Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/greatestthingeveOOOOtrin_r4w1n7223 ¶1
THE greatest thing ever known — What is it? Full surely the answer must be one that is absolutely universal, both in its nature and in the possibilities of its application. It must be one that can be accepted wholly and unreservedly, not only by a single individual, but even by bodies of individuals, be they the originators of any particular school of Ethics, the followers of any particular system of Philosophy, or even the adherents of any great system of Religion. It must be one so true in itself that it can be accepted by all men alike the world over.n7223 ¶2
And again, it must be an answer that is true for no particular period of time, but equally true for all time — an answer that was true not only for yesterday, that is true for to-day, that may be true for to-morrow, but one equally true for yesterday, to-day, and forever. In laying our foundation, therefore, it must be laid upon something as true and as certain as Life itself, and as eternal as Everlasting Life.n7223 ¶3
What is as true and as certain as Life itself ? Life, only Life. And what do we mean by this answer? Let us give it for a moment our most careful consideration, for upon what we find here depends and rests all that is to follow. Let us start, then, with that in regard to which all can agree; something taken not from mere tradition, from mere hearsay, but something that comes to us from no source other than our own interior consciousness, our own reason and insight. In other words, let us make our approach, not from the theological standpoint, but from that which is far more certain and satisfactory — ° the philosophical.n7223 ¶4
Then, and then only, will we allow pure reason to be our guide, and then by having as the earnest desire of both mind and heart, truth, truth for its own sake, and then for the sake of its influence upon every-day life, we will thus allow pure reason to be illumined by the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. In the degree that we open ourselves to and are true to this are we on sure and safe ground, for thus are we going directly to the source and the only source of all true revelation. In the degree, on the other hand, that we close ourselves or become untrue to this are we on uncertain and dangerous ground, and lable to find ourselves hopelessly floundering in the quagmire of theological traditions and speculations and doubts, of which the world has already seen so much. Pure reason, therefore, shall be our guide — pure reason illumined by the Inner Light.n7223 ¶5
Again, then, What is Life? Being is Life. Life 1s Being. Being, therefore, is our starting-point, and indeed our very foundation itself.n7223 ¶6
Each can form his own idea of being, so that in reality it needs no defining. By it we mean that self-existent principle of Life and all that attends it, without beginning and without end, the Power that animates all and so that is the Life of all. In short, we can scarcely define Being, if indeed it can be defined, without using the word Life, and indeed without identifying the two. Being and Life, then, are one and the same.n7223 ¶7
It is Being that projects itself into ex-istence. Being, acting through its own intelligence, prompted by love, projected by will, goes out and takes form. We cannot say that it enters into form, for until it projects itself into ex-istence there is no form, but form comes by virtue of Being, the self-existent Principle of Life and Power, manifesting itself in ex-istence. So in a sense Life, which is one with Being, is the soul, and form, of whatever nature the body.n7223 ¶8
Only as Being projects itself into ex-istence are we able to know it. We can know the fact that Being és, but only as it manifests itself in form are we able to know it itself.n7223 ¶9
Being is one, not many. As Being is the source of all Life, there is, then, only one Life, and this Being is the Life of all. “The one Divine Being; and this alone is the true Reality in all Existence, and so remains in all Eternity.” And there is nothing real that is, or, indeed, that can be, outside of it. True, then, are the words of one of the most highly illumined philosophers of modern times — ‘Thus we have these two elements: Being, as it is essentially and in itself; and Form, which is assumed by the former in consequence of Existence. But how have we expressed ourselves? What is it that assumes a form? Answer: Being, as it exists in itself, without any change whatever in its inward, Essential Nature. But what, then, is there in Existence? Answer: Nothing else than the One Eternal and Unchangeable Being, besides which there can be nothing.”n7223 ¶10
This Being which is Infinite is in truth, then, the Infinite Being, and this Infinite Being is what we mean byn7223 ¶11
God — each using the term that appeals most to himself. Literally, the I Am, as is signified by the name Jehovah, which is derived in the Hebrew from the word To Be. God, then, is the Infinite Being, the Infinite Spirit of Life which fills all in ex-istence with himself alone, so that all is He, since He is All. If God is all, then all must be He, and from this fact there is no escape, and no other conclusion can be arrived at which does not do violence to all rational thought. There are those — and to such these pages are not addressed, for so limited are they in comprehension, or so closed to truth and hence so en. grossed in bigotry, that they either can or will see nothing that may be opposed to their present ideas — there are those who say that God is all, and immediately begin to fill up the universe with that which God is not,n7223 ¶12
Again, there are those open to and eagerly seeking for the highest truth who say: But evil is not God, and how then can God be a//, for surely there is such a thing as evil. Certainly evil is not God, nor has God anything to do with evil. Evil is simply the result of the tempo: rary perversion of the good, and as such must either cease or in time die at its own hands. As such, then, it has no essential reality, for that which has essential reality has neither beginning nor end.n7223 ¶13
Man is the only one who has to do with evil, he alone is its author; man, who in his thought separates himself from Divine Being, in whom alone true happiness and blessedness can be found. Regarding the mere bodily existence as his real life, he tries to find pleasure and happiness entirely through these channels, and many times by violating the higher laws of his being, and thus what we term evil enters in. But though man has perfect freedom in all his thoughts and acts, God will suffern7223 ¶14
10 such violation. And so, from the pain and suffering that result from the violation of the higher laws of his being, he is pushed on in his thought and through this in his life to the Reality of his being, and finds that only in conscious union with God true pleasure and blessedness lie, as God surely intends. True, then, evil is not God, nor has God anything to do with evil; for man alone has to do with it, so long, and only so long, as he lives his life out of a conscious union with the life of God.n7223 ¶15
