SPIRITUAL DISCRIMINATION
THOSE
who are prepared for these days await them with Praise and
Thanksgiving—and joyous Expectancy. To us, the question is not if God
is on our side, but are we on God’s side? How shall we know? Very
simply. Do we have continuous Light and Illumination in our heart? Do
we have Love, Unity and Freedom? Let each one answer these questions
for himself.
When
one turns from human and mental help to God as the One who is ALL,
spontaneously he enters into Spirituality, Reality, Oneness. On the
side of PERSONALITY - one identifies himself as a man, a mortal, a
human being living in a human existence. Here there are many ways of
self-healing; many minds to be changed through self-thinking. There are
many works, demonstrations, doctrines; many leaders, many followers.
There is confusion, labor, disunity, strife. On the side of
SPIRITUALITY— we have Illumination, which is our Completeness,
Wholeness, Harmony and Supply everpresent. Day after day, we are filled
with New Light. Night after night, we enjoy sweet Peace, Security and
Rest. Not only is it possible for us to receive the guidance of angels,
but to see them as well. “He shall give His angels charge over
thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” Psalms 91:11. In the Realm
of Illumination, all these things are possible: “for with God nothing
shall be impossible.” Luke 1:37.
When
we know the Truth about God, it is God in us knowing the Truth about
Himself! This relieves us of all personal sense. It is hard for one to
know the Truth about himself, because it is himself that he is thinking
of, instead of GOD. God’s ways are perfect. They are in continual
operation. His sight is never dim. God supplies Himself from out the
infinitude of Himself. God is ALL to Himself. Himself is all there is
of ourselves! God is Mind. Mind can never be deprived of Itself. God is
Love. Love cannot divorce Itself. The place whereon we stand is the
place where God Is. God is His own Safety, His own Security, His own
Peace. Everything in Himself is fully held by Him. His whole Universe
of Perfection and Completeness is in Him, and He in It. God is His own
Illumination, His own Revelation, His own Heaven.
We
have always been God, for God is ALL there is. One becomes aware of
this fact only as he stops serving other gods. Spiritual Discrimination
reveals thinking to have been the very reason for our sleep. Love for
the One as the Whole of us shall be our awakening. Here, we are not in
the flesh, but in the Spirit; we are not of this world, but of the
Kingdom. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwell in you.” Romans 8:9. “My Kingdom is not of
this world. John 18:36.
We
live where our Illumination lives — in Spiritual Light, in Spiritual
Love, in Spiritual Freedom, in Spiritual Wholeness — in Spiritual
Existence. We know about GOD — who He is, what He is, where He is. We
know about CHRIST — who he is, what he is, where he is. We know about
Us — who we are, what we are, where we are.
We
know the ALL to be ONE, and the ONE to be ALL. We know this because we
are emptied of mental ways — wherein there is no Self-Illumination. We
know that our God whom we love continually, He will deliver us!
Self-Knowledge
has always been the theme of the Illumined, who know and teach God and
the Self to be One. As long as one believes himself to be separate from
God, he will remain mortal to himself. Sooner or later, everyone must
release himself from a hypothetical mind of his own, and turn
unconditionally to God—identifying himself with God alone.
Mental
practice pertains to personal minds, thoughts and conditions. Mental
practice relates to a separateness which does not exist. Therefore its
curative ways of personal mind and thinking are temporal at their best,
contributing a more comfortable human existence to some, but bearing no
relation to the Self-existent and Everpresent things of Spirit. Holding
oneself separate from the One, even by a hair’s breadth, is not close
enough to Him who is our very Life Itself. Nothing is close enough but
for us to be the One! Scriptures of all nations denote the word Oneness
to mean — I AM.
Today
many are rushing hither and yon for the way to a security, a peace and
refuge from fear and suffering. Man turning to man. Man consulting man.
Man treating man. Man healing man. Man fearing man. Man killing man.
“They know not what they do.” Luke 23:24. Personality is a loom in
which illusions are woven. “What is a man profited, if he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mat. 16:26. Our safety
is in finding God within our own heart. Seek no other way.
