30 Various Chapters From Walter C. Lanyon Books
JESUS WAS TEMPTED
THE LAUGHTER OF GOD
LEAVE ALL – FOLLOW ME
LET GOD LET
LET HIM HEARLET THE CHILD BE BORN
LET THERE BE LIGHT
LET”S HAVE A LITTLE PRIVATE EARTHQUAKE
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT
LETTING GO
LIGHT
LIVING WATERS
THE LOST WORD
LOVE and EMOTION
LOVE LEADS THE WAY
THE MAGIC CIRCLE
MANIFESTATION
MAN’S EXTREMITY
MARY
THE MASK OF PERSONALITY
THE MECHANICS
METAPHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS
MY CUP RUNNETH OVER
MY NAME IS WONDERFUL
NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL
THE NEW SHAPE
THE NO-TREATMENT MAN
NO THOUGHT
NOTES
NOW IS THE DAY
O, THAT I MIGHT FIND HIM
JESUS WAS TEMPTED
IT IS RECORDED that Jesus was taken to a high mount and asked to perform miracles, – such insignificant things as turning stones into bread, which He could have done, – and then to a church spire and asked to cast Himself down. He was taken there by no lesser a personage than the devil.
Just what picture are you seeing as you read? A red devil fashioned after the Mephistopheles created by your memory of the Opera Faust, (who had a certain charm in spite of his satanic powers) talking to the white-robed Jesus?
What are you going to do with duality in face of the statement of Jesus that God is ALL, in ALL, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent? About the first thing we read in the Bible is the fearful excuse, “The serpent did tempt me”.
How was he created, – this devil? “From walking up and down and to and fro.” A very thin background as far as his forebears are concerned. What? No family tree to blame for his troublesome capacity to make mischief? No coat of arms or family escutcheon, – no psychopathic grandfather to blame? No, none of these, – and yet there he is, tempting Jesus.
It is recorded that Jesus was tempted as we are tempted. The magnificent sense of equality which is eternally established between Jesus and ourselves unhands any argument about our innate weakness and predisposition toward so-called sin.
“The fame of Him went abroad.” His miracles and His conduct and His teachings were the “stuff” fame feeds upon, – and no small wonder, then, that He was tempted, – taken to a high place and shown the kingdoms of the world.
Nothing can tempt you from without if something on the inside does not recognize it. A picture-wire keyed to the same pitch as a note on the piano, will answer every time that note is struck. It cannot in reverse make a sound that would cause the piano string to respond. The original note must come from the piano. Nothing tempts from the without unless something within strikes the note.
Jesus was offered the kingdoms of the world for merely bowing down to the satanic temptation to glorify Himself instead of God. All through the Bible there are records of men wrestling with the devil of temptation, usually at night. And so Jesus wrestled with the temptation to take the world and enjoy it to the fullest, just as He wrestled with the same old devil before the crucifixion, only this time in the ugly form of pain and suffering and futility. After all, why should He go through the test of self-resurrection for a people who had taken everything and given nothing, and who had failed so miserably to understand the magnificent, simple law He had given them?
So you say, “I cannot resist the temptation that comes to me”. This is because you give the power to something outside of yourself. You believe that the inanimate thing has power, or that the situation can control you. How can an inanimate thing with no power of itself influence you in any way? You endow it with the capacity to control you, yielding to the power in the situation (the power you yourself have given it), – and so you succumb.
In the Bible we constantly find the division of the ONE into two, – Jesus and the Christ, – always talking to each other under many names. We start with Cain who murders Abel, – the human thought who tries and apparently does crucify its Higher-Self. The lust for power and to-be-known-of-men is so great that it stops at nothing. And still it is within the ONE, – these two separated manifestations who need each other so utterly, – you and your Self, – body and Soul.
And so, many have been taken to the high mount and offered the Kingdoms if they would only murder the Christ within. The old personality will make a final attempt to prove Adam was right when he said he was a creator. He becomes a law unto himself for a short time, but eventually finds the kingdoms of the world destroyed and the bread which was made of stones inedible.
The Blessed One admitted being tempted. He could have hidden in His Robes of Attainment and kept this honesty from us, – but not that ONE who came with the freeing, Life-giving message. He stood His ground, and after weighing all the profits of “casting himself down”, said, “Get thee behind Me, satan! Get thee behind Me in memory and reality”, – and the devil was not.
And so it will be with your own personal temptation-devil that comes to you with the belief in disease, fear, lack …… He will disappear into the limbo of the “former things” which are passed away.
Success is difficult to take-and more especially in Spiritual things-for immediately the personality thinks to set itself up and become a high priest in a temple, to be worshiped of men. When you discover that the healings that come through you are only natural, normal manifestations of the LAW of God and take place automatically, you will be finished with all this temptation to believe in a personal, creative power.
From “walking up and down and to and fro” in the world of appearances, you create the devil of belief in the reality of appearances, endowing it with power to overcome you. Once you have given in to this belief, you are cast out into outer darkness, – and there remain until you SEE the LIGHT.
One man sees a person as his benefactor, – another as his worst enemy. Is he both? Or is it the projection of something from within that does the trick? You look upon a hateful world full of all manner of evil. Jesus said it is the Kingdom of Heaven! “I AM all things to all men.” ALL things, -do you hear?
Eventually you must stop fooling yourselves, and recognize that your outer world is but a projection of your consciousness, – beautiful or damned as you decree. “YE shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass!’) The evil you decree, either consciously or unconsciously, manifests with great ease because you have believed in evil all these years.
When the prodigal returns home he finds everything awaiting him. And so with you, – when you return HOME into this wonderful ONE-NESS of Life, you will find all good things awaiting you.
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Man (the Jesus or John Smith of you) is the outcome of his beliefs. This may be bitter to the taste, but it is sweet to the digestion, – and if you are not experiencing the Kingdom of Heaven, you have only to exchange your human beliefs for a BELIEF in REALITIES.
The Phoenix Bird, rising from the heap of ashes of his former limited self, new and beautiful, is but a picture of you, the YOU of you that cannot die no matter what crucifixion you have experienced, rising from the ashes of the human pyre upon which you have placed yourself, -purified from all the old beliefs and for the first time, seeing, – -yes, seeing, and this time SEEING! “Even though you slay me, yet will I say you are God!” That is it, – -the absolute recognition of ONE Power. You must accept and appropriate it for it is the ONLY Truth, and arise from the ashes of a belief in two powers, – leaving in those very ashes the devil who took you to a high mount and offered you so much of the world’s goods already at your command. Then you (yes, this John Smith) shall decree a thing and it SHALL come to pass.
Why does an otherwise gentle dog sometimes suddenly jump at the throat of a certain person? Is it within the dog or the person? The dog instinctively senses in the person an active quality which awakens a similar dormant quality within himself. Why does poverty, disease, unhappiness, jump at your throat when they do not attack other people in close proximity? Is it within the ‘dog’ or you? You “Cry havoc and loose the dogs of war” (the “war” of sin, sickness and death) because these are within your own consciousness, – otherwise there could be no objectification of them. This is difficult to admit, especially if we have been “working” to know the Truth, – but let us face it boldly.
There are no closed doors in the life of Jesus. If He chose to associate with wine-bibbers and harlots, He did not ask permission of any high priest nor offer excuses. Fearless of criticism, He freely went anywhere He chose to go. Yet He did not descend to the level of any of His associates, – He made them rise to the place where He stood. But what goes on behind the scenes today? There can be no dividing line between the audience and the teacher. And what about you? Do you lead two lives in two worlds? In your “diplomacy” have you become a hypocrite? Let us be honest with ourselves!
The greatest event in the world, – in fact, the only event of any worth, took place in a stable, – while all ‘my lords and ladies’ dined and wined in luxury. You may be in a “stable” right now, – but from that stable can come the GREATEST EVENT of your life, – if you will ‘let’ it happen. Presently the “lords and ladies” will go their way, drunken on the wines of intellectual and hyper-critical belief, – but from your stable a something is coming forth. You may, in the course of events, be taken to the high mount and there meet the devil of temptation, – but you are now strong enough to say to the tempter, “Get thee behind me” !
This old temptation-devil is not always offering you the kingdoms of this world, – sometimes he offers you the kingdoms of disease, poverty and sin. These are just as much a reality to the human mind as the kingdoms of wealth, fame and success.
And so you either “resist evil” and see it fleeing from you, – or you “resist not evil”. They are both the same. If you resist evil, it is because you have risen into the consciousness of the ONE, – and if you resist not, it is because you know there is nothing to resist.
“Oh ye of little faith”-“For why will ye doubt?” Why not step out of this morass of human belief and accept your heritage? You are a NEW CREATOR, – a ONE thing, – Christ-Jesus ! Not the twins, – but the Jesus and the Christ blended into ONE, – the Temple of the LIVING GOD !
THE LAUGHTER OF GOD
DEEP in my soul I heard the Laughter of God, ringing in silvery cadences through the timbers of my being, breaking the human bonds and limitations as a strong yet gentle wind in the forest sweeps aside the strands of cobweb. The hard, fast knots that I had tied slipped loose, and the snarls of beliefs broke free. The river of my human life, frozen by a thousand and one false ideas and teachings, broke joyously into expression and went bounding to the infinite sea of Life, to be lost and found at the same time. One dark cave of fear after another was illuminated by the light of this laughter, and swampy areas of sick thoughts were dried up instantly. Parched sands of hopelessness and futile efforts were drenched by the living waters, sucked in–absorbed instantly like a wave breaking on the sands. God laughing at me, and my puny efforts to make things happen; to make heaven appear; to attain the Sonship. Not the laugh of derision, but of infinite compassion, a laughter so deep and sweet, so pure and glorious that everything in the nature of struggle gave way before it.
And the breath of that glorious laughter blew all the dirty rags of personal teaching and self-aggrandizement away from me, and at first the fierce joy that proceeded from the unheard-heard peals of laughter made me afraid–afraid that everything worth while was being taken from me, and that I should be naked; but no sooner had the filthy rags of personality blown free than I was clothed in a panoply of light, and in this glorious raiment of light I saw for the first time the glory of the Spirit made flesh.
I stood before the infinite peals of laughter, which flowed through all creation like floods of golden mist, filled with speechless wonder at the beauty of the world I had lived in which had been invisible because of my separation, because of my personal ideas about attainment. I was as a child with a small measure at the seaside, trying to carry off a little water when the whole sea was at my disposal, and I understood for the first time the exhaustless sea of substance about me, and that the idea of hoarding was but a childish fear grown into a Goliatn by false teaching and beliefs. I suddenly became aware that the substance was everywhere, in everything, out of everything, and the only place of lack was in the hypnotic state of belief–and I alone created and moved in this vacuum.
And the glorious Iaughter rolled on, searching the very joints and marrow of me–dislodging every belief in fear, sickness, or age. And as it swept over me and through me and round about me, I was amazed with the wonder of it–the fierce, terrible thing which was at the same time so beautiful and free. The wonder of it kept singing through my soul as veil after veil of belief was rent asunder and new kingdoms stood revealed. And the whole thing was as if one just saw a little deeper, as one looks through the surface reflection on a river and sees the pebbles and shells below, that was all; only the Laughter made this possible, for it cleared away all the effort and straining which in its attempt to see God had been halted at the reflection on the surface, instead of gazing into the limpid, glorious depth of Infinity.
The Voice, as its honeyed tones flowed out like a burst of sunshine through storm-clouds, was so unlabored, so untrammelled, and so Divinely indifferent, it seemed to envelop me with an instant realization that all was well. No matter how many struggles had been made, no matter how many mistakes, how many shortcomings, how many failures, how long the belief, or how short the hate, it was all swept aside as nothing. The glorious Divine ease with which it was expressed made disease impossible. It was the overturning an overturning that had to take place before He, the Laughing One, could come into expression. The people of God are a people of joy, and it is not until they hear this God Laughter in their souls that they have attained to their heritage.
What of this race that speaks of the Kingdom and doing the Father’s work, and uses all the language of the Truth, and at the same time sows seeds of fear and hellish inventions? What is this race that is always seeking evil to destroy, like a weasel seeks out a rat? What is the hopelessness they preach–that on one hand, you are the Sons of God, and on the other, that you must fight against evil of every sort and nature? ‘Ah, yes, but, if, and maybe–they roll these stumbling-blocks under their tongues with a wise twinkle in their eyes, as much as to say, Yes, it is all true, but it comes only with hard labor and long study, and it is not for such as you, sinner and worm of the dust that you are, until you have purified yourself in the fount of my wisdom and paid me personal homage.’
And it is then that the Magdalene hears the Laughter of God and is clean and free; and in an instant too; and it is when the cripple hears the Laughter of God that he leaps to his feet and runs away praising the Living God. And it is when you, no matter where you are, or what you are, no matter what you have done or left undone, hear the Laughter of the God within and the God without, that you will crash through the gates of hell and find heaven, no matter what these gates may be–person, place, or thing.
One moment’s recognition that you are the Son of the Living God, and you have attuned your ear for the Laughter of God which will put to flight all the stupid ideas of mine and thine, and free you into an expression that you have not yet dreamed of. How can you restrain the joy that fills you when you hear this laughter which, when it is heard, causes the winter of your discontent to break into full fruition, which causes you to see literally that ‘before they call I will answer,’ is not a bit of euphonious language, but a positive living, glowing fact.
‘I was afraid,’ and therefore you were driven out of the Garden of Life. You have been afraid that God will punish you–that it is too good to be true–that you are not ready–that it comes by great learning; and so you are still without the portals of your own kingdom, trying every way but the only way to re-enter. Many there be who try the way of violence, and many who expect to ride in on the skirts of another. There are some so foolish as to invite this.
Why do you not stop trying to get things, trying to learn how to get power, place? Why do you not come away from the man whose breath is in his nostrils?–You who read this page, and go within and hear the Laughter of God, and know that ‘it does not matter’ –that the things which gave you great concern are all swept away into the dump heap? The sooner you learn this the sooner you will see they have no value. And one time, when you take away their value, they are possible of attainment to you. You profess to be a follower of the Master. If you in any way believe this, you will begin to listen for the Laughter of God through your whole being, and will know that the Laughter of God sets you free from the snarling discontent of the Tower of Babel in which you have been living.
Presently, as you listen for this Laughter, you will hear it, and gradually you will begin laughing–billows of laughter, silently-audible laughter that will shatter one limitation after another; laughter filled with the Divine Indifference which knows that the Universe is filled with God and only God, and to recognize this will cause this laughter to flow into expression and shatter the belief in sin, sickness, and death. And when this belief is shattered in you, the pictures of this on your universe are dissipated and are no more, and even the place thereof is no more. You will know why there can be naught but laughter in the Kingdom of Heaven. What good of words or arguments? What in human sense is a lecture worth on the subject of Laughter, as compared to one glorious sudden peal of joy released by a God soul and picked up by all those in hearing distance?
And gradually, as you learn of the Laughter of God and join in with the Glory of the Sons of the Living God, then you will laugh at yourself. You will perhaps go back and laugh aIl the mistakes and faults and limitations out of existence. You will stand with your glorious feet on the mountain-tops of Self-Revelation, laughing at your universe and with your universe, and laughing in words: ‘It is wonderful, it is wonderfuI, it is wonderful.’
‘Let the filthy be filthy still.” Some may read into the Laughter of God a belief in carelessness and indifference, and some consecrated souls may rail and rear their hair and say that it is encouraging license and making nothing of sin, in order that one may indulge in sin, and so on; and for them
He that hath ears shall hear what the Scripture saith unto the Churches, and only he that hath a single eye is through with trying to twist meanings to suit personal ends. But he that hath the consciousness of the Son of the Living God shall not find it strange that ‘he that is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity’ should laugh at the belief in it that has bound men for so long; and this Divine disregard does not in any way encourage license, but gives liberty to the Sons of God. It breaks up the dank morasses of human belief and reveals itself as heaven, a state of consciousness, which finds not happiness at the disposal of sin, health at the disposal of sickness, and harmony at the disposal of in harmony; but finds these pairs of opposites swept away. It finds man the individual Son of the Living God, experiencing power and wisdom such as could not be put in human language.
The impress of the Divine upon the human causes the human to express in what to the unenlightened thought may seem to be a supernatural way. The how and why and when are all vested in the limited human concept of life.
When are you going to start laughing the Laughter of God? When are you going to join in the glorious chorus which is already encircling the globe, and which has for its password ‘It is wonderful?’ You cannot stop this laughter once it is started; you will shatter the belief in disease in thousands as you go along your way–not by a poor, half-hearted way of beseeching God, but with the ringing Laughter of God in your Soul which knows no sickness, sin, or disease, and hence cannot look upon it. And in this very knowledge it will Impress the consciousness with the Eternal well-being of the Son of the Living God. The man, if he hear the Laughter–that is, if he be willing to hear it, instead of accepting the pinched human concepts of his human reasonings–shall break the bounds of his limitations; crash through the gates of brass; shake off the shackles of beliefs; burst through the prison bars of his own making, and find himself free, free, free, and find his soul ringing with laughter and with the song “It is wonderful’
Whoever you are who reads this page–you who sit in prison houses of disease, sin, and unhappiness–listen, listen, listen. I AM the door of attainment.
He will ‘fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoicing.’ –I AM the door to this glorious Laughter of God–I AM the way to the eternal bliss and harmony of the Sons of the Living God. No matter where this finds you; nothing is hopeless or helpless; this joyous Laughter of the recognition of God, here and now, of the Finished Kingdom–of the sudden discovery that Jesus was not a liar, but a truth-sayer, a concrete truth-sayer, when He said, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand–it is within you’–will cause this Kingdom to descend out of the clouds of your belief and be real.
How can you help laughing silently and audibly the Laughter of God, and see its ringing notes shatter the silly arguments about life? ‘The wisdom of man is foolish in the eyes of God.’ Why try to measure the inspiration of the Almighty against any man-made teaching! ‘I will make you fishers of men.’ I, the I AM, when once discovered will make the one who discovers it a Fisher of Men. Who can resist the Laughter of God–the fearless Laughter of God ringing through the universe, sweeping all the debris of human belief out of the way?– no matter if it be thousands of years old, and hoary with the respect of mankind. Not one stone shall remain in place. The very foundations of the human belief shall be shaken in order that the True Cornerstone, which has been rejected up to now, shall be laid. Yes, the Stone–the very Stone that the Master gave to us–the philosopher’s Stone if you will, which we have rejected, because to accept it would have been to have overthrown great temples of human reasoning–will finally be made the Head Stone of the Temple of Truth. You are the Temple of the Living God, and from out the inner recesses of your being proceeds the Laughter of God. ‘The Sons of God shout for joy.’ You will shout for joy, not because of victory over evil, but because you have at last realized that the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place of overcoming evil, but of revelation which is above the belief of a divided universe. Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee Light.
And I heard the Laughter of God in the Soul of my very being– ringing in glorious cadence throughout my universe, causing me suddenly to burst into a glorious laughter which was full of praise, full of wonder–full of wonder and amazement at that which I had missed through Iooking through a glass darkly. ‘Arise, shine, for thy Iight has come’–do you hear? ‘It is wonderful! It is wonderful! It is wonderful!’ Heaven and earth are full of Thee–sin, sickness, and death have vanished away. I hear the Laughter of God ringing in the deep recesses of your soul, you who read this page. I see the moving finger writing across aIl the worries and fears of a Iifetime ‘It does not matter,’ and I see this laughter writing the things of beauty over the walls of your temple and casting a glorious glistening white robe–a seamless robe of attainment–over you. And at last I hear you laughing from the mountain-peak as you go on your way, without thought of scrip or purse or robe or ring or upper chamber, and long before you have reached your destination the Laughter of God in your soul has gone ahead and made ready the upper chamber, and the Host has come out to receive you. Under the aegis of Jesus Christ you can ‘go’ with the Laughter of God in your heart.
LEAVE ALL – FOLLOW ME
Forsaking all, taking up thy cross, and following ME, until it is understood, does not seem to be a very inviting program to follow. Consecration, praying without ceasing, perpetual thanks, and worshiping an invisible God, do not seem the easiest things to accomplish. Giving up of family, friends, and loved ones; letting go of riches and possessions, bring no sense of joy; and yet all these things Jesus said we must do if we would enter into our inheritance. Is it worth it?
“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
“When the inspiration of the Almighty has come unto you, it shall lead you unto all things.” It shall lead you out of the darkness of human misunderstanding, into the light of revelation, and this Searchlight of Truth will discover for you the glorious things of spirit, which have been buried in an avalanche of debris of human beliefs and appearances. We are not told that riches are evil, but the LOVE of money is the root of evil; yet the human mind has for years preached and indicated that Money and Riches were evil. The Love (worship) of anything except God is bad, no matter what that thing may be. LOVE that is bondage takes from the Recognition of the One and only Power of the Universe called God.
We are not called upon to give up money or riches, but we are told that in believing that they have power independent of God we are allying ourselves with the “root of all evil.”
Money stands as a symbol of Human Power. The Golden Calf is worshiped because it is supposed to have a power to accomplish things impossible. “Money talks,” we are told, and the voice of the Golden Calf is filled with fear and trouble. Money, in itself, is just as powerless as any other token that might have been made, and yet it can be invested with such power that any crime can, and will, be committed to posses it. The strange part of it is, that the moment we “posses” it, it turns and possesses us, we become slaves to it, and an open target for all sorts of evil plans and schemes.
And yet we are told that “The Blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it”; and in a thousand other places we are told of the Riches of Gold, that are for our use and our joys.
“I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich.”
A pack of contradictions seem to meet the eye all the way through the Scriptures, and yet there is not a single contradiction, when the Light of Inspiration is turned on the subject. It is all filled with wonder and glory, and we find the human laws being reversed one after another.
The thrift of the human economy counsels saving and hoarding, and providing for a rainy day, which must eventually come; but the Spirit of the Almighty says, “There is he that scattereth yet tendeth to increase, and he that withholdeth that tendeth to poverty.” Yet to attempt to put this teaching into practice, from a relative standpoint, hoping by scattering to increase, is the nth degree of folly, and will result in chaos. I have seen a whole roomful of people holding a piece of money in their hands, and “giving” it to the Lord, with the distinct understanding that it was to come back to them with a hundred-fold increase. They might just as well, or perhaps better, have placed that amount on a horse, or in some stock.
Doing tricks on the outside, and imagining that God is deceived by this lip service and “magnanimous” giving, is the sport of fools. Unless the gift has the soul of the giver with it, it might just as well be thrown in the gutter. “Awake. thou that sleepest.” Truth is not a Stock Exchange, where you put your money on a winning number. Truth is Life, and it is all in the SOUL back of it that determines what the results will be. By the process of Revelation things are brought to sight which have always been, and these hidden things are not brought out by any “trick” method. “As a man soweth, so shall he reap,” does not confine itself only to the so-called “cardinal” sins, but to the very words of the everyday life. The tricky old human reasoning has a word “SIN,” under which man classifies some things which are outside the pale of the conventions of society, and, if he withholds himself from these, man imagines he is sinless – but the things which are not under this heading are usually the things that are causing him the most trouble.
Picking out the beam from a brother’s eye is not the least of these. The “kindness,” in this case, is usually accompanied by an ability to recognize sin, and to fasten it on to another. “It takes a thief to catch a thief.” Criticizing, judging, and condemning; all these are not listed under the category of “Sin,” and yet they are the tares which are coming up through the harvest and destroying everything. “Watch.” God has spared you the unpleasant duty of judgment and revenge. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” The judge, and the jury, and the executioner, are still within you, and the “measure that you mete shall be measured to you again.” It is wonderful how we are beginning to SEE what the Scripture says unto the Churches (temples, bodies).
The Way of Truth is the Way of Peace and Joy. The giving up and forsaking of things, resolves itself in a joyous freedom. When a man gives up the idea of a personal Jesus, who lived 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, he acquires the glorious, radiant presence of the Power of Jesus Christ, functioning today and NOW in his life and world. He realizes the Aliveness of Life, and the glorious thrill of the Power “Searching the joints and marrow.” He has lost nothing, and has gained everything; he has gained the real Jesus Christ, the resurrected Power made flesh. It is Wonderful!
“He that loseth his life shall find it.” When man loses the little personal life and its limitations, he begins to take on the infinite nature power and infinite life, and the tendency to stagnation and age are diminished. A new door is slowly opened to him to which he sees great possibilities of “losing” his life and “finding” his life. What man is going to find, when he loses his personal life, will so amaze him that he will see that he has given up nothing but bondage and limitation.
When a man gives up his mother, father, wife, and all, for Christ, he merely relinquishes the human bondage and inheritance, which is full of corruption and limitations, for the “Inheritance Incorruptible” that fadeth not away – eternal in the heavens, thrilling in its glorious newness.
Three children of a very High Church dignitary, who had given his entire life to the Church, were all born with some infirmity: one blind, one deaf, and the other cripple. Heredity was blamed for these happenings. Nothing can save a man who disobeys the Law, and calls a man his father: “Call no man your father, for one Who is in heaven is your Father, even God.” And the moment you begin to claim this heavenly inheritance, you will let go of the inheritance of corruption, and give up your mother, father, sister, and brother, and move into your new family: “Those who do the will of God.” This giving up is not some sudden and drastic physical action, a getting rid of somebody. It is a beautiful recognition of, “Whereas before I was blind, NOW I can see,” that this sight reveals the inheritance of God. You release the mental bondage and limitations of human relationship. It is all done within; “This is Life eternal, to know ME”; and “Be still and know that I AM God” – all carry their wonderful revelation with them. You are beginning to see what this Law of God is calling on you to do when it asks you for consecrating and forsaking. Your taking up your cross is your assuming of the God-power which enables you to “cross” out anything that you formerly accepted as true, which comes from the human senses. It is glorious. Rejoice and be glad. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” “Believest thou this?” It is so.
The consecration, and the “praying without ceasing,” take care of themselves. They become automatic, a constant recognition of God in everything and everybody. “Heaven and earth are full of Thee.”
When a man becomes SELF-conscious he loses his self-CONSCIOUSNESS. When the poor little human consciousness lets go of itself, it becomes conscious of the God SELF. Why is it that one will tell you, “When I am alone I play well, I sing well, I speak well”? It is because he forgets himself, and lets go, as it were, and the power, in a more or less degree of perfection, comes into expression. Why, if he can do this alone, can he not do it in public? Because he instantly becomes aware of himself; he drops down to the level of his little self, and finds all sorts of limitations, which he immediately communicates to his audience. If he forgets himself, he will have the Infinite Power expressing through him to the degree that he is able to accept this action of the Spirit. It is Wonderful! “Judge not from appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” Do you begin to see what all this giving up is about, and how it is a wonderful opportunity to acquire the real things of life, instead of the shadows?
When a man can give up his love for a thing and let it go, then he can have the thing. When a man can know that no desire for a thing controls him, then that thing can come into appearance. Blessings pour into you from every possible source when you take off the bondage of things, and go back to the spirit which is behind them. When you praise the Demonstrator instead of the demonstration, and the Blesser instead of the blessing, then you can see an infinite flow of manifestation coming into being. But when you stop yourself down to the demonstration, you immediately experience the limitations of that manifestation, just as you do, when you stop yourself down to the self. When you lose self-CONSCIOUSNESS, then you gain SELF-consciousness. Do you begin to see what “letting go” and “giving up” mean? They mean freedom and joy, and a glorious revelation of the Kingdom of Heaven within you here and NOW.
