THE SCHOOL OF TRUTH LECTURE STORIES OF GIVING

I am like a man looking at a movie with eyes closed. My screen is inside me, and I am looking at what God has already arranged for me. Everything we truly desire and everything we need is already in fruition within us. Therefore I observe with a great deal of happiness this picture in my own soul, and I know that I am following the right steps to develop this picture in my life. Firstly I am seeing the Truth, am attuned to God. Secondly my heart is full of gratitude, which is love. Thirdly I am taking all the practical steps which affirm His kingdom here and now. These steps are training my consciousness. Inside us is a receptacle, and ideas of good are pouring into it all the time, but to this flow we are adding pollutants. Our receptacle is God's infinite longing for fulfilment in us, but we pollute the inflow with ideas of unhappiness, sickness and poverty. So what ends up in our receptacle--- what are we holding in our consciousness? Then you are ready for a really big step, and you might feel a little panicky, but you say, as the Master does, to the ominous appearance that confronts you "Get thee behind me Satan. Get thee behind me lie. You have no substance whatsoever." You keep your inner eye single to the good, you do not credit what your mortal eyes see, for that is untrue, is a lie. And Truth never fails. Someone asked me where the perimeter of consciousness is. There is no perimeter.

There is no level of consciousness that you cannot go beyond. Beyond the confines of this room and this floor are more floors, then the roof of the building, then the city beyond, then the atmosphere which I may traverse with an aircraft, and space with a spacecraft. But at each stage there is striving. You must want to go beyond. Praying only for yourself is like staying in this room. But I do not want limitations so I say to God "This is as far as I can see in my own consciousness. I do not wish to impose any limitation on You regarding my life. Open my vista, show me with clear thought what You want me to be." I am talking of God, my own Spirit. My intellect is talking to Mind, my soul talking to the spiritual Essence within myself. And in a most natural way, never in a spectacular way, not in a "miraculous" way, a channel will open. I may say to myself of this channel "But this is strange. I do not want to go down this road. I do not want to go south, I want to go north." But I am taken by the jacket and forced to go this way. My intellect might even object "I am going further and further away from my good" but I am forced to continue. Do you know what happens? My journey is like a circumnavigation--- I have to experience my southward passage in order to come to the north, I have to learn to accept my forebodings, that I did not enjoy what I was going to find in the south. Do you see this? There is only one way, no other way to finding higher consciousness of God. Trust Him always to lead you to your highest good, even though you may pass through the valley of deep darkness. Your passage may be more commonplace. For example, many years ago when I lived in Cape Town, on one occasion I needed a certain sum of money. I said to God "What can I do to earn it? Give me something I can do." And an aunt phoned me and asked "I wonder if you would do me a special favour?" "What is it?" I asked. "Will you take me to Malmesbury (which is 90 kilometres away)?" Without any suggestion from me, when we returned from the trip, she gave me the exact sum of money I needed. I had to earn it but the channel was opened.

There is another story I have often told. I needed 12 pounds (old money) and was walking along affirming God's goodness in different ways. My consciousness was entirely occupied pushing away my problem of debt when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hello Nicol, how are you?" "Hello Dudley" I responded, suddenly brought back to the moment. He went on "You know when I left for Johannesburg last year and I did not have my train fare you gave me 12 pounds? Well now I am giving it back to you." Once you accept God's path to your highest good, there is nothing that can interfere. Take me for example. I started The School of Truth in a little furnished office with a small reception room. I did not want people to know that I had given up my regular work because I did not want any charity, so I made my hours from 10am to noon and from 2pm to 4pm. People accepted this and came to see me during those hours, and then more and more of them came until my day was full and I needed another office for staff, and then another office, and then I had to take a whole floor, then another floor. Then we had to move to another building altogether, and later to yet another to accommodate our quite large organisation. In the beginning you start with the desire to serve God in the way He wants you to serve Him--- in any walk of life. A lot of people start off immediately wanting status and may even get it, but this is almost certainly not their highest good, as they sooner or later discover. With God you start from the ground floor and work your way up in consciousness. This is not because God wants you to struggle but because you need to grow in Him, with no gaps and no cut corners. If you come to see me and ask "Nicol, what can I attain to?" "What is in you? What do you see?" You get what you expect, not what you want, not what you pray for. So never limit God. Say "This, or better, or best." Want God's good, not your good. He knows what you are capable of, your capacity. If you handle say R1000 a month and suddenly receive R10000, it will be too much for you. All men can bear poverty but few success.

