The meal had not progressed far when our Chief asked the lady what she considered the greatest attribute of God. Without a moment's hesitation she answered, "Love." Then she went on to say, "The Tree of Life is located in the midst of the paradise of God, the very depth of our own soul, and the rich, abundant fruit that grows and ripens to the fullest perfection, the most perfect and life-giving, is Love. Love has been defined by those who perceive its true character as the greatest thing in the world. I might add that it is the greatest thing in the world. I might add that it is the greatest healing force in the world. Love never fails to meet every demand of the human heart. The Divine Principle of Love may be used to eliminate every sorrow, every infirmity, every harsh condition, and every lack that harasses humanity. With the right understanding and use of the subtle and illimitable influence of love, the world may be healed of its wounds and the sweet mantle of its heavenly compassion may cover all inharmony, all ignorance, and all mistakes of mankind.
"With wings outstretched, Love searches out the arid spots of the human heart, the waste places of life, and with seeming magic touch redeems humanity and transforms the world. Love is God, eternal, limitless, changeless, going beyond all visions into infinitude. The end we can only envision. Love fulfills the law of its own, consummates its perfect work, and reveals the Christ within the soul of man. Love is ever seeking an inlet whereby it may flow forth into the soul of man and pour itself out as all good to him. If it is not disturbed by man's perversity and discordant thinking, God's eternal, changeless current of love flows ever onward, carrying before it, into the great universal sea of forgetfulness, every appearance of inharmony or ugliness which disturbs the peace of man. Love is the perfect fruit of the Spirit; it goes forth, binding up the wounds of humanity, drawing nations into closer harmony, and bringing peace and prosperity to the world. It is the very pulse of the world, the heartbeat of the universe. Humanity must be charged with this current of love from the great Omnipresent Life if it would do the works of Jesus.
"Does life press heavily upon you? Do you need courage and strength to meet the problems that confront you? Are you sick or afraid? If so, lift your heart and pray to Him who leads the way. The imperishable love of God enfolds you. You need not fear. Did He not say, `Before they call I will answer and while they are yet speaking I will hear'? Approach this throne of grace boldly, not as you have thought of beseeching and groveling attitude, but with the prayer of understanding faith, knowing that the help you stand in need of is already yours. Never doubt. Do more—ask. Claim your birthright as the child of the living God, as Jesus did. Know that in the Invisible, Universal Substance, in which we all live and move and have our being, is every good and perfect thing that man can desire, waiting to be drawn forth by faith into visible form or manifestation. Read in your own great Book what Paul says of love in 1 Corinthians,Chapter 13, using the word, `love,' instead of charity, as was intended."Consider Solomon, when in the night of his experience he allowed his radiant love nature to expand to that universal plane of consciousness where he asked to be of service and not for self. This brought to him wealth untold and added to this was life and honor beyond his power to ask. He recognized the wisdom of Love and Love released its boundless wealth upon him. `Silver was counted as naught in the days of Solomon.' Even the drinking vessels of this mighty king of love were of pure gold.
"To love is to release God's unlimited storehouse of golden treasure. If we love we cannot help giving, and to give is to gain, and the law of love is fulfilled. Then, by giving, we set in operation the unfailing law of measure for measure. With no thought of receiving, it is impossible to avoid receiving, for the abundance you have given is returned to you infulfillment of the law, `Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete, withal, it shall be measured to you again.
'"If we work in the spirit of love, we must have God present in consciousness. To be one with Life, Love, and Wisdom, is to consciously contact. To consciously contact God is to have abundance pressed upon us the same as abundance of food has been pressed upon us tonight. You see there is an abundance for all and none need want in the presence of God's abundance. This thought of abundance must lift the mind far beyond the bounds of limitation. To conceiveabundance, one must relinquish all thoughts of things in particular. This concept is so large that it will not permit the thought of detail. To hold it in mind, consciousness must swing far out into the Universal and revel in the joyousness of perfect freedom. This freedom must, however, not be taken for license, for we are held responsible for every thought, every act. Our consciousness cannot attain to this freedom in an instant. The breaking of the last vestige of limitation may be accomplished in an instant but the preparation for the glorious event has gone before; the preparation in minutest detail has been accomplished from within, just as every petal of a flower is perfected in every detail within the bud. When the perfection is complete, the bud bursts its sepal shell and the flower comes forth beautiful. Just so man must break the shell of self before he can come forth.
"God's laws are changeless, the same as they have ever been. While they are immutable, they are beneficent, for they are good. When we live in conformity to them, they become the very foundation stones on which we build our health, our happiness, our peace and poise, our success and attainment. If we abide fully in God's law, no evil can befall us. We do not need to be healed. We are every whit whole.
