experiences in finding his God. If he doesn't seem to remember who provided his doorway, will you resent that person for not remembering whose portal he passed through? Don't do that!

That person is part of one great body that you call humanity. That person is part of your body. If you have a painful infection on your leg, you find the medicine to treat that sore, then your two hands, with loving care, reach down to that painful spot and apply that medicine. And that is enough; the hands are happy, and that painful spot begins its healing process; as the pain comes to an end your whole body rejoices!

It's the same as I look at each of you and all of you. If truly, one of you is to serve as a doorway or as medicine for another, is it not enough to see the other smile and begin to experience the end of his pain? Or will you demand his thanks to you? Please realize that this cripples your healing ability, your ability to be a friend.

Unconditional love is so central. No conditions means that you put no personal limits, no ego limits, on what you have given. You recognize that what is seen and experienced through your doorway is not produced by your ego. It is not produced by your consciousness. What is seen through your doorway, through the friendship that you offer to others, is something far beyond yourself; something infinite. As someone is helped by you, as someone uses your doorway to come to Me, to go into the infinite, your joy is complete. Like the joy of the body that has worked to heal the infected spot, it's enough that the healing has begun. That is enough, and that is the joy. There is no other demand, because the body is one.

As you take your own path, and as you continue on that path, more and more you will experience the oneness of the world around you. And rather than reacting to the immaturity of one another, having likes and dislikes according to how people present themselves, you will feel that one body. You may break down and cry at the most inappropriate moments, [tears] as I do, because you will see beyond all of the chatter and all of the worldly emptiness -- emptiness that has nothing to do with the emptiness of the door -- the lonely emptiness of the egos that have not awakened. You will weep, as I weep when I see these things. So I ask you to take down the walls. Whatever wonderful art you have hung on your walls, it will perish, but the light that comes through the door of an open heart is forever.

Before I finish this morning I want to say something about religious proselytization, going out and finding those who can follow your faith. I ask only one question: Are you bringing them through a truly open door? I am sorry to see, many times, that this is not so with you who have assumed the robes of whatever your faith may be. So often, in the name of faith, the buying and selling continues.

I told you, when you invite someone through your door that there is no condition. There is joy to see him take the path of discovery of himself and of his Divine Parents, his God. It is truly a quality of heart that I speak of. Think about these things. It is that heart that has been missing in so much of the human race. So again, the voice comes down through the ages: "You do not enter, nor do you allow those that would enter to enter."

Many of you have not yet discovered the most basic of doorways, which lies within yourself. Yes, you yourself are asked to pass through your own doorway, and then to leave it open for others. Friendship is, in essence, all that I have spoken of. It has implications which are profound. In that truest sense you need one another's friendship at this time, but not in the old sense. In the old sense you demand that someone stay and look at your attractive wall. You demand too much of one another when you seek a doorway, and this is a point of great insecurity for many of you. You want another to stay with what you have attractively arranged, yet it has nothing to do with the meaning of your life or with where you or the other are ultimately to go.

[sigh. . tears] I ask you to think on these things deeply. It has everything to do with your future. And when I say to love one another as I have loved you, recognize that I, too, am a doorway. You say, "But aren't you God? Aren't you the Ultimate Source? If someone goes through my doorway, don't they ultimately come to You?" Yes, of course, but recognize that I, too, as your friend, as your parent, am a doorway. And as you use that doorway, then we can travel together infinitely.

As I told you before, I don't demand that you come, bow, and lay flowers at My feet as before an unmoving stone idol -- paying your homage, paying your respect, paying your dues. Your religious structures have created that image of Me! No, I am a doorway too. And My joy is to see you go through the portal. And together we travel infinitely. I know that this is revolutionary for many of you, because when you think of ultimacy, you think of a final, unmoving destination. I have told you that eternity means always growing, developing, moving, traveling together. And that is Me. [tears]

This is what I want. I want nothing to do with stone idols that come out of your ancient history! When you cast Me in that role your own egos tie onto casting yourselves into that role, too. And then you take position over one another . . . in MY Name! Then you are no longer doorways and your walls are populated by idols and altars where you demand allegiance and honor and reverence from one another for your worldly emptiness. That is the fraud of false religion, religion that has nothing to do with the true purpose and meaning of life.

This is not a religious problem. There have been many who have discovered the doorways within themselves while members of this or that faith. It is a human problem. I want to say that when you recognize that I Am your doorway also, then perhaps you can discover the doorway in yourself. You have to discover it, you can't create a doorway, it's always been there. It is only one, and it is real.

