This excerpt is from the dictation, The Next Step, by Paul the Venetian published in the 1995 Pearl of Wisdom Vol. 25 No. 59.

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Now, the fullness of love cannot be love unless it is action. Contemplated love or the mere repetition of words may occupy one’s fancy, but love in action is the measure of a heart united with mind and soul.

Therefore, as I come, I bring to you perhaps an understanding of your own soul’s psychology in relationship to El Morya and beloved Lord Lanto. For you see, your hearts wax fervent in love for the will of God, in joy in the presence of El Morya, and in the study of the wisdom teachings. But there is a general confusion, if I might say, among the students (which is akin to the confusion on this planetary home) that the contemplated action, the happiness, the enjoyment of another’s attainment is the equivalent of the attainment of the third ray, love itself.

Some actually suppose that the words “I love you” carry the full force of its commitment and fulfillment. Not so. It is a mantra that must be fulfilled by a keen perception of the needs and demands of every part of life and what ought to be the next givingness of self. Therefore, you see, it is easy to mistake one’s contemplated love of the masters, the activity, the messenger, and so forth with an inaction that does not complete the cycle.

Here, then, we roll up our sleeves and realize that the love of the third ray and its chohan, its disciplines, its chelas–must now carry forward those plans, those teachings, those advices given, already recorded, that now deserve to be made physical. And the measure of everyone’s cup of love must be that which is brought forth and brought to the full flowering and the fruit of the Tree of Life.

Let us, then, carefully define what are those spirals yet to be completed–the contemplated life’s journey. Each one has a sense of self-knowledge of that which is to be accomplished. Do not think that thinking about it will make it so! Thinking about it and yet not achieving will result, in the hour of transition, in the necessity of going back to begin again, to start again, and once again to understand that the mighty work of the ages must be here on earth a shrine to the living, to the free, to the little ones, and to the Lord himself who dwells with his people.

Now, therefore, I would converse with you concerning the step not taken–the step contemplated and often resisted until resistance itself becomes habit and a momentum and a coil wound tight around the spine of being. And this pole of being, then, once set with that habit, becomes an act no longer reviewed or questioned. It simply becomes a self-acceptance, “Well, this is the way I am. People will have to accept me the way I am. This is my level of service. This is all I intend to give. Others will have to do the rest.”

Well, the fallacy in this is not self-knowledge and defining one’s potential, for it is good to understand one’s capacity and not to commit more than one can. But the fallacy is, beloved heart, the sense that one can rest on any plateau or arrive at a set of definitions for one’s life or personality, seal them with a sealing wax, make the imprint of the seal of oneself and say, “As it is, so it is. So be it. I have spoken.”

Now, this is the human ego that would hold captive and prisoner the soul to a certain level of the knowns, a certain level of stability. But unknowingly it would keep the soul there, and it would convince the soul that no other progress can or should be made and that its current level of attainment is sufficient unto all things.

How can this state of mind, I ask you, be reconciled with the upward-spiraling, self-transcending movement of the galaxies, of God himself, of the ascended masters and their circles of chelas, all of whom and all of which are moving through cosmos at colossal speeds toward the Central Sun?

Let us take care, then, that self-assessment does not result in the inertia of rest and that such inertia is not confused with the lawful state of samadhi or of nirvana. Contrary to any human opinion whatsoever, these higher states of consciousness are those of movement even within the point and the heart of the rest.

I trust, then, that you will understand when I say that I have come to spin your tops! I have come to increase the movement and to give you the inner sense of timing, a timing that reflects now your I AM Presence and the inner vow to become all that you are. Why, becoming all that you are–this is what you sing and dance and pray and live and work about! But this becoming is a movement, requiring diligence and an intimate knowledge of the ruby ray, which is always self-sacrificing.