Infinite Being, God, then, is the one and the only Life. You and I in our true selves are Life. It cannot be truly said that we have life, for we are Life; Life that manifests itself in the form in ex-istence that we denominate by the term body. And as the Infinite Being, the Infinite Life, God, is the I Am, the life of all in ex-istence, then we indeed are parts of the Infinite Being, the Infinite Life, the I Am, of the very God himself. And thus it is that your life and mine is one with the life of God. By this we do not mean the mere body, but the Real Self that takes to itself the form —pbody. It is utterly impossible that there be any real lfe that is not one with the life of God. And in this sense it is true that the life of man and the life of God are essentially and necessarily one and the same. In essence they are one and the same; they differ not in quality, for this it is impossible rationally even to conceive of. There is a difference—it is a difference simply in degree, not in essence or kind. It is only by reason of our own thought that our life is separate from the life of God, only by reason of our own thought that we live in this separation, if indeed we can use the term Live where the full life is not consciously realized and enjoyed. Truly, then, “In Him we live and move and have our being.”n7223 ¶16
We never could have been, and never can be, other than Divine Being. And TI fully agree with the thought expressed in a recent letter from Prof. Max Miller in which he says: “I cannot accept Athanasius when he says that we can become gods; man cannot say, become God, because he is God; what else could he be, if God is the only true and real being?”n7223 ¶17
How is it, then, I hear it asked, that man has the limitations that he has, that he is subject to fears and forebodings, that he is liable to sin and error, that he is the victim of disease and suffering? There is but one reason. He is not living, except in rare eases here and there, in the conscious realization of his own true Being, and hence of his own true Self. We must in thought be conscious of who and what we are before the qualities and powers of our real being, and hence our real selves, actualize or even manifest themselves. Says one of the most highly illumined seers ‘ of modern times: “The True Life and its Blessedness consists in a union with the Unchangeable and Eternal; but the Eternal can be apprehended only by Thought, and is in no other way approachable by us.”n7223 ¶18
Thought is the atmosphere, the element, in a sense the very substance, of the phase of Divine Being that we call human life. How much it is hkewise that of other forms of Divine Being in ex-istence, as we see it in the various manifestations of life around us, we cannot be so fully certain of. But certain it is that through thought, and through thought alone, we are able to conceive of Divine Being as the Infinite Spirit and Essence of Life, and then to see clearly that it is the Life of our Life, and then to live in the realization of our oneness with it, and in this way allow the Divine Word to become incarnate in us by being thus fully and completely manifest in us, precisely as it became manifest and hence incarnate in the Christ Jesus, as we shall hereafter find.n7223 ¶19
When Divine Being manifests itself in physical human form, its inward essential nature or reality changes not, for this from its very nature it is impossible for it in any way to do. It does, however, have to manifest itself through the agency of physical senses, and precisely for this reason is it that for a time our real inward Essential Nature and Life is concealed from us, but this again only by reason of our limited comprehension.n7223 ¶20
When we are born into the world of Nature we see and cognize through and by means of the physical senses, and the natural physical world becomes to us for a time the real world. By and by, however, through these very senses we are able to conceive of the One and Eternal Source of Life as our real and therefore our only life, and then through them to hold ourselves in this living realization. Hence, first that which is natural and then that which is spiritual is necessarily as well as literally and philosophically true. Happy, however, is the man who dwells not long as the purely natural man, but is early transformed into the spiritual, and so in whom the Divine Word early becomes incarnate.n7223 ¶21
Blessed state indeed, says the thoughtful and earnest seeker for the best things in life, and more to be prized than all else besides; but if this state is really possible of realization, what can be said regarding the method of entering into it? There is only one thing in all the wide universe that will enable you as well as all the world to do it effectually. “Be ye therefore transformed by the renewing of your minds.” This is the force, the transforming power, so far as the form of life we denominate by the term human is concerned, this and this alone.n7223 ¶22
True, then, and most welcome is the great fact of facts that the world is beginning to become so conscious of today, that “The mind is everything; what you think, you become.” Mortal mind? says one. Yes and no, Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as mortal mind —there is only Divine Mind. When in our own thought, and by reason of our limited comprehension, we shut ourselves off and look upon ourselves as individual physical beings, we give birth to a temporary mode of thought that might well be termed mortal mind, or, rather, the product of mortal mind. But it is at first natural, and it is only by using this ‘‘ mortal mind” that it is able to be transformed, and hence renewed into the Divine Mind. So by wisely using that which we have, the natural, we are transformed from that which is most apparent, and consequently that which we think we are, the mortal, the physical, into that which from all eternity we in reality are, and never except in our own minds can get away from, —the Spiritual, the Divine.n7223 ¶23
It is through this instrumentality that the Divine Life within us, the Divine Life with all its ever-ready-to-breakforth glories and powers, is enabled to be changed from a mere passive and hence potential actuality, and to burst forth into the full splendors of conscious, active life. Surely, then, thought rightly directed and rightly used has within it the true regenerating and hence redeeming power; through it and it alone are we able to make for ourselves a new heaven and a new earth, or, rather, by thus finding the kingdom of God, and through it entering into the conscious realization of the heavenly state, are we able to make for ourselves a new earth by actualizing the kingdom of Heaven in our lives while living on the earth, and which, when once truly realized, can never be lost.n7223 ¶24