Whatsoever I believe that the Father within me can do, that can He do, according to the teachings of the MASTER. That is why we see some bring out more than others. What can you ask the Father within to do for you. You know just the limit which you can go to. You remember the limit you could go to the human father. You remember you felt that it was your right to ask for certain things. The child next door might have asked for twenty times as much from his father. Why? What do you believe that your father can do for you? That is ALL that He can do, even though all riches, glory, and honor belong to him. Do you begin to sense the word “Father,” and the command, “Call no man your father,” and all that goes with it? “Be still and know that I AM God.” Just what you conceive God to be as your Father, that can you ask to be brought into manifestation. Do you begin to see that God is no respecter of persons? “Claim your right and press your claim.” Who are you, anyway – and what about it?
Just what you can ask God for, that He can do for you, seems such a strange statement, and yet the only place you can know God is within your consciousness. and what you know HIM to be there is all He can possibly be to you. No matter what He may be to another, to you He is only what you know Him to be within your own consciousness. If you know Him as a God of wrath, and one who constantly sends affliction, then He apparently is just that thing. If He is a God of blessings, then you are filled with blessings, and so on. “Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light” ; the Light that is to light you unto salvation from all the limited human beliefs that have hoovered about you so long. It is Wonderful!
“Come apart from among them, and be ye separate.” The contemplation of God is glorious. It will fill you with light, and strength, and power. “Behold, I place before you a blessing and a cursing; choose.” No one else can make the decision for you. It is up to you. You must do the choosing and be blessed or cursed, according to your choice. God does not force it upon you. “Awake, awake, wake and rise from the dead [beliefs], and Christ shall give thee light.” “Arise and shine, for thy light IS come, and the Glory of God IS Risen upon you.” Even as I AM writing this unto you, I feel the floods of this Love pouring out to you as you read, whoever you are, wherever you are. Suddenly the flood-tides of Love are pouring over you like a waterfall, covering the whole world. You are inundated with this Power and Love, and the Presence is lifting you right out of the human beliefs that have bound you so long. Blessings, blessings, blessings, millions of blessings. You are thrilled and filled with this sudden outpouring of Love, and Life, and Power. It is Wonderful! And So It Is.
Perhaps the word “miracle” stands between you and the manifestation of perfect health and happiness. You have looked at the appearances so long, and become so hypnotized by them, that you have come to this conclusion that only a miracle could change this thing. Get rid of this idea. Miracles belong to the uninitiate. God is not filled with miracles. He is not moved by a certain prayer to suddenly set aside His Laws, and perform a miracle. The Law of God is a constant light of revelation, which shows to man “what is the height and depth and breadth of His wondrous Love.” Your condition is only as powerful as you believe it to be. “Just what you ask God for, that can He do for you.” Can you ask HIM (believing that ye have already received) for perfect health? Be still. Presently, and at an unexpected moment, your “Belief” in HIM shall be rewarded. The manifestation shall come forth, and you shall stand revealed to yourself. “Ask and ye shall receive.” There is something so definite about this, and so everlastingly true. “Just what you can ask God for, that can He do for you.” And so, you see, you shall receive what you ask for in Spirit.
“The Spirit of the Presence of the Consciousness of God is the source of all supply, and will satisfy every good desire.” It is Wonderful!
LET GOD LET
“The Magic came to me at last – I discovered I was to Let God Let” –
Somewhere hidden away in this line came the remembrance of LETTING. The God-Spake thing – “Let there be Light and there was Light” – and when the whole manifest creation proceeded in orderly fashion – all of it appearing by the magic of the WORD “let” – and this further alignment of Letting yourself Let God – takes on a new and interesting meaning. You cannot make God do anything. In some places Jesus did not many mighty works – not because the Power was absent, but because the people could not “let” it take place – in other words they could not let themselves go to the point of Letting God manifest through the human belief.
“Let there be Light – and there was Light.” There was neither sun, moon nor stars – (all symbols of THE LIGHT) – created as yet. And then too, there were the plants in the field and no rain yet and no one to till the soil. When we are speaking of this God Power it is not something measured by human thought – it reverses all science regardless, for it is above the laws of cohesion, adhesion, gravity and limitation. Read for yourself and see.
The moment an invisible thing is slowed down to a point of visibility, which we call matter, it begins to disappear. The moment you drive a car from the dealers half a block, it is a used car – disintegration sets in immediately and the manifestation is only held in place by your consciousness of it. The moment you drop it from consciousness it begins to fall apart or disappear, that is why the command “Loose him and let him Go” is so important to you. What you hold in consciousness stays put until you loose it and let it go and then it has to go.
When you withdraw consciousness from anything the process of disintegration is very rapid. A house which is closed up though protected by every possible device starts to fall to pieces. The furniture will go down in tone – why? Because there is no conscious life there. You see how your world of manifestation depends upon your consciousness. No wonder then Jesus counseled “Be still and know that I am God.”
This all brings you to the place of “releasement.” You begin to release your good instead of trying to make it appear. What a heavenly word to return to Jehovah. Since heaven and earth are full of Thee (the substance) there is plenty to release.
Release the Love of God through your temple/being and see it flood the world of yours with Light.
“For forty years their garments and shoes waxed not old.” Shows what consciousness does compared to the human law of life. Come then – let us reason together.
Assumption
The word Assumption is better understood through the feeling than by hearing. It is a gradual merging of one substance into another, a sort of osmosis, just as alcohol absorbs and is absorbed by the oil of a flower and produces a third substance, perfume. It is nothing that can be forced – when the point of saturation is reached it is complete. The assumption of your God-given heritage which became almost completely separated from you, is not by sudden flight but by a gradual infiltration of the consciousness you are recognizing as Immortal.
Jesus invited this assumption, and said, “the works I do ye shall do also and even greater.” As you begin to see this recognition which eventually results in Assumption of that Virginal Mind, you will also begin to recognize that in a more or less degree this assumption has been going on for some time.
If you assume a thing as true – such as perfect health or wealth or what you will, you do not try by hook or crook to make a demonstration, but begin such a “letting” process into manifestation that before you know it you detect as in the analysis of perfume the aroma of the flower rising in clouds from the mixture of oil and alcohol. So is matter merging with Spirit into that third substance “Flesh” – “yet in my flesh shall I see God” – and you begin to prepare to see God in a thousand and one ways and degrees that never could have happened before. You begin to see God in the flesh – in the new assumed state of consciousness. It is wonderful!
At that point you assume the various phases of God – you heal, not because you try to heal, but because you cannot do anything else. The moment another person sees this “Light” and calls upon you, the Light lengthens and intensifies its power to a degree that is above the degree of the human congested thought which is producing the difficulty in the other. It is nothing you do – once you have made this assumption, it is something you cannot help doing. “Who touched me for I perceive that virtue (healing) has gone out of me.” And so it goes.
The assumption of your Christ powers – the mind which was ALSO in Christ Jesus – does not bring importance, self aggrandizement, etc. It brings a sense of integrity of purpose but with all a standing or a resting in the consciousness, leaving the results entirely to the osmosis or the permeation of the Light.
“Come to me,” requires not only a decision, but a complete assumption above human thinking and laws – before a heavier than water body can venture out onto its surface.
The assumption of LIGHT dissipates the density of matter laws and beliefs. The Assumption of the Virgin – the pure unadulterated acceptance of your Christ Consciousness will bring much into manifestation which has been hidden, lo these many years.
Genius
Genius is your capacity to know God. In God man finds the sum total of all talent – waiting to be expressed. If he can fix his recognition on this he will sidestep the limitations of human thinking.
We see the so-called child prodigy solving problems with ease which stump a great mathematician. Why? Does he think – apparently not – in a flash he has the answer – because the answer already exists. “Before you ask I will answer” the key word is “Do you believe?” not “do you try or want or wish to believe?” – do you believe in God? The more you stay your power on the Principle of LIFE the greater the interest accruing. Looking straight into the face of God causes you to die to some of the limitations of human thought. Hence we see a child of three playing a difficult concerto. His physical equipment is many times inadequate to the Power he has released through his temple. “Come and let us reason together.”
“Ye men of Athens know ye not that ye are gods” – know ye not that the very attributes and powers you are embodying in a marble statue are actually in you – awaiting recognition – awaiting the purity of consciousness which can “believe.” Mary magnified the Power within her – and the child was set on earth. You contemplate the law of mathematics or music and you increase perceptibly in the expression and the more you contemplate it the more the expression comes forth – the more natural it becomes.
There are ten talents if you can take them.
LET HIM HEAR
Passing a light through a prism causes it to become manifest in many colors, which in turn break up into hundreds of shades and nuances. The same thing is true when the LIGHT of Spirit, which is invisible to the naked eye, is passed through the Temple of your body. It breaks up into all sorts of manifestations and is slowed down to a point of visibility in the thing named “matter” by man. Your body has no more intelligence than your refrigerator. When the electric current is passed through it, it produces ice cubes.
We have become so conscious of the body as a power it has taken over. The tail is wagging the dog. Presently, he begins to understand that none of the senses can be extended on the outside any more than the refrigerator can make ice cubes unless the power is flowing through it. We do not see with the human eye, literally, for the eye of a so-called dead man cognizes nothing, is not afraid, nor does it draw back from outward conditions. When we recognize that God, Spirit, is seeing through our eyes, we will begin to look beyond the surface and will also become aware of the capacity to look forward and backward at the same time, and see the whole manifestation in the present, as Jesus did, and as He stated.
“He that hath ears, let him hear” – a silly statement of itself. Nearly every creature has ears, but few can hear because they think they hear with their ears instead of with their consciousness. No wonder it is stepped down to such a slow pace.
Beyond the narrow confines of so-called ear-hearing are infinite reaches of sound – inaudible to matter, but not to Spirit.
Suddenly, when you know that it is God walking on the waves of your troubled human thought, you will begin to decode the message that is given to you in the hurricane – at any time and under any circumstances. There is no time nor place where God cannot speak to you with the “still small voice,” and give you the express instructions for a free passage through the crowd of human beliefs.
“This is the way, walk ye in it” – and “turn to the right – turn to the left” – likewise, “Go into all the world.” As long as you are running about trying to make demonstrations, you will never hear – the sense of hearing will have its limit of expression at the surface of things.
“My sheep HEAR my voice.” The instinct of the spiritual you will hear. Even as a dog will hear his master’s voice and not be fooled by a good imitation. So will you HEAR, because it is God hearing through you. You become clair-audient. The same thing is true of the vision, when you begin to see with the Power of God, then you become clairvoyant. All this is not for the purpose of telling fortunes and making yourself mysterious – but for the GLORY OF GOD.
And so the asking becomes father to the fact that the creation of that for which you have asked has already taken place.
“And now, O Father glorify thou me With Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”
Before the beginning of the “John Smith” world. Note the word NOW – and how it is at the point of “always” on the Cosmic Clock. “NOW is the time” – “NOW are we …”-“NOW be glorified” – and so on. Everything becomes NOW when the discovery of the new “timeless-time system” is put into action by the awareness of the PRESENCE – this ONENESS.
“Who did hinder you That ye should not obey the truth?”
Go ahead and answer it – you will blame everything and everybody for your failure to LIVE fully – until one day you discover where the hindrance is. Then will you reply, “I hindered myself.” Then you have it located in such a place that it can be eliminated. The dam, or obstruction is moved away – and the River of Life flows freely and joyously to the sea. It is wonderful !
Come, for all things are now ready.
If you can accept GOD – you will experience GOD. This is not “an affirmation.” This is nothing to THINK about. This is not a catch phrase of modern psychology. This is revelation. If you can accept GOD, you at that instant EXPERIENCE HIM. What is it to experience GOD? It is to find a thousand and one impossible equations solved, dissipated, absorbed. It is to see the congealed energy of thought which you call matter, resolving itself into new and correct patterns.
If you become emotional and excited every time you see the power of God active in your life, you will not see it often, for to you it is not natural. There is no emotion in God, only in the mind of man, and it has nothing to do with spiritual manifestation.
When you stop making God so unnatural, you will discover the Power emerging through the congealed energy of thought and in a subtle way changing appearances.
LET THE CHILD BE BORN
“God does not bring to birth and then not bring forth.” So says Isaiah, and he gives us one of the most wonderful statements of Truth. So many of us have, so to speak, “brought to birth” an idea which seemingly was never born. So many times we have done everything in our power to make the manifestation, and nothing appeared. So many times the sign of rain which was in the skies, over the parched desert of human trying, only turned out to be clouds without rain. Yet Isaiah states:
“God does not bring to birth and then not bring forth.”
He is stating a definite and sure thing. The Child must be born – that is, brought to birth by the God consciousness. There is no escaping it. “My word shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish whereunto it is sent,” is another way of stating the inescapability of the law of Truth.
Job tried, in every conceivable way, to appease the “wrath” of God. He begged, besought, and offered everything, in exchange for freedom from the terrific problems that were upon him; and yet, instead of seeing the manifestation that he sought, he seemed only to add to his condition. Up to a certain point it seemed as if every move only added to the burden that was already to heavy for him. Then suddenly the Law came into action, and the Child, so to speak, was born.
The strange thing about man is, that he never from the simple things of life the law of God. He is told to consider the lilies, but his first thought is, “Yes, but how is it going to help me to meet my obligations, or make me well – just looking at lilies?” He sees the law. which makes the statement of Isaiah a beautiful demonstrable fact, demonstrated about him almost constantly, and yet he turns to the ways of intellect, and seeks among the husks of learning for the solution.
The effort of “trying to make something happen” or “trying to make God do your bidding” is proven futile time after time. And yet, having discovered the futility of these methods, man persists in clinging to them until he drops by the way, and “man’s extremity becomes God’s opportunity”; or, in other words, until he stops working with himself, and gives up, and “lets” the power operate through him. He would not learn through considering the lilies, or the ravens, even though the advice came from the
Master. He rejected this simple solution to follow after what some other person had discovered, or thought he had discovered, that was a “new method.”
Who can, by force, pull the flower out of a seed, the bird out of an egg? Who can force into manifestation this God Power which is within?
The secrecy and silence of the seed in the ground, the egg in the nest, speak volumes of instructions. When you find the way that Job approached the whole matter, and noticed what happened, you will see that he stepped aside, and “let” the Power into expression. When he prayed for his friends, and took his attention away from himself, he loosed the cords that bound him fast. Without trying to, he broke the prison bars asunder. When your attention is taken away from yourself, and is present with the Lord, something will happen to you. The sickly business of always working with yourself keeps from you the very thing you seek. The Child cannot be born, because the curious, anxious intellect destroys the manifestation by trying to force the birth, or by trying to see how it is done. If you are all tied up in the chaos of a thousand and one problems, just turn your attention away from yourself for the space of a few seconds, and in the “moment that ye think not,” or when you are not thinking of yourself, and how you can escape, lo, you will find that you have already escaped, and are experiencing a new freedom; and, strange as it may seem, you will also perceive that you have lost nothing, and that “twice as much” as you had before is added to you. This is what Job found out when he could step aside.
“God does not bring to birth and then not bring forth.”
If I believe this, something is sure to take place. If I believe it as I believe that a poppy-seed will in its own wonderful and magic way produce a poppy, if I believe it with the same abandon that I drop the poppy seed into the dark earth and go away and forget it, then will the manifestation as surely take place in me as it does in the seed. It is Wonderful! Do you believe in God? Then you believe in the Law of God, and, no matter if ten thousand others believe in a law opposed to this power, evil will not come nigh thee.
The invitation, “Cast your burdens on Me and I will sustain you,” becomes something more than poetry. It becomes a reality. Dare you do it? You, I mean – I AM speaking to you. When will you stop working with yourself, and place yourself in the way of manifestation, by “letting the God power operate through you? You will not keep “peeping,” and looking for a sign and wonder. You will “set yourself and see,” in calm assurance that “He watching over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps,” no matter what the human intellect says or does. It is Wonderful!
“God does not bring to birth and then not bring forth.”
Your dreams of the New idea that is to be born in you will be born when you stop wondering how, why, when, and where. Nothing that you feel the urge to do can be kept from expression, when it is handled in this manner. “Arise, shine” – this command seems to ring through everything. It does not say, “Try to arise”; it says something that gives you the very power to “arise” when you hear it, and also the power to “shine,” without trying to. It is Wonderful! With every one of the laws of God is the power of fulfillment, when it is “let” into expression.
Over and over again we hear statements of Truth, and then one day we hear them for the first time, and they become part and parcel of our very BEING. Just like the simple statement; “ARISE, SHINE”; it is nothing – it is impossible – it is ridiculous from the human standpoint; “But with God all things are possible,” and so the letter that “killeth” becomes the “word” of Life, because you have suddenly conceived the Spirit back of it. At that moment the “Child is born”; the manifestation comes into being; the law stated by Isaiah becomes a flaming reality. The possibility of it failing is remote even in thought.
“The Spirit of the Consciousness of the Presence of God is the source of all supply. When I Am absent from the body, I Am present in Spirit, and I Am just as operative without a body as with one. I Am the true impersonal life, free to all, instantly available to all, anywhere, anytime, any place. I have created for you all, the whole universe. I have given you the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus. The Disciple said: ‘Many are weak and sickly among you, and some sleep, not discerning the body of Christ.’ It is Wonderful! When the body of Christ shall have been materialized, and you come to that place where you realize that God Is actually present, within and without, then the little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and you become a part of the Infinite whole.”
The wonderful revelation of the Risen Lord – the body becoming spiritual, and the spirit becoming material; the two whom God hath joined together becoming eternally one, in the perfect manifestation the Jesus Christ, the whole idea coming into expression here and now; this is what the Father has given unto us. It is Wonderful!
It pays to be “absent from the body,” or embodiment of beliefs that you have about you, and “present with the Lord” of creation. Present with the Power, instead of on the outer rim of it all, watching to see if anything can be made to happen.
ARISE, SHINE – do you hear?
“What ye sow, that must ye also reap; what ye measure unto others, that is measured to you again. The Cosmic forces of Nature will stand by you, so long as you live in conformity with them. The Law that was brought into expression by Jesus, the Author and Finisher of the Law of the Spirit of Life, is the spirit of the Cosmic Forces brought into subjection to the Divine Mind. The Law of the Spirit of Life is the Law of Nature, the Cosmic Forces, brought into subjection to the Christ Mind; it is subject to the Law of Love, and it makes you free from the law of sin and death and all undesirable conditions. The consciousness of this will produce and reproduce, create and recreate, without any visible expression of the creative forces, the things that you desire. With or without a body, it is just as productive and just as operative. It is Wonderful. Praise God.”
“Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow.” All blessings, millions of blessings, yes, from Whom flow the eternal “blessings, blessings, blessings, so many you cannot count them” – the infinite outpouring of the Spirit, in every possible form necessary to meet the need of the instant. “Fear not; it is I,” the Spirit of all things, which can bring into manifestation that which is brought to birth. It shall be brought forth by the easiest possible means. “In the twinkling of an eye” that which you have sought so long is in your possession, and that, too, at the moment you stop seeking it. “Oh, that I knew where I might find HIM,” and all the time HE IS there, awaiting the recognition. Do you begin to see? The light is flooding through these days – it is the TIME.
Do you begin to understand that all the laws, even those of the waves and winds, came under subjection to the Man Jesus, when He realized His power? All the forces of Nature are in the control of God, Who “holds the winds in His fists.” It is because of this glorious revelation that the so-called laws of fate and destiny which hover over man from the cradle, are caught up and redeemed by the fire of the PRESENCE of the CHRIST, here, and NOW, and everywhere present. It is because of this great revelation that man is thrown off the wheel of Fate, to which he has been bound, lo, these many years, and is cast up into the plane of peace and quiet, and wonderful activity and expression. “The former things have passed away – behold! I make all things new.” It is wonderful that all “things” are made new, even you and your embodiment. They are made new by the process of “renewing the mind,” or recognizing that the mind is permeated with this Christ to such a point that the old worn-out beliefs and ideas are all consumed by the Fire of the Presence. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! And So It Is.
“Call upon ME in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee.” What a glory there is in this statement. It does not say,”Maybe I will deliver you”; it does not say, “I may be able to do a little something to relieves the situation for the moment.” It says, “Call upon ME and I WILL deliver thee.” There is no half-measure about it; it says, “I WILL deliver thee.” Do you hear? Do you see? Do you begin to “feel” that it is above all this human argument and reasoning? It is pure Inspiration of the Almighty, which is finally to lead you into all things, and it is for the immediate use of you – no matter who you are, or what you are. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! “Praise God, from Whom ALL [not some] blessings flow.” Do you catch the meaning of the word “flow”? Does it sound as though it is a straining or a difficult process? Doesn’t it call to mind the flowing of a glorious river, so automatically moving to the infinite sea, so joyously abandoning itself into expression? Into meadows green and fresh, into mountain gorges deep and terrible, into joyous sunny landscapes and past noisy cities; ever flowing, flowing on and on, and never stopping, and never lacking, and going into every place with the same ease and glory? It is Wonderful! The flowing of this mighty stream of blessings to YOU. The moment you recognize the Presence, and stop trying to make it “FLOW,” it begins its mighty operation. “Heaven and earth are full of Thee” – that is it. Everywhere you go, God IS, in whatever form is necessary to establish the Kingdom of Heaven. Yes, to establish the Kingdom of Heaven as something more than a theory.
Unto the Faith which asks no proofs is given the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; is given the keys to unlock any door, and also to lock any door. It is Wonderful! The solution to all things is given to this FAITH.
“If you make your mental and spiritual contact with ME, you will be given the keys to all things. After the Holy Ghost is come unto you, you shall have the Key to all things. It is Wonderful! No door can remain closed to this glorious power. The doors of the universe spring open before you. Christ is rich, and all you need. Claim your right and press your claim, and you shall receive the ‘healing’ which will cause you to be in your Right Mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. It will cause you to develop to the normal state of consciousness, and the normal state of expression physically.”
It is so glorious that the abnormal state of thinking that we are worms of the dust, and are separated from God, is passing away, and that the NORMAL Consciousness, wherein we recognize God as something more than a Mythological Deity, is coming into reality. Then will we find it more normal to have health than sickness, wealth than poverty, joy than sorrow, expression than death. It is Wonderful! Already we are beginning to feel the normal, rational “feel” of the God life, and the desert is beginning to blossom as a rose. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!
“Just think what Christ can do for you. Though you may have been handicapped in many ways, mentally, financially, socially, physically. Christ is rich, and all you need, and has equipped you with the requirements to meet any emergency. “When He, the spirit of Truth, has come unto you, He shall teach you all things, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
Yes, He can equip you with all equipment necessary, mentally, spiritually, physically. So you see the abundance of the fullness of the consciousness of Good; no space is vacant in the fullness thereof.
“Praise the Lord, O my Soul, and forget not all His benefits.” Rejoice and be exceeding glad. You are coming to the place of recognition, where the NORMAL consciousness is being manifested in you, and you are experiencing the “feel” that “God does not bring to birth and then not bring forth.” It is Wonderful! The promises of God are kept.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
THE troop train jogged along at a disgustingly slow gait, stopping at intervals and making long, tiresome waits. Night finally came on and darkness hovered about like a heavy black mantle. There was a period of quiet. Finally at the far end of the boxcar a soldier found a stub of a candle in his kit, and lit it. “Oh, light,” was the murmur that went around the crowd, and then a mad scramble ensued to get near it. Some to read, others to sit in it, and others to get a view of it – – but one thing for sure – – all were seeking it. The light “drew all men unto it.”
And so is it with the waiting world – – they are all hungry for light. They have lived in the dark, damp cave of mortal reasoning long enough and are groping for the sunlight of truth. Darkness and ignorance go hand in hand, and with them sin and death – – they are of one and the same fabric. In the darkened cloisters of an old cathedral you will find the faithful praying a prayer of ignorance – – a prayer of beseeching and begging instead of “realization” – – “All things are yours,” “All that the Father has is thine.” Come out into the light of understanding an acknowledge that which is already yours – – or thrill with the joy of gratitude.
No wonder the Master said, “Let there be light.” When he said “Let” he did not mean that we were to stay on bended knees for hours begging light. “Let” in this sense means “permit or allow.” Then He said, “Let your light shine before men.” You have a light all of your own – – it is individuality of you, it is the you of you – – and this light is the Light of Love – – which is filtered through your mind and which is reflected by you – – which you let loose through the channel provided. Did you know that you were a “Keeper of Light?” a “Keeper” not in the sense of hoarding up light – – for such a thing were impossible – – but a keeper as the “Keeper of Light” in the lighthouse tower. You have but to keep your mind open and free from worldly darkness to keep the lenses of your mind polished and shining – – to give forth this light so abundantly that “All men shall be drawn unto you.” I care not what your business may be, if you bring “Light” into it you will “Draw all men unto you” – – you will draw all success and happiness unto it. For the darkened world is searching for a gleam of light and will find you no matter what your location or how far you may seem removed from the rest of the world. “Ye are the light of the world” – – the light which is within the tower on the hill cannot be hid – – neither can your light be obscured.
Did you know that with that simple yet majestic command, “Let there be light,” you have the “open sesame” to all material problems? That all doors are opened before it, and no complication of mortal reasoning or doings can withstand the potency of it! When the day is breaking what a wonderful prayer to say in your heart of hearts: “Let there be light” to guide me through this day. What a wonderful day of light would be yours; it would come flooding and streaming in on you as you went your way, until men would recognize you as a “Keeper of the Light” and would come to you to seek the light on their problems. “Let there be light” may be just the thing – – just the prayer – – that you need to break the ice of materialism and free the imprisoned river of your activity.
If your mind is full of light, then no darkness can enter there – – no ignorance, sin or death – – for Light and Life are one and eternal. Let a soft, white glowing light of Truth accompany you, be a part of your speech and a part of your life – – let it enfold you like a mantle “white and glistening.” Jesus did this, and those who came within reach of Him were healed by the light.
Light shining on the darkness of earth draws from it the secret of the flowers – – draws from the dead, dense mentality the flowers of hope, fruits of use and trees of strength. So turn your light inward sometimes and let it shine on the darkened corridors of your mind. Make a lighthouse of your darkened chambers – – fill them with praise – – put on garments of light. “Arise and shine for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee.” “Let your light shine before men.” Only, I say, “Let.” “Be still” and let. “Ye are the light of the world – – a light that is set upon a hill cannot be hid.”
LET’S HAVE A LITTLE PRIVATE EARTHQUAKE
“And there was silence in heaven for the space of an hour,” and after that every sort of thing took place, earthquakes, fires, tornadoes and every other manifestation which is destructive to the material world of human thinking.
If you can in your meditations get into the “silence for the space of an hour” you will find the Power of God coming through with such force and swiftness that the old human world which has found you with its Gibraltars of human belief, will experience plenty of earthquakes, plenty of fires, and plenty of tornadoes, if they are necessary to up-root the time honored and chronic beliefs of the human mind. Sometimes the cleansing of the Power is spoken of as the Wrath of God, but the Wrath of God is nothing more than the Power of God coming into manifestation; what it does to evil belief may seem wrathful, but that is only because it is being driven out of the temple with its money changers and dove sellers.
In that immeasurable space of time, that “hour,” a wholly new basis of Life is made manifest. Human laws and thoughts get pretty strong at times – Peter had to have an “earthquake” to show the toughest human law or thought that he was to be released from his prison. When this “silence for the space of an hour” takes place the jailer will, as he did in the case of Peter, be glad to have you be gone from his jail. After all, you cannot run a jail if earthquakes are always going to knock it down.
“His rebuke was terrible” is another way of putting it. Remembering the words of Jesus one takes courage and eventually finds out the truth of his blessed words. The old human thought may be pretty well established and entrenched in accepted beliefs – and perhaps it will take an earthquake to jar them loose, but when that happens, and it could happen to you any time you are pure enough in consciousness – then there will be a wailing and gnashing of teeth.
“Wham!” and the door of the prison house of fear, sin and disease fly open – the WORD has been spoken this time – the silence has gathered such a mass of Power at one point as to change the stoutest human mind. He is glad to retire, suddenly finding that “he doesn’t want to play anymore” – but it’s too late, he has already played his last trump and it wasn’t good enough.
