1951 SECOND PORTLAND SERIES Joel S. Goldsmith #603A The Spiritual life

Transcription

1 1951 SECOND PORTLAND SERIES Joel S. Goldsmith #603A The Spiritual life Good Evening Friends. It should be clear to us now that if we die daily to the old man, we are dying daily to a man who lived his own life, to a woman who lived her own life, and lived out in accordance with their own desires, with our own desires, for our own purposes. There s no doubt about it that many have lived their own lives for very unselfish purposes, and for very good purposes. That does not necessarily follow that it was for spiritual purposes or in accord with spiritual law. But, to be reborn of the Spirit, means that we have come to the understanding that we have no life of our own that that life, which is ours, is really God life merely expressed as our individual life or experience. It is for this reason that we can never undertake a day without first turning to the Father within for our instruction, for our guidance. Oh, it may be that we believe that we know what we have to do. We may believe that we know what our duty is today, but it doesn t mean that the Father may have other plans and can very well nullify them, more especially if we have turned within for our daily guidance. There are two aspects to this point of our experience at which we recognize that our life is not our life but God's, because it not only follows that we have discovered that this is the truth about our lives, but more than that, we have discovered that this is the truth about every individual on earth, whether or not they know it, whether or not they ever pay attention to it. And in that lies a principle that in order to bring into full expression we must, for a while, devote ourselves to practice, and I ll illustrate it this way: let us suppose that I am a salesman and I have buyers, and according to the human picture, it lies in the realm of those individuals, those people who are buyers, as to whether or not they shall buy from me, and how much they shall buy from me. In the human picture the more I could sell them, or the more I could compel them to buy from me, the better salesman I would be. Now, if you see this principle that we have no life, no mind of our own, but the life and mind of us is God, then you not only understand that the life and mind of the salesman is God, but the life and mind of the buyer is God. And therefore, it no longer lies within the realm of the buyer to determine whether or not they shall buy from me or how much, it lies within the realm of divine intelligence. And the activity may well be that some people that are buying from me shouldn t, or buying more than they should, may stop buying, or may cut down their purchases. That would be the act of an infinite, divine principle that we call love. On the other hand, those who are not buying all of my product, or not buying enough of it to satisfy the demands of the intelligence of their own business, would be brought into line with intelligence, and begin to act more intelligently toward their business, which would mean buying more of my products. In the same way, we will take an item like insurance, which today is sold not merely to cover a man s needs after death, but insurance covers a wide field of human use today, and there are many people who have a natural dislike for buying insurance as if it were taking money out of their pocket for something intangible that they could use for something more tangible, and that isn't always an intelligent approach to the subject of insurance. And so the insurance salesman, in his realization, that to begin with, he wasn t selling a

2 Second Portland Series material product, he was selling the let us call it, the human symbol of divine protection, the human intelligent wisdom, and that it was the divine mind itself that controlled its activity and its sale. He lifted right above the head of the prospect, lifted it right above the head of man whose breath is in his nostril, and realized that man cannot determine for himself whether or not he shall have insurance or how much, but rather that the divine intelligence of that man would be the determining factor, and if insurance were the nearest right in his human experience, his mind would be opened up to that subject. The same would be in real estate. Instead of seeking our prospects among men and women, instead of directing our sales approach to men and women, we would view it in that same light that man whose breath is in his nostril didn't even have a decision as to whether he would buy or sell, even what we call his own home, that the decision rested with that divine intelligence, which is divine love. And that intelligence would express itself through this individual, lead them to their rightful property, or decision, or sale, and so in being reborn of the Spirit we would not only come into the agreement that the mind of me is God, but rather that the mind of man is God, and so instead of making our appeal to man, we would be making it in the realization of mind as the intelligence of individual being. In the same way, if we went into court, instead of our looking for justice and truth from judges, juries, and attorneys and witnesses, we certainly would