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Job is now a 5^th degree Initiate. He looks back at his old way of life and recognizes the error thinking that predominated. As a result of his erroneous thought patterns and ignorance of Truth, Job was brought to his knees in anguish. God did not inflict the pain. Instead, Job's suffering was the external manifestation of his own inner dis-ease.

Once we awaken to Truth, we look back and bemoan our mistakes and ignorance. Job is no exception. "Then Job answered the Lord, and said, 'I know that thou canst do all these things, and that no purpose can be hid from thee. Who am I to think that I can give counsel without knowledge? Therefore thou hast declared to me that I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know." ³⁰¹ Does this mean that we are to sit back and wait for enlightenment before we speak the portion of Truth we know? No. As Job states: "No purpose can be hid from thee." As long as our motives in doing so are pure, God perceives as beneficial any effort we make to share the Good News of our true identities as child gods. Job realizes that his motives had not always been pure. Instead, he had responded in ways that befitted his highly respected status within the community.

"Hear me, I pray thee, and I will speak; I will ask thee, and declare thou to me; I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee." ³⁰² Heretofore, Job had been like the majority of us: he had simply allowed the religious leaders to speak of God and followed their instructions. He had not sought Truth on his own; he was asleep spiritually. Job felt no compulsion to seek a deeper personal relationship with God. God was simply a Being about whom Job could debate intellectually with his friends and the elders in the city gate.

Then, Job's two dark nights of the soul ³⁰³ compelled him into a search for life's true meaning. The biblical narrative appears to say that a few weeks of meditation will lead to cosmic consciousness. The forty-two (42) chapters of the Book of Job signify a journey that can cover the span of numerous lifetimes. Job did not take an intentional spiritual journey through the initiatory process. Instead, it required severe suffering and shock in order to awaken Job enough to compel him to ask questions about life and to seek his own Truth.

Once we awaken enough to take an intentional initiatory journey, we do tend to move along at a more rapid pace. But this takes concentrated effort. The normal human growth process consists of one step forward and two steps backward, until our auric field is purified and we reach the stage of cosmic consciousness. Then, we behold God, face to face. Job has achieved the capacity to see God with his eye, meaning through his 3^rd eye chakra. Job can now know God because his conscious awareness has crossed the Rainbow Bridge and he beholds his magnificent I AM PRESENCE. Within this glorious Light, Job proclaims: "now my eye sees thee. Therefore, I will keep silent, and repent in dust and ashes." ³⁰⁴ Immersed in the Light of his I AM PRESENCE, Job is silenced. No longer is he uttering one sentence after another of intellectual jargon. Instead, he repents of his former mistaken life patterns.

"And it came to pass, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, 'My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken in my presence that which is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, lest I deal contemptuously with you, for you have not spoken in my presence the thing which is right, as my servant Job has done." ³⁰⁵

At this point in the story, it is essential to remember that Job's friends symbolize parts of himself: Eliphaz, his material consciousness; Bildad, his intellectual thought; and Zophar, his darkened, limited thought that flits from one idea to another and therefore, fails to achieve any depth of understanding. As long as we remain stuck in these physical plane patterns of thought, we cannot know Truth. Note that Elihu, who enters the story in chapter 32, is not included in God's displeasure. Elihu, signifying the Holy Spirit, led Job to the threshold of Truth. But Elihu had to wait on the sidelines until the parts of Job that could perceive only the material and intellectual worlds had exhausted their attempts to explain Job's suffering.

It is the same with us. As long as we insist upon believing only what we see written in the surface words of a sacred text, only what we can prove in the laboratories of science, and only what we can see, touch, taste, feel, or smell, we cannot find Truth. The Lord would say of us, along with Job's friends, "You have not spoken in my presence that which is right."

"So Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the Lord had told them; and the Lord favored Job. And the Lord restored to Job all that he had lost, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." ³⁰⁶ Job's achievement of cosmic consciousness included the overcoming of his lower nature, as represented by his three friends. Job did not simply distance himself from his lower nature; he transmuted and transformed it. The initiatory process requires wholistic growth. We cannot ignore our shadow side and expect to move permanently into a higher level of consciousness. We, like Zophar, may catch glimpses of a higher Truth; but these can be only fleeting moments of enlightened vision until we have successfully transmuted and transformed our lower natures. As Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar "did according as the Lord had told them . the Lord favored Job."