Do you believe in the WORD as all Powerful? Do you believe that the spoken Word could shatter the toughest human problem with the same ease that Caruso could shatter a hollow stemmed champagne glass by singing into it the tone to which it vibrated, intensifying the tone to such a point that the glass could not stand it? So is the WORD of God, when spoken through you, able to shatter the worst picture of disease, and if you could enter into that “silence for the space of ONE hour” in heaven then even that seemingly impossible picture called death could be shattered, and Life immortal stand forth in all its fairness and glory. What are we afraid of? “If ye slay me yet will I say you are God.” Can you stand up to that? You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain – “Nothing is impossible to Me” – said Jesus when the liaison with God is perfect – and he also said “nothing is impossible to YOU” – what?
“Wham!” Let’s have a little private earthquake and get rid of some of this old rubbish that has been identifying itself with us so long. “Let’s go.”
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT
The text-books of today will become the ABC books of tomorrow for all those who have eyes to see. What a world of good came to you out of the little ABC book which you have long since cast aside. What secrets it contained and what mighty doors it opened to you, and yet you have cast it aside. Yes, you have cast it aside, even as a reference book, though not a day goes by that you do not use the entire substance of the little ABC book. In other words, you took the spirit of the thing and left the letter behind. It was the spirit of it that opened the doors of the universe. By the use of it you could explore any country and language and understand and read the thoughts of men long since gone from sight. It is a wonderful thing, and yet only valuable when it becomes part and parcel of you. As long as you are blundering over the letters from one to another, it is not very productive of results, but once you have grasped the understanding and imbibed its spirit, it starts on its magnificent unfoldment and has no end. By it great avenues of contact are established. And yet, I repeat, the actual book has gone; you care nothing for it; you do not look back upon it with regret. So, when the letter of anything goes, the spirit comes. “If I (the personal) go, the Comforter shall come” — that is, the revelation of the Spirit will come.
To one who never lets go of his ABC books is found to be either a fool or an idiot. At least he is considered, in the parlance of the world, as subnormal. “The letter killeth, the Spirit giveth light.” When you begin to see this, you will begin to understand that it is only the spirit of the Truth that will be anything to you, and you will begin to give up the dead formula. “It is by my Spirit, saith the Lord” — not by might or power. Nor by force or effort, buy by “My Spirit.” By the Spirit which is hidden in the letter you shall be able to set free the new expression.
The Spirit is like the life of a seed. The shell must first fall away before the plant can be made alive. The shell must first be destroyed before the life can come into manifestation. So it is with the Word. The letter must drop by the way and the spirit must be released. It is wonderful and glorious. Heaven and earth are filled with the revelation of Almighty God. Do you hear, you who read this page? Do you see back of the letter the Spirit shining through — the Spirit which has wrapped up in it the means of complete expression? “All that the Father has is mine” is true and correct. But gazing upon the letter and trying to make it so, is like expecting tropical flowers to grow in the northern blasts. But cast the letter aside and release the Spirit, and revelation comes to you. It is like magic. Why? Because it has a way of its own. A means of coming into manifestation that man-made laws cannot even put into words. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father.”
It is wonderful. Why do you not release the letter from your life and see the glorious Spirit work out the expression? The signs will follow. Remember that as soon as the seed is cast into the ground, into the secret place, the shell or letter is broken and cast aside and the life of the seed allowed to appear. The glorious promises that you repeat over and over are all filled with the possibility of manifestation. It is the adherence to the letter that killeth. Over and over, the same pattern, day after day with no results, but with the irritating knowledge that it is all there.
When you stop trying and cast your burden on the I AM and actually are ready to let the Spirit move in and through you, then you will see that the Spirit giveth life and power and that you are suddenly ushered into a new state. Right where you are — right in the place you stand — right in the present surrounding, the transformation takes place, because by the power of the Spirit are you made to see that which eternally is and always has been — i.e., the Kingdom of Heaven here and now. The Spirit of the Word reveals the concrete manifestation. It is then that the Word becomes flesh and dwells among you. Just as you may hold in your hand a dried rose-bush and talk for hours to a group of people about a rose. If they had never seen one they would only have the vaguest idea what it looked like, even after you had described it; but cast it into the ground and then your very words will become flesh and they will see the rose which in one instant will convey more than a thousand lectures could. Do you see?
It takes the faith of a child, for the adult cannot let go, and would rather talk about “how and why,” and “when and where,” and would rather spend hours pointing out what is wrong with other members of the universe than spend one moment trying to rid his own sight of the beam that is out-picturing everything evil. If I wear a pair of dark goggles, the whole world, so far as I am concerned, is gray or dark; but that does not make it so. If you look through eyes of limitation and ugliness everything appears so to you. Even God becomes a God of wrath, and Jesus becomes a hard task-master, regardless of the regaling statement and promise: “I came that your joy might be full,” and “I came not to destroy but to fulfill.” Do you see?
The Power is here, not to destroy, but to fulfill the Law, to fulfill the glorious promises. All these little points of evil that seem to be giving you so much trouble will be picked up into the positive expression of Good — Here and Now. It is wonderful and it is glorious. God is everywhere, and beside Him there is naught else. “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in ME.” Where is the ME? “Believe, and ye shall be saved.” Do you see the power of the word believe? It is pure Acceptance of the Word, in the face of the most adverse testimony. When the appearances are as far removed as the rose-bush is from the rose, the “belief” — acceptance – — will cause the holy promise to be released. Do you see why “Then went He in and shut the door” has its importance to you as never before? Argument and talk about these precious things will only bring the ugly futility of the letter. The letter without the Spirit is DEAD. Do you hear? — it is dead, of no use.
The books that we are reading today on Truth will be the ABC books of tomorrow – we will have imbibed the spirit of them and dropped the letter aside. Why? Because the textbooks of the future will have to do with things that we only casually mention at this time. From time to time we hear of levitation, of Fourth Dimensional expression, of the Superman, and of many things that could not be told us back in Jerusalem. These will form the basis of the textbooks of the future, for the spirit of the present teaching will be released to such an extent that sickness, sin and unhappiness will be unknown: it will be so generally understood that no one will stop to marvel at the working of the law of the Absolute.
There was a time when a man who knew how to read was outstanding in a community, but today it would be an exception to come upon one who could not. So is it with the Word. Just so soon as you release the Spirit from the letter, the things that take place from the standpoint of Spirit are bound to appear. “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” “Be still — I have many things to say to you.” When we learn to be still and not talk constantly to the Divine, we are beginning to experience the deep hidden things of the Spirit. New doors are opened to us. New avenues of expression, and the unafraid state of consciousness becomes manifest to us. “The former things shall pass away, they shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more.” The shell that releases the living plant shall be forgotten. It shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more. You could not put the flower back into the seed, nor can you put man back into the limitations of a state of consciousness from which he has freed himself.
When you are freed from a certain state of consciousness you are not subject to any of the laws which formerly operated therein — just as the flower which has released itself from the seed is not under any of the laws that applied to the seed. For example, a bird or animal might have carried the seed away or it might have been left upon the shelf and destroyed by insects. As the flower comes under the care of the gardener it has protection and a new set of laws and environment. This illustration, as all illustrations, is inadequate to convey the idea of the wonderful change that goes on when the “shell” of the letter is cracked and the new idea — the Spirit — is released. “The Lord, He it is that doth go before thee: He will be with thee: He will not fail thee.” Fear not — when you cast your burden on the Lord He will sustain thee. “For eyes have not seen and ears have not heard, and it hath not entered into the hearts of man.” “Be still — be still — be still,” and listen for the revelation to be made. Close the material eyes that are hypnotized by the serpent of appearances and see the revelation that is coming into manifestation, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.” “He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” If you abide in this consciousness — this “believing” consciousness — then you shall bring forth much manifestation. It is the following of a natural law. A law which is stated in terms of Grace — Divine intervention, Divine influence. All knees shall bend at the name (nature) of Christ. Every temporal power shall come tumbling to the ground. Every Golden Calf shall be brought low and the Kingdom shall be established Here and Now.
The New Dimension of life enters only from a point within and never from without. The oak tree proceeds from the Center which is in reality only a point where the already finished thing makes itself visible. Through our limited thought it seems to grow but when we can “Look again” we will see the “flower before the seed.” What we see as growth is “reality” appearing. “Before you ask” tells this revelation. It is.
LETTING GO
Perhaps one of the most difficult things to the growing student is the ability to let go. He makes – a reality of the very things which he wishes to overcome and in doing so hugs them to him with all his strength, when it is only necessary many times to let go and the thing which has been hurting or hindering his progress will disappear. In the Bible the struggle of Jacob with the unnamed thing is a good illustration of how we hold things to us and suffer from them. When Jacob loosed it and let it go it disappeared and was no more. Now what this condition was we are not told, but if it was one of sickness or poverty or hatred it was one and the same thing, the process of being able to let go is one of the: most freeing things possible.
In the first place when a man loosens his hold on a thing he can them move away from it, if the thing does not want to move from him. Some men are carrying around loads so large and out of proportion to their size that they, can hardly accomplish the meanest tasks because they are handicapped and because all their energy is used or sapped in holding onto the condition which they want to be rid of. In Africa one of the ways of capturing a monkey is by making a small hole in a coconut and filling the coconut with some most edible grain. Presently the monkey puts his hand in the opening and closes it on the handful of grain thereby increasing the size of his fist to such an extent that he cannot again withdraw his hand ‘from the hole and at this point the hunter appears and the frightened monkey who might scamper off into the jungle to his freedom tries to drag the coconut after him and is caught.
His condition is exactly like the man who has a problem which he is not able to let go of. He does not realize that by relaxing his hold the thing would slip from him and that he would be free and able to go where he would. This is the doctrine of “Resist not.” When a man resists a thing it is a pretty sure sign that he fears it. Resisting also produces friction which wears a man out and makes him worthless. “Resist not” does not in any way mean that a person should let go of their very being and let the wind of chance handle them as it sees fit, but it does mean letting go of the claims which are objectionable to us, and also a refusal to acknowledge them as such realities that they need to be fought or resisted.
That which we resist is real and a thing that is real cannot be put from us. If you feel that your present condition is an absolute reality and that it cannot be changed rest assured that no amount of thinking will change it, for your thought is holding it in place and until you change your thought, stop resisting the thing, make of it a thing that can be overcome, you will never gain the goal of your dreams. If you realize that you were given dominion over everything then why waste your time resisting a thing; why not come out with your authority and command the situation. But it would not be fair to either you or the thing which you were resisting if you did not give it the same chance to get away as you take to get away from it. Loose it therefore and let it go. “Judge not from appearances but judge righteous judgment”-refuse to accept the testimony of the material sense which is reporting inharmony to you-but ‘pass the powerful thought along to the uttermost part of your kingdom “I am well “and I know it-because the Great God of whom I am an expression’ (pressed out idea) has made me well and strong and I am in rapport – with HIM.”
Meditate upon this—-realize that it is as impossible for you to express an inharmonious condition as it is for God to express one. If you admit for a minute that the Great All-powerful Mind of God can express inharmony of any sort then you have destroyed your premise that God is -all good and your possible escape from the ills of the’ flesh is small. When we come to the “resist not” state and understanding that we are henceforth not going to fight a thing with all our might and main and at the same time say it is “nothing but a thought and a wrong one” —we will come to the place that Jesus came when he began his demonstrations with a perfect acknowledgement of the completed work, “I thank thee Father that thou has heard me.”
He was so clear in regard to the working of the All-powerful mind that he was able to give thanks for its enactment before he saw the results. He was so sure that there was a power which could operate in the behalf of mankind healing and curing all the ills of the flesh that he never once used long and difficult argument. He knew the power was with HIM and he knew that the power is with any man who is clean enough mentally to; receive it. Instantaneous demonstration is only a miracle in the sense that it is something which sets aside a material law-but a miracle is in reality the natural and perfect enactment of the Divine or Infinite Law, and when we learn more how to use’ this law we will be able to do the things that Jesus did with the same ease.
“The things that I do ye shall do also and even greater.” We are not only to do the things he did, but even greater. What did he do: Raised the dead Opened the blind eyes Unstopped the deaf ears Healed the lame Made well the sick Turned water into wine Produced gold from the fish’es mouth Made plentiful increase in the place where lack was. “The things that I do ye shall do also and even greater.” It is thundering down the ages with a new meaning. Awake thou that sleepeth to the glorious possibilities of your one-ness with this illimitable power, Good. This is your divine heritage—-this is your birthright and it can only be reclaimed by right thinking. Every condition is in reality a state of consciousness.
This may be difficult, for you to see at first, but as you go into the workings of the Law of Right Thinking you will realize that the very place you are now in, is the place your thought has put you. “But the glorious thing that comes to all people who are alive and thinking that no matter what place they are in—-they can by proper thinking, change that place to one more to be desired, or else they can change the place where they now are to one which will be amply satisfactory for their every need and happiness. It is quite true that the Kingdom of heaven is right at hand—it is only a matter of how a man looks at it. With the eyes of the right thinking man he sees God. Life manifested everywhere and he becomes one with the great plan of nature and hence is in perfect harmony with the whole scheme.
This brings the peace which passeth all understanding – and brings contentment—–that most cherished gift of all. It is not necessary then to begin worrying about the material condition. about you——first look to the mental state-get that right and as you turn to the Father or the Christ Consciousness you will find that the Father or Christ Consciousness is turning to you and you are welcome back into the land of plenty and happiness. Suddenly in the very place which has been the desert existence to you the rose shall bloom. Infinite possibilities will open unto you; friends will flock to you, for remember you are now working with the One and Only Law that is worthy of consideration—-and this law operates “in the twinkling of an eye.” Suddenly as this change comes you will find yourself ready for it for the change has been going on within for a long time and the secret thing has at last been declared from “the housetop. The difficulty experienced by most people in getting results is that they start with the effect instead of the cause.
This is because in most instances they recognize the effect as the cause. If a man is in debt he constantly meditates upon that debt-he looks, at it as a cause instead of an effect. He constantly contemplates it with fear and nine chances out of ten he puts into action the law “The thing I feared has come upon me.” That is done by “the Law of Attraction”-remember that “Like attracts Like” and if you want certain conditions to manifest in your life you can never attain them as long as you keep your mind full of the opposite views of life. All about you, you can see instances where the law of attraction has been working. The average man who is down and out in the world is always talking hard times, failure. He is fault finding and pessimistic—-he believes in the will-o-the-wisp chance-and he attracts all these conditions to him, permanently because—-“Like attracts like.” Look at the lives of BIG MEN—-some of them have failed many times-but “they never say die” one failure teaches them the lesson they needed and they go at it again with the feeling “well I made it once I can do it again.”
That is what prompts them on and they usually arrive. Like physical exercise the repeated systematic exercise will surely result in enlarged muscles, increased strength and’ vitality, and so with mental gymnastics—-if you are faithful to your period of silent communion with the All Power and realize your oneness with it you will begin to see increased mental powers and finally when you take a check on life you will find you have made tremendous strides towards your goal. “I have done that once —I can do it again” is the encouragement which you pass along to your success, little though it may be. And when a thing is well repeated the person is ready to go higher. The old threadbare axiom, “Practice makes perfect,” we all recognize. I remember passing a certain residence the very day the young daughter had her first lesson on the piano. The thought came to me what a far reach it is to a place where she will be able to interpret Chopin correctly—and yet when I passed that way daily I could begin to detect improvement almost from the start—–and one day she was playing the preludes of the master with great “ease.
I could well remember when she did not know one note from the other and to have placed a prelude in front of her then and say “play that” would have been utterly foolish on-the face of it-yet you realized at that time that the child has the ability to do it if she were only willing and ‘ready to set out on the faithful path of a little consistent study each day. Perhaps you stand today where the little girl at the piano was that first day-are you willing to take up a little, sincere and careful thinking for a few moments a’ day in order to come into the possession of your dreams? We soon learn that if we would have control of the outer man we must first get control of the inner. We must begin to realize that the outer is only a manifestation of the inner and that in proportion as we wish to change a thing we must first seek the cause of that condition or thing within.
Once you have decided to eliminate a certain condition from your life from that moment on, never give voice to the lie again—-when it presents itself to you dismiss it with the abiding conviction that it is a lie and has no place in, your mind or body. Make your strong affirmations and cling to them. Once you have learned that the Inner source is capable of anything, you will hold before it only such patterns as you wish reproduced, but if you have already reproduced something that is objectionable” you can yet return to the “Secret Place” and there destroy the thought which created it in the first place. Remember to look only to the cause; the effect will take care of itself. Having decided that you will rid yourself of some claim, you must learn to meditate upon the state or condition which you wish to replace it with. Idealize it, praise it and know that you have dropped the seed into fertile ground and that it is springing into birth.
Keep silent about your shortcomings, your faults, your fears and sickness—-the more you repeat them the more real they become to both yourself and others, and voicing these errors only accentuates their reality. Eliminate weak words from your mind and your vocabulary—-see how often you can substitute a powerful word for one of limitation and weakness. How often do we hear the expressions “I was scared nearly to death—-tickled to death—-I nearly died laughing, etc.” all of which have their effect on the body and mind of man. They are weak wasteful words which could and should be replaced with words of beauty and life. After a little while of this watchfulness you will find it becoming a habit—the habit of speaking only good-strong words and of thinking this kind of thoughts—-you will then enter into a perpetual state of happiness for you will be free from the limitations that your false words have fixed upon you.
LIGHT
The Closer you follow the inner Light of Jesus Christ the more the whole Bible seems to fall apart and reveal its structural form. The super-structure and decorations fastened to the unchanging laws of God are many and often farfetched – but underneath the law stands – “Underneath are the everlasting arms” – the Changeless structure of Truth. Jesus always went straight to this. Back of the wretched and decrepit state of man he found the perfect structure of the Created Being which had no capacity to take on any of the evils of the human thinking.
The Structure of a sky-scraper is straight uncompromising, unchanging lines of steel – what you put on the outside of this is entirely up to the designer, brick, concrete, stone and even wood – ornate or plain – enlarged, covered with rococo decorations. And yet the structural thing remains forever the same. Discovering this, one has a basis to work from instead of the outside appearance. And so with man when he discovers this permanent Identity he experiences a thrill of delight that his feet are at last planted on an unchanging thing.
Hidden under all the parables and stories of the Bible are these unchanging laws of Spirit. Presently as you begin to dig away the story with its padding you discover the reality back of it. Hence the command, “Go into a City and there meet a man and he will lead you to an upper chamber where the banquet is prepared” reveals its secret doctrine – its unchanging law. A City is a state of consciousness – and since it is a strange city (one you have not yet entered ) it is new and clean and fresh. Entering into this new state of consciousness – into this place of virgin consciousness you can superimpose upon it the desires of your heart. Presently when this has been done, when you have “taken” your good – when you have prayed in accordance with the law” – the Man is met. Just what this man is going to be, no one knows, nor how, when or where you are suddenly going to be let into the complete fulfillment of your desire, which you have superimposed, (accepted) on the virginal consciousness of pure acceptance. But “meet a man” you surely will. An idea, an urge, a something will come along and start the assembling of the body of the new consciousness.
At the moment of conception or recognition it begins to take place – it has sent forth its invisible power to draw that which is necessary to bring out the body with which to clothe itself. Otherwise it remains an unborn thing – a thing without a body, a symbolical manifestation, worthless and of no import.
Once you have actually accepted your desire as a present reality – something begins to happen – ways and means that ye know nothing of, begin to come to your aid. Unexpected, unheard and undreamed of things begin to give you a sign. You meet the man and he will lead you to the upper room of fulfillment where the banquet is prepared for you. Or the manifestation has taken place.
Remember that it is the “Impossible” you are seeking for you have already brought out all that is “possible” at this stage of evolution. If it were possible you would do it – but what you seek is apparently impossible, and there is only one way this can take place and that is by the Power of Almighty God, stepped down through your Divinity – Christ, (permanent Identity or Father within), and finally congealed or condensed into a visible form through your temple body. Even as invisible vapors can be put through the machinery of a distilling and freezing plant and handled with your hands. So can it also be sent back into the invisible. So can you disintegrate anything and cause it to go back to its native elements.
When you arrive at last at the banquet room, you there “Eat my body, (substance)J and drink my blood (inspiration) and throw the skeleton away. In other words you enter into your new manifestation, you use it, enjoy it. It is wonderful!
On entering into the City (new state of consciousness) whereupon you are superimposing your desire you are cloaked with silence and secrecy. No one must know the moment of conception. “Thou fool do you not know that a seed must first fall in the ground and rot before it shall be made alive.” Trying to superimpose your new desire upon the mind that is filled with disbelief and wonder brings nothing but a blurred, confused manifestation at best. It must be a clean and new state of consciousness – a new sheet of paper – a new level into which you enter. It is wonderful!
LIVING WATERS
“Running water never tires.”
“FOR MY PEOPLE have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13)
In this little verse lies hidden the reason for most of the difficulties of the human race. “My people,” you and I, have forsaken the Fountains of Living Water and made cisterns of our own-broken cisterns. We have wandered far from the Living Fountains, into the parched and dried desert of human experiences, and have stopped on some oasis and dug us wells and made us cisterns, trying to husband the waters of human understanding, hoping thereby to quench our thirst. But the cisterns are broken and the water does not satisfy us.
The prodigal is far removed from his father’s house, and yet he is as near to it as he will ever be. Everything that is real and eternal is here and now and the Open Sesame is recognition. The prodigal has been feeding and watering the outward body and has not been satisfied. His state goes from bad to worse. And the prodigal is the story of every man. The dead letter of the word sticks in his throat. He knows that his fathers did eat bread in the wilderness and are dead. He has come to the end of the human satisfaction. The broken cistern is dry; the stagnant waters of human reasoning are unfit to quench the appalling thirst. It is then, perhaps, that he heeds the admonition of the Voice: “Turn ye even unto Me with all your heart and ye shall find rest for your soul.”
It is an invitation that is many times passed by because of the human argument: “What, am I fit to enter the rest of the righteous? I, who have left undone so many things that should have been done, and have done so many things that should not have been done?” But there is a beautiful insistence on the request, “Turn ye even unto Me—-for My ways are not your ways.” The ways of the ME of Spirit—are not the ways of the prodigal who has spent his substance in riotous living. The “Ways of Spirit” are not the ways of the human reasoning and wisdom; for “as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways.” So what use for you to hold out any longer with your human understanding and reasoning-“My ways are past finding out”-no man can put the ways of God on a laboratory-table and dissect them to find out how they can set aside the human laws. What if ten thousand people have gone down by the false law, it shall not come nigh you (provided you have “turned even unto Me with all your heart”).
What if, ever since the beginning of time, a human law has worked out successfully—there is always the exception, and that is the time that the God Power is brought into play and the poor, puny, human intellect rears its great head of wisdom and says “a miracle has happened”-a “supernatural law.” Exactly-a miracle to the human sense, but a natural functioning of the God law. Incurable, impossible, hopeless, improbable are all words in the dictionary of man-they find no place in the courts of the Lord. The unconditioned power of God asks no permission of the race of human thought to set aside one of its laws. The sternest, most hard and fast law of the human wisdom is less than a bit of thistle-down battering against the walls of China. There is no recognition of the existence of a false law that has to be set aside.
There is a simple, natural expression of the God law-the eternal harmony of itself, and when this expresses and destroys the belief law, man says “a miracle has happened.” Feeding upon the letter which is dead is no way to attain Life everlasting. Drinking the stagnant waters of the history of evil is no way to quench the thirst of the soul. Gradually we are beginning to see that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” He is gradually sensing the fact that drinking of living waters and eating hidden manna is not such an imaginary thing as it was formerly thought to be. “Ye have bread that they know not of.” The awakened soul is beginning to know that he, being a spiritual being in a Universe of Spirit, must be, and is, perfectly sustained in this medium of expression. He knows that the spiritual man must be fed with Spirit and watered by the living waters. He then sees more into the command “Be absent from the body and present with the Lord.”
He begins experiencing the feel: “I am a spiritual being in a Spiritual Universe”—and he takes his attention away from the physical manifestation and begins to literally feed on the Spirit. His body is beautifully fed and watered—he laves in the River of Life—and is beginning to be impressed with the consciousness that if he eats this food and drinks this water he shall never hunger and thirst again. “Never”—think this over. The statement is “never.” “Hold fast to that which is good,” if you, on the invisible side or in the pure light of Spirit, partake of this food, and drink these living waters, you shall never hunger or thirst again. “Never”—what about the human body, then, never being in want of food or drink again? Do you see what lies hidden in this wonderful revelation? Do you begin to see that the “Word became flesh” and “In my flesh shall I see God”—right into manifestation? Can you understand that to feed and water yourself in the pure essence of Spirit, not regarding or looking for the manifestation, will cause your physical body to be properly fed and watered?
It is wonderful. You shall also find that conceiving yourself as the being of Spirit, in the Universe of pure Spirit, eating the food and drinking the living waters of Spirit, the physical body will take on a finer tone, “yet in my flesh shall I see God.” The soul and body of man will become one. Even as Jesus and Christ became one; and all the glorious revelations of the Spirit “searching the joints and marrow,” the “Word becoming flesh,” and “yet in my flesh shall I see God” shall be made true to you. Your body shall be a well-watered garden—a glorious garden—the desert of your body shall blossom as a rose. You who read this page, do you begin to see the new idea? Do you begin to understand that what you do on the invisible in the sacredness of Truth and the Christ-consciousness shall diffuse its shadow of expression through the material Universe and make all things new?
“Eat my body, drink my blood”
is more than a bit of poetry. Relax and let go, conceive yourself in the glowing white light of Spirit and partake of the holy meal and “eat” the body of Christ Jesus, the substance of Life, and drink the blood of inspiration that transcends all reason and human understanding and belief. You are the being of Light, in a Universe of Light, and you shall clothe yourself in garments of Light and of Praise-yes, literally in the glowing silence you shall clothe yourself in the garments of Light, the garments of Praise, the garments of Thanksgiving, and verily ye shall be clothed on the human plane. Fear not! You go forward on the way of inspiration, the eyes of Spirit are now made flesh and the former statement, “Having eyes ye see not, and ears ye hear not,” is no more true for the human eyes of flesh—-into these very eyes the Spirit has come.
The Spirit shall be flesh, and naturally the limitations of the human material vision fade away with the increase of a wondrous sense of Light, and you see and hear and know “what is the height and depth and breadth.” Limitations that were true and were laws to the human sense of sight are no more true. “Yet in my flesh shall I see God.” “Believest thou this,” you who read this page? If so, then can you not see that, when you partake of the spiritual food in a conscious way, your physical body will be beautifully cared for? “The bread which cometh down from heaven”—where is heaven? What is heaven? Where is the Me? The only place you can contact God is within your own consciousness. So you are very near to the glorious revelation of the being of pure Spirit.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man will open unto ME I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with ME.” The very coming in to sup with you means the perfect union of soul and body. The body shall be permeated with the Spirit and shall manifest the joys of the Kingdom of Heaven here and now. Cannot you see, that, when you bring together the soul and body, you cannot want again for anything, for all things are found within the soul of you? “I AM that bread of Life.” “If any man will eat thereof he shall never die.” “Be not afraid, only believe.” All we need is a wholesome acceptance of the fact that there is a God in the Universe-All-Present, and willing and able to make Himself manifest in any situation or at any time.
“Only believe.” Such a wonderful restfulness after the long journey through the barren wastes of human reasoning and understanding-such a well of water to the parched lips. It is wonderful. Go thy way, “provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purse, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves; for the workman is worthy of his hire.” This is the rankest kind of philosophy to the human mind, and yet so beautifully true to the one who knows that he has the living waters and the life-giving bread always within him, and that he is clothed in the garments of Light and Praise and Thanksgiving. Why should he take thought of “the purse, the scrip, the journey?” What ye therefore do in silence ye shall manifest in the open courts of the world. See that ye be well fed with Spirit and clothed and watered with the life-giving essence of being. See that ye make the journey in Spirit first, and then the “Father worketh hitherto and I work” shall be true.
