The author of this book. WALTER C. LANYON, is an American-born Englishman. He was educated in this country, France and England and has spent more than half of his life traveling all over the world investigating and studying the various presentations of Truth.
For fifteen years, Mr. Lanyon has lectured on the personal revelation he has gained of the Principle of Life, in all countries of the globe.
Through years of proving the Word he has refined his presentation of it, eliminating the personal almost completely and leavings the pure revelation as simple and natural as possible. Thousands will testify to the tremendous Spiritual Force gotten through the mere reading of his works.
It has been the desire of Mr. Lanyon to keep the personal entirely out of the way, hence, no exploitation of himself or his books has taken place.
He is the author of some thirty-three books on Truth, a novel, two librettos for light operas and innumerable articles and write-ups on human interest.
The simple manner in which Mr. Lanyon has stated the truth enables the reader to grasp the principle for himself and put it into practice without the cloying sense of a personal teacher or organizational bondage.
The revelation of Truth comes as naturally as the dawn to the soul who is ready to let this happen. The kernel of his teaching is the "First Person and present tense" - the actual. usable, practical. revelation of the Jesus Christ teaching.
by WALTER C. LANYON
CONTENTS
Page
The Immaculate Conception 9
Devitalizing Evil 22
Born Again 34
God Requires the Past 44
Except 69
The Gesture 79
Stir Up the Gift 91
Yon Sycamine Tree 104
The Presence 112
Wisdom 119
The Secret Power 125
The Well of Living Waters 144
God in Action 151
If I Be Lifted Up 162
At the Feet of the Master 172
Revelation 178
Assumption 188
The Mechanics 194
The Blaze of Life 203
Who Are You? 215
copyright 1941
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
"SEARCH the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have life eternal."
Until the Scriptures yield up their symbology, they remain a rather tedious history of a decadent civilization. Once you become the principal actor, as it were, in the moving pictures of the sacred book you begin to understand the revelations of Jesus the Christ; how it was that he constantly spoke in parables because of the ignorance of the people, and how necessary it was for the people -- even you and me -- to release the blessed revelation from these stories into the present-day, practical, everyday living.
Who then has not written the psalms of desolation and the Psalms of Praise? Who then has not found all of the incidents of Job's painful and triumphant existence shadowed forth in his own life? So also hidden in the various events is the actual power for those who have eyes to see -- what the Scriptures say unto the Churches -- unto your temples-bodies.
To the human thought the way of Jesus is the way of the Impossible, even the way of fantasy. Who believes in miracles as natural, normal things? They are classed in the unnatural and the impossible, and it is from this elevation we must approach them if we expect to understand their practical use in everyday life.
Everything that Jesus did is "impossible" to the human senses. The three-dimensional mind speaks from that mass of knowledge it gathers looking through the "glass darkly," but it speaks truly as far as its limited vision is concerned. We know that a heavier-than-water body will sink in water, and that gravity, cohesion, adhesion, attraction, have a definite power which cannot be set aside, even temporarily, except with great effort. Yet everything that Jesus did was outside of all of these laws.
Many people are still trying to work in the three-dimensional-thought world with this new Power, and find it utterly incompatible and impossible, and so it is.
If the Christ Power could do only the possible there would be little use to bother with it, since you are daily doing what is possible. We are only interested in the teaching of Jesus Christ because of its doing the impossible.
If you cannot readily take off from this level you are still looking for miracles, and verily after you have seen one, and keep looking for them, you will not even be able to find ME. "Ye seek ME after the loaves and fishes and cannot find ME" - not because I AM not there, but because through the glass darkly you have glimpsed the impossible happen and are still treating it as a magic power, a worker of tricks, and a doer of legerdemain. If you cannot conceive that the IMPOSSIBLE is the field in which the Christ Power operates you will still be swinging between something and nothing. And it will be mostly nothing.
Hence all the deeper lessons tucked away in stories and parables deal with the doing of the impossible. The problem is clearly stated and worked out; the way out of every difficulty is clearly given. No one of the present day can enter into a situation which has not been fully and amply covered, explained, and proved nothing by the Jesus Christ Power.
"Search the Scriptures." Do you hear?
Mary the Virgin was overshadowed by the Presence. The Annunciation was made. An impossible thing was to take place. She was to bring forth a Messiah, and this bringing forth had to be outside the offices of man. Instantly the whole proposition was put on the plane of the impossible -- it just could not happen. Anyone could see and understand that. And Mary asked: "How can this be, seeing I know no man?" In other words, it was an impossible situation, and could neither be understood nor manifested.
Is this situation any different from what you are trying to do? Have you not arrived at an incurable state of a diseased or worn-out body and mind, or a hopeless state of waiting, or a half dead state of no expression? And are you not trying to bring out the impossible when you try to get rid of the incurable disease? When the annunciation-desire-is made to you of perfect health or substance being possible in your life, what does your mind echo? Yet where did you get the desire for the perfected state of health or expression? Why doesn't everybody have the same desire; and, when you bring this state of perfect health or substance into manifestation (when you embody it), will it not be a Messiah to your world? Will it not save you from destruction by disease or limitation?
The Presence urging upon you constantly for expression stands at the door of consciousness - "Behold I stand at the door and knock, and if any man [that includes you] hear My voice and open unto Me, I will come into him and sup with him and he with Me." This constant annunciation of the Presence, over-shadowing your consciousness - urging you to give it a body and form -- results in the eternal immaculate conception taking place in you.
Instead of your desires being merely floating thoughts which have to be "worked" out, they become the annunciation of the Presence asking for permission to come in and sup with you. The Holiness of this eternal function puts a seal on the lips, and we find that as soon as Mary found that "nothing was impossible with God" she then "magnified the Lord within her."
The questioning and wondering, the guessing and worrying about it all, were entirely dropped out of the scheme of her thought. If all things were possible to God, then the impossible thing would find a way and means of expression. The annunciation or the desire carries with it all the necessary ways and means of bringing itself into manifestation, but it needs the perfect cooperation or integrity of Mary. She is found to be the perfect exemplar of bringing forth the invisible, impossible thing and giving it a body and a form. She "pondered these things in her heart." There seemed to be so little chance of the thing taking place through the thought of man. Also we see her in a very difficult situation as far as the actual affair was concerned.
Who was going to believe in the Immaculate Conception? Who would believe it today? Not many; and Mary would not have been more popular in her home town than she would be under like circumstances today. Hence the need for silence and the deep magnifying of the Power; the turning entirely away from the appearance, and the "letting" the Impossible become the Possible by is own way. "ii have a way ye know not of"; hence, I can and will handle the manifestation. It is wonderful when you liken your desire with this glorious Immaculate Conception from the standpoint of symbology.
When you tell your desire, what do you find happens? Does anyone believe you are capable of bringing it out? Not one. Everyone knows that it cannot happen; for what you are trying to do is outside of the laws of man. Who believes that you can prosper yourself through your understanding of this overshadowing Principle? It is impossible and it cannot happen. Yet the Spirit is over-shadowing you with an endless stream of desires, all of which should find a body and form and go forth into expression, if you but followed the law of Mary.
"And Mary magnified the Lord within her." She ceased to look to the ways and means, or to consider the almost hopeless situation that confronted her. "She pondered these things in her heart."