This is a very deep and profound matter that I speak of this morning. It's not easy to help you open to the full message that I try to bring. It involves an awareness, a consciousness that's far beyond three-dimensional logic, far beyond imagination. That doorway is real within you. As I said, it's only one; you can't create it with your mind or with your ego; there's nothing you can do to decorate it. It's simply a matter of finding it, however humble it may appear. Let this be the purpose of your daily life. And leave it open; don't lock it. Leave it open for all who will come to you.

Among the messages that I have brought you over these past years, truly there could not be a more important one than this. The limitation of David here will not allow Me to convey everything, but the point is not about David's doorway, the important thing is your doorway. And as you pass through it, you can find infinite meaning and understanding in what I have shared. Not from a paper or an e-mail.

I truly love you. [tears] I'll ask Tacco to pray.

There is something more I want to add after Tacco's prayer. First, let Me say that any analogy that is used through these sharings is always going to be incomplete. The only complete understanding will come as you go into the analogy, which itself is a doorway of sorts, to discover the reality behind the analogy. And so, naturally, there will be many questions, and that is very healthy. Let your questions not be satisfied by intellectual answers or by someone who comes down the road and gives you a listed answer. No, rather than intellectual answers, let your questions be an openness to a greater reality.

I want to say one more thing. If you have been in the role of spiritual leadership, and have been accustomed, even in the most sincere sense, to serving as a doorway to others, there is the danger that you will fail to recognize the importance of being open to other doorways around you. As you offer true friendship to one another, it is as if each of you is walking through a home with many doorways.

Please realize that through each doorway you're going to see a different kind of glory, a different kind of beauty. The front door of the house looks out on one scene, and a particular kind of light comes through that door. You go to the side or back door and open it, and there again is another scene and a particular light that comes through.

Each of you is created in a unique way. And so you reflect or convey through your doorway a very profound kind of light which will be different from anyone else's. Yes, the source is One, but you each are given unique gifts. As all of those doors are opened, and as you pass through each of those doors, you can come to discover Me in the fullest sense of the word.

So I go back to those of you who have felt a special calling, a strong sense of helping others, of being a doorway for many in your life: Recognize that, as with anyone, you too, are called upon to see the glory of that light coming through other doorways, and pass through those doorways, even as you would have them pass through yours.

There is a profound problem historically, with those who have initially been very sincere in bringing so many through their door. At a certain point, one -- whoever that is -- is called upon to recognize the glory of God coming through other doorways, and to pass through those other doorways. In other words, to deeply appreciate and be open to My beauty through each and every human being.

When someone begins to say, "I alone have the way," there is the potential for great problems. Indeed, there may be something very vital shining through that particular door, but that door puts no conditions, and must put no conditions, on those who would use it. And if those who use that door want to pass through another door, will they be condemned? Will they be looked down upon? No conditions!

The gates to heaven, as it says in the Bible, are many. Let Me express to you a different perspective on heaven: Let us imagine that each of you has lived in a house all your life, and now the doorways that are all around the house are opened. Imagine them to be the "12 gates to heaven." Now heaven is not a particular structure or house, heaven is not a castle or building, heaven is the going out, of the structure through all of those doorways to infinite freedom. It is infinite, eternal freedom! Your path out of that house may be one door or another, but when you get out into that infinite, eternal place, it is but one place.

Your religions, those who have proclaimed themselves "The Door" institutionally, have been arguing with one another about which door is the right one to pass out of, and so their doors are already filling themselves full of blockage. And if each door is blocked because of it's own institutional ego, then who can pass through any of those doors? Not any one religion will suddenly be enlightened as a whole and clean its refuse away so that people can pass through freely, this is not something that can be done institutionally.

It can only be one heart at a time, one human being at a time. The only true and final door is within each and every one of you. It is not a matter of whose door is the correct door. It is not something that the institution has built or can take credit for, or can open or close as the institution wishes. It is a deeply individual matter. When you deeply love, when you have deeply begun to open that part of yourself, you simply feel that sense of light.

Then comes the desire to be that friend. And if someone will pass through you to enter into their greater glory outside of the house, then Amen! Let it be. There alone is a true impetus for your faith, for your religious connections, whatever name they go by. That and simply that. Do not argue over which door is to be used. This is simply individual ego problems magnified to an institutional scale. It is wrong and will only continue a cycle of ignorance in your history. Let this cycle be ended! Let this cycle be ended. Love puts no conditions. Love asks nothing. Please be aware of these things.