You have to grow in consciousness. Our first house came to us through the most extraordinary circumstances. I had said to myself "I would like to live somewhere around here. It is pleasant and still rural. I do not know how I am going to get it. It is up to You Father. I will do my job and You will show me the way." Then one day a young man came to see me and said "Mrs. X wants to put me in business as a builder" and I asked "How does that affect me?" He replied "Well you see she said I cannot do it unless I have someone to build a home for. She will give you the ground if you will build a home on it." "But" I cautioned "I haven't got that sum of money." "No" he agreed "but we share a great friend who is a master builder and all he earns is about 13 pounds a week. Can you afford that?" "YES!" was my answer--- and the completed house cost me 2 thousand pounds. Later I sold it for 20 thousand. And so it has always been for me. What is it that you want? Have a clear idea, because it is like taking a snapshot, it lays up an image in your consciousness, but leave the developing, the enlarging, the realisation of your highest good, to Him. Remember this--- nothing comes "to" you, it comes "through" you, whatever fulfilment it may be, mental, emotional, material. "The kingdom of God is within you. Do you not know that you are God's temple?" Life, Love, Intelligence, Beauty, Health, Prosperity are all in the finite little body that warms you. Everything that you need, everything that you truly want, is already contained within you--- but you have to use it fearlessly. You are the only one who can impose limitation on it. There are more stories I feel I must tell you. Some years ago my wife and I were taken by some friends to what was Lourenco Marques for a long weekend. At one stage during our visit we were at a gambling spot and I decided for fun to play the one-arm bandits.

I got coins and put one in a machine, and then another, and another, and suddenly hundreds of coins came pouring out on to the floor in front of me. I said "Thank you God." A small family standing next to me came up to me and one asked, "How did you manage that?" I replied "I talked to it." "What did you tell it?" I did not answer but said "Well, it is more blessed to give than to receive, so I am giving you this money. I give it to you with my love." He went off and I saw him talking to this machine. He put in coins but nothing happened. But that is how it works--- you do not give in order to get. It is much more direct--- you are giving to yourself, and therefore you give freely. If I pray for your health, I am giving myself health. If I pray for your fulfilment in anything, I am fulfilling myself. Everything is within me, but it needs releasement. Another story--- I repeat it for those who have not already heard it. It is about a man who worked for us but, knowing that I did not have any money at that time, decided to set up a test for me. So one day he invited me to take him to lunch in a smart restaurant nearby. We sat down and he ordered one course after another, his grin getting bigger and bigger, while I just prayed inwardly. And then the waiter brought me the bill and it was a note saying "Compliments of the Manager." My colleague was a capable man. He wrote the most beautiful articles for us, but they were purely mental. He was simply a good writer of metaphysical lines. After the incident at the restaurant he seemed quite amazed and exclaimed "It does work, doesn't it." My reply was "You didn't test me, you tested God." The story doesn't end there. After working with us for some time he seemed to become bored. He simply walked out one day leaving a note "Sorry, I am off" and I did not see him again for some time. One Saturday morning I had a strange feeling that I should go and see him so I went to his flat and knocked on the door. There was no reply so I kept knocking. Eventually he opened the door and when he saw me he said "Do you not know what was happening? I was standing on the window sill about to jump out. I wanted to commit suicide when you knocked on the door." This was the turning point in his life. He decided to follow Truth rather than merely to report on it.

For 20 years he worked for us in Cape Town. He was in charge there. The intellect is a fine teacher, a fine visualizer of things, but it has limits. It is like having a bag of seeds--- but we have to open the bag and scatter them. "Give and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put in your lap." I ask myself, as I have done for nearly 50 years, "Can I afford it, yes or no?" If no, then I am immobilised because my hand is closed. If yes, then I must have the courage to keep on giving fearlessly. Fear and faith are the same thing. One is positive in terms of good, the other is positive in terms of negation, nothing. Fear of disease confronts you with the nothingness which is disease; fear of unhappiness is the nothingness which is unhappiness. Conversely, if you have faith in health and happiness and prosperity, they become manifest through you in your life. Are you anxious, or are you aware of God within yourself? Everything emanates from within outwards, not from without inwards, and everything that you can ever need or truly desire is already latent in you and as you. This is how you must work on it, and then according to your acceptance, the amount of seeds you sow, the water and cultivation you apply, so shall it produce for you whatever you need--- more, it shall produce for you according to His riches. It takes courage, guts. I cannot do it for you and you cannot do it for me, but we can encourage each other, do it together. So when you leave here today think of these words of Frances Foulkes "Divine Love contains my dearest desires and is always ready, willing and able to fulfil them, to give to me in overflowing measure all that I need, whenever I need it.

In Divine Love, Creator, Healer, Giver, I live and move and have my being. No power, no person, no principality can separate me from the love that the Creator holds close within me." It is a pure gift from God, lest any man should boast, a free gift. You do not have to earn it, you do not have to work for it. It is simply a question of accepting it, just as you accept the oxygen about you. Like breathing, it is giving and accepting all the time. You must persist. Do not give in to doubt. Do not worry about what people say based on their worldly experience and conditioning. Many have said to me "It doesn't work. You cannot achieve it." I say Truth does work. You make it work. Let us know in consciousness at this moment that God is fulfilling Himself for us, and through us, and in us, and as us.