The invisible consciousness shall have perfected it before the body has yet expressed it. So is it true “I go before you and make straight the way”; so, before you go on the journey, the Father—consciousness has gone before you and made straight the way, and you come along later and express the mechanics of the trip. “My Father, My Father, worketh hitherto and I work”-that is, “I” carry it out into expression, and it will be perfect and complete in every detail. Remember that the Power which knows the “number of hairs of your head” and “cares for the sparrows” has fully taken care of every detail of the journey-nothing is too small for this glorious power, nothing too large. It is wonderful. “Fear not, it is I.” “Fear not, I AM with you always.” “I will never leave you.”
I, the center and circumference of all Being, am with you always. If you, then, would pause in the fury of human thinking and return to your Father’s house (consciousness) and partake of the invisible meal and clothe yourself with the invisible garments of Light and Praise, the starving body would go through the mechanics of eating and be perfectly satisfied. So may you carry the idea right down the line of human wants, until your soul shall magnify the Lord, the Giver of All Good, whose arm is not shortened. Before this book was put down on paper it existed in ‘its entirety in the invisible. “I go before you and make straight the way.”
“I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” (Matt. 11:25)
If this be true, why waste any more time trying to make the “wise and prudent” drink the living waters or eat the bread of life? But see to it that from this day forth you are fed and sustained on the invisible manna that cometh down from heaven.
THE LOST WORD
“The Word was made flesh.” Ever since that statement has come to the attention of man, he has been trying to find that WORD, knowing that in it is wrapped up the realization of all his dreams and desires.
“My words are spirit, and they are power, and they shall NOT return unto ME void.”
What is that something which produces the manifestation of the Spoken Word? From time to time we see a demonstration of the WORD having become flesh or visible in one form or another, but many times the spoken or silent word apparently seems to have produced nothing.
What is the magic WORD which opens the doors to the Hidden Treasures? What is the wonderful Word which will release into expression all the glorious dreams which constantly pass over man, and which he knows are real and true? Yes, even more real and true than many of the things he actually handles with his hands, and sees with his eyes, in the so-called relative world.
The word OM, which means so much to the Oriental, has little or no meaning to the Occidental. The word God, which means much to the Occidental, means practically nothing to the Oriental, and there be plenty who utter both these words, and still remain in trying circumstances of the human belief. People have been known to suffer under most wretched conditions while calling in the name of God – in spite of the law, which clearly says: “Call upon ME in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee.”
Many people believe that a word is merely a combination of letters set together to indicate a certain person, emotion, place, or thing. Many believe it is merely a sound made to indicate one of these, but then the difficulty remains in the fact that words are not the same to all races. They are more or less local in there sound or meaning; yet all realize that a given emotion, place or thing, could be in the consciousness of everyone – for instance, they would all know what “LOVE” is, although the word sign for it would be different with each one. The something back of the word would be the same.
“The letter killeth.” I may cry, “Peace, peace,” and still be in the midst of confusion and chaos; and I may say, “Peace be still,” and experience a serene calm.
“Be not like the heathen” – the heathen, in this instance, is indicated as one who believes, by “much repetition,” to gain the ear of God.
“One man’s meat is another man’s poison” – that is why one person seems to attain such wonderful results by the use of certain words, and another experiences nothing.
The Lost Word must be found.
It is not LOST, in the sense that it is gone for ever. It is only lost to you until such time as you are awakened to the glorious PRESENCE of the WORD, with you, and within you, and round about you.
The Magic Word, which is to release everything into expression, comes from the RECOGNITION of the Presence. The magic word that has been lost is clearly printed all over the face of the world, but only “he that hath eyes can see.”
The Lost Word has to do with the manner in which we pray. It can only be found when we actually “BELIEVE.” Oh, yes, I know we have believed, and we have asked for help for our unbelief; but we have never BELIEVED until we have come to the place where we can answer: “YEA, LORD,” when the question is asked, “Believest thou that I AM able to do this?” I did not say, nor ask, did we want to believe it? I said, it is only possible to find this Word when we DO believe it to the point of accepting it.
You can find the word that will do the magic thing for you, if you will. Once you do believe in the Presence and Its fullness, and you begin to TAKE the gifts of Spirit, you will find out that, automatically, you have been using this word. The Word of Words – the open sesame to the King’s Treasures – the password through the closed doors, and the right of entrance to the Way of Peace and Plenty.
When, from a human sense, you receive a gift, the first thing you do is to express your appreciation. More than likely, you will say “Thank you,” in one form or another. The one who does not say this, rarely is the recipient of many gifts. You only have to look into the records to note that Jesus used this same method. “I thank you, Father,” was His Word of Recognition which brought forth the manifestation. Before the slow human sight or intelligence could see the SIGN of the materialization, HE perceived the gift as HIS, and gave thanks for it; and this very, “Thank You, Father,” when spoken from the standpoint of acknowledgment for Good already received, will release the invisible to the visible. It is Wonderful! It is this very spoken Recognition and thanks, which makes the Word become flesh, and dwell among you. It is this joyous thanks which opens the doors, which you could not open in any other way. It is this very lost-found Word which changes the face of the earth (your earth) for you, and makes the desert blossom as a rose, right before your very eyes. It is Wonderful!
You only have to become quiet, and give thanks for the unseen gift, and the manifestation will appear. It is a NEW day; we do not first see the gift with the human eye, but we perceive it within, and give thanks for it. Neither do we imagine, because we say “thank You, Father,” that that will do anything. We say “Thank You, Father,” because we have fully accepted the gift, and its manner of coming into being does not concern us. It is Wonderful! You have this precious Word with you always; you can ASK in the name of Jesus Christ (the Word made flesh), and give thanks that, “before you ask, I have answered.” On the unseen side, the answer preceded the asking, and was, in reality, the reason you asked. Before they call, the thing they are calling for is moving towards them for expression, if they only knew it – “Oh, ye of little faith,” fits pretty snugly on most of us. Do we ask, and give thanks, and then rest? Well, you answer it.
The Lost Word has been found – it will work miracles for you. No matter where you are, and into what difficulties you have strayed. The Magic Word will bring it to pass. No matter whether you know anything about metaphysics, or whether you have had a “course of lessons” or not. It works just as well for one as for another. “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly” – and walking uprightly does not mean that you are governed by a certain system of metaphysics, or a certain teaching. Do you hear, you who read? It says “NO” good thing. Not any good thing will HE withhold. Not a single one. Do you get the idea? Well, why do you not call from the housetops, as well as from the secret place, “Thank You, Father” – “Thank You, Father” – “Thank You, Father,” until your very being and life ring with the glorious vibration of thanksgiving?
It is Wonderful! “Thank You, Father.”
“Thank You, Father,” spoken with the abandon and joy of Recognition. Nothing matters in the sense of human beliefs. “What is that to thee, follow thou ME” – and this ME is not a man, or a system. Follow the glorious Revelation of the Soul within you, the ME, the Christ of God, and be not afraid to thank the Father for everything; and especially when there is no manifestation of it – for in the very place where there seems to be nothing, there is everything, but only to the all seeing eye. It needs Recognition, and it needs thanks of the right kind.
Do you see the reason why Jesus said: “Go into all the world … without purse, scrip, robe,” etc.? But do not forget the WORD, the PASSWORD into the kingdom of Heaven. Do not forget the Password, the thing which no man can take from you, and the thing which is instantly usable and available, anywhere, any time, and under any condition. No matter what has gone before, the “Word is sharper than a two edged sword, turning in all directions,” and you have it, you can SPEAK it, and set yourself and see the salvation. See the salvation come by a way ye knew not of; come with such a flood of Light that darkness is consumed in the twinkling of an eye, and that which would hurt or harm, no matter what the argument, will be turned into confusion, dumbfounded – turned awry, put to shame, and confounded, fleeing in ten directions at once. It is wonderful the way this Power will cause you to obey the command, to come and sit at the right hand of God, and watch the beliefs you called enemies, become your footstool. When you are Recognizing the Presence of God, and are giving thanks for the manifestation of the Presence, then you are symbolically sitting at the Right Hand of God, and the beliefs that called themselves your enemies are trampled under foot. It is glorious! It is Wonderful! It is all to the praise of God!
“Praise God from whom ALL BLESSINGS flow.” The downpour of blessings has started with the, “Thank You, Father”; The blessings are flowing, gushing out of the Rock. The roaring river of life is pouring over you and your universe – such a deluge of blessings that they are uncountable.
“Blessings, blessings, blessings, so many you cannot count them. Millions, billions, trillions, decillions, and so on and on, until the numbers of the human reasoning are all absorbed in One, and the One, the indivisible Blessing of the Here and Now of this God, is made manifest. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!”
“Heaven and earth are full of thee.” The lost has been found, and it is causing the New Heaven to appear out of the clouds of belief that have made the eye “holden.” There, all the time, were the blessings you sought; but until Recognized, and given thanks for, they did not appear in the flesh. “Yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Right in the flesh – right in the manifest world, right in the HERE and NOW of Life shall you see God; and no man shall see God” and live after the old standards any more. How can he? How can you live in the old limitations again, when you have seen the Word becoming flesh, by the simple speaking of the WORD?
“Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, Bless His holy Name.”
“Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.”
Do you hear? “Thou openest Thine hand.” What do you mean by the “hand of the Lord”? You answer it, but be sure you continue to read that the opening of the hand satisfies the desire of EVERY living thing. That includes you – what are you going to do about it? Seems to me as if we should stop right here and say, “Thank You, Father,” with the glorious thrill that comes from this Recognition of the Presence.
“Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
Of course you are not under the Law of your former beliefs, if the WORD becomes flesh, through your Recognition of the Presence, for this Presence upsets all human belief about everything, and short circuits the old laws, and makes them null and void. A man who has been crippled from birth, who answers “Yea” to the question, “Wilt thou be made whole?” has suddenly arisen to the heights of Recognition and thanksgiving which burst the limitations of the former laws, and is henceforth under GRACE – Grace, that thing which is above and beyond the shifting, changing, law of the human mind. It is Wonderful!
The old law, “When I would do good, evil is present with me,” and all the struggles against the belief that sin had dominion over you in one form or another, are wiped out by the Recognition of this Presence, and the giving THANKS to the Father. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! And So It Is.
It is true that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Do you note the word effectual? – “effectual” having adequate force or power, to produce the desired effect). It does not mean beseeching or begging. There is something in the word that savors of efficiency, and thoroughness and Recognition of the Power as able to accomplish that which it sets out to do. This kind of prayer availeth much. “God is able to make all grace abound towards you.” So it is written. Do you believe it? Knowing that the moment “Grace” abounds toward you, the binding human laws relax their hold. It is Wonderful!
The Lost-Found WORD is rending the veils of human belief, and revealing that which has always been, and man begins to see.
“So wonderful; that magnificent, incandescent Purity, radiating from the very Essence of the flowering fount of Life, is the very message which is written on the fleshly tablets of your heart, and is the fulfillment of the Promise, going before you, blessing, healing and saving. Giving life to the dead, delivering those who have long striven for a perfect release from bondage.
By abiding in Me, and letting my Words abide in you, you will attain Now to much higher heights and deeper depths, as new doors are opened to you, and new revelations unfold a New Christianity; and Joy, Peace, and Prosperity will always be smiling down upon you, as the revelation of Love, written in your heart, is transmuted to people who have lived in the torture shell of Fear and rebellion, for lo, these many generations. So many blessings you cannot count them.”
LOVE and EMOTION
OVER AND OVER again we read stories about human love, based on selfishness, – jealousy, – possession. But the Love of God is no respecter of persons, – and possesses nothing because it IS all. A thousand and one references are made to the LOVE of God for man, – but measured by human standards, it is such an abstract and intangible thing as to seem of little value.
Human love is nothing but emotion, defined by Webster as a stirring perturbation or excitement of mind, – and is a sense product. Becoming emotional over the birth and death of Jesus may temporarily stimulate a sense of something mistaken for Love, but it lacks the warmth and life-giving quality of pure God-Love.
This God-Love is something different. God IS Love, – and God IS Omnipresent, – “above all, through all and in all”. It cannot, therefore, be ‘poured forth’ toward a person, or a thing, or a situation. It has only to be recognized, – first within, and then without, – in ALL persons, places, things and situations.
How, then, can a mind which is filled with “possession” partake of this great Impersonal Love. How can it understand the magnificent statement, – “BEHOLD! What MANNER of LOVE the Father hath bestowed (already given) upon man that we should be called Sons of God”? How can it carry out the works of the Master if it becomes emotional every time it sees a sudden manifestation of God? The Divine indifference of Jesus in healing is startling to this ’emotion mind’. Leprosy-that most dreaded of ancient diseases – was brushed entirely out of the picture with such a simple question as “Will you be clean?” And what of the man born blind, – born blind, – receiving his sight by the command, “Receive your sight”, – “Open your eyes”. How is a man born blind to open eyes he never had, – what is going to open, – and what is going to do the opening~ Human reasoning? Judging from appearances? Human emotion? And the cripple, – how is he to RISE and WALK? Is someone going to help him drag his crippled body over the earth, – or is SOMETHING going to do the walking through the body-temple?
The same thing will cleanse the leper, open the eyes of the blind man, cause the cripple to not only walk, but leap, that brought Lazarus forth from the tomb, – the Divinity, – the LOVE of God within, which transcends any and all human beliefs or appearances.
And the Love of God enfolding you in the midst of the human pictures of danger and fear, – that cloak of invisibility which is around you in the time of human trouble, – can only be made manifest when the “Lazarus” in the tomb hears the WORD, – and is ready and willing to step out.
And this Love of Cod, – the everlasting- arms, lifts you out of the mire of emotion so that you no longer “dash thy foot against a stone”,… and suddenly you “mount up with wings as eagles”.You pass through all and any appearances of evil, emerging “without the smell of fire”. What matter if a thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, – “it shall not come nigh thee”, because you have awakened to the LOVE of God as something beyond human emotion.
You can be in a glorious temple which is pouring forth the music of the spheres and the incense of a thousand flowers or in the lowest of hovels, – you can be in Heaven or hell, – you can be in the desert or at the North Pole, – and if you are finished with “trying” to love God from a human standpoint and are conscious of this ever-present, omni-present LOVE OF GOD, all will be well with you .
Yes, the LOVE OF GOD surrounds you, – is in you and through you, – for in HIM you have your BEING, – in HIM you live and move and breathe, – that LOVE which can melt a solid wall of steel as if it were wax, if there were need of it, – but never to excite the human emotions and beliefs.
The human love is theatrical, – and this is its strongest stimulus, – it needs an audience on which to unwind its coils of possession. But when it attains its object, it is finished, – the expended emotions subside, leaving nothing but dust.
But when the Love of God enters in, there is an opening of the prison bars, – there is such a freedom, born of absolute trust, that no lock and key can hold it, – there is such a communion and agreement that the mere “touching” establishes all things on earth.
So many “little people” are starving to death for Love, even though they are in the midst of it. They are focussed on a person or thing, and the human mind leads them to almost any length in an effort to materialize that “love”. But how can an omnipresent thing be directed through a little human thought pattern?
The poor, starved emotional things, endeavoring to display their tawdry talents before the world, either see this glorious GOD LOVE, – or sink into the stagnant waters of self-pity, neglect, futility.
The mockery of the human mind says, “I do not understand how it is that I am passed by, – I stand with my ‘beggars’ bowl’, asking merely for a crust -for the least kindness, – and get only scorn”. Yes, – (‘you are so worthy”. But are you?
Literally dying for recognition, you stand in your self-darkened temple, – but until you recognize “ME” within, – and “ME” without, – how can “I” find a way to your tent? A rose growing in the garden automatically gives out of its perfume and beauty, – and draws its beloved to it.
It all seems so abstract and impossible to the human mind, with its tearing emotions and its possessions, – and it is just that, – as impossible as the removal of a cancer without the aid of a surgeon’s knife, or the healing of the born-blind eyes. They are all impossible, – never have taken place, never can take place from the point of human reasoning. Hanging on to an emotional love, it is impossible to see or experience the GOD LOVE. The old fear of letting go of the faded love letters of human thought keeps you from this beautiful experience.
When you “let go” of the effort of human thinking, all the limitations of that thought-mind are dissolved, – and God will find a way of expressing his Love in such glory and beauty as to cause you to marvel at the wonder of it. Such is the Love that surrounds you, until you know you are never alone, – and “never less alone than when alone”.
Yes, God so LOVED the world that He GAVE, – Ah, there is an idea, – He, even God, is releasing His Beloved, – knowing full well that by “letting go” He would recapture Him in a thousand thousand temples, – yes, even in you.
It isn’t too late, – -it isn’t too early, – the old time space of human thought fades into the NOW of Spirit. NOW is the accepted time ! NOW is the day of Salvation! NOW are we, too, the Sons of God! The Son that He loved so dearly became the sons. Do you see how you have the LOVE of GOD in your heart.
And what a LOVE ! The only thing that NEVER faileth, – the ONLY thing. Isn’t it worth accepting, – this fool-proof Law which NEVER faileth?
When the narrow limitations of human emotion called love are broken, then ALL-LOVE in all of its glorious forms comes to abide with you, – then surely shall you go in and out and find pastures, then surely the heart of you will rest in peace and quiet, and be a listening post for the manifestations of this LOVE through you.
The aroma of God’s Presence permeates your soul, – and you are enveloped with the aroma of His LOVE.
LOVE LEADS THE WAY
The Song of the Singer
WORDS
IT was only a word that started the whole trouble. The doctor who dwelt by the temple said that word. He had said it, half unthinkingly, to the wife of Agara. “Agara has sickness that he knows not of, an incurable sickness – hopeless.”
“HOPELESS” was the word which threw the wife of Agara into a panic of fear. Her spirited step lagged as she wended her way home, her voice was dull and her eyes were dimmed with tears. A word had done it.
At the gate of their court she met the mother of Agara, who greeted her with a kiss and a kindly smile. “Why these downcast eyes, my beloved?” And then the wife of Agara told her what the doctor had said – told her the word “hopeless.” And likewise the smile died from her lips and the light of her eyes dulled and the mantle of gloom spread its dark folds about her. She had heard the word. That one word uttered in a half-thinking way had thus far spread its seeming power and as it passed from lip to lip its influence widened. One after another felt the poison stealing along their veins.
And the doctor went gaily on his way, forgetting in a second his message to the wife of Agara, but his word had set a whole household at variance, had set at naught years of dreaming. “Is there, then, such power in a single word?” said Agara, who at last learned the cause of the gloomy atmosphere of his otherwise happy home. Can a single word, a single spoken word, carry such tremendous power with it? And if one man speaking the word “hopeless,” which is negative, can cause the overturning of a dozen people – can destroy the sunshine of a home, what will happen if a man chose to send out the word “hope”? And rising up, he said to his dear ones, “There is hope – there is yet the promise of the Holy Book,” and so the word of “hope” was given out, and little by little the joy of former days crept back into its resting place.
What is the power of the word? Well, let me see; the worlds were framed and fashioned by words, and further, the “Word was made flesh.” Man himself is the spoken word – the thought of God. In reality, the word is but the vehicle of thought, and since mind is everywhere present, and thought is the timber of which mind is composed, then the word is everywhere present waiting to be expressed.
Let us examine back into the original of our spoken word – yours and mine, for example. What was the thought back of our word, back of us? Here’s the word: “Man was made in the image and likeness of God – free, perfect and eternal. Divinely fair. The son of a King.” These are some of the words that were expressed for us – these are some of the words that were sent forth. And “My Word shall not return unto me void, but shall accomplish whereunto it was sent.”
Is your word going to return void, or is it going to accomplish whereunto it was sent? You only have to remember that you are the idea of God – the expression of Him, His spoken word made flesh – to know that you must accomplish whereunto you were sent.
What about poverty when we seek out the spoken words – which shall not return unto Him void and find Joint heir with Christ”? Christ the older brother – son of a King, and we joint-heirs with Him. Can poverty stand before the unlimited riches of God? “You and I” sons of the same and only Father, the King of Kings. This is the spoken word that has come down through the ages, and which we have failed to hear.
What about worry and care when “My peace I give unto you” come to us from the Source of all Peace? Can you listen for a moment while the “still, small voice” says “Peace, be still”? Do you catch the undying harmony and cadence of this word? The “peace that passeth understanding” is yours. Now? It is yours now, and you can let it be made manifest among you. “The word became flesh and dwelt among them.” Let this peace be made manifest in your flesh.
What about fear when the word “Fear not” comes thundering out of all time, “for I am with you always”? Will this not give you a mastery, poise and peace yet unknown?
What about criticism when “Judge not” relieves you of this distasteful duty?
Back up all your arguments with the powerful declaration, “My words are spirit, and they are true and they shall not return unto me void.” And your power back of this statement is that “God hath said so.” Do you want any better reason for believing it? God hath said so. Did not He “speak and it was done”?
Then comes the practical application of these words – not in theory, but in every-day life – you and I. Let’s see, there is a struggling student who needs a word of cheer. Are you going to speak it and see your word travel out and make a string of smiles and sunshine?
There’s a sick man. He is coming right to you for help. Are you going to say “How bad you look,” or are you going to put on your shield and buckler and decapitate the word – the false word that has bound him? You will remember that you are armed with the Word of God, which is “sharper than a two-edged sword, turning in all directions.” You won’t be afraid, will you? because you are protected by this “two-edged sword, which is turning in all directions.” You will use this sword and put an end to the lie, and after you have declared your truth you will not send out a legion of fear words after it, will you?
Do you remember the power of Jesus’ spoken word when the Centurion came to him and said, “Only speak the word”? What did His spoken word accomplish? “The servant was healed in that selfsame hour.” He did not speak the word and then say I will see your servant to-morrow and give him the spoken word for a week or month. He spoke the word and then went on his way, confident that “His word should not return unto Him void, but would accomplish whereunto it was sent,” and it was sent on a healing mission – and it accomplished it. Finally, he said, “Even greater works than these shall ye do.” What is your spoken word doing all day long?
What does “Watch and Pray” mean other than guard your words and pray – affirm God’s allness and perfection?
Words are seeds, we are told over and over. What kind of crop are you sowing? Every word springs up with differing degrees of strength and power. Is the seed of your Truth sowing going to bring forth a crop of mushrooms or are they going to bring forth mighty oak trees? It is as easy to plant acorns as it is to sow mushrooms. “My words are spirit and they are truth, and they shall not return unto me void.”
THE MAGIC CIRCLE
In an old Manuscript purporting to come from the Holy of Holies is a description of the Magic Circle of protection.
The description of it is somewhat after this fashion. When man is called upon to protect himself from seen or unseen forces he has the power, by recognizing his Divinity, of casting about himself the magic circle. The description makes one think of a whirling lariat such as Will Rogers made famous – a thing which proceeded out of the Temple body and could be expanded or diminished at will, and could be entirely withdrawn. The description says it is a blue-green color, not unlike a Neon Light – visible to the encroaching evil as well as to the one projecting it.
The projector of this magic circle repeated as he brought it consciously into being:
“Around myself and mine I throw the Ring. “Pass not” – through which naught of evil but only Truth can come to me.”
Anything running into this PASS NOT Circle finds itself devitalized completely and turned back upon itself. All the vicious evil thoughts and attempts of another to injure are turned back upon the sender with accelerated force.
According to the teaching of Jesus we have many symbols of this same power. We can be surrounded by legions of angels – can entertain the Heavenly Hosts; – find ourselves under the shadow of the Almighty. But this recognition of the Magic Circle may at times offer an instantaneous means of escape, for it carries with it the suggestion of invisibility. Not that it is going to make you physically nil or invisible, but the force from this Consciousness could make it utterly impossible for the evil thing to find you. “You seek ME but you cannot find ME” – yet here am I in the midst of you.
Paul speaks about struggling not so much with the flesh as with the Powers of darkness, and his protection lay in the recognition of his Permanent Identity. “Hid with Christ in God.”
All of these wonderful ideas are yours for the acceptance of them in consciousness. You cannot think your Magic Circle into existence – it is there the moment you recognize it as true.
Nothing of evil can pass through this Magic Circle. The moment you recognize it – it is into full manifestation. “Stand and see the salvation of the Lord. “You are then Hid with Christ in God – all of which sounds like so many words until you actually accept this new degree of power which has always been yours.
For the sudden thrust of the enemy, “the pestilence that walketh in darkness, or the destruction that wasteth at noonday” the only escape is by the recognition of this Magic Circle of power which instantly puts to flight the thing called evil.
A Sir Galahad or a Parsifal going forth, shod with the preparation of the Gospel – which is a consciousness of power, and not a religious belief, typifies you, when you once come to the place of “Belief” in God. Not a profession of the lips and the human thinking mind – but a sudden uptilt into consciousness – into the place of “before ye ask I will answer.” It’s yours for the accepting – if you “believe” in something greater than human thought.
It all sounds like preparation for battle – and yet with this consciousness of the “Pass Not” you learn to “put up your sword” for the battle is not yours but God’s. An immeasurable peace comes to you the moment you are conscious of this Truth. It will take you through fire and through water and cause you to come over and through hundreds of human complications, in a way you know not of.
The old human thought, as undisciplined as a typhoon, finds it cannot go against such a consciousness without committing suicide.
Throughout the literature of the world inference is made to this Magic Circle which man possesses, and which makes of no account the power of evil.
Milton speaks of it in his poem Comus. He refers to the power of Chastity – that is singleness of consciousness. Recognition of an undefiled state of power.
“Tis chastity my brother Chastity,
And she that hath that is clad in complete steel,
And like a quivered nymph, with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests and unharboured heaths.
What was the snaky headed Gordon Shield
That wise Minerva wore; unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freezed her foe to congealed stone.
That when a soul is found sincerely so (one pointed)
A thousand liveried angels lackey her
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.”
Virginity – purity of consciousness – recognition of the unsullied Mind of God causes new dimensions to come forth. So we see that pure recognition of your Divinity as a reality will apparently destroy the thrusts of the worst combination of human thought. We see the illustration of Minerva’s Shields which she gave to Jason, how when the ugly snaky-headed monster looked upon its brightness and saw itself for what it was worth, congealed into stone. Yes, you have Power too to “pick it up or lay it down” – and you have power over all the evil things of the thought world when you but recognize your Divinity.
Note the line “A thousand liveried angels lackey her” – It is mentioned in the Bible as the Heavenly Hosts or the Twelve Legions of Angels of which Jesus spoke on the way to the cross.
“Call upon ME and I will answer you” becomes an actual reality when you are established in your own consciousness – the Mind which was also in Christ Jesus.
Arise and awake from the hypnotic thoughts that some force, carnate or discarnate, can touch you. Cast the Magic Circle of protection about you and see the “Pass Not” destroy the most terrible human picture ever presented to you. It is wonderful!
In the play, “Richelieu,” by Bulwer Lytton, we find Richelieu casting this Magic Circle of protection around his ward Julie – to save her from the lecherous designs of the dissolute king.
“Then wake the power which in the age of Iron,
Burst forth to curb the great and raise the low,
Mark where she (his word) stands,
Around her form I draw – the awful circle, etc., etc.”
The incident proved itself effective since the king was turned back upon himself and departed.
All this dramatic description of the lovely Power of the Christ incident must not cause you to lose sight of the fact that this is a natural, normal capacity of Your Christ mind – the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus.
The uses of this Revelation are endless. Its Power so far reaching. Go within then, and let it be established in you – and understand how it is that “none of these things move me” – nothing can come through. The wonderful circle can only be broken from within – never from without. So take unto yourself the knowledge of this “Pass Not” Circle of protection. It may prove useful many times on the journey.
