The Impersonal Life

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**[[the_way_to_the_kingdom|The Way to The Kingdom]]**

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====== There Am I in the Midst of Them ======
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Some very momentous things were told you in the last chapter. So vital and far reaching were they that those souls to whom came the realization of their wondrous significance are changed beings. Never again will they think of themselves as John Smith or Mary Doe, for they now know that that personal part of them is but the instrument or vehicle that they have been preparing in order to do the work they came here to do.

They now see the purpose for which they have put their personalities through the strenuous training and discipline of their present life. They now realize the meaning of their having come into this Work—that it is the finishing process of preparation for the greater Work that is to follow.

Having given full instructions how to develop the mind so that it will be a good servant of a master will, those who have faithfully followed the suggestions and practiced the mental exercises indicated, have found themselves possessed of a power which, when put to use through the instrumentality of the mind, will accomplish for them anything they choose to do.

If you have not discovered your possession of such a power, it is only because you have not followed the suggestions, or practiced the exercises given, and therefore you alone are to blame for not owning the greatest thing you could possibly desire of a personal nature.

But of course such power is not given for purely personal purposes. If having it, you have assumed that you personally developed that power and have used it for personal and selfish ends, you probably by this time have learned your mistake, by having had taken from you all the things gained from the selfish misuse of that power.

But in Chapter 13 we showed you how to regain that power by the right use of your mind, and we call your especial attention now to the article, “The Great Secret,” in order that you may learn definitely how to apply what is taught therein and how to use it in group work.

If “all manifest things are the result of thinking and holding in consciousness what we believe is so,” then all that is necessary to heal, to attain prosperity, success and happiness, is to think clearly about any or all these things and to hold them in your consciousness as being already in evidence in the Kingdom Consciousness, and they must outmanifest themselves.

Now we will try to show you how we may properly direct our prayers toward the healing and helping of others in group work.

First, remember, whatever we think and hold in consciousness as being so will outmanifest itself.

Then if we think true thoughts—the good and perfect things that God thinks of us—about any member of a group and hold these thoughts in our consciousness as actually being so for one week, they must outmanifest themselves. For hear what our Master promises:

“If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven. For when two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”

It is assumed that all those who have accompanied us this far in our spiritual journey and who therefore are reading these words, are no longer desiring material things, but are seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, believing Jesus’ promise that by finding the Kingdom and living the Christ life all things else will be added. They have sought to live and act according to this belief; but many perhaps have failed as yet to find the Kingdom or even to get a glimpse of some of the things they hoped would be added.

Can both of these statements of Jesus about asking of the Father, and seeking first the Kingdom, be consistently true? Let us see.

One of the most innate and natural urges of the human soul is to pray to or ask an invisible Father or Power—who, it feels, can do so—to supply a dire need. Jesus recognized this and on numerous occasions taught us how rightly to ask and to pray.

See Mat. 6:6-8, 9-15; 7:7-12; 21:22. John 14:13-14; 15:7; 16:23-24.

Yet He also says, “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask.” Mat. 6:8. Why then should we ask?

Realize that Jesus sometimes was talking to the multitude, and sometimes to His disciples, and of course to the latter He would not talk as to children—as He usually did to the multitude, who really were children in Spiritual understanding. Study your bible and learn what He said to His disciples, for you too are His disciples; and then try to understand His meaning for you.

In the previous chapter we told you how He talks to His disciples today. If you have fully grasped the meaning of His words, then you know that you need not even ask or pray, but you give thanks daily to your loving Father for the blessings He is now pouring out upon you.

If you have not yet grasped His full meaning and cannot bring yourself wholly to trust Him as He asks of you, then we offer you the following prayer as one way that you may properly ask and pray to your loving Father to help anyone who has sought help from you and whom your heart strongly urges you out of a deep compassion to help.

“Dear Father-God, we know that . . . . . . . . . . . is Thy beloved child, and that being Thy child Thou hast a rich abundance of all good things is Thy beloved child, and that being Thy child Thou hast a rich abundance of all good things waiting for him-every good thing that he (or she) needs.

“Dear Father, open his Spiritual eyes so that he may see and know and thereby may receive these blessings that await-that are all ready to outmanifest, when he thus becomes ready to accept them. Help him to know the truth, that he may be free forever from all lack and limitation of every kind.

“This we ask in Christ Jesus’ name, for we know that as we have asked believing, our brother has received.

“We thank Thee, beloved Father, and we praise and glorify Thy Son in him, that He may now come forth and be His Self in our brother. Amen.”

That which will help you more than anything else to know the truth about the one you would help, is to realize that he actually Is a son or expression of God, as we have proven to you in the preceding chapter; and so, when you pray to God for him, see and KNOW that the things you say of him are TRUE, for being true of God they must be true of His expression.

That is one way. You will note in the above that we ask for nothing material, but only for the Spiritual riches which belong to a child or expression of God. For you have learned from the previous articles that God is actually expressing His Self in every one of His children. And when a son of God once knows this, and lets go of all sense of separation and of all human beliefs in lack and limitation—none of which could be possible in an expression of God—he then connects his mind with God’s Mind and thus permits the Good that is waiting to come forth into manifestation.

