CONTENTS
Publishers Preface
Out of the East
Subjectivity
Olympian Dust
Illusion
Recognition
Cloven Tongue
The Poisonous Flower
The Chastening
The Extension of the Senses
Seeing
Hearing
Tasting
Touching
Smelling
Embodiment
I Come Not to Destroy
That Which Concerneth Me
From Walking Up and Down and To and Fro
The Friendly Enemy
IN ALL THY WAYS
Thank You, Father
Ye Must Be Born Again
Setting the Captive Free
Resist Not
No Condemnation
Being Being
The Acts of God
The God-Spake Voice
Believest Thou This?
When Ye Pray
PUBLISHER’S PREFACE
What we call the Union Life message of Oneness in Christ, Paul called, “the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but now has been manifested to His saints” (Col. 1:26). This mystery, of “Christ in us, our hope of glory”, is available to all believers. Men need no longer die in a wilderness of separation, struggle and defeat. There is “a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9). Since Pentecost, the reality of full heirship—co-crucifixion, co-resurrection, and co-ascension in Christ-is readily available to all who will acknowledge that the Kingdom of God is within them. “The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Cor. 6:17).
No twentieth century author has proclaimed the truth of Oneness any more clearly and eloquently than Walter C. Lanyon. Yet the bulk of his books are no longer available. Therefore, UNION LIFE MINISTRIES is republishing a few of Lanyon’s outof-print books to make his writings available once again.
However, a word of explanation is in order. Since Lanyon wrote primarily to mature Christians who have begun to see with a “single eye”, he leaves “the elementary teachings about the Christ . . . not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God” (Heb. 6:1). Instead of seeing some as little children and young men, he writes as if all readers are “fathers” (1 John 2:13).
Lanyon’s writings make only passing reference to sin, to the Lord Jesus’ unique Deity in His incarnation as “God manifest in the flesh”, to our identification with Him in His substitutionary death, and to other such fundamental truths. His limited emphasis on the foundations of faith in Christ is his way of pressing readers on to further reaches of maturity, not a denial of any foundational truths.
We in UNION LIFE MINISTRIES most certainly believe that, “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father” (1 John 2:23); “and there is salvation in no one else; for there is no name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
But we also agree with Paul (and with Lanyon) when Paul says, “Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer” (2 Cor. 5:16). In maturity, the day finally comes when the substance (the Spirit) swallows up the shadow and the symbol (the historical and the material). As spirit persons, we must not avoid the metaphysical (beyond the physical) dimension, which is the ultimate true reality. “Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow” (Aesop).
Few writers take us into this wonderful dimension of living which Paul labels as “the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3,20). Lanyon is one of the few who writes of life in that dimension, where we “do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24). We need not always be caught up in a two-power conflict, but with a single eye see the One “who works all things (good and evil) after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11).
So do not look for typical, foundational Biblical truths in this book. Lanyon only seeks to be a confirming witness to ultimate truths, such as total adequacy and complete victory in the Eternal Now of our Oneness with the Father. Be prepared to see with a single eye, and your whole body will be marvelously flooded with inextinguishable light.
UNION LIFE MINISTRIES
P.O. Box 2877
Glen Ellyn, IL 60138
Chapter One
As the wind bloweth, I go now,
And ye know not whither.
With a warm breath I have blown upon your seedlings,
I have blessed you as a warm rain.
Aye, and from the northeast, icy
And stern was the blast of my indignation
Against the weeds of treachery—
Against the waste of unclean furrows and broken barns,
Wherein mice ate the seed I gave you without stint.
Now look ye to the harvest, for I go,
And neither tear nor bell nor burning sacrifice
Shall summons me again to teach anew
What I have taught so often that your ears are weary,
And ye are fat from hearing and not doing.
-Druid Taliesin*
* Taken, with permission, from writings of Talbot Mundy.
YES, “Ye are fat from hearing, and not doing.” Hearing endless words of and about the truth and never really hearing the WORD within your soul. Afraid to listen to the voice within you, preferring to listen to another give his idea of what it all means. It probably does mean just what he says to him and for him—but that will not fit into the scheme of your things. “You have grown fat by not doing”—what an indictment. How can you do anything when you have only the words of another and not the power within them. When will you listen to the VOICE within you and stop discounting yourself—you too are my temple—remember this.
Cyrano asks this pertinent question:
“What would you have me do? Use the fire God gave me to burn incense all day long under the nose of wood and stone? No, thank you.”
Burning incense to personalities, organizations, false gods and more especially to the human egos, is the surest way to call down the wrath of God.
When you pray, will you dare to stand in the effulgent LIGHT of the Temple, unafraid—with the boldness that comes of pure recognition of God—and ask, simply and with assurance? Or will you seek for the praise and patronage of a great personal god-to climb to heights you could not reach alone? Will you in this golden Light try to demonstrate gold?
Organizations are but the shadows of the personalities who created them. When the energy of the personality is spent, the thing falls to pieces and becomes a memory. Without the Spirit, nothing lasts. That is why Jesus warned against the worship of personalities. “Call not me good.” He saw the evil of following personalities, however lofty. Follow ME—follow the SPIRIT. When you do, you will see ME in a thousand, thousand masks-and eventually will be able to call ME into being by your recognition of ME. Yes, even in the mass of corruption and death, with all its indications of futility, you will call ME forth and I will come through joyously. Yes, I shall come, as surely as a reflection in the mirror laughs when you laugh.
When you pray, come joyously into the Temple. Put away your desires for the nonce—enter, and be still. Presently, you will see the “desires” in all their perfection which He has prepared for those who LOVE THE LORD. You will see things that eyes have not seen. The petty desires you left at the temple gates when you entered to pray will have faded into insignificance, for the “things that are prepared for those who love the Lord” are so much greater. And you will learn the reason for the deep secrecy—you will tell no man.
Ye accuse me of keeping secret knowledge
That I should share among you,
As if a she bear should show you her cubs
Or a thrush should tell you where her eggs are nested.
There is nothing—nay, no knowledge hidden
Saving only from him who seeketh
The wherewithal to fatten ignorance.
-Druid Taliesint*
If ye have ought against your brother or yourself, first lay your gift on the altar. Stop the useless trying to get something. Pray the prayer of recognition and rejoicing for once, and see what happens. Much will take place when you are ready-–things more wonderful than you have planned or thought will happen.
If I AM to “give you the desires of your heart,” you must be able to take them. How can you take them if you are only trying to believe in a God who transcends all thought patterns of your life? How can you possibly receive the desires of your heart unless you realize that something greater than your thought process will bring them to pass? How can you succeed unless you have discovered that victories are not won on a battlefield of mental effort and argument, but in the garden of your heart?
All belief in karmic debt will loosen and disappear the moment you enter the LIFE which is in Christ Jesus. The moment you cease looking to the ancestors and their evil history, by recognizing the FATHER, then the old karmic pictures become nil.
“Call no man (NOT any man) your father.” The Divine impulsion which brought you into your temple-body holds your Destiny. You release all of the qualities of the human father the moment you cease identifying yourself with him. You see a sudden and miraculous change taking place when you call no man your father-and appropriate the birthright of SPIRIT and view your Golden Destiny stretching before you.
Slay him? Shoot your arrows at the moon, ye impotently ignorant.
He who hath earned a destiny shall run his course,
Though earth, air, fire and sea were all in league against him.
Look then to your little evil,
Even that is fearsome because it is so little.
Slay that, lest it betray you
When the hour of His destiny
Sendeth him forth to test your manhood.
-Druid Taliesin*
Nothing can destroy the Christ within you, once you have discovered its reality. “Slay him?” It is like shooting arrows at the moon. Nothing shall stop the on-rush of his presence within you, hurrying in his unhurried way, to the fulfillment of YOUR Divine DESTINY. You have released the fate of the man born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, and have entered into the Divine Heritage of the Son of God. You have “earned a destiny” and shall fulfill it with ease and beauty “Though earth, air, fire and sea were all in league against him.” Nothing shall withstand the Brightness of his coming.
Chapter Two
IN Oriental teaching there is a degree in which man frees himself from “subjectivity.” Subjectivity is that state of being under the power or authority of another or a system of ideas, or a code of action derived from the findings of the senses.
When man frees himself from this “subjectivity,” he recognizes that “all mentation, viz., their appearance, presence, change or disappearance (in the field of consciousness) have no genuine reality. They are neither in a temporal nor in a spatial (having nature of space) relation with the ONE SOUL, for they are NOT self-existent.”
In other words, when man enters into the ONE-ness he loses all the duality of life, which he now sees as the illusion he once called reality. He sees the rose within the rose and the substance within the symbol and knows where REALITY lies. Likewise, he sees the LIFE unchangeable and eternal in the manifestations of health, which is but a limited concept of LIFE put through the glass darkly of appearances which man has accepted and to which he has become subject.
To the savage, things which are natural to an engineer appear as magic and the workings of a tribal God. He does not understand them, so fears them-and hence can be hurt by them, as a child in its ignorance can be injured by electricity. When we recognize even in a small degree that all states of “mentation,” every degree of the human thought or finding, that is, all appearances, presence, changes, and even their disappearances, have in actuality no reality, then we begin to experience freedom. Appearances are but shadows cast by spirit in the world of illusion. Hence man does walk through the shadows of belief, even as he is told he shall walk through fire, water, closed doors, and even death-not to work miracles, not to mystify or to induce worship, but because when he is “sealed” in the WORD of Jesus Christ, he discovers that all the “mentations” of the human mind are but illusions. And if it be necessary for him literally to set them aside, he will do so, as Jesus did in all his so-called miracles. The illusion of the mind, under subjectivity of the human, self-made laws, saw the healings of Jesus as something from on-high, or something from the realm of mystery-but Jesus was automatically operating the LAW OF GOD, and took no cognizance of the “mentation” of the human thought.
When you live in the recognition of the true values of LIFE, you rise above “subjectivity” of the human mind and are freed into the realm of pure Spirit. At this level, what you “tell the Father in secret” is declared from the housetops of manifestation as a natural sequence. Nothing else could happen. When Jesus went WITHIN and shut the door, he entered the degree beyond subjectivity of any and all human thinking and manifestation, and he then functioned from the place of GOD. Here he found the REALITY that does not pass away and is not subject to belief, nor space, nor time—but revealed the NOW-NESS of GOD.
Finally, the freeing of oneself from the “mentations” of the human belief causes man to take his rightful place in regard to the coming and going of things. Unto Caesar are the things of Caesar rendered, and unto God the things which are God’s —and the discovery of rendering unto God the POWER which is animating everything in the universe will cause a subtle change to take place in manifestation. It takes the power away from the inanimate thing and places it where it belongs. To discover God as LIFE in the temple—body, is to cause the manifestation of health to rise many degrees in the body. To contemplate God as LIFE is to cause the action of this LIFE in the temple-body to be equal to anything which it has to perform-even though this may seem beyond the accepted possibilities of the body. When this release from subjectivity takes place, many of the revelations of Jesus Christ will become natural and normal.
The unenlightened being has nothing but his subjectivity to follow—and this can be on any one of a thousand levels. Thus the savage, in following his pattern is doing the best he can, and until he becomes Christ-enlightened, he continues to function under the laws of his subjectivity. Thus, if he believes that sitting in a draught causes him to have a stiff neck or get pneumonia, he will come under the law of his accepted subjectivity and produce these effects—and will have to use other laws to relieve himself.
Chapter Three
Into the Light, into the fire—
To the innermost core of the deathless flame
I ascend-I aspire.
Under me rolls the whirling earth
With the noise of a myriad wheels that run
Ever ’round and about the sun.
Over me circles the splendid heaven
Strewn with stars and noon and even,
Soul serene, float with my rainbow wings unfurled,
Alone with Love, ‘twixt God and the world.
-Marie Corelli
MANIFESTATION will only remain as long as it is held in consciousness. The moment a thing appears, it is on its way out. It begins a process of disintegration, going back into the Divine Dust from which it was shapened. The Greeks called it Olympian dust.
In the beginning God made man out of the “dust”-and breathed into him the breath (fire) of Life, and he became a LIVING SOUL. “Dust thou art, to dust returneth” is said of the manifestation, not the SOUL of man. By the consciousness of Life can man stay the manifestation indefinitely and can renew the garments and shoes that waxed old. The renewing fire of consciousness revivifies it. All the mysteries are revealed when you enter in and become ONE with the Christ. The blending of the Christ with the body causes the perfect Temple to appear.
The rock you smite will not give forth springs of living water to amuse the curious. If a miracle were necessary, it would be performed naturally and easily.
There were many things Jesus could not tell because of the unbelief—but now you believe in a power greater than human thought and are experiencing and feeling the new consciousness coming into being. In like manner, anything that is released from consciousness will depart, having had the life force drained from it.
“Yes,” it is said, “I can pick it up or lay it down.” The Jesus Christ consciousness has the POWER to self-resurrect the “dead” body, and to rehabilitate the disintegrating body.
Out of consciousness, out of your world;
IN consciousness, IN your world.
When the human thought is broken, the God thought flows and integrates itself through the Temple. Then it is that the IDEA or Cosmic Urge of God comes to man. As he gazes at this NEW idea, it becomes clearer and clearer, until he can say “It is done,”-and see it appear.
“In ALL (every one of them) thy Ways, ACKNOWLEDGE HIM—and HE shall direct thy paths.” The hell of human pictures and beliefs in which you find yourself will suddenly change into the FLAME of Love. Where you stand, the ground is HOLY—when you recognize the ONE.
“It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye
Than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The Needle’s Eye was a gate through which to enter Jerusalem. It was so low that in order to enter, a camel must be completely divested of its load. So man, in entering into the Consciousness of Jesus Christ, finds he cannot enter until he is divested of all the load of human belief. When he “unloads,” or “lets go,” or “leaves all,” he does not leave person, place or things, necessarily—-but he releases his belief of any power in them. When the closely clutched symbol of a thing is released, the real manifestation will appear.
In the FIRES OF SELF–RECOGNITION do you discover the Spiritual Priority of all things real, all law and power. This Spiritual Priority is the LAST WORD—-the WORD which becomes flesh and dwells among us. The accumulated human thoughts of man are stuck to each other like a pack of wet labels. Man keeps going back to some other premise which will substantiate evil. A Divine forgetfulness will obscure the thoughts and events of yesteryears completely.
Presently the interpretation of the LIGHT comes. We see the Divine interpretation of the FIRE. One time it is consuming—-and another, illuminating.
“Into the LIGHT—into the FIRE,
To the innermost core of the DEATHLESS FLAME,
I ascend—I aspire.”
Chapter Four
I ONCE saw a so-called famous person in a crowd where no one recognized her as anything other than what she was, just a body dressed and painted in the custom of the day. She became a strange thing without her press agent and her publicity, and began shrinking away from the obvious comparison of herself as she appeared without the acclaim. Presently she became violently ill and had to be taken home. Anything, when not recognized, dies—and the old inflated ego needed the winds of acclaim and praise to keep the balloon afloat. When the inflation was not there, the withered skin of the ego settled in against the form like the loose hide of an elephant. In reality there was nothing there. And so with the personality—if it is not recognized, it dies.
I can see her now—looking with wild eyes for recognition. The only thing she lived on . . . was praise and acclaim. The fact that she could run through a whole book of poses meant nothing to anyone but herself, and it was nothing but illusion to her now. She was like a wandering Pleiad, looking for her sisters.
Eventually your old “darling” will be consumed-no one will save it from the ravages of the flames of time and ignorance. To ignore it is to see it die.
The brightness Of YOUR coming will need no publicity agent or advertising campaign. You are self-announced, self-sustained, and self-expressed, because you have discovered that your body is the TEMPLE of the LIVING GOD-and you bear witness to just that and nothing more.
One is sometimes surprised in meeting a so-called celebrity. For some reason or another, we are always amazed that without the acclaim of the world they are just ordinary people, and sometimes not even that. We are disappointed that the character we have adored exists only in our minds. This imaginary thing which in reality is not there, comes to apparent life when the applause of the crowd is present and retires the moment it is not-like the dead grand-parents of the children in The Blue Bird they arose in their graves when the children were talking of them, and said, “We are never dead as long as you are thinking of us.” And so we see the chimera of life continue, fed by thought.
When you recognize that you are the CHRIST of GOD, there is no putting on and off of a character. It is always there and can be recognized without the voice of publicity or press acclaim. “THIS is my beloved Son” was said of You. That is all you need to hear to make you famous and recognized by all who can SEE; and they are the only ones who matter.
Remember “The fame of him went abroad”-the fame of an ego, however great, dies because it is nothing but outside acclaim. If you are seeking fame it is a futile job.
Chapter Five
SELF-recognition, Self-identification—automatically produce the “SON of God” state of consciousness. It is then not STRANGE “that he made himself as God.” You experience the subtle change of it when mental consciousness merges into the Spiritual consciousness. That which was “miracle” becomes “Natural.”
Why should you stand aghast when you see the Power of God disintegrating the pictures of stagnant human thought? The thing that should make you wonder is the appearance of Evil in the Creation of God.
“No man hath taught me these things but my Father in Heaven,” is a discovery of soul, a radical dependence upon the Inner Voice, and a complete getting away from the stupid ideas of man-made teaching.
Through identification the union of man and God takes place; a blending of consciousness in which man discovers “Substance” undefined, infinite. The inertia of matter is overcome; quickened into the Spirit substance—one with God; —with the all everywhere present.
The action of the human thought, though it be called intelligence or wisdom, is foolishness in the eyes of God; and moreover is a liar and the father of it. Witness the thousand and one discoveries made by this mind and proclaimed the “Panacea” for all ills, which later are decried as utter folly. Everything which proceeds from the man whose breath is in his nostrils is untrue.
The Great Ignorance that went up and watered the face of the earth still wears a mask of Wisdom. If the Child has the native capacity to understand and do the works of God, because of his ability to accept a dimension entirely outside the capacities of the human brain, of what use then is the teaching of man? “Who by SEARCHING can find out God?” The great ignorance watered the whole face of the earth, and has brought forth a crop of poisonous weeds which are sustained by belief in them. Hence a disease is brought forth by this “watering” and is caused to flourish by the sheer force of human belief, called race consciousness.
“Mental” consciousness which appears to be a creator finally makes its circle and dies together with its manifestation.
All human manifestation begins its demise from the moment it appears. It will fall into the dust, or will last for “three score and ten” years according to the sustaining power back of it. The luminous lump of substance which sustains its own manifestation is the point of identification in you. It is the place where the invisible is stepped down to a point of visibility.
It is written “I must decrease-ye must increase”-the awakening of the True Identity causes decrease of the ego consciousness.
The Ego which left the Garden of Eden, is the Prodigal Son who by remembrance of his heritage, straightway moves toward it. The corruptible begins to put on the incorruptible. The decrease and increase begin to take place. He discovers and comes again into the state of being where All that I have is yours. He finds the substance he wasted in riotous living is suddenly restored to all its fair proportions. He discovers a ONE-ness to which nothing can be added or taken away.
When he dares to let go of the preconceived notion, ideas, and beliefs, then he will experience the works of Divine impulsion. From the depths of his BEING are thrown up gifts, talents, and capacities, to do and accomplish things he has not yet known. “My ways are not your ways,” and they are not subject to any of the laws of thinking. The human knows nothing about the Ways of the Lord. He is busy seeking ways and means to slip up on the Lord, by systems of Truth, and thereby perform miracles to stimulate worship of his ego. He can do none of the things he is teaching others to do, and finally he, like the Green bay tree, takes the count.
Do you speak ONE-ness and straightway dramatize a state of Two-ness? Do you straightway have a problem to overcome or work out, after you have assumed ONE-ness? Or do you experience One-ness where there is no polarity, only completeness. This state of consciousness causes disease and evil to evaporate, like mist before noon-day sun. Are there two? healer and patient? if so, you are still far in the desert of human belief. The one who identifies himself with God is not in the process of becoming, he cannot grow, he cannot unfold, he can only experience the sudden discovery that he has already arrived. He bears witness, and evil which can make no agreement, falls automatically into oblivion. He does not cure, he reveals, and this revealing is not a mental effort, it is an established embodied fact. You do not have to affirm anything that is true. Repeated affirmation of a given thing only establishes the fact that it is not true. Affirmations always follow manifestation, if they be of God.
By recognition we are transformed. Nothing is destroyed, only quickened into its proper capacity and fulfillment and the “decrease and the increase” proceed with the ease and naturalness of the coming Dawn. Evil goes nowhere even as darkness. It is only absorbed by the Light and even so is the mental energy of a disease suddenly quickened to the dimension of LIFE.
“And having done all stand and see.” What? That which you have recognized as God. “The echo throws back at you only what you have given it.”
Chapter Six
THE CLOVEN TONGUE is mentioned as a power which descended upon the disciples and caused them to understand all languages by dividing asunder the human thought limitation and knowledge and revealing the Intelligence and wisdom of ONE. That is what is called HEARING. Hearing is not something done through the organ of the senses—but something which goes beyond, and as the spirit “searches the joints and marrow” and elevates one to the clear illumination of the Mind of Christ Jesus. Entering into this capacity is not the work of a “master” or “Holy Man,” it is the capacity of Everyman who dares to “Smite the rock” of belief and cause it to give forth living waters. This is not a dramatic display of emotion—it is a sudden realization that Jesus Christ said it is a capacity of every man to HEAR. Man has been centuries with all the instrumentation of hearing, and yet has not heard the WORD —only the letter of it which is dead., Now comes the capacity of entering into the ONE, and discovering the infinite capacities of LIFE. Then is he equipped to HEAR what a man is saying even though he may submerge it in subtle, double talk, and diplomacy. The CLOVEN tongue shall split it asunder and he will hear what he is SAYING, and not what he is “saying.” He will see and understand the exact opposite of the human words, and so shall be able to STAND in the LIGHT.
So does a man discover the hidden capacities of the Christ Mind within him. He can at will enter into the consciousness of that which has to do with him. He can by the recognition of this enter into the actual nature of a man and discover that which his lips refuse to say.
This is not a “stunt” of a Holy man—but a capacity of the Mind of Christ Jesus within you—and which becomes an unconscious action finally. It is wonderful! Will you “put the coal of fire on your lips”? No one is going to BELIEVE you, and many may hate you for having discovered such a capacity. “My Grace is sufficient for thee.” Is sufficient enough or must you have more than sufficient? “MY Grace”-that substance which defies all definition because it is a quality of the LOVE of God which has been given you. “My Grace is sufficient”—it says sufficient for thee—–
Every time you enter the PRESENCE you are filled with the HOLY GHOST, the action of Spirit, that which is going through into manifestation. And it is this which amazes the human mind. Suddenly the picture disintegrates and falls into dust. “We were hypnotized,” says the man with breath in his nostrils. “None so blind as those who will not SEE.” And now we have another sense coming up for releasement, even as the Cloven Tongues released the obscuring human words, and made plain the meaning of any so-called language, so does the cleaving power of the word “rend the veil”—-and release the Vision of the almighty and cause a man to see visions and dream dreams of reality right in the midst of the hell of human belief and fury. So did Jesus SEE you under the fig tree—he didn’t just “see” you but he did SEE you under the fig tree. And it is this “sight,” prostituted by man and sold as a form of fortune telling. You are admonished to “buy truth but SELL it not”—and so it goes until a man learns that he does not “five by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”—and that “he is clothed with the Spirit” —and that both of these movements are not in the nature of so-called “demonstration,” but a way of self-revelation a thing that is normal and natural.
“If a man keep my sayings he shall never taste death.” “Taste?”-Through the taste a man supplies himself with the foods proper for sustaining the physical body. There is a sense discrimination which is synonymous with taste.
A man must first “HEAR“ the WORDS of Jesus Christ. How is he going to hear them if they are passed through the thick veils of ancestor teaching and beliefs? Coloured by a thousand religions how will he hear the WORD uttered once through the temple of Jesus Christ? The purity of the words of Jesus Christ convulse the human mind. Finally the rising waters will quench and drown at the same time. If he can HEAR what the Scriptures say—then can he operate through his temple and dispel the darkened world of human thought. But he shall not force anything. He will cause it to be known that the command “consider the Lilies” is something more than looking at flowers. It goes deep into the heart of the bulb from which it came.
He begins to discover the permanency of the perfect creation of God, and he renews the manifestation called body. He cleanses the temple. He lives in the world but not of its passing fury, which today is here, and tomorrow cast into the oven.
The enemy in one war becomes the ally in another and this cat-and-mouse game goes on until a man discovers the “Battle is not yours but God’s.”
Jesus went unto the Father, became one with the Father, and quite naturally discovered the dimension of the Father operating through the son; setting aside all the beliefs and limitations and so-called “truths” of the world of Maya. The Hindu in his Upanishads exclaims with joy on coming unto the One—the Father—“Thou art the SELF, and that thou art THAT I AM.“ It is a clear revelation that is without explanation for it proceeds from pure recognition of God, universal and infinite. Once this is RECOGNIZED the capacities of this GOD become self-evident, and little by little, or suddenly man approximates this eternal thing called LIFE, unchanging yet constantly changing the manifestation. He begins finally to look out upon the changing manifestation watching the transformation of himself take place, as he constantly throws off the effects of believing in two powers. The old body enclosure that threatened according to his ancestor teaching to destroy him, finally begins to slip away as the fresh manifestation of spirit pushes to the surface of visibility. He is transformed—changed, born again daily and he remains eternally in the NOW of it all. All the hard fast beliefs of the ancestors are cast away “uncoffined, unknelled, and unsung.” They are worthy of nothing-fit only for the discard.
“Be ye then transformed by the re-newing of your mind” is not such a mystical process as would appear. It is something like the coming of dawn-gradually it has happened and continues its effulgence and light into the full noon-day. An English poem runs somewhat after this manner:
“If thou couldst empty thyself of self
Like to a shell disinhabited
Then would he fill it with himself instead
But thou art all fulfilled with thou,
That when he comes he says `it is enow
The place is full. There is no room for ME’.”
We are so busy trying to fill everything with the self that little chance is left for the SELF to take over. There was no room at the INN when the greatest event in all history was to take place, and when the question is asked “What have ye in your house” the answer is a handful of meal and three drops of oil. There is nothing but self in the house until we make ready for the real Self, that which was created, to take over and release the new dimensions shown to us and told to us by Jesus Christ as perfectly natural and real and indigenous to every man.
Chapter Seven
THE Bee knows how to take the honey from the poisonous flower. By recognition you are able to see through by the same divine instinct. The moment recognition is made the soul responds. Continued recognition will cause assumption of its own strength. “I saw you under the fig tree,” is a dimension of pure recognition. This is the power of Soul which rises from decaying human flesh and comes forth, laughing.
No more do we “deny evil” after having once HEARD the command to “Deny not.” What you deny from the human standpoint, you affirm, for you cannot deny “Nothing.” It is this very denial that many times establishes it! All evil lives upon and is sustained by human thinking, and nothing else. The moment human thought is taken from a condition at that instant it begins to disintegrate. Many times the fearful human belief returns with such speed it re-assumes the picture or reanimates the picture of evil. “I never knew you,” is enough instantly to destroy evil. An evil bird that rushes at the Light, bashes out its brains, and falls into oblivion. When you enter the consciousness you neither affirm nor deny with the idea of changing anything. When you affirm you are making a statement of something that already has happened and is coming into being. The acceptance of this unseen evidence is the final WORD which releases it. “All flesh shall see it together for the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,” and what or who is to say you nay?
If God said it—ten thousand years of human wisdom with a legion of manifestations cannot un-say it, or make it nil.
As the falling of the reflection on the surface of the clear water takes place automatically, so does the perpetual and continuous reflection of your consciousness take form and shape in the world of Maya—the world of things. The moment it is released from consciousness, it begins to disintegrate and fall into its Divine Dust, to be reshapened. As easily as passing the hand through the water and destroying the picture on the surface so in reality is the picture of evil destroyed by the assumption of the Christ. Moses put his hand in his bosom and took it out white with leprosy and returned it again and took it out free from the picture. All idea of legerdemain—magic or doing tricks, has nothing to do with the appearance of the Presence, and the disappearance of the illusion. There is no question in the “prove me and see” state of consciousness, any more than there is in the mind of a mathematician when he sets forth to prove his equation; not to see if it is true, but because it is true. The engineer who “proves” the law of mathematics spans a chasm with a perfect equation. He has completed the entire thing without touching any of the apparent necessary equipment to do the job, but when he has finished with his plan, it then becomes a reality in the flesh—automatically. He does nothing with it himself but lets it come into manifestation through the bodies of hundreds of men. So the “Way” is always past finding out “I have a way ye know not of.”
Yes, the Bee knows how to extract the honey from the poisonous flower, and you are beginning to see how you devitalize evil and the pictures thereof by taking power from it. The electric wire which was lying on the ground spilling away power, is picked up, and that which apparently was causing so much damage is now released into the one. Any time two become ONE you have the perfect solution.
Chapter Eight
“Despise not the chastening of the Lord.”
AT each new elevation comes the “chastening”—the refining of the instrument and its way of expression. This chastening carries none of the ugly implications of the scourge or punishment, but rather the re-orientation and re-assigning of things to their rightful evaluation on the higher level. “Whereas before I was blind, now I can see.” I can see where I am. I can see and understand that which I have been blindly seeking— because my sight has been chastened—focused to a finer point of perception—extended, as it were. I can see things which were formerly vague and nebulous.
“Whatever ye see or hear or know
Was eons old before ye heard it.”
The chastening is gentle—yet firm. “My son”—it seems always to start with that salutation. What a richness and love in the very imagined tone of any father saying just that. “My, son”—there is an implication of protection and a beautiful recognition of relationship—a warmth of LOVE which enfolds like soft wings. It is the MOTHER quality coming into embodiment in the FATHER. “MY SON!” Can you hear? It is speaking of You. Your attention is turned from the picture of chaos. “MY SON—if you will …”—and then follows the magic revelation—the magic formulae is given, and you surrender, not to punishment, but to the revelation of the How. You enter a new tempo which carries you safely into a NEW DAY.
“My father taught me—and I know
That manners are the cloak of dignity,
And dignity is man’s awareness of his own Soul.”