take every human footstep in the right direction, but we would be placing our faith in this wisdom that we have learned, that God is the mind of man. God is the source of wisdom, intelligence, love, and all of these things that we expect to find in a law court. Now, in our individual relationship with friends, with families, with community, you can see the difference it would make, if instead of forming dislikes or resentments because people didn't act as we thought they should act, if we were able to maintain our balance, our spiritual equilibrium, and keep realizing that man has no power to be right or to be wrong, to do the right thing or to do the wrong thing. All power is in God, the soul of man, the life of man, and we would look to it there. Supposing in our family relationships where we are always running into those who take advantage, those who are unappreciative, those who are ungrateful, those who are unthoughtful, those who are unkind, supposing instead of directing our reaction to that toward man, we were to lift ourselves above that, and realize, here, there isn t anybody in this home, in this family, who can give or withhold good, recognition, cooperation. Now, the miracle of this lies in this this is something that I learned in the healing work that the world s conduct toward me is in direct result to my reaction to it. In other words, if someone calls and asks for help for an ill, and I immediately accept that as a reality, and get fearful or doubtful or go to work vigilantly to overcome it, the reaction is very bad. The healing does not take place very quickly or readily, as a matter of fact, it won t take place at all until I have risen above that reaction to it. If, on the other hand, when the call comes, if I am high enough in Spirit, so as to say, So what? What can it do? It hasn t any power that it didn t get from God. In and of itself a mirage has no power to wet the road in the desert. In and of itself an illusion can't do anything or be anything, and if I can maintain that reaction to it, the healing may be instantaneous or certainly it will be quick. And now, in the self-same way, if I can react to injustice, unkindness, ingratitude with the

3 603A The Spiritual Life 3 sense of what difference does it make, it hasn t anything to do with me. If there is any injustice it s not toward me, it s toward the Christ, and I guess the Christ can take care of it. If there is any ingratitude, it isn't to me. I don't deserve anybody s gratitude. It s an ingratitude toward the Christ. It will take care of that. In other words, if you follow what I'm saying, we are eliminating the personal sense of` I. We are coming back again to that thing, that any demand that is made upon me is not made upon me, but is made upon the Christ of my being, therefore, I have no right to react to it. And so it is, by eliminating, by dying daily, to the personal sense of self, I do not react to the world s fears, beliefs, contaminations, aggravations, and therefore, I m aloof from it, and it does not inflict itself upon me. Always remember that these trials and tribulations of the world never come nigh the dwelling place of the individual who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, who lives and moves, and has his being in God consciousness. Now, to be in God consciousness means to understand, first of all, that God is my consciousness, and therefore, never to accept anything as personal to myself, but let the God consciousness take care of it. Secondly, that God is the consciousness of all being, and so if any discord or inharmony flows out to me from them, or to the world from them, I can understand that it isn't from them, at all, but from that illusory sense of them, that which we call man whose breath is in his nostril, and then it says, Wherein is he to be accounted of? Why get mad at him? Why get mad at him? Why fear him? No. To come into this higher sense of life means to overcome the personal sense of life. Jesus said, I have overcome the world. In other words, I have risen to a place where the world can t hurt me. Now that doesn t mean that it can't gossip about me. That doesn't mean that it can't spread rumors about me. It doesn't mean that it can't fire bullets at me. It can do all of those things, but the answer is, what difference does it make, since the I of me is God and it can't be hurt? Now, you can see that as long as we are living our sense of prayer, which of course, means living the Golden Rule, as long as we are living in the sense that only qualities and activities of God can flow out from me, what difference does it make what the world does toward me, or to me. The entire experience of the crucifixion was to show that even the nails, and the crucifixion, and the sword in the side had no power. Again, it was also to show that the opposition and hatred of the Hebrew church wasn't a power. It was also to show that the temporal power of Rome wasn't a power. In that resurrection, which we celebrate on Easter, you have three things symbolized there. First of all that human hatred is not power, or human hatred of truth isn't power, that nails and swords aren't power, and temporal law isn't power. He really proved about everything that the world