THE SCHOOL OF TRUTH LECTURE SPEAK AS A CHILD TO GOD

Do you feel weary and heavy laden? Has this last year given you more courage,

greater understanding, or do you feel burdened by personal problems and the

world's problems?

I look at my life every year at this time, Christmas time, and check myself with a

questionnaire: Has my faith in God grown, do I feel free and untrammelled, can I

say meaningfully "My heart is right with God therefore all is right with me, or do I

feel the pressure of extraneous conditions?"

The School of Truth, as you know, gets hundreds of letters from all over the world,

and we see that not only in South Africa is there pressure, fear, but everywhere. I

wonder why. I wonder especially why those who accept the teachings of the

Master are so troubled. When you are afraid of a thing you are worshipping it, for

fear is a form of faith, faith in negation. You are bowing down before the fatted

calf, worshipping mammon, giving its presence reality and therewith the power to

dominate you, your body, your affairs. Countless human beings think they worship

God, even love Him, but do not trust Him. They place their faith, often expectation

of bad, in mankind, and man never fails to let them down. Their fear of the future

out pictures in their minds, emotions, bodies and affairs. They wonder why things

have gone wrong in their lives and question God.

I am the sort of person that cannot have two powers in my life. There must be one

Power that I can worship freely, a Power upon Which I can depend, a Power that I

allow to hold sway in my life. Now, nearly in my 80th year, I am not negatively

concerned about people, circumstances and conditions. I am lighter in spirit,

happier and more secure than ever before, in spite of what I observe around me. I

try to the best of my ability to practice the Presence of God in my daily life, in all

the departments of my life, and I can look into the future and know that I will

receive then in terms of good what I receive today.

As you face problems so do I face problems. I am constituted in precisely the same

way as you - by the same Spirit, with the same mental equipment, the same

emotional makeup, the same physicality. As you, I observe what is going on in the

world around me, but I do not cognise negation as a reality. There is

only one Presence and Power in the universe, and that is God the Good. Just as

darkness cannot penetrate light so cannot any problem of a negative nature intrude

into our consciousness if our minds are full of light, full of understanding, full of

inner security.

Think on this past year. Go right back to January and see if you can identify all the

good things that have happened to you, the love you have received, the health that

has been bestowed on you, the tranquillity of mind. Whatsoever things are good

and true and beautiful, seek and think on them. And I find that I am more secure

today than I have ever been before, that although my body is older, faith never gets

old. It expands and develops. Like brandy, it matures with time. So I look at what

is called the future with equanimity and peace. My God of the past is my God of

today and my God of tomorrow and forever.

I often feel sadness when I read the letters sent to us, sadness that the senders have

not yet learnt to trust God. They believe, but their belief has not yet developed into

faith, into understanding. My own security lies entirely in my consciousness of

God. For several decades I have lived my own life and carried out my work in The

School of Truth never looking left or right or behind. As I look forward into the

Light I can see only Light. It blocks out all other vistas with its brilliance.

The 23rd Psalm says it all: The Lord, or Love, is my Shepherd, I shall not, I

cannot, want. The Lord is not a personality but the very Law of Love and Life

within me, my Guide, my Director, Who walks through my feet, gives through my

hand, speaks through my voice, brings understanding through my ears, perception

through my eyes. God is all the Knowledge and Power of the universe, and is fully

present in you and in me. How could there be anyone or thing that we need fear?

What need could there be for concern? These words come to mind: "Fear not, stand

firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today."

Do we forget our true Self? Of course we do, many times. Even the Master was

overcome by grief, and lost his temper. But life is like a blackboard and Love is the

duster that comes along and wipes off all our omissions and commissions. God is

of too pure eyes to behold negation. Love can never know fear or any of its forms.

To "sin" means nothing more than to separate yourself from God in consciousness.