The majority of people are not awake; it is only here and there that we find one even partially awake. Practically all of us, as a result, are living lives that are unworthy almost the name of lives, compared to those we might be living, and that le within our easy grasp. While it is true that each life is in and of Divine Being, hence always one with it, in order that this great fact bear fruit in individual lives, each one must, as we have already said, be conscious of it, he must know it in thought, and then live continually in this consciousness.n7223 ¶25
An eagle has been chained for many months to the perch just outside of his cage; so long has he been conscious of the fact that he is bound by the little silver chain which holds him that he has given up all efforts to escape, almost forgetting, perhaps, that the power of flight is longer his. One day a link of the little chain opens, but, living so long in the consciousness that he is held in captivity, he makes no effort to escape. The freedom of the heavens is now his, were he only conscious of his power. But day after day he sits sullenly longing for freedom, but remaining a captive still. One morning, however, he ventures a little farther out on his perch than usual, when suddenly a strange consciousness is his —he sets his wings, and the captivity which has held him. for months will perchance know him no more forever.n7223 ¶26
And so it is with man. On account of the false gods that tradition and prevailing theology have brought him he knows not himself, and not knowing himself he knows neither his powers nor his possibilities. The human soul is held captive. An opaque physical structure is about all that he can be said truly to give evidence of. The day comes, however, when in his thought he moves out a little farther than is usual, then a little farther and a little farther. The Inner Light is nowmoving within, he catches at first a little glimpse of his real Essential Being, then a little more and a little more, and by and by the fact of his essential oneness with the Infinite Life and Power bursts in upon, illumines, and takes possession of his soul. In bewilderment, and almost afraid to utter it at first, he cries aloud, “ O God, I am one with Thee!” Enraptured by this new consciousness, he holds to the thought of this oneness, and living continually in this thought his life forever after flows steadily on in one constant realization of his oneness with Divine Being. And so “ the first man, [ which] is of the earth earthy,” is changed into “the second man, [which] is the Lord from Heaven,” and thereafter the Christ sits enthroned.n7223 ¶27
Compared with the new life that he is now continually living, the old life of ignorance with its consequent limitations, which can now know him no more forever, deserved only the name of death, for, in a sense, he was indeed dead unto life, and only he who lives in the conscious realization of his oneness with the One and Only Life can be said truly to be born into Life. He is born into the world and lives in the world, but into consciously real and eternal Life he has not yet entered. He is born the Adam man, but within him the Christ man has not awakened, or, rather, he has not yet awakened to the Christ within, and so the Christ man is not yet born, and sitting therefore in darkness he knows not yet the glorious realities of life.n7223 ¶28
“T am thine own Spirit ” are the words that the Infinite Father by means of the Inner Voice is continually speaking to every human soul. He who will hear can hear, and through it step out into fulness of life.n7223 ¶29
We hear much in the prevailing crude and irrational | theology inregard to the “ fall of man; ” butit is only as man has departed from the Inner Light, and gone after false man-made gods, that anything that might rationally be termed a “fall” hascome about. Separating our lives in thought from their oneness with Divine Life is what zonstitutes, and what alone will ever constitute, the fall of man. But the teaching that has come to us through past generations, which has as its dominant keynote, poor worm and miserable sinner, death and the grave, is as false as it is pernicious and therefore damnable in its influences. These old thoughts and words have had the influence of taking heaven out of earth and populating the earth with doubt, and error, and sin, and crime. New and true thoughts and words will make literally a new heaven and a new earth.n7223 ¶30
Man is essentially Divine, part and parcel of the Infinite God, and so, essentially good. When he severs his connection in consciousness with the Divine, then and then only do doubt, and error, and sin, and crime, with their consequent pain, suffering, disease, and despair, enter into his life. Only a pure and radical infidel — by this we mean one who is in reality such, for there are many who are called infidels, even by many avowed religionists, who live a far truer religion than they themselves live — can rationally hold to the doctrine of original sin, with its consequent poor worm and miserable sinner. The religious teacher who professes to believe in God as the One Divine and Supreme Being, and at the same time holds to this irrational doctrine, is many times more a disciple of the Devil, whom he recognizes and whose power he evidently respects, than he is of the Infinite God in whom he professes to believe. He and he alone it is who finds a place for what he and his theology term the Devil. The one who truly believes in God as the only true and real being and the source of all life and power can indeed find no place for the Devil. He sees and recognizes the evil that comes from lives that lose for a time their conscious connection with the Supreme Source of their being, but he can find no place for any other essential and abiding Reality.n7223 ¶31
And as this separation from God is made entirely through the instrumentality of the mind, he sees that making one’s conscious connection again with God — the true and only true redemption — must also be made through the instrumentality of the mind. Believing in the God in whom he believes, aye, knowing the God whom he knows, he sees no place for an atonement in the sense of appeasing the wrath of an angry God. Knowing the God whom he knows, he shares not in those barbaric, not to say idiotic, notions. He does see, however, that redemption can and must come through living in the conscious at-one-ment with the Father’s life. He recognizes it as the natural method that the Adam man be first born, with freedom of thought and consequently freedom of action, and that from him the Christ man then comes forth into consciousness. He recognizes that it is God’s, and conseyuently nature’s and evolution’s method, that “the first man is of the earth earthy, the second man is the Lord from heaven.”” He recognizes the fact that kittens are born blind, not because their parents or even their grand-parents sinned, but because it is simply natural for them to be born blind, and that in process of time their eyes will open. He also recognizes that, on account of our limited comprehension, the “natural” appears first and then the “spiritual,” but in reality the spiritual is from the very first incarnated within, and only because it is can it in process of time, either sooner or later, assume the ascendency by changing from potential into active life.n7223 ¶32
