THE SCHOOL OF TRUTH
LECTURE

DIVINE GUIDANCE

Nicol C. Campbell
© The School of Truth
Source p. 325, Dec 2007 / Jan 2008 - The Path of Truth

There are three very definite promises, made to mankind by Christ, recorded in the Bible:

In the face of this it would appear that when we ask for guidance we should receive it; yet frequently - and in spite of our willing service - this seems to recede further and further into the background and naturally we question, "Why?" We know that if a child of our own should come to us for advice there would be no hesitation, no withholding on our part; our very love would constrain us to give freely of our wisdom and experience. But when it comes to dealing with God, it is not so simple; we find Him less accessible than we are ourselves, and for a very good reason.

In our minds we still associate ourselves with the personality of the Father that we see as outside of us, and there is always a praying up to Someone, a seeking from an Entity separated from us, and in consequence of this attitude there is with us no real consciousness of the spiritual idea.

Now, you as Truth students have no option but to attain to the knowledge that God is not in any way separate from you, is not external to you, but is the Living Presence - the Intelligence, Love, Protection, Guidance - that actually constitutes you, and this understanding must be so complete in you that it becomes spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically an integral part of you, and this means that with you and with me alone rests the sole responsibility for our respective lives.

Does this give rise to the question that, if this is so, of what use is prayer? Can we pray to ourselves? In order to answer this we must be clear on the subject of prayer. This does not consist in words addressed to Someone outside of yourselves; it is the constructive power of Love flowing through Its body-temples.

No one actually needs to go apart in order to commune with God. There is no occasion for any special ritual or ceremony; we all can - and should - pray continuously, even amid the noise and hubbub of our daily lives, for true prayer does not consist in petitioning but in the acknowledgement that we are temples of the Most High, that His Kingdom of Life, Power, Knowlege, Protection, Substance and Prosperity is within us, constituting us and supplying us with whatsoever we need.

Let us liken God to a reservoir of which we are individual cisterns each one equipped with a tap. If we turn on the tap, just a little, we receive a tiny drop of water, a minute Quantity of the Good that is God; if we open wide the faucet we have a tremendous outflow of His Substance to share and to spare and, when we pray aright, in the realisation that the reservoir, the cistern and the tap are all one, a single entity in which there can be no division at all. In respect of all prayer, it is already done and finished.

As you progress spiritually you will discover this for yourselves. As you make your ascent into a fuller comprehension of the nature of prayer and of your relationship to God, you will rise by these four steps: the first, belief, gained from what you learn about God from others and subsequently accept; this is followed by faith which comes when, having put your beliefs to the test in trust, you have practical results; out of your faith and the constant manifestations of good in your lives that ensue on its application, will grow knowledge; and this will in turn develop into that higher state of consciousness that is wisdom; these are the rungs by which we all climb the ladder that reaches up to spiritual understanding.

At this juncture I must stress a very important point in connection with prayer, which is that every single thought we think, every mental picture we hold in mind is the beginning - either constructive or destructive, as the case may be - of prayer. These two aspects, the positive and the negative, are always present and we are ever faced with the choice between the good and the not good.

And if you realise that seeing through you, is not your physical selves, but the omnipotent Life or Spirit that is God, you will understand that whatever your vision for any length of time - be it disease, unhappiness, lack or discord - will become a spiritual creation, product, finished and done in the spiritual realm, which must manifest in your physical lives.

Whatever you visualise, eventually becomes a part of your emotional natures. You begin to feel it, you are happy or sad, fearful or joyously expectant because of it, and as a natural sequence, because out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh, you begin to talk about it. And if you shall decree a thing it shall be established unto you, for the Word is God and is with God, and is All-power spoken through His body temples, whence It shall not return void but shall accomplish that whereunto It has been spoken; which means that you have stamped It out in this material realm and Its manifestation here, in your visible world, must take place quite naturally.

You have every evidence of this in the lives of those close to you - your relatives and your intimate friends - in which you see the manifestation of their inner thoughts and feelings constantly expressing for them as the good or not-good that they have dreamed.

And how plaintively they tell you that night after night they pray earnestly to God for happiness, protection and guidance and nothing happens! They blame God for this and declare that He is not interested in their welfare.

But then, Who is God? Where is HE? If this Power that they think of as being outside themselves is not interested in their well-being, are they then indifferent to it? Do they value their health, happiness and material stability? The answer is very much in the affirmative, but if this is so, why are they - who are made in the image and likeness of God and are consequently, like Him, creative - why are they bringing forth that which is the very opposite of the good they wish to experience, into their daily lives?

It is never God Who is unconcerned about our welfare, it is ourselves. Here, before us, we see the manifestations of our answered prayers, the guidance we have received, the perfect plan - spiritual, mental, and emotional - now expressed in material substance, which is not good! Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong with God - or with His Guidance - Which the Christ established, for all time, in the consciousness of every human being on this plane when He overcame all human problems and demonstrated the solution thereof to mankind.

If we have not received our good it is because we have not prayed aright ('Ye ask and ye receive not, because ye ask amiss') for, obviously, if All-power is working through each one of us then there is no other authority that could stop, or alter, that which Omnipotence has brought into being, so nothing remains but for us to check up on ourselves and find out in what way our prayers are falling short. Somehow it has happened that the outlet for God's counsel has become silted up so that we are unable to receive His guidance. All that we can - and must - do then, is to clear our minds of every atom of negative thinking and accept the Truth that God is, at this very moment, coming through us as that which we are seeking.