The holiness of Life ! when you see, even for a moment, this glorious idea of the Immaculate Conception. Your desires are dignified with the joy of being possible because they are impossible to the reasoning of man. This very recognition of the Impossible as possible shows the first faint streaks of wisdom and acceptance in a power which is not dependent upon the limited laws of man.
The Spirit is overshadowing you now, even as it is overshadowing every other temple, body, urging upon it to open the "door" of expression and "let" ME in. The thief, the crook, the harlot, and the saint are all overshadowed with this glorious Presence, flooding them with desires, every one of which is a holy thing seeking a body and a form, but, because of the impossible nature of the desires as viewed through the "glass darkly" of the human thought, only distorted and ugly manifestations can get through. Every desire is holy and from God, and in its purest form is true and good, but, by the time it is put through the thick fog of human belief, that which comes out into manifestation is so far removed from its original urge as to be unrecognizable.
Life circumscribed by the human mind is a series of blasted hopes and desires, and yet it should be just the opposite by reason of the revelation made by Jesus.
"With God nothing is impossible." WITH God? Or with God" Does it mean it is only true to a God separated from you or because you are with God? Do you recall that Jesus made Himself as God, and do you begin to see how the IMPOSSIBLE becomes the possible to the consciousness that is of the same substance or nature? "Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light." Jesus did not try to use a POWER to work things out on the plane of the Impossible; he found his true nature to be God, and to God all things were and are possible. The coming forth of this may have set aside or upset all the human beliefs regarding the situation, but that was of no consequence. So does an electrical storm many times set aside the best-laid plans of mice and men, and neither one nor the other can do anything about it, whether they like it or not. Jesus was not concerned with what the human thought would think or do about the situation. He made Himself as God, and from that Plane the Impossible became the Possible, and its coming into manifestation might be considered a miracle or a coincidence; it made no difference. Suffice to say, he knew that the human mind would dispose of it some way so as not to upset its own basis of life.
Presently the idea will be made clear to you. You will begin to see the plan of manifestation. The Overshadowing Presence announces that which is to take place in and through you. You have it as a desire, and the moment this is accepted in the clear Virgin mind (the mind which is not cluttered up with a lot of metaphysical teaching and beliefs) the silent announcing of its advent goes forth. The Wise Men from afar, seeing the star, come with their gifts. So with every desire that is immaculately conceived and brought forth according to the way of Jesus Christ - it draws everything to it that is necessary, instead of going out into the world seeking for its own. Every desire that you ever had, or ever will have, which is handled from this standpoint will be recognized and receive its gifts from the Wise Men. It is wonderful when the revelation of the Immaculate Conception takes place within you. You will feel the scales dropping from your eyes and the new day appearing. The old idea of getting an idea and then trying to remonstrate it, even in the face of the knowledge that it is absolutely impossible, falls by the board, and the Recognition of Presence shows forth definitely in results. "If I be lifted up [to the point of recognizing that my desire is the annunciation of the Overshadowing Spirit] I will draw all men unto me."
Once you are lifted up, once you experience the eternal rightness of the Presence of God in and through all things, you will understand how the impossible -- the Immaculate Conception, symbolically speaking -- is taking place through you, and you are bringing into manifestation the Messiah which will save you from the difficulties into which the conscious-thinking has brought you.
The judging from appearances will completely fall away from you. Appearances will be ignored, just as they were by Jesus when he was bringing forth the "desire" which the Overshadowing Presence was urging him to set free. The battling with appearances only establishes them. The more attention you give to negative things, the more they increase. The case of a man with a great fear of knives kept him constantly on the qui vive, and enlarged the possibilities of something dire happening from this source. Why? Because in his attempt to rid himself of them he endowed them with all sorts of power which they did not possess. Millions of people do not think of "knives" in negative terms, and yet to this man they were the symbol of all that was evil. Other people could live with them or without them. To thousands of people they were a necessity. You begin to understand how it is that you put a thing into the negative classification and work to get rid of it. You are only endowing it with the very thing you are working against. What is true of the knife is true of the man. Some person may work against another who is keeping him out of expression, or is dominating him. He holds him in the negative position, and at the same time tries to rid himself of this negative thing. It only increases. The knife and the man are the same thing. Putting things into the negative place of manifestation does not necessarily make them evil. "One man's meat is another man's poison" is proof of that.
So the recommendation of Jesus, "Judge not from appearances," carries with it something deeper than "ignoring" evil as a realty. Ignoring the appearances as Jesus did was the result of an understanding of Power. He knew that the "thing" of itself had nothing to do with the reaction you were getting from it.
And so we find Mary, the symbol of that which brings forth what is most impossible of expression, and in a way entirely outside the laws of man, showing us by the Magnifying of the Lord within just how the desires are brought forth.
All the reports of the coming event given to the unbelieving world, will only raise up a Herod of disbelief and fear, and, though it may not touch you, it will cause you to do many things which would be entirely unnecessary had you bided the counsel of Jesus Christ: "See that ye tell no man," but "show John."
Beloved, you are overshadowed every minute of the day and night with this great Presence, and, as the Spirit moves on the "face of the deep," an annunciation is made, a desire is born, and this desire must come through outside the human laws. The moment you give it the recognition and the full power to express in a "way ye know not of, " at that instant it will find its means of expression. "Neither say Lo here! or, lo there ! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you" -- the state of the consciousness of this Presence is in you, and that is the only place it can ever be felt, known, or experienced. The moment you recognize it there, you see it in everything, and the impossible thing, which has to be born outside the offices of man, comes through in a normal and natural way without disturbing anything. It is wonderful. "Is anything hard to ME?" Answer me. Your little problem fades away. You begin to see that hitherto you approached your desires as problems to be worked out, instead of the urge of the Great Spirit overshadowing you with Love. It is wonderful.
When you come to understand this great overshadowing of the Presence you will understand the eternal coming of spring in all its symbology, and your body shall be like a garden planted by the banks of a river, bringing forth its fruit in due season. What are you worrying about? Align yourself with this glorious thing called Life and the fluttering, fitful sense of things will pass, absorbed into even and beautiful patterns of rhythm.
Your desires will no longer come under the heading of something to be "worked out"; they will be the eternal annunciation. Remembering that the sparrow is just as precious as the eagle, you do not have to worry about your desires being so trivial in the scheme of world events.
Mary did not run into the streets and tell the world that she was going to bring forth a Messiah by other than the offices of man, she "pondered these things in her heart." The heckling and arguing of ways and means, the pro-and-con standpoint, have nothing whatsoever to do with this revelation of Jesus Christ. It is, and therefore it Is. "Flee from that man whose breath is in his nostrils" is a good thing to remember always. "Agree with thine adversary quickly." What difference does it make to you what he "knows," thinks, or believes about the Truth? Let him have his way -- don't argue, don't expose, don't talk, don't tell the glorious annunciation which has been made unto you. "My sheep hear My voice." Do you?
Be still -- even at this holy moment you are over-shadowed by the PRESENCE -- it is urging upon you the new idea. Your desire is a holy thing, a thing of joy, a glorious inner revelation -- an Immaculate Conception. "Praise God from whom all (not some) blessings flow."
DEVITALIZING EVIL
"I CAME to fulfill, not to destroy" - there is nothing to be destroyed in all the Holy Mountain. Not even the devil; nor even the sickness, poverty, and hateful bondage of human life. Nothing is to be destroyed. It is to be fulfilled.
