Edgar Cayce has a strange and fascinating perspective on patience. To him, patience is not just a virtue but also another dimension.
Time, space, and patience are those channels through which man as a finite mind may become aware of the infinite.
Edgar Cayce reading 3161-1
But then, in the same reading, he goes on to say,
There is no time, no space, when patience becomes manifested in love. Love unbounded is patience. Love manifested is patience.
Edgar Cayce reading 262-24
When patience becomes an active principle in our lives, we rise above the boundaries of time and space. Our finite mind and our human side hold us in the dimensions of time and space but we have access to our infinite mind. Our Christ-like side can and will lift us beyond time and space.
Self in the physical grows weary, because you are only human, because you are finite; you have a beginning, you have an end of your patience, your love, your hope, your fear, your desire. But when these problems arise know you cannot walk the whole way alone, but He has promised in the Christ-Consciousness to give you strength, to give you life and that more abundant.
Edgar Cayce reading 3161-1
In patience run the race that is set before you, looking to Him, the author, the giver of light, truth, and immortality. That should be the central theme in every individual.
Edgar Cayce reading 262-24
Patience is not passive endurance and submissiveness. It is active, transforming, and filled with the power of God in action.
Taking or enduring hardships, or censure, or idiosyncrasies of others, is not necessarily patience at all.
Edgar Cayce reading 262-24
Patience is active rather than passive.
Edgar Cayce reading 262-26
In one of his wonderful twists, Cayce asks us to consider the patience of God’s relationship with man. How has God manifested His/Her patience with us? Has He taken away free will? Has He crushed evildoers? Banned non-believers? Cayce notes:
God is God of those who hate Him as well as of those who love Him. He is patient, He is kind, He is merciful.
Edgar Cayce reading 254-115
Again, Cayce expresses an active quality to patience:
Love unbounded is patience. Love manifested is patience.... Remove self far from criticisms or fault-findings in others, and there comes then patience in word, deed, and act.
Edgar Cayce reading 262-24
Actively trying to resist finding fault or criticizing others is patience. Actively trying to manifest love, when it hurts, is patience. Cayce says:
Not in submissiveness alone, but in righteous wrath serve you the living God. Be mad, but sin not!
Edgar Cayce reading 262-24
There’s an old Dutch proverb that seems to go straight to the point: “A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.”
Isaac Newton wrote: “If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.”
Leonardo da Vinci, a man who truly lived patience, taught: "Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”
Patience requires that we loose the hold our finite mind and human side have upon us and open to our infinite mind, the Christ-Consciousness, and our spiritual, god-like side. We should actively run the race set before us—loving, not condemning, those around us and walking the daily path with God. When we do this, we live in another dimension, one beyond the limitations of time and space. A path that is eternal and filled with peace that passes all understanding.
St. Francis de Sales (French bishop of Geneva; 1567-1622) taught: “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them–every day begin the task anew.”
Jesus Christ: “In your patience possess you your souls.” (Luke 21:19 KJV)
We need to begin using our godly faculties more frequently in order to become who we ultimately are: companions to, and co-creators with God. Active patience in our daily lives is a fruit that carries the seeds of the Spirit within us, and when applied daily these seeds grow into a tree of life.
This blog is Lesson 7 of our 2018 Enlightenment Series. Members can access all of the available material, which also includes an online video and downloadable monthly practice with homework, in the member-only section of our website at EdgarCayce.org/members. Not a member? Join now.