We must believe that we have received because the Substance of all good is here with us; all the spiritual ideas of our success and prosperity are present, unformed as yet, but nevertheless they are already an integral part of our mental, emotional and spiritual beings! Therefore, as we pray for guidance, we have to reject all appearances that speak of lack, or the absence of God's good. It is up to us to note the qualities of God and to use them constructively.

Let us therefore, to this end, accept on trust that the guidance we require for our wellbeing, for the attainment of our good, is already ours and each time it seems to be wanting let us not question or panic for to do that would be to betray our faith. We must see, think, talk and feel the thing we need. If we have a decision to make respect it. God is All-knowledge. He knows the right course to take, and since before we call He has answered, we can be still and know that it is done.

The guidance you need cannot come through to help you while your minds are filled with fear, but is it not worth your while to wait, as the psalmist enjoins, 'upon God'? You cannot take your good on faith because that presupposes knowledge, but you can trust, and as you become sure of God's goodness, His beneficence, His omnipotence, and His unlimited substance, all doubts will leave you and you will take any material steps that are necessary without hesitation of any kind. Even if you have not a cent in your pockets you will not be alarmed because you will know that your supply is already established so that, at the right time, the money will be forthcoming to meet your needs. Never allow the negative thoughts of others to influence you. These are there in their millions, bombarding you all the time, and you are receiving sets, so it is not easy to resist them, and if they once succeed in becoming a part of your consciousness it will be difficult to get rid of them.

Supposing you have a decision to make by a certain time and as this draws nearer and nothing comes to light you become more and more agitated, does this not prove your lack of trust? Is not God's time this day? Did He not say, "now is the accepted time"? So if your faith is steadfast, as the moment approaches you should feel even happier and more assured, for He is the solution to your problems. You must be unconcerned about the outcome. If you worry you will become perplexed; this will lead to mental confusion which will contaminate the Substance within yourselves and there will be no outlet. It must literally be a case of, "Possess thy soul in patience, Thereby shall good come unto thee."

If you have failures it is because you panic when you arrive at what you think is the deadline; you feel that God has let you down. Yet when your breakfast is prepared in the morning would you have your lunch and dinner cooked at the same time? You can only consume a limited amount of food at any given meal, and you cannot take all three at the same moment, so why do you expect God, if you do not require the good question before a certain date, to give you your breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same instant?

We require that we want only when we actually need it, but expect God to produce the object in physical manifestation for us in advance so that we can be at peace, in which case we could do without faith.

Never forget that it is already done! It is like the recording of a song, it is established for all time and you can listen to it whenever you wish by playing the record. Just as a song can be infinitely available so has Christ established, for you and me, the spiritual ideas governing health, happiness, guidance, protection and prosperity for ever and these are all recorded throughout the universe. They are the 'discs of God' that are part of our individualized consciousness, and by being still and silencing our emotions, we can hear His Voice and speak with Him just as we talk to one another.

But what do we listen to most of the time - and more important by far, what do we ourselves record? When you feel some specific need do you harken to your own clamouring record of complaint, or that of some other human being announcing vociferously his sense of lack, or do you heed the Voice of God saying, "It is done!"?

In my experience with people I find they spend most of their time recording the unpleasant things that have brought tragedy into their lives; or in asking why God allows this or that, why He does not help them, or why He has let them down? But their scroll is recorded. Whatever disaster overtakes them, whatever negation appears to be punishing them, is of their own creation; it is a faithful replica of their personal state of consciousness and it is useless for them - and not very intelligent either - to seek to shift the blame on to others.

If these people want spiritual guidance they must pray for it in the manner of their thinking, feeling, speaking and acting.

They must listen to God, and if they cannot do this amid the bustle of the city, they must go apart and meditate, lift up their hearts and souls in thankfulness to Him, knowing that because they cannot desire anything that the Christ has not already established unto them, it is already brought to pass, and all they have to do is to turn on the tap or tune into God's discs.

Let me repeat, God's good is fulfilled and done, it no longer has to be created, it is only so-called evil that is daily in process of being brought forth by us through our abysmal ignorance. If we had been brought up to live, think, speak, feel and act constructively, and to express the greatest of all qualities, love, all the good that the human heart desires, and that emanates from God, would be flowing through us to share and to spare. But because of our mistakes and fears, we are producing the wrong guidance which results in sickness, unhappiness, poverty and failure, not because God wishes it to be so but because of our shortcomings.

Let us therefore try to accept our guidance on trust, knowing that it is already ours, and that all we need to do is to drop all fear of personalities, and the time factor, in the conviction that we are all dependent solely on the Spirit within us, so that if my good has to come through you or yours through me, it is nevertheless the same Presence that produces it. It is only when we conjure up erroneous pictures that do not correspond with God that these are recorded in our lives and even they can be erased, totally obliterated, as though a wet sponge has been passed over a slate, by the Presence of the indwelling Christ which, once enthroned in our hearts, eliminates all manner of man-made evil.

Try this new approach to God! Come to Him in childlike trust, tell Him that you cannot work out your problems physically, mentally or emotionally, that you know that only Spirit can solve them but that you will keep your eyes focused on that which is positive, ignoring all negations. Then what you think about will become part of yourself and you will dwell in the consciousness of God's presence.

(Lecture delivered in Johannesburg.)

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