The egg is not destroyed when it becomes a bird, the caterpillar when it becomes a butterfly, and yet in a sense they are destroyed. The thing which is left when the egg becomes a bird is a thin shell it crumbles and drops into the dust, and even the place thereof is no more.
Jesus counseled the taking away of the attention from appearances and centering it upon this Power which fulfills -- by this very process of taking away the attention from the appearances we devitalize the problems of life, which are entirely dependent upon the thought-substance to keep them alive.
The reason your problems have not been met is due to the fact you have been trying to overcome them - you have been fighting against something and at the same time exclaiming there is nothing but God in the universe. When you awaken to the Presence you will see the process, "Ye must decrease -- I must increase," take place before your very eyes as the power is withdrawn from the problem and merged into the Presence for reshaping and re-embodiment. In other words, the devitalization of the manifestation of evil will take place.
It is very much like letting the air out of a balloon -- the moment you take your attention from the appearances and judge righteous judgment then the manifestation begins to fade out, just as a parasite begins to wither when the sap of the plant or tree is taken from it.
Once you see this simple method you will understand why it is that the Kingdom of Heaven is given to the child -- the attention can be taken from the appearances, the snapping of the thought which is feeding the evil manifestation takes place and the manifestation falls into the dust, not being able to support itself.
"Magnify the Lord within" and disregard the appearance of the problem and you will begin to experience the consciousness of it cracking up -- falling away for the new embodiment to take place; just as the egg cracks before the new embodiment of the eagle, which is leaving nothing behind it but the thing which formerly made it egg, but which is now only a broken shell falling into the dust of oblivion. So will you stop the effort to catch fish in the sea which is filled with fish and you will begin to "let down your nets." The moment the thought is taken away from the problem, at that instant the life-stream is cut from the manifestation and it begins to perish.
The old idea of fighting- against evil and calling on God to destroy something, which in the next breath you admit does not exist, is the densest kind of "metaphysics." The manifestation of disease, though it may have a history years long, is only as old as the last thought about it. Out of consciousness -- out of manifestation - the Walls of Jericho must and will crumble when you have taken your attention from them. At the precise instant the word shall be spoken and a crumbling of appearances will take place -- a strong breath of life will dispel the crumbling mass of manifestation into nothingness. It is wonderful - the power which is inherent in the Risen Lord.
"Working" against the condition -- or "working" to know there is no condition opposite a state of self hypnosis -- you are caught in the language of metaphysics. Dead words -- "Awake, thou that sleepest"; are you still under the hateful law, "Earn your living by the sweat of your brow"? Are you WORKING in this human sense of the word when you pray?
"Behold! I come not to destroy" -- do you hear? - I said, "I come not to destroy." Then what are you trying to destroy? An appearance" A belief? What for?
If God comes not to destroy, who are you to destroy? "I come to fulfill"; and, when the thing is fulfilled with the Spirit, when you recognize the Presence, you will burst the thin and narrow confines of the manifestation which is so ugly and untoward. Behold I make all things new. We are not seeking to recover something lost, something once used. "Behold I make all thing new," and when this idea comes to you, you Will perceive that immediately the new creation is a new consciousness with a new embodiment. So the egg becomes the bird -- so you are embodied in a consciousness which is more sensitive to the PRESENCE than you were formerly, and hence are capable of accomplishing things that were utterly impossible before.
"Behold, I make all things new." The moment you begin the devitalizing process of evil, even the devil and hell are made lifeless and must fall into nothingness -- the life is taken from them.
It is as a man who owned a magnificent library of rare first editions. When he died, the library immediately began to disintegrate and was eventually scattered to the four winds. Why? Because it had nothing to hold it up. The moment your attention is taken from the appearances, the appearances fall to pieces. That is why Jesus kept saying, "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me" - the moment you do this the new embodiment is taking place. "Whatsoever you ask in My nature" -- whatsoever you can conceive as possible to this nature -- that will be made manifest through the Law of Christ Jesus.
In a moment of forgetfulness, many an invalid has done things which were seemingly impossible to do. "At a moment ye think not, I come" - you will see what a little is accomplished by taking thought. "Who, by taking thought, can add one cubit?" Are you ready to hear this? - or would you like to debate the issue, simply because the density of your mind does not apprehend the height, breadth, length of the Presence?
It is glorious when you glimpse the simplicity of this Christ message. It is up and away from the old thinking process -- it is pure revelation, past the understanding of man. It is in the realm of the "peace" which passeth all understanding." I said all -- that includes your own and that of the greatest spiritual leader or teacher in the universe -- it simply is something which transcends the thing called human understanding.
"Leave all" -- do you hear? "Follow Me" does not mean that you let go of a thing, or that you go to any place. But you leave it all, as far as thought is concerned, and that is the quickest way to get rid of the manifestation.
As the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God, so is the Wisdom of God foolishness in the eyes of man. To the human unenlightened man he is sure that if he thinks hard enough or prays hard enough he will accomplish the destruction of the appearances -- if he thinks money hard enough he will create it. He reckons with a human law which might, through some queer whim of fate, temporarily make a change. He cannot think it possible to attain these things and also to entertain the Presence the moment he stops the thought taking process and enters into the recognition of it all and begins to experience the deep and marvelous changes of the new embodiment being born.
"In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall bring it to pass." Do YOU hear? Answer me. Well, then, what is keeping "it" from coming to pass in your life? Is it the thought taking, the judging from appearances, the trying to adjust, straighten, or arrange things or thoughts?
Perhaps it is -- and perhaps you will "leave all" -- I said all and follow Me, and begin to experience the deep delight of the rest that comes to one when he senses that God knows more than any combination of manifestation ever can hope to glimpse. "I have a way ye know not of," slams the door shut tight in the face of the "man whose breath is in his nostrils" and who is trying to square the teaching of Christ by the yardstick of human intelligence.
"In all thy wars acknowledge him, and he shall give thee the desires of your heart." Can it be possible? Can you begin to see how you are gradually coming out of the desert of working into a place of service and expression -- into a place where man becomes a part of the gorgeous pattern of life, and can no more be kept from his expression than he can be sent into his expression by thought? There is a sudden doing away with the paraphernalia of the human thought.
Who told you to make the effort to express - who told you that a man held the power to keep you out of your place or to let you in? Who told you that you must get a man-made authority to express the substance of your mind? The world has told you, and it is true, as long as you are trying to sell yourself to the world -- but when you merge into Spirit, when you are one Nature, there will be no need of entering into the limitations of man. He has his success and his failure; both are but human degrees. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the Power. God is not successful -- that is a man-made limitation and is usually pictured out by dollars and cents.
God is not limited to the narrow confines of "success." That is the measure man holds to the universe, hoping to get it full, but when he "proves Me" he will begin to see that his measure is far too small.
God does not ask permission to perform. You are the word of God made flesh -- what about you? Why do you not accept My invitation, "Lean on Me"? -- literally, lean upon the consciousness of this Presence. If you have the human decency and honesty to fulfill that which you claim you have, you will see definitely, "I will sustain you" - not after the limited manner of your thinking -- "I have ways ye know not of." Do you believe it?