stands in awe of to be powerless. That is the lesson that we are supposed to draw from the crucifixion and the resurrection. The fact that whatever form of evil is thrown in our direction, we can, in three days, rise above. We can, in a short period of time, rise above any form of discord or inharmony, if we do not take it as a real power aimed at us, or if we do not take it as being aimed at us as people, but really aimed at the Christ of our being, and then let the Christ nullify it. Now, the practice that brings this on is wherever there is an individual claiming resentment against us, jealousy, envy, malice, bad competition, threatened use of temporal power, force, law, inappreciation, ingratitude, gossip, rumor, the answer is always the same: it makes no difference. Man whose breath is in his nostril has no power to do anything, to be anything, or

4 Second Portland Series even to be the avenue for anything since God is the mind of man, and all power is centered in God. All power emanates from God. Thou, Pilate, could do nothing to me unless it came from the Father in heaven, for again you remember Hezekiah, when the children of Israel came crying, these great troops that were coming against them, "Be courageous, fear not. They have only the arm of flesh." In other words, they have only temporal power, physical power, legal power. What is it that to us? We have God power. Well now, that would be strange to have God power and a fear of what mortal man could do to me. No, we're told we shall not fear what mortal man can do to me. Why? Well, mortal circumstance or mortal condition we have God. We have God. Ah, yes, but we must be very broad in that. It means that we have God; we have the understanding of God as the only power. It doesn't mean that we're sitting here with God and you out there haven't got God. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that I have a God up here to defend me against somebody's evil out there. No. It means we have the understanding of God as the only power. We have the understanding of God as the only voice, the only voice that can be heard. We have God as the only buyer. We have God as the only salesman. We have God as the only shopkeeper. We have God as the only creditor. We have God as the only debtor. We are not now dealing with man whose breath is in his nostril, and therefore, with four billion men. How would we handle a world of four billion men? How would we handle a community of twenty-five thousand different people? How would we ever learn to get along with them with their animosities, their jealousies, their bias, their prejudice, their race, color, religions we never could get along, except one way and that is the realization that God is the only love. Therefore, there is no lack of love in anybody or through anybody or coming from anybody. There can't be because love comes from God, and God is the love or the soul of every individual. So we must practice this idea of not accepting appearances as real. And so when we see hate, envy, jealousy, malice, ingratitude, and all of these other human qualities coming through some people in our direction, we must learn not to react against it, not to resent it, not to fight back, but to look right above it, and say, "Ah, all power comes from there, not from down here." Agree with thine adversary. Resist not evil. There's only one way in which that makes sense that resist not evil and that is to come to the understanding that evil isn't power, and there's no way on earth to convince yourself that evil isn't power, unless you can see that there is a God, and that that God is the only power, and that that God is actually the law, principle, substance of individual being. It would be no good to us to say, God is love. God is truth. God is justice. God is mercy," and then have that out here somewhere. We can only understand this divine principle when we understand that God is the principle of individual being, that God is the law, and the substance, and the activity of individual you and me, and he and she, friend and enemy. You see, until you make God individual, until you can see God not only as universal good, but universal good individually expressed, not only that God is universal, infinite power, but God is universal, infinite power individually expressed, only then can I look out and say, "Well, the only power you have is to express God, or let God express Itself through you." And that means good. And then you rise up and you say, No, I can crucify you." And I say, I doubt it." Why,

