I think you are all familiar with the psalm "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hill, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord Who made heaven and earth."
If we take that literally it immediately associates us with a personage somewhere up in the sky who made us and this world in which we dwell. The metaphysician, or student of Truth, however, sees it quite differently. He does not direct his gaze upon a place, but into his own consciousness, into a higher understanding, the awareness of spiritual Law that functions with the spiritual power of Love which brought forth the heavens and the earth.
In the course of my work I meet a great many people and I find that for the most part they are exceedingly frail. The vast majority are only wishful thinkers who are prepared to believe in God for a week, a month or a few years but are unable to make a sustained effort and unwilling to keep on keeping on. A few there are who have the type of faith that will not take no for an answer, but which in spite of reverses, stoutly declare, "I will."
Each individual who enters upon this plane of awareness brings with him his own peculiar state of consciousness, one of wellbeing or the reverse; the assurance of health, happiness and prosperity or the acceptance of sickness, trouble and lack. And because we do not understand that this inner content represents the progress that we have, up to the moment, made in our journeys through life and is the background of the experiences that we are at present passing through, we look with envy at those who, because they have advanced further than ourselves, have achieved qualities of good that we do not yet possess. In our resentment we build up a "have-not" consciousness in respect of what we have not yet attained, saying, "I am not endowed with health so why should he be?" or, "I am not blessed with happiness so why should the next man have it?" Or, "Since I am poverty-stricken why should not my neighbour suffer from this also?" And because of this downward visioning, directed as it is at the absence of the thing desired, the unhappy condition not only persists, but is also aggravated.
I believe in God and in spite of appearances and the many problems that have at times been presented to me (which I did not enjoy any more than you do), I did put my trust in the omnipresence of good and so there grew up within me an inner conviction that the difficulties would pass, must in fact do so if I centred my heart and mind upon God, knowing that He is good, but could bring this to pass for me only as I let it be done through me. That is the only way in which God can do anything at all for us, for we are extensions of His Spirit and, no matter how long it takes, we shall all have, ultimately, to recognise the Truth - uncovered by Christ - that "the Father and I are not two, but one." It makes no difference upon what plane we may be existing, on the material earth or in some higher realm, there will still be but One, and that One God, expressed as Love.
This is the only Power that brings forth and operates upon Life, here or anywhere else; and if I continue - as I always shall do - to stress this truth, it is because I have seen such countless manifestations in my own life of His Good.
I have often felt myself to be unworthy, have thought of others as being far more spiritual, far better than I am, and have wondered why they should suffer an apparent lack of health, happiness and prosperity while I have these in abundant measure. I know only too well that I have not been singled out by God to receive more of His bounty than the next man, and I realise also that none receives except as a result of his own efforts. We all have to gain the right to the conscious manifestation of the Kingdom of Good.
I encounter as much opposition in my daily living as you do; I have the same disheartening experiences, but I never forget the one truth that God and I are a majority, and while I maintain this attitude, refusing mentally and emotionally to allow anything of a negative nature to enter my mind, I know that no evil of any kind can touch me.
It is strange how, the moment you begin to apply Truth, or Love, every type of opposition is presented to you, so much so that you begin to wonder what is happening to you; for the more you try to live in tune with Love, the more does the very opposite of it seem to reflect back at you through people and conditions.
But we need something of this kind against which to grow. If all were plain sailing we should make no spiritual progress; it is only as we overcome that we expand our consciousness of good. We see in the outer a lack - which has not been brought about for us by God - but is the out-picturing of some inner deficiency over which we should not grieve, but which we should recognise as the stimulus that is enabling us to attain a greater awareness of the Presence of God by forcing us to seek Him within; and to succeed in this we need the practice that resistance and hindrance provide.
No one is prepared to live in poverty, disease, or misery unless he has been brought up in the conviction that these are God's will for man, but the moment when having "lifted up his eyes" and his heart, he glimpses the fact that all the Power, Love and Knowledge that made the universe and himself as well, is there in order to find greater expression through him, at that moment he begins to enter into his heritage. The restlessness, the divine discontent that fill him are but the urge of the Spirit within bidding him to enter into his kingdom of All-good, so that This can reflect Itself through him.
It is difficult to understand, I know, but it is a truth that, even if your bodies are diseased in every part, the Presence of God is not for a second absent from them. If you are in the depths of poverty, with your ts empty, not for one moment is God separated from them; and even if you are living in a hell of discord, in that very strife is the Presence of Love.
When your bodies are racked with pain the Spirit of Life, Omnipresence, is there to heal you, to become your health; when you are penniless, in your two puny hands is the Power that can take from God's storehouse whatsoever you need, to spare and to share; and even when husband and wife are at war with each other the harmonious Spirit of God is within them, constituting them, and there is peace.
We see only the material situation - the lie - made manifest before our eyes, and we judge by that but, in so doing, we do not judge "righteous judgement."