When is the fire of the burning bush going to burn out all the dead manifestations which you have been holding to yourself so long? When will you flame with the joy of sensing, "Heaven and earth are full of Thee" -- and mean it, and cast your burdens on the Lord and feel the Presence emanating through you? The hills shall be made low and the rough places smooth and the crooked places straight -- all this symbology to make you see how the problem is devitalized when you take your thought away from it.
"Judge not from appearances, but judge righteous judgment." The desire of your soul, which is the thing in its incipiency urging upon you for fulfillment, is possible of fulfillment, though it must have a new embodiment -- not necessarily a new shape, but a new height of consciousness which can accept the new revelation as natural instead of the old idea that it is something that must be demonstrated.
The literal interpretation of the Scriptures begins to take place the moment you have found the soul of it all. Without an embodiment the unseen is unexpressed and is worthless -- it must be embodied; and this power of embodiment in the face of such binding limitations as a shell, a prison wall, a fearful disease or reputation, can only take place when you turn your attention to me and magnify me within.
"What is that to thee?" is the password thereafter -- the attention has been taken away from the appearances. This does not necessarily mean that you are closing your eyes to it; just suddenly you have taken the thought from it, and the "What is that to thee?" stays with you as a guardian angel until the moment comes for you to blow the breath and see the walls crumble.
All the while, from the moment the attention is taken away from the appearances, the leaven of the Presence has been devitalizing, undermining the solid appearances of belief, so that when the breath of Life is blown upon the thing, it goes up in a cloud of smoke and you enter in. The Jericho of your desire, walled away by impossibilities, becomes yours. You do not climb over, fight against, tear down, or in any way attack the walls -- you devitalize them by taking your thought away from the appearances.
It is wonderful what a little contemplation on this thing will do for you. Suddenly you will see why Jacob struggled all night with the Angel, and how finally he loosed it and let it go. So you will take the very light out of hell or the devil by this same process. When you stop regarding the flames of hell and recognize Me, you devitalize hell, and it becomes heaven. Even while you are momentarily in the flames you experience the holy command, "The flames shall not burn thee." It is glorious, this one Nature of the Jesus Christ consciousness.
The appearances may be solid and filled with terror, the roadway filled with armed charioteers and horsemen; destruction is near; but "look again" - and the devitalization takes place. We are not going to fight. "Put up your sword" is just as true today as it was two thousand years ago.
"Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light." Where is the Christ? When Jesus raised his eyes to Heaven, did he look up? And if so, where are you going to look? When he performed the gesture in his Consciousness he must have stayed on the Power and magnified that, if the embodiment necessary was to take place, and eventually before his eyes the spectre of appearances which manifested hunger and lack, fell to pieces, and the embodiment of plenty took place.
"Believest thou this?" Can you believe in the Divine nature to the point that the embodiment necessary to put the child on earth will take place, by a way ye know not of? Outside of the laws of mankind? If so , you can rejoice, for all flesh shall see it together.
In every instance of so-called miracle cited in the bible, we see Jesus practicing this devitalizing process. The attention is taken from the appearance, and the manifestation has the life-flow snapped instantly. It may wag about until sundown, but the "What is that to thee?" keeps you in perfect peace -- the walls crumble as you enter in. You enter in through the door which no man can shut -- I said no man, organization, person, place, or thing. By your yea, yea, "Believest thou this?"
"Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have life eternal." You see yourself moving through every character and every situation of the Bible, and yet you suddenly realize that you see yourself, and it is the you which is seeing yourself that has the power to accomplish that which changes the face of all nature.
"At his coming" -- what is this his? At his coming the earth melted. (Is your problem harder than the solid earth?) At his coming the hills skipped for joy and the trees sang, and so is the glorious pastoral poem of the symbolizing of the Presence.
So will the manifestations of evil suddenly lose their shape and form at his coming just as hell melts into heaven at his coming into manifestation, and the devil fades into oblivion. The running from appearances ceases; he can go or stay when you have taken the life out of him. He will be powerless, and will prove it over a thousand times.
Can you begin to see why you are sent into all the world? Naked, yet unafraid -- alive, awakened to your true nature. Shed with the preparation of the gospel, wearing the breast-plate of righteousness, etc., is but the symbology of becoming conscious of your nature. It is not a preparation for combating evil. No, not even by the old-fashioned method of begging, beseeching, and praying to a tribal Jehovah.
"In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall bring it to pass." Do you hear? What, then, is going to hinder the manifestation of it here and now?
BORN AGAIN
"MARVEL not ye must be born again."
The definite statement of what must take place before you can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven here and now made manifest, is little heeded by the average Truth student. He does not stop to see or realize that in order to do the works that Jesus said were possible for him to do, that he would have to be "born again" into a state of consciousness where those things which were formerly impossible, come under the head of the natural and possible.
He is admonished time after time, that it is useless to put new wine into old bottles, or to put a new patch on an old garment, and yet he will try with the limited physical senses to do those things which at the beginning are listed in the category of the impossible. Hence, he is merely trying to hypnotize himself into believing that some "miracle" will happen to him if he tries hard enough.
There is no possible way for the mind of the limited human senses to grasp the statements which set aside the laws of time, space, gravity, cohesion, and adhesion.
All the works of Jesus come under this head. Nothing he did was in any way subservient to the human findings. Everything that he showed forth set aside definitely a humanly accepted theory of law. How, then, is it possible for a man to attain these works working from a limited human sense capacity? "I can of myself do nothing" immediately states the position Jesus took to the limited faulty human senses.
"Having eyes, ye see not, and ears, ye hear not," was addressed to people who in the human sense of the word both saw and heard -- and yet they could not "see nor hear" that which belonged to the Power which he manifested.
"Marvel not ye must be born again" -- do not get excited about it, if you must be -- you can be, and the sooner you get over the idea that it is some strange and elaborate initiation, the sooner you will find you are "gradually merging into this new-born state.
"As you have borne the image of the earthly, so shall ye also bear the image of the heavenly." Is there anything so strange in that statement? No, there is nothing strange in any of the teaching of Jesus; it is sane, practical, and usable by the man in the street; the only strange thing about it all is the weird and difficult processes that have been thrown about it by the human mind.
If the child could get into the Kingdom of Heaven through the all-embracing capacity of accepting something which could not be reasoned out, then it does not seem so impossible for the adult to lay aside his adultery, his making the universe two instead of one.
The "peace which passeth all understanding" certainly is not going to be sounded or experienced by the understanding of you or your teacher, however famous you or your teacher may be. And yet that peace in which lie all things, is possible of attainment, but apparently not through the "understanding."
"Seek peace and pursue it, and all good shall come unto you." It is definite and direct -- all good shall come unto you. Do you hear? That is what you have been after, isn't it? You have wanted the all good, and there is no ambiguity as to how it will come if you follow the instructions of Jesus Christ -- if you come unto Me.
"Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which are prepared for them that love the Law."
The eyes have grown dim trying to see that which has been prepared, and have finally decided that it is some invisible thing that will come after death. And yet, not satisfied with this, man keeps on trying to see it now -- or to experience some of the marvelous things which the heart has been unable to sense.
It is evident, if you cannot see and hear and experience by the human senses the things which are prepared for you, it is because of their limitation, and yet we know that through these very senses comes the verification of the Presence of the Lord. "Feel Me, and see that a spirit hath not flesh and blood."