Wagner has his Brunshild protected by the Magic Circle of fire – and while all illustrations are inadequate to give the smallest idea of the revelation, yet they may be enough to cause you to stand and SEE the salvation of the Lord.
The Lord omnipotent reigneth – let all the earth be silent before Him. Do you begin to “believe” now – just a little – perhaps as much as a grain of mustard?
“Round me and mine I throw the Ring “PASS NOT” – through which naught of evil but only Truth can come to me.”
Do you believe?
Keep the secret then.
A sheep among wolves passes through unharmed when this secret is understood. You in the thick of battle are made invulnerable by the Consciousness.
“Believe in Me and ye shall be saved.”
“Call upon Me and I will answer.”
MANIFESTATION
The moment a thing is manifested it is on its way out. Draw a hundred dollars from the bank and it is gone. Before you draw it out, it is there – yet it is not there – not the actual hundred dollar bill. You do it all in “your name” – and the moment it comes into manifestation it begins to disappear. It is so with all manifestation. God is the great Unmanifest – the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The actual SUBSTANCE; the moment it is stepped down to the point of manifestation it begins to disintegrate and to return to the original substance, unless stayed by recognition.
Unless man discovers that he Lives and moves and has his being in the ONE substance at the same moment it lives and breathes and has its being in him, he is only a temporary thing which is quickly passing into oblivion by all the evil means at the disposal of the mind which believes in separation. There is no separation between me and thee – there is One – yet I am the expression (the pressed out idea) of GOD, sent for a purpose – to bring, to release the LIGHT.
How can a man “renew his youth” if he does not know that he lives in the immaterial substance, which to know aright is LIFE eternal? It is wonderful when you glimpse it, – you begin to see you are actually LIVING in the invisible and immaterial substance of God and that this knowledge is what sustains the eternal freshness and newness of manifestation. Even as their garments waxed not old. How was it – unless the immaterial substance was always present, and as long as it is recognized, so long does the manifestation stay in place. It is wonderful.
“Heaven and earth are full of thee” and this alone will disintegrate the old beliefs and the “flesh shall become new like a child” because the immaterial substance is constantly flowing into manifestation and sustaining and refreshing the form and shape Spirit has given it.
Can we take it? Not as long as we argue about it. Not as long as we do not believe – believing is not a mental effort – it is a discovery. When the discovery is made, the manifestation takes place.
If you were before Abraham even as Jesus said He was – what about it? Whence came this manifestation of three score and ten, filled with evil, and that man must work out his living by the sweat of his brow? That is the chimera of belief: the mist that went up; – the hypnotism that came upon man when he descended to the level of freewill, and decided he would create again that which had been created and called very good.
Why did Jesus always return to the Matrix” Why does the sculptor return to his idea? The more he contemplates, the more accurately he is able to bring it forth and give it a body and form. “I go unto the Father” – I in the father and the father in me – all sounds like so much talk, until the sudden, quick, almost terrible recognition of the Presence is made.
“I go unto the Father” not to the idea of some man or the desires of some man, – but to the Matrix, the Father, and in that place of unmanifest substance I am completely renewed; – that is: I lose the accumulation of beliefs that have crystalized upon me like barnacles on a ship. It is said that a ship covered with barnacles if run into sweet waters will automatically lose the barnacles, and so is it with man – the moment he runs into God, he loses the evil he has accumulated for years through the ancestor teaching and belief.
MAN’S EXTREMITY
IT IS written in the Law, – “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity”.
You have had your opportunity to make a success of your life, – and perhaps still find yourself outside the City Beautiful with no oil in your lamps. And finally you come to the place where you can neither beg, borrow nor steal the “oil” to produce your light when the Bridegroom passes by.
Still the old human thought will make another effort. Like a beetle in a slippery bowl, he will try again and again to extricate himself from the difficulty he has fallen into. No problem ever came to you that was not first accepted by you as propelled by some false law. This you are sure is not true, and you will trace a thousand and one forgotten trails, endeavoring to find the cause of it, – rejecting the only true one: You are where you are because of your self.
It isn’t a very mellifluous doctrine. It is bitter, but it is therapeutic when once you see it. If you place the blame where it belongs, you have one foot out of the bog. Then finding the nothingness of the belief which is occupying your temple, you are out. When you discover what the Truth is, you will see the reality of the command, – “Know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free”. But this, too, has been a stumbling block for ages, since the puzzling question goes on, “What is the Truth?”.
Only one Man answered that, but not many will accept it, – “I AM the Truth!” You are the truth about everything in your life, – good, bad or indifferent. Only that which you recognize as Truth in any capacity can exist for you. You may find truth in disease and poverty, and so to you it is true.
Many things are true that are not facts. Until a thing becomes established as a fact, it is of little use to you. For instance, you know that prayer heals the sick, and that is true, – but it is not a fact until you have set it into action in your diseased body and have seen the manifestation of it in perfect health. And so with wealth and happiness.
“I came that your joy might be FULL!”-not partially full, but FULL, – not the honey which is so tempting and sweet but in which has been mixed the bitter aloes of human experience. No, – but pure unadulterated JOY. The human mind cannot conceive of JOY as a continuous fare. It imagines that it must have a certain amount of the bitter so that the contrast will make the sweet sweeter. This human mind has such stereotyped limitations that it is of little use to psychologize it into imagining a state of freedom.
We acknowledge Jesus as the Way-Shower, and then proceed to find our own belief-paths. Then it is that we must be ever watchful of Scylla, that many-headed monster with its long necks reaching out to destroy anything within its reach by evil gossip and slander. And in steering a well-defined course to escape her, we may run into the whirlpool Charybdis, – that futile, disheartening teaching of the man whose breath is in his nostrils, and be sucked under, into a place of utter frustration, finally to be grounded on the Isle of the Enchantress Circe, – always calling on God, endeavoring to bend His ways and laws to fit our desires and needs.
“How long will ye doubt” that Jesus gave us a Law so fool-proof and powerful that it would “bear us up as if on eagles’ wings”?
Only when man reaches the extremity of trying, will he “let go and LET God”. “MY Ways are not YOUR Ways”, – they are said to be as far above anything the think-man can conceive as the “heavens are above the earth”.
Such an apparently nonsensical question as “For why will ye die?” is answered from the standpoint of LIFE. Nothing dies in God, – only in the human thought induced by the father-Adam. Life, when accepted as OMNIPRESENT, causes man to manifest health, and the desert to blossom as a rose, and a thousand and one other things. All this for the recognition of God!
The world is full of people seeking ME in some-thing physical, some man-made teaching, or through some set of labors which makes Hercules’ tasks look like child-play.
The idea of man’s extremity is well illustrated by an incident of some years ago. A young boy lived in a small town through which ran a deep ravine, bridged by a single-track trestle. In the course of events he left home, as most small-town boys do,returning some years later on a surprise visit. He arrived late at night, and having no conveyance, decided to walk home by the short-cut across the ravine. Midway across, he suddenly looked up to see a train coming. He could neither turn back nor go ahead, the distances being too great, – so he let himself down over the side of the trestle, there to hang until the train passed by. By the time the train had gone, he did not have sufficient strength to pull himself up again. Remembering the jagged rocks below, a horrible fear paralyzed him, and his strength gave out completely. His fingers slipped free of the tie and he dropped, expecting to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below, – only to find to his amazement that he landed on soft earth about five feet below the bridge. During his absence, the ravine had been filled in. All his harrowing agony for naught !
Jesus taught in parables, and the “letting go” He requires of you when you have come to your extremity brings the surprise facts to light. The ravine of your fear and belief has been “filled in” with the LOVE of God !
A thousand invitations are given you to “cast your burdens on Him”. You are invited to “take up your cross”, – that power which X’ed out all the belief of the life of “Jesus”. He said, “In this world ye have tribulations”, and then immediately said, “This is the Kingdom of Heaven”. This seems a contradiction, but He also told you how to escape the tribulation, – “Be in the world but not of`it”. This does not mean a retiring into the seclusion of the hills, – but it does mean a retiring from the beliefs of today which tomorrow will be cast into the oven because the human mind ceases to believe in them.
Whatever you, – yes, YOU, accept, will come to abide with you as realities, – and what you reject through the Light of your Christ Consciousness will pass you by. At best, they will turn out to be “clouds without rain”.
Yes, man’s extremity IS God’s opportunity. You remember the poem about opportunity passing but once, and if you are asleep, you are bidden to awake, for it will not pass that way again. And you have tried your opportunity with small success, but there was always some “fly in the ointment”, or “little gnats that spoiled the honey”. Then why not see what God will do with His opportunity? Be un-afraid to walk through the shadows of beliefs about you and give Him a chance.
“Wait patiently on the Lord and He WILL bring IT to pass.” What means this “it”, if not the desire you have tried so hard and long to bring into visibility. But remember that the dust of the disintegration of your extremity must settle before you can see the SUN that is emerging through the cyclone of belief.
“Wait patiently on the Lord and He WILL bring IT to pass”. It says “will” so there can be no question about the results. Now you are not afraid of being found “naked”. What a thrill is awaiting you ~vhen you come to the place where you will “stand upon your watch and SEE what the Lord has to say unto the temple-bodies”.
None of this can be accomplished through the human reason which demands proof of the answer. “The signs follow, – they do not precede” is too much for his fearful thought, – and so another cycle passes by. The Wheel of Life turns over once more and instead of letting go, you have hung on to it and are being crushed with further evil.
But this “letting” God have His opportunity is like coming in from the blistering heat of the desert, – like suddenly discovering an oasis with cool shade and bubbling spring.
“Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity!” It would seem, then, if you are surfeited with your “extremity”, it is about time to “let” something happen,the something which you could not make happen. Or if you are not yet at your extremity, why not get there as quickly as possible, so that this golden flood of NEW LIGHT and REVELATION will be yours.
The complete submission to the ways of God leads to the Perfect WAY and brings out the true meaning of “I AM the WAY”. It is only at this elevation that the laws which Jesus gave can be and are made manifest as realities. It is then that WHATSOEVER you designate the I AM to be, YOU ARE. The urge of this designation is coming through, straight from the God of the Universe, guiding you into the things that have been prepared for you and which have never entered into the heart of man.
So often this submission carries with it the false belief of a complete giving up of everything the heart has longed for and the leading of a desolatory, lonely life. This is the human concept. And yet in spite of this belief, man goes on eternally seeking God. Why for? If “things” are the ultimate, why continue to seek God? Why not find Him in money instead of substance, if you believe that money is a greater power than God. If you feel that evil is more certain and powerful than God, it would be well to worship the devil, – or would it?
Why will we stand in the Temple and say with our lips, “God is the only Power”, – and at the same time consider the evil power that apparently has us in its grasp?
You cannot legislate, nor yet control the human love. It goes where it will without rhyme or reason, – nothing can be done about it. Then why imagine that by the use of words or beliefs you can direct or control the LOVE of God?
Yes, – “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,and incidentally, your opportunity, – -the only real one you ever had. The opportunity to have all the senses extended beyond the human belief, – to have eyes that SEE and ears that HEAR, – to have a clear, limpid consciousness of the Truth of Life and an ability to SEE through the veils of human thought. “I saw you under the fig tree” is not a capacity to tell fortunes, – but an ability to see all that is essential. So often man comes under the category of “what you ARE screams so loud I cannot hear what you are saying”.
If God cannot do it, then it cannot be done. That should just about settle it. Then, why in Heaven’s Name not LET Him do something. Give Him His opportunity, as you have given yourself so many opportunities which have all failed. Why not come to your extremity NOW.
MARY
I have always wondered why there was not a chapter in the Bible about Mary. She was overshadowed by the Spirit to such an extent that all the biological and physiological laws of the human thought were made as naught. Upon her in many ways rests the NEW revelation. She was the first one to literally put on earth that which she conceived in consciousness.
After having the great over-shadowing of Spirit she went within and “magnified” – the power of the Lord. It needed to be magnified in order to bring out the “impossible.” No one would believe her – because they knew it was impossible and by the laws of their Fathers – it could not happen – but it did. No one believes you when you tell of the Immaculate Conception – the borning of the new idea in you. No one believes that you are going to “stir” from the old futile and monotonous routine of your life. They all know you too well. That is why you must go within and magnify the POWER – and tell no man – for there are many things that you must and will perform before the new manifestation shall be placed on earth.
Yes, there is very little we read of Mary in the Bible. One wonders about the things that might have taken place during the monotonous te-deum of the Carpenter shop – in a small provincial town – and yet surely things did happen.
At the wedding feast in Cana, out of a clear sky, she calls Jesus to her and simply asks him to set aside all laws of chemistry, physics, and human erudition.
“And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him, They have no wine”
Just like that. – “they have no wine.” She knew the family budget and at least was familiar with the laws of human life sufficiently to know that simply making a statement “They have no wine” would not accomplish anything but a negative agreement with most human minds. But – (and that incidentally is why she must have recognized the POWER -) she called upon Our Precious One. It must have been with full belief – no argument. Do you begin to sense the Immaculate Conception idea? – The bringing forth of the impossible? – Mary stands for that. And so Jesus did what was necessary – because he couldn’t do anything else – and neither can you when once you recognize your Divinity. That is all.
And then we see Jesus producing the “best” wine. There is nothing niggardly, or economizing in the Mind of God – that too is in the human thought. It begins at the BEST and deteriorates into the worst through the limitations of Human thinking.
“Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have Life eternal” – and Ye have – if YE can take it. And please note in John 2 – Verse 3 – :
“And when they wanted wine, the mother
of Jesus said unto him, They have no wine” –
What I wanted you to note was the comma, followed by a new sentence. It would seem that one of the established laws of publication is roughly handled. El Greco the famous Spanish painter found it necessary to distort his characters in order to convey emotions and unseen states of mind, So likewise in this new statement of truth it is necessary to take liberties with Grammar and syntax.
THE MASK OF PERSONALITY
IN ANCIENT TIMES when the Greek Nobleman wished to enact a role upon the stage he donned a plaster mask, representing either tragedy or comedy, thus saving himself the trouble and displeasure of distorting his features, and instantly conveying to his audience the character he represented. If he wore a tragic mask, he passed through the play on that note and was recognized as a tragedian, etc. Yet all the while he might be smiling behind the mask. When you left the Garden of Eden, you took on a mask or persona (from which comes our word personality), and since that time, you have changed from one mask to another throughout the ages.
You chose the particular mask or character that you are now playing, because you saw in it a possibility of accomplishing that which your soul desired to express, irrespective of what that mask contained within itself. A thousand actresses have played Lady Macbeth, but each has brought out a different character. The Immortal You, or Permanent Identity, took’ on mortality in order to bring to the surface a clear manifestation of soul. But so often, in entering into the character of the mask, the You is hypnotized by the appearances of that character to such an extent that it finally is ruled by the mask; thus we see it very much in the same light, as if the Greek Nobleman who was actually free from most cares of life, suddenly took on the tragic aspect of the mask he wore, thereby putting himself through all sorts of evil situations; or if he wore the comic mask, becoming the fool or “nit-wit” represented by that mask. Jesus, the Carpenter, discovered the limitations and inability to cope with life or personality (in His case called Jesus) “I can of Myself do nothing.”
Discovering His true identity, He appropriated His heritage (made in the image and likeness of God), thereby freeing Himself from the limitations of (the Mask) Jesus. He became so conscious of His Permanent Identity, with its fourth-dimensional power-God-that He was willing to go through all problems and beliefs of the “Mask” of Jesus before He finally stepped it up to the place of Oneness—the “Touch me not” place above all human law or contact. By this recognition He was able to cause the Mask (Jesus) to do things that it could not possibly do. His field of expression and activity was always in the direction of the impossible. So conscious of this “Mind which was also in Christ Jesus” was He, that He even allowed the “Mask” to be crushed, broken, crucified and put to death, in order that I He might prove the power which lay within the Permanent Identify, and which is indigenous to every man, when he is able to recognize it. As soon as you discover this, you will understand the power to “pick it up or lay it down.”
Only by discovering or recognizing the Permanent Identity of you, the changeless creation of God, will you be able to assume command over the personality-mask. Once you grasp this fundamental truth you will really go within and shut the door-ceasing to judge further from appearances, because you will have recognized the truth regarding them, as revealed by Jesus Christ “Judge not from appearances.” Anything you then discover in your Permanent Identity becomes a reality in the relative world. In other words, whatever you discover as being true in this God Consciousness makes itself manifest in and through you. Jesus became conscious of substance unlimited, and was able to bring through the increase of bread and fish, after having clearly stated “I (Jesus) can of Mine own self do nothing.”
The Mask, Personality, “John Smith,” can do nothing outside its own limitations. It has a very limited destiny and must and will follow it through. There is no escape unless the recognition of the Permanent Identity, the Christ within, or the rather Consciousness, is made. At no time can the Jesus-mask cause the rather to do His bidding, or to work “wonders” for the gratification of human curiosity. In every instance, He must “go unto the rather”-ascend to His God Consciousness or Permanent Identity. The “Mask” or personality has already done everything it could to make it a success. Only after the recognition of the Permanent Identity (you), are you able to cause so-called miracles or the impossible to take place. All this is above the reasoning or thought-taking process of the personality. “The wisdom of man is foolishness,” etc.
The Mask of tragedy can play only tragedy. The Mask of sickness can produce only sickness, so with poverty, maladjustments, etc., there is very little that can actually be done about it. You may in some manner change the outside appearance a little, but if you wear the tragic Mask, tragedy will mark the entire expression of your personality. This “thinking” or rather mis-thinking mind, is designated as “a liar and the father of it”-its intelligence is exactly the same grade as that of a person who would consider any character or situation on the stage as real and unchangeable. The moment the play is over the whole picture breaks up, the actors throw off their Masks and become themselves. The moment you understand the law of Jesus Christ, you discover the same ability within yourself, and begin to throw off the Mask of personality, and you are not so easily taken in, as it were, by what the character in the play is apparently doing. You begin to see—even if vaguely-that you have power “to pick ‘it up or lay it down” by reason of the Permanent Identity which changes not, and which is “a temple not made with hands eternal in the heavens.”
There is nothing very strange about this-the fact of the platter is, it is so simple it is “given unto the child” and withheld from the adult (adulterous roan), who is hypnotized to the extent that he builds everything on what the tragic Mask represents, hence his sin, sickness and death.-‘It is glorious and wonderful when you first glimpse this revelation, for suddenly you feel a real awakening, a real movement towards your Permanent Identity. In this consciousness you discover, or rediscover that which was always yours. This discovery brings forth many things you have forgotten which were “shown to you on the Mount,” and’ will change manifestations with lightning rapidity and case-“in the twinkling of an eye all shall be changed,” ‘the moment you see it in this Permanent Identity, it becomes visible in the manifest world. Literally then comes the revelation “Whatsoever you tell the Father in Secret shall be called from the housetops.” ‘Whatsoever you can accept in the Permanent Identity as real and true will be made visible in the manifest world.
The Greek Nobleman knows the difference between himself and the Mask and is free-so with you. You are beginning to see the difference between your personality and your individuality. You are “being born again.” It is wonderful! Who are you then—answer me? Are you tragedy, are you comedy, are you sickness, poverty, ingratitude, or are you the “Christ of God”? “Who do you say that I AM?” Answer me. Judging by the Mask, some say you are John Smith or Mable Jones, that you are a thief, a liar, a crook, a holier-than-thou, etc.—but “WHO DO YOU say that I AM?” Do you begin to see why it is necessary actually to go within and shut your door? This time you are returning or entering into the Father Consciousness, and you need not be surprised at the many wonderful things taking place.
Things will now happen with ease and dispatch, and you will find yourself moving in new levels of manifestation. Small wonder then-“Judge not from appearances but judge righteous judgment.” Judging from appearances leads only to a conclusion of evil, for the Mask is tragic, the role is cast and nothing can be done about it. The sooner you realize this, the quicker you will stop trying to do anything with the Mask outside, and will enter into the Courts of the Lord, and be your Permanent self; and from that point on you will sec the useless and inane measurement of things by human thought. Human thought is a capacity of the personality or Mask, and is concerned almost wholly with evil; filled with anxiety and fear, which are without power to stop evil.
“When I would do good, I do evil.” This is a sample of human thought-taking. No matter what be the power behind the Mask, so long as you are hypnotized by it, you cannot manifest anything but the limitations of that Mask. A lion has been raised to be afraid of a poodle dog. Maybe you are afraid of something equally simple. Ceasing to judge from appearances then, is not merely hiding from your eyes so-called pictures of evil, as if the so-called lion were to hide from the picture of the poodle;’ but it is a sudden ability to “Judge righteous judgment”–that is to see the pictures of sin, disease, etc., for what they are instead of what they appear to be-to look through the Mask of personality, and discover what is within. The Nobleman may be smiling radiantly behind this Mask. Your Permanent Identity may be doing the same thing. So “Look again” and see through the Mask and enter into your true fulfillment. It is the recognition of this that saves you from the sudden thrusts of other personalities or Masks in the Play of Life, and protects you from the ugly and apparently inevitably disastrous results of human destiny. So hypnotized have you been by this Mask-Personality which you are wearing, that you even consult it regarding all the issues of life, and this Mask then assumes such complete authority that it holds you against all desire and better judgment into a place of evil. No wonder Jesus said,
“Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ (Permanent Identity) shall give thee light.” “Awake and arise from the dead!” (Mask of Personality-John Smith) and go into the New Day with confidence! You will understand how it is that the “King can play the beggar, but the beggar cannot play the King.” The beggar may take on a veneer of spirituality or Kingliness—show a few tricks of this pseudo-power, but his terrific handicaps are seen and discovered, and he is cast out as false. The Mask or Personality can never become the Nobleman-he may take on a certain semblance of power and authority, but it is only an appearance which he cannot long sustain. You cannot change the Mask from without, you cannot heal it. Its innate capacities will stay with it so long as it must depict a role separate from the Nobleman’s Identity. Every time the Nobleman puts it on, he is temporarily, at least to the world of appearances, that thing. Every time Jesus allowed Himself to operate under the Jesus-Mask He was a carpenter.
The moment He made His assumption, He became Jesus Christ, and did what the world called miracles, or things He could not otherwise have done. Unlike the Mask, the Personality is in its essential nature plastic and fluidic, and that is the reason why Jesus in entering into His Permanent Identity could change the Mask and cause it to sidestep its own destiny or limitations. So the hard, set Mask of you which appears- so destined to perform evil, can be changed and its hateful destiny obliterated. To the human thought this is impossible, and it cannot be done by thought. “Take no thought.” Do you begin to see why Mary “Magnified the Lord within her,” instead of trying to change anything about the Mary-Mask? Do you begin to see why you will suddenly stop trying to change things on the outside? Then you will find the real place of revelation and thereby control the situation, causing the Mask to change its appearance likewise. All this is filled with Light.
I am writing to you at dawn, and at this very moment a terrific noise assaults my cars. Looking out, I perceive that the great walls of the old Hippodrome Theatre, a former landmark of New York City, have crashed to the ground. Workmen are razing the building that seemed so massive and enduring. Now even as I watch, it is no more. Five minutes ago, it was there. Now, as I return to my writing it is done away with-gone forever. So, one day will the walls of your personality, in their hard-set form, give way to the Christ Consciousness so completely that the belief in sickness, age, poverty and hurt shall be wiped out forever. “You shall run and not be weary—” Why? How? Do you know any athlete who can do it? Just what is it we are talking about anyway? Was Jesus a soothsayer or a liar?
You answer it. When you discover your Permanent Identity, if it be necessary, you shall run and not be weary, for you will know that the Mask-Personality has no longer intelligence or power of its own, no capacity to become tired, worn-out, sick, poor, unhappy, aged, or any of the so—called evil. None of this can be proven for the idle curiosity of disbelievers, or people who want a sign—it is not for this purpose—it is a natural law, which functions along natural lines when it becomes natural to you, and ceases to be some fantastic, intangible, invisible power. The use of the Mask by the Nobleman does not diffuse the Mask in any way and so you begin to sense-feel your fatigueless body. It cannot be overworked, for this newly recognized power can work faster through it than the body can possibly work by itself with its muscular and mental limitations.
The Power can speed up the use of muscles and nerves to such a capacity as is entirely impossible humanly. We are moving to the realm of the capital wisdom of God, which is our heritage—otherwise the teachings of Jesus are vain. Are you beginning to appropriate this power, and experience the direct and instant action of it? “Be still and know that I am God.” You can know this only in the place of your Permanent Identity, hence if “I am to speak” the Jesus Mask is used to see through, and actually his mouth becomes the mouth of God for the moment. If you can once see this, you will never again begin any task or work without a moment’s pause for the recognition that it is “already done.” With this recognition a super-capacity comes to you which makes it possible to accomplish the hitherto impossible.
THE MECHANICS
WHEN YOU come to the place of recognition – and by that I mean when you have actually accepted the fact that the universe is under the direct control of a Power designated as God, or Life, and not subject to the limiting laws of evil belief, then you will see that before the chicken or egg, before the flower or seed, is a Power which conceived the thing in its totality. The supposed evolution from the invisible to the visible is only the sluggish action of the human thought, trying to account for everything through the elements of time and space.
An idea does not have to be worked out in the Universal Mind. As in the single grain of wheat lies the substance which eventually sustains a whole army of people, by a somewhat slow process of growth, so wrapped up in every idea is not only the means of expressing itself, but the complete expression in its entirety.
It is by looking at a single grain of wheat – putting it through the limiting processes of human estimation, and then pitting the findings against the power of consumption of the army of people – that man comes to a full stop and says that it cannot be done, or that if it be possible there is such a great time-lag which intervenes between the single grain of wheat and the thousands of leaves of bread necessary to sustain the mob, that it is hopeless to expect anything from that source. This may be true and reasonable from the limited human concept – it is merely used as an illustration of comparative sizes. An idea as small, symbolically speaking, as the grain of wheat, has within it the substance sufficient to fill the greatest cavity of human belief – not by a slow process of evolution from the invisible to the visible, but by sudden recognition of the Allness everywhere. How it will come into manifestation is not known to man – “not even the Son, but the Father knoweth.”
The Son of you in this respect might be judging from appearances, and in a manner waiting for something to take place – might be speculating on how it could take place. The Master, recognizing this, knew that if the Son conceived the thing as complete and finished, and rested it, the mechanics of how it would appear would take care of themselves – and the idea would have within it the means of bringing itself into full expression. “Take no thought” is the command – after having laid carefully before the mind the fact that taking thought could not add one cubit to one’s stature, and asking the pungent question, “If ye cannot do that which is least by taking thought,” why do you try to change the eternal ideas?
Man is beginning to see that all the thought in the world is not going to change the eternal laws of the universe. Nothing shall be added to, and nothing taken away from, that which is all and in all.
By this sensing of the eternal facts of the universe the feeling of perfection and completeness of the idea in its entirety becomes a constant experience. Out of the chaos of the night of belief, in the blackest mire of human thought, man conceives light, and suddenly the darkness is absorbed – it has disappeared – and the experience not only seems to have been a dream, but actually has been a dream – a semi-conscious state. The experiencing of any evil is but a semi-conscious state. Man is conscious of some action, but his interpretation, through his belief in evil, causes him to experience what is termed evil.
“It is well,” if conceived as a reality, will set everything right in your universe. How? I know not – I am not concerned. It is so. “Believest thou this?” It cannot be reasoned out; all the human intellect in the world cannot explain how you can be prospered and yet have no increase of symbols or things, but the use of the invisible substance of the All. The unseen substance is part of that which “eye hath not seen,” but it is there, and man senses it. It is not necessary for him to have an outward sign; he finds that he has in reality experienced the use of substance – done things, gone to places, expressed himself – and actually his bank account has not had more symbols of dollars and cents.