"How well we realize that in the great heart of humanity there is a deep homesickness which never can be satisfied with anything less than a clear consciousness or understanding of God, our Father. We recognize this hunger as hearts cry after God. There is nothing the human soul so longs for as to know God, `Whom to know aright is life eternal.' We see people ever shifting from one thing to another, hoping they will find satisfaction or rest in some accomplishment or in the possession of some limited, mortal desire. We see them pursuing and gaining these things only to find themselves still unsatisfied. Some fancy they want houses and lands; some, great wealth; and some, great learning. We are privileged to know that man has all these things within himself. Jesus, the Great Master, attempted to have all see this. How we do love Him! He stands out so beautifully triumphant because of His attainments. We love all who have reached the heights or high places in consciousness that Jesus has. We not only love them for their attainments but because of what they really are.
"Jesus never allowed Himself to dwell in the external after His illumination. He always kept His thoughts at the central part of His being, which is the Christ. In Jesus, the Christ or Central Spark which is God in us all, living in everyone today, was drawn forth to show itself perfectly ruling the material body or flesh man. It is in this way that He did all His mighty works, not because He was in some way different from you. He had no greater power than all have today. He was not in some way a Son of God and we only servants of God. He did these works because this same Divine Spark, which the Father has implanted in every child born, was fanned into a brighter flame by His own efforts in holding Himself in conscious communion with God Himself, the source of all Life, Love, and Power.
"Jesus was a man the same as all men are today. He suffered, was tempted and tried, just as you suffer because of temptation and trials. We know that during His residence on earth in the visible body Jesus spent hours of every day alone with God and we know that, in His early manhood, He went through just what we have gone through and what you are going through today. We know that every man must overcome the mortal, the fleshly desires, the doubts and fears, until he comes to the perfect consciousness or recognition of the indwelling Presence, this `Father in me,' to whom Jesus ascribed the credit of all His mighty works. He had to learn as we had to learn and as you are learning today. He was obliged to try over and over again as you are doing. He was obliged to hold fast as you are obliged to hold fast today, even with clenched fist and set teeth and saying, `I will succeed, I do know the Christ lives within me.'We recognize that it was the Christ within which made Jesus what He was, and is today, and that the same attainments are for all. In all this we would in no way detract from Jesus for we love Him with a love unspeakable. We know He went through the perfect crucifixion of self that He might lead His people to God; that He might show them the way out of sin, sickness, and trouble, that they might manifest the Father in them; that He might teach all that the same Father lives in all and loves all. None that follow Jesus' life and teaching closely can help but love Him. He is our perfect elder brother.
"But if we sell our birthright, if we disregard or treat with contempt the beneficent laws of God, and by so doing turn our backs on the Father's house and wander into a far country, as did the prodigal son, of what avail is the peace and plenty, the abundance of warmth and cheer that abides within the house? When you are tired of the husks of life, when you are weary and homesick, with faltering steps you may retrace your way home to the Father's house. This may be done over the road of bitter experience or by a joyful letting go of all material things. It does not matter how the understanding and knowledge is gained, you will eventually press on toward the mark of your high calling. With eachstep you will grow strong and bolder until you will no longer falter nor hesitate. You will look within you for your illumination; then in your awakened consciousness you will realize that home is here. It is the Divine Omnipresence in which we all live, move, and have our being. We breathe it with every breath. We live it with every heartbeat.
"Do not think you must come to us. Go into your own home, your church, your house of prayer, alone, anywhere you choose. Jesus the great love Master can help you; all those that have passed and are receiving the highest teachings can help you and are endeavoring to help you where you are now and at all times. How plainly we see Jesus and all the others always ready to help those who call. You need but make the call and they answer before the call is even finished. They stand and walk beside you every moment. What you must do is to raise your consciousness so that you can see and know that you walk beside them; then you will not falter. They are holding out their hands and saying, `Come unto me and I will give you rest.' This does not mean `Come after death'; this means `Come now, just as you are.' Raise your consciousness to our consciousness and behold, you stand where we are tonight, above all mortal limitations, abundantly free.
"Peace, health, love, joy and prosperity are here. These are the fruits of the Spirit, the gifts of God. If we look unto God, no harm can befall us, no evil can come nigh us. If we look to Him wholly, we are healed of our infirmities, in the transcendent name of the Law, or Jesus.
"God is in the midst of you, child of infinite, immortal Spirit. There is naught to make you tremble or despair, naught to make you fear. From the bosom of the Father you came; the breath of Almighty God created you a living soul. `BeforeAbraham was, you were. Beloved now are we Sons of God, joint heirs with Christ.' The same power is in you that is in Jesus. This is called the mantle of the Spirit. With the right concept of this, it is found that there is no decay, no disease, no accident, no death, nothing that can take your life in any way. You can draw this mantle so closely around you that nothing can penetrate it, nothing can touch you. All the destructive agencies or forces ever created by man may be directed at you; yet you will come forth unharmed. If by any chance the outer form should be destroyed, it would immediately return as spiritual in the same form. This is an armor better than any armor plate ever devised by man and you can use it at all times without money and without price. You can stand forth as you are, the child of the living God.