Through these very senses man experiences the word made flesh and discovers that what he is seeking, and what Jesus was talking about, is not an imaginary kingdom where vaporous bodies float about singing all day long, but that the resurrected word made flesh functions in the world though not of it as a tangible and very much alive and real thing.
The command to transcend both time and space is too difficult for the human limitations. "You say it is four months until the harvest, but I say, 'Look again,' " carries with it a demand for the extended vision -- a something that telescopes the thing the human mind calls time and space and which says it is so necessary to produce the said harvest.
What are you going to do -- argue about the possibility of it being so? Then you are arguing with the Teaching of Jesus Christ and you are setting yourself up. Why? Because you are looking through your limited human senses, and what you cannot see with your eyes and handle with your hands you will not accept and, further than this, you insist that because you cannot see or understand it that it is not so -- yet in the same breath you will insist that you follow the Master.
"Follow Me" means precisely what it says -- "Follow Me." You have already admitted your defeat. You have already decided that you do not know where you are going nor what is going to happen.
"Anything might happen" is the uncertain shaky human reasoning and understanding -- but this could not possibly be so of a "Changeless God and a changeless perfect law"; the only thing that changes is your human belief regarding a thing -- all else remains in its eternal undisturbed harmony. It is wonderful to contemplate the extension of the senses, the capacities of the "new born" idea. These capacities start where the human capacities leave off. Without the proper grasp of the senses you will be bound to draw all your conclusions from the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear. These conclusions, then, naturally will be faulty, and your judgment will be from appearances, and meet with the stern, unrelenting law, "Judge not from appearances, but judge by righteous judgment."
"Marvel not ye must be born again," otherwise you are still working in the "four months until the harvest" of human reasoning, and you may perish if you have four months before the harvest can come. If your prayers are put through the same time and space proposition, you may fall by the way long before the answer has time to reach you -- and how will the limited human reason handle the statement, "Before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear."
This is an utter impossibility, and you easily can get a group together to prove that it is an utter falsity; but what you are proving only are the limits of your own enlightenment. Because you cannot prove a thing does not argue for or against its reality; it merely states a condition of your own progress. "There are many things I could not tell you because of your unbelief." There are many things that you cannot grasp through the limited human senses -- there is not sufficient capacity in them to grasp the new elevation. The "before you call I will answer" needs something higher than human reasoning to cause you to come in line -- and that "something" is pretty near to the power which dissolves the mirage of time and space and human limitations from you.
The "look again" seems to be merely an adjustment of the lenses of the eyes; the time element in it is so sudden and impossible. "Who by searching can find me?" What have you in the human mind which can "search out the deep and hidden things of Spirit"? Nothing but the quality of imagination, and of that you think little in the practical, workaday world.
Yet Jesus submitted to the baptism of John the Baptist -- inspiration permitted itself to be baptized by reasoning, but the moment this ceremony was over, the glorious balance of Life having been established, he was through forever with that idea. We see him moving with the glorious power of the inspiration.
"When the inspiration of the All Mighty (heed the word All) has come unto you, it shall lead you (yes, you) into all things" -- when you see the inspiration that is the quality of the newly born moving into place of expression through and against everything, since it recognizes no condition or limitation -- then you will know why it is necessary for the eyes to be opened and the ears unstopped, no matter how keen your physical hearing and seeing may be at this moment.
As the aggregate mass of evidence of the senses forms the life of the human kind, so does the evidence of the spiritual senses reveal the kingdom here and now -- and when the one is lost in the other, then the word becomes flesh. When the limited human sense is lost in its divine counterpart, then the new capacities of the sense so far transcend the human reasoning that it is impossible to understand. The blending of the life with the universal life causes the "glass darkly" to disappear from in front of the vision.
Little by little it dawns upon man that the purpose of God is not for demonstrating the power of Truth, and that the idea that he studies about God in order to be able to do something that his fellow man cannot do must fall by the way in favor of the conscious knowledge that he is merging into the nature of God, and this very merging causes that which the human kind call miracles to be the ever-present manifestation.
The end and ultimate of this search for God is not, then, as had been supposed by thousands, to find a way to make bread out of stones or do strange and curious things -- in short, to perform miracles - but it is for the releasing of the True Nature of God into manifestation. If the action that is about to take place through it is not natural, because it is God action, then it is a false human belief trying to make itself felt as something.
If the child can get into the Kingdom, so can you. Or can you? Perhaps your intellect is so great that you have to smile at the simplicity of the child and Jesus, and so you smile until you stop smiling and that is the end of that.
Neither is the end of this search for God self aggrandizement. He who seeks the Power so that he may be known by men to do many "good" works, mistakes the Divine Nature which could not possibly act in any other fashion. He is limiting God and attempting to place a personal trade mark on the Infinite.
We do not good works for any other reason than that we cannot do any other kind of works: the nature of a blackberry is to produce blackberries, and the nature of God is to be God. And that "being" God is what the human man calls supernatural and miraculous, yet it is but natural and true to God. No law of God is set aside when a miracle takes place, but the Nature has finally overshadowed a human consciousness with such a flood of light that it has got through the "glass darkly" and in a measure has neutralized the thing called problem, the problem only having been the product of the foreshortened senses of the reasoning man.
"If you ask anything in my name [nature], that do I unto you." When you plant the blackberry bush and water it, you are asking it in the nature of the blackberry bush to produce blackberries -- what else can it do? and how naturally it is functioning when it does. It is the ultimate end or purpose of its existence.
And so, when you ask anything in the name or nature of Jesus Christ, the action that takes place before you ask is merely the expression of the nature, and it is going to be natural, simple, glorious; and only when you get into alignment with this idea can you ever hope to "Follow Me" into the heaven here and now made manifest. If it is not natural, then it cannot take place often, for it will be supernatural and will have to come under the heading of the supernatural.
The supernatural is that which happens once in a lifetime to the limited human reasoning, when for a moment it has relaxed the narrow confines of itself and let the power through. The rest of its life it is trying to make it happen again; but, as you cannot stand before a blackberry bush and demand that it give forth a measure of blackberries at your command, neither can you "make" the God nature act - in both instances the human mind first lays the wall of impossibility in front of the proposition.
"Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." We are beginning to understand why; the child can have his Father Christmas because he can transcend his human reasoning sufficiently to believe in that which he has never seen and which through every avenue of human reasoning is impossible.
"Except ye become as a little child ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." The ruling is strict and definitely outlined. "Except you become as a little child." All the human reasoning is set aside, and the Divine flow of inspiration carries us into the presence of the eternal Father Christmas and the everlasting Christmas Tree which stands in the midst of the Garden of Life.
It is all so wonderful, the new day that is even now breaking over the horizon of your day.
GOD REQUIRES the PAST
WHAT Of your past? Are you still carrying it along with you - the things you overcame and the demonstrations you made? If God requires the past, when are you going to walk through the waters of forgetfulness and let the dead past bury its past?
When you have sensed the ever out-picturing of the Jesus-Christ consciousness within you there are so many things to be revealed to you, that you have no time to set your little demonstrations in a row, and embroider them with details of evil to show how strong was the power which you "used" at that moment, or mayhap to "glorify" the little human understanding.
I have much to tell you -- yea ! even the things that could not be told to you in Jerusalem because of your unbelief -- but now this mysterious quality called "belief," which is not credulity and which is not human understanding but an awareness of the Inspired Presence, here, there, and everywhere, has come to you, and when you are ready, you will hear what the "Scriptures hath to say unto the Churches."