Why does the narrative not affirm that the Lord favored Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar? Because they are the parts of Job that have been transmuted, transformed, and integrated into the higher consciousness he now possesses. The bridge to the past has been burned in the transmuting flame. Job stands, in his newly achieved wholeness of being, in the presence of his Christed Self and I AM PRESENCE. Job is re-united with his eternal Self. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were temporary parts of Job; they no longer play a role in his life. God favors the eternal Job, the 5^th degree Initiate.

"Then came there to him all his brothers and all his sisters and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house; for they had been in distress over him, and they comforted him for all the hardships that the Lord had brought upon him; and every man also gave him a ewe, and every one an earring of gold." ³⁰⁷ This passage can be interpreted on at least two levels.

First, while we go through our dark nights of the soul, many of our physical plane friends and family cannot understand what is happening. After all, our Soul is striving to achieve a level of consciousness that takes its departure from that of the tribe, or society as a whole. We are bucking the system, which is unsettling to many. We cannot change without impacting those close to us. This can be frightening to those who are still keyed into the Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar parts of themselves. Many tend to pull away because the changes within us bring up feelings of discomfort within them. Then, when we emerge from our dark nights of the soul, still intact, our family and friends are relieved. They may gather around us. They may be more supportive of our efforts. Certainly, they have continued to love and care about us, even when they had no way to demonstrate that love.

The second interpretation takes us to the soul-centered level of consciousness. Once Job, as the 5^th degree Initiate, emerges from the "darkness-that-is-God-approaching,"³⁰⁸ his soul family and friends gather around him. The 5^th degree Initiate's consciousness is no longer limited to the physical plane. Thus, the soul family and friends gathering around Job can be living on the physical plane or on a higher plane of existence. A major clue is found in the statement "did eat bread with him."

Bread is highly symbolic. In the ancient Middle East, enemies do not share bread. To be invited to share a loaf of bread is indicative of trust and loyalty. One does not share bread, then knowingly betray the host.³⁰⁹ Bread is used throughout the Bible to indicate a highly significant event. Melchizedek, King of Salem, celebrated a military victory with Abram by offering him bread and wine.³¹⁰ God fed the Israelites manna (or bread-like substance) from heaven during their time in the wilderness.³¹¹ Bread was associated with religious celebrations, such as the Feast of Unleavened Bread.³¹² The "Bread of the Presence" sat in the Ark of the Tabernacle³¹³ and continues to sit in the synagogues of today, just as the Bread that has become Jesus sits in the Roman Catholic churches. Jesus continued this use of bread in a highly symbolic manner. One of his most memorable so-called miracles was the feeding of five thousand men (not counting women and children) with bread and fish.³¹⁴ The Father, who spoke through Jesus, taught: I AM the bread of life; he who comes to me shall never hunger; and he who believes in me shall never thirst." ³¹⁵ Jesus closed his earthly ministry by sharing with the twelve disciples a symbolic meal of bread and wine.³¹⁶ Throughout the Bible, bread proclaims the story of God's relationship to humanity. Job's brothers, sisters, and acquaintances share bread with him to indicate the merging of his physical plane life with that of Spirit-they are now One.

Job is comforted. When we achieve cosmic consciousness, the trials and sufferings of physical plane become as nothing. In the words of the Apostle Paul: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a mirror, darkly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known." ³¹⁷

When we realize the true significance behind the situations and lessons in our daily lives, about as much reaction as we can muster is, "Oh!" What appeared traumatic when we "thought like a child" evaporates when "we see face to face."

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"The path of the righteous is like the shining light
that shines more and more unto the perfect day." ³¹⁸

301 Job 42:1-3.

302 Job 42:4-5.

303 Dark Night of the Soul = St. John of the Cross' term.

304 Job 42:6.

305 Job 42:7-8.

306 Job 42:9-10.

307 Job 42:11.

308 St. John of the Cross  118.

309 The disciple Judas' motive was not one of betrayal, as evidenced by his extreme remorse over the outcome of leading the soldiers to Jesus.

310 Genesis 14:18-20.

311 Exodus 14:14-15.

312 Exodus 12:15.

313 Exodus 25:30.

314 Fish signified the Piscean Age, at the beginning of which Jesus incarnated.

315 John 6:35.

316 Mark 14:22.

317 I Corinthians 13:11-12.

318 Proverbs 4:18.

319 St. John of the Cross  176-179.