Nicol C. Campbell
© The School of Truth
Source p. 200, Sep / Oct 2009 - The Path of Truth

I had been listening to the song "How lovely are Thy dwellings, O Lord of Hosts!" when the question flashed across my mind "How lovely are our dwellings?" yours and mine. I was thinking not of houses made of bricks and mortar but of the houses of our physical bodies that you and I offer to the Spirit of Love within us. Do these habitations reflect a consciousness of Love's presence, or of its absence?

The student who starts out in Truth usually does so because he has come to the conclusion, not due to any personal demonstration of his own, that God must be what he has seen in the lives of others, that God must be Omnipotence and Omnipresence. Our work in the School of Truth has not developed due to propaganda of any kind or to advertisements in the Press, it has come about because of personal contact between its members and the public, who have glimpsed the Presence of Love, or God, because of some 'dwelling' that has impressed them. These people, who are intelligent, have said to themselves, "If the lives of X, Y and Z can be so changed by the Presence of Love that they are reflecting, surely I, too, can experience fulfilment in my body and affairs if I imitate them?"

All of you who are already followers of Truth carry a tremendous responsibility both to God and to yourselves because you will be judged, not by your words, or your beliefs, but according to your actions, for in the eyes of beginners you are the living advertisements of the good or the non-good.

It happened to me only a short while ago that a very good friend of mine told me that he was a little perturbed because he had heard me make - probably with no intention of wounding anybody - certain comments of a critical nature. Far from being annoyed at what he had said, I was most grateful because it is of the utmost importance for me to be in line with Love since I have to act as an example, and I recognized that this man, unbeknown to himself, was the Presence of Love pointing out to me that I had temporarily separated myself from good in that, for the moment, I was not reflecting the impersonal type of Love that is God.

I wasted no time in taking myself in hand again. I recognized that I had not only let God and my friends down, but that I had let myself down too, and because I think of myself as a green apple on the road in spiritual maturity, I freely admitted that there was room for improvement.

It is this attitude that permits me to progress in good, for if I felt that I had nothing more to learn in spiritual matters the apple would obviously be quite ripe and ready for decay to set in.

When we ask you, "How lovely are your dwellings?" we do so in a spirit of love, for it is our duty, as your teachers, to point out to you your faults and weaknesses so that you may find the consciousness of Love and see It reflected in your affairs exactly as It has become manifest through and for us.

Are you patient, tolerant and kind? Do you try to see the good in all your fellowmen, or are you perhaps selfish, always wanting your own way, irrespective of the hurt that this may be causing to others? If you are, the fact that you call yourselves students of Truth will not preserve you from unhappiness or prevent lack from invading your bodies and your lives! If, on the other hand, you have asked guidance of God, you must be very sure of what Love, that never punishes or wounds, wants for your highest good and happiness before you take any steps which will set It free, so that only Its Own Nature is reflected in and through you and all that concerns you.

When I have, myself, come into this consciousness I act at once - quite indifferent as to whether the world laughs at me or declares that I am wrong - for I am possessed of an absolute inner conviction that what I am doing is right and that nothing, and nobody, can in any way hinder the manifestation of the good that I desire.

Just as I look at you in your dwellings, so you, naturally, look at me in mine, and if I am not in tune with Love all the time, I expect you to come to me and say: "Despite the fact that you always claim to be human and unstable as we are, this and that is what you preach, and we look to you to set the example."

It is shocking that I, too, should fall down on occasion, but in so far as each of you is concerned it also has its advantages for you can say to yourselves, "He too is fallible and makes mistakes, yet he is richly blessed so if I who am trying to overcome my weaknesses and the negative traits in my character and to live in tune with the Spirit of Love, sometimes go wrong there is still every hope for me, for I am only learning, while he should know better."

As I said before, I am grateful to anyone who pulls me up, for my one desire is to see the Presence of Love alone manifested through me, and even one tiny adverse comment, no matter what the motive behind it may have been, is enough to hold up the expression of Omnipotence and Omniscience in my life and affairs.

I want to be conscious of His help, to have the fullness of His Love in my innermost heart, and to be in tune with the Law of Prosperity so that I can continue to give and give to all who call upon me for spiritual teaching.

I am never afraid to admit it when I am in the wrong because it is only when we realize how fallible and powerless we are - and how Omnipotent is the Power of Love -that we can develop a simple childlike faith or trust in God, so I want all of you to look within yourselves, to stand in front of a mirror and, having searched your minds and hearts, and thought about your actions, to ask yourselves what sort of habitations are reflecting back at you? Are these those of kindness, sweetness and tolerance?

Is the mind that you have each examined constantly seeking out the good in other people - who, do not forget, are themselves the seat of Love, the hands of Love (open or closed as the case may be) - so that by so doing it may itself find a greater consciousness of this presence within its own dwelling?