If, however, you are concerned with the past overcoming of evil, you are still believing in its reality -- the ever-flowing stream of manifestation will suddenly subside. God requires of you the past. "The former things have passed away; they shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more."
In the archives of memory lie the army of beliefs which strengthen evil admissions of the present. Remembering and going over all designs of evil will eventually cause them to retrace themselves in the present expression. Many a person is suffering, not from an accident, but the memory of it; not from a sin, but from the memory of it, with its army of condemnation.
"Loose it and let it go" -- free yourself from the memory of that which you passed through. It is the memory of evil, drilled into us from childhood, which causes us to react so suspiciously towards the world.
As you move into the new mansion (in my Father's house -- consciousness -- are many mansions) you come out from under the former laws, memories, and beliefs. You do not form your basis of judgment from the outgrown basis of evil.
"Behold I make all things new" - and so the basis of judgment is also new.
But where does evil come from -- if it is not real? A thousand times the question arises.
Recently, according to a news item, a man jumped into a taxi and ordered the driver to take him to an address a considerable distance away. He settled back for the long ride, when all of a sudden he realized the taximeter was not working. He noted this irregularity, and was about to call the driver's attention to it, when, gazing at the man, he noted the low overhanging brow and the hard, sharp features of a crook, and thought better of his action.
Not to be taken off guard, he thought out the best plan to handle the situation. Knowing that the driver had planned a little trick in order to extract an exorbitant fare from him, he thought out his line of conversation and defense, all the while regarding the "crook" driving the car. He jotted down the number of the driver's licence and the other information given on the ticket posted inside. He would show this thief that he could not put anything over on him.
By the time he reached his destination he was excited and all set to defend his rights as a citizen. He signaled the driver to stop and got out, at the same time demanding of the driver in very curt tones: "How much?"
The hard, sharp eyes of the driver looked at him, the tightly closed mouth slowly relaxed into a warm smile, and a laughing voice replied, "No charge, boss. I am getting married tonight, and am treating all my clients to free rides."
The honest (?) man walked away in silence, too stunned and surprised to say "Thanks."
Where was the crook he had been creating during the long ride? Where was the anger and hate that had caused his pulse to beat degrees faster than normal? Where was the fear that pictured itself in the kaleidoscopic fashion of a "horror film"?
You answer it. And the next time you are troubled with the origin of evil, if you will look to the proper place for the cause, you will see that it lies in "judging from appearances."
The driver had shut out all these evil thoughts, being filled with the only thing that never faileth - love.
"Judging from appearances" many times materializes the judgment. You actually endow it with the power of your own judgment, and cause it to react to you with all the force of your own fear and belief in it. It is like throwing a rubber ball against a smooth stone wall - it returns to you with all the force with which you throw it from you. Yet, at the same time, the same person or situation may be most kind and agreeable to another.
"Watch, watch, watch." You are standing in the midst of your own consciousness -- and the whole outside world is but a self-division of you.
When you begin to understand a little the "The Temple of God is with men" revelation, you will see that the "temples" (manifestations) are for the purpose of reflecting back to you the state of your own consciousness, as so many mirrors. The light need never be in the mirror, but on the object in front of the mirror, and so, with the return reflection, to any state of consciousness.
Whatever is in your state of consciousness when it is lighted by your conscious thinking will be picked up by one or a thousand mirrors the universe. A thousand "temples" will call from the housetop what you have found to be true in the "secret" of your heart -- whether this be good, bad or indifferent. Therefore, it is foolish to spend further time trying to change the mirrors, the temples, on the outside for they stand ready and willing to reflect or give back the exact reproduction of your own findings within.
Stage fright, fear, etc., is a multiplication of the idea of fear. Suddenly as you come before a thousand mirrors it is multiplied by a thousand, and you see an audience ready to destroy you. You are looking at the simple little thought of fear magnified and witnessed to by a thousand.
It is true, then, that the only place of correction is within, and when Jesus was asking you to "take the attention away from the appearances" he was not asking you to hide your eyes, but to see the uselessness of trying to change something on the outside which was sustained and kept into position by something on the inside.
We do not close our eyes to evil as formerly with the idea of getting rid of it, but we take our attention away from the supposed point of power or projection, and place it on the real place of power. "What thou seest, that thou beest," has been interpreted to mean if you imagine you are something you are not, it will come to pass. In reality it calls your attention to the fact that what you are seeing in your outward expression is the state of your consciousness made flesh. It should not be discouraging when you come face to face with this rather startling fact. It should stimulate you to know that at last you have found the place of attack.
"One man's meat is another man's poison" and "as a man thinketh" (thought being the emanation of a State of consciousness) "so is he" are true and just statements. When it is understood what is making the meat and poison, and what is causing the thinking, the whole process will be reversed.
My-thoughts will at no time change my state of consciousness; they proceed from, and issue out of, the truth or lack of truth I have in my mind regarding a certain object or situation.
I cannot change any man on the outside, except superficially, but I can completely make him over as far as his relations and reactions concern me. I cannot at any time control or cause another to do my bidding, neither can I meddle in any way with his private life, but I can control his reactions to me to the extent that they are harmonious and happy instead of filled with the false things claimed for him by the world or another.
When man begins to understand the Presence within him he is not looking for another -- he knows that this is he that should come. He knows definitely that the outside is merely the objectification of the inside, and that, no matter for the moment whether he can suddenly change it or not, he has at least reached the point of power.
The mass fear engendered by the memory and history of your life may seem so real and true that it is inescapable, but it is through this crystallization of conscious thinking that Jesus-Christ Nature brought Jesus and caused him to do the thing which he could not do.
Jesus knew he could of himself do nothing, and then he knew he could, through the Divine nature indigenous in every man, do all things. He did not try to escape Jesus, but knew that Jesus was the vehicle of expression for the Divine Nature -- the "he that should come."
Not long ago I saw a frail little woman, illiterate, ignorant, and with a thin soprano voice, rise quaking with fear and stage fright. She made a very badly worded announcement that "her guide or master" was going to lecture through her. With a few physical jerks and motions, suddenly she straightened 'herself up and, in the most cultured and beautiful voice, delivered an address which any scholar would have been pleased to give.
The audience sat in wonder. The speaker had escaped, through believing in another power, the limitations of herself. Jesus was faced with the same situation, and so are you faced with the same situation in one form or another -- you are not adequate to that task which confronts you, and there is plenty of evidence to the fact that you cannot do it.
Jesus immediately knew that he was not "looking for another"; he knew that "This is He that should come" was sufficient to speak all languages, all tongues, and with the wisdom which so far transcended man's feeble attempts as to put it into the plane of pure inspiration. He did not escape from himself, he found himself.
So long as you believe in the Power apart from yourself you will keep transferring the expression of your life to some being, or entity, or master. When you have found Me you will act in accordance with the law governing this Me. If your mind is stayed on Me, there is no question of the limitations of the little self standing in the way of the glorious expression of your God-self, and you will not have to believe in outside helps.
When you know there is nothing outside of you to help or harm you because the whole Power lies within, then you have come to the contact which Jesus made with God.
