TAKING THOUGHT

        WE are taught concentration; we are taught relaxation; and we are taught to speak as one having authority; but until we obey the Law which says: "And I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on" and "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?" we shall ever be fussing about trying to think ourselves out difficulties, and finding in the last analysis that we have been largely under self-hypnosis.

If the Law states clearly that nothing is to be changed by thinking, then why does man persist in trying to think himself out of difficulties? A survey of the thinking process of making success, happiness, and health shows clearly that there is more failure than success.

No matter what your opinion may be regarding the subject, you never will change anything in Reality by your thought process. If the eternal verities were to be changed by the mere thinking of man, the whole of existence would be at the mercy of man, and chaos would result. The only thing that is changed by thinking is your attitude toward a thing.

Some people think that meat is harmful to them, others that they cannot do without it. What about this? Is the help or harm in the meat? It does not follow, because you think a certain way, that makes it the same for another. Because you think a thing is good does not necessarily make it so. At one time it was thought to be good to force religion on people, obliging them to attend religious services. Today this is changed.

Only beliefs can be changed --- Realities never can. And so man again finds that he is up against a shifting, changing system of thought, he has beseeched, begged, pleaded, and even demanded what he claimed was his Divine Heritage, without the slightest result. He has lived upon some far distant demonstration of the Power, and has drained it dry of Its inspiration, hoping against hope that he might have a return of the Power. He has asked himself and others why it is that he is unable to heal or get healed, and eventually he turns to the plane of – Spirit

"I Am of too pure eyes to behold iniquity" is the watchword. Man begins to understand that the Power of the Christ-consciousness, which is quicker than the thought, is awareness, and not creation. For the first time he sees that his eye has been double; that he has been living in a world of good and evil; that he has had to accept evil before he could get rid of it; that if he could get rid of it, it of necessity must have been unreal, l lc sees that belief is the only thing that can be changed, and that the eternal laws of God cannot be broken. If they could, they would be worthless. What man does is to attempt to break them, and is himself broken in the attempt. Awareness of his God Self lifts him to a place of recognition. He sees clearly that all evil is ignorance (ignoring God). Just as a student of music who ignores the principles of harmony will achieve small results and much discord, so his acceptance of evil as something that has to be got rid of is merely his ignorance of the Something that must be recognized. In spite of the injunction "Take no thought," thousands of people are today fighting a terrific battle With evil, which is more or less real to them by reason of their acceptance of it.

"Come out from among them [your beliefs] and be ye separate." You can believe, anything, but that docs not make it true. Eventually man will take the path of pure Christ Truth as manifested by Jesus, and will learn there is no time which is before the Christ-consciousness. Before Abraham was I AM. That is there is no Before Christ. There is a before Jesus. "Before Abraham was, I AM," but there is a very definite period prior to the Jesus. The "Jesus" comes and goes, but the Christ remains in his changeless state of glory, waiting recognition. If Jesus had not recognized his True Self, the Christ, he would have passed away unknown, an obscure carpenter in a small village. He admitted that as Jesus he could do nothing, but that with the Christ he could do anything. He made it perfectly clear that what he did through the man Jesus is a present possibility with every man, knowing the Impersonal Power which was and is impartial, and everywhere instantly available.

Man begins to see that he cannot change the eternal facts of Being. Thousands have said "Lord, Lord," and received nothing. Thousands have said "Peace, peace," and there was no peace; and thousands have said "Peace, be still," and seen a raging sea of human belief calmed like a millpond at sundown. No authority rests in the plane of the mental, for its basis is constantly changing.

Not so long ago people believed that every true prayer should be prefaced with endless denials; this being eventually found unproductive of results, the idea was changed to intense and repeated affirmations of the truth. This too is beginning to crumble. Trying to take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence has not proved successful. Telling the Creator that He is God, and the only Creator, is no revelation to God, and does not make it any more true than by repeating a thousand times over that two times two are four, makes four any more than it was before. It has always been that and always will; nothing will ever change that, for it is an eternal verity.

Gradually man begins to see that all his thought-processes have come to naught---he has merely builded up a universe of beliefs which he finds tumbling about him. In his desperation he reaches out for the Reality of the Spiritual Plane, the place of Changeless Reality, and begins to experience the first real and enduring peace he has ever known----the Peace which passeth all understanding, HE sees now that the injunction, "I will overturn and overturn, until he comes whose place it is to rule," is made true, and he is happy at last to be rid of the bulky letter of that teaching which was given to the child and kept from the wise and prudent.

Why man has gone so far afield is the amazing thing when he begins to see the simplicity of life and the beauty and holiness of the true creation. He smiles when he thinks with Shakespeare, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," and he sees the utter impossibility of such a creation proceeding from God. Imagine a world that is constantly subject to change by taking thought!

Awakening to the glorious possibilities of the Sons of God, man is self-revealed--- in a burst of glory he suddenly sees the portals of Heaven (self-expression) loom white and glistening before him. He begins to experience here and now his Heaven. He calls from the watch-towers of the universe:

It is wonderful!

His Name --- the name of your I AM --- is Wonderful, and the government of the life of your Jesus --- your human personality --- shall be upon His shoulders.

Beloved, rejoice; it is wonderful. All the tiresome job of governing this erratic personality which you have called by a special name falls away. You take My yoke upon you and find My burden is light. My burden is merely the bearing of the testimony to the world that the Law of a Changeless Universe is here and now effective, and that the Sons of God are not in any way subject to the limitations of the human personality. Man begins to see that true prayer means alignment with that which IS, and the consciousness of "thine and mine" passes away and the Divine Ours comes into being.
Heaven and earth are full of Thee. Think of it ! You are living, moving, and having your being in the pure substance of Spirit. You do not have to think it into manifestation; you have to recognize that Jesus was a truth-sayer and not a liar when he said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand --- it is within you." Believest thou this? ---- you who read this book ---- or will you drag in your dead fathers and your qualifications and limitations and your special brands of teaching?

When the eye becomes single the whole body is full of light --- full; not nearly full. Full to overflowing, because it has lost the shadow of belief, which says there is evil in the universe and that thinking can change it into good. When the eye is single, it will perceive Reality instead of belief, and will there-by see Reality into manifestation everywhere. It is wonderful.

Before you, [who read this book], a new door has opened, the door of Christ. "I AM the door" and at the same time, "Behold I stand at the door." When you, through the process of recognition, know that there is such a thing as a Perfect Universe, created and sustained by God, who found it very good, you will, by opening the door of your human consciousness, find that I AM there, ready to enter into expression. The I AM is your individual expression of the Universal God. And no sooner is the door opened than you find that the I AM (your own individual point of consciousness) is the door of every wall, to every room (new state of consciousness), to everything that formed a shell about your good and which you termed problem. Behold! behold! It is I --- your Real Self. Be not afraid.

Quicker than thought is the thinker of the thought --- quicker than the twinkling of an eye --- quicker than any human measure is the I AM --- knowing everything, needing nothing, awaiting recognition. I must increase --- the Christ-consciousness must come more and more into visibility; you (human beliefs) must decrease. The going of the personality, with its petty desire for fame or name, or its holier-than-thou, stone-casting propensities, must decrease in order that the Son of God may come to rule in his own universe.

Contemplation of the Perfect Universe --- not the attempt to create it --- will cause your human universe to take on new proportions. The borders of your tent will be enlarged; you will launch out into deep waters; you will sing a new song.

To be absent from the body and present with the Lord is not an emotional experience, but a present possibility. To be present with your True Self is to find yourself in possession of everything that is necessary to sustain the no-problem state of existence. It is wonderful!

Walter C. Lanyon