So he finds eventually that his acceptance is pushed to a point of accomplishment. “Only speak the word.” A word of itself would do nothing – “Peace, peace, and there is no peace” is a fine illustration of what the empty word may accomplish. The living Word, the Word of God, is not clothed in any language. A hundred men, all speaking different languages, would understand the Living Word, whereas by merely hearing the different noises made by one another, to represent what the Word is, would be a veritable Tower of Babel.
Come, awake! a new day dawns, so far removed from the trying to make things happen by jabbering words at God. What have all the words accomplished? How often have you pleaded with God – begged, beseeched, beaten at the gates of heaven, and been turned away empty? Thousands are waiting in the desert for drink that you alone can supply through the new plane of recognition. You can give only that which they have already, as it might be said that Jesus gave life to Lazarus by calling his attention to the eternality of life. “And man became a living soul” – everything into which the breath of the living Word is breathed becomes a living manifestation of God. Breathing the breath of life into a man-I-festation is only another way of stating the power of recognition. It is a far cry from the glorious truth, “Ye shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass,” to the “How to have prosperity, health, and success,” by rattling off a lot of words in tempo or out of tempo.
“Prove me and see if I will not open windows of heaven and pour out a blessing ye cannot receive.” You will see that the ME is the Christ within your consciousness that is to be proven, and that the windows of heaven must also be in your own consciousness, for heaven is a state of consciousness – a state of self-expression or revelation. The blessing that is to descend to the Jesus is then directly out of the consciousness of the Christ – not in some far off locality, not something that has to be made to appear out of the skies or through some strange treatment.
Prove it you cannot, until you become fully convinced of the Presence of the Power of God, life everywhere – complete and whole, merely awaiting recognition. Then the ideas containing in themselves the complete expression will, to the human sense, appear to evolve into manifestation. But the whole thing – the how, why, when, and where – is in the NOW, and is done at the instant the recognition is made.
Man has nothing further to do with the proposition, but to lend himself as an instrument, a willing instrument, to bring about the manifestation through the beliefs of time and space. There is, therefore, no concern about the outcome; it is sure and certain, and has not one chance of not appearing, for in reality it is already there, invisible to the double eye, but plainly visible to the single eye of the I Am.
“Believest thou this?” Do you think it possible with this God Power, or will you still interpose a lot of traditional ideas and things that you have gained from going up and down and to and fro in the universe of changing, shifting belief? Yes or no? Either you do or do not; no middle ground is possible. All or nothing. God is, and is All, or you have two powers. What is the good of trying to fence with the idea any longer? If your eye is double to evil and good, then you cannot expect to experience the power of the Christ. Evil seems more real than good to most people, because they actually have accepted it as so, although they emphatically deny it. The least thing that happens to them they exclaim, “Just my luck!” – not that the exclaiming of this means anything; it is the accepted power back of it.
The mere words would mean nothing to a Frenchman; in fact, a whole string of negative words would mean nothing to him unless they were in French. We must get back of the symbol. A gramophone record has no power in its word, any more than the praying machines used in the Orient.
Be still, stop trying to tell Me what to do – stop trying to arrange the outcome of things. Be still – be still – accept the unspeakable Word of life which shapes in your mind as “It is well,” and lend yourself, a wholly willing servant, to perform the mechanics, if any be necessary, to bring this idea into manifestation. Do you hear? You who read? God is – you are – it is well. Get that woven into the fiber of your mind, and glorious melodies, complete symphonies, will be played across the strings of your heart, and you will become so busy appropriating the glories of heaven here and now that you will have neither time nor need of demonstrating the power – it will be a continuous manifestation of one glory after another. “From glory to glory,” from revelation to revelation, not in the impractical, intangible, emotional way, but actually “the Word made flesh” – the actual manifestation in daily life. You will be found walking in the garden – your garden – gathering fruits and flowers where you will. Not as a special favor for a few moments, after which you are to be turned out again in the desert of human experiences, but as an heir – an owner – one who appropriates that which is.
Came Jesus and stated the nothingness of time and space – “A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday” – “instantly he was on the other side” – disappeared when in crowds. Dare you to think on these things? Not as a glutton who would consume the food in order to show his size, not as one who wishes personal power, but as one who travels alone into his own kingdom of self-expression and finds it normal and natural, as well as convenient, to be possessed of these powers.
“Be still.” If I could not tell you everything in Jerusalem because you could not bear it, I shall not always withhold it from the ears of those who are ready and who have washed their robes clean from all this self-seeking and this attempting to shout, “Look at me – I am holier than thou – let me show you my bag of metaphysical tricks.” Come away! Be still! Leave your nets – you cannot catch many fish, anyway, until you know that the substance is there in its entirety, and you have only to accept it to find the nets breaking with manifestation. Not for show, beloved, not for talk – do you hear? Be still, be still, be still. It is well – fear not. Everything is all right. Do you hear? You who read this page? This word Now? You?
In the twinkling of an eye it is done – so quickly the flurried human thought has not time to flash an answer. So overpowered and bowled over is his reasoning that he exclaims, “A miracle” – ‘”Some supernatural power at work.” What difference what he calls it or how he tries to explain it? He has to admit that it made itself manifest, not through his best accepted chain of laws, but in spite of them, and that those best and finest laws that he has conceived for himself have been completely ignored. Why will you examine into the human laws to find out whether it is possible for ME to express? Fold up your tent and steal silently away from the noise and clatter. I have something to say to you alone – I have something to show you – something to make your heart so full that it shall run over into the whole universe. It is wonderful! Do you hear? You who read? You?
You make and break all human law; it has no basis. A traffic law in one town may be broken in the next, while fulfilling the laws of that city. It is nothing but a human limitation. If it were an absolute law, it would be the same for ever, and breaking it would automatically produce results. This is true of all the laws of sickness, poverty, and evil.
Be still – I have much to say to you. When you are ready and willing, I will perform the works in such a beautiful, easy manner – even now as I write this book – even now as you read this page. Even as you now hold the finished manifestation in your hands, so I hold it finished and complete in consciousness, and am going through the mechanics of belief to bring it into manifestation, and to bring it into your hands. Do you begin to see? Do you begin to read between the lines the message that I cannot put on the lines because of the limitations of belief? Be still – be still. It is so – it is well with you NOW.
METAPHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS
In many respects metaphysics is pure mathematics, and vice versa. X is the unknown quantity (unknown god whom ye ignorantly worship) which is sought and looked for by every earnest student. It remains unknown until the principle is properly applied and we perceive it as the very power which is doing the seeking. A beginner in mathematics spends a large portion of his time looking for the answer, but when he goes further into the subject he is interested in understanding and applying the principle. He gradually learns that the answer is the natural and logical sequence of the proper application of the principle.
A beginner in metaphysics seeks the Kingdom of Heaven by trying to get things or the answers to his problems; yet the statement of the principle is, “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and the things shall be added.” That is, seek to understand and know the principle, and the answer will follow quite naturally. In metaphysics as in mathematics the signs (or answers) follow (not precede) them that believe (are firm). Talking about the principle of mathematics will never work out a problem, any more than talking about Truth will bring out harmony. A page of problems may lie next to a perfectly stated principle for thousands of years and nothing happen. Talking about the Truth in the most beautiful and correct form does not obtain results.
“What is the Truth?” (what is the unknown quantity represented by X?) has been asked all down the centuries, and yet the answer is stated simply by the Master, “I am the Truth.” When a man has principal in the bank, the interest accrues automatically. He puts forth no effort to make the interest. When a man has a consciousness of Principle as everywhere evenly present, he accrues the interest in the form of that thing which will constantly solve the so-called problems of life. In mathematics before you begin to work out a problem, you recognize one thing, and that is that the answer or solution already is. It exists before you even start to apply the principle to the problem a hand. The same thing is true of metaphysics: “Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will give it unto them.” The answer to your problem or prayer already is before you even attempt to work it out.
It gives one courage to understand that there is no such thing as an unanswered problem in the universe, and it causes one to turn to the Master who eternally started with the premise, “It is done.” Jesus recognized that every problem was solved before the request was spoken. He wasted no time in begging and beseeching the Principle to work out anything. He started with the premise, “It is done.” The more conversant we are with the principle of mathematics the quicker we are in approximating the answer. The more we recognize the oneness of God, the quicker we see him manifest.
Everything that ever was or will be is at this moment. When Michael Angelo saw the angel in the block of marble, he conceived it as perfect, complete, and finished; and having this concept, the labour or expression of bringing the un-manifest into the manifest was simple, direct, and joyous. If a room is in a state of chaos, before it can be set in order it must first be conceived as being in perfect order in mind. At that instant it is done, and the matter of setting it in order on the outer plane is merely the action of mind expressing itself through you.
A child labours with a simple problem. You are aware of the perfect solution, while the child is still labouring with the delusion that he has to get the answer. The same thing is true in metaphysics. Jesus stood in the same position to humanity that you stand to the child. He saw the solution instantly, while humanity struggled with its problems. You may continue for ever to deny statements made regarding a mathematical problem. You could consume a lifetime telling what two times two are not, and arrive at no conclusion. There is only one thing which can be said regarding the equation, and that is what has eternally been true about it. The same thing can be said of man, and that is the all-inclusive statement that he is perfect now. Why is he perfect? Because he is the Son of God — now. And could the Son of a perfect Power manifest imperfection now? And if he cannot manifest it now, can he ever manifest it, since it is always the everlasting now?
“Thou shalt have no other Gods (principle) before me,” is a mathematical law as well as a spiritual command. You can get results no other way, except by the exact application of the principle. The more you are aware of Principle as eternally existing the easier will the circumstance which calls itself a problem be answered. In the process of subtraction we are told at the beginning to take the lesser from the greater number, but later on we find that we take the greater from the lesser in order to bring out the harmony, or answer, to the so-called problem. In metaphysics at first we start with seeking things, but presently we reverse this process and seek first principle and therein find everything solved. The rules of Mathematics are hard and fast. The same is true of metaphysics. Not one jot or tittle shall be removed until the law is fulfilled. So it is with mathematics. Almost using the principle correctly does not get results, though it may approach them. Beseeching mathematics or God to work out problems which are already solved will not help. Praising the principle of mathematics will not help. Intelligent co-operation with it is necessary, just as Jesus expressed it when he said, “I can of mine own self do nothing, but with God all things are possible.” To become one with Principle is to go the foundation of it. As well imagine that the principle of mathematics is going to set aside an unbreakable law and give you the answer to your problem as to imagine you can break the law of God. “God is not mocked,” neither is the principle of mathematics. You get exactly what you put into it.
One of the most interesting problems of the Bible is that of Job. He had nothing, but the answer to the problem was “His captivity was turned and he had twice as much as he had before.” What is it that could bring out this solution? You have the problem and the answer stated, but what was the actual principle that was used to bring it into manifestation? A child will cry over its problems, but a more advanced mathematician deletes the self-pity idea, realizing the utter futility of it. A good metaphysician will have done with this useless baggage: he will waste no time pitying himself. When you have arrived at the answer to your problem in mathematics you throw away all the labour and work, and think no more of it. The answer neutralized the vacuum you thought existed, and this being done, you are through. The same thing applies to metaphysics. When you bring into manifestation the solution to the nothingness called problem, if you are wise you will not rehearse or go over the details of the difficulties overcome. The principle of mathematics is impartial and impersonal —so is God. Telling the principle of mathematics that you have worked, laboured, and suffered in its cause, does not cause it to do more than it has already done, which is to supply the perfect answer to every problem. God cannot do more than all, and he has said through the Way-shower, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”; or in other words, “there is no problem.” How could there be a problem in heaven? “Come unto me all ye that labour and I will give you rest.” Come to the understanding and you have rest from the struggle in both mathematics and metaphysics. Also you come into the rich heritage. “To him that hath (understanding of the principle) shall be given” (the power to quickly recognize the answer as eternally existing), both in mathematics and metaphysics. Seek first the kingdom (principle) and the things shall be added. “Use not vain repetition.” Merely going over formulas will do nothing. “Ye seek me for the loaves and fishes” when you are always seeking for the answer to the problems, caring nothing for the principle.
To work out a problem for a child has its advantages at certain stages, but only gives temporary relief. If he is shown the principle, he can bring out results of harmony which will be permanent. He can cease his dependence on persons and go to the Source of all. The advanced mathematician looking over the shoulder of the child sees the solution, almost as the child is setting the problem on paper; so it is which the Christ-consciousness — it knows the solution to every problem, because all problems are beliefs, and in reality exist only in the mind of the person. When we become one with the Father and let the Christ Mind be in us, we are raised to the level of having “eyes that see.” Thomas must have his sign, but Peter understands without the sign and receives the rich blessing of understanding.
MY CUP RUNNETH OVER
THOU anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over,” sang the psalmist. The cup of our desire is to be filled with joy – – not only filled, but filled to running over. The cup of our desire is a complete willingness to let God enter your life and there have full sway. “The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth rejoice.” And then we read that the temple is the body. Now the Lord is in the midst of us – – He is in our very midst and is filling the cup of our desire to the brim and running it over.
Like the mountain spring rushes, gushes down the mountain sides, fills the basin full – – yes, full to overflowing – – and the surplus waters the valley beneath, so God is filling our hearts with the spontaneous, live-giving joy which, when we let it run over on all sides, blesses and heals all who come in contact with it. It’s an impersonal matter – – you let your cup be so full of joy and take no thought where it is going to run-over – – everything in the universe thrives on joy. Even your dog knows when the joy is running over, because you meet him with a dash, with a snap, and responds with the same joy; your best friend responds immediately to your joy, he slaps you on the back or puts his arm over your shoulder; he is happy to see you, to bask for a while in your joy. The child in the street greets you with the smile you give it. The man in the street feels helped by your joy. Let your joy be so spontaneous, let if flow; let it burst up in the midst of a desert of gloom and see its oily, soothing effect on the crowd.
You have a reason to be happy – – there is a reason of the faith which is within you. Floodtides of love are open to you, and constantly flowing to you, and you are but the channel, open and free for it to pass through. Then relax, let go of the stiff formal life where you are always under a mask, afraid of public opinion, afraid that something will happen if you let yourself be natural. Sure something will happen, and that something is that you will find yourself a new creature in Christ Jesus – – the new mind will be in you – – the new name will be written upon your forehead and ye shall be called blessed.
Hatred cannot stand the power of joy; a joyful man can outwit and overcome it at every turn in the road; anger is turned aside by joy; sin is blasted and withered in the presence of this holy substance, for it finds not its pleasure in the senses, but in right doing, in clear thinking and in purity. Real joy is born of purity – – its motive power is right doing – – it glories in the fact that it is reflecting the “Word” – – that it is in reality “The Word made flesh.” It goes about its work singing not a foolish little ditty, but a lofty psalm of praise which is more felt than heard.
So in the morning, when you turn over for that last forty winks, just have a little talk with your “friend” self and decide to begin the day with joy. See if you cannot get that full-to-overflowing feeling in your heart – – let it gush up in you, that great feeling that “I am one with God” – – I am one with the very source of joy. I can go about my work with the real song on my lips and in my heart. I will flood everywhere that I go with light and joy, like the sun floods the earth. “Still, still with thee when purple morning breaketh” – – always with God. No matter where you make your bed, you turn hell into heaven because you know “if I make my bed in hell thou art there,” and where God is, is heaven.
He has anointed your head with oil – – your cup runneth over with joy – – you are joy. Then go forth and give to the starving world – – fill all their vessels full of the blessed substance.
MY NAME IS WONDERFUL
My name is wonderful, the mighty, the counselor, the Prince of Peace. Of my reign there shall be no end’ the government shall be upon my shoulders.
Call upon my name and I shall answer thee – that is why, when you call the word wonderful, the very soul of the idea rises and shakes off its grave-clothes. To call it wonderful, though it be coated over with appearances of death and disease, of sin or poverty, is to see the sleeping Lazarus arise – not from death, but from beliefs, and shed his limiting bandages and bonds.
Call upon my name and I shall answer. My name is wonderful – the mighty – the name of the I AM – the eternally present tense of life – the ETERNAL FIRST PERSON, from which emanates the unspoken-spoken word and the invisible-visible. Call upon Me and I will answer you; yea, even before you call I will answer. I AM before all the beliefs of limiting human beliefs. Though a man were dead, yet shall he live again; though you were dead in the hypnotism of a thousand years of belief, yet shaII you live again in this truth, and wonder after wonder pass over you.
Self-revelation – revelation of hidden talents of which you, the John Smith, have never dreamed – revelation of capacities and opportunities which were beyond your fondest dreams, come to the surface and are yours for the mere acceptance. It is wonderful.
‘Salute no man that thou passeth upon the highway,” lest he try to foist upon you a personal teaching – lest he try to turn you aside by his own holier-than-thou brand of teaching. Look within, and look away from the fleeting man those breath is in his nostrils. ‘look unto a me [the Christ within] all the ends of the earth, and be saved” from the dire effects of your beliefs. Though you be red like crimson with beliefs in sin, sickness, and limitation, yet shall you be white as snow – because you were always that way, and always shall be that way. Pretty soon you shall see Me, and shall glory in the revelation, and see the glorious possibilities of the Sons of God. Then will you drink deep of the Water of Life, and go forth and smite the rock of human intelligence and make it gush forth the waters in such floods and abundance that it will cause the parched desert or your life to blossom as a rose. Do you hear? Do you heed? You are the Child of the Living God. your name is wonderful. Call upon Me and I shall answer – yes, before you call I will answer.
All the human reasoning goes down like a house of cards before the self-revelation. What of this wisdom which today is true and tomorrow is found to be nothing, and cast into the furnace of oblivion? All sin is but ignorance of Me – it is the conscious or unconscious ignoring of my presence. As soon as you understand, the results of your ignorance or ignoring Me disappear, and you find harmony. As soon as you have the answer to a problem, you have no problem; you cannot have answer and problem at the same time: a problem is only a problem as long as it remains unanswered. And the problems of life remain unanswered until you realize that I AM the answer to everything, for all problems are merely the ignorance – the ignoring of ME, your inner Lord, your True Self, and the Real YOU.
My wisdom is foolishness in the eyes of man, whose breath is in his nostrils: he has only that breath for a few years, and then it gives out and he falls by the way. Verily, verily I say unto you, “you must a born again’ – awakened to the Truth of Being, which will cause you to see through the limited beliefs, and make you shout to the most foreboding evil that the belief world is capable of presenting to you: “It is wonderful.’ It is the name of the I AM, the Father-Mother, or Divine Neuter, or All-Complete. It is wonderful, and, when recognized, comes out into manifestation, and One with this consciousness is a Majority. Do you hear? “put up your sword” – “you do not need to fight – set yourself and see.”
Be still, beloved. I am at this instant revealing My (Your) self to you – wordless impressions, nameless glories – revelation after revelation. I am bringing to your sight the lustre of the Pearl of Great Price. Once you have seen this, you will know that nothing matters and that everything matters. You will know the serenity of your soul and see the fleeting shadows of the human belief disappear, because you have but to call upon Me, then, and have the immediate answer.
And this will only be after the desire for show and fame and name have faded out and you are on the highway of life, speaking the word, not for praise, but because you cannot help speak of Me, the inner Lord. you will not go about healing, but will go about recognizing the Living Word and calling it into expression. The moment it is recognized by you it will make itself manifest. But if you enter into a state or city (consciousness) where the word is not received, and argument is offered, shake the dust of this dead belief off of you and go your way. It is the dusty, dead argument of these who have to stay behind and bury their dead fathers. All human reasoning belongs to that category.
Inspiration cannot be narrowed into the limitations of human intellect. “Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither hath if entered into the heart of man, the things that prepared for them that love the law.” If the eyes have not seen and ears have not heard, then why should you listen to the limiting beliefs of the human thought about the coming of your good into manifestation? Do you not see that only when a seal is put on your lips, and you go within to the Me of You and identify yourself with this, can you taste of the glories of the Kingdom’
What matter what a thousand books say? What matter what a thousand sermons preach? You have entered into a reality where, having eyes, ye see, and ears, ye hear, that which the limited human sight and hearing is incapable of experiencing. You will flee then from the man whose breath is in his nostrils, who is still trying to sell you his John Smith brand of truth who is forever talking about the healings he has made or experienced: for you will be in a place where there is nothing to heal: there is only revelation to be brought out. You shall be silent and serene and joyous; a song will be singing deep in your heart that the world cannot help but see. Yea, they shall see the song and say “You are a celestial being having a happy mask. ‘
Then will you know that the King can play the beggar, but the poor beggar can never possibly play the King – then will you see the unlimited possibilities of the Son of the Living God, and will not think it strange that you begin the appropriation of your good; nothing shall be impossible to you. Do you hear? Do you hear? Do you hear? “Nothing is impossible to Me, the Christ.’ Everything is impossible to a, John Smith. If you still have to drag the corpse of the John Smith and his history of sin and limitations with you, you cannot enter, for you are now a New Creature in a new universe, not an old creature patched up. Do you hear? Do you hear?
Be still. It is well. Well. I AM here – my name is Wonderful. Call upon me and I will answer you. I am everywhere evenly present, in the lowest dive of your human belief as well as the most lofty temple. I have but to be recognized to be made manifest. If you are in hell, there am I; call upon Me and I will answer: and judge not from the appearances, for these shall pass in a swirl or hypothetical ether. you shall look for the place thereof and it too shall be gone, for it will be as the ice upon the river when the summer has come – it has been swallowed up in the activity if the flowing, life-giving river.
Nothing shall be lost, but all shall be saved. Right where you stand is holy ground. The desert you inhabit is full of promise. You do not need to go into a far country; your Father is right there you are; but you have to arise – to recognize his presence – and go to him in consciousness to receive the All Good, even though you have already wasted it all, you are never hopeless, forlorn, or deserted. You are the Son of the Living God now and here, and you are being self-revealed. It is wonderful, it is wonderful, it is wonderful .
A new door opens before you – the old things pass away; the binding history of your past has melted into oblivion, and you stand self revealed – Son of the Living God, with the truth written in your heart. ‘With God nothing is impossible” – with God consciousness – and you have this as Jesus showed he had it, by recognizing its presence and using it; not with fear and wonder, but with boldness and joy; not by thinking that he was a special favoured manifestation of the creation, but by accepting the good , the joy, and the power as natural, easy, and free. When will you arise and go unto your Father, and cease from the man whose breath is in his nostrils, and stop this wondering back and forth in the desert of human beliefs and teaching? Within lies the all – the Father.
I will speak to you out of the books of the world and through the men of the world. Fear not – it is well. No sooner are you willing and ready than I will supply the avenue through which shall pour forth such new wisdom and revelation that you will wonder – you will be filled with wonder – you will know that it is wonderful – that a new state has been won which is full of the magic of new revelation. Life shall become One, all One; not two, but One – the whole – and you, as a point of consciousness, drawing upon the infinite storehouse of the ALL. Things that cannot be written shall be told thee; things that cannot be said shall be given thee through the feeling – the wordless feeling; things that cannot be seen shall be shown thee, and thou shalt know that the old order changeth, and that thou art actually standing in the Eternal ways: and thou shalt draw from this great eternity, everything which thy heart desires not for selfish consumption, for personal gain and self-aggrandizement, but for the Selfish Consumption (the consumption of the real self) and for the personal (the Divine self) Gain, and for Self (the Son of God Self) Aggrandizement.
As the great Mozart (*) conceived his whole composition before he even heard a note heard it all at once – not note by note, but the total effect of the all – so will you express Me; so will you find that whatsoever the desire be, the expression is as sudden as is the reflection in the mirror when you pass in front of it, and as easy and as perfect, and as free from personal effort. You shall find the deep things within yourself, and know that the things which “eye hath not seen’ are the things which dazzle the human thought beyond all measure.
(+) “Thoughts come streaming in and at their best. Whence or how I know not, I cannot make out. Then it [the composition keeps on growing, and I keep on expanding it more distinctly, and the theme, however long it becomes indeed almost finished in my head, so that I can survey it in spirit, like a beautiful picture or a fine person, and also hear it in imagination, not indeed successively, as by and by it must come out, but altogether. That is a delight. All the invention and construction go on in me as in a fine strong dream, but the overhearing of it all at once is still the best.”
The gift is not, then, so trivial that it amounts to a little prattling about the words of Jesus, or of making a few healings on the earth plane; it is the eternal going from mansion to mansion, from one glorious expression to another, in the universal consciousness. Thus will you understand how it was that I, through the man Jesus, caused any things to happen of which the world has never ceased to talk. Likewise to you I shall reveal things which will cause the doors of the palace of the kings of the earth to fly open to you, and which will finally cause the kings of the earth to seek you out and lay their gifts at your feet.
What is this puny sense interpretation of me, which offers a way to treat and heal disease and to prosper a man? an it be the anti-Christ which offers my robe for sale to a lot of dirty gamblers? What do you want with the truth? To be know of man? To set up a new system:, To get the applause of the world, and to have them say to you, ‘He is a holy man? What went ye out to see That which you no doubt found yourself, human or divine, out-pictured everywhere. What do you see but an infinite self division – good, bad, or indifferent? What went ye out to see? A world full of evil and hatred, of sin and disease that you, poor puny creature, went forth to dope up and set right. Perhaps ye go forth to be a martyr to the cause of me! Have I ever made this demand? And after your self-imposed martyrdom did you not find out that if was for self-glorification?
When shall you go forth as the Son of the Living God – the Bright Messenger with light which automatically dispels darkness? – not because it recognizes darkness as something to a rid of, but because it exists no longer as a reality at the coming of light. What do you bring with you when you go forth into the universe?
My name is Wonderful. I sit in the beggar’s hut with the riches of the universe hidden away under the rags of the beggar; but I am unrecognized: everyone that looks at me either turns away or says: ‘Poor creature! Here, take this penny and buy yourself a crust of bread.” But one comes and says, ‘Wonderful,’ and I answer, “yea, yea,’ and rise, transformed from rags to silken garments; with purple and fine linen: with the silken tassels of my purse bursting because of their inability to hold the substance which is there.
My name is Wonderful. I lie within the sick, the dumb, the blind, the maimed, awaiting recognition. I lie there, a perfect flood of vitality, a stream of consciousness, which sees without eyes, hears without ears, speaks without words, and senses a vitality which knows no limitations. I am greater than any instrument through which I express. I await recognition so that the silly garments which have been hung upon me shall be cast aside and a new, beautiful body shall be made to appear. I await the one who will come and say, ‘It is Wonderful,’ instead of the one who comes in pity and sympathy. I await the one who will recognize me in the hell of this physical limitation and this blinding pain of the belief world, and call me by name to rise up and cause the lame to go his way leaping for joy, the blind to see, the dumb to sing, the crooked to be made straight, and the dead to arise. I await recognition of Me – I await the command, “Rise up and walk,” which follows the recognition. I await the command “Open your eyes,” to cause sightless eyes to be full of light.
That one who hath the single eye shall perceive Me in the most wretched costume that human belief has put upon Me, and shall call Me out by this glorious recognition. I await the command “Be whole” – not be made whole, but be that which you eternally are. Who shall recognize Me? Who shall be the unafraid? That one shall tread upon the serpents of belief and the dragons of human sense, and nothing shall by any means hurt him.
Who are you – you who read this page, you who hold this book? I speak to you alone, alone, alone – listen – listen within, within, deep within. Who are you!
If you have heard Me speaking to you, then a great cloud of joy surrounds you, and the peace which passeth all is yours, and you know that, irrespective of appearances, everything is alright – peace, peace, peace, peace. It is wonderful. A seal is placed upon your lips – see that you tell no man.
NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL
Everything that has to do with spirit has been labeled—Supernatural. Therefore it has been entirely out of the reach of the so-called natural man. Yet things that your forebears thought supernatural are today perfectly natural. Formerly man thought that lightning was an evil power with which God punished evil-doers. Today a three year old child handles lightning with impunity; and though only vaguely understood, it now seems quite natural to press a button or turn a switch and cause it to do all sorts of wonderful things. Jesus came with a conscious knowledge that the so-called supernatural law which apparently had been used only to work “miracles,” was a perfectly natural capacity of the awakened man. In other words, He knew that within man; lay this Christ consciousness—this Permanent Identity, this Father with—which was the point of contact between God and man.
The moment He ascended to this consciousness He was able to release this so-called supernatural power with the same ease that a child could flood a skyscraper with light by merely throwing a small switch. Time and space are virtually eliminated by the use of electricity—a man can throw a switch in Washington, D. C., and flood with light an exposition on the West Coast. Time and distance are nothing to him. He does not have to make a bigger effort because he is not in the proximity of the Fair. He does not have to work himself up emotionally; he merely has to pull the switch. And so is it with the God-Power, only more so; and that is why your word when spoken in Washington, D. C., is picked up and made manifest in China just as easily as if the person affected were in the same room. We have long ceased to wonder at the thousand and one miraculous things performed by electricity, because it has become a natural thing, an automatic thing—and this is the precise altitude at which Jesus function—He found the Supernatural natural.
We know now perfectly well that the radio might as well have been used in Jesus’ time, as far as the principle is concerned. No one recognized it, so it was not manifest. It is the same with all spiritual power—until it is recognized and thereby given a channel of expression, it remains invisible.
In the Bible there are dozens of instances of the prophets hearing voices from afar, at odd and sundry times. Today through the use of radio, this does not cause even a flurry of emotion—you take it as a perfectly natural thing. Things that were denounced as rank heresy in former ages are found to be indispensable aids in the present time.
So thoroughly familiar with the Law was Jesus that many of His sayings are fraught with surprise at the lack of comprehension. In the case of Lazarus, He actually wept when He was told that he had died. Having been so long in the household of Lazarus, explaining this supernatural natural law, He could scarcely believe that such gross ignorance of it was still there. Martha even said to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died,” showing that she looked upon Jesus as a worker of miracles, and utterly failed to understand His teachings which said, “Go thou and do likewise”…indicating that He recognized this power as the prerogative of every man. We, therefore, are not taking anything from the glory of Jesus when we make the assumption of this God-Self in us, but rather we are actually carrying out His plan.
The human mind is loathe to part with the mysterious, and so we find it arguing even against the teaching of Jesus, after having had many magnificent proofs. Again we return to the Lazarus situation—Jesus said, “He is asleep, I go to awaken him.” Did they believe it” Even when said by Jesus? They did not, but they immediately began to explain all the old human laws that had set in which would make this utterly impossible. “He has been dead four days, the body is putrefying, it is impossible.” And so the old human thought denied its God again, and found something impossible, while in the next breath it would be affirming, “All things are possible to God.”
Do you believe? Mary and Martha didn’t, even when they were told by Jesus Himself. In other words could you possibly take your good if it came to you, or do you know also that “He has been dead four days”—with plenty of evidence to back it up? In other words, do you believe? You think —yes, but when faced with the actual impossible situation, you are looking for a miracle; you are not anticipating any natural-supernatural manifestation.
Nothing can be done with the teachings of Jesus until He is understood to be a truth-sayer and not a liar, and until the assumption is made, that “As He is, so are we, in this present world.” Dare you to make this assumption—you poor, down-trodden worm of the dust—or you arrogant peacock, strutting your importance and fame in your make-believe world. Jesus asked always, “Believest thou that I am able to do this?” And you must answer for yourself.
Just as a man who handles electricity intelligently and causes it to do all sorts of fantastic and interesting things, is not doing a supernatural thing, so a man who becomes conscious of his God-self is not doing a supernatural thing, because whatever he does at that elevation is perfectly natural, no matter how it may mystify the man “whose breath is in his nostrils.”
“Nothing is impossible to Me,” is a law as natural and as probable to the consciousness which enters into a recognition of its true Identity as any natural law is to the so-called natural man. To five thousand people Jesus showed the law of precipitation as a natural thing. He knew that when a man was hungry he should be able to eat, because in reality he was fed spiritually and clothed spiritually; but until man knew this he came under the so-called “natural law” which said, he should earn his living by the sweat of his brow.” It is wonderful when you, the reader, discover that you are fed and clothed spiritually. It means just this, that you will never want again. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Do you begin to see why you are told to take the journey without thought of the purse, the script, the robe, etc.?
Notice the surprise of Jesus when many of the five thousand who were with Him when He showed them the law of precipitation came again and asked Him for bread. His answer to them is one of the greatest revelations in all of the scriptures: “You seek me after the loaves and fishes, and not the miracle” (law), showing clearly that He had fully expected them to understand the naturalness of His bringing forth that substance. It is perfectly amazing when we see what this man Jesus was attempting to give to the world, yet most of us, like these gluttonous onlookers, want demonstrations instead of understanding and revelation. It is recorded in one place that even His disciples asked for bread after they had seen the law. (Had experienced the miracle of the loaves and fishes.) Do you understand now why the “Awake thou that sleepest and Christ shall give thee light” is so important? It says “Awake, open your eyes.” Jesus was standing before a group of people who apparently were physically awake, yet He said, “Ye have eyes and see not, and ears and hear not, lest it should enter into your hearts, etc.”
You are not told to argue with the Power. If you want fine clothes, you are told how to get them very easily; but I find nothing in the Law which says, “Sit down and think about a red hat, and see a red hat, and handle a red hat, and maybe you will get a red hat.” More than likely it will not go with anything you have to wear, and by the time you bring out a red dress to go with it, the red hat is worn out, and by the time you get another, red is out of date—and so the old squirrel cage process of taking thought goes on. It never goes anywhere except where it started. Yet you are told how to clothe yourself beautifully, if necessary, by simply considering the lilies—it seems rather silly, doesn’t it? Child’s play—or maybe you think it is horse-play, and that is all it is on the human thought-taking plane. Looking at lilies or even considering them will get you nowhere until you understand what is back of the command. “They toil not, they spin not, they gather not into barns, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like these.” Why? It is wonderful when you begin to see the natural-supernatural law that is functioning here, and if a lily can fulfill its mission so beautifully and so naturally, even to the envy of a Solomon, how much more should you— “Oh ye of little faith!”
When man begins to see the naturalness of the spiritual law, he will also see that anything he asks for in that nature, will be perfectly natural to him and not supernatural. When you ask for anything in the name—that is, merely the letters and phonetics of the name—nothing takes place; but when you ask in the name-nature, things happen just as when you sign your name to a check—your name is no good unless you have the nature to do it, and then it produces results.
There were many things which Jesus said He could not tell us because of our unbelief. In fact it has been most difficult for most of us even to accept as true the things that He did tell us. He did not say He would not tell us these wonderful new laws and revelations, but that He could not at that time, because we would not believe in them as natural. So there is something wonderful awaiting you when you finally enter into your closet and shut your door. It seems to me that the time has just about come for us to know some of these higher things, so that we may “go through” even though “ten thousand fall at our right hand.” Do you understand what I am talking about? “You are hid with Christ in God.”
This all brings us to a lovely sense of the Now, where we actually begin to speak in the present tense and the first person, and in some degree at least begin to experience the Kingdom here at hand and the naturalness of a so-called supernatural law. Amazing things are said to us, they almost take our breath away when we hear and see them, such as, “Go in and possess the land.” Hadn’t you better go back and read that one over again? That “Go in and possess the land?” Do you hear it”—Go in and possess the Consciousness, without asking permission of anybody for anything—do you hear? Do you believe? It is for this that a man will “sell all” and “buy the pearl of great price.” He will get rid of all his beliefs in leaders, books, organizations, and will follow after the Christ. He is then through with the idea that someone is coming who will show forth a lot of new miracles. He will glimpse, at least faintly, the fact that he is to be the miracle-worker as far as his life is concerned. He must make this assumption. He must find it natural to do the supernatural, and gradually he will find himself doing many things which he formerly thought were miracles, but which now seem quite natural. The mystery of Godliness is its simplicity.
As you begin to see how natural this supernatural law is, you will see that fear of life is absorbed into a reverence of this glorious power made so plain to us by Jesus. Just as on the human plane, fear of lightning was transmuted into a respect for the laws of electricity. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Do you hear? The reverence for this Law which is to operate through your temple-body into manifestation is absolutely necessary, it is too precious to be discussed with the man “whose breath is in his nostrils,” and who is still looking for signs and wonders. The coal of fire is placed on your lips, and you will not “Cast that which is holy to the dogs.”
As modern business debunks false methods, so the coming of Jesus takes away all mysteries surrounding life, bringing supernatural law (which has seemed to be peculiar to a group of religious characters and prophets) down to a natural basis, so that the man in the street can operate it with the ease of a child. It is so amazing when you think that all a man must do to see this glorious power in manifestation is to believe!
THE NEW SHAPE
The space between the cruse of oil and the manifestation of abundance stems from the belief there are vacuities in God. The space between is like the apparent space between electricity and equipment … nothing can take place until a tiny fuse is inserted and the “space between” is filled. The omnipresence of God needs only this fuse (you) of complete recognition or belief to cause the oil to start flowing and from three drops come barrels of oil. It will not stop flowing as long as there is an empty measure.
All this lovely symbology is nil until man discovers that he is the fuse: – the thing which fills the space between something and nothing, and causes manifestation to take place. No wonder Jesus stressed the importance of being silent. No wonder He asked you to be absent from the body, and to come out into the ONENESS of spirit wherein you would find FREE ONENESS. Free Oneness is an Oriental expression of oneness with God. Man is then freed from all beliefs of degrees of life. It is wonderful.
So you enter into the Space Between. You are now at the place where the invisible becomes visible. No one believes this. That is why you are told to place the coal of fire on your Lips, and to go within and shut the door. This law is much disobeyed by earnest seekers of the Light who cannot understand why there are no results, and why the oil does not pour. Yes, you are to borrow vessels not a few. And it means just that. You have been living in a world of limitation.
When you enter or become the “Space between” the flow fills everything around you, – and neutralizes the belief so completely that the problem of lack and limitation does not exist in your universe.
Enter into the Place between and let the flow of light come through you and fill all measures not for the sake of self aggrandizement, but for the free oneness of you and God.
Yes, you are the space between … Enter in and let the flow of LIFE begin to take place. You, yourself, are the answer to prayer. Free ONENESS:
Take it into the sanctuary. Take that word and return unto Jehovah, – the point of power and creation, and see what takes place in the movement of ONENESS when it is freed from the involvement of your human belief, teaching, and thought. You are suddenly a new creature in this light and understand how it is that FREE ONENESS moves by its own power, and has nothing to overcome. It suddenly arrives and IS, and so do you go within and shut the door and stop telling of and about, and begin to experience the action of FREE ONENESS in your own life. Yes, it is like the man who found the pearl of Great Price and bought a field and buried it, after he had let go of all the old worn out cliches and ideas he had picked up from the man whose breath was, and is, in his nostrils. And that buried pearl will illumine the whole earth. Go in – shut the door – put the coal of fire on the lips. IT IS WONDERFUL.
THE NO-TREATMENT MAN
The answer already exists to any and every mathematical equation you can or ever will think of. No matter whether you know it or not, it equals a certain thing before you even put it down on paper. Because you do not know it does not mean anything. Because you do know it does not make it so. It is already so. A problem exists only so long as the answer is unknown; the moment you have the answer, you have no problem. A question does not exist after you have the answer. It is merely converted into a statement of fact – a worked-out problem is no problem. This checks perfectly with the statement of the Master, “Before you ask I will answer, and while you are yet speaking I will give it unto you.’ The answer to every human problem (belief) exists before you express the belief.
We see the type-man Jesus overshadowed and finally swallowed up by the Christ Self. Christ never had a problem; he never had to be healed, helped, prospered, or set in his right place. Jesus experienced all of these things. You could not heal Christ, but Jesus might be helped or treated. We see the escape from the misery of the Jesus-man made by recognition of the Christ. The moment he functioned in the Christ-consciousness, anything and all things were possible to him; but when he dropped down to the human plane of the Jesus he cried, ‘My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Jesus came under the law of birth, breeding, training, environment, and all the rest. He had a history of his own and a human destiny, even as you have, which was blotted out or made nil by the understanding of his True Self, which was above help. We see the Jesus in the process of recognizing his True Self and escaping the limitations of the human. In the press of the crowd there was little escape for Jesus; But the Christ was able to take its manifestation through the crowd unnoticed, because the Christ in each ‘has a way that ye know not of” – and that is not the way of thought – for eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those that love him.
The Jesus, or what you might term his human personality, could see no way – he could not think his way out, or across the lake, unless he went through the limitations of the Jesus-consciousness; but turning to the True Self and recognizing its presence enabled him to work what people called a miracle, which in reality was but the natural and true expression of the God Self. It is no miracle for the hungry to be fed in the All-substance of God.
When Jesus said, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” he had already made it clear that his Father was within. He might have stated clearly, ‘Wist ye not that this Jesus must be about the business of the I AM in me?’ In other words, it should be about the business of that Power which does not bow down to the laws of the
human limitation. This comes by a process of pure recognition, awareness.
Either the Scriptures are true or they are a lie. What will you do with such statements as, “You say there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest, but I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest…. Thrust in the sickle”?
Jesus could not reap where he had not sown, any more than you can, but the Christ could thrust in the sickle because he did not in any way function under the frail law; of the human consciousness hence the importance of recognizing the Father within, not pleading with it, but merging the human will and thought unto it, and acting from the point of awareness. If God cannot do it, neither you nor ten thousand people are going to accomplish it.
It is no longer a question of demonstrating good; it is a question of getting people to recognize that there is such a thing as God. Most anyone will challenge that statement; but a short conversation with most truth students will clearly prove that they believe more in the power of evil than good. Fifteen minutes of conversation will reveal evil of every sort as being stronger and are powerful than good. Few there be who salute the Christ in you and speak the word of Reality. They believe emphatically that evil has to be destroyed, and yet we find that there is nothing in the Kingdom of God that can be destroyed. We find that in the Book of Life ‘nothing can be added to or taken from the Word,” remembering that the Word was made flesh.
What, then, is all this adding of evil and disease that has taken place? It is failure to recognize that there is such a thing as God. How could there be God and something else if God is all in all? What is the evil that we treat, but belief in a power opposed to the Supreme Power. A human law is only local. Sin might be said to be somewhat a matter of geography. In order to fulfil a traffic law in one country you may be deliberately breaking a traffic law in another.
“Ignorance of the law excuses no man’ is more true on the divine plane of the no-treatment-man, than on the human plane. In fact, you have paid every penalty of unhappiness and limitation by reason of the fact that you were ignoring the law of Spirit, which is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity. On the human plane, you may run your car fifty miles an hour in a ten-mile zone and pay no penalty except you are apprehended, but this is not so in the universe of the All-God.
Were you to make a questionnaire for yourself and have to answer this question: “Who are you?’ what would you answer? Being perfectly honest, you would probably say: ‘My name is John Smith – thirty. I was born in California. I have thus and so much education, breeding, and family. I am subject to certain financial and physical limitations.” But you have denied everything that is true. You are the Son of the Living God. Do you hear? I said LIVING God, not a God who has to be made alive by your thinking process, or because you treat him into existence, or because you affirm that it is so. You are the Son – the point of manifestation where the God Power pours out into expression, in a constant and endless stream of power, health, substance, and holiness.
As you contemplate this glorious revelation you will understand some of the wonderful possibilities that lie just ahead of your John Smith, through the door of the I AM consciousness, which is not created or made to appear by thought, but which is recognized as the pure creation of God. Believest thou this? Do you actually believe that God made the world? If so, what are you going to do about it? If you make your bed in hell there am I; if you ever recognize ME (Father within) in the most hellish situation you can imagine, you will see it instantly fade from the pictures and resolve itself into heaven. In other words, you will rend the veil of human belief, and find the thing that you have been seeking standing eternally in its right place, and merely waiting the coming of the Master, who would recognize it as true and stop trying to create it.
Is there actually any truth to the statement that God created the world, found it good and rested – and that he is a changeless Power? Do you believe it? Or would you just like to believe it? Is it so that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand? Or is that just a fairy-tale? Is it possible to have a host of sick, sinning, and evil things in heaven, in order that you may be glorified in treating them out of existence?
‘Pray without ceasing’ does not mean an endless, monotonous telling God about your troubles, and of his qualities, but it does mean a constant capacity to be aware of the Only Living God as here and now.
No wonder such a magnificent thing is given to the child (the consciousness that can accept God without question), instead of the adult (adulterer), who mixes everything true with his impure reasoning. It had been said, “The wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of GOD and, inversely “The wisdom of God is foolishness in the eyes of man.’ Time without number we find the wisdom of man failing ignominiously – what he learns one year as the height of erudition may the next year be relegated to the dump-heap of ignorance.
Three thousand years of medicine have not decreased disease, no matter how lofty the aims of those noble souls who have given of their best and even their human lives to make this end attainable. We are beginning to see that what Jesus and the prophets said is more than just a fairy-tale. We begin to recognize that he spoke of a truth, for he spoke of Himself. He spoke of the pure wisdom that was revealed by recognition that he was and IS the Son of the Living God. And just so soon as you begin to contemplate that state of things you will see that what you have been trying to demonstrate for years is actually awaiting your appropriation.
The more we think of evil the more aggravated it becomes, until it increases to a point of self-destruction. Everybody has at one time or another builded himself a Goliath, and had it threaten his city (state of consciousness) with complete destruction, and at such time he has called for his David with his five spiritual senses and destroyed or wiped out the manifestation of belief.
Eventually you will find that you have eyes and see, instead of eyes and see not. In other words, you will perceive what it means to become aware of your True Self. A body that is always in mind is a sick or ailing body; a pocket-book that is always in mind is flat; a state of life that is constantly toyed with in an attempt to make it better will only result in a poor manifestation. “Rather, then, be absent from the body and present with the Lord’ sums up the teaching of recognition. When your thinking process is off of evil, evil ceases to function, for it is only sustained by the thought process. It has no Divine mandate for existence, and finds its substance in the ignorance of man, who thinks it is something real that he must call upon God to destroy. Just so long as he does this, he will operate on the mental plane of life and not experience the glorious freedom of the Child of the Most High.
Job’s captivity was changed when he stopped trying to change it. When he prayed for his neighbors, his captivity was turned, and he had twice as much as he had before. It is interesting that this should have happened after his almost ceaseless praying, beseeching, begging God to help him. We see very clearly that it is by taking thought that we produce the evil of life. The John Smith who does not recognize his True Self suffers with Job – he is always trying to save the world or himself, instead of standing on the heights of Reality and revealing the Kingdom of Heaven as here and now. The Son of God is not a worker of miracles; he is a revealer of the Finished Kingdom. You are the Son of God – do you hear? And you are to reveal the Kingdom of Heaven as here and now. You begin to recognize why it is wonderful.
The no-treatment man is the Son of the Living God. He lives constantly in heaven (a state of consciousness), and he speaks of himself. John Smith then takes up the sword and goes through the mechanics, and says, ‘I speak not of myself, but him that sent me into expression.” We are at this very point of walking through the DOOR and finding that, like a drop of water, we are one with the sea of substance, the sea of Spirit. As the candle-flame is lost in the sunlight, yet retains its individuality, so the individual loses his sense of separation and limitation and takes on the proportions of his God-given Self. He sees with the eyes of Spirit, which cannot behold evil. Not that he wants to shut his eyes to anything, but he actually sees as Jesus the Christ saw when he looked through the belief of ignorance that was binding a cripple and said, addressing the Christ in him, ‘Rise up and walk.” The human personality had already testified to the fact that he could not move.
Jesus did not go to Lazarus to make him alive; he went to awaken him, stating that he had fallen asleep. Do you suppose the restoration of the withered arm was as slow as thought? It came instantly – the physical could not perceive its possibility, because it saw with a glass darkly and saw the human history and reason as real. Jesus, through his at-one-ment with the father within, perceived the man whole and perfect, and it was to this True Self that he addressed his command ‘Stretch forth thy hand.’
“He who hears obeys,” and when you come to understand your True Self you will appropriate the gifts in a natural, normal way. Just as soon as the selfish seeking has gone, and you realize the uselessness of self-seeking, you will be the avenue through which pours the endless stream of God manifestation. To decree is to see it come forth.
The Son of God, the no-treatment-man who needs only to be recognized, approximates his spiritual qualities. He has the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and the gift of self revelation. Awake thou, Lazarus, bound up in the filthy grave clothes of thine own making, and arise and shine, for thy light has come.
Now is the accepted time – now are we the Sons of God. Do you hear? A thousand petty despots who have the world to save will pass away – but MY word shall not pass away. You are MY word made flesh. You, John Smith, are the word of the I AM made flesh – and now we see the possibility of bringing up this garment to a higher and finer state of beauty and power. We begin to see that as we become better acquainted with the God Self, the human garment will take on finer states of health, wealth, and happiness. These will follow naturally. Your contemplation will then be about “whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,’ and you will see these words made flesh dwelling among you.
Who are you, and to what end were you born? Are you just another bit of humanity, to be tossed about from one fearful experience to another – to go down into the grave of defeat? Or are you the Son of the Living God Here and Now present, in full possession of your true capacity? Awake, awake, awake. It is wonderful!
NO THOUGHT
The air inside of a vase takes the shape of the vase automatically. If it were possible to withdraw the air entirely and create a vacuum—a perfect vacuum—the vase would collapse. The pressure of the air on the outside would be too great to be withstood. Applying this illustration to your everyday problem, take your thought away from or out of a problem, and it will automatically collapse. To be “absent from the body (the embodiment of evil) and present with the Law.” All evil is the product of thought, and is sustained by it—it has no other cause. It is not self-creative, nor self-sustained; it must be fed and fanned into a flame by thought. Thus, the mere spread of gossip has been fanned into a veritable forest fire of manifestation, which has sometimes ended in war-and this too, many times caused by a wholly untrue report.
Thus we see why Jesus repeatedly warned against the evil of “taking thought.” The devil was supposed to have been created by “walking up and down and to and fro.” We are all familiar with the old adage “Mischief finds some work for idle hands to do.” But the “hands” will not do anything evil unless thought has first conjured up a picture of evil for them to perform. Taking away the thought or “being absent from the body” might be likened to deflating a balloon. This monstrous shape which appears so formidable crumples to nothing when it is deprived of its gas. And while all illustrations are inadequate to express God in any sense of the word, yet by parables and illustrations are we able to grasp somewhat the action of God. “Out of mind, out of body”—-it is perfectly amazing how far-reaching this thing is. It follows quite naturally that if you are to take the life-substance away from a given situation, you cannot first add to the appearances of this evil by judging from the appearances. Everything you recognize in your thought-world as true, can bring out its manifestation just the same as when you perceive a true state in consciousness, it reveals the “finished mystery.”
The command “Judge not from appearances” is given to you not so much as a restriction, but rather as very powerful instruction on how to escape evil. The more you examine into the nature of evil, the more real it becomes. A pin scratch on a day laborer and a pin scratch on a Movie Star are two entirely different things, as far as results are concerned, (though the Movie Star’s father may have been a day laborer.) Now, are you the day laborer, or are you the Movie Star, symbolically speaking? “Awake thou that sleepest and Christ shall give thee light.” This is not an oft-repeated command—it is a revelation when you finally hear it. You will awaken to a new level and will certainly exclaim to yourself, “Whereas before I was blind, Now I can see.” When we speak of human thought, it really should be called mis-thought, for in reality real thought comes only from consciousness. It is the emanation of light and understanding, at no time creative, but always revealing—whereas human thought is the creator and sustainer of all evil.
That is why it is possible to disintegrate human thought-patterns. I do not need to list a thousand and one incidents where actual disease and untoward conditions have been made manifest, through thought-taking, out of absolutely nothing. Perhaps one of the most pertinent illustrations is that of the man who died of cholera because he was told he had been exposed to it, when not a single instance of cholera had ever been heard of in that vicinity. Perhaps there is something to the phrase “I am catching a cold”—What do you mean “catching”? Judging righteous judgment, or taking the thought away from the body, will devitalize the thought-power, thereby automatically eliminating the effect of sin, disease, lack, etc. Sometimes this can be done instantly—the thread of thought can be snapped so quickly that the manifestation disappears like magic. Taking your attention away from the so-called evil, does not mean hiding your eyes from appearances, and violently declaring against evil. You may stand open-eyed before it, and devitalize it by the Presence of your newly-awakened God Power. “You must decrease, I must increase,” literally takes place as you begin to understand how the thought of Jesus merges into the consciousness of Christ.
Confronted with the situation of five thousand hungry people all clamoring for bread, He apparently was faced with a real problem. We see He “lifted His eyes to heaven”—-not somewhere up in the air, but to His Christ consciousness, where He instantly recognized that the picture of evil formed by thought had nothing to sustain it. No wonder He could give thanks. It did not make any difference what the human mind said was true, the moment the thought was broken the manifestation disappeared. Do you begin to see why evil is not made more real actually by the thoughts of five thousand people? Because “One with God is a majority.” In other words, one who takes his attention away from thought and places it in the Christ consciousness—his perfect Identity—is more powerful than thousands who are trusting in the force of evil. A parasite dies automatically the moment the sap or substance upon which it lives is cut off. All human problems are parasites which through thought-taking apparently have grown on the life of man. Very much as barnacles on a ship are no part of the ship, so evil and its manifestation are no part of Man. Claim your heritage, begin to magnify the Lord within.
Begin to identify yourself with your Permanent Identity. “Look unto Me all ye ends of the earth and be ye saved.” A ship that is covered with barnacles eventually will sink, unless they are removed. Its speed is impeded; the strain on the engines is greater as this mass of evil enlarges. There are two ways of removing barnacles from ships. One is the dry-dock where men labor with steam drills and other instruments to chisel away this hard formation. The other is by running the ship into fresh water docks, where the barnacles automatically drop off. There are two ways of getting rid of evil in your life—one by working with the outside, trying to overcome appearances which you call real—which is an almost hopeless task—and the other is by running the thought-laden mind into the unchanging pure Consciousness of Spirit. So many unknown conditions and problems will drop out of your life the moment you make your contact with your Divinity—“Magnify the Lord within you. Praise His holy Name.” Once you have taken your attention from evil, thereby shutting off the supply of thought-substance, the appearance of evil will disintegrate and the place thereof will be no more.
The breath of God will blow the vanishing particles into oblivion. “The former things are passed away, they shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more.” Whatever apparently resists this power is moved out of the way, be it person, place or thing. The blessing of the Lord, descending on such resisting appearances, is a consuming fire. Fear not—once you have released it in thought, any apparent reality of evil, no matter how time-honored, is consumed. It is written in the law “The former things shall pass away—they shall not be remembered (do you hear) nor come into mind any more.” If this law is to be carried out effectively—and it is—no (not any) person, place, nor remembrance of the thing can stand in the way of the on-going of God.
The stone-casters who have come out against you will suddenly flee, confounded with a sudden spasm of fear, from a power against which they cannot stand; confounded, turned awry, twisted and babbling like chattering monkeys in the jungle. All the scandal-mongers and gossipers shall be sent into the wilderness to eat their own words. Stand and see the holy fires consume the “burnt offering.” And again we hear “Only speak the word”—think of it. You have been given this power. “Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life.” Stand and see the salvation of the Lord, and thrill in the knowledge of His Presence. “Who is so great a God as our God?”—“Is anything hard to Me?” You answer that one. If you feel that there is anything hard for God to do, or that your problem is difficult for Him, then you must pray the prayer which will change this belief-the prayer of contemplation—“Be still and know that I am God.” This is contemplation of the Power.
