LECTURE
ASCENSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Nicol C. Campbell
© The School of Truth
Source p. 133, June / July 2008 - The Path of Truth
Is it not marvellous to know, especially at this time, that we have a consciousness that can rise above circumstances, conditions and problems? Marvellous to know that if 'I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me,' that when we are uplifted we radiate the Presence of God, and as a candle draws the moth, so we attract into our orbit people who feel a sense of security and their own Godness in our company, and begin to realise that all of a negative nature is but an illusion of the mind, which by steadfastness of purpose, can be removed from their consciousnesses.
No one knows better than I do how difficult it is not to judge by appearances, not to accept things which appear to be realities like ill-health, unhappiness, and lack of prosperity. Fortunately I have discovered over the years, with St. Paul, that 'the things which are seen were made from things which are unseen,' and that by living in this inner consciousness the spiritual ideas crystalize as realities, so that I can bring them forth into manifestation where they are visible through these, the human eyes or reflectors.
In Truth nothing has to be overcome; there is no poverty, no disease, no unhappiness, no obstruction. These limitations exist only in the consciousness of the individual. God-consciousness, it will not have been in vain.
This is not easy to understand. To say to a person who is in pain: 'It doesn't exist,' or to the hungry man: 'You do not need food,' or the unhappy person: 'You don't need love,' seems preposterous, and it is understandable that some people feel we are really rather a peculiar people. However, I want you to realise this if you will think, and I mean THINK! Omnipresence includes me; Allness includes me; Omniscience includes me and Omnipotence includes me.
We are constantly asked to pray very hard on behalf of someone. 'Please help me to remove this thing,' the person pleads. Let us revert to Omnipresence. The Spiritual Force which we call Love is everywhere evenly present throughout the universe in which I live and move and have my being. Therefore, if there is a condition or apparent condition in my body or affairs, it is a life of my own consciousness; a sleep-consciousness, an unawareness of who I am and what I am; my ignorance of the Truth.
If I go out into the sunshine I do not have to pray to it to give me of its life-giving warmth. I merely place myself in its presence. Similarly, I don't have to try to get into the consciousness of God. I am IN the consciousness of God because God is consciously me. But, as yet, I have not awakened to this reality. I am still in my ignorant state, coming out of a deep sleep and beginning to become conscious of light somewhere in the distance, and its compelling power draws me towards it.
When I reach it I bask in its beauty and warmth; in its light, which is my own spiritual illumination, and in this Light, where is the darkness? In this Light there can be no darkness. How can there be good and evil if there is Omnipresent goodness only?
People do not think. I hear a great deal of intellectual rambling in relation to Metaphysics of Truth or New Thought, but I still see the limitations imposed by their observations. Two of everything. Dualism. Light and darkness. Good and evil, etc. Now if only they would dwell upon the words Omnipresent God, or Omnipresent Good, they would realise that there cannot be anything but Good. When a man is healed he does not change the will of God, he merely changes his attitude towards what he hasn't been seeing: health, happiness, security. He was previously observing his own limited consciousness; blind to the Truth.
If I live and move and have my being in God, how can there be pollution, negation or pollution, negation or error in my mind, soul or body? Divine Prosperity permeates all space, ourselves included, if only we were cognisant of it. A baby is not aware of the differential calculus. He has to go through the various stages of primary school, high school, university and then working life. From the grades he advances in learning and experience, until ultimately he encounters Truth.
This is unfoldment. It is like peeling an onion, removing leaf after leaf, until eventually you reach the kernel, and there is the pure essence.
It is through man's ignorance of his own being that he has not yet developed his God-awareness state. He is evolving, growing, developing, because God is the Changeless Changer; and He is the Changeless Changer, not through man, not from man, but as man. As I walk up and down on this platform I am not displacing God. He is walking in me as me, because there is nothing else. He is the only substance, eternally present. However, it is only by constant, unremitting practice, day by day, moment by moment that I gain this consciousness, that God becomes me. Health, happiness and prosperity are all attributes of God; they are synonymous with God. The intellect, guided by appearances, claims that there are two conditions. It reasons that there are two conditions, light and darkness. So I switch on the light and the darkness vanishes. I am enlightened. What appeared to be darkness is now Light. 'Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free.' 'Ye shall KNOW...' underline that and put it in capital letters, for it is this knowing that destroys the illusion of the intellect and the physical senses. This knowing, however can only come through practice, growth and spiritual development. The tragedy of life is the apathy of man. He is lazy. He needs a spiritual force to awaken him, so that he will take practical steps to announce his Godness and claim It accordingly. Then so shall it be.