-Early Greek
And now some of the grosser and more gauche movements must be replaced or resolved into perhaps lesser action with more definite and surer results. Glancing at the “former things which are passing away,” much of the former success seems now to have been clumsy and laboured. A new tempo has entered in the space between, fore-shortened to a vanishing point. At a single gesture now, months of human thought are approximated—and that which Is, actually is. The fields are literally white, even though it is impossible and cannot take place. A new technique has entered—a technique which cannot be set down in words, but which can be felt pressing upon the diaphragm of consciousness—a sudden feeling of the PRESENCE.
The Father keeps refining and guiding His son-not as a punishment, but to cause him to be capable of higher and more outstanding results. If it were not that greater revelations were to be made to him and manifested through him, He would not bother to chasten. And so the word:
“Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.”
He purifies and deletes the dross of human thought so that we might be fit for the Kingdom.
“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous….
Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.”
Yes, it is something to be chosen for this chastening. When the former pictures begin to break up, you do not care, knowing that the atoms are to be re-assembled into a NEW picture—-for the chastening is transmuted into loving revelation. There is no time to consider the consummation of Sodom and Gomorrah. “Let the filthy be filthy still”—-what is that to thee? On the very next hilltop there is a NEW CITY whose maker is God. It is your CITY, set upon the HILL-and can no longer be hid from you.
You have to be LOVED to be chastened—and when you recognize this, there is rejoicing and calmness with the changing conditions. The breaking shell may seem like dissolution—but it frees the bird.
As the Musician, who has already been acclaimed master of his instrument, goes again and again to fundamentals, and practices the inner laws that he may better interpret that which he already knows, so the Master disciplines His sons that they may find in the old, old, word forms, NEW fountains of LIVING WATERS in the desert made dry by repetition of dead letters.
When the chastening is recognized as the wonderful GUIDING LIGHT it is, then in this effulgence the passing of things is seen as the dropping off of so much excess baggage. The NEW-old action as compared with the former as it passes away, is like the action of electricity as compared to the laboured movements of the untrained, unskilled muscular power of man.
All the questing will go—-the “WHY?”, the “How?”, the “What have I done to deserve this?”, and the comparing of patterns with another—-all of it, the moment you transfer the POWER from punishment to LOVE. A welling up of Joy within takes place your surrender, plus the integrity to follow through, causes the miracle to take place—the miracle of LOVE. “What will you have me to do, Lord?” “HERE AM I —-send me.”
MY son—-my SON—-MY SON. Do you hear? Here am I, in the MIDST OF YOU. MY SON! This is the way—walk ye in it—-and despise not the chastening of the Lord.
Chapter Nine
We have been accused of having eyes, and seeing not, and ears, and hearing not; and have been told that the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God, indicating that nothing we are gaining from our present use of the senses is aught but foolishness in the eyes of this Power called God.
We are invited to be “absent from the body and present with the Lord,” and to listen to the “still small voice” instead of the audible voice of man.
We are told to “flee from man whose breath is in his nostrils,” and yet, with these foreshortened senses, man has attempted to “demonstrate” a truth which, apparently, is entirely outside of these limitations.
We have constant invitations to “come up higher,” and references as to what takes place “if I be lifted up,” and we are told of the extension of vision when the eye becomes single.
Seeing that all the works of Jesus were not done in the supposed fashion of “metaphysics” (as used in its present-day interpretation of the word, i.e., “using” a God power to change something which seemed impossible of change, and for the purpose of producing miracles), we are only faintly beginning to see the necessity of the extension of the senses.
The Law of Jesus Christ is one of fulfillment and not of destruction, and so the use of the senses as we know them today is not destroyed or put aside, but rather absorbed in the immensity of the whole.
“You must decrease; I must increase,” carries with it the idea of breaking down a wall or limitation and thereby increasing that which already is, or extending it, as, at the pushing out of the walls of a room, the air, which formerly held the shape and limitations of the four walls called room, now finds itself lost in an infinity of its own self.
All that was true of the air contained in the room remains forever true, but the limitations of the room make it impossible to judge by this small amount of air the true and infinite quality of the whole body of air. If, therefore, a person were setting down, as a fact, what he found to be true of the air in the room, his judgment about air as a whole would be faulty and absolutely untrue. So must the world we live in be, viewed through the foreshortened senses.
Jesus apparently knew this as his true nature, for he asks with impunity those things which are entirely outside of the possibilities of the finding of the human senses.
When he calls Peter, “Come to me,” he is telling him to do something that cannot be done through the foreshortened senses and understanding of the ordinary man. When he says, “Look again,” explaining that the fields are white with harvest and the labourers are few; he is speaking of something which is outside the sense of sight, as recognized by the average man.
The reason such gross failures have come forth from the “Schools of Demonstrating the Truth” is because it all has been done on the plane of the impossible. Back of every one of them is the idea that, by taking thought or making affirmations or meditating on God, they can, or will eventually, cause God to do their bidding, and whatever takes place will be unnatural.
Many will deny this, but, if it were not “unnatural,” they would not make a practice of rehearsing it for the rest of their natural lives, and testimonies would not be told, enlarged upon, and finally printed about this “unnatural”-natural thing which had happened to them because they “treated.”
We find Jesus very naturally coming to the conclusion that Jesus could do nothing with the limited, false sense of life gathered through the foreshortened senses.
“I can of myself do nothing, but I can do all things.” Moving into the naturalness of the Presence immediately put him in the plane of the natural functioning of the Presence. The miracles, to man, were the natural functioning of the law to the man of extended senses, or one who had pushed out the walls of the personal into the impersonal.
“You shall find your life when you lose it” is the paradoxical teaching of the Presence. Only when you begin to understand that the “Look again” is not a straining of the muscles of the eyes, or an exalted or emotional state of the consciousness, nor yet a vivid imagination, can you begin to see the fields are white, and that the harvest which you distinctly did not plant, is ripe. The command, “Thrust in the sickle,” is one of the most futile, and yet it persists, and must finally be obeyed—-else you remain a lifelong gleaner to a miserly harvester.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light” -no light can come through the foreshortened senses. Sifting through the wisdom of man is like looking through the husks for the few grains of wheat that the “swine” have left.
“Ye have eyes and see not.” Does the statement intrigue you? Does it hold you in its everlasting grasp? Do you ask, “See what”? “Eyes have not seen and ears have not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things that are prepared for those who love the Lord.”
The things that are to be seen and which we are not seeing “through the glass darkly” of the foreshortened senses are the things which already have been prepared. This takes us into an entirely different classification from those who think they can and do create things by “taking thought”-or that they make things happen because they “treat.”
The things that are to be seen with the blind eyes already are prepared. It is an entirely different premise from which to work. We at no time are concerned with that angle of it. When you are told to “look again,” that “look” does not in any way create the “fields white with harvest.”
The Sonship degree is constantly concerned with making things happen that would not otherwise happen, but the Son has his limitations and eventually must function into the Fatherhood degree where the finished mystery is revealed.
The moment the prodigal rises to go to the Fatherhood degree, it-seeing him a long way off-comes toward him with the robe, ring, fatted calf, etc. So when man begins to leave the level of “making demonstrations” which come and go constantly, and very often leave embarrassing gaps between, the Fatherhood consciousness moves, figuratively, towards him.
Jesus was not concerned with the creating of things. He constantly was seen touching the next dimension or the Presence where that which appeared to the three-dimensional mind a miracle, was a natural, ever-moving thing.
At this height, he had but to give thanks or recognition, and the vacuum, caused by beliefs in the mind of an individual or a group as to the absence of God in one form or another, was instantly filled. It was not a running of unformed substance into a matrix or mould, but a becoming aware of the Presence which broke down the limitations of the thing called problem, or “room,” and a joining of the one with the whole.
The “room,” then, was no more, and yet its invisible dimensions might still remain; or, for want of a better idea, we say the hard, solid walls of granite were suddenly made of the most open of screen wire.
The individuality of it is still retained, but it is one with the universal whole. “I and my Father are one; my Father is greater than I” just as the air of the universe is greater than the air taking the shape of the screened-in room. Yet are the two one-the temperature, density, movement, etc., would be the same and the air in the room could take all of the qualities and powers of the air surrounding it. All illustrations are inadequate and stupid when it comes to bringing out the relation of God and man, soul and body, but they give us a faint inkling of the truth as taught by Jesus the Christ.
No wonder, then, that Jesus, realizing the limitations of the senses, first invited man to take his attention away from appearances, and asked him to judge “righteous judgment.” Certainly he could not find the “righteous judgment” in the appearances of things created out of the limited concept of life.
Through the limited senses, man could see only what his consciousness was capable of seeing. Hence we realize that, although five thousand people saw the so-called miracle of the loaves and fishes, perhaps only a small percentage could see anything taking place, other than the most orderly passing out of bread and fishes.
It was not possible for them to see anything different, no more than a man looking through rose-coloured “specs” can actually see a horse white. The horse, no matter what its true colour, will appear eternally pink; so the most glorious revelation viewed through the foreshortened sense of sight would have to conform to that sense. “Through the glass darkly”—-through the beliefs and thoughts that you have accepted as real and true. Darker or lighter, according to your ability to perceive the reality of existence.
“If thine eye be single, thy whole body is full of light”
seems to give us an entering wedge to this new dimension. The whole body being full of light posits the fact that all of the senses of the body would be freed into their new field of activity.
Undoubtedly Jesus saw-literally as well as symbolically—-the Kingdom of Heaven here and now, because he saw it in his own consciousness. “Look not lo! here, nor there, for the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” It is marvelous to contemplate what the slight change in the mental elevation may suddenly do for you.
If you are still working with a dual world, still working against evil, still finding evil as a reality which you are especially appointed to destroy, your whole body cannot be full of light, and your eye cannot be single.
The coming of the Power to fulfill, not to destroy, will teach you much, and the awareness of the Presence, even in hell, where you may have made your bed, will cause you to understand that Jesus was not in the business of fighting a supposed thing called evil. He constantly recognized the Presence; and the manifestation of evil, which in its final analysis is a belief that a place exists apart from the Presence, is filled full or discovered to be already full of the Presence.
“Even the wrath of man shall bless you” is just another way of “seeing” with the single eye the Presence. It is so different from trying to force the Presence into the evil situation. Gradually, as you begin this calling on Me in the midst of every picture of so-called evil, you will understand the lack of sympathy in Jesus and his deep sense of compassion.
The old Prophet, putting his hand in his bosom and bringing it out white with leprosy and then restoring it to normal health by doing the same thing, should open the eyes of the blind, who believe that disease is even a belief which has to be destroyed. It is not in any sense of the word “handled”; the awareness of the Presence is all that is necessary.
“Call upon Me and I will answer you.” Do you believe that? Answer me. Do you believe that the calling upon this Me will bring about the manifestation? You will when the dual standard of life passes away and you find that “I came not to destroy but to fulfill”-that the senses are extending into the real existence which pushes out the walls of the narrow concept of Life in which you have existed all these years.
When this extended vision begins to be a reality to you, and you have stopped looking on an evil situation as something outside of God, then you will be able to look upon disease and produce ease; and upon poverty and produce wealth; and upon unhappiness and produce happiness. Your “gaze,” extended into the reality of being, will not be concerned with the shells which drop from the eagle preening its wings for its divine destiny.
It is wonderful that the old idea of turning the eyes away from what we called pictures of evil gives place to the Divine Glance which, to the three-dimensional mind, appears to heal.
Healing by the glance? What a fantasy to the old human intellect, what a fantasy everything God-like is to the old human foreshortened senses, and yet it is amusing at least to see that the most hardened atheist, as he is gasping his last breath, usually calls on the God power.
“No man shall see My face and live.” The moment you begin to see this finished mystery you die a thousand deaths. One belief after another passes away, and with them the landmarks and the memory of them finally pass out too. If you see the Presence with the single eye, you see it, and, no matter what the appearances, your vision is extended just a little beyond the mystification of human beliefs.
The Prophet and his servant, you and your body, had come along many a highway of life when, all of a sudden, the servant discovered that the way of life was infested with a thousand and one beliefs armed to the teeth and out-pictured as an army of horsemen and chariots. Debts, impossible situations, disease, fears-all of these things have come and blocked the only way-and the servant is afraid, even as you and I.
“Look” the terror-filled voice of the one judging from the foreshortened senses. By every reason of man he has a right to be afraid. “Look again”-the prophet is speaking, and the sense reaches out into the state of “Look again,” and now the mountains round about are filled with chariots and horsemen. “Those that are for us are more than those that are against us.
And so the revelation of the Presence takes place through a thousand parables and stories. When you recognize the Presence in any place and stop trying to handle the mystifications of belief, you suddenly find the sight extended to the point of “Look again,” and find there the God and Heaven rising into expression out of the hell of human beliefs.
We are gradually coming into alignment with the Oneness of Life, and can faintly understand how this understanding causes everything to fall into perfect agreement with everything else.
“I AM of too pure eyes to behold iniquity” is not a moralistic statement of a tribal Jehovah. It is the actual uttering of that pure, unsullied state of consciousness wherein no evil exists.
Recalling very definitely to mind that your problem is no problem to another, and likewise another’s problem is nothing to you, you will begin to understand what it means to move into the place where the single vision exists.
“When thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light.” When you begin to see the Oneness of life, and stop judging from appearances, you will find that you are not concerned with effects. They will automatically take care of themselves. Those, still working with demonstrating the Power, are more concerned with the manifestation than the Power. The rebuke is always the same: “Ye seek me for the loaves and fishes”-and not because of the miracle.
When you begin to understand, even in a little way, this Single Eye doctrine of Jesus, you will understand how it is that the manifestation flows constantly into place without any outside aid or assistance. Remaining on the point of Power—magnifying the Lord within, merging into this Oneness of Mind—suddenly frees you from a host of beliefs and reveals to you that the “Harvest is ripe.”
The “getting” and “demonstrating” ceases at this point—-yet, in reality, it only begins. The Oneness of it all causes you to see that Jesus became the giver, and in giving he placed himself in such a position as to receive all. As it passed through him into expression there was nothing lacking in his life. Do you begin to understand the outpouring of the Substance, and how it sidesteps all of the laws of man?
It is recorded that Jesus “raised his eyes to Heaven”-and quite naturally most religious pictures portray Him standing gazing into the skies. But Jesus explained that Heaven was not a locality, but a point in consciousness. It is the place of recognition of the Presence, a point of awareness.
Man can only know God in his own consciousness. Certainly he cannot know Him outside of his consciousness. He must meet Him in his own consciousness, and until he does he cannot perceive Him in the hell of human belief which has emanated through the wisdom of man.
When once man recognizes God in his consciousness he can then see Him everywhere and in every situation. He does not have to bring Him from afar; he can call upon Me and I will answer him.
It is wonderful the light that rushes in as your sight moves toward the single standpoint, as you begin to leave the old battlefields of belief and come out into the place of “If I be lifted up I will draw all manifestation unto me.” It is wonderful that this being “lifted up” comes through the recognition of the Presence, here, there, and everywhere.
The drawing of all things unto you is quite a different thing from the “demonstrating” them of old. One quite naturally takes place, and brings with it no surprise or emotion; the other is as much surprised when the “demonstration” is actually made as if he did not expect it.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” Do you hear? Are your ears beginning to be unstopped? Are the scales beginning to fall from your eyes?
“Then shall the blind receive their sight.” It is wonderful to contemplate this Oneness of Life, for it carries with it the possibility of all the dreams of yore.
The “picture shown to you on the mount” cannot be seen through the glass darkly of human belief, because these beliefs have never even dreamed of anything so beautiful and glorious. So, steeped in the fearsome laws of life-“Work out your own salvation”; “As for man, his days are few and full of trouble”; “Earn your living by the sweat of your brow”; “When I would do good I do evil”-how can man see through this dense fog the “picture shown to him on the mount”? It is too good to be true, and it is not true if squared by the findings of the human senses.
But the promise stands, “Thine eyes shall see the king in all his beauty.” That promise that you shall see your soul in all its beauty is enough to carry any man on into the place of awareness.
Are you curious about the things that have been prepared for you? And the things that have not been able to enter into the heart of man? Only through the extended senses is it possible of attainment. If you cannot see God in the devil who is disrupting your life, God in the disease, God in the thing lying in the gutter, you cannot find Him in the temple, for He is all or nothing.
“Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” And the choice is up to the individual. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the opinions and beliefs of another. The coal of fire is placed upon the lips of the initiated. He has ceased from “talking it over” with another. He knows and will “let” the light shine, but he does not try to “make” it shine.
“By their works, not by their words, ye shall know them” —you have the yardstick always at hand.
“Ye shall see Him as He is” when the eye becomes single, and that will satisfy you. When you even glimpse Him, this Oneness, you will have answered the question, “Is this He that should come, or look we for another?”
If you are still asking this question, you are still expecting another Messiah, and another will come and another will be found to have clay feet, because you will finally have to find Him within.
Digging out the clay feet of Messiahs is the pastime of metaphysicians, not knowing that at each digging they are only showing forth their own lives and disbelief in the One Power. Spending time seeking into the personal lives of speakers and lecturers suffices for understanding of the Christ to many. “Follow Me”-“Follow Me”-do you hear?
Yes, it is true, the “fields are white with harvest and the labourers are few” because they have the double eye of lack and substance and coming and going of the Presence which is only possible to the “wisdom of man.”
When Jesus said, “Look again,” it was an extension of the sense of sight into vision where the Presence was recognized as a manifested thing. The looking again, the Divine Glance that heals, does nothing but become aware of the Presence, and the flames of the hell of belief subside. Hence the Healing Glance-the looking past the glass darkly unto the Presence which shatters the belief manifested in death or disease.
“Thrust in the sickle” becomes a present possibility as soon as the eye becomes single and the greediness has subsided into the recognition of the Presence.
“Yet in my flesh shall I see God”—it is wonderful!
The universe in which you live is a mirror of your consciousness. It can only reflect what you discover within. It can only respond to you. It can only answer to your conscious word, be it good, bad, indifferent.
“HAVING ears, ye hear not.” Again man is brought face to face with the fact that he is not properly hearing-that he is missing the voice and hearing only the noise and the sound of things coming together in the outer world. He can be so mistaken in the sense of hearing that if he were to close his eyes he could not tell whether a horse was approaching on a paved street or a couple of coconut shells were being tapped on a board.
If he cannot differentiate between things as simple as these, how can he possibly rely on the sense of sound as he knows it? The fact that we are constantly accused of having ears and eyes which we do not use also posits that something important is being said.
I once watched a Chinaman in a Shanghai native theatre enjoy, and apparently hear, one of his classics when such a bedlam was going on in the house that it would seem utterly impossible to hear the person sitting next to you without intently listening. And yet the Chinaman was relaxed, making no conscious effort to hear through the din of crying babies, squeaky music, peanut and sweetmeat vendors. He was at a terrific point of attention, however, and all his power was pointed in one direction. It was like drawing the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass.
A deaf woman once told me she could always hear anything evil said about her in her presence. She did not know that if she could hear evil she could hear everything else by the same method, i.e., attention. She was at the point of attention when it came to evil. In fact, she admitted that she “knew” she could always hear anything evil that was being said about her-and so she did.
“The still small voice” must be heard from this point of attention to the Presence and not to the noise on the outside, otherwise you miss the word which is to be made flesh. “There were many things I could not tell you because of your unbelief”-many things which Jesus wanted to reveal but the hearing was so heavy by accepting the noise of the world that it could not hear the “still small voice” of revelation.
A woman came rushing in one day, frightened almost into insensibility. “A fortune-teller told me I am going to be killed in four days.” She had heard, as many people have heard, the death-sentence pronounced over them-“incurable, hopeless, helpless,” and thousands of other things that can only be heard by the hearing of the ear. It is not possible to hear these things from the standpoint of spirit, for they are founded on the failing wisdom of man-which is foolishness in the eyes of God.
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” If he asks of God within himself he will have to hear with the hearing ear. He will have to hear past the noise and confusion of the outside world. The Voice will be eternally saying “I will,” but unless the hearing is at the point of attention it will hear the clanging noises of human belief.
It is recorded that the “dead shall hear my voice and live,” and this not only means the physically dead but the mentally dead as well.
“Not that which goeth in, but that which cometh out, defileth or maketh a man”—-that which you hear determines what will come out.
“Go unto this people and say, hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and should be converted and I should heal them.”
It is obvious from many scriptural references that there are two kinds of hearing-one that causes the heart to wax gross, heavy with misunderstanding, and the other which hears that which the ears dulled with false learning and judging from appearances cannot hear. To hear the “still small voice” of which so much is said the hearing must be of the heart and not of the ear from the human standpoint.
“My sheep hear my voice” has nothing to do with a shepherd calling on the hillside. It is the inner hearing just as a wise dog is not misled or attracted by an imitation of his master’s voice, no matter how perfect the imitation. There is something in the “hearing” that detects the voice of ‘the shepherd, and it is just this thing which opens the doors to the spirit of the words of Life, which are otherwise dead letter.
The eighty-eight notes on a piano do not represent the sum total of sound-it extends to a point of infinity on both ends. Yet, because the heavy human hearing does not detect it, he says it does not exist. The universe is filled with music which remains inaudible to most of us because we are hearing with the human ear.
The cause of so much failure in the field of Truth has been that most of us have been trying to hear the still small voice through the human ear, and, although it thunders down through the ages, the clamour of the human belief makes such a din with its unreality and false testimony that the “still small voice is inaudible,” or else it is interpreted through such limited, dulled senses that it is impracticable.
“Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand,” showing how the ear can hear the word and yet not hear it. Hearing with the ear and not understanding, is hearing through the limited human sense. It is so far removed from the “God spake” that it cannot understand the “still small voice.”
When you go within and shut your door you shall then know what the true sense of hearing is, for the “Father who heareth in secret shall reward thee openly.” What is the hearing that the Father doeth? The shouting of the name of God has proven futile in the time of trouble. Loud speaking does not in any way attract the ear of the Divine. It only shows a gross lack of understanding of the Omnipresence of God as here, there, and everywhere, and makes of Him an enlarged auditory nerve at best.
The Father hearing in secret, sensing, understanding, grasping that which is to be “established” on the earth-your earth, when you have gone within and shut the door. When you have shut the door of every human argument and every bit of human reasoning, and laid off the sandals of human understanding, and spoken to the Father with the same joyous abandon and freedom that you might speak to your human father-when you have done this the “Father who heareth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
It does not say perhaps or maybe-it is definite and it is provable: “Shall reward thee openly.” No matter what you were, did, or thought prior to the moment you went within
and shut the door and spoke to the Father secretly.
“Leave all and follow Me” means just that. You leave all—- all evil, fear, lack, limitation, and human reasoning just as you leave all your ideas about success and possessions and everything else that you have listed on the side of assets. You leave all, everything, and by leaving all you find all.
It is glorious to contemplate that when the Father within says, “Leave all and follow Me,” He is asking that you leave the bondage to everything and follow the Me. When I say “bondage,” I mean just that. If a thing is binding you, if you cannot leave the bondage in it, you are still bound to it no matter whether you put it out of your immediate life or not.
Many persons are controlled by things that they do not possess and which they feel they have put from their lives. To have an unsated longing for something that you have given up, and to imagine that because you have thrust it from you you are free from the bondage of that thing, is to mistake entirely the command, “Leave all and follow Me”-then you will find that you have left nothing except the bondage of it.
“The love of money is the root of all evil.” It is the love (bondage to it) of money, and not money, that is the root of evil. Money in itself is not more evil than food, clothing or anything else, but the bondage to it, whether it be much or little, is evil, and causes you to do all sorts of things either to get or hold it. A miser holding to the symbol while he starves is at the same point of expression as a beggar who is ready to commit any sort of crime to possess it.
All extremes are evil-too much food will result in the same thing that too little will, and so on. Being bound to things and the love of them puts the limitation on them. Coming out into the Presence with the new-born sense of hearing, the way lies perfectly before you. The guiding influence is as a voice from behind thee which says, “This is the way; walk thou in it.”
“This” is the way. There is that same note of definite direction, uncompromising instruction, contained in it, for, the Government being upon his shoulder, the instruction that is to come through the sense of hearing must be obeyed absolutely, and the human opinion must be put aside in order that the way may continue in peace.
If you salute any man you pass on the highway of life you are going against the instructions, “Salute no man you pass on the highway.” It is not an invitation to become unfriendly and unlivable-the saluting you are warned against is the exchange of opinions and beliefs and the “hearing” of some material information which changes your going on. Many a person would have been able to accomplish that thing set before him if he had not saluted some man on the way to his expression and heard something that spoiled his opportunity.
An actress accustomed to giving a more than brilliant performance was one night told that a famous critic was in the audience, and had come with the express purpose of finding some flaw in her work. In the parlance of the street, she “went to pieces”-gave the worst performance of her career-and after the show she was taken home in a state of hysteria. She was informed that it had all been a mistake, and that the said critic had not been present that evening but the one before and had found nothing but praise for her work. What caused her to give such a terrible performance? Anything? Well, you answer it, and then you will see why we are to “salute no man as we pass along the way”-and more so is this true in regard to the revelations of the Christ teaching.
If you have not arrived at a point where you are past the state of arguing, you have not actually heard the word, and will be busy comparing different systems to find out which one contains God. No system contains God, yet they may all be contained in Him. The coal of fire placed on your lips shall also be placed on your ears.
“Salute no man you pass on the highway of life.” He may be more interested in the personality of Jesus than in the Jesus-Christ. “Where does he live? Is he married? Any children-any money?” These are the eternal questions of the “man” you are warned against. He is eternally going out to see a person and not a principle, and he carries all filthiness that has accrued from the human hearing and the human “looking” at a person instead of “hearing a principle.”
“I will hear what God will speak.” What a glorious resolution, and how hopeless it is to hear through the human understanding with its laws and limitations. But then, “I will hear what God will speak,” and if you are to do that it means that “your” speaking will have to cease and your human reasoning and understanding will have to give place to the new inspiration of the Almighty. You are sure to hear something that will delight you, for it will carry with it the possibility of establishing it on the earth.
When you begin to “make yourself as God”-which is what Jesus did, and could not escape doing if he worked from the premise, “In the beginning God”-then you shall begin to “feel” your way with the new senses, then shall you understand how the deaf shall hear. “Then shall the deaf hear”—–at the instant of recognition of the Divine capacity of hearing the limitations of the human ear fall away and man hears, and hears things that the human ear is incapable of ever knowing.
“Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard . . . the things that are prepared.” They are already prepared for you when you can hear with the hearing that so completely transcends the human limitations that it breaks through the gates of Heaven and comes to the throne of the Presence.
The changing sense of hearing and sight can only be attributable to the human limitations, since it is impossible to conceive of God with impaired vision or hearing, and the changeless Power is not subject to degrees of sound or distances. The reason hearing and sight change in the human sense is because they are limited to the human organism and can be easily deceived.
Shaking a sheet of steel on the stage produces an impression of thunder-and this on the sunniest June day-and so it goes. “Having ears, ye hear not.” As long as your hearing is stopped down to the physical instrument of hearing it is bound to be limited and faulty.
“Then shall the dead hear the voice of God and live” gives us some sense of hearing and its power. The true hearing pierces every belief of the human kind, even death, and so Lazarus heard-not with the human ear, but with the spiritual hearing, and picked up his body and brought it forth. The establishing of himself again on earth took place because of this hearing.
“Then shall the dead hear the voice of God and live” shoots through the walls of human belief and brings out the establishment of the thing on earth. When you begin to hear the “God spake” you shall begin to experience also the “establishing of the thing” or the “and it was done” state which instantly follows the hearing of the “God spake.” You cannot hear the “God spake” with the limited human senses, and God cannot hear the name, “Lord, Lord,” that is called to Him because it is merely a sound and has no power to “establish” itself.
“My sheep hear my voice”-and this My of the Father must come from the within that is cleansed of human reasoning, opinions, and beliefs. “He that is of God hearest God.” And when you hear God you are hearing the directing and governing Power of the universe, and surely then you are to experience the sure and certain joy which comes from the knowledge that “all things work together for good”-not perhaps, but actually work together.
The overturning power of the Voice which speaks to the hearing ear keeps setting aside one limitation after another, one human belief after another, and causes the Lazarus to be established on the earth-though, if Jesus had “listened” to either Martha or Mary of the human sense testimony, he would never have spoken the word and caused the agreement in Lazarus to take place. Everything was against it-even Mary and Martha said, “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” And when Jesus refused the opinion that Lazarus was dead, they still insisted that he was wrong and began to give all sorts of evidence to substantiate their human finding, hoping that Jesus would accept it as real and then perform a miracle.
But Jesus would have none of it-he would not “hear it” because he was hearing with the inner power, and when he heard the word of Life Eternal he called it to Lazarus, and, the agreement being made, he was “established on the earth” again.
The invitation to “hear” is open to all-there is no monopoly of it. It is not given to those who have studied a certain system or followed a certain teacher or leader. It is given to any man who will throw off the cloak of human bondage sufficiently to be clad in the all-encircling Presence of God in His fullness. The promise stands: “If any man hear my words.” That is all you have to do: to “hear” with the understanding of the inner hearing. Not nearly so difficult if you do not preface this hearing with the belief that unless you have made elaborate preparations you cannot “hear” God. How about the child who is given the Kingdom of Heaven?
Eventually, through the extension of the senses into the infinite reaches of God, through losing the limited personal sense of life and finding it in the Universal, does man come to the place of understanding, the place of “hearing” the statement:
“Behold I stand at the door, and knock. If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with Me.” The first step in the becoming one with the Christ voice is to hear it. Many have tried to do this through the human sense of hearing, and have opened the door and nothing has entered.
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne.”
The beauty and love of Jesus, even at the last moment telling us of the human state that he also came through and making himself one with us showing that what was possible for him is possible for us, is the magnificent heritage that has to be accepted joyously.
If you are to arrive at the stage which the human mind calls mastership, and come to that place where you are “set down with my Father in His throne,” it will have to be accomplished through the use of the extended senses as revealed to us through the teaching of Jesus. The only overcoming that actually takes place is the overcoming of the limitations of the human senses which judge from appearances and give forth the imperfect results thereby, their findings being imperfect, as well as their premises.
Finally, beloved, hear this:
“He that hath ears, let him hear what the Scriptures say unto the churches.”
The voice and echo are one. Like prayer and answer.
THE sense of taste is virtually limited to the flavour of foods and a recognition of temperature of such foods. It is confined almost wholly with that which goes into the mouth, and yet every man knows that synthetic flavourings are so common as to fool very often the most exacting connoisseur. In view of this limitation it would not be very safe to found anything very definitely on the results of this sense; any wisdom gained from this limited and uncertain sense would surely come under the “foolishness” mentioned in the quotation referring to the wisdom of man.