If
one does not identify himself with the Infinite One alone, then in his
darkened, sense he sees another world which he wishes to have made
over. Any vain attempt he makes to demonstrate over sickness or to
destroy the evil he sees about him is but part o f the veil he has put
over his heart. When the veil is removed, he will see clearly.
The
Spiritually Illumined, knowing the nature of Eternal things, do not
seek for Peace and Security among the fleeting things of man and mind.
They know the things of the Real to be everpresent, undefiled and
undefilable. They know that God is ALL. They know that ALL is God. If
one is devoid of Spiritual Discrimination, he fails to distinguish
between mental practice, which concerns. itself with personal minds and
personal thinking, and the Absolute Way, which requires our
renunciation of personal mind altogether, and our identification with
the One-Mind alone. “We have the Mind of Christ.” 1 Cor. 2:16.
Personality
is disunity, iniquity, greed, distrust, diabolicalness, strife, fear.
Synonymous words denoting separateness are the following: carnal,
mortal, mental, human, material, mesmerism, mortal mind, devil, evil,
hell. The word mental pertains to assumptive individual minds
alone—their ways, doctrines, methods and practice. The Way of the
One-Mind is the Way of Christ—surrender of the personal for
identification with God alone — I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE.
Darkness
shall continue to appear in one’s world until he surrenders personal
ego and makes place in his heart for the living Truth. Mental practice
prolongs human bondage. It gives power to man, when he has none.
“Power belongeth unto God. Psalms 62:11. There is nothing mental
in God! Freedom begins for one when he surrenders human thinking, and
in meekness and humility makes room for Christ-Light. Then he enters
the joy of the Self. The shining Light within him is his almighty
Power, his everpresent Peace and his imperishable Glory.
Personality
is loyal to personality. It authorizes its own works. It is its own
authority. Christ and personality cannot dwell together. CHRIST IS
ONENESS, ALLNESS, COSMIC LIGHT, PEACE AND GLORY.
No
one can heal an unreal thing. No one can change an unreal mind. No one
can obtain Heaven as an acquisition or translate human thinking into
the Mind of Christ.
Those
who have not yet identified themselves with the One-Mind as the only
Mind there is now or ever shall be, keep clamouring for greater
healings —tangible proofs of what their minds can do. A sorry web one
weaves when once he believes that of himself he can do anything! He
should let go such vain ambition altogether, and looking toward the
Eternal Heights, glimpse Eternal things. Healed bodies, regenerated
human beings, psychoanalyzed minds are unknown to God. How
inconsequential the gain of any demonstrated thing in human existence,
compared to the Richness, Fulness and Brightness of Spiritual things
revealed to us in Spiritual Existence. “What shall we then say to these
things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31.
THE ABSOLUTE MESSAGE
LET
no one entertain the mistaken belief that the Absolute Way does not
provide the way of escape from sickness, sorrow and limitation. True,
it does not do so by way of any mental practice, but by the Way which
is entirely apart from it—the Christ Way — I AM. The mental may have
its word for those who want merely a healing of ills, but for those who
are of the Spirit — and will take no lesser way—the mental holds no
meaning.
The
Spiritual Way to Harmony and Wholeness is the Christ Way — the Way of
the Absolute. Here we come to God! Through Inner Illumination, we are
instructed of God spiritually. We receive Peace, Light, Glory. Discords
vanish as shadows. Not only are we freed of them, but our gain has been
for Eternity, since we have been quickened by the Love and the Light of
Spirit. We know God to be every-thing that is needful, good, pure and
complete. God is our Mind, God is our Life, God is our Fullness and
Completeness right here and now. We have need of no other help than
Omnipotence within us.
Spiritual
Illumination is “Christ in you” Co1.1:27—your only true and perfect Way
of escape from world tribulation and bondage. Spiritual Light in the
heart, uplifting and glorifying us, plants our feet in the Spiritual
world now. Here we are free, not by means of any mental healing, but by
virtue of the fact that our Purity and our Wholeness is the
Christ-Self. Wisdom and Knowledge are here, the riches of
Understanding, Life that is glorious, and Peace that is permanent and
enduring. “In Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Cor. 15:22. “If any
man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” 2Cor. 5:17. The mystery
of the indwelling Christ is revealed—it is our own Inner Revelation! It
is our own Light! The Light which comes to us from within ourselves is
Christ Light! This Light is neither of personality nor mentality. It is
of God. It is of Spirit. It is of the Self.
