THE SCHOOL OF TRUTH LECTURE YOURS TO COMMAND

"Concerning the work of my hands, command ye me." - (Isaiah 45:11)

Would you like to have the consciousness of the presence of God in you so that

you, too, may command all the eternal unhappy conditions that are presented in

your life to disappear? Would you like to be so sure of God in your own soul, that

no matter what appearances and circumstances confront you, they would not affect

you in the slightest? - poverty in some cases, unhappiness in others and sickness in

others?

What gets in your way when you try to deal with these things? What do you find

most difficult to do when confronted with these obstacles? Is it, perhaps, because

you do not believe in God sufficiently? Or do you? Is it your own love that gets in

the way of your faith? You are so concerned with the loved one who is sick or

unhappy or poverty-stricken that no matter how you try to have the consciousness

of God in you, and to know that He is now working in and through this loved one,

you just seem to be so concerned about the condition that your mind is turned, not

to God, but to the condition.

I often hear people say they have faith; God has been good to them, helped them to

overcome all types of conditions, and so far as they know, no matter what problem

is presented to them, they feel they will be poised and stand aloof, turning their

backs on the problem. But they do not. Yes, if it is something to do with someone

distant to them, not a person they love, they do not find it so difficult to have faith

that God is now fulfilling the good through this particular person. But when it

comes closer to home, when it affects some loved one, they find to their surprise

they have not faith at all, their minds are chaotic, their emotions take possession of

them and they realise that they do not know how to think or pray constructively.

How can we overcome these problems which are in our immediate circle? How

can we have or exercise this authority over disease and unhappiness? Not by trying

to do it ourselves. Not by trying to compel it with airtight intentions; with mind

and heart filled with fear, hoping perhaps that by this concentrated thought, it can

bring into consciousness the presence of good. It does not work that way. If you

are trying to overcome any problem you must become impersonal, detached from

the problem. You say you believe in God for He is all presence, all knowledge and

all power. Very well, if God is all presence, all power and all knowledge, do you

have to invoke aid from outside to do something for you? Can you literally force

the law to express itself in and through you as health, happiness or success? Yes, if

you can keep your mind off the condition; if you can turn your back on it; if you

can feel consciously that it is too big for you, that you have not sufficient faith but

can will yourself to have faith in God. But that is the hard way.

Each time you try to think constructively and realise the presence of God, the

condition presents itself and you feel that fear in the pit of your stomach. Why not

try to work with God for your own loved ones as you would work for some friend?

Why not have the conviction that it is the same God that works for Mary Jones and

John Brown or anybody else? Know that He is spiritual law. If your emotions are

in the pit of your stomach you are not in tune with good. If I believe in the

presence of God I should feel happy and elated; I should know I can work for

others as well as for myself. I do know that so long as I keep my mind in tune with

the presence of God and not with the condition, I am making contact between His

good and the material manifestation here or over there, and that in spirit we are

one, inseparable, my loved ones and I.

The Christ said, "Say not ye, there are yet four months and then cometh the

harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look upon the fields, for they

are white already to harvest." Can you imagine what the disciples thought?

"What does He mean? The fields are barren. How can He say that? According to

appearances there is nothing there. "On your understanding of that simple truth

depends every single demonstration, whether for yourselves or for your loved ones

or a friend. What does He mean by "Lift up your eyes"? To heaven? Does He mean

this power called God is somewhere up in the sky and will suddenly bring into

manifestation the harvest? Surely this is against all natural law? But let us analyse

it. The farmer tills his field, fertilises it and sows his seed, prays and hopes for rain

but he is not agitated if in a day or two there are no visible results. He knows that

in the ground are the seeds, that in the seeds is the harvest and that the harvest is

now in fulfilment, being made manifest from the inner to the outer. He waits

patiently. His experience, after many years of planting corn, tells him his seeds are

going to produce corn and when the plant comes to fruition, he knows it will not

produce potatoes or onions. But we sow poverty and expect to reap abundance. It

does not work that way. I must fulfil the law in other aspects of my life.

If you can sit quietly for half an hour and analyse what it means to have, working

in and through you, All Presence and All Power and All Knowledge, your fears

would be dispelled. Why waste your time seeking God if you are not going to trust

Him? Why waste time praying? "You ask and receive not because you ask amiss."

You do not ask in faith. When you speak the word you do not do so with authority.

You hope that God will do this or that for you, that if it is His will it shall be done.

How are you ever going to know God's will if you have a mind that is continually

vacillating; if you have a mind that today believes it is God's will that you have

poverty, disease and lack, and tomorrow believes it is God's will for you to have

health, happiness and abundance?

"Very well, God," you say, "if it is Your will, remove this condition, but if it is

your will that it remain I shall bow my head in submission." The condition

remains, and you say it is God's will! It is not the will of Perfection and Love that

you be sick and unhappy; that is a defeatist attitude. We are not working with some

personality, but with all the love, power and knowledge in the universe, trying to

express itself through us as perfection in our minds, bodies and affairs. When I say,

"Thy will be done," I mean "Perfection, let Your presence manifest in and through

and for me."

I must be sure of God. It is not blasphemy to demand that God do this or that.

Thousands of years ago we were taught, "Concerning the works of My hands,

command ye me" -- all the wonderful things in the universe, the substance of all

the things the human being can need or desire. There is an invitation, but God is

impotent to express His good until you personally invite it. That is His Law. You

do not have to walk around the streets in an arrogant manner claiming, "God can

do this or that for me," but every affirmation you use constructively is

commanding. You identify yourself with the good when you use a constructive

affirmation.