In view of this limitation man is asked to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” How are you going to taste and see an invisible thing at the same time? The “Wisdom” of man immediately charges the whole idea off to an impossible abstraction. Not realizing the extensive possibilities of the sense of taste, he only uses it in its lowest and most uncertain capacity.
As this “taste” is extended into the place of understanding, man begins to learn that he “shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the Mouth of God,” and that “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead, but you have manna they knew not of”——i.e., the manna that cometh down from Heaven. We have treated all this wonderful wisdom for ages as nothing but abstract poetry, but gradually we see that the “years” have not produced through the “wisdom” of man anything more than the same old helpless and hopeless pattern of “birth, growth, maturity, and decay,” and so the “eyes” are beginning to seek out something beyond this “foolish wisdom.” The mouth is beginning to “try” the words, and gradually is feeling its way into a new dimension.
“Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead, but”—are you going to do the same thing or begin to partake of the “bread that cometh down from Heaven” and live? Certainly if you are going to eat the bread from Heaven it will not be something put into the mouth which will be sour or sweet, hot or cold, solid or soft. “Not that which goeth into a man, but that which cometh out, defileth,” or maketh him. A thousand and one food faddists have convinced you that health does not always come out, even though you eat only the foods which are guaranteed to produce it. The moment you depend on anything for that which is a natural expression of God, at that moment the “thing” which comes out becomes unnatural and uncertain.
There is such tremendous power in the sense of taste, when it is extended into its full capacity, that it transmutes that which is set before it. “Eating` that which is set before it in the name of Jesus Christ” is one of the capacities of “taste” which frees itself entirely from any power in food. At the same time this very taste excludes nothing. The automatic sense of selectivity which is in this awakened sense of taste will gauge, regulate, and choose without any confusion or outside help that which will perfectly sustain and manifest the necessary condition of body. Is it too far a reach to imagine that you may glimpse this glorious extension of the sense of taste, which, like all the other senses, does, in the twinkling of an eye, what a thousand years of the “Wisdom” of man cannot possibly do? “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” is enough to know that no reliance whatsoever can be placed in anything outside of God. There be those who know that food is more powerful than God, and so it is to them. It is poison to many, and meat to many; why?
Yes, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and they are dead, but—-” Does it not thrill you to contemplate that remark of Jesus-and more especially the inference that “death is not necessary to you,” whether you can sense it or prove it? It is definitely inferred, and it definitely has to do with the sense of taste. The foreshortened sense of taste which did eat the manna in the “wilderness” of human belief caused the death, apparently. At least, this very taste finds that food, or the lack of food, can kill a man. “But ye have bread they know not of-the manna which cometh down from Heaven.” Where is Heaven? Do not ask any man; ask Me. The Heaven to which Jesus referred was a State of Consciousness, and so the “Bread” which cometh down from Heaven and is eaten by you is to proceed out of the Consciousness of the Presence, and must be eaten and tasted by something more extensive than the limited sense of taste as known by the average man.
When Jesus came to the woman at the well in Samaria, he asked her for a drink, which she gave him. Then he said to her, “If you had asked me I would have given you living waters to drink, which if a man tasteth thereof he shall never die.” “What? Why, you haven’t a rope, or bucket, or any dipper, and the well is deep”—-and so she missed the great chance to use the sense of taste, and to be watered with the “Living Waters.” Immediately her human wisdom came into play. She drew water from the well daily, and knew just how deep the well was, and how impossible it would be for Jesus to “give her to drink,” and that settled that (just as you know how impossible it is for you to taste the Lord and see that He is good). So she rushed back to the village and said, “Come and see a man who told me all things”-in other words, “Come out and see the fortune-teller by the well.” What do you want to know? “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God”—-that is just as impossible to most people as it was to the woman who explained, “But you have no rope, or bucket and the well is deep.” “Have you no sense, man? Can you not see how impossible it all is? It is nothing but talk.”
“I sees what 1 sees and hears what I hears and I draws my own delusions,” said the old man who knew all about it, and so, “How can you give me to drink?” But yet it remains, “If you had asked me 1 would have given you living waters which if a man drink thereof he shall never die.”
“Eat my body and drink my blood.” The capacities of the sense of taste widen at each moment. It is so far removed from the limitations of tasting with the tongue as to be almost unrecognizable to the unenlightened, who for the most part will consider it pure mysticism, wholly impracticable. And yet it is the most practicable thing in the world, and when a man begins the use of the true sense of taste he shall never thirst again. Whatsoever things he does in Spirit shall immediately be done in the physical. If he can drink deep of spirit or of the living waters when the physical body is parched and thirsty, he will find “wells of living waters in deserts” of human belief, and food in abundance to assuage the physical hunger. When he learns the pure mysticism of “eat my body, drink my blood” he has solved once and for always the problem of food and drink. It is bound to manifest in the flesh.
“That which is told in secret is called from the housetops” —-that which you perform in secret is made manifest in the flesh.
A woman once proved this rather miraculous thing of partaking of the living waters. Finding herself incarcerated in an institution of questionable character, and suddenly perceiving that the purpose of this place was to torment her until her reason had completely fled, she realized that no amount of struggle or railing would avail her anything. The thirst brought on by salty foods had been allowed no water for forty-eight hours, and the manifestations of this enforced fast from water were rapidly appearing. The adjoining bathroom was shut away only by a screen door, which was kept locked, but all the faucets remained wide open and gallons of water poured away. It was at the point of being almost too much to stand longer when the revelation of the true “taste” came into being. “If you had asked Me I would have given you living waters, which if a man drink thereof he shall never thirst again.” And suddenly she asked, and quite as suddenly she received, and a fountain gushed up within her and watered her whole being and body. So beautifully was this mystical thing accomplished that every desire for liquid of any sort ceased and the relaxation of the body took place. At the instant the “living waters” were “tasted” the attendant came rushing in with a large pitcher of water, almost as if some power had suddenly propelled her in against her wishes or understanding. She did not then drink, for there was no need of it, but it was there to drink, and so will it be with you when you begin the “eating of my body and the drinking of my blood.” These abstractions take on a more real quality than the human mind can imagine or dream of. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good” is the universal substance feeding you eternally; and this “manna from Heaven” has to be tasted by something more comprehensive than the sense in the consciousness which consistently argues, “But the well is deep and you have no rope.”
“He that hath ears, let him hear what the Scriptures say unto the churches”-bodies, temples. “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” Do you hear? Do you begin to see what Jesus was bringing to the world when he told us so definitely to “eat my body and drink my blood”? It is wonderful to contemplate the magnificent reaches of life as viewed or experienced through the extended senses.
“Come see a man”—and so the metaphysician rushes about from one “man” to another, finding out more about the life and history of the man than the principle he brings. “Come see a man” persists as the cry until the light comes, and then it is, “Come, see a principle.” There is nothing impossible to God, and presently this will be more than an affirmation; and, when questions of physical distance or inability come into the pictures, they will be disregarded, and the distance will be bridged by performance in Spirit. Jesus never tried to “fix” or “figure out” the appearances of things, but he did span the seeming gaps in the realm of the Presence, and then discovered these gaps or empty measures all filled to overflowing.
You—yes, you—have “manna” they know not of-but what about it? What does it amount to if you cannot taste it? Can you begin to see what hopeless things words become without the Spirit, and how the dead letter offers nothing worth while to live on? Philosophy, Christian or pagan, is all right for the open forum, but it is a poor meal ticket.
Do you believe that the Lord is God? Answer me. “Taste and see.” Whatsoever you perform through the extended senses comes into manifestation, and so the problem of eating and drinking is for ever settled. No wonder, then, that Jesus advised the journey without thought of the purse, scrip, robe, etc. What need to be burdened with all this if you have the power within you to “eat my body and drink my blood”—–if you have the power to “hear my voice” and to “look again” and to “touch me in the crowd” and to “feel after me” and find me?
The Lord in the midst of you is strong and mighty, but you must find Him there before you can find the manifestation of this strength in your temple—body. The “searching” of the joints and marrows becomes more than a Bible quotation when the senses are awakened to their true capacity. The Lord circulating through the Temple. Nothing can separate you from this revelation—neither height, breadth, length, powers of darkness, not even the gates of hell. Do you begin to grasp what Jesus was giving to the dull ears?
The River of Life flowing through the midst of the “Garden” shall water the seeds of desire and hope, long since abandoned, and cause them to bloom in all their glory. Yes, the desert shall blossom as a rose, and the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places shall be made smooth, as this River of Living Waters flows on and on through the Garden of your body—embodiment.
“Come eat and drink without price” can be understood. The extended sense of taste causes man to see the great “free” gift of Life. “My grace is sufficient for you”—and now you are beginning to know that this “grace” is not a sort of sorrowful bearing up in the miseries of the human destiny, but a wide, sweeping sense of the Presence, nurturing and caring for you. “If your mother and father know how to bestow good gifts, how much more do I, the Father of All, understand these offices”—or words to that effect—are said unto the listening ear. “He careth for you.” “Consider the lilies, they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet—-“
The Blood of Jesus is the Wine of Inspiration, which lights every man unto salvation. When the sense of taste is extended beyond the narrow confines of the human mind it can “taste” this Wine of Life and receive the “inspiration” which leads into all things. Until that time man tastes the “wines” of his own making, and for the moment he may ascend into a place of inspiration only to fall back into a hell of despondency later on. You cannot take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. The drunkard is trying in his desire to get away from the limitations of the human taste. He “feels” while he is in his “cups” as if he were a millionaire, or he feels generous, magnanimous, and free, but this false entering into the Kingdom always ends in being cast out as a robber and a thief. When the sense of taste is extended to the mystical “eating of the body and drinking of the blood,” man enters at will into the place of inspiration. He begins to understand what it is to live and move and breathe and have his being in the Inspired Presence. Revelation after revelation passes over him, and whatsoever he performs in the Secret Place takes on a body and a form in the realm of the physical.
If you ever “hear My voice and open unto Me, I will come in to you and sup with you and ye with me.” The thin shell of belief which is holding all these lovely things away from you suddenly bursts, and the disbeliefs and fears of a lifetime are washed away by the torrents of the Presence coming into expression through the extended senses.
As you begin to understand the glorious possibilities of the extended senses, you see how they widen out and include much that has not been even dreamed of before. It is stated that the “power of life and death are in the tongue,” and this very sense of taste extends out until it includes the spoken word—-The Word which is made flesh and the “yea, yea,” and “nay, nay” which instantly puts to flight the manifestation or brings it into being with the Authority of the Christ Jesus nature. “Only speak the word and my servant shall live” and the word “I will” which the servant tastes restores him to life. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” You cannot live on the manifestation alone, else you will manifest the living—-dead state of the unawakened. You have to live on the word of God if you are to experience Life instead of a limited sense of it.
“The Power of Life and death are in the tongue”—the dying of a belief, as the cracking of a shell releases the flower or bird, with you releases the desires of your heart.
“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is Good.”
“Two shall agree as touching anything and it shall be established on the earth.”
“I WAS glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House [consciousness] of the Lord.” It is impossible to get into this consciousness of the Lord through the human foreshortened senses, since we are told that we are not using any of the sense organs correctly, and that all the wisdom gathered therefrom is foolishness in the eyes of God.
The consciousness of the Lord is not a place of demonstration. God is not concerned with making impossible things come into manifestation. The action of Spirit is natural to Spirit; it is only unnatural to the three-dimensional mind which sees miracles happening, if it sees at all, being separated from this consciousness-self—-separated, it is true, but nevertheless separated.
“Oh, that I might find him,” is the wail of man looking among the husks of human wisdom for a power which will offset evil. It is stated that “Ye shall find Me when ye feel after Me.” We “feel” with the sense of touch. Until this sense is extended it is merely concerned with surfaces. We touch a thing which is soft, hard, wet, dry, hot, cold, etc., etc.; but who is going to “touch” spirit on the surface?
Thousands of people are busy trying to “feel” after Me with their human hands; and with their limited sense of touch they run into statues, shrines, charms, glorified leaders, organizations, places, things. A modicum of help may come from their belief in any of these, but finally it fails, and finally the hopelessness of any definite “touching” Me in any of these makes them all worthless.
Yet it is certainly stated, “Ye shall find Me when ye feel after Me.”
Of all the crowds that milled up and down the narrow streets of Jerusalem it is recorded that but one woman “touched” Jesus. Strange, since owing to their narrowness practically everybody who passed him came into physical contact with him. Yet it is recorded that this woman “touched” him. It is interesting to see the attention being so definitely called to the true sense of “touch.” The Master asked, “Who touched me? For I perceive that virtue has gone out of me.” It is to be recognized, then, that whenever you touch Me something takes place. “Virtue” goes out and an embodiment takes place, and the woman is healed. “If I could but `touch’ the hem of his garment I should be healed.” There is an important healing factor in the sense of touch. It is worthy of a little consideration.
The hem of the garment has no more healing power than the statue, and vice versa; but the quality of “feel” or “touch” that accompanies the gesture causes “virtue” to come forth—causes that something which is necessary to imbue the form with life and activity.
“What went ye out for to see,” a person or a principle? What went ye out to “touch,” and where did you go, and why? The “touching” of the Presence in which you live, move, breathe, and have your being gives you the ability to “feel” your way about in the Kingdom. Every one of the senses as they are extended gives you a new method of moving about in the God Atmosphere. It is wonderful to contemplate the infinite avenues of expression which open to you when this great oneness of the Presence takes place in you. You begin to feel the Presence, here, there, and everywhere. “I will never leave you”; yet, “It is expedient that I go” is understood when the “touch” is understood. The going of any manifestation takes nothing from you as the spirit, which you can always feel, cannot depart. The symbol of money may depart (in fact, unless you let go of the symbol it has no power), but the “feel” of the substance is always with you in this awakened consciousness, and can and will come forth in whatsoever manifestation necessary.
“You shall find Me (the all) when you feel after Me” does not mean a feeling after things on the outside. Many a bank clerk feels or touches money all day long, and in the course of his career may “touch” millions of dollars, yet he may experience a distinct “feeling” of lack during his life. To be associated with symbols does not indicate the possession of them. The banker may rarely come in contact with great masses of gold or silver pieces, yet he can “touch” the money at any time. The richer he is the less contact he will have with the actual symbol and yet the more use of it. “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” Back in the dark ages of metaphysics, people were very often taught that the possession of symbols made for riches. Visualizing courses by the hundred told you to see yourself handling vast sums of money. Others recommended that you move in atmospheres where the so-called wealthy lived, and to assume the pose of riches. But all of these have produced nothing but more acute poverty, and it was because of the trying to “feel” after Me in the symbol. It is perfectly true that I AM in the symbol, but unless you “eat my body and drink my blood,” and throw away the skeleton of demonstration, you do not experience the “touch” of substance—you have only the “feel” of hard, cold metal, none of which may belong to you.
The sense of “touch” when freed from its surface limitations extends right into the idea of Agreement, one of the great words which every man must take and return with to Jehovah.
“Two shall agree as touching on any point, and it shall be established on the earth,” shows the importance of the sense of touch.
The Agreement which is made with words may be broken, distorted by the inability of the human mind to carry out; but when it is “touched” in the Atmosphere of Spirit, then it is as impossible to change, set aside, or misdirect as is the arrow which has sped from the bow. Once this “touch” or “feel” is made, the whole process moves on into the place of “establishing” itself on the earth. It begins to draw from the unseen the “substance of the thing hoped for and the evidence of the thing not (yet) seen” by the human limited senses.
There is something interesting about the word “established.” It has a fine sense of solidity and realness about it. “God does not bring to birth and not bring forth.” The Power of Agreement when this touch is made does not fail to establish.
The development of the sense of touch or feeling does not produce the super-sensitiveness which some people attribute to Spirituality. You can easily determine the amount of Spirituality developed or recognized by the sense of ease, poise, and balance present. Hyper- or super-sensitiveness may be a glorified emotionalism, but it has nothing to do with the harmonious, rhythmic movement of the Presence. Hence the penchant for “taking on” conditions (and more especially “evil’ ones) which some people imagine is Spiritual development, but which is nothing more or less than a renewed belief in evil. Hiding behind the mask of mental tricks, the “feel” becomes so degenerated as to sense the perpetual coming of evil. This has nothing to do with the “touch” of which Jesus asked, “Who touched me?”
You are invited to be “absent from the body and present with the Lord” and at the same time told to “live in the world and be not of it.” You begin to see that all manifestation is the Presence in its most transitory state. When you are absent from the body and present with the Lord you are exactly as the banker who is absent from the symbols but present with the power back of them, and hence in immediate control of them. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and thieves,” etc., does not mean that you shall not have possessions, but it does mean that you are absent from the “body” and present with the Lord. It means that you are not to be possessed by things, but rather are to possess them for your expression of the Power. A miser grows, to all intents and purposes, poorer and poorer, as he hoards more and more of the symbols. So with the Spirit; if you are feeling after it in a human way, you are not finding it. If you are watching the demonstration, and not the Power back of it, you will suddenly discover that you cannot find Me, and that you are in the desert without bread.
“And He laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged.” The importance of “touching” the Presence through the agreement cannot be over-estimated.
In the quiet place of understanding, though the body be moving through the crowded streets of Jerusalem, you will touch Me and virtue shall go out of Me and you shall be healed. It is wonderful to contemplate the functioning of man in the temple embodiment. Whatsoever you touch within the temple shall be established on the earth, regardless of the enchantment of human belief.
“Then touched he their eyes”—the sense of “touch” extended into its new and divine dimension may open new vistas to you in all the other senses.
“You shall find Me when you feel after Me.” There is no question about that; and when you have found Me you have entered into the Kingdom here and now. It is wonderful! The sense of touch and the agreement of life are revealed through the “Feel after Me.”
When agreement is made the touching takes place and conception is. From that moment the idea gathers its body for manifestation.
“There is the odour of sanctity.”
“HE BREATHED into him the Breath of Life and he became a Living Soul”—something alive, not something that had to be kept alive. Once he becomes a “living” soul he has no beginning or ending, for it is Life Eternal to be inbreathed with the Breath of Life; living and functioning on all planes, instead of existing with a bit of “breath” in the nostrils.
The sense of smell which man has been using is stopped down to a matter of odours. A thing may be sweet, sour, pleasant, or unpleasant. Outside of this the sense of smell has no function. Since the limited sense of smell can be easily fooled and made to believe that a synthetic odour is the real one, what reliance could one put on any information or wisdom gathered from this source? Do you begin to see why Jesus stressed the fact that “the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God”? All the wisdom of man is founded on this very uncertain basis of the foreshortened senses.
The sense of smell has directly to do with the “Breath of Life,” and is one of the avenues through which man feels his indissoluble connection with the Presence. When the sense of smell is extended beyond the limiting shell of conscious thinking, then it reaches out into the universal Breath of God.
All this symbology is to better acquaint man with the Oneness of all things, and presently all this scaffolding of words, parables, books, lecturers, teachers, and organizations will fall away from the revealed Presence in which you live, move, breathe, and have your being. It is wonderful to contemplate.
“And he came near, and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him and said, See the smell of my son is as the smell of a field [state of consciousness] which the Lord hath blessed:
“Therefore God give thee of the dew of Heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine.”
The Aroma of Spirit comes from the Breath of Life inbreathed into man.
Man is inbreathed by the Breath of Life and he becomes a “living” soul, and the Aroma of Spirit is exhaled from him. He is surrounded by a halo of the Presence. He has the “smell of a field blessed of the Lord”-a fertile field full of seed and ready to bring forth its abundant harvest. “Thrust in the sickle.”
The dews of Heaven, the blessings of manifestation, follow the recognition of the “fatness of the earth”; the unlimited expression of the Presence comes forth. There shall be plenty of corn and wine. The deep inspiration of the Almighty has taken place, and the smell of “a field that the Lord bath blessed” comes from you. The blessings of the Lord have no sorrow added. The blessings of the Lord are not after the limited measure of man, neither is their capacity nor quantity discernible by the man “whose breath is in his nostrils,” who is dependent upon a series of events in order to bring forth, and whose best efforts may be crowned by the worst kind of failure. He is alone with his breath in his nostrils, and hence at the mercy of any human belief that may come along.
“And he breathed into him the Breath of Life and he became a living soul.”
“The inspiration of the Almighty shall, when it has come, lead you into all things.”
At the very thought of Inspiration the breathing becomes deep, profound, and tingling with life.
“Flee from that man whose breath is in his nostrils.” There is no inspiration to the breath that is only in the nostrils, and hence no life. It must be the deep breathing that fills the entire temple body that accomplishes Life. The symbolic man whose breath is only in his nostrils has not yet experienced the “Breath of Life,” and hence he has not yet become the living soul. He is in the strictest sense of the word unenlightened, and has to do with all sorts of beliefs and theories concerning God. He is still at the point of comparison and argument regarding the unchanging principle, or Breath of Life, hence you are warned to “flee” from that man, for all that he knows is gathered from his foreshortened senses.
What a glorious “feel” to know that you are inbreathed with the Breath of Life. Not a temporary sense of life, but Life Eternal, unchanging and vibrating with power.
The Breath of Life, the true sense of smell rushing through the temple of your being, permeating the joints and marrow, taking life out of the narrow confines of conscious-thinking, i.e., health and sickness, and freeing it into the Universal, where the beliefs of frailty are non-existent. Nothing is expended because you make a physical movement when you are inbreathed with the Breath of Life, when the sense of smell has broken the bonds of its former limitation. One moment’s contemplation of this oneness with the Breath of Life dissipates the sense of fatigue as you “smell” the Presence. No one can imagine God as becoming tired, or fatigued, and likewise when you are one with this Divine Breath you cannot experience what Life cannot experience. “You shall find your life when you lose it” indicates that we have not yet experienced the thing called Life. Certainly we have tried hard enough to find it through the foreshortened senses, and have been sharply rebuked for having all the capacities of these senses and yet not experiencing any of them.
“The Lord is in His Holy Temple, let all the earth rejoice.” The Breath of Life is moving in and through the holy temple, and every manifestation (earth) shall rejoice because of this thrilling, moving Presence. Suddenly you become alive; you are “smelling” out the Presence, just as you taste and see and hear and feel the Presence. You are aware of the freshness and eternal newness of life which is not under the ban of the limited conscious-thinking. You have become a living soul, alive in all ways, mentally, physically, financially, morally. Alive, awakened, transmuted into the substance which is permeated with the Divine Breath. It is wonderful.
You are a Living Soul—you are alive mentally. Do you know what it means to be alive mentally? It does not mean the gushing forth of facts and data regarding everything in the universe. It does not mean the development of a colossal brain or a quality attributed to what the world calls a “prodigy” or “genius.” It does not mean an abnormal memory nor a “lightning calculator.” All of these states immediately introduce the thought of “brain-fag.” You have the feel that these states of mind would have a brief moment and then have to retire utterly worn out.
When you become a Living Soul mentally you begin to sense that you are endowed with the Divine Memory, the inspired memory which says, “I shall recall unto you whatsoever I have said unto you.” Everything that is in the Universal Consciousness is at the disposal of the one who has become “alive mentally”—he does not have to go through the ordinary processes. The consciousness that has ever been established on the earth of anything mental is ready to be tapped by the Living Mentality. It has broken down the limits of the excessive or limited capacities of conscious thinking and moves out into the new dimension. It knows and can call and can dispose of, and yet it does not have to bother with the accumulation of material. “When I say go, he goeth, is the law of the mentally alive one. It is wonderful when your mentality is awake, when you see it is for the purpose of releasing wisdom and not for the limitations of human intellect. It is true it may absorb all of this intellect, just as the egg is absorbed into the eagle, but in doing this it instantly breaks the shell of limitation and frees itself into a new realm of manifestation. This being alive mentally gives you the power to know whatsoever concerneth Me—there is “nothing hidden that shall not be revealed” which concerns you. So far is this faculty removed from the curious mind that would meddle with the lives of others that the gulf dividing them is greater than that which separated Dives and Lazarus. At the same time this alive mentality can, if recognized, give you anything and all information concerning you and your ongoing. “Call upon Me and I will answer you.” Do you begin to see what Jesus was working with? Call it out on this Divine Breath; nothing shall be hidden from this searching Breath which scents out all things. It is said that the savages can scent the coming of a stranger miles before he arrives in camp. This capacity has been lost to most people, but even this quality is a limitation to the Divine sense of smell. You are alive mentally, and if you need the name, place, or word it is always there in the Universal Consciousness awaiting the simple “letting” which takes place when you are once alive mentally.
You are a living soul—you are alive morally. The idea of morality has been so mistakenly narrowed down to mean sex with most people that its grand mission has been completely submerged. Hardly anyone will deny that a great deal too much importance has been placed on sex. Gradually the beliefs of man, who was only recently in the throes of believing that everything he did, said, heard, or saw was traceable to the all-important thing, sex, are being somewhat released.
To be alive morally is to experience the Natural Integrity of Life which is so necessary. It enables you to “judge not from appearances.” It causes you to see the necessity of fulfilling your own contracts. It causes you to be as good as your word. It brings a sort of human decency, which is fearfully lacking in most people, to the surface. It enables you to live in the world and be not of it; and yet keeps you from the fearful, self-righteous habit of condemning everything that does not fit in with your own ideas of life.
You are inbreathed with the Breath of Life. You begin to employ the sense of smell and are conscious of the aroma of the Presence. There is no separation between you and this Presence any more than there is a separation of the air in the great out-of-doors. You are a soul alive. Alive for the first time and conscious of the substance of the resurrected body of Jesus Christ. You are the Word of God made manifest, nothing more or less. When will you begin to claim this heritage and see it through into manifestation? When the senses unfold into their true function, when they extend to the capacity which has so long been unrecognized, then will you begin to “sense” the Presence. When the sense of smell is awakened to the place of the inbreathing of the Breath of Life, it is as if the heavy, limp canvas of a balloon were suddenly to be inflated with gas. Suddenly it expands into new dimensions and possibilities. The impossible takes place; the heavy canvas, with its ballast-loaded basket, rises through the air. This illustration is inadequate—the coming of this Divine Breath to you permeates every cell and segment of your being.
You are a living soul, inbreathed with the Breath of Life. The old subconscious ruts and patterns are suddenly straightened out-the “rough places are made smooth and the crooked places straight.” There is no offsetting of one habit by introducing another, but a releasing of the heavy creases and crevices which stored up the memory of evil. “The former things shall pass away; they shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more”; because when the suggestion is made the former place for the reception of this evil is not there-the old subconscious pattern has not only been broken up, it has been completely obliterated. It is not a state of overcoming evil but an arising and following Me out of the Sodom and Gomorrah of the subconscious mind. It is wonderful.
The sense of smell extended into the Divine Breath opens the door of Inspiration. When the breath stops in a man he is pronounced dead. When he is separated from the great Spirit, or Presence, he dies. The little breath (a human lifetime) which man has in his nostrils must be extended into the great Universal Breath or else it is soon snuffed out. Its very limitations bring upon it all sorts of evils from which there is no escape. The more the breath is stopped down to the human organism the more affectation of the throat and nose are visible. It is impossible for you to go out of the presence of God. You are living, moving, breathing, and having your being in this Presence, in this Atmosphere, now, and presently you will recognize that at the same time you are performing this it is also “living, moving, breathing, and having Its being” in you. Then in the great Oneness of this recognition do you experience the sense of Life Eternal.
You are inbreathed with the Breath of Life and you are a living soul financially. To be alive financially does not necessarily mean the handling of the symbol, but it does mean the consciousness of substance which out-pictures itself in five thousand loaves of bread or a simple meal. It puts one consciously in touch with the “substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” When Jesus raised his eyes to Heaven and gave thanks, he was recognizing this substance, and the symbol had to take place. He was alive financially, and produced the loaves and fishes by a telescoping of the ways of man into the instant manifestation of that which was needed. Instead of demonstrating the money, sending for the baker, etc., the “way that ye know not of” was able to bring forth what was necessary at that particular instant. Yes, it must be true that we have eyes and have not seen. “He careth for you” is only true from the height of the understanding of what it means to be “alive financially.”
It is written in the Law:
“They have ears but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not.”
When this sense of smell is extended to the Breath of Life, the Inspiration of the Almighty fills you, and it is this very quality which is to lead you into all things.
Beloved, you are inbreathed with the Breath of Life and you have become a living soul. Do you hear? It is wonderful.
The Breath of God is not mechanical. It is as a cloud of sweet smelling incense enfolding all, and revealing its radiant creation-in breathed forever.
A living soul is immortal.
Chapter Ten
“I AM the voice of one [the only one] crying in the wilderness [of human understanding and imagination], Prepare ye the way of the Lord”—the law.
The Voice, the urge within seeking to be born, the constant “knocking” at the door—the cry of the desire locked within the flimsy yet so strong walls of the human thinking.
Let Me in—and I will break the Bread, the substance of life, with you—I will sup with you. Let Me have a body and embodiment, a means of expression. Out of the infinite fields of imagination, where reel after reel of day-dreams unfulfilled unroll themselves—out of the clouds of human belief of the Heaven in the skies and the unfulfilled desires—must John (the Revelator) see the new Heaven and the new Earth descend into reality. He must see the Word made flesh—it must be embodied in a state that is recognizable and real. He must embody the word, or, rather, let the word be embodied.
Without its embodiment, electricity would still be known only by the undisciplined and intermittent streak of lightning, yet the same substance properly embodied manifests itself in a thousand glorious ways—facilitating, aiding, and abetting the efforts of mankind. Yet, unembodied, it remains only a terrific, uncontrollable force which heathens, both civilized and uncivilized, fear as the power of a wrathful God. The fear of the tribal God in the jungle expressing his displeasure, sending his hatred through a bolt of lightning, is only matched with the civilized accounting for much evil as an “act of God.”
All illustrations are inadequate to give any idea of the Power of God through His instrumentation or embodiment, man, but by these clumsy tools we are able to “see” a little beyond the limitation of the “dead letter” into the living Spirit of the Fatherhood quality of God which overshadows the receptive consciousness and makes it possible for the embodiment of the word.
Mary, symbolically speaking, was overshadowed by the Fatherhood or creative consciousness, and embodied the Word —gave it a body: “I have gotten a Man [manifestation] from the Lord.” In other words, the recognition of the Spirit of the Fatherhood degree descending into the flesh and making the Word flesh causes the manifestation to come forth.