Once in a while there comes into the world one who from the very first recognizes no separation of his life from the Father’s life, and who dwells continually in this living realization; and by bringing anew to the world this great fact, and showing forth the works that will always and inevitably follow this realization, he becomes in a sense a world’s savior, as did Jesus, who, through the completeness of his realization of the Father’s life incarnate in him, became the Christ Jesus. He in this way pointed out to the world how all men can enter into the realization of the Christ-life and thus be saved from all impulse to sin. And so instead of coming to appease the vengeance of an angry God — difficult for one who has any adequate conception of God even to conceive of —he brought to the world, by exemplifying in his own life as well as by teaching to all who will hear his rea/ message, the method whereby all of us can enter into the full and complete realization of our oneness with the life of the tender and loving Infinite Father.n7223 ¶33
Redeemed from the bondage of the senses through which alone sin comes, and born into the heavenly state, into life eternal, is every one who comes into the same relations with the Father, and hence into the same realization of his oneness with the Father’s life, that Jesus came into. It is difficult, however, to see how any one will be redeemed from the bondage of sin and enter into the heavenly state simply by believing that Jesus entered into it while here. No amount of believing that he lived the life he lived will take any one into the heavenly state, but living the life that Jesus lived will take every one who lives it there, in any age and in any clime, even whether or not he knows that such a man as Jesus ever lived.n7223 ¶34
The world has less need for a perverted and hence perverting doctrine of “vicarious atonement” that bodies of men have formulated by either intentionaily or ignorantly dragging the teachings, as also the life, of the Master down to a purely material interpretation — less need, most truly, has the world for this perverting doctrine than it has for the great vitalizing fact of a conscious, living at-one-ment with the Father’s life, as every one whose spiritual sense is at all unfolded will inevitably get from the life and teachings of the Master, if indeed he is more interested in the real living truth that he taught than he is in the almost numberless man-made theological theories and dogmas regarding it.n7223 ¶35
In order that we may ever keep our standing ground clearly in mind, let us now gather into a single view the substance of what we have endeavored thus far to present.n7223 ¶36
From everlasting to everlasting is Being, self-existent, without beginning and without end. Depending upon nothing outside of itself and the essential essence, the very life of all that through it comes into ex-istence, it is therefore Infinite Being. Existing at first as pure spirit, it is therefore Divine Being. Literally the I Am, the Divine Jehovah, the Infinite God. Then, animated by love and acting through its own volition, it projects itself into ex-istence and assumes the various forms we see in the universe about us, including us ourselves. But by the act of projecting itself into ex-istence, the Infinite Divine Being does not change in the least its essential inner nature, as indeed it would be impossible for it todo. What, then, in reality is there in ex-istence ? Only Divine Being, the Infinite God in all his manifold manifestations ; and thus it remains through all eternity, as must necessarily be from its very nature, and otherwise it could not be. God, then, is the Infinite Being, the Infinite Spirit which is the essential essence, the life of all, which therefore fills all the universe with Himself alone, so that all is He, since He is all.n7223 ¶37
But when Divine Being incarnates itself in flesh and forms for its use a physical body — a human body, as we call it— it necessarily has to manifest through the instrumentality of physical senses, and, though Divine Being is infinite, the vision of man is limited, and for a time his true inner Life (always Divine Being) is concealed from him, for he naturally interprets everything from the standpoint of the physical. First that which is natural, and man knows himself only as a natural physical being, differing not essentially from the material universe about him. As he looks out, however, he sees that he differs from other forms in existence, in that he has a mind through which thought is engendered, a mind that grows by using. Then contemplating himself and longing for the truth of his existence, gradually there dawns upon his consciousness the fact that his life is Divine Being, that other than this it has never been — except in his own mind when in his thought he mistook the mere physical form in existence as the real essential life itself, thus separating his life from the Infinite Divine Life. He thus realizes that in God he lives, moves, and has his being, that God is the life of his life, his very life itself; and thus he comes in time into the conscious, living realization of his oneness with the Infinite Life and Power. And so we find it true — first the natural man, then the spiritual.n7223 ¶38
Through thought, and through thought alone, the second man, the Lord from Heaven, is gradually evolved out of the first man, which is of the earth earthy. Through a perfectly natural process of evolution, out of the first man Adam — sense perception —is evolved the Christ man — Divine self-realization. Impossible, however, is it for anything to be evolved that was not first involved; and so man finds that the Lord Christ has always been within and he has known it not.n7223 ¶39
It is the same to-day as it was many years ago with Jacob when he said, “ Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.” This and all that followed he found simply by using the stones of the place where he was; for with the stones of the place he made for himself a pillow, and it was while sleeping on this pillow that he beheld the ladder set upon the earth and reaching to the heavens, upon which the angels were ascending and descending, and thus it was that he entered into communion with the life of the heavens. Later, then, he transformed the pillow into a pillar that served as a guide to other men.n7223 ¶40
And so with every human soul — we must use simply the stones of the place where we are. The only stones with which human life can build is thought. It and it alone is the moulding, the creative power — earnest, sincere thought of the place where we are, this constitutes the stones of the place where we are and with which we can make a pillow upon which for the time being to rest. Through this and this alone will the life of the heavens be opened to us; for angels ascending — aspiration — will in time bring to us angels descending ~ inspiration. Then with Jacob of old we will cry out, “Behold, the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.” Then our pillow, the thought that gives us the knowledge that the Infinite Divine Life is always within, the Essential Essence of the human soul itself, we can convert into a pillar, a pillar that will be a guide to lead other men into this same realization and life.n7223 ¶41
