LECTURE
THY WILL BE DONE
Nicol C. Campbell
© The School of Truth
Lecture given in September, 1986, Rosebank, South Africa
Source p. 69, Apr / May 2006 - The Path of Truth
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts higher than your thoughts." Therefore let us consider our thoughts. Are they constructive and filled with joyous expectations, or are they the products of conditioning to accept and to believe that we have to "carry our cross" of poverty, misery and ill-health.
This is what my father believed. He was a wonderful man in every way, with a fine intellect, yet because of his strict, orthodox, Christian upbringing, was limited in his outlook, ever forbidding his children to play tennis on a Sunday and insisting that we wear dark blue suits. I began to think it was churchianity that I was observing and not Christianity. Christianity should be a joyous thing, full of love, goodness and sweetness, teaching us to live in harmony with one another, giving us the realisation that, since God is Omnipresence - evenly present everywhere at the same time - we are our neighbour and our neighbour is us and we are all inherently God in expression. This should be true of all sincere religion.
I so often hear people say "I was born in penury, and there is nothing I can do about it. This is what God has bestowed upon me and in humility I must accept it." I say to these people "Tell me what are your inner thoughts and desires? Do you love to be poor? Do you enjoy unhappiness and discord in your relationships? Do you like being sick? From where do your thoughts or desires to rise above poverty, illness and unhappiness emanate? You cannot be higher than God. Your true desires are His desires, Divine discontent within you, His longing to be set free through you as greater fulfilment."
Not in all my eighty years have I discovered that God wants me to suffer negation of any kind. Many years ago, when I could bring myself to pray "Thy will be done," I did it with head bowed, ready to bear my burdens. Then I questioned "What truly is the message of the Master? Is it not one of hope and upliftment, of peace and joy, or does he say that it is God's will that people should live their lives fraught with confusion, emotional and physical suffering and material lack?" From my understanding, strengthened over the last sixty-odd years, I have discovered that "I (God's presence) have come that you may have life abundant, life with joy." Misery arises through man's stupidity. Lift up your minds and hearts and look beyond appearances to the Reality of God.
Through the ages there have been several great masters, and each has taught that God is a God of Love and Goodness, a God Who will fill your lives with health, happiness, abundance and protection - if you make contact with Him. There have been many world saviours, representing many religions, and most of them were put to death by men. They all give us the same message - one of deliverance. The kingdom of God, they all taught, is within you. It is the kingdom of love, of joy, of health, and security, and it is the Father's will that you enter this kingdom.
I was religiously inclined as a young boy. I used to love going to Sunday school, and to church with my father every Sunday morning and evening - but not once did I hear the message of the freedom of man, or freedom of choice. "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." You do not and cannot earn it through suffering. We all deeply know this. One often hears the sentiment for example "She is such a wonderful person yet look at how she is suffering" or "He is such a good man but look what has happened to him." For the last fifty years I have been asked why this should be so and my reply has always been: "It is not according to your virtue, or sacrifices, but according to your faith that it is done to you." Neither does the Master nor any of the other great teachers of the past say that according to your religion is it done to you.
Are you reflecting the kingdom of God? "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well." This kingdom is overflowing with health, vibrant with happiness, full with abundance, to share and to spare.
Long ago I decided I had to find out the truth of the matter. I thought of the promise "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." I believed that this meant rest arising in Spirit and flowing over into mind, heart, body and affairs. If God is All-presence how can His peace be limited to only part of our being? So I proceeded on the basis that God would show me His love in all things. And He showed me. He gave me more health and strength, greater security and happiness, and unending supply. I discovered firsthand that "Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear." My needs were met before they arose. Therefore I speak from experience. I pray with all my heart "Thy will, not my will, be done. I desire with infinite longing that Your will be done through me" and I think that after fifty years of living in trust that I, and you, can have as much Love and Light as we are prepared to accept. The choice is ours.
Many of us have a dim consciousness of good, of "the true Light that enlightens every man." Yet we know that there is something beyond what we see, and we become excited about what we think is beyond the Light. As we look for It, to seek It with all our hearts, It shines brighter and brighter in our lives, and we realise how foolish we have been to have accepted, for so long, superstitious teachings about God. I have never known Light to give darkness, or Love to give hardship or "wrath". We are not cruel to our children, and we cannot believe that we are better than God.
Paul teaches us that we are God's temples and that God's Spirit dwells in us. In Truth we are perfect, as God is perfect. We are manikins of God, but what are we expressing? How much of this Good of God are we releasing? In my early years I carried on my shoulders the yoke of the miserable sinner and used to ask God to forgive me for all my wrong thoughts. Let me tell you that a thought is something that flits in and out of your consciousness. Until it bonds with feeling it has no power to help or harm you but, once it has emotional acceptance in you, you are enabled to rise above, or descend into, negation of all kinds - mental, emotional and physical. But even if you have descended into the depths of despair and have nothing, you can rise again. No matter how many times you fall, you can always get up. It depends on your determination to accept God, never on God Himself. God shines on the just and the unjust. He says "I AM. Take Me. Get into My light. Become My light."
I ask for one thing only - understanding. "God, give me understanding of Your nature. Show me." I prayed thus as a man of twenty nine. I cut myself adrift from all security, gave away everything, even my coat and my suits. "Now God, You show me. I will spend my time in loving, serving, giving and trusting. Show me."
These days I am reminded of myself then and of The School of Truth as it grew, and of how true is God's promise that He knows what you need and it is His good pleasure to give it to you - if you will only open your consciousness and accept it. You do not have to tell God what you need. He is, through your true desires, telling you all the time what He wants to become through you. I do not ask God to give me oxygen. I inhale and I exhale. Just so, I intake God and I give of God - momently, consciously. I am His hand, His voice, His ears, His feet - demonstrating His accessibility within myself and proving to others that God is Good alone, never not-good.
I have had contact with a great many orthodox followers and ministers of religion. They do not believe that Love and Light can never apprehend darkness and error. God does not punish you. In ignorance you punish yourselves. You, not God, impose limitations on yourself. You do not like experiencing negative conditions but through your senses and your intellect you have allowed false pictures into your mind, then, out of the fulness of your heart, through your constant affirmation in speech of this negation and through your actions, you produce the most wonderful demonstrations of negation, of nothingness. This is not God's will - it is man's stupidity.
What a wonderful revelation it was to me when I discovered "Thy will be done" was the great prayer that encompassed all other prayers. I had begun to understand that God pours only good upon us, through us, and for us. We cannot love and fear at the same time, for love casts out fear, and the prerequisite to spiritual awareness is fearfulness. Fear is the inverted faith, faith in that which we do not want.
So take this as your affirmation, as your prayer: Thy will be done, not my will - for my will is limited. Thy will be done in and for me, and through me to others, that I may glorify You as health, and as happiness, and as security.
(Ref. Rosebank 860917)
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