5 603A The Spiritual Life 5 because God is your mind. God is your life. God is your soul, and you could not be empowered to do anything other than let God flow. Then should you attempt to defy that, you would find, as Judas did, a good excuse, very soon, to commit suicide, jump off a cliff, or do something else to get yourself out of the way, because you wouldn't be able to live with yourself very long. In other words, we cannot defy God. More especially, we cannot defy God once we have come up against someone who knows the truth. That is why the sinner can always flourish for a while. That is why the evil man, the evil institution can flourish in the human world. There's no opposition to it. He's finding the same evil in the mind of the people he's being evil to, and so there's no resistance to it. There's nothing to get back. But, let that individual try that with a person of pure mind, and you'll soon see, not only that their power for evil is destroyed, but if they don't mend their ways, they destroy themselves. Evil can always run rampant until it hits up against the pure in heart. Now, I explained that the other evening in the illustration of the hypnotist, who in this family of metaphysicians was trying to entertain them by hypnotizing them, and he not only could not hypnotize anyone there, but in the last analysis, he decided to hypnotize his wife, whom he could always hypnotize, and found he couldn't even hypnotize her. Why? Because he had hit up against the pure in heart that means those who were consciously aware of but one mind and one power in that room. Now, what was the activity of their knowing? The activity of their knowing was to nullify the belief that one person had a mind that they could use over another person. Now you see, as long as everybody in the room would believe that there are two minds he could hypnotize, but let one come along strong enough to realize that there's only one mind in this room, and it cannot be destructive to itself, and the hypnotizer could not operate. Now, so it is in your individual experience and mine. The moment we become pure of heart, that means the moment we agree that God is the mind of each of us, and that none of us has qualities or activities separate or apart from the activity of that one mind. And maybe all of us haven't realized that for ourselves. That has nothing to do with it. The point is that somebody here one with God is a majority must recognize that there is only one mind in this room, and that no other mind is operative. No other mind is operating, therefore, there are no qualities in this room, no activities going on in this room, except such as emanate from that one mind, and those are qualities of intelligence, qualities of love, qualities of life, qualities of pure being. Now, should there be some here who would want to hypnotize, who would want to use us in any wrong way, it absolutely would be nullified. They would lose that power in this room. They just couldn't do it. So it is in our experience. Let us individually become pure of mind, and that means to come to the realization that God is my mind, God is my life, God is my soul, and only the qualities of God can flow out from me to the world, and if I, in a moment of human weakness, ignorance, forgetfulness, should indulge some thought or deed unlike the divine mind, it hasn't power, and will never harm anyone. Now, by that realization within me, I make myself an avenue of good flowing out. And I do more than that by realizing the universality of that truth, I prevent any evil thing coming nigh my dwelling place. In other words, I nullify the activity of evil in the individual as Jesus did in Pilate. Thou couldst have no power over me unless it came from the Father. In the beginning you would find that as you diligently pursued this idea, you would never

6 Second Portland Series again look to man whose breath is in his nostril for anything. Now that doesn't mean that if you wanted some help you wouldn't ask a practitioner. You would, you could if you needed it, but actually you wouldn't be expecting the help from him or her, you'd expect it through them. You'd be expecting it to come as the activity of divine mind. In the same way you would still, if you were a salesman, go out and treat your buyer as you always have in the past. The only difference would be that instead of going to them and wondering, "Is he going to buy, is he not going to buy, I wonder what mood he's going to be in today; I wonder whether somebody else has gotten there ahead of me," the entire mind would be filled with one idea. There is only one mind, and that's the only mind that's functioning, and that's the only mind that can function, so I'm going to the buyer knowing full well that the mind of God will speak through that buyer. I'm going into court, and I expect a judge to render a decision, but I expect the decision to come from God, through a judge, but from God. I'm not looking to a man for justice. And so we go to a bank and we want to borrow money, but instead of wondering whether the banker got up on the right foot this morning, and will he grant the loan, we have developed the state of consciousness in which we know that the banker is only the mediator. The banker is only the go-between between God and ourselves, and if there is a normal, natural, and rightful use, that banker must be God's agent in making the loan, or if it should be divine wisdom, in refusing the loan. Many a time a banker will make a loan when it isn't divine wisdom for us to borrow, and then after we've borrowed we find ourselves in difficulty trying to pay back, and so in that case divine wisdom may prevent the loan. Again, this brings us to a place where we never again behold evil. No matter what befalls us in the outer, we come to the agreement this must have been the activity of divine mind. Now you know, you're approaching one of the highest levels of spiritual realization when you