LECTURE
...Single to the Good
Nicol C. Campbell
© The School of Truth
Source p. 324, Dec 2008 / Jan 2009 - The Path of Truth
It appears very difficult at times to understand God's purpose for us as individuals. It seems hard because the vast majority of us are inclined to judge by appearances; and, in my experience of these, whether they take the form of negative conditions or individuals, I have always found them to be separated from the truth.
It is sad that we invest so much power and authority in things and people outside of ourselves. In the very first commandment we are told to have 'no other Gods before Me.'
I am sure, if I spoke to each one of you separately and asked you, "Do you worship God, or do you worship Evil?" your response would be very quick and you might even take offense at the question. Let us, however, look at this objectively. Take any condition, appearance, person or group of people and ask yourselves whether you magnify these in your minds? Do you give them power over you? If you are afraid of any one of them then you are indeed worshipping, not God, but those very conditions or individuals with all the emotional strength of your minds, hearts and souls.
May I ask you which is the greater power, man or God? Is it possible for God as Good, Perfection and Love to share His power of good with evil? If you think it is then you still believe in Him as an anthropomorphic being called God, and in a personality called 'Devil' as well! There is no middle path, either you believe in God as the sum-total of ALL GOOD, as OMNIPOTENCE, OMNISCIENCE and OMNIPRESENCE, or you deny Him in your thoughts, your hearts and your actions by reason of your fear of conditions or people.
Every time you share your power with someone who is apparently evil, you are not only sharing that power, you are giving it to him. You are actually kneeling down and bowing before him, acknowledging him as something greater than God. The admonition, or the challenge, is, "Prove Me" not in a place called heaven, to which you will go when you pass from your present state of consciousness, but "Prove Me Now Herewith, if I will not open the windows of heaven - of your minds - and pour you out individually or collectively - a blessing so great that there will not be room enough for you to receive it."
There is a wonderful promise, that if we dare to be strong, to acknowledge God in all our ways, to accept the truth that HE is Omnipresent, (in and through every human being), All-knowledge and All-power, He will not only give us the spiritual understanding that we are seeking, but will pour out through our bodies radiant health, prosperity and success to share and to spare.
With the teachings of Christ there has never been anything wrong, it is humanity that has muddled and distorted them, and why have they done these things? Is it not because of lack of courage and the inability to take the steps necessary to prove Him?
If God is All Power, All Knowledge and All Presence, and if He is Love and this Love constitutes me, is there any reason for me to be afraid of any condition, circumstance or individual? I cannot see why there should be, yet there are tens of millions of people, calling themselves Christians, who say that from the very bottom of their hearts they believe in God and the teachings of Christ, who nevertheless deny this categorically by their thoughts, feelings and actions.
I maintain that if an individual can prove God within himself, to himself, as a state of consciousness that produces peace of mind, a healthy body and prosperity in his affairs, then so can a family, a group, a nation, and a world do likewise. We do not see the manifestation of His Good in our individual or collective lives because we have no faith.
We look outside of ourselves and, judging by appearances, we make of those tremendous realities, and when they have become living (as far as we are concerned), we suffer on account of them and say to ourselves, "Why does God let me down? Why has He done this or that to me? Have I not trusted Him and believed in Him?" And the Christ in your hearts and minds answers: "By your works, by your bodies, by the appearances manifesting in your affairs shall you be known." In other words there before you - mirrored, reflected through you - is a state of consciousness harbouring a belief not in God, but in the lying conditions, circumstances and personalities in which you and I have invested power. Nevertheless, His Voice, His Love, His Knowledge are within the temple, and we are these temples of the living God, with the Kingdom of God within us.
All the spiritual ideas necessary for the bringing forth of whatsoever we desire are within us waiting not only for spiritual but for mental, emotional, physical and material freedom.
We must not try to hoodwink ourselves, we do not fool anyone, much less the Spiritual Power; we fool only ourselves, and if we do not learn by our mistakes, we shall continue to have the same experiences until we qualify.
As I have told you before, a child can pass into a higher standard if he has a certain aggregate of marks, but in life you must pass all your examinations; you must attain the consciousness of perfection in the mind, the heart, the body and in the affairs because God is Spirit, Soul, Mind and Body. He is not a Spiritual Power separate from His creation but is His very Power constituting the world and reflecting as the material universe, and This is yours and mine for the taking. It is only a question of schooling your minds and substituting for your wrong concepts the right vision. Have that mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus, one that is always constructive, that sees, knows and calls forth only the true. Every time we condemn or criticise or hit back we are recognising a power outside of God; we are separating the individual from the Life that is the Father.