Mary magnified the Lord within her. Already she conceived that without a body or an embodiment it would be nothing, and so she set about recognizing the Lord within her as embodying itself in proper manner, so that it could come forth as something more than a talked-of theory— just as Franklin, testing the electricity in the air, finally brought it out and started the great embodiment of it in a million different ways.
This process of embodiment is not so new or remote a process, neither is it as symbolical as one would think at the first glance. The trouble with most Truth study is that the student sets about it with the thought, “Now this is something strange, wonderful, and different, and naturally very difficult and impossible to express,” instead of looking about and getting a comprehensive idea of just how much of what he is seeking in some far country is actually close at hand. “Am I not a God at hand and not afar off?” You answer that.
It is a very common practice to say that so and so is a doctor, a musician, a dancer, etc. In varying degrees we classify doctors, financiers, dancers—-as good, medium, bad, or geniuses. In doing this we do not limit their ability to the physical, since the genius may be badly lacking in physical equipment. A great musician may be undersized and a cripple, a great financier may be old and physically infirm.
It is not the body that we look to, but the something that is animating the body, and in this degree, however poorly or limited, we must recognize that the financier is nothing but the embodiment of an invisible quality—an “ability to amass or make money.” Take this quality away from him and the body can do nothing—it is as helpless as that of a great dancer who has dissociated himself from the idea that he can dance. No matter how perfect the body may be, without the “something” within, it is merely inert matter.
The “I can of myself do nothing” of Jesus shows the helplessness of the human mind trying to accomplish something and finding itself hedged in by the heavy confines of unenlightened matter. Until it sees that the financier is not a body, but the Power which embodies itself in man, he can never earn more than a bare living by the sweat of his brow.
The more he looks to the limitations of his “I can of myself do nothing” consciousness, the more impossible it is to see how he can feed five thousand in the desert. It is a human impossibility— Jesus the carpenter would have had to work his entire lifetime to have given a banquet to five thousand hungry men. All this brings us up sharply to the fact that it is no good to work with the limitations of the consciousness which admits its total inability to accomplish anything. It is the pouring of new wine in old bottles and the sewing of the new patch in the old garment.
Until it is clearly seen that the false human method of going against the instructions of Jesus and trying to make the human thing do something that it admits in the beginning it cannot do, there will be little possibility of accomplishing the “Greater works than these shall ye do.”
Judging from appearances, one can get only the results of the consciousness which says “I can of myself do nothing.” What a flimsy basis upon which to found anything! Time after time man has attempted to force the issue and make the consciousness, which has admitted, “I can of my own self do nothing,” do something. The struggle has been carried on by will-power or false religious stimulus with only a momentary flutter of success.
When you take your attention away from the body, the place of manifestation, and turn it unto the Power, you will begin to understand why Jesus insisted that it was necessary to “be absent from the body and present with the Power.” The dancer who is constantly contemplating the movement of his feet, and the musician who is constantly watching his fingers, will not become great and will never embody the true abandon of the Power that is necessary to produce the perfection of the thing he has in hand. The more the musician’s fingers are watched, the more laboured they become-intricate passages that must go quicker than the thought become impossible of attainment, because he sees the limitations of the vehicle.
What unknowing person who, by regarding the locomotive which weighs tons, could imagine it flying down the steel rails at a speed of sixty miles per hour? It is not possible to figure it out, because it does not come within the possibility of the human mind. It is impossible to see how you can make your embodiment do a thing that it has formerly accepted as utterly impossible.
Your human mind, so schooled in years of poverty and limitations, has its subconscious rut of thinking to look to. Thinking in terms of poverty has become such a habit, and it is automatic; there is no hope of eliminating that subconscious rut—it is too deep, too real.
It is true that the escape is minimized—there is little hope, in fact none, through the human limitations—but when you take your attention off the thing and place it on the Power, the mechanics of the working out of the thing take care of themselves. Hence the inert body lying asleep suddenly jumps into the dance, and flies gloriously and graciously through space into a mad, joyous expression of the dance. How can it be done? All limitations are flung to the wind because it has become the embodiment of the power and has designated itself as a dancer.
“Whom do you say that I Am?” What do you say about your I Am? That is all I can be to you. If you measure Me eternally by the limitations of John Smith, you can get nothing into manifestation—until you come to the recognition that Jesus had—“I can of myself do nothing”-and stop trying to make this body do something. You will not be “absent from the body and present with the Law,” and hence you will continue to “try to make God do your bidding.” It is amazing how many people are trying to make God do something. As if you can change the course of the winds by your wishing.
“The wind bloweth where it listeth.” No man can say, “Whither goest thou?”
So the financier is embodied in a certain person and the school-teacher in another, and you say, “Mr. Blank is a financier”—yet his body is not nearly so strong and fine as mine, and his education is limited, and his birth and breeding, and so and so. But with all your observations you cannot make yourself a financier. You may go to him and ask him to assist you, and perhaps he will and perhaps he will not.
“Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.”
I did not say “perhaps” he would give you light. I said, “Christ shall give thee light,” and in this light you shall see that this working with the Power afar off, or looking to the body for assistance, instead of letting the Power embody itself in you, is false and a man-made theory.
A lady, upon entering a swimming class recently, had to pass a physical examination. During the examination the examiner stopped suddenly, and said, “You are physically unfit. You had better see a physician at once. Do you know the condition you are in?” The rejected applicant was startled, naturally, at the sudden and unexpected revelation. She went back to the dressing-room, a thousand and one fears turning over in her mind—the words of the examiner sounding like an executioner’s verdict in her ears.
“There is a physician at the end of the street—he is pretty good, but there is Dr. Blank two miles away; he is excellent. Shall I call him?” These thoughts chased themselves back and forth in her mind as she started to dress.
Suddenly the light came. She was embodying the power in another—the man at the end of the street was a physician of a certain degree, and then two miles away was another degree of the same thing called a physician, and, finally, as she toyed with the idea it came through—“Am I a God afar off and not at hand?” The Great Physician was right at hand—waiting to have the door opened unto Him to come in and embody Himself within her.
Immediately the presence of the Physician was felt searching the joints—the Physician was close at hand, and there was no guesswork or questioning as to causes—the automatic power of the word being made flesh searching the joints and marrow had no need of finding a physical cause. She was the embodiment of the Physician, and in a twinkling of an eye she arose and went back to the examiner and said, “Please just examine me again before I dress.”
The examiner, in amazement, found her perfectly qualified to pass the test.
Jesus made himself as God—that is, he partook of the Divine Nature, and one instant he embodied it as the healer of diseases and the next as the supplier of food—next as the speaker of the word and then as the Way-shower.
I am with you all ways—in every way and always—I Am that I Am. Call upon Me and I will answer you in the language you can best understand. Give Me a body, let Me be embodied in you—not in some other; look unto Me, the I Am, and let that be your point of contact with the universal Whole, and you will know that one with God is a majority and that it is possible now to understand what takes place in the body of mankind when he takes his attention away from the body and is present with the Lord.
“Whom do you say that I am?” I say that you are the Christ, which is everything to everybody and is eternally knocking at the door of your consciousness awaiting the opening, so that it may come into expression here and now—so that it may have an embodiment and come out of the place of imagination.
“Closer is he than breathing, nearer than hands and feet,” and, since you see this Power embodied in some other, you have come past the point of doubt. However imperfectly this may be seen, yet you do admit that certain people embody certain powers. When you see that you must stop denying Me and start calling upon Me, it will be when the human will has subsided and the Will of God is being done and brought into fulfillment. The Word made flesh—yet inMy flesh shall I see God. How can you see God if you will not recognize the Presence of the Power within and give it an embodiment or let it into expression?
Do you begin to see that unless electricity has an embodiment it eternally remains a static power, over brooding the world, urging and seeking a point of expression? So is the Father Consciousness overshadowing the world, and is waiting for a point of expression, a place wherein to embody Itself. “Call upon Me and I will answer you.” The calling upon the Me is from the point of willingness letting the Divine overshadowing take place, and following the urge of Spirit and not the dead letter of John Smith.
The seeking to demonstrate money falls by the way when the Power within you becomes the financier embodied; then all greed and desire to make a show of prosperity will subside and fall into the sea of oblivion—the embodiment of the financier within will solve, in a moment, knotty problems that you have not been able to demonstrate over for years.
Come close unto Me—commune with Me and let Me in and I will break the bread of Life with you—and you with Me. The day is at hand—the day of manifestation.
John (the Love Consciousness) reveals to you the new Heaven and the new earth descending out of the clouds of human belief—the word being made flesh—the “Speak the Word” state of mind which releases itself into manifestation. Give Me a body; do not be afraid to be still and commune with Me. Mary was silent and magnified the Lord within her —she contemplated the Power and allowed It to embody Itself in her and bring the Messiah unto the world. So shall you begin to drop off the old seeking of things and get back into the Power of the Presence—here and now.
Whom do you say that I am? Be careful what you call Me, for that I will appear unto you. Through your limited human mind you have distorted Me and tried to drive Me into expression according to your beliefs. Now, then, stand aside and recognize Me as embodied in you in the name and nature of that which you seek and behold. That which you tell Me in secret shall be called from the housetops. It is wonderful!
Chapter Eleven
“I come not to destroy, but to fulfill.” The I, when it is once discovered and recognized as the point where the invisible becomes visible, comes not to destroy but to fulfill the vacuum of human thinking.
All evil is but the vacuum of belief—belief in a place or condition where God is not—and the Presence of God does not come in any manner to destroy a vacuum but to fulfill it or make itself visible. Hell is a vacuum of burning beliefs which can only be dissipated by the recognition of the Presence.
“If I make my bed in hell, thou art there” and where “thou art” is Heaven—–only this has to be recognized. The old firefighting which takes place in the minds of many leaves many scars and a heavy smell of smoke on the garments of those who participate in this battle. The becoming aware of the Presence causes the vacuum and its imaginary power to be dissolved.
Hell is the collective name for all evil——it is the burning, destroying imagination plus all the fear and judgment from outside appearances. Whether it be a toothache or an earthquake, both of them represent a vacuum in belief——a place where this Presence is apparently absent. Yet there is no such place possible except in the imagination.
“Heaven and earth are filled with Thee,” and there is no possible place or condition into which one can enter when “I go before you and prepare the way” that is not eternally true and probable by the simple recognition of the Presence and the disregarding of the vacuum of imagination, no matter in what form It is showing itself.
It is not your duty to be overcoming evil, in the generally accepted sense of the word, remembering that “he who taketh the sword shall perish by the sword.” Your overcoming will be the natural Recognition of the Presence——the manifestation can take care of itself—–and verily the hell of sickness and disease will vanish at the instant of this recognition. “And his father, seeing him a long way off”——-the very recognition of the Presence will cause an instant uprising to take place and a movement toward the manifestation.
It is wonderful when you begin to see that it is the natural thing taking place instead of the unnatural. So long have we been handling relative beliefs that they have become the order of things, governed by the laws of matter——-and God and His universe have become unnatural, occasionally and at best miraculous. What progress can you hope to make with such an intangible set of laws as the God laws viewed through the eyes of the relative?
If it is not natural for the Presence to come into visibility by the Recognition, then is our preaching vain and we are hopeless indeed, for through what prayer or anguish will He respond? Can you imagine anything intelligent or satisfactory coming out of mathematics if we were the least uncertain as to whether the law of addition would work for certain people or not?
We know that any man who thirsteth can come to the Fountain and drink —-just as any man can use with impunity the law of mathematics—-but he must first recognize this law, honour and obey it with all his soul, mind, and body, if he is to get results from it. The Law then works quite naturally and the results do not surprise the man. He knew that the answer existed before he started, but through the glass darkly he could not see it.
“I knew that these things were before I said `Thank you, Father.’ “So do you begin to understand that until the Power becomes as natural as the law of mathematics you will perpetually try to work it, and the results will be called “demonstration,” which word has come to mean something that is rare, unexpected, unnatural, almost impossible. You cannot work with such a flimsy premise——-there is no hope in it. If your prayer cannot be answered with the same ease with which the mathematical problem can be answered, because it has always been answered, you cannot see the seeming miracles take place.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light” is more and more becoming a command to awaken not to a new doctrine, but an awakening to a truth which does set free by showing you that you are already free. “Whom the Son sets free is free indeed”—–the Son in this instance indicates the point of consciousness within you where the invisible is being stepped down into the visible.
If all this cannot be treated as the most natural, normal, unemotional event, it cannot take place with even regularity, and the Kingdom of Heaven will be an intermittent thing—-there will be no steady flow of the Power or the Presence. All commotion and excitement will be replaced by the deepest emotion—-the emotion of stillness.
“Be still and know that I Am God” is not a “working” of the Truth——it is the point of pure recognition and revelation and it is within every man. Do you begin to see the natural procedure that must take place before the Kingdom of Heaven can be revealed here and now?
“I come not to destroy but to fulfil.” For the first time the thrill of Life coursing through the poor diseased imagination begins to fill everything full by making Itself visible. “Behold I stand at the door and knock” is the perpetual urge of the unseen or the unknown to be given a body and a form, but “ye would not.”
“I come not to destroy” your body or temple, but to show you that I Am the Power which can pick it up or lay it down, which can cause the springs to rise in the desert, and the low places to be exalted and the rough places to be made smooth and the crooked places straight. Do you hear?
Do you begin to feel the’ Presence and to understand what it is to recognize for a moment that nothing—-no, not anything —–is to be destroyed, but everything is to be fulfilled with the Love of God which only has to be recognized to change the imagination and shatter the belief that held it into its outline of ugliness? Even your enemy, your disease, your poverty, are not to be destroyed, but to be fulfilled—–to be filled with the substance of God—–and this seemingly impossible thing takes place by recognition of the Presence.
Keep this naturally in your mind or else the importance of it will overthrow you. Make it the most ordinary thing, remembering that the child has the gift of materializing his Father Christmas by accepting it as true, and that Jesus gave you the same formula to make God come into visibility in your life. Do not let any man whose breath is in his nostrils—-filled with the terrible intellect of evil—-take this precious simplicity from you. “The Wisdom of God is foolishness in the eyes of man”—–and the Wisdom which fulfils and does not destroy “anything in all my holy mountain” is past understanding or reason.
“Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have life eternal.” Little by little you will see just what is meant by this natural approach, this natural recognition. It will free you from all the surprise of manifestation. When you come to the place of naturalness of the Presence, then the manifestation, whether instantaneous and outside of the order of man or not, will not surprise you—–it will cease to be a demonstration, something to be repeated with wonder and will be the Holy Presence lovingly showing you the way.
“I am the way, the Truth, and the Light”——and when this comes a little more into the alignment of the natural and ordinary your way will be one of manifestation. All the impossible things will be possible, for you have gone out from among “them” whose chief business it is to tell strange and wonderful things—–you will be experiencing them and considering them as the natural out-picturing of the Presence.
The fulfilling will begin its movement in you, and, after that, any measure you hold before it—–even the borrowed measures—- will be filled full. All the terrible warfare—-the hunting and fighting evil—-will be gone. The glorious “I come not to destroy but to fulfill” will be a living proof of the Presence in action.
“I come not to destroy” your disease or belief, but to fulfill the temple and the dark shadows of belief with light. No matter how they have crystallized into ugly, immovable gargoyles of hard and fast laws, they will melt out of the pictures. You do not care what becomes of them—-any more than the freed bird cares for its shell once it has spread its wings. That outline that was itself egg crumbles into the dust and is no more, even as the thin outline of your horrible problem crumbles into nothingness and is no more. The thing that made a bird an egg is completely filled with life, and as the “Lord is magnified within” it expands to the limit of the belief and shatters once and for always the belief in egg.
So is it when you recognize the presence of this Power within you—it seems to expand as you become aware of it until it shatters the shell of belief which held the vacuum of your human thinking, and the place thereof is no more. Presently it shall not come into mind any more, and even shall not be remembered. “The former things have passed away; they shall not come into mind nor be remembered any more.”
Formerly we went out to battle with the thing called evil —-now we have reduced it to the vacuum of belief in the absence of God. No matter how rampant it may be, and how destructive in its manifestation, or how terrible in its dimensions—-it is in the final analysis the absence of God, and this absence of God can only exist in the imagination, for God is omnipresent. He is not omnipresent to the human belief. That is why Jesus could do nothing of himself, and why he immediately went to the Father within his consciousness.
The transmutation of hell to Heaven is not a battle, but a revelation—–the moment you become aware of the Presence, the transmutation takes place. The laws governing this are few. “Take your attention away from appearances”—–“secretly” (see that you tell no man)—–and the “magnifying of the Lord.”
Having come to the place of acceptance of One God, the handling of belief ceases to be the handling of something real, and the attention formerly given to overcoming is turned full force into the fulfilling of the Law.
As the borders of your tent of consciousness are enlarged to the point of naturalness of the Presence, you will see things happen which formerly were only entrusted to the special initiates and masters. When you awaken to the simplicity of the Christ truth you will see that you have suddenly arrived at the point of much of this. “Ho, every man” gives you your carte blanche to enter into the Holy of Holies—–your own Father consciousness—–and begin filling full the vacuums of the hell of your life.
It is wonderful, it is thrilling, when you begin to walk with Me and talk with Me, for in some strange and glorious way I begin walking with you and talking with you—–yea, even walking in you and talking in you and revealing to you many things which can never be voiced by the human voice or conceived by the human thought. I come to fulfill the thing called Heaven on earth and to reveal it all to the one who is ready to see the Presence of the One instead of the many.
“Behold, I make all things new”—-I make all things new because the “fulfilling” is merely the revealing of the Presence —-and the Presence, even as the full-fledged bird breaking from its egg, is new and yet has absorbed its former self, so I make everything new. No more the pouring of new inspiration into the old human receptacles of human belief—-no more the patching up of the old garments with the new cloth—–but the wholly new revelation making itself manifest by the fulfilling of the Law.
“I come not to destroy but to fulfill” will thrill you and relieve you of all the hateful warfare with evil that has been going on——it will bring you to a true understanding of the non-resistance of the Christ Mind within you and make you understand the height and depth and majesty of this Presence.
It is wonderful—–it is glorious——it causes the Hosannas to rise from the very centre of your being and magnify the Lord of Lords and Host of Hosts.
Within this glorious fulfilling lies the freedom of the Sons of God—-the liberty of the free-born, the going into and possessing of the land. Yes! there is a rest for the people of God—–a rest from the destroying of anything and a joyous expression of the fulfilling. It is amazing how many things will leap into expression at the coming of this understanding. “Behold, 1 come quickly and my reward is with me.” Believest thou this? Do you think it is so? Answer Me. Answer Me—-is it so?
At the moment of recognition of the Presence “I come quickly” into manifestation, bringing my reward with Me. I do not come through the slow processes of human thinking —–the moment of recognition causes the fulfilling to take place and the reward is with Me always—-the reward for recognizing Heaven in the midst of hell.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” “Awake and arise from the dead”—–the dead beliefs and appearances will fall away the moment you conceive the facts pertaining to “You do not need to fight—–set yourself and see.” All the integrity of recognition of the Presence is brought to bear on this situation—–the conscious recognition of the Presence here, there, and everywhere.
If there is anything in your life too terrible, or horrible, or awful to contain God, any person so terrible or degenerate not to be filled with His Presence, any place so void of His Presence as to be called hell, it is impossible for you to work from the basis of Omnipresence and hence you are shut out of the rich manifestation of Him.
You may spend hours trying to force Him to enter into these situations from without. He will not enter a sick body and subsequently leave it well; He will not enter a sick business and leave it successful, nor will He enter hell and change it into Heaven. This is the old personal control method which is thought to cause things to happen by the “taking-thought methods of yore.” Unless He is always there, and always will be there, there is nothing you can do or leave undone which will cause this to take place. Unless the Presence is everywhere it is nowhere as omnipresence, and the moment you see the naturalness of this wonderful Truth you will stop, once and for always, trying to control God, and start a very successful campaign of recognizing Him.
All the condemnation and hateful resentment will fade out —-all the loathsomeness of evil will pass. “God is in His holy temple,” the whole earth is rejoicing, and His holy temple is the manifest world. Who are you to section it off into little patches called God-temples, excluding Him from anything that does not conform to your narrow ideas of the Universal?
All the hell-holes and sumps of evil from which you have been drawing away your holy robes are eternally hidden in your consciousness, and will fester there until they are smashed to pieces by the recognizing of the Presence. It is glorious when this rushing, gushing Power, passing through the Universe “fulfilling” and not destroying, comes to be understood by you. The whole creation of evil which has existed and been sustained by your thought falls to pieces. The surprise attack of it caves in-the Glory of the Risen Lord is being revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
“I come not to destroy, but to fulfill”—-I come to fill the diseased body of your imagination full of the vibrant life which is even now searching the “;joints and marrow,” and in the twinkling of an eye restores the radiant sound sense of Life which man calls health to you. The most loathsome disease, then, is not something to be fought with; it is merely a shell outline held in the imagination, by the recognition of the Presence, it is shattered instantly and the place and design thereof is no more. You have suddenly stopped feeding it with your thought, and it, being only as old as your last thought about it, disintegrates and falls into the dust of oblivion instantly it is unfed. It is wonderful—–the way of oneness.
“I come not to destroy”—-no, not even that most hateful problem you have been fighting with so unjustly for so long —-I come to fulfill. Do you hear? If I destroyed your problem and left you nothing in return, where would you be? But with the revelation of the Presence which comes to “fulfill,” the line of imagination called evil, no matter however real, is automatically wiped out of the pictures.
“I come not to destroy but to fulfill.” “Put up your sword” —-remembering always that “he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword”—-he who fights evil is still working with the two-power idea, and fails to see God standing in the midst of hell. He goes on fighting the flames, at last being consumed by them, because in that spot—-in that vacuum where he believes God is not—-only the fury of his belief can burn away.
“Heaven and earth are full of thee”—-what else is there? Evil? Go dip seven times in the Jordan—-until all these theories of oneness and something else have been washed from you—- and then you will understand how it is that “I come not to destroy but to fulfill” is true, and what it means to recognize the Presence in the midst of your problem instead of trying to introduce it from the outside.
Forget your wild ideas of destroying and begin the fulfilling. Fill everything full to overflowing with the Presence and you will stand and see the flames of your hell fade into soft rose-coloured hues of Love.
It is wonderful—–“Heaven and earth are full of Thee.” Where can you go from the Presence? Answer Me—-and, if you can at no time be out of the Presence, whatsoever you find in that Presence is yours. “Whatsoever things ye ask for in my nature that will I give unto you.” It must be natural, it must be normal, it must be up and beyond the place of demonstration into the very realm of manifestation-the place of “Before they call, I will answer.”
“I come not to destroy but to fulfill.” Do you hear?
Remember God is over all, even the stars, and that He came to fulfill—-not to destroy. “Call upon Me and I will answer.”
Chapter Twelve
“The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.”
Like a glorious bird loosed from the mountain tops, drifting, soaring, diving, and rising with perfect abandon and serenity over the terrible chasms below, so this glorious promise carries the soul on sure, tried wings over and above the concern of the human mind.
That which concerns me, in the workaday world into which Adam wandered, is terrible to contemplate. Earning the living by the sweat of the brow; beset by an inescapable destiny of evil, no matter what is done; working from the cradle to sustain a body-so that it may be destroyed by old age and death.
Yes, that which “concerneth me” from the human sense of the word is much. “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” is the wail of the soul trying to escape the ugliness of that which concerns him.
Leaning upon the broken reed of human reasoning, man tries to lift himself about the terrible onslaught of fears, but he knows he is being pierced by the reed, and is only putting off the day of wrath.
Yet the promise: “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me”-but how? And the human reasoning again fords this promise impossible of fulfillment.
“The Government shall be upon His shoulders.”
Not on the shoulders of the human mind, but upon the shoulders of the Christ—upon the Father within. Not upon an imaginary power, but upon the Power of God made Flesh. Yes, “the government shall be upon His shoulders”—the government of your life, when you once can recognize this, and stop trying to assume the power yourself.
A great sweep of joy and light covers you when you arrive at the place of acceptance, wherein you recognize that God is able and capable of running the universe without any human aid or assistance, and that the wisdom you are about to expound on the subject of the government of your life will be hedged in by the limitations of your findings from the appearances, which are faulty.
That which concerns me is much. It holds all the joys and Self-expression, and the things I have sought from the beginning, and which I have found ‘impossible of attainment.
The imperfect manifestations that you have brought out—-half-hearted failures or successes-the things you passed over because you could not bring them into being-these are the things that concern you and these are the very things which the Lord is going to perfect-is going to make perfect, whole and real. The government being upon His shoulders relieves you of any effort, struggle, suggestion, or taking thought, but it calls you to a strict sense of integrity and secrecy.
A man sitting at the linotype machine has an inspiration for a poem; he presses lightly the keys of the machine and his invisible and inaudible poem runs through an elaborate series of mechanisms and comes out in solid blocks of lead at the other end of the machine.
It is a practical application of the word or the unseen being made visible before your eyes. Yet the man only lightly touches the machine. The less effort he uses the more successful the results. If he pounds upon the machine he is very apt to have defective work or a broken machine, and so is it with man. If he beats upon the doors of Heaven in an effort to get them open it only posits the fact that they are shut tightly against him.
The line of poetry materializes-it takes on an embodiment by means of an automatic working of the machine. No man can see power, but he sees the manifestation of it. No man can trace the operation of prayer; he only can see the results which are sure and safe if with the effortless touch of assurance he knows definitely that “He will perfect that which concerneth me.” A joyous sense of abandon—divine abandon, backed up by a keen sense of integrity-overtakes man, and he rests—for he has done all.
“When ye pray, enter your closet and shut the door, and the Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Only what you can tell the Father can the Father or Power make manifest to you; only the keys you press on a linotype machine respond—no more no less. Though there be quantities of them, the only response you get is from the ones you can touch. Only what you can ask the Father for can you receive. You remember just what you could ask the Human Father for—you knew your limit, and that you were reasonably sure of getting.
Only what you can conceive of as possible coming from the Invisible Power can take place in you. We all go to the Fountain, but you can take away only the measure of your recognition. Though a barrel of water is poured into your pint cup, only a pint remains, and though the flood tides of substance are pouring over you, you can take only that which you accept as possible.
Believest thou this? As if it were written in gigantic letters of flame against the black skies of materialism, these words call out to you as the only possible way of attainment. If you believe, you are told you shall be made whole, and a whole being would have no defective or inadequate parts. Everything that concerned the whole man would be governed by the Automatic Power, and it would be perfected from glory to glory.
The Automatic Power, the way ye know not of, “neither slumbers nor sleeps,” and the government is upon His shoulders. Think what a glorious recognition this brings to you—-to know that instead of trying to live your life according to the human limitations, you have abandoned yourself to the divine urge. This is not a supine waiting for something good to happen to the John Smith sluggish way of letting go, but an alert qui vive state of mind which is relaxed for action.
The fact that you have miserably failed in the government of your life along human lines should make you willing to “come unto Me”—the Father within which Jesus discovered within himself and which has a way ye know not of which explains in the only way it can be explained to the human mind how the supernatural happens.
No eye can follow the activity of the unseen power—-“Who by seeking shall find Me out?” Not anyone can outline and fix the precise mode and manner in which the Power is going to perfect those things which concern him, but if he once arrives at this level of acceptance, he will find all that which concerns him will begin to move into perfect alignment, and in a moment the manifestation takes place.
The Automatic Power coming like a thief in the night—-when the human limitation is not peeping upon it—at an unexpected moment when you are not trying to make it happen-these aids toward “letting” the Power perfect that which concerns you are worthy of contemplation.
“Behold I come quickly.” I am not measured by the human limitations of time and space. “I come quickly—and my reward is with me.” The moment the key is touched the same letter forms itself into lead and drops into place—the reward is with the action. “In the twinkling of an eye” is pretty quick.
Do you begin to see how the recognition of this Power explodes the flimsy reasoning that has tried for so long to make the Automatic Power, which has a way that ye know not of, do Its bidding?
If the Lord is to perfect that which concerns you, He must do it in His own way and after His own design, and any “help” from you will merely be a hindrance. The thought which knows definitely that it is four months until the harvest can offer little assistance to the consciousness which says, “Look again; the fields are white.”
What can the mind, the reasoning human mind, do with its slow planting, cultivating, reaping, and marketing of its grain with the command “Thrust in the sickle”? The impossibility of following this from the human reasoning standpoint is quite evident. It takes a clear, cool recognition of the fact that “I can of myself do nothing” is true, and that if that which concerns me is to be perfected I will have to step out of the way and let it take place.
“I will stand upon my watch and see what the Lord has to say to me.” “Having done all, stand and see the salvation of the Lord”—see the working out of the Automatic Power, by the way and after a manner that ye knew not of.
“Cast all your anxieties upon Him because He careth for you.” He? What do you mean by that, and where is He? In the skies? In the imaginary Heaven? In some man or organization? “He careth for you,” is a definite statement of a fact. A thing that can and will take place because the government is upon His shoulders. “He careth for you” is enough to put to flight every fear and uncertainty of life.
When you arrive at the place of extremity and have exploded the last human reason for doing a thing—then you are at the golden opportunity of God. If you have come to the end of your rope, so to speak, then the only thing that can happen is something which is beyond your human reasoning, since you have come to the end of that.
You cannot cast your anxieties on Him unless you have come to the conclusion that the human reasoning cannot do anything for you. As long as you feel there is a way of escape through reason, you will attempt it. But when you arrive at, and understand that “I have a way ye know not of” as being possible with you, then you will abandon yourself to this inner government. “The government shall be upon His shoulders.” What a glorious rest and surcease from the struggle of trying to make the government run smoothly.
Can you “thrust in the sickle,” symbolically speaking? Can you arise and go to your Father—to the heights where you accept the fulfillment of the promises in the flesh? Can you cast your burdens on the Me and let it sustain you? Your human reason cannot arrive at this point because it cannot see how it is possible.
“I will arise—from the debris of human reasoning—and go unto my Father.” I will arise and leave all the tangled mass of human theories and beliefs of limitations and enter into the straight and narrow way of recognition that “With God all things are possible,” and I shall not qualify that statement, but shall stand upon it and see the salvation of the Lord. See the Lord in the midst of my confusion and chaos perfecting that which concerneth me—and my heart shall beat fast with the joy of the Lord.