How often have I not wondered why a condition continued to persist! I know that God was not at fault, that He was not withholding any good, yet I could not find the flaw - perhaps arrogance of spirit, perhaps some deep-seated resentment, or maybe a fear of recurrence in my own make-up - whatever it was I could not put my finger on it. Then I remembered the words of the psalmist, and all at once it was clear to me that, the very fact of my trying to deal with the circumstances on my own, was a proof of my downward dreaming, and I was ready to lift up my eyes, to raise my vision into the sublime consciousness of my Christhood where I could "let go, and let God." "Is it not written," said Jesus, "that ye are gods?" and within me the still, small Voice asked, "Are you acting in a Godlike manner by giving power to people, situations and conditions?" And I had to admit that I was not.
There is no power but God and His power is within us in an unlimited measure, but It cannot express through us if we deny It by allowing people and things to deprive us (in belief) of our good. None can shut off your supply. Your hands can be forever open, ready to give and give, and give, without depletion, once you can put your trust in Omnipotence, in the infinite Power of Love within you to be your Source of all things for you. But if you look timidly for proof of this before you act, then it will be done unto you according to your fear and not according to your (non-existent) faith, for it is demanded of the student of Truth that he not only believe, but that he act as though he knew, that his belief is true.
It is not easy, but what do you want of life? Are you willing to accept mediocrity, a bare existence? If so, that is all you will get, but if you hold on to the fact that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Power that brought you forth is exhaustless, no limit of any kind will ever be imposed upon you. That is the greatest Truth in the life of man, the Truth that God can never be depleted. When you once realise this - and I am not going to say that it is easy - your substance can never be consumed, your happiness cannot be lost, nor can your health be drained away. These are God given, and are inviolate, but the knowledge of this is not lightly come by - it must be grounded in faith.
Faith is a spiritual development, it is the offspring of trust, the conscious realisation of Omnipotence flowing through you in unlimited measure, the awareness that you can take steps, and do things in the dark for the reason that everything has already been worked out for you.
God is the epitome of Love, Beauty, Purity and Perfection. To Him every knee must bow, and every individual pray without ceasing. He is our sole Provider, Who does not only bring things into our lives, but floods them with blessings to which no sorrow is ever added, when we have become perfect as our spiritual selves are perfect, in His image and likeness. If any one of you has found the consciousness of perfection in relation to either health, happiness or abundance, then you are become perfect in that respect as God is, or as the Law is, and This, being bound by its own terms, must bring forth according to whatever consciousness of good governs It.
Do you think it is simple, this constant condensation of the Spirit of God into manifestation? I did not find it so. For a long time I saw no results! When I started out in 1931, I - like you - felt that I was treading a maze, sometimes uplifted and happy in the belief of my onenss with God, then wondering if it were really true, aware that I had no real consciousness of health, happiness or prosperity, feeling lonely and wretched because the path I was trying to tread had cut me off temporarily from all my friends. In this unbalanced emotional state I knew that my only hope was to find the Presence of the Father, of Love, without which life would not be worth living for me.
When I spent my pennies, believing that I was a multi-millionaire, and I saw that they were gone, I found it very hard to believe in the Omnipresence of Substance; when I sat down to an empty table and gave thanks for the food that was not there, I found it harder still; and remembering those days - for which I am at this present time intensely thankful - I experience a queer reaction, half wonderment, half gratitude, for an experience that - painful as it was at the time - I would not have missed for anything!
When a woman said to me the other day, "Of course, you would not understand. You have never suffered, never known what it is to be without a job, and to have no money," I could only smile. Believe me, it is only because of my own suffering, my fears, my troubled vacillation of spirit, that a greater tolerance, or compassion, or understanding has been built up in me for other people.
I would not change any of those experiences. Whatever I went through at that time was worth it. To have glimpsed the truth that God cares; that His will is good; that, in spite of ourselves, He never judges, censures or condemns, but only loves us His temples with an enduring love, outweighs the struggle and counter-balances all the stress and strain. It is we, not God, who hurt ourselves. Instead of keeping the inner eye single to His Presence of Perfection within us, we lower our gaze and judge by the seeming. But in the long run, even our mistakes serve to open up in us a greater awareness of His Presence of Love. As a parent takes the child's hand and bandages it after it has been burnt on the stove, so does the healing Love of the indwelling Christ bind up our wounds and bring His Peace into our hearts.
As you lift up your eyes, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically to His Kingdom of Good, the spiritual Power of Omnipotence works through you and for you, and His Love is enthroned consciously within you and pours Itself out through you, into your hands, bodies and affairs, enriching and stabilising your lives with the spiritual manna of heaven. The trial and tribulation are forgotten, for the former things have passed away and there is no more sorrow or weeping.