"Concerning the works of My hands (the whole of Being, of nature) command ye Me." Here is the spiritual self demanding control over the emotional and physical self. Can you, not in wishful thinking, but in absolute faith, do exactly what you want to do? Can you go and spend to the limit of your consciousness, or are there always reservations? Humanity is frequently saying: 'I cannot afford to radiate my health; I cannot afford to share my happiness; I cannot afford to give of my substance,' and according to their faith in limitation, they lack health, happiness and prosperity, and these conditions persist. I can afford, because I am the presence of God and His supply is unlimited, but I start from the bottom. If I have a ten rand a month consciousness I cannot spend a hundred rand, I have to build myself up into the awareness of my true identity, not by reason, because the intellect is analytical, not creative. The mental and the emotional constitute the creative power. The two work in conjunction; they fuse and, behold! There is light, health, happiness and security, together with prosperity and as long as this fusion remains intact you shall continue to enjoy these states of consciousness in your affairs.
'If you believe these things,' said the Master, happy are you if you do them. Wherefore do you doubt, oh you of little faith? It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom, (or as we say today, to live in the consciousness of it)' the Father - the Universal, Omnipresence, Omnipotence and Omniscience - Divine Love has pleasure in being these qualities as you.
I have frequently pointed out in my lectures of late that there is no outside and inside and this side and that side in Truth. Everything is a different level of awareness. I might, by observation, see you overcoming some poverty condition and I think it is marvellous, although I don't understand it. However, the person who is demonstrating it knows that he is merely using the Power of God to release that which he IS, as Spirit at this very moment in time, and shall continue to be forevermore.
"And I, if I be lifted up shall draw all men unto me." Just think about it! The Ascension, the ascension from negation and darkness and the misleading intellect into God-awareness. Not a personality going from one place to another, from this earth into heaven but a consciousness - an ascending consciousness. 'I in you and you in me and we in the Father.' All as One indivisible, complete. Spirit, mind, soul and body and this never ending desire for union - this Divine Discontent. Yes, this is the God that is you, urging you to set Itself free. You are imprisoning this God-love, God-life, God-health and God-happiness within yourselves, as yourselves, because you judge by appearance. You observe what the intellect tells you to be true, but it is an illusion. It is a fact to the intellect, but facts are firstly, assumptions. The scientist says, 'Eureka! I have found it!', only to discover that he has just started, that there is no end to what he has uncovered. Truth is absolute; independent of facts.
When I listen to people who say to me, 'I am an advanced student,' I think: 'How pathetic, what do you mean, 'an advanced student?' Surely the greater your understanding the more you will demonstrate it in this life, and the more you will realise your own impotence when separated from God-consciousness! It is not this revelation that breeds humbleness, and prevents you from claiming a so-called deeper knowledge.
I often think how frustrated the Master must have been when He taught the common people. Would He not say: 'Look, here is light. There is no darkness in this light, but you haven't switched it on. Switch it on! Believe that it is so. Just believe, don't claim faith, because you haven't got it. Believe that you have put this switch on and enlightenment will flood your being.' I can sit beside a stream and see my goal, yet despite my yearning, praying and desiring, nothing happens until I jump into the stream and swim towards the goal. I must act accordingly.
We moan because we have not got the things we desire, and yet this voice within which goes on ceaselessly yearning and yearning for freedom, for light is God seeking through you, as you. In effect you are not seeking material things, money or possessions, but security.
If you have been thinking, feeling and acting negatively, now turn your attention to the positive, the substantial. As you catch the vision of God within you; feel the presence of God within you, as you, and act accordingly, His abundance, happiness, love and harmony will pour out into your life. I frankly think that we fail because we are fearful. We're not certain, are we? We claim to believe in God, in His Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence, and we really believe that we do. However, we have so many reservations, so many 'ifs' and 'buts'. Remember: 'He that wavers is like the wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.' You have got to be God in consciousness. This is not blasphemy. Everywhere that you place your feet is Holy Ground. Here, in the public house, in heaven, wherever it may be, is holy ground - WHOLE, the wholeness of Life. You are merely claiming what has been taught you. The Kingdom of God is you. 'Know ye not that you are the temples of the living God?'
This is what I want you to do. I want you to start rejoicing in the knowledge that you are not mere human beings, flotsam and jetsam on the sea of life, but the very presence of God walking on this plane of consciousness, and that you have been evolving, in order to reach your present state, a state in which you are able to raise your consciousness above that which is the lesser to the greater, from the ten rand to the hundred, from health to radiant health, from just a measure of happiness to complete joy. Not over the ages in some far off place when you leave here, but NOW. God is here NOW and no matter how many times you pass over from plane to plane, you will always be in His Presence. You do not die. There is a transition from one consciousness to another, from a lower vibration to another and higher state of awareness. It is all according to law.
Nothing is really supernatural. Order is the first law of heaven, and what we experience is merely the operation of the law of our own being, the arising from darkness into the Light. If you have not known it before just accept it, not on trust, but in hope; this eternal expectation which swells the human breast. I am that I am. I am health, happiness, prosperity, protection, guidance, direction and understanding. THAT is what I am. Even repeating it parrot-like will have the effect of wearing away, like dripping water on a stone, the false impressions of the intellect and physical senses.
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