And so the entire problem of human hfe is wonderfully simple and easy if we are but true to the highest within us, and keep ourselves free from the various perplexing and mystifying theological theories and dogmas, which ordinarily give merely a promise of spiritual awakening, realization, and power in some other form of life, rather than actualizing it here and now in this life.n7223 ¶42
But only as man becomes conscious of the Lord Christ within, only as he becomes conscious, — realizes in thought that he is one with the Infinite Life and Power, — does this great fact become a moving and mighty force in the affairs of his daily life. Until this is true he remains in the condition of the eagle, which, though unchained, thinking nevertheless that he was still chained, remained in captivity when the freedom of the heavens awaited simply the spreading of his wings.n7223 ¶43
Although the answer to our title has been given both in lines and between lines long before this, it may be an aid to us, especially in making practical what is to follow, to put it as best we can into a definite form: The greatest thing ever known— indeed, the greatest thing that ever can be known —is that in our real essential nature we are one with the Infinite Life and Power, and that by coming into, and dwelling continually in, the conscious, living realization of this great fact, we enable to be manifested unto and actualized within us the qualities and powers of the Divine Life, and this in the exact degree of the completeness of this realization on our part.n7223 ¶44
TI.n7223 ¶45
DIVINE ENERGIES IN EVERY-DAY LIFE.n7223 ¶46
Anp what, let us ask, is the result and hence the value of this realization? For unless it is of value in the affairs of every-day life, it is then a mere dead theory, and consequently of no real value. Use must be the final test of everything, and if it has no actual use, or if no visible results follow its use, we had better not spend time with it, for it is then not founded upon truth.n7223 ¶47
First, let it be said, it is not the mere intellectual recognition, merely the dead theory, but the conscious, vital and living realization of this great truth, that makes it of value, and that makes it show forth in the affairs of everyday life. This it is, and this alone, that gives true blessedness, for this is none other than the finding of the kingdom of God, and when this is once found and lived in, all other things literally and necessarily follow. Through this the qualities and powers of the Divine Life are more and more realized and actualized, and through their leading we are led into the possession of all other things.n7223 ¶48
He who comes into this full and living realization of his oneness with the Divine Life is brought at once into right relations with himself, with his fellow-men, and with the laws of the universe about him. He lives now in the inner, the real life, and whatever is in the interior must necessarily take form in the exterior, for all life is from within out. There is no true life in regard to which this law does not hold. And if the will of God is done in the inward life, then is it necessarily done in all things of the outward life, and the results are always manifest. Thus and thus alone it is that men have become prophets, seers, and saviors; they have become what the world calls the “elect” of God; because in their own lives they first elected God and lived their lives in His life. And thus itis that to-day men can become prophets, seers, and saviors, for the laws of the Divine Life and the relations of what we term the human life to it are idenitically the same to-day as they have been in all time past and will be in all time to come. The Divine Being changes not; it is man alone who changes.n7223 ¶49
It is solely by virtue of man’s leaving the inner life of the spirit and thus departing from God, or by virtue of his not yet finding this real life, that sin and error, pain and disease, fears and forebodings, have crept as naturally and as necessarily as that effect follows cause into his life; only by closing his eyes to the inner light, by shutting his ears to the inner voice, that, although he has eyes to see, yet he sees not, and, although he has ears to hear, yet he hears not. And it is only by uniting his life with the Divine Life, and thus living again the life of the spirit, that these things will go, even as they have come.n7223 ¶50
All the evil, unhappiness, misery, and want in the world are attributable to man, and are the direct results of his taking his life, either consciously or unconsciously, either directly or indirectly, out of harmony with the Power that works for righteousness and consequently for wholeness and perfection. And when our life is lived in the life of God, and God’s will therefore becomes our will, all is and necessarily must be well with us, for contrary to His will it is impossible that anything should ever come to pass. And thus it is that he who seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness shall have all other things added unto him. The soul, the real life, is Divine, and by allowing it to become translucent to Infinite Spirit by living continually in this conscious union with Divine Being it reveals all things to us. Things become hidden, mysteries fil! and uncertainties pervade life only as we turn away from the inner light and life; there is nothing that is hidden of itself ; to God all things are known, and he who consciously tives his life in the life of God sees with the Divine vision that reveals all things to him. He who lives continually under this Divine guidance enters thereby into the realm of the highest wisdom, and even in the most trivial things of every-day life he never finds himself in a state of doubt or perplexity, for he always knows what to do and how to do it.n7223 ¶51
He has no regrets for the past, because before he entered into his present consciousness he was in a sense dead unto life, and all regrets that he might have for the past are now swallowed up in the joys that the new birth that has brought him into fulness of life continually spreads before his every step. He has neither fears nor forebodings in regard to the future, for he knows that contrary to God’s will, which is now his will, nothing can ever come to pass. Peace, therefore, a full and abidin_ peace, is continually his.n7223 ¶52