can come to a place of breaking a bone and saying God did this to me. You remember the experience of Joseph; of course, I've used it in the spiritual interpretation of scripture. Instead of blaming his brothers for throwing him in the pit and selling him into slavery, he said, You didn't do this to me. God sent me before you into Egypt." In other words, it was part of the divine plan that I get into Egypt, but I was having too good a time at home being a rich man's pampered son, and I never would have gotten there if you hadn't gotten me there by selling me into slavery. That was the only way I could learn my lesson the hard way. I had to learn it. And so it wasn't you who sold me into slavery, it was God that sent me before you into Egypt. And so, you cannot take the stand of a truth student and talk about the allness of God, and the allness of God's power, and then say, "I wonder why mortal mind is doing this to me? I wonder why I don't get this healing? I wonder what power is operating beside God's power? I wonder what's holding me back?" Do you see how impossible that becomes if you ever catch the point of God's allness? Some change must take place in your thought the moment you agree there is no power apart from God. Man has no power over me. Certainly you can't blame the stars and say that they have power over me. God made the stars and the planets, so they must also be avenues through which good operates in our experience. So there's no use blaming it on the horoscope, on the birthday. There's no use blaming it on

7 603A The Spiritual Life 7 the lines on our palms. God made the lines of our palms. They must be good, and they must be avenues for the expression of good. God made all that was made. And so, bit by bit we begin to withdraw power first of all from man. The first thing we are able to see is that man can't give us anything. Man can't withhold anything from us. We are directly receptive and responsive to God-government. Only the one mind is the law unto our being, so what's the use of blaming anybody out here for our troubles? What's the use of blaming anybody out here for having given us too much or not having given us enough or withholding or anything else, when the actual truth is, that God is the law unto our being. God is the life and the love, and if we've looked to anybody else, it's our fault. We were looking to man whose breath is in his nostril. We were putting our faith in princes; so why blame someone else then for having betrayed us, when we had no right to be looking to them in the first place. Only God should have been our reliance and our dependence. Then the second thing that takes place in our experience is that we begin to withdraw power from things, circumstances, and conditions. Now it is said in astrology that the stars impel, but do not compel. Alright, that's an admission, isn't it, that they haven't any power? There's the admission right there, in their own words, that they haven't any power, but we go a step further and say, "How could stars or planets have any power that they didn't derive from God? How could they be the avenue of anything except for the activity of God or good?" Well, we go on from there to any form of fortune telling, and see its nothingness, and no longer give it power over our affairs. But then we go on from there, and we would think about drivers on the road, and understand that certainly, the life which is God is not at the mercy of unintelligence, carelessness, indifference. No, those things are not power. We grant there is such a thing as intelligence, unintelligence, we'll grant there is such a thing as carelessness. We'll grant there is such a thing as drunken driving, but supposing there is is it power? Is it power? Can it have power over the life, which is God, and have we any other life? Can it have power over the mind or body of God, and have we any other mind or body than God, and has that other fellow any other mind than God. And therefore, are even his qualities of human indifference or carelessness power. No, they can't even destroy him. And so you see, you can go well, you can go to snakes, you can go to sharks, and you can go to anything there is in the world, infection, contagion, germs, and ask yourself the same question, "If God made all that was made, are these things outlets, or avenues, for anything other than God? Yes, it was Jesus who said: Not what goes into the mouth can defile, but that which comes out." In other words, the whole responsibility is in your own consciousness. Right there, in that one statement of the Master's, you have the place for all responsibility not what goes in the mouth, not what goes in the mind, not what goes into you, but what comes out. There is your responsibility. That's what makes you master of your fate, captain of your own ship what comes out of your mouth not in words, no, no, no in actual consciousness or belief. Do you believe that man whose breath is in his nostril do you believe that the princes of this world can give you anything, withhold anything, or take anything from you? If you do, that's what's coming out of your consciousness, and that is what defiles and makes a lie of your whole life experience. It's what you entertain in consciousness.

