THE SCHOOL OF TRUTH LECTURE THE ONE POWER

When we first start out to prove Truth we are all inclined to put things before God;

we are like those of whom the Christ said that they did not come unto Him

principally in search of Truth but for the material wonders He performed, the

"loaves and fishes" that were more dear to them than was spiritual enlightenment.

Let us now be quite clear on this point: these very "loaves and fishes" are an

integral part of God's being and as such they are all ours to use and to enjoy, but

they are, as it were, the by-products of Life and should be of secondary, not

primary, importance to us. If we concentrate upon them we can bring them into

manifestation. We have but to look around us to see many people who apparently

do not believe in God yet have all the worldly goods they could desire, so it is

equally probable that we too have the mental, emotional and physical ability to

bring into conscious externalization any concrete thing that we require.

God gives us whatever we want, and every type of self-confidence, all directed

thinking, is a form of trust of faith and produces that upon which it has been

focused; but these things, unaccompanied by inner peace and harmony, never

amount to true happiness or success. God is not averse to our having them in overflowing measure; in fact, being as He is, All-in-All and omnipresent, He has

Himself endowed us with them for He constitutes us, not only as the spiritual

Power called Love but as the same Power called Substance, and our desire for any

particular thing is not a personalized wish but the urge of infinite Intelligence

constraining It to express a greater measure of Itself through us who are Its

vehicles.

In all my experience over these many years, when confronted with very serious

difficulties of a material nature, I have always found that if one is seeking the

Kingdom of God he does not need to centre his attention upon the problem; the

man who relies solely upon his faith in the Father achieves his purpose much more

easily than does the one who uses intense concentration to gain his ends, even

though each is contacting the self same Substance, that Which, when manifest, we

call either "success" or "money".

It happened once that Henry Ford, at a luncheon, was asked how he came by all the

spiritual ideas that he put to practical use in his plants and, turning a saucer upside

down, he replied: "This bit of china is being bombarded by a terrific force of X

pounds to the square inch at this moment; you cannot see this taking place, but

science knows it for a fact, can measure it and weigh it, and I believe that every

human being is like manner continuously bombarded with all the spiritual ideas

necessary for his particular needs, no matter what these may be."

We, as Truth students, go further, we do not feel that we receive these spiritual

concepts from without; we know that they are already within us, part and parcel of

our very beings, and that when we turn mentally to the spiritual side of ourselves it

will be as if we opened a tap and permitted these ideas to flow out through us to be

moulded by us into tangible expression. The trouble is that most people with whom

I come into contact persist in looking outside of themselves for their material

wealth. They fix their gaze upon human agencies, they question whence their good

can come, they watch and wait and nothing happens because they are looking in

the wrong direction. It is, of course, more than probable that it will come through

some individual or other, but it cannot do this until it has the first found

itself within the consciousness of the person seeking it.

Let me give you an illustration. A friend of mine who wished to buy a property had

every estate agent in the city looking for this for him, but somehow whatever was

offered fell short of his requirements, so he decided to make a spiritual plan and to

depict upon that exactly what he sought. Some eighteen months later, when dining

one night with friends, a fellow guest asked him if he was satisfied with the house

in which he was living, and upon his saying that he did not care for it and was

looking for something else he was given the address of a man who was building a

house as a speculation. He went out to view this and found that it was exactly what

he wanted, on the right piece of ground, in the suburb of his choice and in

congenial surroundings. It was not until he had completed the purchase that he

remembered his treasure map, and when he had dug this up from among his papers

he saw to his amazement that the sketch he had drawn upon it was not that of the

home he had just bought but was one of the houses he had been visiting when he

received the information that guided him to what he so badly wanted.

That is how God works, in a natural manner; but we, unfortunately, frequently

obstruct Him for, not realizing that we are engaged in treasure-mapping, or

spiritualizing ideas all day long, often indulge in negative visioning, and then

wonder why discord comes to pass. It used to be like that with me. I would give a

certain amount of time to prayer, affirmation or mediation and then, like you,

forget all about it, ignoring the fact that during the period that I was not in

communication with God I was, nevertheless, also praying, and was asking, not for

the good, but, because my emotional reactions to certain conditions were

producing for me adverse mental pictures, I was paving the way for the un-good I

was holding in consciousness, to manifest.

It is, of course, possible for each and every one of you to bring forth into

expression the good that God is desiring through you, either by the way of

concentrated thinking, seeing, feeling, speaking and acting that particular thing

from the moment you awaken until you go to bed, or by realizing that the idea

within you is God's idea and is already done, so that you can dismiss it from your

mind as a fait accompli.

Study your thoughts and your emotions daily, when you go to bed, and ask

yourselves sincerely, "What have my thoughts been to-day? How have I felt? What

have my actions and reactions been?" Then make a note on a pad, and do that

every single night and see if, at the end of the week, you can perhaps eliminate the

negative side, the destructive aspects that you have been building up over a period

of year.

When I started, I used to ask myself, "Have I done this?" and if I had I ticked it off.