"I and my Father are one -- my Father [the Universal Presence] is greater than I"; and yet this must be expressed through the Personal I. "Call upon me and I will answer"; "I will walk in you and talk in you"; "You need but open your mouth and I will supply the words" -- all these and a thousand other truths are awaiting the recognition.
"Come close unto Me" -- begin to recognize the Deity within, and magnify the Lord, and see the limitations of the little self absorbed into the Godhead. Stop looking to something outside of yourself, and see what this glorious recognition of "This is He that should come" will do for you.
"He made himself as God" - the same substance, power, and spirit. If he discovered this lovely truth and put it into practice, what use would he have for a Master who was using his body like a megaphone? If the Master has so much to convey to the universe, would it not be just as well that he took on his own body instead of using another's? Answer me. If your body is to be eternally used as an instrument for some other power to speak through, when is your own glorious expression ever going to have an opportunity to bring out the hidden things, the gift that is within thee?
Rising above all this belief, and realizing the Presence, makes all things possible to you -- it does not take anything from that which is eternally true and does not in any way deprive you of the sweet communion with the Power of God in whatever form it comes to you - but it does awaken you to the present possibilities of being yourself.
"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings" runs the law. Why? Because they have no memory, no history, no comparison and judgment from appearances, but are actuated from the pure stream of consciousness of the God Self, not yet contaminated by the "wisdom of man." Hence the "child shall play on the hole of an asp" and the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.
The awakened soul who is not "looking for another," but has begun the recognition of his own Divinity, shall see the reward of this recognition instead of the bitter harvest of tears he has so long had through the denial of Me. "If you deny me I shall also deny you." If you keep transferring your power to another point, and recognizing powers outside of Me, I shall prove to you this denial is fruitful, and you shall bring forth the hellish crop of fears which you are constantly "treating against."
Not finding a plausible way to dispose of the evil, you will attribute it to other entities, either embodied or disembodied, or you will give it a name and run about excusing your failure to Life -- God -- by the fact that someone is "mal-practicing you," or that a person of another faith is praying against you.
I have seen people rushing about pronouncing the cursings and telling of evil things that would happen to people who did not subscribe to their personal teachings, and sometimes engendering fears in others, when they themselves could not bring out enough substance to pay a subway-fare to their destination.
Awake, thou that sleepest ! The next time the messenger of Light, who has a fear thought of cursing and evil in the background, approaches you with a sweet morsel of Truth, put him in the strait-jacket of proof. Look him over carefully, deliberately; I think you will find plenty of signs which indicate his utter lack of ability to bring out even the most necessary things of life.
Awake -- Arise from this dead belief. "Not that which goeth in defileth a man, or maketh him, but that which cometh out," It is not anything that is said to you, but what you do with it. It may go in one thing and come out another. Watch !
Poised in the Christ consciousness -- the recognition of your true self -- you are not "looking for another" -- he is come into expression when you recognize your own Divinity.
"The temple of God is with man"; you will begin to see how the embodiment of God -- called man - in millions of forms and shapes, stands ready and willing to co-operate when you recognize the Divinity within. Like a million receiving stations the "temple" of God stands. When the operation is entirely within, and handled with ah the integrity of the Jesus Christ consciousness, the "temple" at the right place and point will pick up the word and transmute it into substance.
The radio operator cannot reach out in the distance and "feel" about for a temple to receive his message; he is concerned with the integrity of performing the thing perfectly within. So man begins to see that the thing must be perfectly performed within -- the manifestation must and will take care of itself. It makes no difference about he manifestation as long as the integrity of the sending has been held to.
"Go within; ask the Father"; "that which you tell the Father in secret" -- with no judging, seeking, expecting, observation as to what the manifestation will be -- "shall be called from the house top." This is such a beautiful literal thing when once learned that it makes life a never-ending joy, full of surprises and revelations.
All the lovely sense of integrity is applied to the within, having passed the place of "wondering" whether the manifestation will be able to find you or not. By the Automatic Power nothing can escape its proper place. The fear and speculation about the results are entirely dissipated by the integrity placed upon the work within.
Statements of Truth become definite laws. "That which is told in secret shall be called from the housetop" is no more speculative of something to be proven; it is a statement of something that definitely takes place, entirely outside the ken of man's wisdom or knowledge or anything he may think pro or con regarding the subject. It is wonderful.
"The temple of God is with man" - the temple is already into manifestation, and hence you need not worry about not getting through into expression. "I go before you and prepare the way" is like the inaudible wireless message going out into the night, through the hurricane of appearances, and finding the temple of reception ready to pick up and bring into manifestation the substance of your "secret." It is wonderful.
"Fear not, God is not mocked," used to be held as the sword of Damocles over the head of a trembling, shrinking sinner. Suddenly it is taken out of this dark, fearsome teaching and thrust into glorious expression. Man's puny intellect cannot understand the eternal Justice of the Power and the manifestation of the same.
"I have a way ye know not of" settles once and for always any argument about "how," "why," "when," and "where." The Automatic Power will take care of that. Contrary to all outside appearances, this power suddenly expresses itself because "God is not mocked" and you have lost nothing for that which you have done in the secret place - either good, bad or indifferent. It is wonderful.
An interesting incident recently came to me. A woman confided in me that she practically had been the ghost writer for a series of books which have long been recognized in the metaphysical world as successful, and that the so-called author had literally taken this writing and given her no remuneration nor acknowledged it in any way. From the outside appearances the said author was now enjoying a great reputation and fame gained from these books, while the ghost writer remained entirely unknown and unrecognized. The finance which came from the books would have been much appreciated by her. The books being copyrighted, she, having no outside recourse to the matter, was indeed hopeless.
Now, then, if she judges from appearances, she has a hopeless situation. There is nothing she can do. The more she talks about it the more she sets in opposition a certain thought which does not and will not believe anything of the kind, and she receives nothing but the bitter tears of failure. When she returns to the center of her being she finds the glorious revelation that the automatic power of justice -- the God is not mocked element -- operative in the Temple of Man, can and does find out the rightful one -- and, though ten thousand fall, or though the way be filled with armed horsemen and chariots and infernal war machines, a new and lovely sense of confidence hovers over.
"God is mindful of His own" when the integrity of the work is kept; when the operator at the sending key releases it and lets it go out into the confusion and intellect of man, he will see it return freighted with substance. It is wonderful.
"God is not mocked" -- nothing that you do within is dependent on the outside situation. You are no more under the Law; you are in the Spirit, and hence you come by the way of Spirit, instead of the way of man. In coming by the way of God or Spirit man, manifestation automatically pulls itself together to form the picture necessary to give Spirit a body and a form.
"If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me." It is wonderful. "God is not mocked." Nothing that belongs to you can by any possible manner of means escape you. Your disconcern with the manifestation is the Divine carelessness, the Divine indifference of Spirit moving after its own way and constantly breaking every pattern of the human thought.
"Behold, I AM the Lord, the God of ALL flesh; is anything too hard for me?"
You answer it. You reading this line. Answer Me. I said "Behold!" It transcends the limited, puny human thinking; it is standing in a radiant light of revelation; it is "beholding" the glorious presence of God beside which there is no power -- not any.
"I AM the Lord, the God of ALL flesh" -- of all manifestation. (All flesh shall see it together.) I did not say "some," but all flesh -- all manifestation. That means the "flesh" -- situation, problem, or what you will - that has been troubling you.