The
Absolute Message is not private doctrine, personal discovery or
self-styled mental practice. It identifies itself with self-surrender
and the reidentification of ourselves with God through Spiritual Light
within us. Bibles of all the nations are unanimous in their recognition
of the steps one must take from personality into Spirituality, from
bondage into Freedom, and from things of the perishable and mutable
into Life ever-lasting, as follows: 1— In the heart alone can we find
God. 2 — Surrender of the personal; self-renunciation. 3 —
Identification with God through Spiritual Light.
Spiritual
Light and Illumination can be experienced by all who turn from
personality to God. Mental ways are limited to personality — never
could they become universal. Christ and mental ways are contrary the
one to the other. One is of God, the other of man. Christ is not
mentality, personality or practitioner. Christ is the Light of God
within our own hearts. Therefore, there can be Oneness in Cosmic Christ
alone. Personality is the Adam-man, the mentality-man. Christ is the
Spiritual Identity of all who are re-born, and have identified
themselves as the One who is All, and the All who is One.
Beloved,
seek no personal fame. Exalt no personal name. The Name - I AM - is our
real Name from Eternity. Trace not your origin back to Adam. In Adam
all die. Our immunity lies in Oneness alone. World chaos is the
struggle and strife of personalities and mentalities. These are days of
tribulations foretold for those who do not identify themselves - as the
Divine Mind alone. Every way of personal man is doomed to perish. The
“falling away” (2 Thes. 2:3) has already begun. God is not mocked. I AM
“the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth,
and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. Saying with a
loud Voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him that made heaven, and
earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters .. . Who shall not fear
Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy Name? for Thou only art holy; all nations
shall come and worship before Thee.” Rev. 15:4
In
order that we be entitled to Truth, we must have Truth in our heart. In
order that we live in the realm of the Real, we must have purity in our
heart. If we humbly and earnestly love the Real and the True above all
else, and long for It with our whole heart, suddenly we shall find
ourselves in It, and It in us. Then shall we know that we never left
It, regardless of the seeming. Christ is our own Inner Light, our Power
and our Glory. Christ was the joy of Jesus. Christ was the Light of
Jesus. Christ was the Power of Jesus. Christ was the Glory of Jesus.
Christ was the Victory of Jesus, The same joy, Light, Power, Glory and
Victory which Jesus possessed belong to all who stop trying to be
someone of themselves. In the presence of our humility, personality
vanishes. We are the One alone.
There
are not two worlds—the Spiritual and the material. There are not two
identities of us—the Spiritual and the mortal.
The
one-world is THE KINGDOM OF GOD. The one-identity of US is THE CHRIST
SELF. As we die to the unreal, and desire the Spiritual and Real of us
alone, we find the heavenly City of God to be within the depths of our
own heart. Our heart is the seat of our love, devotion, purity,
perfection, wisdom, sincerity, faith, trust, fidelity, tenderness,
heaven. Those who would realize the Reality of themselves must turn
aside from the world, and from all personal teaching, and seek Truth
within—in the heart. Here is Safety, Peace, Security, Wholeness, Bliss.
Where
is our heavenly Father? In our heart. Where is Christ? In our heart.
Where is God’s throne? In our heart. Where is the Kingdom of God and
the Peace that passeth understanding? In our heart. Heart, love,
devotion and purity are identical in meaning. Illumination, Light,
Inspiration, Intuition and Revelation arise and abide in the pure in
heart. Here is our freedom from fear, struggle and strife. In this
Light, we are lighted. We are without fear or trembling. This Spiritual
Light within us is our All-powerful and All-mighty God at hand — ours
for Eternity. Fear, doubt, gloom or suffering cannot remain when the
Light of the Eternal glows within us.