"Have I done that? Am I quite sure that I have done it?" If there was any doubt I

would put a cross, and so I would go through the whole questionnaire and, after

summing up, I would analyse the result to see whether it was negative or positive,

in the credit or debit category, and I would make a note of my findings for the

following day; and each time I thought of a negative condition I would take out my

list and check on it. You too can do this, if you want to! It is not really difficult if

you are in earnest, for the moment you are honest in your seeking after Spirit, at

that moment all the spiritual forces rush to your aid. But I come across little

evidence of this singleness of purpose. Even my own friends seem to be

extraordinarily negative; out of the fullness of their hearts they are constantly

saying how much they believe in God, and - practically in the same breath - how

much they believe in evil; how much they believe in prosperity and how much they

believe in lack; what faith they have in health and how completely they accept

disease. All day long they are recording a spiritual plan, and spiritual power is

faithfully producing for them what they are asking for.

Now I make it a practice - no matter what I may be doing, working in the garden or

driving my car - to keep my mind inwardly turned, in spiritual meditation, towards

God, not in order to force myself to recognize His Omnipotence, Omniscience and

Omnipresence, not exactly to strengthen my belief in Him, my recognition that

there is nothing outside of Him, but because I realize that it is necessary to keep, as

I might say, continuously in touch with Him, because it is only too easy, in these

days when most people are harbouring discordant thoughts, to slip into their habit

of negative thinking.

Whatever happens in your lives is your responsibility; there is no power greater

than God, none that can oppose His will, but we give authority to conditions, to

people, to appearances, and then it is done unto us accordingly; and what overtakes

individual lives spreads to the family, and from the family to the community,

thence to the country and finally it manifests as a global state of being - the

reflection of personal thinking and feeling. But there is no reason for concern or

panic; whatever occurs is within our own control. We have to ask ourselves in

whom, or what, power is established, whether in God or in that which is outside of

Him. It should not be difficult for you to distinguish between reality and unreality.

Are you not temples of the Most High, enshrining within yourselves His

Omnipotence and Omniscience? Of what then should you be afraid? God in the

midst of you is mighty, not alone to heal the mind and the body, but to harmonize

appearances, conditions, environment and circumstances. I want you to be, as the

Bible says, a "peculiar people", peculiar in that you do not judge by the seeming or

give power to anything outside the Almighty. Of what value are the teachings of

Christ, what is the use of being a student of Truth if we give to illusion the power

that belongs alone to God?

Sometimes I feel that teachers of Truth are voices crying in the wilderness, so few

people really trust in God, strive to bring Him into their consciousness, or are

willing to rely upon His Protection and Love, Which are - if they only knew it -

nearer to them than breathing, closer than hands and feet. All the unhappiness and

tragedies that overwhelm us are brought to pass by our own erroneous thinking, by

our ignorance of the fact that within us - permeating and flooding us - are an

infinite Power and an inexhaustible Love waiting to express in, through and for us

Is it not true that God is in the midst of us, that He is in His Heaven, (the Kingdom

within us) and that "all's well with the world"? If this is so, why do I see so little

faith, so little belief even; why do people run to and fro like lost sheep? Let us take

ourselves in hand and, realizing that it is only as we sow that we shall reap, let us

decide henceforth to sow in faith and so eliminate all fear.

We must be clear on this matter of fear. Is there, think you, someone or something

that is greater than God? Is it possible if God is divine Justice and divine Love for

an injustice to be committed at any time? If this could happen there would be no

Justice or Love, but in order for Those to function for us they must be able to

express through us. God can work for you and me, becoming our true success and

happiness, our true health and prosperity only as we become His channels, but

when these are cluttered up with doubts and fears His qualities cannot come

through.

We must have faith in the good, vision it, invite it, instead of timorously

contemplating adverse conditions that exist only in our minds and persist for us

only so long as we entertain them. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me". Let

us get to know this one God, let us commune with Him, let the outer man learn of

the spiritual man within him, for there is nothing that the first can desire that the

second has not already perfected and brought into manifestation for him, his loved

ones, his community and his country.

The Kingdom of God is fulfilled, is MADE VISIBLE, but our gaze is directed

downwards, our minds are confused, our emotions disturbed, we lose sight of the

fact that we are His temples, His vehicles of Love, Power, Knowledge and Beauty;

our lamps are not lit, or their shutters are closed so that only a glimmer escapes to

illuminate our world. The Prince of this World cometh and we receive him,

forgetting that there is but one Presence, one Love that encompasses all the good

that is. But this Love is dammed up within us, held captive by our fears; let us then

lift up our eyes "unto the hills" raise our consciousness to the spiritual heights upon

which God dwells. We have to realize that it is only because He IS that we exist

and are equipped with His attributes, and, holding fast to the Truth, we must keep

our minds centred within, oblivious of outer conditions so that the true happiness,

success and prosperity of which the Christ taught may become manifest in and

through us in every increasing measure, to share and to spare.