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Job's soul is urging him to awaken spiritually. However, Job continues to react to the traumatic events in his life by adhering to his formalistic religious training. He persists in verbalizing reverence for God while, at the same time, blaming God. The one servant who announces, "I only escaped to inform you,"³⁵ represents the soul. Only Job's soul has escaped the influences of physical plane consciousness and calls to Job to awaken to a new stage in his life. His wife, signifying Job's feminine or receptive nature, remains with him. Thus, his only companion (his wife) is his intuitive mind and his capacity to know God via attuning to this part of himself.

Job is each of us. There are times in our lives when we are thoroughly confused, when our old belief system no longer offers satisfying answers to our questions. We do not know where to turn for guidance and understanding. We, too, are often unaware of the presence of our soul-the guiding force in our lives-and of the tremendous gift and power to be found in the conscious use of our intuitive minds. We, like Job, can feel deserted by all. In actuality, our soul and intuitive mind are ever-present and offer answers to our questions. Both simply wait to be consulted.

Job, now afflicted with a skin disease, sits on a pile of ashes, revealing that he has fallen from his earthly glory. Only the ashes of his former life remain. He has been stripped of all that once defined his earth plane life. With only a seashell to scratch his skin sores, Job approaches a teachable moment. We experience this same type of teachable moment when we are devastated by the death of a family member, a divorce, loss of a job, bankruptcy, a serious illness, and other major traumas. The structures of our former lives fall away; we are faced with the unknown, feeling alone and victimized. We, too, sit on our symbolic pile of ashes. And thus begins the process we call initiation-the pathway to higher consciousness. Why does the initiatory process usually commence in this manner? Because we, like Job, resist making intentional changes in our lives. We ignore opportunities to attune voluntarily to the soul lessons offered to us by Saturn. Instead, we wait until life throws us against a brick wall and we are compelled to change.

As is often the case in our lives, Job's friends come to visit him. When they see Job sitting on a pile of ashes, their reaction is intensely emotional. They sincerely share his sorrow. Then, the three friends sit with Job in sympathetic silence for seven days and seven nights. It is in silence that we ask our questions: "Why me, God?" "What did I do to deserve this?" "Why do you hate me so?" "How can you do this to me, God?"

Let's leave Job and his friends in silence and look at the metaphysical meaning of this passage. In an attempt to comfort him, Job's three friends have journeyed from their separate homelands to the land of Uz, where the people attempt to know God through the intellect and scientific reasoning.³⁶ The three friends represent the modes of limited thought with which we are all prone to search for answers to our traumas. That the resulting explanations prove to be insufficient is yet another signal that Job, and humankind, is ready to move forward on the spiritual evolutionary Path. We long to know the Truth about who we are. In order to realize this Truth, we must look billions of years into the past.

We entered into the physical condition through a process of involution. We descended from pure spirit, as androgynous beings. According to Edgar Cayce, during the billions of years involved, many souls projected into a variety of physical bodies. While dwelling on the physical plane, they could experience the sensual pleasures. The more they sought the sensual, the more difficult it became to exit the physical body at will. They became entrapped in bodies that were no longer androgynous. In their search for sensual pleasure, separation into male and female bodies had occurred. Many of the bodies were grotesque in their deformities. In order to rescue those entrapped souls, a new type of body was required. It is at this point that we find the biblical narrative of the creation of what we call "homo sapiens" or human beings.³⁷ This perfected physical body was to be the vehicle through which all souls would make the journey back to God. Adam and Eve signified the beginning of incarnation into home sapien bodies.³⁸ Separation into male and female was necessary in order to allow souls to evolve back to their original androgynous state of being. This evolution would require consciously developing both the masculine and feminine parts of ourselves: a process made easier by alternating incarnations within male and female bodies. The Old Testament relates a portion of humankind's return journey back to God. While dwelling on the plane of duality, humanity matures spiritually by making conscious choices for the Good. Job's homeland, Uz, reveals a truth about this evolutionary journey. Once the lower, intellectual mind is well developed, humankind is ready to lift its consciousness to the level of the Higher, or Intuitive, Mind.

With each new stage of evolution, humankind is tested by Saturn. In essence, Saturn asks, "Is your present level of evolution capable of answering the questions your life experiences stimulate?" If not, it is time to move forward on our journey. As we will see, Job has reached this stage. He can no longer explain life according to his formalistic religious training and be content with the answers. The three methods of limited thought, on which Job and we have heretofore relied, are signified by Job's three friends.

Eliphaz, the Temanite reveals our material consciousness,³⁹ which is our tendency to think in terms of: "I have, therefore I am blessed." "I have, therefore I am within God's will for my life." The opposite is also true of our material consciousness: "I lack, therefore God has forsaken me." "I lack, therefore I have sinned." I lack, therefore I must be outside of God's will for my life." Eliphaz signifies our inclinations to evaluate our relationship with God on the basis of the quantity of our material possessions.

Bildad, the Shuhite denotes our intellectual thought.⁴⁰ Attempting to explain life by means of our intellectual thinking leads to making judgments based on outer appearances and our ability to prove something scientifically. The intellect, apart from spiritual understanding, can lead to non-truth. We wear ourselves out reasoning, arguing, debating, and competing for the position of "being right." We cannot find Truth through an avenue (the intellect) that lacks the capacity to attune to the spiritual realms. We cannot experience God through the intellect. Instead, we end up depressed and feeling hopeless. We may dismiss God, faith, and religion as non-truth or, at the very least, grossly ineffective ideology.