“Make a glad song, for the Lord hath triumphed.” It is wonderful—the praise of the Power—the constant recognition of the Lord in the midst of you. “He careth for you.” What have you to worry about? He careth for you in the way and after the manner of His appointing. When once the coal of fire is placed on your lips and the human babbling has ceased, then He careth for you.
“He that hath a cheerful heart hath a continual feast.” How can you have a cheerful heart if the government of your life is based on the uncertain lines of the human reasoning?
The continual feast—the eating of My body and drinking of My blood, the partaking of the inspiration of life and the manifestation can be had only by the “cheerful heart,” and the heart cannot be cheerful if it is racked with a thousand and one uncertainties about the outcome of its life.
“Believest that I am able to do this unto you” requires an answer so sure and certain that the government of a lifetime is shifted instantly on to the Automatic Power which immediately corrects the mistakes of the human reasoning.
Be still—be quiet—rest a moment in the consciousness of this transcending Power, and you will feel the whir of the inner wings—the cosmic urge in the egg even now trying its wings—the quickening shaft of warmth of love which sets the thing in motion and causes it to come into being. Through the hard shell of the human reasoning enters the warmth of the God—Love, and the stirring of wings is felt and heard, while yet they are invisible.
So will the whirring of the new thing start into being within you and cause you to know that, deep in the secret place of the Most High, the Automatic Power is at work bringing to perfection those things that concern you. It is wonderful to contemplate this glorious leaven which, unseen and unheard, is changing the whole mass of meal into leaven. This very Presence is changing the whole base of your life and making it more natural and easier to accept the Word of God as powerful and possible of attainment.
“He will perfect that which concerneth Me.” Do you hear? —you who read this line? No matter what that thing is, He, in a way you know not of, will perfect it, will bring into being, will make it manifest and give it an embodiment. No matter how hopeless and impossible it has seemed, “He will perfect that which concerneth me”—for “He careth for you” -not as the human father careth for you but in a manner an after a fashion that you formerly thought impossible.
There is a rest then, for the people of God-a rest from all the anxious thought and worry that hovers about the human reasoning.
“He will perfect that which concerneth me.”
FROM WALKING UP and DOWN and TO and FRO
Chapter Thirteen
BUT where did evil come from in a perfect world? And how did it all happen-the leaving of the Garden of Eden, and all these false ideas that man has accepted and under which he has functioned? A thousand questions of this kind surge through the mind of the Seeker of Truth. He has a right to ask such intelligent questions. He also has a right to the use of his own Free Will. If man were merely an automaton, and had no will of his own, no power to choose (were nothing but a machine, such as the typewriter I am using), then there would be no possible reason or excuse for the appearances of evil in his life. But man born of God is given the happy faculty of Free Will, and allowed to develop the gifts with which he is endowed according to the light of his own choice.
“Choose you this day whom ye will serve” shows the wonderful freedom of the Sons of God. This liberty is your heritage, and most of you have used it to a point of prodigality. We know what a dismal thing life becomes when it is completely legislated by another. When life is completely legislated by another we have prison. Your free will and choice are taken away. You must obey the law of another. You do not relish the idea, nor would you appreciate the universe of God run on the same lines, even though it had saved you from many of the problems through which you have gone.
It is true that if a man has himself locked up in a cell he is not going to be injured by an automobile. In fact he will entirely escape all traffic problems and dangers ensuing there-from. But he will also have lost all his freedom.
Jesus counseled, “Be in the world, but not of it”—knowing that when man is properly aligned with the Father within, he finds everything verging to a point of harmony. When his choice is right, the results follow with mathematical accuracy. People who are crying for a cut-and-dried Heaven which will cause everybody to conform to the laws of what they call goodness would only find themselves in such a hopeless state of monotony that they would do anything to break the tedious spell of it all. The glorious freedom of the Sons of God allows you to choose the way of Life. “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law,” and so you move in a world and are not of it. You give to every man that which he asketh, but in having discharged this blessing you do not wait to see-this doubt foretells the failure of your gift.
“Go not back to your former bondage”-do not become entangled again by the mistaken choice you have made. You may have chosen wrongly, and arrived at conclusions which make for inharmony for you. There is no condemnation in this, however, and the moment you discover it and make your right choice, as did the Prodigal, your Father, seeing you a long way off, comes towards you with the robe and the ring. It is marvelous, the statement that the “former things shall pass away and shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more.”
A thousand and one instances of the creation of evil out of belief have been cited. A woman covered with diamonds created a thief for herself out of a suspicious looking man, and as she neared her destination—a dark railway station in the country—she saw him rising to leave the train. At this juncture she remembered something. Turning to the man she said, ” I live some distance from here. Would you mind acting as my escort and protector? I will gladly pay you for it.” The man assented. At the door of her home she offered him money, which he refused. He paused a moment. “Say, lady, I was going to rob you when I saw you on the train, but your making me your protector made it impossible.” Where was the robber, where the protector?
Where did disease come from in a perfect world? From the same freedom of choice and the mistaken sense of accepting the appearances. To the sight two lines running away converge and seem to touch, and at first a good many mistaken conclusions might be drawn from such a premise, but later you can say with assurance, “the appearances do not move me. I know the lines do not touch.” When you know the Truth and understand it, then the appearances do not deceive you, any more than the converging lines make you accept what your sight tells you is true. It is marvelous what the Lord has revealed unto us.
It is unnecessary to cite the many specific instances where disease has been caused by a mistaken belief and resulted in death. A person suffering from hay fever has been known to manifest all the symptoms, in the dead of winter, on seeing a harvesting scene on the screen. A thousand and one instances of this kind may easily be found. If, then, disease can be caused entirely from a mental state, resulting in physical manifestation, it is plain to be seen that the point of attack is not in the physical. It is also plain that the conscious-thinking part of the individual is entirely responsible for the ills or the disease he experiences in life. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” shows the unstable nature of the conscious mind. The Mind of the Christ changes not. God is a Changeless Being, and hence we find Jesus fleeing from the personal or conscious-thinking, wherein lay all limitations.
If the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God, because of its shifting, changing basis, then how much more is the wisdom of God foolishness in the eyes of man? Who can believe that good, and more good, and more good, can and will continuously flow into manifestation through a mere alliance with the Power of Christ within? A thousand questions raise themselves in the minds of the people. None of them can be answered to their satisfaction, for they are working from the wavering basis of the conscious-thinking which says, “When I would do good I do evil.” So uncertain is the conscious mind of its point of direction that it hurts that which it would help, and vice versa.
What a curious hodge-podge of coming and going the conscious-thinking offers man. Sickness—health; poverty—riches; happiness—unhappiness; an internal swinging back and forth between limitations on the pendulum of conscious-thinking. What a serene sense of Peace comes from the God Mind—a changeless consciousness of the Presence—an awareness. “God is mindful of His own” begins to mean something.
The following letter was recently received
“I am in town lecturing every afternoon. It is wonderful the revelation that has come through, but this afternoon I felt a very strong opposing factor-a terrible antagonism. The audience simply would not let me use the Word of God. I could have toppled off the platform and wept.”
So it would seem that all the glorious Power, which swung the universe into space, and caused the seasons to come and go, is powerless before a little despotic mind thinking against it. What a puny little God it is which cannot use His Temple to express Himself, because some pygmy intellect has a personal grudge. What a fiasco the whole idea of God becomes when reduced to such measures. Do you see what it means to enter into the cesspool of Conscious-Thinking wherein lies all the evil that man can experience? You cannot feel anything that you do not recognize, that is sure. Just the moment you drop down to the Conscious-Thinking you see all sorts of evil things through your “glass darkly,” and many of these are pure imagination. Allowing that someone in the audience is antagonistic, and wants you to fail, it is too stupid for words to imagine that this little gnat of human intellect is going to obscure the light of the Sun. Let him fly against it. If your light is burning and you are looking straight into the face of God, you have no further disposition to make of the gnat. Many an evil thought has singed its wings and fallen into the pit. “Fear not; I Am with you.
Hundreds of people are running about today with all sorts of Conscious-thinking ideas. Recently one came to me and said that the members of a certain Church were “treating against her.” She had spent restless nights, and terrible things had happened because this sect had such power. Where is God and what is God? And then, a little bit later, the same person came to me and said that the members of her own Church were practicing the same thing on her and had threatened her with all sorts of evil if she failed to do as they said.
Do you not think it is about time for you to awake, and arise from the pigsty of Conscious-Thinking and go unto your Father? Going prodigal means a lot more things than just eating and drinking and riotous living. It means going into the filthy Conscious-Thinking created by persons and peddled about in the name of the Christ. Teaching filled with fear, cursing, and hatred. Do you not think it is about time for you to “Arise and go unto your Father” and leave all these husks to those who trade in such theories?
Certainly they get results from it, just as the jungle witchdoctor gets results from his voodoo practices. But both they and he must be sure of one thing, and that is that the “patient” knows he is being worked upon. And this very necessary step uncovers the whole thing as a process of Conscious-Thinking. You are your own devil and your own evil power. Whenever you recognize evil you embody it, and it takes up active warfare against you. Jacob struggling all night with the angel found out that he was doing the whole thing himself. So he loosed it and let it go. How wonderful when you loose the fear that the issues of life and death are in the keeping of a person, and know that the issues of life are in God, and that as long as you are knowing God you are verging into Life Eternal.
“Stand and see the salvation of the Lord”-no wonder the Sons of God shout for joy; they are being freed, not from a god of evil, but from their own Conscious-Thinking.
“Who did hinder ye?” What are you going to answer to this when you are confronted with it? One woman came to me and said that she had been told if she read certain books or went to certain places she would be cursed. Cursing does not proceed from God-we are in the new day, when the God of Love has come, and in this recognition lies your sudden and complete escape from the beliefs of witchcraft, modern or ancient.
Dressed in a new garment, evil may be presented to you as Truth, but if you are staying by the teachings of Jesus Christ you will not be deceived. God is Love. Is it Love? Answer me.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” “Awake, and arise from the dead.” There is no mediator between God and man except Jesus Christ. Why will you look to another and get yourself involved with the ideas of a man? “Little children, let no man deceive you.” If you are not following after a man, there is no danger of your being deceived. If you are following after a God of Love you will hear nothing, see nothing, and allow nothing but Love to enter your mind, and you will not be troubled by the “cursing” or the “treating” against you. You will be so busy contemplating the Power that you will have no time to set others right. “Vengeance is mine”-it is not in the keeping of any man.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Do you believe it? Or do you have to run to a person to see whether you are right or wrong, or if someone is working against you or can work against you? When you “stand and see the salvation of the Lord,” you see something which makes you know that “Those that are for thee are more than those that are against thee.” “Be still.” “Be still”-it is well. Do you understand the message I have written to you between the lines of this book?
“God is not mocked”-and so you do not need to fear that any can use this glorious Power in the name of evil.
Put the “coal of fire upon your lips”—know nothing, say nothing, and I will show you something not written in books or spoken by man.
“Yet a little while”—do you hear?
Christ Jesus came to fulfill, not to destroy. Do you hear?
“Call upon Me and I will answer you.” Do not work against those who are “working against you.” You are too busy with the Word of God to be bothered with such futile activity which only beats itself against imaginary principalities. “Nothing shall separate you from the Love of God.” Do you hear? Then of what are you afraid? If nothing can separate you from the Love of God, the hate of man is consumed like a feather in a blast furnace. Stay a little on this Love, “wait patiently on Him and He shall bring it to pass.” It doesn’t say maybe, or perhaps, or if, or but it says “He shall bring it to pass,” and if He brings His Love to pass in your life you have little or no concern about the hatred, which you have imagined being directed toward you, having any results. When He brings it to pass, you will not be able to find the “place thereof” of hatred any more.
“Follow Me”—come out of the bog of imagination which is filled with all evil and uncleanness and which is the hell of the Conscious-Thinking. It is in Conscious-Thinking that you create the hellish manifestations from which you suffer. “Follow Me”—your attention is taken away from the mirage of the double vision and is seeing the Love of God from which nothing can separate you.
“What is that to thee? Follow thou Me” carries such a nobility of the Spirit with it that it dwarfs the mountains of Conscious-Thinking. The Divine indifference to the appearances accompanied by the integrity of soul lifts you above the whole mirage, and when you look again the place thereof is no more.
“What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” Do you hear? If you will do this, you will find that your accusers or your “cursers” are no more. They have fled into the shadows of their own wilderness and hell of Conscious-Thinking. All that they offered you in the way of fear is an actual reality to them.
“The Lord is in His Holy Temple—let all the earth rejoice.” The Lord—in His Holy Temple—your embodiment. Does it not thrill you that this glorious Power is in the midst of you, and through you, and round about you, and that nothing can separate you from the Love of God? Nothing—not anything—person, place, organization, nor condition-can keep you from the Love of God. Only your Conscious-Thinking can so obscure the view as to make it appear all distorted by judging from appearances. “Believest thou this?” Believest thou that I Am able to do this unto you? Do you believe in the Love of God as transcending all the hate of the Conscious-Thinking, or do you believe a pygmy intellect, swelling itself with all sorts of imaginative power, can control, destroy, harm, or direct your path? “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths” is just as true today as when it was first said. What do you care about the opinions and beliefs of another if your path is being directed by Him? Be still! Be very still! You have something to hear that does not come through the noisy voice of man. It is wonderful-and so it is.
Chapter Fourteen
I RECEIVED a letter from New York while sojourning in Florida which contained the following:
“The report has gone around that you died last week. Of course we know it is not true, but how do these things get started?”
I had to reply to this letter somewhat after the following manner:
“In the language of Mark Twain I must say that the report of my death is greatly exaggerated—and yet somehow or other the same report is true.”
The offices of death are many. According to St. Paul, death is one of the most helpful and necessary things that can be performed. He advised the habit of dying daily, and this prefaced the glorious possibility of being born daily also. There is something back of the “idea” death which is replete with substance for meditation.
Death brings with it oblivion—-a blotting out, as it were. In reality it can only occur on the plane of changeable manifestation. There is no possibility for death to enter the precincts of the Changeless Life of Spirit.
When you die to anything you are through with it. Just as in the relative sense of the word when a man dies he is immediately separated from all his possessions; good, bad, or indifferent. His debts are cancelled as far as he is concerned. His estate is disintegrated almost immediately, and no longer is attached to him. Like a cloud of dust in a hurricane, his entire affairs are scattered in all directions. When the dust settles, the “place thereof is no more” and the particles have gone into another pattern.
Not understanding Life, the greatest enemy is death. It deprives Life of its manifestation. When Jesus became conscious of Life, he could pass in and out of the shadow called death almost as if passing through a purifying fire. When he arose from what appeared to be physical death, even his disciples did not recognize him until he allowed himself to take on enough of the former beliefs, to which he had died, for them to do so. All along the way to Emmaus, they could not distinguish the man with whom they had been for three years.
“I have power to pick it up or lay it down.”
The “I,” of which we so often speak, and which Jesus designated as the Father, has power to pick up the embodiment (pick it up so completely that it has none of the limitations of belief) or to lay it down. Hence this very “I” can cause the body (its own embodiment) to become lighter than water, to transcend all laws of cohesion, adhesion, gravity, and inertia, even interference and resistance-cause it to pass through the crowds and even to the “other side of the lake.” All this is outside of the relative beliefs, and still in the midst of them.
“In the world but not of it.”
We are not going to Heaven, but we are performing “death” in the belief that we are in hell, trying to work our way into Heaven, through a never-ending corridor of problems.
“The Power of Life and Death are in the tongue.”
There is a fearless approach to the word death in this sense, an almost friendly idea. It appears to be one of the cleansing agencies. To die daily, as Paul instructs, is to be born daily. It is a letting go of used ideas, and a taking up of new and fresh possibilities, without any “hang overs” or memories or beliefs. “The former things shall pass away; they shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more.”
“The Power of Life and Death”—surely this is not the evil power from which the human maid shrinks in terror. It is the redeemed “idea” from which the “sting” has been removed. “Nothing shall be destroyed in all my Holy Mountain.” In this day we are reclaiming all the lost enemies and making them into friends.
To tell Jesus of a death was not to upset or startle him. He did not seem to be any more moved than when he heard of a blind man, or a poor man, asking for aid, even though the evidences of the death had gone so far that the greatest imagination of the human mind could not possibly piece the body together again. He went into the tombs and pronounced the “Lazarus come forth” which brought about results.
When the eagle is born or hatched, it means death to a thing or a state of things called “egg”—that much is sure. The former things which were true about the egg are no longer true about the eagle. It is under a different set of beliefs entirely. As an inanimate egg it is acted upon, but with the death of the egg it acts. All the beliefs that were true of the egg fall away for ever.
“Marvel not, ye must be born again”—and in this new process it is impossible to carry any of the old estate with you. Many are seeking the new birth, but they do not want to go through death to get it. In other words they want to hold on to old ideas, and at the same time try to express new capacities. It is quite as impossible for a caterpillar to fly as it is for an egg; both must perform the death upon the thing of which they want to be rid, and re-embody themselves with the new idea, before they can attain the expression they are seeking.
When you learn the proper interpretation of the word “death” you will see that it becomes a friend, for it is a cleansing process. It is a letting go completely and ascending to a place where the former things cannot enter in, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the present manifestation. Instead of getting rid of things temporarily, man dies completely to the idea and its manifestation. In the new place he finds himself as incapable of experiencing his former limitations as an eagle flying over the abyss would have in experiencing the cramped quarters of the eggshell from which it evolved.
“Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee Light”; “Awake and arise from the dead.”
It is only because the idea of life is transient, and because it is dependent upon muscles and brain, that man is afraid of death. He is in constant fear of it because with his limited sense of life he knows that it will eventually overtake him. When the new arrives, and man begins to sense the idea of Life Eternal, then the fear of death is transferred into an intelligent understanding of the power of Death, which is mentioned as being in the tongue. It is a power to crack the shell of limitation or rip open the cocoon and free the new expression into a place already prepared for it.
“I go to prepare a place for you”—is the assurance that Spirit makes to the awakened soul. Just as the place for the butterfly or the eagle is already prepared for it before it cracks its shell or opens its cocoon, so the place is prepared for you when you die to the shell of consciousness which is holding you in the present irksome limitations.
But man in his limited concept of life fears death because he thinks of it as oblivion. He thinks of life as having a beginning and an ending—but life has no beginning or ending any more than an egg or a seed has a beginning or an ending. Give it a chance and it will drop off one limitation after another and constantly come forth anew.
“This is life eternal to know Me,” and the only place you can know this Me is in the locality indicated by Jesus—i.e. within your consciousness. It does not say this is a life which endures for a few years and then lets go, but states without qualification, “this [the here and now] is life eternal.” It is getting “nigh unto us,” no matter how the shell of your present beliefs has cramped you. Presently you shall let it go; you shall die to it, and to many other things, in the truest sense of the word, and shall be born again into the new state of being.
“Give up, let go, call down a blessing,” is not a supine drifting into all sorts of chaotic conditions, as many mistakenly believe. Until you understand in some measure the importance of death and life you cannot let go of anything.
“Death and Life are in the Power of the tongue.” “Only speak the Word and my servant shall be healed.”
Every time the word of Life is spoken it means death to some belief—a dropping off of some manifestation which is held in place by conscious thinking. Yes, the Power of Life and Death is in the tongue, and the Power of Life Eternal is within the contemplation of the Me, which Jesus discovered for all of us.
A tiny plant starts from its cell and the seed dies. It pushes forth a bud, the flower comes, and the scales or outer leaves die, the flower is born. The fruit pushes out into manifestation and the flower dies, and so it goes ever on and upward into the more glorious manifestation of Heaven here and now. The never-ending merging into new and lovelier states takes place when you are ready to die, and when the “last enemy” has become the friend and the “sting” has been taken from it.
With Life we think in terms of Light; with death we think in terms of darkness. The offices of death are oblivion to that which is outgrown and of no further use. If you have not already died to much of the conscious thinking of yester-years, you are suffering from arrested or retarded mental development. A memory of an accident hovers about with all the conscious thinking that went with it at the time. The mind fixed upon the fortune that it once had and lost, or the health or friends that it once enjoyed and has no more, has not performed the death that Paul so advocates. It is the chick half out of its shell.
“Awake, and arise from the dead.” When Jesus aroused Lazarus, he brought him out of the tomb, and when he resurrected himself he also came out of the tomb. He laid aside the grave-clothes and cast off the sweet-smelling garments that had been the badge of the conscious thinking death, and came out from all of “them” and was free. So when you have gone through the death process and let go of a thing, then “arise” and go forth out of the tomb of conscious thinking and do not stand holding on to the beliefs with which you have finished.
“Ah! but what if one has the scars such as Jesus had?” Did it ever occur to you that unless Jesus chose to show the scars they apparently were not visible-that for the moment he descended to the point of conscious thinking where Thomas (who could only believe by seeing with the human eye could see? No blessing went with Thomas finding out about the resurrection. “Blessed is he that believes and does not see.” Blessed is that one who does not have to handle with his hand the unseen thing of Spirit. That one will be able to see and handle and experience the hidden things. It is wonderful!
It is wonderful when you contemplate the Power of Death in its resurrected sense-when you begin dying in the true sense of the word. All you can die to is conscious thinking. In the conscious thinking lies all the substance of the evils of your daily life.
The conscious thinking of Jesus was that of a carpenter. He admitted that he could do nothing of himself. When he died to this, he gave up all the limitations of it, and moved by the process of birth into the Father Consciousness, where none of the former limitations came into play or had anything whatsoever to do with him. He did not graft the Christ power upon a Jesus consciousness, as many people have tried to do, and make it his own teaching. “My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent me”—into expression. He dropped off the limitations of Jesus in order to appropriate the Consciousness of the Christ, and the two became one, just as the egg and the eaglet become one—one being lost into the other—absorbed—made one—Whole.
“He that heareth my Word [singular] and believeth on Him that sent me, hath Everlasting Life, and shall not come into condemnation; but hath passed from death unto Life.”
Note the singular tense of Word, which indicates a Power upon which may be strung or shaped the thousands of sounds called languages. The Word of God is singular, one, whole; the “words” of man are legion—they are good, bad, and indifferent all at once. The Word that shall not return unto you void is the Word of God, which is not circumscribed in the narrow confines of human language.
Note, then, that when you hear the Word there is a passage through the idea of death into Life Eternal; in other words, you pass from a limited sense of life into Life Eternal because you die to the limitation of it all. “Hath” passed—-at that very instant he finds himself through the death of the limitation of the separation of life, into the Life which is indivisible and which cannot be separated from its innate qualities.
Gradually the idea of Death is assuming its proper function. The last enemy is being “overcome”; the fear of it is being slowly but surely removed by the recognition that life is eternal, and that the ascended body, or the body which is spiritualized as was the body of Jesus Christ, is a present possibility. No matter how remote the manifestation may be from you; no matter whether or not you know anyone who has already accomplished it; no matter what an avalanche of testimony there may be against it-the urge persists, and the “feel” that it is so has eventually taken away some of the fear of the “last enemy.” Only the things you fear can come upon you-little by little you are passing from death into Life.
“The hour cometh, and now is, in which all they that are in the tombs [of human belief) shall hear His voice and shall rise.”
When you hear not with the ear, but with the consciousness of the Presence, you will arise from your tomb.
Is God a God of the living or the dead?
Saul pursued the even tenor of his way. He was endeavouring to establish the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. Suddenly he was blinded by the light of revelation and died to the Saul part of his nature. Saul was like the shell of the egg which gave way before the new manifestation. He must have died to a great many things at that moment, just as you will die to much when you perceive the Light.
It is recorded that Saul was blinded by the Light. It is one thing to be blinded by the Light and another to be blinded by the dust of appearances. Many people become blinded by the light of another. They are so curious about how another “works” the truth that they are unable to see their own light. Looking at the revelation made by another, instead of perceiving the revelation within your own Kingdom, turns the heart to resentment and envy, even though it be very humble on the surface.
In the new birth which takes place every time a man dies the light of revelation blinds him, so wonderfully full of manifestation is it, and this very light is death to the past limitations.
And so death when properly understood becomes the friendly enemy. It is that which throws a veil of oblivion to outgrown or cast—off limitations and causes the Magdalene to look about and see that she has no accusers. Suddenly she is dead to the thing called harlot and all that has gone with it, and she is born at the same instant to something that cannot experience or understand the former state of things.
The friendly enemy has released her.
Chapter Fifteen
“IN ALL thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall bring it to pass.” When you begin to acknowledge Him in “all thy ways,” no matter what the appearances are, you will see the instant and perfect action of Him and the embodiment of such an acknowledgment. The acknowledgment of the Presence and the resting from appearances will satisfy the hunger of five thousand beliefs in any desert. Appearances may be entirely to the contrary, just as they were in the miracle of the loaves and fishes, but when Jesus “raised his eyes to Heaven and gave thanks” he acknowledged the Presence which immediately brought “it to pass.”
As you move further into the idea of acknowledging Him, you will be surprised how the “borders of your tent” are enlarged. You will begin to “acknowledge Him” in the most adverse situation or condition, and presently you will extend this acknowledgment until- you find Him in hell. This acknowledgment is not the mere repetition of words, not the repeating of an affirmation, but the recognition of the Presence everywhere. Gradually you will begin to see the results of this “acknowledgment”—it is always in the nature of thanks for something received. It has the spirit of the finished thing. It is in no way speculative or problematical.
When you come to the point of “acknowledging Him” in all your ways you will see how utterly impossible it is for you to assist in bringing “it to pass.” “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” After you have acknowledged the Presence you will receive full and definite instructions as to your part in bringing “it to pass.”
“Heaven and earth are full of thee”—the unseen is filled with God, and it is only waiting the “acknowledgment” to come forth. The manifestation which takes place from this acknowledgment is as steam turning to ice.
Even in hell (of beliefs), if you will but acknowledge Him He shall bring it to pass, and change the burning, futile thoughts into heavenly peace and quiet. The “peace which passeth all understanding” often results from the acknowledgment of the Presence in the midst of the evil which has seemed so real and terrible.
Gradually man is beginning to see the difference between the Presence and the intermittent demonstrations of Power. It is true that a parrot could be taught to recite the rules of a difficult problem, yet it could not solve a problem. A child may memorize the working of a single problem, yet if the next problem deviates from the straight and narrow way of his memory but a fraction, he is lost, bewildered, and unable to “get the answer.” When you seek Me after the loaves and fishes you cannot find Me, for you have mistaken appearances for Realities, and have failed to comprehend the Principle. When you call upon the Principle, when you recognize the Presence, then you are ready to make the “acknowledgment of Him” in the midst of the evil appearance, which is called problem. No sooner is this done than the problem is swallowed up in the appearances of the fulfilled acknowledgment. Read —Romans 8:38-39.
Nothing can or will separate you from this Presence but your own Conscious-Thinking, your failure to acknowledge Him. “Love is the fulfilling of the Law,” and this Love is something from which you cannot possibly be separated.
Prayer takes on a new meaning—it has long since left the beseeching, begging states of consciousness, and attained the glorious radiance of acknowledgment.
“In all thy ways”—in every way—thy going out and thy coming in, in the ways of business, and in the ways of leisure —in all thy ways. Suddenly a new glory hovers over the whole of creation. “Heaven and earth are full of Thee,” and the fulfilling of the Law takes place through Love and not through the ugly trials and experiences of the Conscious-Thinking. “In all thy ways”—no way is too small to acknowledge Him; it becomes a joy and a glory to “feel” this Presence in everything.
The dread of appearances goes. It is replaced by the magnificent acknowledgment of the Presence. To enter a place filled with testimony of evil is to bring such a consciousness to bear upon it that many will instantly receive their light. Remember that Jesus knew, “I can of myself do nothing,” and this gives you a wonderful opportunity to start at the same place, i.e., “I can do all things through Christ Jesus.”
As you sit in the place of quiet and realize that no measurement of the Conscious-Thinking can separate you from the Love of God, and that this very Love is the fulfilling of the Law, here and now, you can see why the command is given, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall bring it to pass.”
Chapter Sixteen
It is recorded that Jesus, before bringing into manifestation the endless flow of substance in the form of bread and fish, lifted up his eyes to Heaven and said, “Thank you, Father.” It is also recorded that he said something after this fashion: “Thank you, Father, I knew that it was done, but these about did not, so I said Thank you, Father, so they would see that something was being done.”
The mere saying of “Thank you, Father,” has no more power to cause the Heavens (state of consciousness) to open and the blessing to pour into manifestation than any other group of words. Thousands of metaphysical people over the world have reiterated the words in all degrees of intensity without so much as an indication of the embodiment of the thing for which they gave thanks. How did Jesus differ in his “Thank you, Father,” from the ordinary saying of the words?
A parrot can be taught to quote the Scripture, and may have free use of the words of Jesus, but no wonderful changes seem to happen because of this. He does not seem to be in any better condition than his brother parrot who is filled to overflowing with profanity.
Certainly nothing is truer than, “The letter without the spirit is dead,” whether it be a parrot, a man, or a gramophone record. Reeling off the sayings of Jesus has proved futile in solving the difficulties of the human race. Still, in following the Master we find him applying exactly this simple thing, “Thank you, Father,” and getting results which are hopelessly beyond the comprehension of the human thought.
Who should think that we can say a word and cause the Power to come into manifestation? You do not run about in the relative world saying “thank you” for things you do not receive. How much less, then, will this trick work in the realm of Spirit?
When you receive a gift you usually give thanks, which is an acknowledgment of the reception and an expression of appreciation of it at the same time. But you get little satisfaction, nor do you expect much result for thanking somebody for something which he has not given you.
Gradually the consciousness moves up to a place of clearer perception and begins to see that Jesus came to the place of full acceptance of the gift before he gave the thanks. His constant recognition of the Power here, there, and everywhere enabled Him to give thanks immediately, and then the Power manifested after the fashion of His appointing. No man can direct the power of God, and the moment he tries to do so finds himself dealing with imagination.
“Believest thou that I Am able to do this?” or are you believing in something that was invented in the present century which is wound about with personal doctrines and teachings? Do you believe in something that Jesus invented? He did not invent anything. “Before Abraham was, I Am” was what he adhered to. What do you cling to? Whose “system” of ideas are you following? These are questions we must all answer for ourselves. The answers will only be interesting to the individual.