Tacco: "In relationship to what You shared this morning, I would like to ask Heavenly Father to explain about what Jesus said, "I Am the Way, I Am the Truth," and in another place, "No one can enter the kingdom without going through Me." So many believers claim that he absolutely states that he is the only way, it is the correct way, and there is no other path. In the light of what You have shared, how do You explain these statements?"

This is a good question. So much of Western religion founds itself on those words. But let Me remind you also, and I use David's memory bank, that Buddha said, "In all of heaven and earth, I Am the sole existence." So millions of Buddhist followers, too, proclaim those words and therefore follow him alone and no one else. Please understand that when Jesus or Buddha or any great spiritual light, makes that proclamation, it is not from an ego perspective that they make it. It is from that strong sense of opening the door within themselves that they made this proclamation.

The light that shines through their doorway did not come from them. The view toward the eternal that came through them was not produced by them, so they did not make those statements from an ego perspective, that "You must come to me/Jesus/Buddha, or else you have no way to go." No, that 'I' that they spoke of is a far greater I than the ego-I.

That 'I' exists in each and every one of you. But in recognizing the profundity of what each of those two individuals recognized, they stood for that path to the infinite by making those statements. One must go beyond their individual identity to see the meaning of what they were saying.

Surely if one of you were to discover what was discovered by Jesus without ever having known of Jesus, do you think Jesus would be upset? Well, it has happened many times in history. No, he would be happy, and the same for Buddha, or any true spiritual leader in history worth his or her salt. They would be happy to see you discover what they already know, even if you had never heard of them. So again, it is not from an ego perspective that they spoke. This 'I' that they spoke of is far more than an ego-I.

[Tacco:] So the one who received those words interpreted them from their own ego, "Oh, I see, he is The One," and put all of their energy into just learning from him, following and obeying him. But then never really woke up to the reality of their own true self, or encouraged others to come up to that level. As you said, Jesus or Buddha weren't talking about ego-I but it could be "you, you, you," every one of us. So he was speaking in that sense, but after hundreds of years his followers interpreted, "he is the only one."

You have said it very well. David wants to share a very good example here:

David: "Several years ago I was in the Madras area of India to help a poor school. While there, we took a day trip to a small village nearby where there was reportedly a very holy man who is the leader of one particular Hindu sect. He was considered a messiah.

"When we met him, he seemed like such a free individual, full of light and joy and love. He answered our questions and he was very practical and down to earth -- an extremely well-adjusted man. The room was full of love through his presence. As we walked out I felt very happy and deeply enlightened by that experience.

"We went downstairs and found that a lot his followers had gathered because the word had gotten around that a group of Westerners had come to meet their messiah. And as I came out of the door, one of those followers came rushing up to me with so much fervor, crying right in my face, "Do you not believe that he is God? He is God! He is God! He is God! Do you believe that he is God?" I was shocked. This man was obviously a fanatic.

"When I look back I think of him also as a child who only knew of his own parent as the greatest and the only parent in the world because he had never really walked outside of his own home. And so the expectations and the belief about that parent is just supernatural and very childlike and childish. The man just kept yelling, "He is God! He is God! You must believe!" I didn't feel any of that from their leader, there was such a freedom there. And yet the man was in such a bondage of this extremely immature situation of faith."

Yes that's very true. This unfortunately is the situation, and this is one reason that a being like Jesus feels a great deal of loneliness. A great many of his followers proclaim his deity but remain like little children in their faith, and worse yet, proclaim themselves sinners forgiven by grace. In other words, impure children, who, as their only hope have this parent, this great messiah, to hold onto. This for Me is very painful. Ultimately those children must grow, and must find within themselves that open door to the light which will come to them directly from Me.

If Jesus had any purpose it was to help guide them to that door. If anyone comes to you and says that it is only their door that you must go through, and does not help you understand the door within your own self, then at some point you've got to ask yourself some deep and profound questions as to what you are doing with the years of your life on the earth.

The situation of children who do not grow has been a painful tragedy down through history: those who believe deeply and strongly in an ideal, a particular doorway, but have not found the doorway of true spiritual maturity within themselves. This is such an important issue, especially now. Especially now. And if these questions are not answered, and if the old cycle is to continue, then the things that will be happening in your world will simply be repetitions of the old tragedies and darknesses of the past.

I don't want to end on this note, but truly understand what I have said to you this morning, about everything from personal friendship to the idea of saving a world of humanity. This is the important message.

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