Our
Perfection, Wholeness, Peace and Security cannot be demonstrated or
brought to pass by any mental practice. They are REVEALED to those who
cast out personal ego, and so see by the eye of Spirit. Darkness cannot
dwell in light — likewise — when we lay down the personal self,
and with all-absorbing love and devotion desire the Divine Mind alone,
shadows of darkness leave us. We ask no one to prove Truth to us. With
the shining of the heavenly Light within us, Truth is Self-evident.
Shadows cannot linger in the radiance of our Love. Without this purity
of heart, one’s world cannot be free of discord and dissension.
Purity
alone makes Illumination possible. We must give ourselves wholly to It,
if we would receive the fullness of Its Presence. The purer our love,
the greater is our Light, and the more perfect our Freedom. Then the
veil is removed, and we experience Reality Itself.
“Why
do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” Psalms 2:1
asks the Psalmist. Because they identify themselves falsely with that
which is of naught. While one fights his thoughts with his thoughts,
while he identifies himself with things of the unreal, a veil or mist
covers his heart, so that he cannot see clearly things that are Real.
Never can mental practice take one into the depths of his Being, yet
here is where he must go—into unknown regions of himself. He must reach
until he finds that place within himself which is called the within—the
heart. This Way is for those alone who are inwardly drawn of God, who
believe that God is, and that to God be-longs the Power and Glory,
Perfection and Peace of the universe.
Stopping
all struggle and effort—making unconditional surrender to the Eternal
One—suddenly, like a wind which comes, yet no one knows from whence,
the Presence is with one, round and about him. Bathed in Light of the
Eternal, he is no longer himself—he knows that God and the Self are ONE.
There
is a spiritual myth of India which contains deep wisdom and light. It
tells of a council of the gods at which it was purposed to invest man
with deity. A debate arose as to how it might be entrusted to him
without his misusing it. One suggested that it might be buried in the
depths of the sea, so that he would not easily find and abuse it.
Another advised to place it on the most inaccessible mountain top.
Finally the supreme head of the assembly declared that he thought of a
place where no man would think of looking for it—in the deepest
chambers of man’s own heart.
Our
Christian Bible contains the same Message in the following quotations:
He
hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work
that God maketh from the beginning to the end. . . . Eccl. 3:11.
Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with
all your heart.” . . . Jer. 29:13. I will give them a heart to
know Me.” Jer. 24:7 ... The pure in heart shall see God? Mat.5:8.
One’s
failure to find the true God, and Eternal Life, keeps him separate from
the Infinite, Indivisible Selfhood—as though he were outside of
It—where everything appears to him to be perishable and changeable,
including himself, his mind, body, thoughts, world and experience.
Therefore to experience living Light, one must glimpse it in such a way
as to inspire him to desire God, his Real Self, beyond all else.
How
far away from one is his heart? Only so far as he has turned from it.
Our Real Self and our Real experience is right at hand, if and when we
can see and take It by our Spiritual approach to It, our Spiritual
perception of It, and our Spiritual abidance in It. Therefore, instead
of attempting to build up his personal thinking, one should be
deliberating how he can cut himself off from it altogether—and so
escape the inevitable doubt and fear, sickness and death. He should be
pondering how he can find That which is Unconditioned, That which is
Absolute, Pure. When he comes face to face with That, then he knows the
Truth. Then he knows that GOD is ALL! Then he knows that ALL is GOD!
The
Absolute or Christ Message reveals the Way to Life, without death; to
Heaven, without personal achievement; to Health, without healing; and
to Happiness, Harmony and Peace, without practice of mental cause and
effect. Spiritual Perception of the Real convinces us that preparation
of the heart is the only prerequisite to fearless Freedom and Spiritual
Peace. This is the very reason why those trained in metaphysics find
the understanding of the Absolute so difficult of comprehension —they
know little or nothing of the heart. They have been taught that each
has a mind of his own, and that with this personal mind he can know the
Truth; he can heal thought, body and conditions, for himself and for
others.
The
Absolute is not concerned with minds that are not real. The Absolute is
the Truth Itself. It stands alone. It is the One Mind, the only
Intelligence there is of anyone.
|