Have you ever said “Thank you, Father,” and actually believed that what you thanked the Father for was already there? Why not be honest? Perhaps you have wished it, or hoped for it, or beseeched God for it, but that is not the question that has to be answered. Did you ever find yourself saying “Thank you, Father,” and believing that it was done? if so, you saw it manifested before your very eyes in a manner and after a fashion of the appointing of God.
The moment you try in any way to assist the Power, you only add to the fog of human limitations that already covers the “glass darkly” through which you are gazing. Looking through the “glass darkly” is merely looking through the limitations of your Conscious-Thinking-hence everybody is looking through a different fog of thinking and everybody sees something different. Jesus understood this and said, “I can of myself do nothing”; “Call not me good.” Perhaps you know of someone of this present race or time who can do something, and who feels that he or she is indeed very holy? I have met many sanctified ones, but I prefer to stay by Jesus the Master. If he could not be called “good,” no one who has come since is entitled to the name. How about it? Who are you?
I speak to you from out the deep inspiration. “My sheep hear My voice”—they hear with the inner and “seeing” ear. They perceive that which is back of the “Thank you, Father.” It is the pure recognition.
Affirmations are only so many words as long as you think because you repeat them you can change anything. Affirmations that come from the recognition of Spirit form themselves and precede the actual manifestation of which they speak.
You will find with the commands of Jesus something indicated in the Spirit which is not apparent on the surface. The Word “Go thou and do likewise” is a mockery from the standpoint of words. You have no more ability to do the works of the Father than Jesus had. He recognized his limitations and did not try to make that happen which he knew at the outset he could not do. When you are told, “Go thou and do likewise,” you either do, or you stop to find out how it is done, or argue about it and find out what others think about the possibilities of your doing it. I can tell you frankly you either “do” the works, or you talk of and about them and measure the possibilities of God through the limitations of your human thinking.
“Go thou into all the world and preach the gospel.” You will soon hear the Secret Word which, when it tells you to do a thing, also opens to your consciousness the fact that you have the power to accomplish the “whereunto it is sent.” Until you recognize this you are trying to see whether “John Smith” can accomplish it or not, and he cannot. “Awake, thou that sleepest!” There is no human reasoning that will enable you to “do” the works that Jesus did and yet you have to “do” them. Until you recognize this glowing Presence which doeth the works, you will be so hedged about with the limitations that you will give up. When you once come to the understanding that you do not have to do the works, you will permit the works to flow through into manifestation. You will understand the Power of the Word, “Thank you, Father,” the full recognition of the thing taking place here and now. And also you will so completely shift the “how, why, when, and where” of the embodiment of that which you have accepted as to forget about it all.
Whatsoever you tell the Father in secret, with that will He reward you openly. Do you believe it? Do you believe that you are able to tell the Father of the acceptance of that which your soul urges upon you to bring into manifestation? Can you “ask, believing ye have already received”? Do not fool yourself—this cannot possibly be done by the human mind. It is an insult to the intellect to ask for something you have already received. Do you see why Jesus was so successful with the manifestation? He could “Thank the Father” and rest in the glorious possibilities of “I have a way ye know not of.” If, then, the ways of Spirit are past finding out, why waste any more time trying to burrow into the secrets of the “birthing” process of Spirit? Isn’t it sufficient to rest in the consciousness that you have given thanks and have accepted the gift? Are you ready to accept it?
“Go thou and do likewise.” When you once hear it beyond the limits of human hearing, you become conscious of the Power to “do” it. A list of opportunities are assigned you: raise the dead, open the eyes of the blind, open the ears of the deaf, preach the gospel, and many other things, none of which you can even approach in the slightest way. Who among you would attempt to “open the eyes of the blind,” much less to say to a man born blind, hence without eyes, “Open your eyes,” and yet you are told “Go thou and do likewise.”
Just what must have taken place when the man born blind opened his eyes is enough to make an anatomist faint with bewilderment. Presuming that everybody knows something about the structure of the eye, try in your imagination or thinking to thread the delicate nerves, which do not yet exist, into and through equally intricate muscles which control the eye; and perhaps after that is accomplished you may say, “Open your eyes.”
Do you see how hopeless it is for you even to think of it? And yet you are told, “Go thou and do likewise.” What a hopeless feeling when you measure your limitations by thought. Can you do it? Do you believe it? Can you speak theword? All of this glorious revelation is being poured over you now. You are in the flood of seeing light, perceiving that, no matter where you stand in the scale of things, when you suddenly understand what it is that “does” the things, your liabilities or assets as a human being have nothing to do with the case.
To the men of Athens, who were so amazed at the Power displayed by the disciples, the encouraging message was given, “Ye men of Athens—we are men like unto you—with like appetites, passions, habits,” etc.
Beloved, do you begin to see the secret doctrine which the Master gave us, and which is beginning to appear through the density of human thinking?
“When ye pray”—then follows the strict instruction: “Believe that ye receive and it shall be so.” That is all-so simple, so direct, and so gloriously uninvolved with modern teaching and thought. There are no qualifications; as far as results are concerned it says, “And it shall be so.” Have you ever prayed this prayer of recognition? Have you ever let go of your unworthiness or your worthiness long enough to sense this enormous surge of the Presence as it passes through into embodiment?
Come away from the “man whose breath is in his nostrils” or else he will tell you, “Well, when you want money you say this word, or this affirmation.” Or, “You do as I tell you to do; and when you want health you say this statement or this group of words,” and you will follow carefully after him and nothing will happen. The infinite power of Spirit is not so limited that it has to show itself twice after the same fashion. If you believe that “I have a way ye know not of,” then why do you try to know that I must function the same as you as for John Smith? Are you beginning to see what the integrity of Spirit requires of you?
“No man shall see my face and live”—you die instantly you see the face of God. The moment you conceive the Presence of the Power you die to the limitations you were experiencing up to that time, and you go from one “glory” to another into the radiant realm of the here and now of Spirit.
Yes, it is true that when you begin to come by the way of God you cease in a degree to come by the way of man, and the results follow. “The signs follow, they do not precede,” is Scriptural language. If you know this and can give thanks, accepting and recognizing the Presence, then can you see the dry land appear out of the water. It is asking for a great deal,
,,dry land” out of water; this cannot be; and so the old human mind finds so many things that cannot happen, and presently he has God reduced to a glorified man, with the same limitations plus a tyrannical power and an emotional yielding to verbiage. The old man with the long white beard and the book of records comes in again with all his limitations and his favouritism.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” “Awake, and arise from the dead.” Do you hear—you who read this page?
And “Jesus lifted up his eyes to Heaven and said, `Thank you, Father.’ ” To where does he lift his eyes? Where is Heaven, and where is the Father? Keep your awareness of the Presence close at hand. The nearness, and the naturalness of Life should eventually overtake you, and you should find it a natural thing to call upon your Father and expect the answer. But unless it can come about by His own appointing you miss it.
Having sensed the Nature of the Presence, you begin to see why “whatsoever things you ask for in My Name [nature], that give I unto you” is possible; in other words, whatsoever you can find in the Presence, that can you bring into manifestation.
Beloved ! The thrill of the Light that comes when you catch even the merest glimpse of this lovely revelation, “Go thou and do likewise,” is so replete with evidence that you will know.
One vista after another becomes visible as you emerge into this sea of the Presence and are one with everything you find therein. You will stop the silly process of trying to draw a few small fishes from the sea of life and you will move with the great Presence. Never mind what the man-in-the-street is saying—if you do not salute him, you will not have to answer his inane arguments that God is all but that He is powerless to do the things which he (the man-in-the-street finds impossible. “Agree with your adversary quickly.” If he wants to believe in sickness and evil, limitations and disaster, as ways and means of manifesting the Power, who are you to deprive him of this pleasure? Why not agree with him? Of course, this does not say you have accepted the crude thought theories which limit God to doing the things which man finds possible. So let the man on the highway alone. If your light is shining and he comes to find out “why,” then you can speak the word. Do not be afraid—plenty will see the light and come to hear the word through you. “Go into all the world and preach the gospel.” “The works that I do ye shall do also.”
No satisfaction will come until you accept and acknowledge the Presence as able to do that which is demanded of you to do.
Let go of the little personality which always tries to justify life by its own limitations. Understand that you are not going to “do” it because you have no capacity. Come to that lovely state of surrender which automatically says with the Master, “I can of myself do nothing.” It is God that worketh through you—are you afraid to acknowledge freely and gloriously that God can and does accomplish what He will?
“Go into all the world”—yes, you can “go” and preach the good spell—preach the Presence of something which can and does accomplish something more than talking of and about a remote Power called God.
Do you begin to sense the power to “do” and “go” which comes into your possession when you can accept the command?
“Go thou and do likewise.”
“Thank you, Father.”
Chapter Seventeen
THE girl with a club foot who wanted to dance; the caterpillar that wanted to fly; the tadpole that wanted to leap; the seed that wanted to flood the world with perfume; the poor man who wanted to breathe the air of freedom for a few moments; the diseased one who wanted to know ease.
All of these, and you, must be born again. I know that it is as impossible for you as it was for Nicodemus. I know there is no possibility for you to perform the birth process or to change the “vile” body, and yet this is just what has to take place.
“Consider the lilies” is not such a far-fetched and fantastic idea after all. We have considered the way of man and found that he cannot make a dancer out of a club-footed girl. Neither can he make a butterfly out of a caterpillar. Nor can he make the egg spread its wings and float lazily, with abandon, over the fathomless chasm. None of these things can be accomplished. The more effort put forth to make them take place, the less is accomplished.
“You must be born again.” Marvel not. “I have a way ye know not of.” Definite laws govern all birth. One of these is secrecy—absolute secrecy. No meddling “helpers” can aid the butterfly or the eagle or the dancer. They only mar that which is coming into being.
In the first place, few believe you can be born again. Do you? Do you believe W is possible for you to be born again? And, since you cannot perform this process yourself, are you willing and ready to come under the deep secret laws of “letting” the gestation take place in the silence of your heart? Behind the eggshell which appears to be limitation, within the cramped cocoon which swings through the winter gale on the branch of a tree, a new birth is taking place. Be still; all of a sudden the shell cracks; the cocoon gives way; the club foot stretches itself out of its cramped position, and limbers itself up with joy. In the new consciousness into which you have gone (the new mansion in your Father’s house) the former things have passed away, and with them all the limitations and the symbols of them.
We are not trying to make a demonstration of the overcoming of disease; the consciousness we are seeking is ease, and there is no disease there, never has been, never could be, and never will be, for it simply does not find expression or recognition in that mansion.
Looking at the limitations a caterpillar presents when it comes to flying, you come to the conclusion that it is impossible. And so it is. It is not possible to fashion wings on the caterpillar and make it fly, any more than it is possible for you to dance with the club foot.
Jesus did not examine into the nature of the limitations about him. When he increased the loaves and fishes, but one thing was necessary. He did not consider the limitations at all. In the “mansion” in which the five thousand hungry men were functioning there was insufficient food, so it was of no use for Jesus to remain in that “mansion” (that state of consciousness). “He raised his eyes to Heaven.” He went into the new “mansion” and found there abundance. It was as natural for abundance to flow from that state of consciousness as it was for limitation to be manifested in the other.
“Believest thou that I Am able to do this for thee?” Certainly, if it is to be done, it will have to be done in a “way ye know not of”; for you have exhausted all known ways and failed.
Do you begin to understand something of the new Consciousness into which Jesus entered, wherein that which men call miraculous is natural law? He was doing nothing of himself, and did not take credit for it, any more than you take credit for breathing as a personal achievement. It is just natural to your present state of consciousness. You do not marvel at it, and yet it is one of the most marvelous things imaginable. It is so obvious; it is foolish to mention it. So is it with the “mansions” in my Father’s house. The new consciousness embodies itself easily and naturally, and supplies all that is necessary function in the new expression.
Taking your attention from the appearances, and judging righteous judgment, seem to be impossibilities to the Conscious-Thinking, and so they are. That is just the point of difference between the man-way and the God-way. Remembering that “With God all things are possible” is the basis of the New Revelation. The fact that the proposition appears as impossible to you offers no dismay or further discouragement. You are entering into the Father-consciousness, wherein the impossible of the previous state is the possible; it is natural—yes, just as natural as it was unnatural in the former state.
The moment Jesus took his attention, not his sight, away from the appearances, and placed it upon the Presence, he began the “righteous judgment,” or the speaking-out that which he perceived on the new plane or in the new Consciousness. He spoke not of himself and his limitations but of the Power which had sent him into expression. You cannot speak of yourself and your limitations if you wish to do and accomplish the impossible. It is wonderful the way the light is breaking over you.
The cold, hard intellect of the Conscious-Thinking melts into the limitless wisdom of God when you loose it arid let it go, when you free it from the narrow parentheses of your personality. The emotional love becomes divine, and the substance you now possess, even though it be but three drops of oil, becomes the flowing stream of Life. As it passes through the Garden of your body and universe it waters it abundantly, and causes all the barren places to produce.
Listen, then, to the direct instructions on ways and means of seeing the Kingdom of Heaven:
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God…. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
The Kingdom of God of which Jesus spoke so often is the fulfillment of your true destiny. In order for this fulfillment to take place you must be born again. You can do nothing of yourself, so there is no use trying. The possibility of a New Birth looms large with new prospects. The old Conscious-Thinking, with its limitations, must give way in order that the New Vision may become real, just as the shell, cocoon, and husk must give way for the new manifestation.
“No man has ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven, even the son of man which is in Heaven.”
Please note the words “even” and “which.” They are singled out for your special attention, to show that no exception is ever made. The abstract quality of “which” causes you to realize that Principle is being spoken of.
Little by little we are beginning to see the light through the crannies in the text. We are not going to overtake something new; we are merely rising to something we have already known. We are returning to a state we have already experienced. We are ascending to the place of recognition in order that we may descend into manifestation. It is a wonderful revelation, this being born again—this dying daily.
The refreshing sense that comes to the tired seeker of the Truth, when he realizes definitely that he is not in the business of creating a Heaven out of his Conscious-Thinking, is the “rest” that is spoken of in the Bible.
If you cannot do it, if you cannot perform the wonder of the miracle, remember Jesus also said, “I can of myself do nothing.” When you come to this extremity, then it is God’s opportunity. Are you afraid that God will miss His opportunity? Aren’t you glad that suddenly you realize that your extremity is God’s opportunity? Jesus recognized it every time he was faced with a problem. He immediately recognized that he had reached his extremity, and joyously turned it over to the Power. The opportunity that is given over to God is fulfilled in a way and after a fashion that is past finding out. What an opportunity it becomes!
For your own satisfaction trace through the text and see the extremity of Jesus and the opportunity of God. See if it were possible for Jesus to have bettered the situation through any human reasoning. He was born again constantly-born into the oneness with the Father and co-operated with the opportunity of God.
When, then, you have come to the extremity, instead of taking the fearful, terrified state of mind, remember that Jesus recognized this state instantly as the point at which the manifestation came through. “In the twinkling of an eye” is very rapid, and the “look again” is even more so. The opportunity of God is not taken advantage of by the slow speed of the fastest moving concept of the human mind. Yes, “I have a way ye know not of” and can never know, because “not even the Son, but the Father knows.” Be still; the “still small voice” has something to say to you. It is about to “speak” itself into manifestation because you have at last given it an opportunity.
The word extremity out-pictures something terrifying to the Conscious-Thinking. When it is understood as an opportunity of God, or the end of Conscious-Thinking, it is instantly turned into the doorway of the new manifestation. In other words, you have reached a point in your on-going where the opportunity of God is ready to be fulfilled. The simple instructions to take your attention away from the appearances, to be silent before Me; to see that you tell no man; and to salute no man on the highway, all take on new values in this new light of your extremity and God’s opportunity. The man-in-the-street may repeat over and over, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,” but when it comes to putting it into practice he immediately signs it off as a mere platitude.
Remembering that God sent not His Son into the world to condemn, you begin to see the futility of trying to rid yourself of evil while you are in a constant state of condemnation. The Christ came to fulfill, and this cannot take place unless you give him the opportunity to do so. Jesus gave God the opportunity by coming into a full recognition that he could do nothing of himself, after which he did not try to “help,” but gave thanks and stood ready to carry out the letter of the instructions which came to him from the Father within.
Because you realize that you can do nothing of yourself you do not become a helpless mass of protoplasm, waiting for something to pass through you. This realization is a beautiful state of readiness and surrender which says, “Here am I; send me”—a supreme Recognition of the Presence.
The New Birth sounds difficult—sounds impossible. Gradually the Light is coming, and man is seeing it as a sudden and radical turning from appearances, a letting of the opportunity of God into full and undisputed sway. The Government is upon His shoulders, and it calls for one hundred per cent co-operation from you, a willingness to follow through into the place of manifestation.
The dreams of the girl with the club foot, and the caterpillar, are only possible of manifestation when the attention is turned radically away from the appearances, and the New Birth is brought forth from the extremity-opportunity situation to which they have come. Born again, you are in a new consciousness —a new mansion; and you begin to discover things there that formerly came under the heading of demonstrations.
“As ye have borne the image of the earthly, so shall ye also bear the image of the heavenly.”
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” etc. That which comes from the Conscious-Thinking partakes of the nature of Conscious-Thinking, fraught with limitations and accidental law. The straining and struggling to “make” on the “extremity”-conscious plane gives place to the “let” on the “opportunity” plane of Spirit.
These things I have said unto you. Do you hear? “That your joy might be full.” It is wonderful! Yes! It can be accomplished and brought to pass if you will make it My opportunity instead of remaining longer in your extremity trying to find a few grains of wheat among the husks.
“Ye must be born again.”
Chapter Eighteen
CAUGHT in the Prison of Conscious-Thinking which is engendered by the long history of your case, there is no more escape for you than there was for Jesus. Human destiny will fulfill itself without a question of a doubt, and nothing can alter it or change the way of it except a man find the Christ within.
Your Prison House of Conscious-Thinking is made up of all the facts of your human nature. Your race, creed, colour, education, birth, breeding, personality, and all—these are the bars against which you are leaning and pressing, trying to escape when there is no escape. It is true that for the space of a moment or so you may shake yourself free from some of the hateful pictures, only to return again to your dungeon of hopelessness.
Jesus Christ came bringing the way of escape from this hateful destiny and heritage of evil. Realizing how futile it was to try to escape from the human destiny through the human mind, he early discovered that “I can of myself do nothing.” But—the moment he recognized the Presence he instantly not only dissolved the destiny that was functioning at that point, but revealed the picture of Heaven on earth. So sure of this was Jesus that he permitted his human destiny to function into the pictures all along the way, setting it aside at the last instant to show just what the Christ Power was, and how very instant and powerful it was when recognized.
To pause in the flurry of evil which has suddenly appeared in your human destiny, and Recognize the Presence, is to shatter all the evil circumstances and conditions, and to bring about the surprise which must have filled the Magdalene on looking round and finding “no man” there to accuse her. The picture of her human destiny was destruction—and all the elements of the climax were drawing in. There was no escape for her. The destiny was to be fulfilled. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole picture, so real and terrible, was shattered as if a secret force had blown it into nothingness. It is magical to the human sense that the thing which seems to be impossible becomes the natural action of the Power.
The worker of the impossible—the Christ within you—is not concerned with the hard, fast limitations of matter which can be dissolved and wiped out with more ease than dust may pass away in a hurricane.
Too long has man spent fighting the appearances—but, as the hateful destiny closes in upon him, he realizes he is at a point where the time is too short to argue, or set right, or do anything of himself: He is driven into an impasse—faced with the Red Sea—hedged in with the jagged cliffs, pursued by the armies of the Pharaoh—it is too late to make any kind of truce. As far as he is concerned the destiny has caught up with him, and it is about to take its “pound of flesh,” which means his life. No good to turn and fight against the appearances; they are too strong and terrible and real: the end of the whole thing is so evident. But at that instant Recognition of the Presence shatters, wipes out, and puts to flight that which seemed so inevitable.
It is thrilling to contemplate the Presence and the capacity of this Power which lies within every man; to realize that the Walls of Jericho, which seem so impassable and formidable, crumble away like so much sand. So does the Power raze the high walls which are shutting you away from your heaven.
So aware of this Power was Jesus that he even permitted the human destiny of death to function. “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” Where is the Father? And what are the angels? And what do you suppose would have happened to the hateful picture of his human destiny if he had chosen at that instant to recognize or call upon the Father?” “Whatsoever you ask in My name” would have come to pass, and the story of the Crucifixion would have been missing from the records. Gloriously he submitted to the severest test of the human destiny to show that nothing the human mind could do to him was real, or had power.
Moses putting his hand in his bosom and drawing it out white with leprosy, and replacing it again in his bosom and bringing it out in perfect health, indicates what the Power of the Christ within is capable of doing. Leprosy is not a disease which comes or goes at a moment’s notice, according to the dictates of man. Its end is death, and its course is hateful and ugly, going from one filthy manifestation to another-there is no cure for it, and yet!
Do you begin to see just what the Christ Consciousness is? It is not something which is used for the purpose of making demonstrations, but for lifting you into the Place where it is not necessary to fight with appearances and to work against evil. “Set yourself and see” is quite a different state of consciousness from that which goes out to clamour with the midnight and fight against principalities of darkness and the human destiny.
“If ye be in the Spirit, ye are no more under the law”—the law of what? The law of your own belief in your destiny. Jesus came setting aside the human patterns of life and showing man how to “come unto Me” instead of trying to “use Me” as a bottle of medicine. The moment man turns to this Power he automatically causes the entire outside picture to change, whether this be one of disease, sin, danger, fear, or any of the so-called laws of fate.
The Christ Power is not concerned with the working out of the human mind. It makes no difference how its laws are upset. When the man cannot account for an unexpected turn of events, which, according to his best findings, “could not possibly happen,” he charges it off to a coincidence, an act of God, or a misunderstanding on his part, and the sooner he can forget this irregularity the more he is pleased. It matters not how much the mortal mind and its beliefs are inconvenienced by the action of the Christ. It is true it may be inconvenient to have a picture of death destroyed and a person restored to perfect health instantly as far as his inheritors are concerned, but that means nothing to the Presence.
“Think not that I came to destroy—I came to fulfil.” Do you hear? Anything that is not fulfilling the destiny of Heaven here and now is the human picture of the unawakened mind, and will be broken up the instant you call upon Me. What matter how far it has gone, even if it be the eleventh hour and the doom is sealed? It is not too late to so completely overturn the creation of evil that its awful majesty, which came at you in one way (the only way that was open to you for escape) and stood glaring at you in your hopelessness, shall flee in ten ways.
“Call upon Me.” Do you hear? It is something that you can do in the midst of the fearful manifestations of disease and sin and poverty. “Call upon Me” and I will smash the pictures of your human destiny. Just as the pictures of forty years which had solidified themselves about the beggar at the temple gates were destroyed in an instant. Just as the pictures of death, decay, and decomposition were wiped out by the Presence in an instant when Lazarus was called forth. All the science of that day and this regarding death was made as naught. Handle it as it may—explain it as best it could—finally charge it off to a miracle, and let the matter rest—the old human mind, which had the point of death so well established that it seemed impossible to uproot it, was put to flight the moment the Presence was recognized.
What are you waiting on? You-do you want to make a demonstration against Evil? Or do you want to go out and argue against its reality and see if you can defeat it? There is nothing to defeat but the conscious-thinking which comes under the law, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” It is too strange and terrible to imagine that this human destiny rests in the Conscious-Thinking, and that from that level nothing can be done for or against it.
The pictures of limitation are completely obliterated by turning to the Father within and allowing His Power to do the work. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” is the law of instant and perfect success and Self-expression. You cannot do it, any more than Jesus the carpenter could possibly have been an orator—-he knew this, and turned from himself to the Recognition of the Presence, which burst the limitation of what he could or could not do.
So the thing that keeps you from Self-expression, or fills you with fear or stagefright, is your human destiny functioning at full speed. To fight this is a hopeless game, but suppose for a moment you “Call upon Me” and see the Presence come through into manifestation, nullifying all the evil, the inability, the failure, the lack, snapping the bonds that have held you from your good so long. You are not doing it-it is this glorious Power, the Christ within, in reality your I Am expressing in its own splendid, untrammeled way. It asks no favours or permission to perform. It does not cull from the wastebasket-of-life used postage stamps. It is a carte blanche-–it is the passport into all countries. It is the peculiar understandable thing which goes ahead, prepares the way, and at the same time remains with you. It is that which instantly destroys the illusions about you and reveals the Kingdom of Heaven here and now.
Conscious-thinking is the “glass darkly” through which you are gazing at the Kingdom of Heaven, but what you see is so distorted by the crooked lens of your vision that you see everything in wrong proportions. The laws of the madhouse of Conscious-Thinking are these: “When I would do good I do evil”; and “As for man, his days are few and full of trouble” and a lot of other things equally hateful: the final estimate that all turns to vanity, dust, and the grave. That is the picture of the Conscious-Thinking. That is why Jesus assured you that you could not see Heaven through the human thinking or the “glass darkly.” When you have recognized just what it is that Jesus discovered, and how he insisted on turning to the Power within and judging not from appearances but the righteous judgment, you will understand, “Now through a glass darkly; but then, face to face.” Face to face with the Truth of Being, you die to the human destiny. Yea! you are a new man in Christ Jesus. There are thousands of things to happen to you; even eventually the transforming of the body and the setting aside of the thing called death. There is no death in spirit; you can die only in human thinking.
From being born under a certain sign and under certain predestined influences man discovers that he is born of Spirit and partakes of the nature of Spirit. Just as soon as he recognizes this, all the old Conscious-Thinking ideas and manifestations drop away from him and he stands revealed-self-revealed. “Arise! Shine! for thy Light is come.” Do you hear? Not the temporary light which resolves itself into darkness with the turning of the earth on its axis, but the inner light of Selfrevelation which nothing can extinguish and which shines out in the blackest hell and causes Heaven to appear. No matter how long this darkness has been about you, it is instantly dispelled by the Light—darkness is never overcome, as it has no power to be overcome. “You do not need to fight; set yourself and see the salvation of the Lord.”
Do you begin to see the priceless gift which Jesus has given us? It is too wonderful—too awe-inspiring—for the superficial seeker of Truth to grasp; he is still peeping through the bars of his prison house of Conscious-Thinking, hoping to incorporate this glorious Light with the pattern of his personality for personal gain. Why personal gain when “all that the Father hath is yours”? Do you believe this, and, if not, what are you trying to do—take something that does not belong to you? Be still—be very still—suddenly you will hear the new revelation of the Presence in you. As you read along, the light of this inner Christ is shedding its presence on you, and whispers in your being, “You can.” What a Word! when said from spirit, and removed from the Conscious-Thinking which has tried every way and found that “you cannot.” You can because it is not you, but Christ in you, which doeth the work. Thus do you speak to the poor, tired manifestation of you which has struggled so long and so nobly against the pictures of human foreordination. “You can” has nothing to do with the human will-power, it is the actualPower of the Presence in action. It is glorious and wonderful. You are beginning to see the way of secrecy, and the way of self-revelation, and the way of freedom from Conscious-Thinking. You do not have to set anything right, nor change anything. The coming of the Presence will take care of all that; the light of the Presence will absorb all the darkness of accumulated belief.
It is related that in the World War a small company of men were run into a cul-de-sac from which there was no escape. The enemy was closing in on them—it meant certain death. Suddenly something happened. The impossible situation was destroyed. What was it? Confusion set in among the pursuers, a sudden fog arose; the enemy became lost and could not find its way—the destiny of death, which was surely meant to be fulfilled, at that instant was abrogated, and by what? Someone had consciously or unconsciously called upon the Presence and the pictures of Conscious-Thinking vanished. What was the report of it all? A hundred different stories were told; some saw the Christ, some the Virgin Mary, some a fog bank. According to their symbol of protection did their mortal eyes see that which stood for the abstract quality of Protection. Do you begin to see what it means to Recognize this Power as present? It is not overcoming evil, it is revealing the Kingdom of Heaven. Presently, when we become conscious of the Presence sufficiently, we shall also see the destiny of human death flee from before this Light of Life Eternal… .
Yes! the teachings of Jesus suddenly take on a new meaning —the meaning of Revelation instead of overcoming. The taking the attention away from appearances is something more than hiding the eyes from evil. But when it is done in the way of Jesus’ appointing, when the eyes rest upon the situation again, it has disappeared, and even the place thereof is no more; yea, neither shall it come into mind, so complete and absolute is the way of this Presence.
“The wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God.” When man comes to realize this, he will see that no wisdom which evil has brought to bear upon his case is anything but foolishness to the Power—no matter though it have bulwarks of reality as mighty as the Great Wall of China, with the Recognition of the Presence they will crumble and run down as much fine sand that cannot withstand the faintest zephyr. Do you hear? Do you hear the Revelation of Spirit within the inner depth of you saying, “Fear not, I Am with you always”? It is wonderful, glorious, and the new day is even now showing the first faint flushes of the coming dawn of Spirituality. Your human destiny is giving place to your Divine manifestation. “I shall overturn and overturn and overturn until he comes whose place it is to rule,” and, no matter what is overturned, how time-honoured or respected as wisdom of the Conscious-Thinking, it is nothing and worthless, and must and will go before this glorious Presence.
Chapter Nineteen
A MOTHER admonishing her son not to pull the cat’s tail was surprised to receive the answer, “I am not pulling her tail—- I am just holding it; she is doing the pulling.”
Would you say that the cat was causing her own misery? She was doing a lot of struggling and resisting, at any rate.
We are told that Jacob struggled all night with the angel. Apparently things were getting pretty serious for him, but in the morning he loosed it and let it go. How strange that he should struggle with something he only had to “loose.” But he was struggling in the “night” and he loosed it in the “morning.”
We are told to “resist not evil,” and then we are told to “resist evil and it will flee.” What are we to do? Who knows? God. Hence the wisdom of following the command, “If any lack wisdom, let him ask of God.”
Where are you going to find this God? In Heaven? And where is Heaven?
So much teaching has told us about God in Heaven-in the realm of Spirit, unseen, unknown, inaudible. Until we take God out of this Spiritual Heaven and bring Him down to earth, we cannot see the “word made flesh” or the materialization of Spirit which Jesus came to explain and show.
There is, in the mind of the average person, as great a gulf between spirit and ‘matter as there is between Dives and Lazarus. To many, they are as unmixable as oil and water, and so the hopelessness of any present assistance, in a tangible way. What a mockery it is to repeat the beautiful promise, “If ye shall ask any thing in My name, I will do it,” when the belief is chock full of ideas about God in Heaven and you on earth, an incalculable distance apart.