And what of your hearts? Remember that out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh! You have learned that you must forgive before you can be forgiven and you realize that lip-service is not enough, for you have met people who have received injuries by way of certain human channels and who, claiming to have forgiven these mortal agents, nevertheless recount again and again the wrongs that they have suffered at their hands; and when it is pointed out to them that they must forgive those that despitefully use them they retort, "But I have done that long ago!" Theirs however is no true pardon, the Spirit of Love has not been set free, otherwise there would remain no negative burden in their hearts to betray its presence by the words that issue forth from their lips.

Such people are judged by the spiritual Law acting, not as an individual, but as an impersonal recorder, registering the fact of Truth's imprisonment in their hearts, or of Its having been set free.

If I tell you that I am expressing Love - Which is the Light-consciousness - and all that you can see is darkness, you will say to me that there is no radiance in my dwelling, that I am expressing only my own nothingness-awareness, and that what I am claiming is a lie, for you know that 'as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he' - in his body and his affairs, and his face, his physical envelope, and all his material concerns, must and do express this accurately.

Let us now consider your actions. Are they selfish or selfless, do they bring happiness to others, your immediate associates, their friends, and the community in general; or do you, in your egotism, disregard them altogether, and seek but your own will and way? You can have this, for a time, but it will bring you nothing, for you take out of life only what you have put into it. If you sow love you reap it, if you spread happiness it comes back to you, and if you scatter unselfishness, that also you will receive. What you hold onto in a spirit of blind possessiveness you will lose, for to retain the consciousness of any good, be it health, prosperity or gladness, you must give it away. What you try to get, slips through your fingers, what you loose you retain.

It is actually a matter of faith. 'There is that which scattereth, and increaseth,' but the person who holds on to anything because he is afraid of losing it, is clinging to a nothingness, for fear is not an entity and is powerless, the only Power being Love, Omnipotence.

We all have to learn that the only thing in life that we need to achieve is the consciousness of Love, the awareness of the Presence of Omnipotence and Omniscience, of which none can deprive you once you have found it. Because that is a stable faith, an unshakable knowledge that knows - and knows that it knows - that your dwelling is a temple of Love, Which is the fullness of all the mind's and heart's desire.

You can find within yourselves the solution of every problem that confronts you, if you are sincere enough to look inside for the tiny obstructions that are so effectively damming up the good that is within you. And it is my duty to point out to you your mistakes, because you, like ourselves, are frequently so close to the wood that you cannot see the trees.

We are the eyes of love - just as you are - and there are fundamental principles that none can ignore. If we are honest we can find the flaws in ourselves and it is well worth our while to do this because all the prayer in the world will not bring one atom of good into our lives as long as we pray amiss.

The basis of all prayer is the unselfish love that recognizes in itself the Substance and Prosperity of God; that becomes a consciousness of faith such as nothing can destroy; that experiences in its body the vibrating Force of Health; that puts an aura of protection around you that wards off all that is evil and not of God.

The most magnificent car in the world, with a flawless body and a first class engine, is powerless if there is sand in the carburetor; and just as I might be said to be kind to that car if I removed the offending grit, so are you only being kind to yourselves when you cast out, by the application of Love, the obstructions that hold up your good and delay your success.

Dr Emilie Cady says, 'There is nothing that the outer man needs or desires that the inner spiritual man cannot and will not supply, for the supply ever precedes the demand,' which however must always be made. So will the Spirit within you reveal to you that you are indeed making this demand when you look into your hearts and remove the grit and sand, and become radiating centres of love, compassion and thoughtfulness.

It is the daily effort that Christ had in mind when He said, 'What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.' It does not matter what others do to us, or say about us, the only important thing is what we do, or say, about them. If they choose to become separated from their good, that is not our affair, we have to send up a prayer of thankfulness to Love for the opportunity It is giving us to serve these very persons, for Its care of us, for Its protection - in the face of what seems to be directed against us - and for the happiness that fills our lives.

We have not to judge, to criticize, or even to see the flaws in our fellowmen; we have to help and uphold them, remembering that Love 'ever gives, forgives, outlives, and ever stands with open hands, and while it lives (which you know is eternally), it gives and gives and gives.'

That is the only basis upon which anyone can build up true prosperity - peace of mind, happiness of heart, health in the body, and abundance to share and to spare. Material things you can attain without the application of love, without having any trust in God, but they turn to dust and ashes in your lives.

It is happiness that all men need and long for, a state of peace within, the certainty that Love is in Its Heaven; that It is the Power constituting our dwellings; that It is our unassailable Habitation and that all is well in our personal worlds and in the whirling universe of which we form a part and to which our God Himself is Moon and Sun.