As all life is from within out, and as this is absolutely true in regard to the physical body, the fountain of Divine Life that has been opened up within him, which of itself can admit of no disease or imperfection of any kind, will allow only healthy conditions to be externalized in his body; and where unhealthy conditions have been built into it before his entrance into the new life, the life that now courses through it will in time drive them out by entirely replacing the diseased structure with that which is pure and whole.n7223 ¶53
A continually growing sense of power is his, for he is now working in conjunction with the Infinite God, and with God all things are possible. In material things he is not lacking, for all things are from this one Infinite Source, and, guided by the Divine Wisdom and sustained by the Divine Power that are now his, in a perfectly natural and normal way he finds that an abundance of all things is his, always in hand in sufficient time to supply all his material needs, and never is there lack when the time comes, if he simply does each day what his hands find to do. Sure always of this unfailing source of supply, he does not give himself to the accumulation and the hoarding of great material possessions, thereby robbing and enslaving the real life.n7223 ¶54
His thoughts grow more and more into the nature of their Divine Source, and as thoughts are forces, and as in the degree that they are spiritualized do they become ever more effective in their operations, so through their instrumentality is he able to mould more and more effectively the every-day conditions of life. And so as he enters into this new life he finds that all things of the outer life fall into line; for as is the inner, so always and necessarily is the outer.n7223 ¶55
These truths will come as new revelations to many, and again to many they will come merely as agents to strengthen and possibly to arouse to renewed life the realizations of which they are already more or less conscious. In themselves, however, they are not new, but as old as the world. They are the real spirit of true Christianity, not, however, of the Christianity that the majority of people conventionally hold, and which in many respects is as radically inconsistent as it is void of results, but the great transcendent truths of our relations with the Father’s life that Jesus taught.n7223 ¶56
They are likewise the real essential spirit of all the great religions of the world, and as all religions in their purity are from the same source, — God speaking through the minds of those who have come into a sufficient union with Him to hear and to interpret His voice, the one universal source of all true inspiration and all true revelation, — so far as their fundamental principles are concerned they are necessarily the same.n7223 ¶57
And the great spiritual awakening, the beginnings of which we are witnessing in all parts of the world to-day, is evidence that the Divine Breath is stirring in the minds and hearts of men and women in a manner such as it has rarely if ever stirred before. Men and women are literally finding God. They are breaking through the mere letter and form of an old and too-long-held eeclesiastical theorizing and dogmatism into the real vital spirit of the religion of the living and transcendent God. They are waking here and there and everywhere to the realization of their oneness with the living God. Their lives are being completely filled with this realization, and as a consequence they are showing forth the works of God.n7223 ¶58
They are leaving the old one-day-in-seven, some-otherworld religion, and they are finding the joys as well as the practicability of an every-day, this-world religion. They are passing out of the religion of death and possible glory hereafter into the religion of life and joy and glory here and now, to-day and every day, as well as hereafter and forevermore. With this new religion of the living God and the spiritual power that through it is being made active in their lives, they are moulding in detail all of the affairs of every-day life, proving thereby that their religion is the religion of life. And any system of religion that does not enable its possessor to do this is simply not religion, and we should no longer desecrate the word by applying it to any such hollow mockeries.n7223 ¶59
To this old semblance of religion those who are thus entering into this new and larger religion of life will never return, nor can they, any more than the chick can enter within the confines of its shell again after it has been once born into life. Having found the pearl, the shell for them must perish; or rather, as it is of no farther value to them, it perishes simply by the operation of natural law. Centred thus in the Infinite, working now in conscious harmony with Divine forces, they ever after rule the world from within.n7223 ¶60
THE MASTER’S GREAT BUT LOST GIFT.n7223 ¶62
THE conclusions we have arrived at thus far we have arrived at independently of any authority outside of our own reason and insight. It is always of interest as well as of greater or less value to compare our own conclusions with those of others whose opinions we value. It would indeed be a matter of exceeding great interest to compare those we have reached with those of a number whose opinions come with greater or less authority to all the world. Space does not permit this, however, and I propose that we give the balance of our time to the consideration, though necessarily brief consideration, of two such; one universally regarded as one of the most highly illumined teachers, if not the most highly illumined, the world has ever known, the Christ Jesus; the other universally regarded as one of the most highly illumined philosophers the world has ever known, the philosopher Fichte. And in these two we have the advantage of the life and teachings of one who lived and taught nearly nineteen hundred years ago, and one who lived and taught a trifle less than a hundred years ago. By selecting these, let it also be said, we have the advantage of two whose lives fully manifested the truth of that which they taught.n7223 ¶63
In considering the life and teachings of Jesus, let us consider them not as dull expositors interpret and represent them, but as he himself gave them to the world. Certainly Jesus was Divine; but he was Divine, as he himself clearly taught, in just the same sense that you and I and every human soul is Divine. He differed from us, however, in that he had come into a far clearer and fuller realization of his divinity than we have come into, as indeed his life so clearly indicates. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, as indeed every one must be who comes into the full realization of his oneness with God, as Jesus himself again so clearly taught.n7223 ¶64
In the thoroughly absurd, illogical, and positively demoralizing doctrine of “vicarious atonement,” as given us by early ecclesiastical bodies by perverting the real teachings of Jesus even to the extent of calling interpolations in the New Testament to their aid, we certainly cannot believe. Many do, however, believe that it has done more harm to the real teachings of Jesus, has been more productive of scepticism and infidelity, than all other causes combined. It is a doctrine that can be formulated only by those who have no spiritual insight themselves, and who therefore drag the teachings of the Master down to a purely material interpretation because of their inability to give them the spiritual interpretation that he intended they should have.n7223 ¶65