Zophar of Naamah represents darkened, limited thought. The Hebrew meaning for "Zophar" is chirping, moving swiftly.⁴¹ Actually, this type of thought can be freer than our intellectual thinking. Zophar reminds us of a tendency to move from one modality of thought to another, never settling long enough to gain a degree of spiritual illumination. We can be aware of the unseen world and find it fascinating, but fail to move beyond the illusions and phenomena of the astral plane into true spiritual enlightenment. In our search for answers, we may move swiftly from psychic, to tarot card reader, to astrologer, to numerologist. In doing so, we fail to develop our own capacity to receive spiritual guidance. Many of these thoughts can be beautiful and unifying, but need to be lifted to the higher spiritual realms of Truth. Darkened, limited thought tends to settle for the shadows of astral illusions and the limitations that naturally result. However, it is not without its redeeming qualities: Zophar of Naamah holds the potential to lead us into true spiritual knowledge. First, Zophar's chirping like a bird implies freedom of thought. Zophar is not stuck in the mire of preconceived beliefs and ideas. He is open to exploring the new and different. Second, Zophar is conscious of the unseen forces and may even be aware of the desire to unite with the greater whole. This urge toward unity is the beginning of a realization of Truth.

Job's friends reveal our own tendencies to explain life through our physical, emotional, and mental perceptions only. This limited awareness will always leave us empty, deprived of the Truth of our true Source and essence, and lacking in our understanding of the deeper meanings in life. We cannot explain why good people suffer. We cannot comprehend why we are suffering. Even though we sit in silence for seven days and seven nights, we cannot find Truth with our limited awareness.

Now, let's see how Job is doing.

Job reacts very much as we do when we have only the formalistic religious teachings in which to find solace. He curses the day of his birth. He is mad at the world because the stars continue to twinkle. Job wishes he had never been born. He yearns for the better life, as he perceives it, of Sheol.⁴² He questions: Why do people have to suffer rather than die? Why can he not rid himself of his diseased body? Why can he not be where "the small and the great are.and the servant is free from his master. Why is light given to him who is in trouble, and life to the bitter in soul?"⁴³ Job wishes to be dead. How many times have we made this same wish? How many times have we felt so overwhelmed by physical plane life that we wanted to give up trying?

As he rants and raves, Job suddenly stumbles upon a kernel of Truth. His soul is attempting to penetrate the darkness with a ray of Light. Through his tirade, the words of Truth scurry from his mouth: "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of has befallen me." ⁴⁴ By his worry and fear, Job created the calamities that befell him. "Worrying is praying for we do not want."⁴⁵ The creative ethers do not know the difference between positive affirmations and worrying. "Like attracts like" is universal law. As Gregg Braden states on his cassette tapes, The Lost Mode of Prayer, the emotional energy behind our worrying or our praying has a very potent influence on the results. Jesus taught us, "Anything you pray for and ask, believe that you will receive it, and it will be done for you."⁴⁶ Job's fear and worry prayers were answered. He, like us, is better at believing in what we fear will happen than in our affirmations of the positive not yet visually manifest in our external lives. Job created his situation. Saturn, in cooperation with Job's soul and indwelling God, will seek to use his trauma to lead him forward.

Our indwelling God of love seeks to use every opportunity in our lives to allow "all things to work together for good." ⁴⁷ In the next lesson, we will see how Job's friends attempt, through intellectual discourse, to assist him in understanding his life's condition.

Meanwhile, it is essential that we understand the dynamics behind our prayers and our worries. Because the creative ethers are neutral, whatever we think and feel with intensity is manifested. When we pray for a new relationship and then worry that we will not find one, we manifest exactly what we do not want. For the average person, worry is a much more intense emotion than is our capacity to believe. Once we rise above our tendency to worry, we are empowered to rest in the assurance that our prayers are already answered. Saturn's lessons in self-discipline are important soul studies, if we want to move beyond manifesting what we do not want. Saturn urges us to learn self-discipline by controlling our thoughts and emotions and channeling them into positive avenues of expression. As we do so, we not only learn to manifest positively; we also prepare for our initiatory process. As initiates, we gain control of our lives and our environment through surrendering to divine Will. The only way we can develop this level of self-discipline is by confronting constructively the challenging experiences our karma attracts to us while living on the physical plane. Job's wish that he had never been born and that he could now die is indicative of our misunderstandings about the reasons we are presently living on this planet. Our initiatory process must take place here, where challenges are a part of our daily lives.⁴⁸ Resting in Sheol does not provide the required environment.

Before moving to the next lesson, let us meditate on Job's observation, "I am not at ease, neither am I calm, nor am I at rest; and yet misfortune came." ⁴⁹ What is the problem with Job's statement? Which universal law is Job misunderstanding? It is the same law all of us so frequently use to our own detriment-Like attracts like.

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35 Job 1:15b.

36 Fillmore.  Metaphysical  670.

37 Glenn Sanderfur, Lives of the Master:  The Rest of the Jesus Story  (Virginia Beach, Virginia:  A.R.E. Press, 1988) 40-44.

38 Sanderfur.  49.

39 Fillmore.  Metaphysical  192.

40 Fillmore.  Metaphysical  125.

41 Fillmore.  Metaphysical  704.

42 Sheol = the Old Testament concept of the resting place of the dead.

43 Job 3:19-20.

44 Job 3:25.

45 Gloria Karpinski, Where Two Worlds Touch  (New York:  Ballantine Books, 1990) 220.

46 Mark 11:24.

47 Romans 8:28.

48 Charles Fillmore, The Essential Charles Fillmore (Unity Village, Missouri:  Unity Books, 1999) 388.

49 Job 3:26.

50 Mark 11:22-24.