"Jesus recognized this, and He could have saved Himself the Calvary experience. Had He wished to use His power, his enemies could not have touched Him. He saw there was a great spiritual change taking place in His body and saw that, if this was brought about among those He knew and loved, without some outward change, a great many would not recognize the spiritual import but would still cling to the personal. He knew that He had the power to overcome death and He wished to show those that He loved that they had the same power; so He chose the Calvary way, the way they could see; and seeing, they would believe. He also wished to show that He had so perfected His body that, should His enemies take His life (as they looked upon life) and place His body in the tomb and roll a great stone thereon (the last limitation that man could put upon it), still He, the true Self, could roll away the stone and raise His real or spiritual body above all mortal limitations. Jesus could have taken His body and disappeared but He chose to show that, when the spiritual body is developed, no material accident or condition can destroy it, not even the taking of the life by another.
"After the Crucifixion and Ascension His body was so highly developed spiritually that Jesus was obliged to raise theconsciousness of those about Him to a plane where they were able to see Him, just as we are obliged to raise the consciousness of nearly all those about us tonight. When the women came to the tomb that morning and found the stonerolled away and the grave clothes lying by, even they did not know Him until He had raised their consciousness to the plane where they could behold Him. Then later, when two were on the road to Emmaus, Jesus drew near and conversed with them, yet they knew Him not until He broke bread with them. At that time their consciousness was raised to the plane where they could behold Him. Just so, when He appeared to others, He even walked and talked with them, yet they did not recognize Him because their consciousness was not functioning on the plane where they could see Him.The moment their consciousness did rise or function on the plane with His, they saw Him. Then some perceived the spiritual import of actuality. They saw the deep meaning underlying it all. They knew. Yet with all this a great many did not believe in Him because they had not yet attained a plane in consciousness where they could see or perceive the underlying spiritual meaning.
"Then the veil of mystery drawn by man's mortal perception was removed. `And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.' The consciousness was attained that death had been overcome; and that not only death, but all man-made mortal limitations could and would be overcome, by coming up over them or raising our consciousness to the plane on which they can no longer be seen and, therefore, do not exist. If this consciousness is loved and cherished it will come forth.
"This was the revelation that came to Jacob as he lay upon the hard stone of materiality. It was revealed to him that that which is gazed upon is brought forth and his realization of this released him from his material bondage. It was this which prompted him to put spotted sticks in the cows' drinking water, thus causing them to bring forth spotted offspring.
"We can so definitely put forth our ideal into the formless that it is formed direct from the unformed, that which appearsinvisible to mortal consciousness. The drinking water of the cows but typifies the mirror through which the image held in mind is reflected to the soul, the innermost, and then conceived and brought forth. It is the same with the friends assembled here tonight; only a few of the earnest ones perceive and they go on, unfold, and do the real work of God. Others make a good beginning but it soon requires too much exertion to surmount the first wall of materiality. They find it much easier to drift with the tide and they drop out. We have all lived in the visible, mortal plane on this earth. In fact, we have never left the earth. We are now invisible only to those that are in mortal consciousness. To those that are on a higher plane of consciousness we are always visible.
"Every seed idea placed in the soul becomes a conception and is given thought-form in mind, later to be experienced in physical form. Ideas of perfection produce perfection. The reverse is equally true. Just as the sun and the earth produce with equal willingness the mighty tree or the frailest flower, when their respective seeds are planted, so Spirit and Soul respond to man and that which he desires or that for which he has asked, believing, he receives.
"Those that have passed from the visible through death are manifesting on the same psychic plane as when they left the body, for the mortal mind functions on the psychic plane. This is the cause of the great psychic realm which lies between the material, or visible, and the true spiritual, and through which all aspiring to the true spiritual must force their way before the spiritual is perceived. In order to perceive the spiritual, we must forge through the psychic directly to God. Death releases the soul only to the psychic plane and it manifests on the same spiritual plane it was in when the soul was released from the body. The one so passing has not perceived that there is but one Spirit, one Mind, one Body and that all came forth from this One and must return to it. The Spirit sent forth from this One and given a perfect body is as much a part of the One Spirit as our arm is a part of our whole body; and is never separated from it any more than any member of our body is a separate part, but is one with the whole body and must be fitly joined with it to make up the whole. So must all spirit or expression be fitly joined together to be complete and perfect.
"`They shall all be gathered together in one place,' means that we shall be conscious that we are one expression of the Divinity and all from the same source, God. This is the atonement, the at-one-ment, knowing we are all created in the image and likeness of God, exactly like Him, an image through which He may and can express the ideal He has conceived for us.
"To be willing that God shall express perfectly through us the highest ideal He has conceived is the meaning of, `Notmy will, but Thine, O God, be done.' None can rise above mortal thoughts without doing the will of God whether he does it consciously or unconsciously."
and now dear reader, your consciousness should be raised !
at least for a while