Until you can see God in the flesh you cannot expect to experience the beneficent results of Prayer in anything but a mental way. Until you begin to see that matter is merely Spirit slowed down to a point of visibility, and that there is no separation between them, you cannot enjoy the Presence of this Power.
You may be denying that there is any matter. Then you are denying your own manifestation out of the picture, and by what authority will you deny God the presence of flesh, in which to clothe His own Word? “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And by what manner of means can the Spirit search the joints and marrow if you have no joints and marrow? “Awake, thou that sleepest” and see the Oneness of this Presence in which you “live, move, breathe, and have your being,” and which in like manner lives, moves, breathes, and has Its being in you. Without the manifestation there would be nothing. Without the Spirit back of the manifestation it would disintegrate. The two which God joined together are Soul and Body. God and His manifestation are inseparable and are One.
Presently you begin to see how Jesus brought into visibility the works we call miracles. He perceived them in Heaven, and then materialized what he perceived by embodying the Word. Whatsoever thing you conceive as possible to this Inner, and Only, will come into manifestation. I am not speaking of the things you wish, hope, desire, to come into manifestation. I speak of whatsoever things you conceive as possible to the Father within you; those things can and will embody themselves in the materialized Spirit called matter.
When the command goes out, “Stretch forth your hand,” if you “try” to do this, you fail; but if you do not try to do it, and perform it in consciousness, the hand follows the consciousness without interference. It is glorious to begin to work with the Father instead of with the slow movements of matter. What you do in consciousness (now that you understand materialized spirit and the spiritualized matter) you instantly do in the flesh. “Whatsoever things you ask, believing ye shall receive,” is another way of putting it.
When you begin to work after this manner, then you find that “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”; that the finding this out in consciousness completes the thing before the flesh takes up the mechanics of bringing it into visibility.
Coming after the way of man, you “try” to open your blind eyes, but the weight of so many beliefs and theories, which are backed up with so much proof, is too great for you, and you cannot. Opening your eyes in consciousness, or performing the whole affair within, is accompanied by an opening of the physical with perfect vision.
Just what do you think God can do for you?
The struggling all night with the problem only antagonizes the situation and wears you out. We cannot enter into the Kingdom by any other door than the I Am, the Christ—Father. “I Am the door of the sheep-fold.” Enter in at this door and stretch forth your hand in consciousness, or stretch forth your consciousness, and you will receive the blessing of what the world calls a perfect healing.
“I Am that I Am”; at last the I Am surrounded by the barnacles of human history, race, creed, colour, family, begins to realize that it is the “I Am” of which Jesus spoke when He discovered the Christ within. “Ye must decrease; I must increase.” The belief and the considerations of “John Smith” must decrease, must be absorbed into the Godhead, must become one with the I Am, until the Soul can say definitely, “I Am that I Am.”
The last vestige of separateness passes away, and the Father and Son are one. The Son has at last reached home (he is one with the Power from which all things flow into expression).
The I Am of “John Smith,” so feeble and so enmeshed in the snare of human life, can do nothing, and yet that very I Am is told to do all things. When the reflection realizes that it is part of, and one with, that which is casting the reflection, then will it be freed of the hypnotism that it can do anything of itself. It is a strange symbolical returning to Eden-to the Oneness and Wholeness of Life. At first it is almost sacrilegious to say “I Am that I Am.” When Jesus uttered it and made himself as God, the human thought wanted to destroy him. Why? Because it misunderstood the Power and thought he would personalize it, and make himself into a little individual god, with terrific dominion.
Somewhere in your make-up is all that is required to fill all the empty measures of your being. Even though it be so small as a grain of mustard, it is able to evolve into a tree. What a glorious illustration! No wonder you are commanded to “stir up the gift of God which is in thee.”
Most of the seekers of Truth believe that in some vague or strange way they have to create the “gift” or in some way act as a sub-creator in the Kingdom. After a few years of attempting to “create” something out of nothing, they give up. The heart sinks into the Slough of Despair and the heaviness of futility throws its ugly cloak about it. Putting forth the best effort to know God, trying with all your might to find Him, and yet not coming within the remotest light of the Kingdom, is enough to make the heart heavy. And yet the mistaken point of attack has been responsible for all this heartbreak. The gift that you have been seeking from without is already within. Hidden away in the veils of Conscious-Thinking lies the precious pearl. You cannot see it, and will not even look for it, until you come to the point of recognition that the gift is already there.
The human mind looking upon the tiny seed and the three drops of oil casts them aside and seeks greater forces but fords none. Man goes, as did the children in Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird, through endless labyrinths of matter and mind, looking for that which is already within. Through his glass darkly the symbolical blue bird is black.
The tendency of the human mind is to discount what it has, and to reach out for something else. The gift that is within you is your starting point. Do you believe that you have this “gift”? If not, why go farther? And, if so, why not go on into expression? You are at the beginning of the new day, because, once the “Gift” has been recognized within you, there is a rest from struggling and fighting to make it appear. Already the “letting go” causes the frightful pain of futility to subside. A new light begins to break through. “Stir up the gift of God which is in thee,” is a revelation as much as a command and it is filled with light and illumination.
Once you begin to feel that the gift is there, it is as precious as the message which came to Mary, announcing the glorious coming event. No matter how deeply you are buried in the “dump heap of human belief,” your problem is only as old as the last thought about it. With the snapping of the film on the screen the end of the tragedy definitely comes, as far as the screen is concerned; no marks are left, no sign of the suffering, no scars of the battle. With the acceptance of the “gift” as something already there, instead of something that you have to create, you will begin to “borrow measures not a few,” because the something within indicates the need of such.
“God is not mocked”; the Power which you “mock” or imitate or refuse to recognize fulfils itself irrespective of man. “Stir up the gift of God that is within thee.” You are the possessor of this gift, which is enough to fill every measure that is empty in your life. You are mocking God when you try to be a “creator,” for there is only One, and the record states that the “Creation” was completed in six days-found to be “good and very good.” What are you going to do? Create it all anew or tear away the veils from your eyes and see the real creation, as it stands in all its glory? It all sounds very much like poetry, and so it is to those who are seeing it from the outside, or trying to argue how, when, and why it can or cannot come into visibility. “I Am that I Am” finally puts the seal of silence on the lips, for the precious thing, the “Gift,” which you have suddenly glimpsed, must be held in secrecy.
Again the glorious reminder is given unto you—the sole purpose of God is Revelation, not the overcoming of Problems. Recognizing the gift which is within you will be your starting point to the heights where this Revelation is visible. The veils are falling from your eyes and you are seeing the Power face to face instead of through a glass darkly.
The non-resistance of the awakened soul is not a supine waiting for something to happen. It is the “waiting patiently” on the Power to flow forth into manifestation.
When Peter was thrown into prison, had he judged from appearances he would have had a prison problem to solve, a satisfying of all sorts of civil and political laws. It is possible that this could have been done. It would have taken time and influence. But he stayed upon the consciousness of freedom which he found in Spirit. The I Am of Peter became that I Am of God which knew no bounds or limits. It is reported an earthquake set him free. It does not make any difference what it takes to bring the Word into manifestation. That is not your concern. The Power has a way ye know not of, never working twice in the same manner, so you may rest the matter of manifestation with that Power. And now we see the I Am of Peter which was thrown into prison with all sorts of laws laid heavily upon it, invited to come out into freedom. His captors did not want him any more. Why? When the human mind comes in near proximity with the manifest power of God, it can conveniently forget and set aside its most invulnerable law. It will not stand on ceremony, no matter what a stickler it is for carrying a thing out to the last letter. “I have a way ye know not of.” Only recognize the gift of God that is within you and your prison house, no matter what you call it, will also experience its earthquake, and you will be invited to come out into a full manifestation of the freedom. Do you begin to understand how it was that the flowers and plants were already in the fields and yet there were no men to till the soil and no rain? Do you begin to see that the I Am that finally recognizes itself as “that I Am” can and does believe the unbelievable?
The resisting and the pulling away from conditions only tighten the manifestation about you, and cause all sorts of pain and despair. “Loose him and let him go” is more than just a Bible phrase.
Do nothing from the outside. “My Father [where is He?] worketh hitherto, and I work.” Recognize first the gift within yourself, perceive the working of this Spiritual Father within, and your hands will do what they have been incapable of doing. You say things you have been wholly incapable of saying. Your little message, your little three drops, your handful of meal, will become the Message of God, the ocean of oil (joy), storehouses full of meal (substance). “Look again”; the fields are white. Do you see? Do you understand what is given to you-not is going to be given to you, but is already given unto you? “Stir up the Gift of God that is within thee.” You have it already. Its manner of manifestation is in the hands of the Father.
The overcoming of habits is difficult. Everything is suggested—-hypnotism, will-power, trying to cultivate another habit. All of these may obtain certain results, but at best can be only temporary. A habit that is merely held out of mind by will-power may at any moment catch up with you. If you have to avoid in order not to indulge an evil, you are not safe. The call of your “love,” whatsoever it may be, sounds constantly on the strings of desire, like the waves of a raging sea beating against the sand walls of your castle.
Then comes the Light that you do not have to overcome the habit. Your stirring up of the gift of God which is within you, and your contemplation of this gift, will furnish ways and means of releasing you from the habit. It will then be finished and done. No matter whether you be associated longer with the symbol of your habit or not, the sting has been taken from it, and it is neither good nor bad; it is nothing. It is amazing how you take the poison out of the habit by removing your attention from it. It is as if you removed the poison from a deadly cobra. The fear of it is gone. Do not run away from your habits and hide your head from the appearances of them in the manner of the ostrich. There is no protection from a thing because you hide your eyes from it. “Stand and see.” The empty measures are filling even as you are contemplating the gift. It is wonderful! Resist not.
“Stir up the gift of God which is within you”-now.
Your gift holds all that your heart has dreamed of. It holds Heaven for you. It urges upon you, “Behold I stand at the door and knock, and if any man” (I do not care who he may be-if “any man”-you are any man) will open unto Me, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with Me.” The “silent” knocking at the door, the three drops of oil, the handful of meal-they are all so insignificant, even as is the stir of life in the egg. But what a mighty force they become when they are once recognized. The “tiny” gift you have is sufficient to bring it to pass.
The Voice speaks in parables, but it speaks a secret doctrine to those who are listening. “Ho, every man”—that includes you; do you hear?—“let him come to the rivers of life and drink freely.”
Nearer and nearer the recognition is coming unto you. So many weights have been disposed of. The heavy task of trying to create the God urge or Power, and the terrific task of finding suitable ways and means for it to express, have fallen away, and you stand with your gift, ready for expression.
“Look,” says the servant, “we are about to be destroyed.” Sure enough the way of life is blocked with a thousand armed warriors and horses rushing madly upon you.
“Look,” says the prophet, and the mountains are filled with a host of power.
The I Am must become one with the I AM; it must become that I AM if it expects to make use of that which the I AM has shown to it.
“Look”—the barren fields; we must plant.
“Look”—the fields are white. “Thrust in the sickle.”
Do you begin to see why we practice the non-resistance, and why we begin to see beyond the veils of the conscious thinking.
“Look”—the desert!
“Look”—the garden!
The Gift of God that is within you will give you the ability to “look again” after you have looked and reported nothing worthy of mention.
The secret of Life is being revealed to you. You may go your way in peace.
Chapter Twenty
“THERE is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Christ Jesus is the complete, whole manifestation-it is the Jesus who went unto his Father. The two halves of One-“I and my Father are One.” Where is the “Father,” and just what is this oneness or wholeness which is referred to?
Jesus, stating that he could of himself do nothing, and asking not to be called “good,” suddenly arrived at a consciousness typifying “No condemnation.” This is not reached through forgiveness or overcoming.
So many believe in the “forgiven sinner” and the “healed man.” This is just a level where the condemnation has been raised from a person or thing. It is a mental place where the pairs of opposites constantly come into play. “Where are thy accusers?” The Magdalene could not find them, because the state of consciousness wherein they existed had completely vanished.
Yes, it is true, “The former things shall pass away; they shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more.” It is true that in this ascended state of “Christ Jesus,” which we are told is possible to all, there is a New Birth, or new mansion, given to us, in which we do not find ourselves “healed” or “pardoned.” In the New Birth it is impossible to come under the belief which makes these things necessary. It is the place of Christ Jesus-the body and soul made one; the word made flesh; that which God hath joined together; the Father and I, to which nothing is impossible-which has the power to ask, receive, and appropriate the gifts of Heaven on earth. It is the Place (in consciousness) which understands the hidden mysteries, and views the underground treasures. In short, it is the full expression of the ascended body.
No wonder the Magdalene could find no accusers. The moment you have advanced, or become aware, of a new mansion, the things that were true of the former mansion, or state of consciousness, are no longer true. In the former place she had considered herself a sinner, and had much condemnation and accusation in her consciousness, which were bound to out-picture and be embodied in a crowd of stone-casters. She was being stoned to death, driven out of a state of consciousness by force, because she would not “rise and go unto the Father.” She would not let go of the former things. Her own belief took form in a multitude of accusers, stoning her to death. When she found no accuser in herself, she found none on the outside.
No matter how you resist the idea, it still remains a fact that your universe is the out-picturing of your consciousness. What you recognize as true takes body and shape. As long as you have a belief in condemnation, you will have accusers in your life. It is both true and untrue that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” It is untrue from the standpoint of “who by taking thought.” It is true from the standpoint of what you accept will embody itself in one way or another in the flesh. “Oh, but I never believed in this, that, or the other thing.” How do you think it happened then? Were you conscious of the radio and its principles before it appeared? Even after it appeared, it had to be accepted. Do not argue with yourself. You have in your manifested universe that which you find to be true.
It is not strange, then, that Mary Magdalene could find no “accusers,” for in the new mansion, or state of consciousness, there was nothing to be accused of, and never had been anything to be accused of. You could not accuse a butterfly of certain faults which had been true of it as a caterpillar. It is the Glory of the New Day, the New Revelation that is dawning over you. It is not a crawling out of an evil consciousness and becoming a long-faced martyr to forgiven sins. It is the holy recognition of the fact that “I Am of too pure eyes to behold iniquity”-an awareness of the Presence which brings a new consciousness. “Arise and shine, for thy light is come” -do you hear? With the coming of this light you find the “accusers” (embodiments of disease, unhappiness, sin, and poverty) are no more. They were parasites feeding upon your belief in them, and have perished because you have deprived them of your thought, upon which they lived. It is glorious to know that you are, through the Christ within, lifted out of the “former things” so completely that there is no remembrance of them.
The Magdalene must have been well known in her day. She had probably contributed a great deal to the unhappiness of many homes. Yet when she “arose and went unto her Father,” we find not only was she unable to find her “accusers,” but that they could not recognize her. Truly the former things shall pass away. The moment they are out of consciousness they are out of the only place where they ever existed. The embodiment of evil and sin, which has been so adamant, disintegrates the moment you pass into the new mansion. “Is not this the Magdalene?” That was the faint voice of her former accusers trying to remember. The transformation was so complete they were confused and could not remember. Why? Because in reality the adultery of which they had accused her for years did not exist now, and never had existed in this state of consciousness. She was not a glorified, forgiven sinner, who had constantly to trade on an old idea. She was born anew.
Jesus was also so transformed and so completely beyond the limitations of his former self that the same question was asked about him: “Is not this the carpenter?” The old limited thoughts and manifestations could not remember. They were not certain, for the simple reason that it was not the same Jesus. It was the Ascended manifestation, Jesus Christ, wherein we find no condemnation. “There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”
“Happy is that man who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth,” is something with which to conjure. Does it mean that a man may do any evil and be happy in it? It means that a man who does the things for which he condemns himself, is committing the sin against the holy Ghost. He will naturally bring his own reward to pass. If you consider a thing a sin and then continue to do it, you are the judge and the jury and will try and sentence yourself. The fermenting mind, which is full of the desire to do that which he considers sin, and yet withholds merely because he is afraid, is already suffering the full punishment of the Law. The scorching flames within his own mentality are burning him up, and he is paying the full penalty. He tries to destroy in another the sin that is so dear to him and in which he is afraid to indulge. He leads the vanguard against his secret vice. His reason back of this is, “If I cannot enjoy it, no one else shall.” He does not realize that the picture he sees is cast by the state of consciousness within himself. He may be soft-voiced and quote the Scriptures, but when he is hunting sin he is hunting himself.
Saul kicking against the pricks of his own limitation-out to destroy all who did not agree with him-is a long way from the gentle Master who gave us two lovely commandments
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul,”
and
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
A lovely sense of peace and quiet comes through the contemplation of this instruction. How can you love the Lord or the neighbor if you are filled with the burning desire to find out what is wrong with everybody but yourself?
Yes! But Jesus condemned certain things. So the argument goes on justify yourself if you can. It is one of the most human traits. It is one of the things that tells of the inner craving. The so-called condemnation of Jesus was like the clean, sharp stroke of a sword, cutting asunder a belief, as compared to the cesspool of the human mind that feeds night and day on the hidden cause of its condemnation of another. Jesus condemned not to destroy, but to save. “I come not to destroy but to fulfill,” and yet, “I bring not peace but a sword.” The condemnation of Jesus, if you wish to justify your own capacity for condemning another, was for healing, for up building, and for bringing out the hidden Christ within; not for cementing a so-called evil upon another and then assuming the lordly, holier-than-thou position of the Redeemer.
There can be no life in the one who condemns. He is “full of dead men’s bones.” How does he know that the one he condemns will not enter into a new state of consciousness instantly, and be changed? How can he at one instant believe this possible and at the next try to fix a sin on another? As he judges he is prophesying his own future.
Envy and resentment are only inverted states of joy and acknowledgment. If you cannot recognize the presence of God in another, how shall you ever see it in yourself? When you perceive the truth that every whit of God recognized, praised, and glorified in another becomes possible to you, then you understand job’s final victory. Failing to see, hear, or experience God in his own life any longer, he turned his captivity by recognizing God in another.
There is plenty of counsel for you when you are ready. Yes, “when you are ready I will do the works through you.” Yes, when you are ready. “When you are ready I will do the work through you.” What work? The work of revealing Heaven here and now. “A New Commandment I give unto you-that ye love one another as I have loved you” and that ye “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Condemnation, which is the recognition of evil as real, is finally wiped out of memory. You have moved into a new state of consciousness-into a new mansion wherein the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind any more. It is wonderful!
Do you hear?
Do you begin to see?
Do you begin to understand the necessity of secrecy-the “See that ye tell no man” in order that you may “show John”? Be not anxious. It doesn’t make any difference what the man-in-the-street thinks. Let him think!
In the “twinkling of an eye” he will be asking in his puzzled, confused, human mind, “Is not this the carpenter? Is not this the Magdalene?” Yes, he will not be able to recognize you because you have passed from death unto Life. You have “performed” (passed through) death on the former state of things, instead of waiting for the “belief” to stone you to death. You will begin presently to see what wisdom lies in the statement, “Let your conversation be `yea, yea,’ and `nay, nay.’ ” Argument will only cause you to accept the former things as true, and you are then receptive to the return of the parasite, which you designated as “My, problem.” Be still! be very still, and you shall hear the “still small voice,” and it will suffice you. It has more in it than the croaking voice of the intellectual one, or the great one, who knows all about how it is done, and places himself in the position of authority.
Yes, it is true that “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” She brought forth a Messiah because she “kept” these things and pondered them. Had she exposed the state of affairs to the small town in which she lived, at that time she might have been stoned to death. But she kept these things in her heart. She had the great thing to do that you symbolically have to do-embody the Messiah, bring forth the Christ. When she sensed the glorious Annunciation, she “kept” it in her heart, and pondered it, and contemplated it. It is wonderful! She typifies the average one who has felt the Annunciation, the urge that within him is born the Christ Idea, which is to reign in all its glory. This beautiful symbology floods the consciousness with a holy light which is so sacred that the darkness of human reason automatically fades out. But this glorious annunciation cannot take place in you as long as you are filled with condemnation for yourself or another. Condemnation is the Saul state of mind fighting and tearing up the earth, trying to get rid of its own limitations, which, through the glass darkly, appear to be the limitations of another.
The self-condemnation which goes on constantly is like acid poured upon a rose-garden. How can the lovely manifestation come forth if it is watered constantly with censure and resentment drawn from accepting the appearances?
The desert cannot “blossom as a rose” as long as you consider the desert as desert. You must certainly turn your attention away from the appearances and “magnify the Lord within” if you expect to see the transformation. When it has “blossomed as a rose” it is no longer desert; it is “rose-garden,” and presents an entirely new and different set of thoughts and pictures. “Is not this the Magdalene?” Is not this the desert? It can hardly be remembered, so completely transformed is it. That is the, glory of this “Awareness of the Presence”; it lifts you to a new state of consciousness where the former things are not overcome-they just naturally do not and never have existed. If you are “born anew” you do not carry over the memory nor the condemnation of former things, and when you look, your “accusers” are no more, because they are not in you.
What is true of the egg is not true of the eagle. What is true of you in your state of condemnation and disease is not true of you the moment you “arise and go unto your Father.” The same change can take place in you as took place in Jesus or the Magdalene.
The wisdom of the symbolical character of Mary, when she was performing that which every man has to perform-the bringing forth of a Messiah or the “Mind which was in Christ Jesus” which is to rule-is suddenly brought home to the one who hath ears to hear.
There is, then, a great and glorious reason back of the statement, “There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Chapter Twenty One
BEING Being is the actual and constant state of the Presence. The Word becoming flesh, or the unseen appearing, is the action and the manifestation at the same time. Separate one from the other and you have an invisible force and a dead manifestation.
When you begin, even vaguely, to live in the present tense and the first person, you begin to experience God in action, or the Presence which never leaves you and yet which goes before you and prepares the way. Life and its manifestation are fused into a oneness, a glorious something which changes the nature of inert matter into the “Word made flesh.”
Matter is that which is separated from God-this, of course, can only take place in the mental; but this accepted separation from God produces a heavy, inert mass of substance which is acted upon independently, and which is subject to evil. When the “Word becomes flesh” and dwells among us, this signifies the Oneness of God and man, and produces a new and wholly original substance which we designate as “Flesh”—the “flesh” referred to as “All flesh shall see it together”—and the “Word made flesh” and the “heart of flesh.” For want of a better word, we use this to differentiate between matter and the Substance of God made manifest—-i.e., “Flesh.”
Oneness, wholeness, and the doing away with the separation of man and God will immediately dispense with the heavy thing called matter, which can only act according to the human beliefs, deduced from the reasoning. All these beliefs and laws are called “foolishness,” and none of them has the slightest effect on the “Flesh.” “Touch me not” refers to the “Flesh ascended above the laws of matter. Matter is unenlightened substance.
“Yet in my flesh shall I see God.” It is coming very close to you. And you are called on to perform this wonderful change—the change of matter to “Flesh” or the substance which spoken of as “the Word of God.” How impossible is it, then for matter (sometimes referred to as flesh and blood) to inherit the Kingdom of God. How very natural for the “Flesh” (“the Word made flesh”) to partake of the nature of God.
The “I can do nothing” changes into “I can do all things.” The heavy matter could not “Go thou and do likewise”; its substance is changed, and the heaviness of Conscious-Thinking is cast out of it and it moves “through the crowd,” goes to the “other side of the lake.”
“All flesh shall see it together” predicates a state of Emmanuel—God with us, and in us, and through us—and indicates that “in Him we live, move, breathe, and have being,” and is the arrival of the transmutation of matter into “flesh.” It is wonderful to know that this “flesh,” then, does not need protection (matter is constantly in need of this), and that it is the “heavenly” referred to in: “As ye have borne the image of the earthly, so shall ye also bear the image of heavenly.” We will see, then, how the “child shall play on the hole of an asp” and how “the lion shall lie down with the lamb.”
When you begin to recognize the Word in action—God in the flesh and the Kingdom on earth—the laws of matter have no further effect upon you. You are not protected or seeking protection in this state of consciousness, because there is nothing from which to be protected. “I Am of too pure eyes to behold iniquity” is a true state of God, whether you can prove it or not, or whether your teacher states it with reservations. There are no reservations in God. All limitations belong to personalities who flock in with the thousand and one remedies for “matter.”
There is no healing, nor yet any prospering in the “Flesh,” for all of these things are part of the nature of the Word which is natural and not miraculous.
“I shall walk in you and talk in you’ is impossible, except the “matter” becomes “Flesh” and the walking and talking can take place through natural expressions of Spirit. The heavy matter-mind cannot “talk” or “walk” with Spirit, that speaks of things “ye know not of” and walks over substances that cannot sustain the weight of matter.
The matter consciousness must work by the “sweat of its brow” for a crust of bread, and its “days are few and full of trouble.”
The new set of laws which apply to the “flesh” come under the head of grace. They are not true to the foreshortened sight of matter looking through its glass darkly.
When you realize that the Spirit is walking in you, it will “walk” where it will, over water or stone, through open or closed doors, and through every barrier raised by the matter-thinking without asking permission to do so.
“Be still!” Just because you cannot instantly make the change from matter to “Flesh,” do not cast the holy revelation unto dogs. To satisfy the curiosity of another and rush outdoors with your camera plate is to make an agreement with “See, I knew there was nothing to it anyway.” If he knew it, and knows it, then let him alone with his knowing; it does not need to affect you.
I Am is a name, a noun, and a verb. It is the whole expression. It is acting and is acted upon. It is the living, pulsating Presence of God in action.
The God in action of which you become aware will enable you to do the things of Spirit. it will “recall whatsoever I have said unto you.” Nothing will be hidden from this Consciousness. It will give you the power to “take” that which belongs to you without making a “demonstration” of some unusual power.
“I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.” Hence the resurrected matter which is “flesh” is under the Spirit, and is no more under the laws of matter.
“I Am the door”—the Word made flesh, the Word in action.
Chapter Twenty Two
In a recent daily paper appeared an article which told of a little chapel in the Orient erected to God by native converts; and how, on the very day of dedication, the building was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. The natives were quite naturally taken aback by this happening, since The Little Chapel represented a distinct sacrifice on the part of each one of them. They immediately began to grope about in their minds to find some cause for it. Their natural conclusion was that the “Devil-God” had burned it down.
The leader of this little band was apparently not at all disturbed. When interviewed, he said, “We will rebuild it. Each native will again be called upon to contribute his labours and substance as best he can.
“I have already explained to them the reason it happened——their wickedness. It was God’s way of showing His displeasure at their sins.”
It appears that the natives refused at first to rebuild the church. They argued that it was useless to build churches to a God who would destroy them by lightning.
Their leader settled this once and for always. “Ah,” he said, “but this time we are going to put lightning rods on the church, and then it cannot burn down.”
So a brace of metal rods were held up to these trusting souls as being able to offset the anger of God. What a terrible undermining of the Power! And of what avail, then, to rise and say, “God is all-powerful”?
Acts of God and Providence are supposed by many to include cataclysms, earthquakes, fearful things too ugly to mention. What a God!
If God is of “too pure eyes to behold iniquity,” how is it possible to charge all these horrible things to Him? Either God is a “God of Love” or He is the God of Conscious-thinking, filled with all sorts of horrible designs, tyrannical and spiteful; watching like a suspicious person for someone to fall into a trap that He has set. Even a sadist finally tires of cruelty.
Are you still subscribing to the old tribal Jehovah who was filled with these terrible things, or have you left this state of bondage and come out into the place prepared for you by Jesus Christ? “God is Love.” Is He? Or do you qualify that statement, and sandwich in some misunderstanding of the Presence? Because you cannot account for the evil manifestations you have brought forth, do you charge it off to God?
Many a person, unable to “lose” his life (to lose the limited sense of the personal life and find the Universal God, here, there, and everywhere), has suddenly gone into the business of “race-saving.” If he cannot save himself, how does he expect to save the race? In order to get rid of the evil in his life, he is quite willing to precipitate the world into war, famine, pestilence, and all manner of evil. Blandly he tells you that this is the plan of the God of Love. But it is the plan of’ the same god who burned down the little chapel, because he was angry with the children who built it! “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give the light!” What are you attributing to God, and to which God do you subscribe?-the “god of the lightning”? (He lived under another name in Egypt and Greece, and still lives and functions in the darkest jungles.)
Oh, what a glory will fill your soul when you find the God of Love! It makes no difference then where this finds you—–in the mire, in hell, in a swamp of human limitations. You will arise!—-and there will be no need of plunging the whole world into war to satisfy and justify your own overcoming. “My sheep hear My voice”! It is wonderful!
“Yes, yes, but Jesus recognized evil”-and that seems to be the chief plank in the argument for a God of Wrath. Little by little the light is dawning upon the situation, revealing God as Love.
Perhaps one of the most startling discoveries which has been made in years is reported in a recent copy of the London Daily Express. Dr. Lamsa, the author of this article, has completed a new translation of the first four Gospels from the ancient Aramaic text.
“The gospels,” he declares, “contain no fewer than 1,400 errors, many of which have created controversy and discussion for centuries.”
Perhaps the most light giving of his discoveries is the revelation concerning the last words of Jesus. Most people believe the last words to have been an outburst of weakness and suffering-words which indicated that the crucifixion was almost too much for Him.
“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
is rendered in the new translation by Dr. Lamsa:
“My God, my God. for this was I kept”; or
“My God, my God, my destiny is accomplished.”
This beautiful revelation takes away all possible suggestion of bitterness or futility that was implied by the wail, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Quoting further: “Dr. Lamsa’s rendering, `My God, my God, my destiny is fulfilled,’ is a sublime cry of victory.”
And so you go from glory to glory as the light breaks over you. One impasse after another will be cleared for you. The God of Love is truly of “too pure eyes to behold iniquity.”
As you “ask” for wisdom—not from a person, book, or organization—you find everything being uncovered and the veiled mysteries being revealed, because you have placed a coal of fire on your lips, and have conceived the naturalness of God. As long as the Truth taught by Jesus remains an odd-issue, or something that is “used” instead of something “lived,” it will only be an uncertain power resulting in an occasional “miracle.” The long lapses between miracles will be fraught with doubt and disappointment.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee Light!” Again and again the command is made to one apparently already awake. But we are never awake until we come to the point of naturalness with God, and bring Him down out of the skies of imagination into the everyday world; in other words, until we see the “Word made flesh” in the entire manifestation about us we will never know God.