The more you contemplate it, the more you begin to actually sense-feel omnipotence, and the more your so-called problem dwindles in importance. Remember, God transcends everything, no matter from what source or belief. Time means nothing to this Presence. Time is only a measure of evil made by man—“His days are few and full of trouble.” Yet in the mind of God “A thousand years may be as a day,” or, if more time is needed, a day may be as a thousand years. Do you begin to see somewhat how an understanding of the power of God can stretch or telescope the human belief of time? This is an important thing for you to know, in the event it ever has to be done. Jesus did it all the time —He “passed through the crowd”—was “instantly on the other side of the lake,” etc. Never does the man who understands the law, attempt to prove it. This very attempting to prove it, shows that he does not believe in it. Although you have been silent all night, you do not attempt to speak English in the morning when you arise—you just speak it—you do not try to speak it. Why? Finally we begin to see that the manifestation of God-Power in your life is not some trick of a twentieth century religion, but a natural condition which functions automatically, and in its functioning destroys evil pictures of human thought. At no time is it fighting or trying to overcome them, any more than you are trying to speak English.
You only try to speak English when you do not know English. You only try to demonstrate God when you do not actually know God—yet sometimes in both instances you are able to make yourself understood. It makes no difference how mortal mind is inconvenienced, how its beliefs are set aside or overturned, how its best—established laws are made as nothing. It makes no difference whether it ever has happened before or ever will happen again, nothing the human mind can say or think amounts to anything when it comes to the expression of the God-Power. Have you noticed that when a thing cannot be explained or handled, it is called an Act of God? This is fastened on to most of the evil situations which man cannot explain. The sharp surplus of evil thought eventually collects itself and manifests itself in evils over which man himself has no control. The old Adam hiding again in the Garden from his own evil explains, “I was naked and I was afraid”—so the human mind when it has set into motion its evil, is afraid and takes refuge in the explanation, “This is an Act of God”—in a further attempt to make the Divinity a God of good and evil. All sorts of fantastic things are mentioned in the Bible:
“Yon mountain” and “Yon sycamore tree” and many other things are told to do and perform things wholly outside their nature. We are not talking about any human power or its limitations, we are speaking of Divine power, and it clearly states, “Nothing (not a single thing) is impossible to God.” Do you know of something that is? If not, you probably know someone who does. In such case you or he do not believe in God. You believe in a “manmade” God—a God of limitations; and naturally your results must be in accordance with these limitations. “There is a reason for the hope that is within us,” and there is a deep sense of joy welling up within you as you begin to know that the hellish thing or condition, which has been filling your life and body with fear and sickness and all sorts of untoward conditions, is at last beginning to quake with the fear of this “terrible” power of the Lord. For “the Lord Omnipotent reigneth.” Jesus always ascended to the place of the Father.
To ascend in this sense of the word, does not mean to go up, but is merely an expression of changing the thought to consciousness. There—in that ascended place—He rediscovered the fact that God controlled all planes of manifestation, mineral, vegetable, animal—and that to be one with this power was to manifest that same control, if called upon to do so. It checks perfectly with your so-called “Birth Certificate”—-“Born of God”—“Made in the image and likeness of God”—“Given dominion over everything on the earth, in the earth, and over the earth.” Claiming this birthright brings you into a wonderful inheritance. There are many wonderful things interpolated for you—words of power, unseen until the eyes are opened, secrets, deep mystical revelations and the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. No wonder you are admonished to “Search the scriptures.” Did you ever hear this quotation: “Thus far, and no farther”? I am asking you if you ever heard it, or if you know what it means as far as you are concerned, and in the event you should ever have to use it. Remembering all the while that you are not studying a new system of religion, but are having revealed to you LIFE.
What you formerly called demonstration will immediately take place as a perfectly natural result of a different cause. There is nothing exciting or emotional in this appearance. “Even the winds and waves obeyed Him.” Jesus without His Father-consciousness had no more power than you have, and He admitted this. You can know the truth mentally from now until the end of time, and nothing will happen—and so with Jesus. He could of Himself do nothing; His conduct differed from ours in that He never tried to do anything. He did not waste time “taking thought” about things, or trying to change them, but immediately “ascended” to the place of His Father-consciousness. He knew full well that nothing could come from taking thought, except “clouds without rain.”
You have probably seen someone, working with some system of psychology or metaphysics, bring out an oversized manifestation with nothing to support it, and have seen that same apparently beautiful manifestation collapse and disappear as a mirage in the desert. Again I repeat: Thought is the creator of evil, and the sustainer of evil. Watch! From consciousness emanates all real thought or light, but neither the human nor this light-thought is a creator. For instance, suppose a person tells you about a friend—immediately your human thought builds up a picture of this person in infinite detail, and your thought elaborates on the subject either for good or evil, according to what you have been told. When one day you come in contact with the person, your entire picture is completely shattered, because it never did exist as a reality; but from the moment you saw the person, you had a consciousness of him, and certain thoughts began to form or emanate from this consciousness.
The same thing is true of the picture of disease and evil. In your life, you have been told since childhood about certain evil things, and not until you come into the Consciousness of Life, are these evil pictures disintegrated. Have you remarked what an apparent dearth there is of so-called healings and demonstrations—yet years ago, they seemed to be very general. You hear people today in many organizations giving testimonies about things that happened twenty years ago. Why? The reason is that after the “signs have been given,” you are either moving into the place of manifestation, or you are with the dog, so unlovely, who does such an unlovely thing as to “return to his vomit”—go back to his old beliefs; or you are the dog under the table eating the crumbs, instead of being the host at the banquet-table of life. If you are still “taking thought,” you are still looking for signs and wonders—“Come out from among them—and be ye separate”—“The signs will follow,” they do not precede.
You understand this, don’t you?—-even while you are saying in the next breath, “Before they ask, I will answer.” In your spiritual revelation you find not a single contradiction in the law of God. As human thought is the substance of all evil, so the Cosmic Power is the “Substance of all things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It is wonderful when you get the proper perspective on the whole. Suddenly you will “Put up your sword,” stop fighting evil problems and appearances, and begin to call upon God, in the true sense of the word. Then will you know that as a “thief in the night” this Power has appeared and cleared the whole ground of its miasma of evil, be this evil person, place or thing. It is, as I said, confounded, dumbfounded, confused, turned around, driven into a fury of its own mentality from which there is no escape. Stand and see. It is wonderful! The walls of the City of Jericho crumbled away into a cloud of dust. Today a thin line of yellow green banana trees marks the spot “where the body lies.”
You may go in and come out of Jericho in a thousand places—there is no further obstruction. Your Jericho or desire may be surrounded by a wall, either figuratively or actually, as formidable as that which was around the city of Jericho. But there comes a moment in your understanding and revelation when the “trump sounds”—and the walls become a cloud of dust, swept away into oblivion. Never born, never dying, you are being freed from the barnacles of thought. “Then lifted He His eyes unto heaven and said, Thank you, Father.” And then He broke the bread and fed five thousand, against the most cherished beliefs that the human thoughts of those five thousand knew to be true—And again I admonish you, “Take no thought.”
NOTES
Nietzsche said: “Stamp the Impress of eternity on your life, for that contains more than all religions, which teach me to despise life – Teach me many times to wait for heaven in some time to come – Teach me to discount the very words of Jesus Christ – ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ ”
Higher dimensions of Life enter through the INSIDE – even as the oak tree enters into existence from the inside – Recognition.
All so-called growth comes from the inside out. The seed is the point of expression. From a pinpoint seed comes bushels of vegetation – flowers and seeds. From the invisible comes the revelation of the All. A seed then might be considered a point for exposure – since the flower already exists, but must come into visibility.
So-called growth is in reality merely the entry of a higher dimension. If “before you ask” – is a definite law then it is and must be recognized. As we contemplate the finished mystery, we begin to see it come into full manifestation.
The suddenness of the LAW of Jesus Christ makes it apparent that we should contemplate the LAW rather than the signs following or the mechanics.
We hear John the Baptist saying “REPENT” – which has as a true meaning – “CHANGE.” Suddenly, you must CHANGE if you are to SEE what follows – “Repent ye: (Change) for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Nothing will make it appear – nothing will cause it to appear – it is necessary to CHANGE instantly – and that is like suddenly being elevated to a point above the wall of belief which has been obstructing your view.
You create nothing, you do nothing – you recognize – and you CHANGE regardless of that which has gone before.
Change – CHANGE – Away with ah the tedious mental processes – CHANGE – in that sudden transition all the old ideas of “Repent” are swallowed up. There is no time to handle imaginary evil and conditions which have already passed away the moment you change. Change from Hate to Love and the hate conditions pass away like so many strands of cobweb in a hurricane.
The EVIDENCE of the UNSEEN comes when we Repent – Suddenly, “Change” the whole mental process and enter into the new dimension of Life – the Substance of things not SEEN – the unseen becomes the reality holding the manifestation into view. There is the mystery of awakening – of suddenly coming into the reality. CHANGE.
NOW IS THE DAY
“Now is the DAY.” Something so startling about this statement, made two thousand years ago. The never-endingless of it – it is only NOW when it becomes NOW to the reader of it – he may have read it over a thousand times, with eyes that see nothing but the letter, and then suddenly, he comes upon the spirit of the word, the aliveness of it, the quickening influence of it. NOW is the DAY. Right NOW, this instant, this very moment. NOW is the DAY that you have been preparing for, for ages. NOW is the DAY that you have been reading about. NOW is the DAY that is filled with the Joy of the Lord. NOW is the DAY when “I will pour out My blessings on all mankind.” The moment you Recognize this, that moment you see the change coming over the face of the earth. At that moment you begin to see the blessings pouring out on all mankind. The Spirit, through you, turns over the cruise of oil, and the two drops begin to pour out, filling everything that is ready and willing to receive it.
No waiting, no saving up, no accumulating of the oil or meal is necessary – just the Recognition of the NOW of Spirit – the increase follows, without the slightest effort on your part. The Spirit moves on the face of the deep, wherein lie hidden the Mysteries and the Wonders; and the deep gives forth that which has been hidden. So is it with you; the Spirit moves upon the face of the deep of your being, and the glorious gifts of God are given forth – made manifest – and the blessing is poured out on all mankind. It is Wonderful!
“The Spirit of the Consciousness of the Presence of God is the Source of All supply. No space is vacant of the fullness thereof.”
“NOW is the DAY.” When the NOW is Recognized, everything comes to life. All the promises of God begin to fulfill themselves automatically. The mind is renewed by the Recognition of the NOW of Spirit, and the transformation takes place. Just as soon as you renew the mind on any subject, the manifestation changes. The study of any science causes the outlook to take on a different degree of interest. Things appear that you never saw before. A Musician hears sounds that an untrained ear misses. A Naturalist sees things that the unlearned passes over. This is a poor, inadequate example of the change which takes place when the mind is renewed from the standpoint of Spirit.
When the mind of a sick person is brought into contact with the NOWNESS of SPIRIT, this renewing of the mind is accompanied by a change in the embodiment, and we say he has been healed. When the consciousness is renewed, by its becoming aware of The Presence as here, there, everywhere – then the outpouring of this Substance makes itself manifest, in whatever manner or form is necessary at that time.
“When you are momentarily conscious that I Am here, I Am there, I AM everywhere, you are aware that the very breath you breathe is the Spirit of the Consciousness of the Presence of God. When you drink, you are drinking in Joy, Life, Peace, Health and Love, and this Infinite Love permeates the atmosphere, and stirs your soul, and causes you to look up and behold Him standing in the midst of you, radiating His Glo-Rays that send the warmth of His Love to you, overshadowing you – overshadowing your whole being. It is Wonderful! ”
Little by little man is beginning to see the necessity to “pray without ceasing” (to be constantly recognizing The Presence), irrespective of appearances. As he begins this ceaseless prayer of Recognition, he also begins the tearing away of the veils of belief which have hidden the face of this perfect creation, this Heaven, HERE and NOW. Having tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, that admixture of good and evil, and taken his deductions from the knowledge gained therefrom, his premise being wrong, the results were bound to be likewise. With all his learning, man has not yet learned how to get into the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is only when he comes to the Recognition of the VERY Presence within and without everything that he begins to see this NEW DAY dawning – perhaps ever so faintly – over the horizon of a night of chaos, and mis-thinking.
Eating the bitter fruit of the Tree of Knowledge has prevented man from excepting the glorious radiance of the HERE and NOW of Spirit, and, in place thereof, has given him the poisonous idea of a destiny comprised of good and evil. It has even brought him to such an inheritance as “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” It has given him the hopeless belief that, after his success in life the best that remains for him is the grave. No wonder he was immediately driven from the garden of Eden.
The long journey back to this glorious State of a God-created Universe is being shortened. The mind is being renewed, and the transformation is taking place. The swaddling clothes of the human intellect are being cast aside for the glorious garments of Light. It is Wonderful!
The NEW DAY brings with it the NEW WORD – the absolute Acceptance of the Word of God. “Before you call, I will answer,” stands as a challenge to you who insist that you can influence God to do your bidding; or that you can create, or procreate, that which has been eternally created by this Great Principle. It
is Wonderful! When you read the inspired Word of the Master in this NEW Glory, you see that you are merely stating facts, which are being revealed to you just as soon as you are ready to receive them. It is wonderful; for in the present place in which you find yourself the Recognition of this Presence, even in a limited degree, has immediately the power to bring out a manifestation which will make you realize to the fullest extent that “with what measure ye mete, it shall be measure to you again.” It is Wonderful! You have some measure – empty though it may be at present – which, if held up to the Universal Substance, will be filled NOW.
“Do all to the glory of God” – nothing is too small, nothing too large – and all this practice of The Presence is merely to so permeate your mind with the NEW Glory that the mind will eventually be renewed, and the transformation will take place. “The very breath you breathe is the Spirit of the Consciousness of the Presence of God.” This is not the exercising of the lungs, nor taking care about breathing – it is merely a closer alignment with The Presence, as something more than a word in the Bible – The Presence made alive by the Spirit of the Consciousness of the Presence. You have a certain consciousness of God. It may be that it is large or small, but, anyway, it is the spirit of this consciousness which makes the manifestation in your life. That is, it is the action of this consciousness which apparently solves the so-called problems. Until the consciousness of one who is learned in mathematics is in action, no problems are solved, relatively speaking; so until the consciousness you possess is recognized, and “let” into action, nothing takes place. Small wonder, then, the command, “Be still, and know that I AM God.” Why this command? Because it is the only way to enlarge the consciousness, or to become more aware of the God-consciousness which dwells within, constantly awaiting the coming of the Master, or the Recognizer. It is by this very process of “being still” that the mind is renewed, and it is by the renewal of the mind that the transformation takes place.
It is an ordinary statement nowadays to say, “He is air-minded,” meaning that he has a consciousness of aeronautics, and has thereby, more or less, dominion of the air. What to the uninitiated seem great hazards all go into the day’s joy, for the one who is air-minded. Have you ever thought what it must be like to be “God-minded:; we are all bidden to “‘let’ this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” which once and for all time silences the theory that He had a special Mind of an unattainable quality. Jesus uses an individual expression of this Mind, and the Power flowing through Him is the same Power expressing through all creation; yet, until this is Recognized, it lies dormant, and apparently we are dead, or dormant, to The Presence. The same principle of mathematics runs through the consciousness of all mathematicians: nobody seems alarmed when a newcomer sets out with no other object in view than to obtain this particular consciousness.
All know that it is possible, and that it is not only possible, but that it is his right, and that nothing but himself can or will hinder the attainment of his desire. As soon as we free ourselves from all the foolish ideas about the appropriation of the Power – the Free Gift of God to every man – the Light that lighteth every man to Salvation, so soon will we begin the process of enlarging the boarders of our tent, and launching out into deeper waters. The enlarging of the boarders of the tent will not be made with an idea of filling the tent with consciousness, but will be the result of the enlarged consciousness taking on a greater scope of activity, hence needing more room. The command to enlarge the borders of your tent is merely a figurative way of saying, “Take more of this glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of the Living God.”
“I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until he comes whose right it is; and I will give it him,” is only the awakening spirit of The Spirit of the Consciousness of the Presence which is “Stirring your soul and causing you to look up and see Him standing in the very midst of You.” The very spirit which is awakened is stirring the muddy waters of the pool of accumulated beliefs, gathered from the Tree of Good and Evil, and causing them to pass away, in order that the pure Life-giving waters may flow afresh in the Garden, and water the plants of Life, the glorious Soul-expressions, and make them blossom anew.
It is Wonderful! “An angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water” – and healing took place. The old ideas are being stirred up, and a change of base is taking place. “There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down,” because “The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.” This very rejected stone is the “Finished Mystery,” in direct authority, and by the power of Almighty God, who created the Heaven and Earth and called them good, and rested. Who is going to stand in the face of this colossal truth and deny it, because his blurred vision, clouded over by his evil beliefs and fear, sees a distorted Universe, filled with evil and disease. A Universe which he attributes to God – the Good – but which he declares has more power for the manifestation of Evil than it has for Good.
Is it any wonder, then, that the further command is given, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment”? When is this going to be absolute and final, this Acceptance of the Word? When are you going to leave off judging from the appearance? Just as soon as this takes place, you will begin to see this Kingdom of Heaven appearing through the mists of human belief. Yea, in spite of the appearance will this glorious God-Creation again come into view. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! The Revelation is being made to us. We are beginning to choose the Way of the Lord and judging righteous judgment, and not the distorted judgment from appearance.
The eye has seen double, hence its vision has been distorted; it has said, “God created everything,” and it has said, “But there is another power called Evil”; and hence the distorted picture which has been seen. It is as though one looked through a pair of binoculars, with the lenses set at different degrees; it is impossible to see clearly, and yet it is possible to see something that looks like the Truth shining through the distorted image. So has it been with man; he has always seen a faint glimmering of the Christ through the mists of his confused thinking, and this very glimmer has been enough to cause him to hold on. “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him”; but he can only be found “if thine eye be single,” then “thy whole body shall be full of light.” Fret not! We are all getting there as fast as we can. The temple is being cleansed little by little, and being made a fit dwelling-place for this magnificent Power which is to set all things right.
There is a sense of rejoicing – a singing within – like the flutter of the yet unborn, or the stir of the life in a seed – it may be deep in the earth, but what matter? Once the stir has taken place – once the double standard of judging from the appearance is set aside – then the manifestation will take care of itself beautifully and easily. The stones that are being overturned will not frighten or alarm, for the new and lovelier manifestation will in due season replace them, and make appear the “Temple not made with hands – eternal in the heavens.” It is Wonderful! The temple of which Jesus spoke – the temple of the transformed body, which cannot be destroyed, and which cannot be taken away. Why? Because it was, and is, “eternal in the heavens.” Where is Heaven? It is the state of consciousness, according to Jesus, where we begin to see, and understand, with the single eye and the single mind. What, then, is the mystery of “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” as you begin to Recognize this body, “not made with hands, and eternal in the heavens,” as present in your very own consciousness?
To “call no man your father upon earth” helps to bring out this new body, this temple, “eternal in the heavens” and “not made with hands.” It is the body which is God-made, and which calls no man father; neither does it partake of the qualities of any man as father, but draws upon the great unlimited Principle of the Universe for its inheritance. It is Wonderful! “Be still and know that I AM God.”
Aren’t you glad? Glad, no matter how many stones have been overturned. Glad, because out of this great house-cleaning comes the Life Eternal, and the joy of the Kingdom, HERE and NOW. Everything may pass away, “but My words shall not pass away.” You a “Word of God,” a spoken “Word of God,” and you shall not pass away. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are Life”; and “so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” It is Wonderful! You – yes, you – have been sent into expression, and shall accomplish whereto you have been sent. You, who have been wondering for many lifetimes through a maze of beliefs and characters, shall, in spite of all, accomplish whereto you have been sent. It is thrilling to think that the Power has sent you into expression, and that you shall, at last, catch up with the idea and express it.
Nothing that has gone before matters, and your greatest success is like an ant-hill to a great mountain as compared with the Glorious Expression that awaits you. When the temple is cleansed and the double standard is wiped out, the whole “body is full of light” – the whole embodiment is filled with the Glory of God which is pouring out in all directions, searching out the hidden talents, so long buried in the napkins of fear and unbelief.
On the walk to Emmaus, the Disciples, who had been with Jesus for three years, failed to recognize HIM, because their eyes were holden. Why were their eyes “holden”? It was because they were believing exactly the opposite of that which He had told them; they were actually telling Jesus that He was dead, that He had been crucified, and had been stolen away. No wonder, with this consciousness, they were unable to “see Him,” or recognize Him. There is no condemnation nor criticism in these remarks; many of us have stood in the same place. The belief in evil has seemed so real that we failed to Recognize the Christ when He actually presented Himself to us. This is all set forth with but the single idea of bringing more of the Light that shines in darkness into the human picture.
And so we are beginning to see that the Recognition of this Presence “causes you to look up and see Him standing your very midst.” The very Mind of Christ Jesus made manifest within and without you. The very transformation which we have tried for so long to accomplish from the outside taking place quite naturally as a result of the renewed mind. It is Wonderful!
Finally, the great Flame of this God-Love will be so kindled in your life that it will burn up the former beliefs and all vestige of them, no matter how hard and set they may be. They shall break up, like the ice on a river, when it finally melts in the warm sunshine. It is Wonderful; the God-Love that is even NOW flaming up in your midst, and consuming the dross accumulated by the double-seeing.
“This Flame of Love has been kindled in your soul and is now burning brightly, that all might receive the sparks that dart without, and be caught up in this Rapture of Heavenly Bliss, and then, having tasted the Living Waters of Life and Living bread from Heaven, these hidden Mysteries have at last unfolded and come on the material plane for sustenance of the body.”
“Claim your right and press your claim.” Claim your right to this God-Love, and press your claim, by discarding the belief that you are a poor worm of the dust, and that this Priceless Gift is not for you. Claim your right to this God-Love, and it will bring about the renewing of the mind, and hence the transformation of the embodiment. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!
O, THAT I MIGHT FIND HIM
MAETERLINCK symbolizes happiness by a blue bird and causes the seeker to go the world over searching for it, only to return home worn and tired to find the blue bird in his own garden. Thousands of people make yearly pilgrimages to various shrines thinking to get a glimpse of something mysterious and to feel His Presence. All of these people in story and in fact are but pictures of yourself . One day you, too, come to realize the isness of God and the realization that he is everywhere present, even in hell ” if I make my bed in hell thou art there.” It is safe to say that the man in hell who becomes conscious of God’s presence changes hell to heaven. Certainly God is in heaven.
If you think you are in hell to-day, remembering this one redeeming feature about it–God is there–transforms it into heaven, here and now.
The knowledge of the allness of God is an ” Open sesame ” to the King’s treasures. What glorious gifts are poured into your lap by the God of the all-good universe. Awake! Awake! Awake! God is not gained through books. God is. You are a dweller in a God universe. Everything is God in manifestation. Could there be more than all ?
If you want to see God and serve him, serve your fellow man. ‘ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, ye have done it unto me.’
‘I am Alpha and Omega'” Can there be more than all ? What about the belief’ of two powers–one good and the other evil ?
Begin to see God in everything that lives, and you will carry with you a fairy wand that will transform one hell and devil after another into a heaven and an angel.
‘I will never leave you.’ Fear not, once you recognize this God of the all-good universe you will never again lose the Truth of life.
Small wonder the Kingdom of Heaven is given unto the child. A child can believe in all good happening without questioning as to the how and why; but the wise and prudent try to square God by man-made laws, and f ail. Even though they write long dissertations on the atonement and quote the Scriptures from end to end, yet they miss him. ‘The wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God.’ How could it be otherwise when you realize that ‘My ways are not your ways’? The ways of the Spirit for bringing good into manifestation are far beyond the fondest hopes of man’s reasoning. In Spirit there is always a way for things to happen that is absolutely impossible to the man of the circumstance world.
You are told that you cannot add one cubit to your stature by taking thought . Why try, then? Why not listen to the law which says, ‘ When the inspiration of the Almighty has come unto you, it shall lead you into all things and will teach you all things.’ The inspiration of the Almighty is the God dwelling in the midst of you, and has nothing to do with reason. Reason flees before the inspiration of the Almighty, for inspiration upsets all its laws. The natural operation of the law of God is to the sense man mysterious and supernatural.
Why take thought, then ? When you come into oneness with the Truth God you find a new law operating within you the law of intuition, the law of inspiration. And somehow things keep on happening at the right time, despite the sense testimony which says ‘ impossible.’
When you see God in a patient, you bring forth what is called a healing, but in Reality you do nothing but recognize a fact of Being.
Every man is your teacher, since God is in every man. See to it that you are not deceived into believing that teachers come with a blare of the trumpet and a great noise. The porter who opens the temple doors may have a greater message for you than he who stands at the altar. Open your eyes and ears, for God is speaking to you constantly through thousands of avenues.
Away with the feeble idea of this or that great one, who is sitting on a self-created throne puffed up with spiritual pride! There is none great except God. You are free; walk, then, as a free man, not as a slave. Walk with boundless freedom, for you have come to understand the Ever-Presence of God here and now. When you take the ‘ no thought ‘ road that Spirit offers you, it means infinitely more than just drifting about day-dreaming. That you are taking no further thought of things and appearances does not mean that you suddenly cease all activity and drift through life. Just the reverse is true you become active with a newness of purpose that accomplishes. This activity will not be restrained by the circumstance world which calls attention to the purse, the scrip, and the robe. You are free, and if you dare to follow the Voice of Truth you can go your way unhampered, untrammeled, and free. You are traveling the high-road of peace, and may walk and talk with God in everybody and see him in everything.
You are untrammeled, free, only so far as you give the world its freedom. Whatever bondage you see for another, you first see for yourself . God is one and not indivisible. You are but a point in consciousness where this expression comes into visibility. You are a distributor of good, a speaker of the Word. You seek no more the light outside yourself for you are the light and you are the way, and no more will you seek the way by favor or force . You are your own way, and it is well with you now.
Day after day slips over the brink of eternity, filled with glory, filled with freedom for you are new-born, and a thousand years are as a day. You are free, free, free. You have seen the Christ . You have found him in everything, and in yourself as well. You are through with criticism, condemnation, and judgment . You are now born into the kingdom that is here and now not an illusion, not a theory but a living, pulsating consciousness of Heaven within.
‘Where there is no vision the people perish.’ There is no vision in the reason world, for that world calls vision unnatural, unreal, and impossible; but you have caught the vision; you have seen the Christ dwelling in the temple of your body; and you have recognized your true self and have great peace.
And now, instead of begging God to give you personal things, meditate in breathless adoration on the isness of everything. Peace is yours and nothing can take it f rom you , and if you stay in continual peace all things that are necessary to sustain this peace will be forthcoming, without struggle and without telling God how much you need them. You are the prince of peace.
All of this beautiful peace and calm does not produce lethargy. It is not merely sitting supinely waiting for something to happen ; it is expression. It is a newer and finer activity which comes to you, and saves you all the lost motion and fatiguing effort to get your own. Your own shall come unto you when you recognize what your own is. The great difference between understanding and belief is that one rests in peace and follows the Voice of Truth, while the other goes struggling through life trying to psychologize things and money out of the universe.
Because you have ceased the mad hunt after Christ and found him in yourself , you do not hide yourself away to the mountains. He is no more in the mountains than he is in the crowded city streets. Going into the silence is not a trick that has to be practiced in a certain place. It is possible anywhere, at any time. It is only the recognition of God as present.
A new and holy mission comes to you. You are the bringer of light, the bringer of joy, the collector of smiles, the speaker of the word, and the giver of good. You go out to give; you go out to ‘speak no evil nor to listen to it.’ Why should you listen to that which you know is untrue ? No, not even for the false sense of sympathy! You are free. You are at peace.
The End