If his mission was not that of vicarious atonement, not for the purpose of appeasing the wrath and indignation of an angry God and thus reconciling Him to His children, what then was it? Clearly his mission was that of a Redeemer as he gave himself out to be —a Redeemer to bring the children of men back to their Father. And how did he purpose to do this? Clearly by having them consciously unite their lives with the Father’s life, even as he had united his. The kingdom of God and His righteousness is not only what he came to teach, but what he clearly and unmistakably taught.n7223 ¶66
That he plainly and unequivocally taught his disciples that this was his mission is evidenced by numerous sentences such as the following, occurring all through the gospels: Matt. Iv., 23, “Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom,” ete. . . . Luke vu, 1, “He went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God.”n7223 ¶67
- . Luke tv., 43, “ But he said unto them: I must preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore was I sent.” . . , Luke ix., 2, “And he sent them forth to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” . . . Matt. xxiv., 14, «“ And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony unto all nations,” ete. - - . Im more than thirty places in the first three gospels do we find Jesus thoroughly explaining to his disciples his especial mission — to preach the glad tidings of the coming of the kingdom of God; and even before he entered upon his public work, we hear John the Baptist going before him and saying, “ Repent ye ; for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”n7223 ¶68
What did Jesus mean by the kingdom of God, or, as he sometimes expressed it, the kingdom of Heaven? As an answer, and an answer better than any speculations in regard to it, let us again take his own words: ‘Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” He taught only what he himself had found, the conscious union with the Father’s life as the one and all-inclusive thing. With Jesus from the very first, only in union with God was there reality. And this life in the Father’s life seemed nothing at all marvellous to him; it was perfectly natural, and the only life he knew. Hence he could not say otherwise than that he and the Father were one. His vision was so clear and his already realized Divine life was so full and complete, that he knew that it was utterly impossible for his life to be without the Father’s life, as we indeed shall know when our vision becomes clear and we enter into the same fully realized union with it.n7223 ¶69
This great knowledge came to Jesus not through intellectual speculation and still less through any communi. cation from without; it came to him through his own interior consciousness; to all appearances he was born with it. He was born with a peculiar aptitude for discerning things of the Spirit, the same as among us some are born with a peculiar aptitude for one thing and others for other things. But so great was this power naturally in Jesus that in it we may justly say he had a great advantage over most people born into the world, and for this reason was he all the more able and all the greater reason was there for him to be one of the great world Teachers and hence Redeemers. He was indeed Immanuel — God with us.n7223 ¶70
Jesus, I repeat, never speaks of his life in any other connection than as one with the Father’s life.n7223 ¶71
In reply to a question from Thomas in the fourteenth chapter of John, he says, “If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also: from henceforth ye know him and have seen him.” Philip, who was standmg near, unable to comprehend the interior meaning of the Master’s words, said unto him: “ Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” Jesus, somewhat surprised that he had not made himself clear to them, replied. “Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ; how sayest thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that Iam in the Father, and the Father in me? The words I speak unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth His work. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me: or believe me for the very works’ sake.”n7223 ¶72
But if his especial mission was to preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God, why, I hear it asked, did he claim that only through him can we come unto the kingdom, as he indeed says in his conversation with Philip and Thomas immediately preceding the part just quoted : “ T am the way, the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the Father but by me.” Simply because it was the living truth that he brought, which was and evermore is to redeem men by uniting them in mind and heart with the Father. His realized oneness with the Father’s life was the way, the truth, and the life, and only by going over the same path that he himself had trod can anyone be truly united with the Father. He found this great, vital and redeeming truth nowhere else in the world; he had to speak as one standing alone, and in this sense he spoke most truly and most literally when he said, “No one cometh unto the Father but by me.” And in order to point out his life, his realized oneness with the Father’s life, as the way, the truth, and the life, he spoke and indeed had to speak as he did, even at the risk of being misunderstood and having his words taken in a purely material sense, as was the tendency of the spiritual poverty of the age, and indeed as his very disciples so often interpreted his words, as we have but recently seen.n7223 ¶73
In order to give forth the spiritual teachings which he gave, he had to use the language and the illustrations that their material minds could grasp, and in this way make his teachings doubly lable to a purely material interpretation.n7223 ¶74
‘‘T am the bread of life,” said he to those assembled about him ; “your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” The Jews taking his words in a material sense argued one with another and said: “ How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus simply reaffirmed his statement, saying: “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. . . . For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” Literally, “My flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me.”n7223 ¶75
And many of his disciples, even, when they heard him speaking in this way, said among themselves, “ This is a hard saying; who can hear him ? ” — who can understand him? Jesus, quickly perceiving that they were again dragging his words down to a material interpretation, asked them if what he had just said caused them to stumble, and then, in order that they get his real meaning, he said, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.” And so all except those who are wholly spiritually, not to say even mentally, blind, can readily see that what Jesus meant to say, and what he actually did say, was, the words that he spoke to them of his oneness with the Father’s life were the true meat and the true drink, of which, unless a man ate and drank, he had not life in himself, but that these were able to give him life and life eternal.n7223 ¶76