There is only one way to overcome any condition and that is by replacing it with the divine Presence. Wherever there is chronic disease, there is the very Life Force of God Which is perfect; if there appears to be lack somewhere, Omnipresent Life is where it seems to be and can be called forth as Prosperity. All that is necessary to give you unlimited affluence is the spiritual idea of Plenty, and if you are afraid of a person or of people stop looking at the lie and see within him or them the Presence of God, of Christ, of Love and thereby call this forth.
You could bring all the darkness in the universe into one lighted room and darkness could not remain there; it would simply be dissolved into nothingness and become nonexistent. So it is with individuals. If you recognise evil in them you are investing power in those qualities, you are magnifying those conditions until they can eventually swamp you, for you are 'agreeing' with them, and 'if two of you agree upon anything, it shall be done unto you accordingly'.
The Christ way was ever to bring light into the darkness, either of the appearance or the individual, and no one can be evil, or practise it, if the Light is switched on, for they partake of the consciousness and understanding of Truth and begin to reflect It.
Wherever I go all those I meet are filled with fear and I ask myself if they do not believe in God or whether they imagine that there is someone, somewhere, who is greater than He? If the time should come when any individual, or individuals, should be greater than God, then let us bow down to them, worship them and acknowledge them as All-power, but not until we have tried God first. I have never known Him to fail, have never found Him unable to furnish the particular spiritual idea necessary for any specific need of mine, whether of health, happiness or prosperity.
We all spend too little time in prayer and too much in criticism, too little in giving love and too much in giving hatred and then we wonder why discordant things happen to us, and what we have done to deserve them. All day long in our offices we hear the same refrain, "I have not done anything to merit this!" Could it then be that God puts His Hand on those particular unfortunates and says to them: "you shall have disease, you shall have unhappiness, you poverty and you a broken home"? How can Love give us anything else but Life? How can Truth give us lies or negation? Whatever comes to me, good or bad, I have invited; whatever comes to others they have invited too, and whatever overtakes a community has been brought upon it by themselves. There is no such thing as undeserved punishment, sickness, lack, unhappiness or failure. Divine Injustice simply does not exist. Whatsoever we experience we have ourselves, by and through our faith, brought to pass; we have made realities of appearances, we have born witness to them and acknowledged them - and not God - in all our ways, consequently according to our faith which, whether positive or negative, is a tremendous force, it has been done unto us.
I, too, would like to blame circumstances, or a so-called devil, or some human being for my misfortunes, but I am not so unintelligent! The Bible made it too clear; God is omnipresent Spirit, and Spirit is Life, or Intelligence, projected into consciousness - manifestation - and since Christ revealed that Spirit to us as a Power called Love, it is easy for me to discover where and how I have fallen down. It is not difficult for me to assess why this, that or the other condition has come into my life.
We are only too prone in our daily contact with people, either in the office or at home, to allow ourselves to become separated from Love, to permit circumstances to affect us and to bring about a division between the spirit of Love and its body temples that cuts us off from our good, as a short circuit in the lighting system would deprive us of light, or a bit of sand in the carburetor would paralyse our cars. Until we adjusted these faults our houses would be plunged in darkness and our cars would remain stationary - just immobile masses of steel and rubber - and in the same way until we have eliminated from our consciousness the power we have invested in appearances, conditions and people, our bodies will be impotent to express the Being called God. Let us therefore turn within and see the Presence of Christ as a reality, as the living Presence of God constituting our body temples, and let us say to Him: "You are the Knower of the Way. There is nothing that this human body, or these human bodies, can desire that You, the Spiritual Self, the Spiritual Power, have not already provided in all circumstances and for every condition", then let us listen patiently, while we fill our hearts with love, for it is only love that can contact Love.
We cannot approach God in prayer if our hearts are filled with hatred, criticism, censure, bitterness or self-pity. Fill our hearts with positive qualities to realise His presence, or becoming aware of the spiritual Self.
Who is GOD?
Consider this reply given to Moses in Exodus: -
God said: "I AM THAT I AM."
Further, God said to Moses tell your children and people:
"I AM: this is my name for ever."
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