8 Second Portland Series Now a great deal of it you were not responsible for before you came to truth, because it was ignorance. For instance, to believe in the power of infection or contagion or germs, to believe in the power of accidents as being inevitable, to believe in accidents as an act of God, to believe in any destructive influence at all, was not your fault. You were born into that belief, brought up with that belief, and that belief was your master; so that if you sat in the draft, you pretty nearly had to catch cold. If you got in the way of a flu germ, you pretty nearly had to get the flu germ, and if you were out among bad drivers, you pretty nearly had to get hurt. That was not your fault. That was due to your ignorance of the law. But now, you are at a different position in life where you can no longer say, Ah yes, I'm victimized by my ignorance," and it doesn't make any difference now what approach to truth you came in. Somewhere in the literature you did learn that God was mind, and you did learn that God was the only power, and you did learn that nothing apart from God was really power. So, no matter how confusing the metaphysical literature of the age is, there was enough truth in it, that you could have caught the major points of God as allness, and the nothingness of anything claiming to be power, or presence. Now, more especially, you are learning, as I am none of us has learned this lesson thoroughly I count myself not to have apprehended, but being on the way there. At least we know what the law and what the principle is. In proportion as I place power out there in you, in that degree can you exercise that power against me. In proportion as I realize that all power is in God, the mind and the soul of the individual, the only power that you can exercise in my direction is that power which emanates from God, so that I am the controller of what happens to me not the people out there in the world. Out of the same way, if we believe that we are victims of this person's ingratitude, or beneficiaries of this person's gratitude, we make ourselves victims of just those things. If we believe that we are beneficiaries of some people s goodness, but victims of other people's badness, we lay that law upon ourselves, because whatever comes out of your consciousness, that is what is going to defile or make a lie, or that is what is going to maintain the integrity of your existence. So that, if only you will catch the idea of realizing that no man or woman has the power of good or evil in my experience. The only power there is is in God, which is individual mind, life, soul, consciousness, and therefore, every individual is an avenue of good to my experience. Well, there are some people who won't permit themselves to be that, even with all the knowing you can do, but they just get shoved out of your experience. They get moved out where they cannot exercise even their belief of evil. That is the benefit of this, that those who come into your experience with negative qualities and so forth, either are healed or removed. They're not all healed. In Jerusalem, he did not mighty works because of their unbelief, because of their unwillingness to submit themselves to divine law, but then he just walked on out, and that was that. If he hadn't walked out they'd have been removed in some other way. In other words, when we walk this spiritual path, we find that people either walk with us, or are led away from us, so that as you look back at the end of a year, two, three, five, you say to yourself, Where were those friends I had a few years ago," and they aren't any more. They just aren't. They've disappeared. Why? Because they couldn't walk your path. You did nothing to get rid of them, they just naturally evaporated, and so it is, while that has been happening, you have

9 603A The Spiritual Life 9 been attracting to yourself those who were of your spiritual household, those who were of your own state of consciousness. Now, it's undeniably true that you will have far less friends than you ever did before, but it is also true that the quality of those friendships will more than make up for the quantity. It may even come about that as you rise higher and higher, and higher that your circle comes down to a half a dozen, and four, and three, and two, and one, but it doesn't make any difference because those that are left are so completely of God consciousness that they fulfill everything in your experience, and you don't need numbers. One or two or three can fulfill every part of every individual's life on the spiritual plane, and they still will have plenty of what the world calls acquaintances. Of course, I suppose my own previous experience makes this clearer to me using that illustration of salesmanship. I can see so clearly that a buyer can't buy or withhold his buying if divine intelligence is governing him. Well now we've got to carry that into every relationship of our experience and stop this looking out here to people and saying, What are you doing to me?" Or to the other, "Oh, you're awfully kind to me." No, no. Jesus said, Why callest thou me good. There is but one good, the Father in heaven." But now I'm not saying this to you as a philosophy of life I'm saying this to you as a principle of harmony in your life, so that, what I say to you can only benefit you, in proportion as you, yourself, adopt it as a principle in your experience. And I mean by that if you were to say to yourself from now on I will not be resentful of those who despitefully use me, or persecute