“He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and Tin him.” Or, reversing the expression, He that dwelleth in me and I in hin, he it is that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood. “The words that I have spoken unto you, (they) are spirit and (they) are life.” ‘As the living Father hath sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me.” In the words of another,! “To eat his flesh and drink his blood means to become wholly and entirely he himself; to become altogether changed into his person without reserve or limitation ; to be a faithful repetition of him in another personality ; to be transubstantiated with him, 7.c., as he is the Eternal Word made flesh and blood, to become his flesh and blood, and what follows from that, and indeed is the same thing, to become the very Eternal Word made flesh and blood itself; to think wholly and entirely like him, and so as if he himself thought and not we; to live wholly and entirely like him, and so as if he himself lived in our life. As surely as you do not now attempt to drag down my own words, and reduce them to the narrow meaning that Jesus is only to be imitated, as an unattainable pattern, partially and at a distance, as farn7223 ¶77
1Fichte in “ The Way towards the Blessed Life.’n7223 ¶78
as human weakness will allow, but accept them in the sense in which I have spoken them, that we must be transformed into Christ himself, so surely will it become evident to you that Jesus could not well have expressed himself otherwise, and that he actually did express himself excellently well. Jesus was very far from representing himself as that unattainable ideal into which he was first transformed by the spiritual poverty of the afterages; nor did his apostles so regard him.”n7223 ¶79
To live in Christ is to live the life he lived, by living in the truth in which he lived and which he taught. The one great truth in which he continually lived was, as we have seen, that only in conscious union with God is there any real life, and therefore we can readily see why he continually gave out, as the Gospel writers tell us so many times he did, that his especial mission was to preach the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. Were it not possible for us to live the same life that he lived, he certainly would not have taught what he taught. This wonderful life of fully realized Divine life Jesus claims not for himself alone, but for all who actually live in the truth that he taught.n7223 ¶80
It was not to establish any material institution, as the church, that Jesus made his mission, but that the kingdom of God and His righteousness should become actualized and hold sway in the minds and hearts of men — this was his mission, an entirely different thing from the founding of a material organization. Paul and his party, sharing the then prevailing ideas that a material kingdom was to be established, were the originators of the church, not Jesus. We find the word “church” mentioned in the four Gospels by Jesus only once or twice, and then only in an incidental way, while we find the kingdom mentioned over thirty times in the first three Gospels alone.n7223 ¶81
As we have already pointed out, had it been his purpose to establish a material organization, then he certainly would not have given it out that something else was his especial purpose. But when the material organization, the church, purely a man-made institution, was established, the early church fathers bringing even interpolations of the Holy Word to their aid in establishing it and some of its various observations, — as modern scholarship has already so clearly discovered, and as it is continually discovering, -— the following ages, thinking that they had an institution to keep up, gradually lost, to a greater or less extent, the real spiritual teachings of the Master in their zeal to keep up the form of an institution with which he had nothing to do. And those long and bitter persecutions of the church in the early and middle ages, as well as the long list of crimes sanctioned and committed directly by the church of the middle ages, show that they had not the real truth; for those who live in the truth and have it uppermost in their minds and hearts never persecute — only those who are on either uncertain or false ground, and whose endeavor it is to keep up the form of an institution which they feel would otherwise fall to the ground.n7223 ¶82
No, true religion has never been known either to persecute or to show intolerance of any kind. Throughout the whole history of the churches’ heresies and persecutions, the persecuted party has ever occupied a correspondingly higher and the persecuting party a lower position, the persecuting party continually fighting as it were for life. But the real truth that Jesus taught will not cause nor will it even permit persecutions —n7223 ¶83
hence we find the latter only where there is the lack of the former.n7223 ¶84
And again, the real truth that Jesus taught will not admit of divisions, much less of intolerance, for all real truth is exact truth, and in regard to it there can be no differences, and our modern theologians, and our churches of to-day, which get their form and life from the speculations and theories of the former, certainly have not the real truth that Jesus taught, for they are divided in various directions on practically every dogma that they seek to promulgate. And strange as it may seem, heresy trials, with all their absurd attendant features, are not entirely unknown even yet to-day. But in Jesus’ own words, “ A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And so if the church of to-day wants to stand as a real power in the world, or if indeed it wants to stand at all, it must either get back to, or it must come up, as the case may be, to the real living truth that Jesus lived and taught. Unless it does this it will inevitably lose its hold on the people even more rapidly than it is losing it to-day And certainly the younger ones whom it does not yet hold will not be drawn to it, when they can turn to that which has a thousand-fold more of truth and hence of life-giving power than it has to offer.n7223 ¶85
That this is not a mere sentiment on our part is evidenced by the wonderful rapidity with which the “New Thought ” movement — would that we could designate what we mean without using any term — which has its underlying truth, this conscious union with the Divine Life and the actualized powers attendant upon it as Jesus taught, — hence not a new discovery, but a recovery, — is growing in America, in England, to be brief, in practically every civilized country in the world. Thousandsn7223 ¶86