What do you expect to gain by quoting to God, in prayer, words or explanations of another person? When you do this, you doubt the omniscience of God. If He knows all, what are you trying to do—call His attention to the perfection of Being?
Moving with the Power will cease presently to be a mysterious thing. The more you recognize the Presence, the more natural it will be, and the more you will cease from the chatter of what Mrs. Blank or Mr. Blank has to say about it. You will know what Christ said about it, and that is enough, realizing that everything Mr. and Mrs. Blank can ever say will only be something based upon simple, direct words of the Master.
There is Light for you in the very words of Jesus Christ-—–Light that has never been revealed to any other being, for it is the Light which is to shine forth in you. The peculiar manifestation which comes to you (in order that you may become one of the “peculiar people” spoken of as the People of God) is not transmitted through another. There is nothing between you and God but the thin veils of conscious-thinking. See how thin are these veils. In a moment of excitement or emotion, a hopeless, bedridden invalid suddenly rises with full use of his body. Many an incurable cripple of years’ standing has run from a burning building. Are you going to say that this does not count-that it is only human emotion? That is all right —the main issue in the whole affair is that, just a moment before, you, with thousands of others in authority, would have said that this very thing could not be accomplished in any way. What happened to the invalid, then? He followed unconsciously the law—he took his attention away from appearances and instantly found himself free. The veil of conscious-thinking which is binding you is just as thin as that. If you can remove your attention from it for a moment the Power comes through. Yes! but the invalid may have collapsed or relapsed-and so the human mind offers a thousand futile reasons why it is all nothing. The invalid remembered something and returned to it just as the Prodigal “remembered” something (his Father) and rose to that. It is wonderful when you delete the unnaturalness of Life and find that the Lord God is One God, and that Life is One Life. Presently you break down the parentheses of health sickness, poverty-riches, happiness-unhappiness which you have used to enclose a personal sense of life. The Lord is One Lord. Life is One Life -“look up and be saved, all ye ends of the earth.” It is glorious to contemplate the Allness of the Presence, and relaxation comes to you. At last you have cast your burdens on Me and are finding, strangely enough, that I Am sustaining you. So the secrecy envelops you.
The great, victorious cry, “My God, my God, my destiny is fulfilled,” thrills one. It is an exultant cry of one who suddenly perceives that he has gone through the thin veils of belief-even death. And presently the secret joy of traveling the way alone, right in the midst of everything, will be revealed. “In the world but not of it” does not mean the “holier-than-thou” attitude that many imagine is the badge of holiness—–“wholeness.” If you are to live in the world and not be of it you will not pose as a saint. Saintly qualities will show forth in deeds and manifestations-automatically.
“In the world and not of it” renders to Caesar the things that belong to him, but it also “moves through the crowd” and “goes to the other side”-and finds the substance in the desert, and many other things which are not revealed to the noisy talker.
There is no measure large enough to hold the joy of your soul, when you (for yourself) find the Lord sufficient. Not because you read it in a book, or because you have heard someone in the “know” say it, but because you have found the Lord sufficient. You will go down unto your house blessed, and a blessing to all those with whom you come in contact.
The things that could not be told to you in Jerusalem, because of the noise, may be told to you when the coal of fire is placed upon your lips and you are “listening,” instead of telling the Power what to do. Drop all human, emotional ideas and vain imaginations of becoming a saint. Let the naturalness of the Christ flow through you into manifestation. “I came that your joy might be full.” Do you hear? I did not say nearly full, nor full of a sickly, puny sense of humour, as many imagine it to be, but a far-flung joy of life, ebullient, vital, all-encompassing.
Jesus, calling down the centuries that his “destiny” had been fulfilled, should so stir your heart that it would burst the narrow confines of conscious-thinking and feel the great, universal heart-beat of rhythm, and the surge of Life, passing into manifestation.
The subterfuges of the human mind will be cast aside. You will not seek to hide behind lightning rods. Neither will you excuse your failure in bringing the manifestation forth by something as flimsy as a human explanation.
A woman once said, in great glee, that she had thrown away all her medicines—“well, that is, everything but a few—-a—-a—a-tiny box of tablets-and I have those way behind all the jars in the pantry on the top shelf.”
“Awake, thou that sleepest”! If “the pills” are there at all, they are the recognized point of power. They are the hidden things which are relied upon, just as the lightning rods on the little mission hall. What hope will there be for such an idea when you are caught far from home in the conscious-thinking and cannot make it to the pantry? Or if the storm break in a place where no lightning rods are available?
“Arise!” Do you hear? Let the dirty rags of deceit and hypocrisy fall from you. “Come out from among them”——come out from the hidden deceit of the conscious-thinking. “Stand and deliver.” All these ringing commands are accompanied with the power to accomplish when you are ready and willing to “leave all and follow Me.” What do you mean by all, and what do you mean by Me-and where are you going?
Yes, it is true, “I shall overturn and overturn till He comes whose place it is to rule.” It is the coming of Me at which you leave all-pills, lightning rods, and the deceitful human explanations of them.
The victorious cry, “My destiny is fulfilled,” which closed the conscious-thinking chapter in the life of Jesus Christ, is made a thousand times in the life of every man, once he is awakened to the Presence. He exclaims with joy, “It is done!”-“It is fulfilled”-“It is so, and so it is”-and rises into the Consciousness where this is an absolute reality.
When you begin to “travel alone” you may for the first time in your life be in a real crowd, so contrary appear the laws of God to the human, reasoning mind. You will also find that in the Secret place you are able to hear things that you cannot utter or explain. When you begin to come by the way of God it is the secret way, and, though you pass thousands of men on the highway, you salute none of them. The moment you do, that moment the conscious-thinking enters in and you are turned away.
Do not be alarmed; the time will definitely come when “I will walk in you and talk in you”-but at all other times it is best to leave arguments to those who are argument-wise.
If My ways are not your ways, then there is little to be accomplished by arguing. Perhaps when you have come to the place of “yea, yea, and nay, nay,” you will speak more than you have ever spoken before, because you will speak from the urge of Spirit and be unafraid to let the Power flow through you into expression.
There is only one yardstick with which to measure everything-that is the Voice of Jesus Christ in the midst of you. It will keep you safe from the opinions of the “wise” ones.
Do not be fooled-God is not mocked-and God is in the midst of you. What hypnosis entered you when you put up your lightning rods and then turned about and violently declared, “There is no power apart from God”! “A house divided against itself must fall,” and so it is.
Chapter Twenty Three
“IF thy `voice’ becomes single, thy whole body shall be full of Light,” is not a stupid distorting or rearranging of words, but a revelation from the Spirit. When we read that “God Spake” we find “it came to pass” or “it was done.” Man speaks in either the past or the future. He either tells what happened to him, or what he wishes or thinks will happen to him. He cannot say with any authority that his prayer shall be answered. He can only preface his remarks with something in the nature of “If it be the will of God” or “God willing,” which is only a cover for his fear or knowledge that his word has no power.
Talking of and about God only causes an emotional disturbance at best. Deep, powerful revelation is not measured by the strength of the vocal chords, nor by excess motion of the physical body. Great show and pomp in worship of God is no indication of understanding.
Talking of God through the so-called human voice, we see a variety of gods with a variety of powers. A millionaire conceives of God as wealthy, quite naturally. A poor man’s idea of the same God is functioning degrees below, in a concept of wealth which the millionaire would call “small change.” Yet the Law states there is but One God, and, until this Wholeness or Oneness is understood or seen, man will go on taking a measure of God out and calling it all, as a bucket of water from the ocean might be called the ocean. As man examines into the bucket of water which he designates as ocean, he begins to see the limitations and the narrow confines of his claim. Anything he finds out about this ocean would have to come under the limitations of the measure in which he holds the water. So is it with man and life. Separated from the universal, he begins to measure life by the narrow limits of a personality which he believes to contain Life. It is true he does contain Life, and is contained in Life, but when he “stops it down” to the personality, he can only find in life what his measure has to give. So with the voice which speaks the knowledge which it finds within itself. It speaks of itself, and it speaks a lie the generally accepted sense of the word, for it is speaking o a limitation. It speaks of life as circumscribed in the parentheses “health and sickness.” It speaks of the Riches of Spirit as circumscribed in the parentheses of “riches and poverty.” All of these limitations are found in the personality, and never in God. All the stated limitations in the voice lie in the voice of man separated from the “God-spake Voice.” The man voice, speaking from what it finds to be true of itself, can say, “I can run a mile and then I am tired”; or “I can spend a thousand dollars a month and then I am finished financially” but it can never speak with authority, because it speaks of itself. Trying to bring all the activity of the God-power into the little narrow confines of “John Smith” is as ridiculous as imagining that a whale could live in a small amount of water taken from the ocean. It is true that the whale does live in such a medium, but the limitation of that medium precludes the possibility of his doing it. It is just as impossible for the Riches of Spirit to express in a place so small and limited as “John Smith’s” self-consciousness.
“All that the Father hath is mine” is true in more ways than one, but, using this in the grandest dimensions (the universal idea of riches), we see the utter folly of a little personality, with an idea of prosperity placed at the ten-thousand-dollar limit, making this glorious thing come true. All is a great deal more than the limitations of the greatest financially minded person who ever existed.
Trying to coax, convert, or change this glorious God Principle to suit the purposes of a person to glorify a little personality, and make a demi-god of man, is as futile and as fruitless as waiting for rain from the “clouds without rain.” As man begins to understand and see something of the wholeness of life he will lose his life and thereby find Life.
“All that the Father [your concept of the Father] hath is yours,” and that is why, even in the limited sense of things, we see people manifesting health which they apparently know nothing about, or a certain freedom of money. Their personally circumscribed Father has just a certain all which they have a right to. No wonder the Voice says over and over, “Be still and know that I Am God,” and do not confuse this with the little human voice which speaks of its own needs and wants.
The voice of man when given the least opportunity begins to tell what it wants to happen, or what it needs, or what it is trying to demonstrate. It is filled with the limitations of its own mentality.
The Voice (the God-spake Voice) speaks of Itself. It speaks from the vast reaches of Spirit, and knows that before they ask it is already done. The God-spake Voice is merely the calling into being of something that already is. It does not speak from the limitation of the human mentality, but it speaks “the Word” without thought or wonder or guessing or explanation, and the Word thus spoken, or thus recognized, embodies itself in a glorious manifestation.
It is true that the egg may have within it the full capacity of becoming an eagle. If it could record its feelings, it might know within itself that it could scale the great heights, and float about over the mountain-tops with abandon, but how futile it would be to imagine that as long as it remained egg it would ever be able to accomplish this. It is true it might be catapulted through the air, and for a brief instant experience the “feel” of something within its soul, but what of the end of that flight? It is impossible for the present embodiment of poverty to express the freedom of wealth. It is useless to put old wine into new bottles, or new goods into old dresses—they are both lost. And yet as we see the urge in the egg we know that nothing is amiss with the desire to fly over the great open spaces with wings of an eagle. When we feel the urge of man for Heaven, happiness, abundance, and all the lovely things which rest within, we know likewise that nothing is amiss with this “feel.” But to bring it into manifestation we must have a new embodiment. The shell of Conscious-Thinking must be cracked. The bucket of water must be emptied into the sea. Life confined in the little body must be freed into the universal. “Losing” the human sense of anything is the means of finding it, for you are only losing a bondage in order to gain the new state. A chick must lose its shell or that very shell which was its protection becomes its bondage. The egg must be absorbed into the bird. Nothing is lost or wasted except the breaking of the shell, the rending of the Conscious-Thinking.
Jesus soon found that he could do nothing with the limitations of “Jesus,” and so he said, “I can of myself do nothing.” If Jesus, the greatest Way-shower we have ever known, found that he could do nothing, then why will you persist in attempting to do things? Anything that is separated from the whole begins to go down in quality. The moment we first began this separation we were ushered (self-ushered) out of the Garden, and we have been going down in quality steadily ever since. We have gone from the loaf to the half loaf, to the slice, and presently we are the dogs under the table of Life, picking up the crumbs.
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” Awake! and see what has happened to your voice. It has been stopped down to the narrow limitations of the human life, and speaks of itself, and speaks a lie. It keeps making one compromise after another, until it finally has to admit that it is defeated. At no time can it speak with authority of itself, because it has no power to do so. Jesus, finding this out early, abandoned the idea that he could of himself do anything. When we find this out, we find Wisdom, and we turn from the teaching of man and do a “right about” straight into the Consciousness of the God-spake Power.
It is pitiful to see so-called Truth students qualifying everything they say. The practice of “knocking on wood” is not unknown to many of them. They are afraid to speak with authority, because of the awful knowledge of the weakness of their word, which is as brittle as spun glass. They are afraid to speak in the First Person and Present Tense, because they know that the little personality is a liar, and is not worthy of anything. Accordingly they take refuge in false humility, unfitness, and unworthiness. A Uriah Heep rubbing his hands together in apparent holy submission while his heart is flaming fiercely with revenge, resentment, jealousy, is an adequate picture of unenlightened man. Thus does the pit of hell burn brightly in the “knocker on wood,” who cannot, and dare not, speak with authority because he speaks of himself.
“God spake and it was done.” That does not mean that it was nearly done, half-way done, or would be done, if some little personality gave the word of approval. “It was done.” There is such an air of finality about the God-spake, and such a glorious possibility for us to blend the voice into the true Voice, of letting the Voice become single, so that the whole embodiment can be filled with power and authority.
“I can of myself do nothing.” What an acknowledgment of weakness for a teacher and leader—yea! for a revelator to make. But tarry a moment; the same Voice is speaking such soul-stirring words as “Arise and walk,” and a crippled body leaps into glorious vitality and power, every muscle rippling with strength and life. And again the Voice: “Open your eyes”; and the sockets (in which no eyes were ever known) fill out with glorious organs of vision. There was apparently no “knocking on wood,” because there was nothing in this which made it necessary.
When thy voice becomes single thy whole body shall be filled with Light. Stop talking of and about the thing once and for always and speak the word.
When thy voice becomes single thy whole body shall be filled with Light. What a glorious thing for you to contemplate! Are you ready to drop off the stupid idea of making yourself a glorified personality, proclaiming to the world the wonders of God seen through the glass darkly? No matter how grand you may be, and how much the world should recognize you, or how lowly and ugly and how the world should hate you; remember that Jesus charged it all off to nothing. “I can of myself do nothing.”
“Come out from among them and be ye separate.” Come out from the beliefs that you have been hugging to yourself all these years and begin the Life in the Present Tense, the here and now, the Presence of the Power, and the God-spake Voice will be your voice and the Word of authority will be yours. “For I also am a man in authority”—for something so glorious and deeply moving will come to you that the chatter of personalities about their accomplishments and doings will fall away, and you shall speak with the single voice-the word, the Power, and the Glory. It is wonderful!
“Only speak the word!” Imagine having that said unto you. No one can say it unto your little personality any more than he could have said it unto the Jesus personality. But the very same words were addressed to Jesus, and can be addressed to you, when you lose your life in the universal and can learn the God-spake Power that lies within you awaiting your recognition. “I will”-no more, no less-and yet what a world of glorious manifestation came through. No checking to see, no looking about to find results, because before the word was spoken the eternal wellness or wholeness of all God’s creatures was established.
When thy Voice becomes single thy whole body shall be filled with Light. It was just this Light, this Voice, that drew all men unto It. What is the good of asking a carpenter to perform that which a physician should do, or vice versa? You must answer “No good,” and so is it with you. What is the good of asking you to do something which you are not capable of doing? No personality is capable of healing anything, because all personality is under the law of “When I would do good, I do evil,” and is described as a broken reed -something to avoid. Yet people go on leaning on the broken reeds of personality. “Awake, thou that sleepest—-awake and arise from the dead” thoughts and beliefs.
Dare you to use the Voice? Dare you to “speak the Word”? Not you—and yet you. From one angle it would only be guesswork—hoping, wishing, and beseeching; and from the other it would be done before it was spoken. “Be still and know that I Am God” does not refer to the small measure of life shut away in your body, but the Universal Life which can only be found when you lose the personal life you have been so vainly holding and protecting all these years. The very voice which says it does not believe in evil has to protect itself from that evil. And so it goes on until, like a cat chasing its tail, it falls in its track and dies of futility.
Free me! Free Me! Break down the narrow confines of the screeching voice of the personality, and let it be lost in the velvety overtones of the Presence, so filled with that something that it brings into manifestation what the eyes have not seen. Lost in this Voice, you find yourself speaking with authority, and immediately forgetting all about the belief that was to be overcome because of the coming into being of the Presence. “God spake and it was done” can only come into being when we learn to “let not the right hand know what the left hand doeth,” and when we cease to think of the results and manifestation of the Power as something unusual and unexpected.
The God-spake Voice cannot be surprised when what it “spake” is accomplished. When the thing is already accomplished and done, the God-spake Voice is merely the breath which blows the thin gossamer of human belief away from the face of the Truth of Being. It blows away the net of human thoughts into which man has been enmeshed all the years he has known himself as apart from God.
A glorious overtone of the Soul shines through the Voice, which differentiates it from the squeaking voice of man. The voice of the mimic can never speak with authority, though he be so perfect in his imitation that he fool the very elect. It is only an imitation, and has no power back of it. His word would not carry through in the world of the person he was imitating, because it lacks authority or the something that makes it genuine. So man imitating Jesus does not do the works of Jesus, and saying the words of God does not do the works of God, and so on. It lacks the Life substance, or the authority which is hidden away in the God-spake Voice, and is absent from the voice of man. When Jesus let go of the little voice of the carpenter and became the God-spake Voice he spoke with authority. So is it with you—whoever you are.
“God spake and it was done,” because the glorious Power behind the veil of human limitations, when recognized, instantly establishes that which is done and gives it an embodiment. It is so near you, it is so possible to you when you lose the human voice and its limitation and blend the word with the Father Word. You feel the deep inspiration of this Voice which is with you always, no matter where you go. When you are alone with Me, then you will one day speak the Word, the God-spake Word, and the bush on the wayside will burst into flame. No human knowledge could reason it out, measure it, or tell of its wonders, because it measures everything by the yardstick of personal knowledge.
“My sheep hear My voice.” Just what do you mean? What is there in the Voice which can be heard by My sheep? A great impersonator once stood with a friend in his garden. “Call your dog,” he said. The dog came bounding across the spacious lawn to his master. “Now, then, send him away again and let me call him.” Accordingly a stone was thrown, and the dog went to the far end of the lawn after it. The impersonator then called with a voice which was so nearly like his friend’s that it would have been impossible for even his intimate acquaintances to have discerned the difference. The dog at the other end of the garden pricked up his ears, stood for a moment, turned his head on one side, and then, disregarding the voice, went further away to something that had attracted his attention. His master then called him again, whereupon he turned and came running towards him. There was something in the voice which had authority, which could, and automatically did, call the manifestation into being. “My sheep hear My voice,” because it is the Voice of authority, and when the sheep hear the Voice they come. So is it with manifestation. When the God-spake Voice is used or spoken, the manifestation comes into being, because it has that quality of authority which unveils and shows that which has been before you ask. It is wonderful to contemplate this glorious Voice which Jesus discovered for us.
“God Spake and It Was Done.”
Only speak the Word.
“I will.”
Chapter Twenty Four
“WHOM do men say that I am?” Some say one thing, some another—some may consider you a religious bigot, a holierthan-thou, a thief, a liar. It makes little difference what answer is made to that question; but the answer to another question determines your place in the grand scheme of heaven here and now—“But whom do you say that I AM?”
Whom do you say that I AM?—you, yourself—what do you say of your I AM? Do you say that it is the miserable worm of the dust that needs constantly to be treated, led and helped? or is it the creation of the Living God? When will you answer, “I AM the Son of the Living God,” and proceed to reveal this Man of God to the universe here and now?
In a moment you think not-when the seemingly ceaseless thinking about how to make God do your bidding stops-at that moment the Christ comes into manifestation. Not much Christ-consciousness or power can penetrate the layers of human thought, which form an insulation about you. Reasoning about God does not make Him any more visible than He is already. “No man shall see God and live” is paired off with the statement, “In my flesh shall I see God.” In the realm of the human intellect little or no wisdom is seen—a strange chain of coincidences hooks a train of cars together, each with its load of thought and care. There is to the human mind little actual reason for man being here. He has often asked himself “Whither?” and “Why?”—and these go unanswered, and he finds that man’s days are full of trouble. A lovely picture for a God creation, to be sure!
Ah, but when he takes his attention away from appearances, and can answer himself, “You are the Son of the Living God,” the whole fabric of hell breaks through and the heavenly light of Self-revelation shines out here and now into expression. Man finds himself clear-seeing, clear-hearing, clear-speaking, revealing the Kingdom of Heaven here and now, appropriating the good and passing it on to the universe. He finds new and lovelier capacities. He perceives himself to be the Son of the Most High, with dominion and authority. He finds himself in affluence. He finds the glory of Self-expression here and now. A thousand avenues open before him. He finds it wonderful. The consciousness is deepened and made more receptive—made ready for the things I could not tell you back in Jerusalem because you could not have borne the glory of it all. The eyes are aware of a new and lovely universe here and now, peopled with angelic beings instead of fiends incarnate.
Whom do you say that I AM? What are the capacities? And no wonder it was given to the child! The child would automatically answer “yes” to “Believest thou this?”—but the adult, wise in his own conceit, would try to reason it out. He says he would like to, but his eyes are so hypnotized to evil that he cannot. That is why the Christ has said, “Take your attention away from appearances, and rest it on the Isness of Being.” “Judge not from appearances, but judge righteous judgment”—the judgment of the Son of God.
Can you believe that it is possible for the perfect health you have sought so long to be manifested in you now? I did not ask whether you desired it or wanted it; I asked whether you can believe that it is possible. The subtle word contains the connecting-link of manifestation—it is the way through which the unseen suddenly becomes seen. The visible-invisible appears.
“Believest thou this?” was asked over and over by Jesus and when the answer was, “Yea, Yea, Lord,” the results were sure to follow. Just what do you believe? Many people know the letter of Truth perfectly, but are not healed. I may have at my command the whole technique of play-writing, and be but a critic, with no ability whatsoever to write even a small scene. You may know a hundred systems of Truth, but that does not make you a revelator of the Kingdom-no, not until you believe it is possible. Not until you get over the emotional worship of Jesus, and “go thou and do likewise,” can you ever know the beauty of the Kingdom here and now. When you sit down to have your quiet time of contemplation, and are done with the insane idea of trying to make God do your bidding, or of following some words rattled off by some other person-then you will ask yourself, “Believest thou this?” And when you can say, “Yea, Lord,” within yourself, the manifestation is as good as into visibility. Believest thou this?
TRUE prayer is not demanding things of the universe, nor yet is it imagining that things can be had by begging or beseeching, or yet knowing they are yours. Prayer is merely recognition of that which is about to appear—provided, of course, you are willing to accept your good. “Thank you, Father,” was one of the most efficacious prayers ever said, and it was followed up by a magnificent explanation of the nature of prayer—“I knew it was already so.” This checks perfectly with the statement, “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”
When we get over the idea of praying to a man god, we shall see that prayer is merely aligning ourselves with the Power of that which is due to appear in our lives. In like manner, affirmations in their truest sense do not and cannot change the eternal nature of the universe; they are the words which are uttered because of the urge of the thing pressing upon the individual for expression. Hence, instead of any more of the prodigality comes the Sonship that, instead of begging for life, partakes of life as his inheritance, and names his statement of this fact as an automatic result, just as one who is sitting in darkness will automatically exclaim “Oh, light!” when a sudden shaft of light pierces the gloom. It is not said with an idea of creating light, but as a full recognition of the existence of light at that place and time.
The person standing in front of a mirror does not exist because of the reflection in the mirror, but vice versa. We have reversed the very processes of life, and have been working at them blindly and backwards. No wonder our results have been so meager and unhealthy. When the prayer is uttered out of a full heart, with a full recognition, you who read this page will take your good in this manner; your heart will almost burst with the fullness of this truth. Awareness of my presence and of all the things you have so long sought for.
“Come ye, buy, and eat; drink -without price.”
“Take no thought-arc ye not better than many ravens.”
Do you not understand what you have been doing? When will you speak out of the full heart of recognition that there is such a thing as a God present here and now in all his fullness? The old order shall pass away—
“A new heaven and a new earth shall descend out of the clouds” (of your belief).
A new heaven is not a heaven patched up and made livable; it is a new heaven; and the new heir comes to take his place—he is all new and glistening, all glorious and free. “Former things have passed away.” Do you hear? You who read this page? You?
When ye pray, the whole soul is at attention. It is so absorbing–this recognition of God within, without, everywhere-that man easily forgets his needs. He is swallowed up in the sea of All-substance and is content, and he becomes aware of his own. Be still, be joyously still. You are atop the heights of manifestation. Do you hear? You who read this page? You?
It is so absorbing, so radiantly absorbing, the glory of the God-Son and his Kingdom, that nothing matters, and therefore everything matters. In the Absolute Reality, when you lose your life you find it. When you lose the tiny limited personal sense of life, you lose all the irritating beliefs that go with it—-petty wants and its straining to be famous or great.
“Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
Where is the Father, and what is his business? Over and over this is called to your attention, for a moment’s consciousness of this fact will cause you to function in your right place—will cause great and mighty peace to surge over you. You cannot be out of place as long as this awareness is with you. “Your Father’s business” is the business of self-expression. When you are expressing the True Self, you are bringing in the Kingdom of Heaven, for you are, both literally and figuratively, giving water to the thirsty and food to the hungry; in other words, the urge of Spirit as a reality is gushing forth into conscious expression.
The Father’s business is self-revelation—you will reveal yourself to yourself, and no more will you sit in sackcloth and ashes wishing for that which is already yours. Do you hear? You who read this page? You?
Let go; be quiet; it is well; all is well; heaven is here and now. “Blessings, blessings, blessings—so many you cannot count them.” Did you hear? Cease from the argument. Seek peace and pursue it; thereby all good shall come unto you. All is enough. Why worry? I speak to you from out these pages and say to you,” It is well.” Do you hear? Then rest.
There shall be no sluggish waiting and imagining things; action is my name. I do -I AM. Be at peace. When the moment comes, you shall be fully equipped to run the race of certain attainment. You shall be able to write so that he who runs may read, and he who reads may run. Everything you give to another you increase a thousand fold, when it is given in love and not for gain.
“There is he that scattereth yet tendeth to increase -and he that withholdeth yet tendeth to poverty.”
All the human ideas are reversed in the truth.
“What went ye out to see?”
Do you go out to see a man with a reputation, or run after a book that is said to contain the key? When you realize that the I AM within you is the KEY to every person, place, and thing, you will begin to unlock the treasures of your own kingdom. You will then be able to release the hidden springs of inspiration in a book or within your soul, and see the new life fill everything.
Stop the condemnation of your beautiful Self. “If ye deny Me [Christ within], I shall also deny you.” In other words, if you find Me incapable of governing your life, then, no matter how you call upon Me, I shall not answer because of your “unbelief,” because you do not honestly believe that it is possible for the Inner Lord to rule absolutely and harmoniously in your life. If you have a house consciousness, divided against itself, it will fall—and so you will fall, and attempt to work out your problem by praying to a God afar off—a tyrant that may hear your prayers —a God of wrath and hatred.
Stop thinking of yourself as a worm of the dust; stop judging yourself; stop the everlasting talking about that which is past and dead. Arise, and let the dead bury their dead. Do not try to straighten out things get yourself lined out with the power within and you will find things automatically falling into harmony and order. The piece of steel follows the magnet—but you are trying to make the magnet follow the piece of steel. God cannot be made to do your bidding, but by becoming conscious of your point in the Universal Mind you will be happy in doing his bidding-you will some day cheerfully say, ” Not my will, but thine, be done,” and be satisfied that it is the only will, and is the door of freedom, not martyrdom. Be still nothing is hard to ME—-do you hear? You who read this page? You?
Dominion is yours through the recognition of the Christ within-dominion to do and to be. The Christ asks no favours to perform. He does not need the recommendation or veto of anyone. He is independent of such three dimensional rubbish. The dawn asks no permission to dispel the night; it may not be in accord with many people’s desires to have it come when it does, but it is above requesting the favor to express. So you will likewise ask no privilege to speak the freeing word of truth—-nor to perform the works after the manner of Jesus.
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.”
So, then, is every man, for every man is born of the Spirit when he arises to recognize this. He comes and goes and no one shall say him no, and no one shall know how he cometh or goeth, for the ways of Spirit are past finding out. “My ways are past finding out “—but my ways are ways of definite accomplishment, effortless, untrammeled, and free—unconditioned and easy into expression-assembling instantly all that is necessary for the instantaneous expression of the Son of God.
Thus, when you are ready to let the Christ within take over the government of your life, you will find the upper chamber, the robe and the ring, the scrip and purse, always waiting for you. Are you afraid? Dare you accept such a wondrous gift? – Perhaps you plead that you are unworthy, and you are-unworthy because you are judging the Christ within by the standards of your limited human capacity. Having eyes, ye see not, and ears, ye hear not, and hence you judge from the blinded and deaf state of human reasoning and find such a glorious attainment impossible.
“In the twinkling of an eye” is the manner of his coming in—” the moment ye think not.” Who by thinking can find ME? Who by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? But at a moment when you think not—when you have done with the idea that you can force God to appear and do your bidding by merely thinking of him, and have come to the recognition of the Presence which is past all limitations and conditions—you will say, ” Whereas before I was blind, Now 1 can see,” and perceive a wholly new world about you.
Many are the seekers after truth who think that by affirmations they can call up God and order him to set things right, just as Aladdin is supposed to have done with his lamp. They fail to have the symbology of the True Aladdin with his LAMP—Light—but imagine that if they say it often enough it will work.
A new system is discovered ; it is tried with great avidity and then found wanting ; so shall it be—” I shall overturn and overturn, until he comes whose place it is to rule ” –until I am the only ruler of your universe, and every prop is kicked from under, and you stand revealed to yourself–a glorious Son of the Living God with healing in his wing, with light in his eyes, with his feet shod with the winged sandals of attainment clothed in Light. “Praying without ceasing” is the prayer of thanksgiving and recognition.
When ye pray, say “Thank you, Father,” —-and rest—-remembering where Jesus told you the Father resided. And, having done all, stand and see the salvation, the coming into manifestation of the Power of God here and now. You who read this page, do you hear? You?
The End