me, or abuse me. I will not be resentful of those who lie and cheat and defraud. I will not be resentful of those who are ungrateful or unsatisfying, in anyway, shape, manner of form, because I know now that whatever of good is going to come into my experience must come from God, and not from man. And so if I'm going to be resentful, I'll be resentful of myself for ever expecting my good from man whose breath is in his nostril, when I've already taken the name of God, and realized God to be my true identity. If God is my true identity, can my good come from anywhere except from within myself? Couldn't be. Now the question is, can we rise high enough to say, Yes, God is my true identity. God is the source of my supply. God is the source of my satisfaction. God is the source of my income. God is the source of my business, of my home, of my safety, of my security." Hid with Christ in God, tell me what danger can come nigh my dwelling place. If God is my sanctuary, if God is my strength, if God is my rock, and my fortress not if God sends them God doesn't send them, but if God is them, then I only have to rest in the realization of God as my being, then I'm living, moving, and having my being in God. Then no evil can come nigh my dwelling place, but only because of my realization of God as my true identity. So it isn't up to somebody out here to provide me with income, with safety, with security, with activity, with customers, patients, students that all must take place as the activity of God, my real being. All of this must take place within me. Then, this truth goes out and makes the crooked places straight, draws unto me my own, and separates me from those who have no right to be a part of my spiritual household. So do you see how the consciousness of truth within me becomes the law of my life, and the consciousness of truth within me becomes the law in the life of all of those who bring themselves to me. If you come to me as patient or student and really relax, then this consciousness of truth in

10 Second Portland Series me takes over your mind or body. I don't do it, but the consciousness of truth does it. Never do you submit yourself to a human being any more than I would. I wouldn't want to submit myself to the finest human being that ever lived on the face of the earth, but I will submit myself to the activity of truth in the consciousness of any individual who shows by their life that they are accepting the responsibility with sincerity, with integrity, with loyalty, with love. Do you see that? You follow that? You must, you must, you must. One with the Father you are a complete unit. You are infinitely complete; you are self-fulfilled through your conscious union with God. And so, in our work this week, this must be our realization so that when the week is complete, that we will have at least the knowledge of truth of the letter, and some of this realization so that it can continue to flow and flow and flow in greater measure. Remember, it will only start to appear within you. It may be four months before the fruitage is visible externally not necessarily though, but to many of us it becomes necessary to drink and eat of this truth, to digest it, to assimilate it, make it a part of our very being, and then in a day, a week, a month or a year, we begin to see the outpouring of it. You can tell whether this is happening by the degree of peace that is established, by the degree of doubt that leaves you, by the amount of fear that drops away from you. If you begin to lose your concern for tomorrow, if you begin to understand the nature of: we do not live on yesterday's manna. Yes, if you can go further, if you can see we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, then your salvation is already complete. If ever you imbibe, if ever you assimilate that one statement: We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, your whole demonstration is made for eternity, not only for three score years and ten, but for eternity. If once you see that this truth pouring forth from your mouth is the substance of your manna, of your water, of your loaves, and of your fishes and of your protection and of your safety and security, never again will you permit your thoughts to go outside of your being in a desire or attainment of anything or any person. In other words, instead of thinking in terms of outer supply, apples or peaches on a tree, you will be thinking in terms of your inner contact with the Spirit, and the Spirit within will pour out of you as the apples on the tree or the oranges or the peaches. Oh, life becomes an entirely different thing once we catch hold of the great truth that the word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is our substance of life, our water, our wine, our bread, our meat that's the meaning of the mystical passages of scripture: "I have meat ye know not of Ask me for water, and I can give you water without a bucket to draw from the well I am the bread of life I do not live by bread alone, but by every word So you can begin to see that that which is outward and tangible and visible is but the product of that which is invisible, and so you will never judge your supply by how many apples or peaches or dollars you have, but by how much God contact you have. In thy presence is fullness of life, therefore, go within and gain the awareness of that Presence and the fullness will appear without. Try to go around and get the fullness without, without having made the contact of the Father within, you will find yourself with ashes.