Have you been able to answer "Yes" to all this? You reading this line. Am I the God of all, or have you another god of evil hidden away in your universe which causes you to say, "Yes, I know, but, if, and, and maybe?" Answer me -- what are you hiding from? Are you naked' Who told you you were naked? Answer me -- come out from among those ghost forms of ancient history and be free. "Am I the God of all flesh?" or have you another? Answer me.
"Is there anything too hard for Me?" Is your situation or condition or crystallized belief too difficult to melt like wax in a blast-furnace before the coming of Me? Answer me. Put your "too hard" problem before Me and see it run down into oblivion before the Presence of the One. No matter how frozen or ossified it may be, it shall melt away before this recognition of the Presence.
Beloved! your problem, no matter what it is, how long it has been standing, what an avalanche of testimony has solidified about it, comes under this glorious Presence. Nothing is hard to this Presence, because it does not work from the "Curse of the Law of matter"; it is working through the Spirit which is free from the heavy laws of the belief in duality.
All of this wonderful releasement comes through following the revelation of Jesus. When he brought to you the Jesus-Christ Nature he gave you the Open Sesame to the King's treasures. It is wonderful.
"Is this he that should come, or look we for another?" Are you looking for a Master to come along and do your work for you, or use your body as a megaphone, or do you want the Voice of Jesus-Christ Nature to express through you - to "talk in you and walk in you" and free its own glorious and golden expression into the universe? Answer me. "Is this he that should come, or look we for another?" Answer me. Are you beginning to recognize the Divinity of your Christ-Jesus Nature and getting busy about the Father's works, or are you still in a maze of wonderment as to whether he has arrived yet?
You cannot be about the "Father's work" if you are not sure where and what the Power is -- you do not even know what the Father's work is, and think your expression depends on something or other on the outside instead of the integrity within. It is true that when this integrity is kept on the inside anyone or anything may be used as the temple to aid and assist in bringing out the Secret -- but never is a favor asked to perform the business of God.
If you are about your Father's business, there is no question about being allowed to express, no matter whether this be digging a ditch or writing a book - nothing can or will block the way that you know not of, for it cannot find it or handle it either mentally or physically. Instantly I am on the other side of the lake, or I am through the crowd, or I am where you cannot find Me. It is wonderful when you see what it is to go by the way of God and stop worrying about the manifestation
When you know that "this is He that should come" - that the Jesus-Christ Nature is the nature which carries the government upon its shoulders, then all the little "prittle-prattle" about evil powers, cursings, malicious mal-practice, or any other little buzzing of the gnats of human wisdom are of no interest whatsoever. They are not to be handled -- they are not even given the dignity of anything that needs "handling." This Divine indifference is not the laxity of the lazy, sluggish human mind, but the balanced point of attention to the Mind Stayed on Thee. It is wonderful, this living in your consciousness - this sudden discovery of the Kingdom of Heaven here and now, right in the midst of the hell of yester-years.
"God requires the past"; you are leaving the Sodom and Gomorrah of human teaching, beliefs, and intellect, and coming out on to the high ground of expression. The Gift hidden within you is beginning to "start" from his prison of disbelief and is pushing into manifestation. Its progress is unencumbered by the fears of the past.
It is said that the mysteries shall pass away like the waters under a bridge. They begin this passing before your very eyes when you have made the discovery of the Divinity of Jesus-Christ Nature within you and begin the self-resurrection.
Your former capacity to create the chimera out of the cloth of belief has been absorbed into the "Judge not from appearances," and is releasing itself as the Heaven, here and now, which Jesus so often spoke of. Eternally referring to the within state for the Heaven on the without, it is curious that we have tried just the reverse process for bringing it into being. The look again, which is so important to all manifestation, can be done only when the look without has been taken away long enough to let the new picture take form and shape.
You are voyaging through Heaven, but through the glass darkly of the human conscious thinking it can be such a burning hell that the little pleasure of the occasional moments of surcease from its flames are hardly worthwhile. You can, and eventually will, discover Me in the midst of this inferno of conscious thinking, and that will be the end of all this ugly manifestation. When the flames have subsided, you will find nothing destroyed in all my Holy Mountain.
You cannot behold that which you do not recognize within yourself, either good, bad, or indifferent, and so you know pretty well what is going on in your own consciousness by the pictures you are seeing on the outside. If you know, this is a bitter pill to swallow, because you may be so worthy, so holy, and so true, but it cannot come from any other source. It should be encouraging to have located at last the point of attack.
"What think ye of Christ?" Honestly, what do you think of the Christ-Jesus Divinity within you? Answer me. "Come, let us reason together." Where do you stand? Is there something called your personal problem over which you have no control which is stronger and more powerful than the lovely Christ? "What think ye of Christ?" It doesn't make any difference what another thinks -- what do you think of it all?
Are you beginning to realize that the manifest universe is a self-division of your own consciousness, and that it gives back to you only what you find there. Is it not natural for a doctor to see sick people, and a musician to see musicians and music and so on and cannot these also be twined with a thousand other thoughts, so that, though the doctor sees sickness, he can also see failure of a personal nature, and have no patients while he is in the midst of a sick world, and the musician be utterly swamped with music and yet starve for the want to personal expression?
All of these central beliefs may be hung about with thousands of parasitic beliefs of lesser power. The consciousness gives off in the form of recognition that which causes the manifestation to take on certain reactions to it.
There is said to be a upas-tree in the tropics which exhales a poison vapor of such strength that small birds and insects are destroyed by smelling it. Whether this be true err not, the illustration will do to show how it is that when the inspirations do come near the consciousness that believes in evil, or to the consciousness hypnotized by belief, they fail or cease to manifest.
Have you ever met the mentality which was absolutely sterile to every offer, suggestion, prayer, or move to help? Its enormous success on a negative side should be a glorious and thrilling revelation to you and to the person using it. Think what such a mentality could do if awakened to the fact that the Power of this whole thing lies within, and that the universe is a self-division, so to speak.
Man is symbolically stepping before a universe of mirrors in which is caught and reflected the state of his acceptance of life. He sees himself in everybody he meets, and presently he begins to know what kind of a man he is consciously. Either the thing he eats is poison -- the meat he partakes of kills him -- or else "if they drink any deadly thing it shall not harm them." Man cannot be under both of these influences at once.
The "choose you this day whom ye will serve" calls for a radical choice. Either you choose the Oneness of God or the duality of matter, and the mirrors of your universe immediately begin their casting back of the reflections of yourself.
When you come to recognize the literal doctrine of Jesus that "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light," you will understand such radical promises as "Behold I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you." This beautiful symbology places your problems in the path of your Divine Revelation, and they, these beliefs, shall be trampled into the dust of oblivion. Coming by the way of God -- asking for wisdom of God, following the voice within -- is the sure path of light and joy and Heaven here and now.
Yes, it is written, "A little child shall lead them" - a consciousness that can accept God as a reality and has done away with a thousand and one other powers, any one of which seems to you more powerful than God, and any one of which you name your problem.
"Go not back to your former bondage." The way is straight and narrow, and does not indicate that it is a hateful strait-jacket of human invention. The way of mathematics is straight and narrow; there is no deviation from it if you expect the results; so is the Law of the Presence. Every time you divide the power and place it in anything else it weakens the manifestation in you, no matter how unselfish and lofty your ideas may be.