Some people say you do not have to affirm, you just have to make of your mind a

blank, but this is not so. Man cannot stop thinking, so I shall either be affirming

evil, or I shall be affirming happiness, peace and all good, because I cannot stop

thinking. What am I commanding this Presence of God to do for me? My whole

being must be in tune with the good I desire when I command it. When I say, "I am

health" I am commanding that the spirit of God which is perfection, manifests

through me; not if I am expressing my desire like a parrot, but when I try to feel it

is so, then I am accepting the presence of God in me, manifesting through me and

to me, His temple. When I say I am abundance or success, I try to bring my mind

and actions in tune with my affirmation, try to live it as reality. I am identifying

myself with my own good within me. But most people are too lazy to think

constructively; they are too mentally tired to work with the law of good, and they

say, "Thy will be done." And when their good does not manifest they say, "I

suppose it is God's will that I be sick and unhappy and a failure!" It is easier to go

with the stream than to fight against it, but you must realise that you do not have to

fight when you pray to God.

You must be like the farmer. He knows that in the ground is the fulfilment of his

crop, and it will manifest if the conditions are conducive to the growth of his seeds.

If he took the seeds and threw them into sawdust, naturally nothing would happen,

and he would not blame God if they did not germinate. He would say, "I am stupid.

I cannot expect results. Here in the tiny seedpod, is the idea, the nucleus of all I

shall see. Here is the perfect pattern, and if I give it the right conditions, my crop

will manifest."

I cannot blame God if I look into my own mind and heart and see the negation

there, and then the negative results all around me, in my body and in my affairs.

The one great beauty of Truth is that no matter how negative or evil your thoughts

are, no matter how destructive, you cannot create one atom of evil. You are merely

preventing the opposite good from manifesting, from expressing itself in and

through you.

Sometimes you hear people say, "You see, he sowed what he is now reaping. He

has created that evil for himself." He has not done anything of the sort, because

God is omnipresent, and if God is omnipresent and God is perfection, I cannot

create in his omnipresence any so-called imperfection. God is spiritual perfection -

the outer negative manifestation is merely lack of the opposite good. I cannot, and

you cannot create evil. Your negative emotions and destructive thoughts prevent

the spiritual perfection from manifesting on this plane of consciousness in which

we live. Does it not make you happy to know that in this condition of unhappiness

and lack is the presence of perfection manifest in a different form or degree -

health, happiness or abundance? I have not created the negative condition, but by

having faith in the lack, I have created a void in my life. It is not something that I

have to fight, because it does not exist in the reality of God and has no power

whatever - it is like an empty glass that needs to be filled with water.

I make evil a reality in my life if I feed it with my emotions - that is if I have faith

in it - because according to my faith it is real to me. If I think unhappiness it does

not affect you unless you feel it and see it manifest, and then if you see it as

unreality it dissolves as the mists before the sun. It is difficult for people to

understand that evil does not exist, that it is not something we have to fight or to

destroy, but just to deprive it of the power we invested in it. We do ourselves harm

by our reactions to the condition. Every time I react negatively, every time I feel

upset about the problem I am saying, "God has no power," and yet it is only like

the darkness in your room when you turn off the light. When you turn on the light

the darkness disappears: the problem is only as real as darkness. Because of our

acceptance of it we are building into it, we are saying, "There is poverty, disease,

unhappiness and failure" and we ourselves, through our misdirected faith, prevent

the success, supply and health from coming through.

When I know I am working in tune with God in my mind and heart, I can say my

eyes are lifted up and I behold the bodies of mankind now filled with happiness,

health, peace and all good, because the seed has been sown and everywhere is the

germ of that seed, waiting to express itself as the fulfilment of every desire I have

for good.

How do you command God? Is your mind so in tune with lack, with the so-called

incurable condition, that you are literally binding it to the loved one, or do you

know that he or she is the temple of the living God, the living presence of life and

perfection, and that all God wants you to do for Him to manifest through that

person is for you to agree? He agrees with you that it is done: "Lift up your eyes. I

am fulfilment! I am the seed sown and shall express Myself as fulfilment if you

will set Me free." But we run around seeking here and there for help, when all the

time that help is within us, the temples of the living God, the life manifesting itself

as livingness through this body temple.

The life in me is now fulfilment, and does not require time. We say, "Yes, God's

time is now," and yet we say: "It is going to take time to do this or that." I have

seen hundreds of demonstrations over all kinds of chronic conditions. The human

mind says, "It must take time," but God's time is NOW. He is NOW all the

presence in the universe, all the knowledge, the fulfilment of every lack and all the

power in the universe, so that all power is there to enforce the knowledge. It does

not need to come to you; it is already here. You live, move and exist in God.

It is just lack of faith that prevents the manifestation of your good. Not lack of faith

in God, but in the will of this perfection. The life that holds your body together, the

life that is in every cell, tissue and nerve, is waiting for you to accept it now. Now

is the accepted time.

Try to remember that whatever difficulty you have, it does not take God time to

produce your good, because in God the time is now. But you must recognise it.

Live in tune with health, in the consciousness that your body is now perfect, that "'I

AM,' God in me, now manifests divine health through me and I know there is

nothing to fear. I can be poised and at peace and see it being done, being brought

into visible manifestation through my physical body." Lift up, not only your minds,

but your hearts as well. Be happy and contented. Know that no matter what the

problem, 'I AM' - that is, God in me - 'I AM' now the fulfilment, the perfection, 'I

AM' now the success, now the health manifest from the inner to outer, from the

centre to the circumference. Command with authority!