© The School of Truth
Source p. 261, Sep / Oct 2010 - The Path of Truth
If we take that literally it immediately associates us with a personage somewhere up in the sky who made us and this world in which we dwell. The metaphysician, or student of Truth, however, sees it quite differently. He does not direct his gaze upon a place, but into his own consciousness, into a higher understanding, the awareness of spiritual Law that functions with the spiritual power of Love which brought forth the heavens and the earth.
In the course of my work I meet a great many people and I find that for the most part they are exceedingly frail. The vast majority are only wishful thinkers who are prepared to believe in God for a week, a month or a few years but are unable to make a sustained effort and unwilling to keep on keeping on. A few there are who have the type of faith that will not take no for an answer, but which in spite of reverses, stoutly declare, "I will."
Each individual who enters upon this plane of awareness brings with him his own peculiar state of consciousness, one of wellbeing or the reverse; the assurance of health, happiness and prosperity or the acceptance of sickness, trouble and lack. And because we do not understand that this inner content represents the progress that we have, up to the moment, made in our journeys through life and is the background of the experiences that we are at present passing through, we look with envy at those who, because they have advanced further than ourselves, have achieved qualities of good that we do not yet possess. In our resentment we build up a "have-not" consciousness in respect of what we have not yet attained, saying, "I am not endowed with health so why should he be?" or, "I am not blessed with happiness so why should the next man have it?" Or, "Since I am poverty-stricken why should not my neighbour suffer from this also?" And because of this downward visioning, directed as it is at the absence of the thing desired, the unhappy condition not only persists, but is also aggravated.
I believe in God and in spite of appearances and the many problems that have at times been presented to me (which I did not enjoy any more than you do), I did put my trust in the omnipresence of good and so there grew up within me an inner conviction that the difficulties would pass, must in fact do so if I centred my heart and mind upon God, knowing that He is good, but could bring this to pass for me only as I let it be done through me. That is the only way in which God can do anything at all for us, for we are extensions of His Spirit and, no matter how long it takes, we shall all have, ultimately, to recognise the Truth - uncovered by Christ - that "the Father and I are not two, but one." It makes no difference upon what plane we may be existing, on the material earth or in some higher realm, there will still be but One, and that One God, expressed as Love.
This is the only Power that brings forth and operates upon Life, here or anywhere else; and if I continue - as I always shall do - to stress this truth, it is because I have seen such countless manifestations in my own life of His Good.
I have often felt myself to be unworthy, have thought of others as being far more spiritual, far better than I am, and have wondered why they should suffer an apparent lack of health, happiness and prosperity while I have these in abundant measure. I know only too well that I have not been singled out by God to receive more of His bounty than the next man, and I realise also that none receives except as a result of his own efforts. We all have to gain the right to the conscious manifestation of the Kingdom of Good.
I encounter as much opposition in my daily living as you do; I have the same disheartening experiences, but I never forget the one truth that God and I are a majority, and while I maintain this attitude, refusing mentally and emotionally to allow anything of a negative nature to enter my mind, I know that no evil of any kind can touch me.
It is strange how, the moment you begin to apply Truth, or Love, every type of opposition is presented to you, so much so that you begin to wonder what is happening to you; for the more you try to live in tune with Love, the more does the very opposite of it seem to reflect back at you through people and conditions.
But we need something of this kind against which to grow. If all were plain sailing we should make no spiritual progress; it is only as we overcome that we expand our consciousness of good. We see in the outer a lack - which has not been brought about for us by God - but is the out-picturing of some inner deficiency over which we should not grieve, but which we should recognise as the stimulus that is enabling us to attain a greater awareness of the Presence of God by forcing us to seek Him within; and to succeed in this we need the practice that resistance and hindrance provide.
No one is prepared to live in poverty, disease, or misery unless he has been brought up in the conviction that these are God's will for man, but the moment when having "lifted up his eyes" and his heart, he glimpses the fact that all the Power, Love and Knowledge that made the universe and himself as well, is there in order to find greater expression through him, at that moment he begins to enter into his heritage. The restlessness, the divine discontent that fill him are but the urge of the Spirit within bidding him to enter into his kingdom of All-good, so that This can reflect Itself through him.
It is difficult to understand, I know, but it is a truth that, even if your bodies are diseased in every part, the Presence of God is not for a second absent from them. If you are in the depths of poverty, with your ts empty, not for one moment is God separated from them; and even if you are living in a hell of discord, in that very strife is the Presence of Love.
When your bodies are racked with pain the Spirit of Life, Omnipresence, is there to heal you, to become your health; when you are penniless, in your two puny hands is the Power that can take from God's storehouse whatsoever you need, to spare and to share; and even when husband and wife are at war with each other the harmonious Spirit of God is within them, constituting them, and there is peace.
We see only the material situation - the lie - made manifest before our eyes, and we judge by that but, in so doing, we do not judge "righteous judgement."