When we look upon any negation, giving it power in mind and heart, we "sin." We

make mistakes, but God gives us the correct answers. Over the years I have said to

God "I put myself in Your care. You are Omniscience and Omnipotence, and You

constitute my very body. You protect me, and guide me, and direct me." And for

all the mistakes I make He gives me the answers, the solution.

As I mature and grow older I become ever more childlike in my acceptance of God

the Good. I live and move and exist in this very Presence of Love. It cannot, under

any circumstances, remove Itself from me. "But" protests the intellectual mind

"how can I become a little child after I have learned so much and had so much

experience?" I have met them, top intellectuals with strings of academic degrees,

but still afraid of life, afraid of disease, afraid of material poverty. The wisdom of

man is foolishness with God. The essence of Truth, I remind you constantly, is

simplicity. The more simple you are in your approach to God the more access you

give Him into your consciousness. There is no busy intellect, no constrained

reasoning, blocking the way.

What is it that you truly want? In humility you will find it is the voice of God

speaking to you: "This is what I am within you. Set Me free." You have the key to

the Kingdom, only you can use it. "But" you may argue "no-one accepts what I

believe in." Yes, Someone does - there is God and yourself, Mind and intellect,

Soul and heart. Omniscience enters your thoughts, Omnipotence enters your

feelings. Let intellect agree with Mind that all is well, let heart agree with

Omnipotence that all is possible.

The testimony of others may encourage you, but you will not find God in books.

Omnipresence is not transported - It IS. You open your consciousness to It and

discover It is there, always was there. Opening your consciousness is like me

switching on this light. "Now I see, I perceive, I understand." You have inner

realisation of yourself, not as something God has created but as God's presence

Itself manifesting in you and as you.

We each have a different concept of God, but each view contains the little leaven,

weak belief though it may be, that is enough. As you nurture it, use it, it grows and

opens your life to God's health, security and joy. Religious show is

meaningless. How do you feel inside? How do you feel about God? Imagine the

warmth, happiness and upliftment that you experience with the person or people

you most love. If you want God to work in your life you must feel the same about

Him, and more.

"God loves me and approves of what I do" is a fearless statement of Truth. No

matter how wrong you may be or how right, as long as you believe you are doing

the right thing God makes it right for you. Too many people practice the letter of

the law in their lives but not the spirit of the law. Ask yourself earnestly and

sincerely "Is my heart right with God?" I know He is Law and Principle, but we are

thinking, feeling beings. Again, how do I feel about God? When I pray what is

my attitude? Is there a sense of warmth, of love, and of companionship, an inner

knowledge that God is with me, that there is nothing in the whole world for me to

fear?

Christmas is the time for many when there is a conscious celebration of Love

coming into the world, a universal Love, the only thing in the world that can set us

free from our problems, a realisation that there is no other way. Our "enemies," our

problems, are the wind that helps us fly our kite. If there is no resistance you

cannot fly your kite. Our difficulties are the essential medium that helps us grow in

awareness of God, stimulating the inner yearning that draws our attention to Him.

Divine discontent within us resists compromise, seeks God-the-best.

You are sons and daughters of God. You have no inherent evil and sin. God loves

us and approves of our sincere strivings towards good, regardless of how they may

appear to others. Is it not wonderful that the whole Universal Love is concerned

about me specifically, and you specifically, that Divine discontent within us is God

pressuring us to accept His good, to reject everything that is the antithesis of

Good?

I speak as a little child to God, and shall do so until the time I die, to keep myself

in the awareness of His presence. So which are you - the simple person, accepting

God into your consciousness, or the person full of words that obscure God?

This season is a time of awareness of the presence of Love. Say, as you awaken

each morning, "God loves me and approves of what I do" and go out and release

this Love to everyone. Let Christmas really be a Feast of Love, a benign circle

drawing in more and more people, growing and developing. This is your duty. This

is what sets the world free from hatred.

There is only one Neighbour in the whole world. The Neighbour is called God-the

Good, and fills our minds, our hearts, our bodies and affairs with health, and

security and joy.