How often have I not wondered why a condition continued to persist! I know that God was not at fault, that He was not withholding any good, yet I could not find the flaw - perhaps arrogance of spirit, perhaps some deep-seated resentment, or maybe a fear of recurrence in my own make-up - whatever it was I could not put my finger on it. Then I remembered the words of the psalmist, and all at once it was clear to me that, the very fact of my trying to deal with the circumstances on my own, was a proof of my downward dreaming, and I was ready to lift up my eyes, to raise my vision into the sublime consciousness of my Christhood where I could "let go, and let God." "Is it not written," said Jesus, "that ye are gods?" and within me the still, small Voice asked, "Are you acting in a Godlike manner by giving power to people, situations and conditions?" And I had to admit that I was not.
There is no power but God and His power is within us in an unlimited measure, but It cannot express through us if we deny It by allowing people and things to deprive us (in belief) of our good. None can shut off your supply. Your hands can be forever open, ready to give and give, and give, without depletion, once you can put your trust in Omnipotence, in the infinite Power of Love within you to be your Source of all things for you. But if you look timidly for proof of this before you act, then it will be done unto you according to your fear and not according to your (non-existent) faith, for it is demanded of the student of Truth that he not only believe, but that he act as though he knew, that his belief is true.
It is not easy, but what do you want of life? Are you willing to accept mediocrity, a bare existence? If so, that is all you will get, but if you hold on to the fact that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Power that brought you forth is exhaustless, no limit of any kind will ever be imposed upon you. That is the greatest Truth in the life of man, the Truth that God can never be depleted. When you once realise this - and I am not going to say that it is easy - your substance can never be consumed, your happiness cannot be lost, nor can your health be drained away. These are God given, and are inviolate, but the knowledge of this is not lightly come by - it must be grounded in faith.
Faith is a spiritual development, it is the offspring of trust, the conscious realisation of Omnipotence flowing through you in unlimited measure, the awareness that you can take steps, and do things in the dark for the reason that everything has already been worked out for you.
God is the epitome of Love, Beauty, Purity and Perfection. To Him every knee must bow, and every individual pray without ceasing. He is our sole Provider, Who does not only bring things into our lives, but floods them with blessings to which no sorrow is ever added, when we have become perfect as our spiritual selves are perfect, in His image and likeness. If any one of you has found the consciousness of perfection in relation to either health, happiness or abundance, then you are become perfect in that respect as God is, or as the Law is, and This, being bound by its own terms, must bring forth according to whatever consciousness of good governs It.
Do you think it is simple, this constant condensation of the Spirit of God into manifestation? I did not find it so. For a long time I saw no results! When I started out in 1931, I - like you - felt that I was treading a maze, sometimes uplifted and happy in the belief of my onenss with God, then wondering if it were really true, aware that I had no real consciousness of health, happiness or prosperity, feeling lonely and wretched because the path I was trying to tread had cut me off temporarily from all my friends. In this unbalanced emotional state I knew that my only hope was to find the Presence of the Father, of Love, without which life would not be worth living for me.
When I spent my pennies, believing that I was a multi-millionaire, and I saw that they were gone, I found it very hard to believe in the Omnipresence of Substance; when I sat down to an empty table and gave thanks for the food that was not there, I found it harder still; and remembering those days - for which I am at this present time intensely thankful - I experience a queer reaction, half wonderment, half gratitude, for an experience that - painful as it was at the time - I would not have missed for anything!
When a woman said to me the other day, "Of course, you would not understand. You have never suffered, never known what it is to be without a job, and to have no money," I could only smile. Believe me, it is only because of my own suffering, my fears, my troubled vacillation of spirit, that a greater tolerance, or compassion, or understanding has been built up in me for other people.
I would not change any of those experiences. Whatever I went through at that time was worth it. To have glimpsed the truth that God cares; that His will is good; that, in spite of ourselves, He never judges, censures or condemns, but only loves us His temples with an enduring love, outweighs the struggle and counter-balances all the stress and strain. It is we, not God, who hurt ourselves. Instead of keeping the inner eye single to His Presence of Perfection within us, we lower our gaze and judge by the seeming. But in the long run, even our mistakes serve to open up in us a greater awareness of His Presence of Love. As a parent takes the child's hand and bandages it after it has been burnt on the stove, so does the healing Love of the indwelling Christ bind up our wounds and bring His Peace into our hearts.
As you lift up your eyes, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically to His Kingdom of Good, the spiritual Power of Omnipotence works through you and for you, and His Love is enthroned consciously within you and pours Itself out through you, into your hands, bodies and affairs, enriching and stabilising your lives with the spiritual manna of heaven. The trial and tribulation are forgotten, for the former things have passed away and there is no more sorrow or weeping.
© The School of Truth
Source p. 261, Sep / Oct 2010 - The Path of Truth