To those of you who have grasped the meaning of the Father’s words, who know yourselves to be sons of God, who know that you are not John Smith or Mary Doe, and who therefore know the Divine power of mind and will that is yours, we now offer another way to help your brother—that of “Speaking the Word” for him. (See Appendix, “Speaking the Word.”)

Read again carefully the two paragraphs preceding the last one above, about realizing that the one you would help is actually a son of God. Then know that he being a son of God, when you “Speak the Word” for him, motivated with deep compassion, HE WILL HEAR You in his soul consciousness, and will be reminded of the high truth you speak, and that the compassion pouring from your heart to him will impress the truth so strongly upon his soul consciousness that when the brain mind gets quiet it will push through from the soul to the brain consciousness, as an illumined thought from his Higher Self, and he will awaken from his dream of lack or limitation, and its cause and outer manifestations will disappear.

These words given you for such purpose when spoken with conviction and from a heart filled with love have helped many, sometimes with immediate and very startling results.

Please know that the words of the above Prayer and of the “Speaking the Word” Prayer, are but suggestions as to the true way of praying and speaking the word. Your own Higher Self may choose to change them to fit your particular need of expression. But they are wholly Impersonal and Universal, and the more their inner meaning unfolds to you the more conviction you will have, when praying and speaking them, that they will perfectly accomplish that whereunto they are sent.

The best way is to learn them by heart—whichever you choose to pray or speak. Then in your group meetings, preferably just before the closing part of the regular Prayer, let the leader of the meeting speak aloud the Prayer or the words of

“Speaking the Word” for the brother or sister whom you wish to help, and each member in unison pray or speak them silently on the breath in whispers, thus uniting the vibrations sent forth in one powerful wave of loving and creative thought.

Then each noon for a week, if so decided, cease your work long enough to say on the breath the same prayer or words.

In very truth then, the Christ in the midst of you and of the brother you wish to help will be One in the Truth voiced, united by the compassion motivating it and whose creative power will outmanifest that Truth.

Try never to see or acknowledge the appearance of lack, limitation or inharmony in your brother or in yourself, but to see only the Divine perfection of the son of God which each soul truly is in its inherent nature.

We know the question that perhaps is back in the minds of some of those reading the above,—whether it will be right to pray or speak the word for each member of your group, including yourself.

Why not—if you truly need help and are earnestly seeking to make yourself perfect for the Master’s use? Did not He teach us to ask our Heavenly Father to “Give us this day our daily bread, and to forgive us our trespasses?”

But always remember that a desire to serve must be first. If there is seeming lack, limitation, inharmony or dis-ease in body, mind or affairs, it is only because of that which you still think or believe and are carrying around with you in consciousness. Therefore your true prayer should be that your Spiritual eyes and understanding be opened so that you can see and know the Truth your Father wishes you to know, and thereby may become a capable, pure and selfless instrument for His use.

This first instruction in group work is of a simple kind, and is more to inspire the Group Spirit and to start you thinking in terms of group ideals. But as quickly as possible must the thoughts be lifted wholly away from self and its interests and needs, for no real group work can be done where the self is still in evidence.

Hence let the personal needs of group members be speedily placed in the Father’s hands as shown, and then turn your whole attention to the real group ideals which will be elaborated in succeeding articles.

While all the above has been addressed to those who are meeting and studying in groups, yet it also is intended for everyone who reads these words. For we assume that all who have followed these articles thus far are deeply in earnest, have caught the vision, and are now letting nothing prevent their “whipping” their personalities into shape for the Father’s use.

There are many who have not yet found their own group, who are studying and working alone, and who deem it impossible to find anyone who has the same interest in the Work as have they.

This is true only because of diffidence or backwardness, or perhaps of personal feeling against meeting and working with others. But are not such thinking of self first and of the Master’s need of workers second?

Have they gotten any glimpse of the great Brotherhood of the Kingdom, silently working with all humanity, and have not wanted to be a part of Them, to work with and for Them, to know Them consciously—Those both in the flesh and in the Spirit? Think you, can you come into the true Christ consciousness without yearning to know and to work with Them?

As They form a great Inner Group, so do They seek to draw all Their disciples on earth into groups, under the Master’s direction, and in such groups to develop Centers of Love and Light that will become powerful generators of force through which They can pour steadily upon the earth great cleansing streams of Spiritual fire that will eventually burn up all sin and selfishness now in mortal consciousness.

Those who earnestly seek to become an integral part of the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, will be aided from the Spirit by having their own soul comrades brought to them. But they must want it more than any other thing—want to be used and made fit and ready for the Master’s Service.

Those who so want to serve and to find their soul comrades, need only to send out their call for them in the Silence, and as soon as they themselves are ready, their own will appear in some natural way, but so surely that they will know that they have been sent.
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==== FROM “THE SPIRIT SPAKE” ====
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Simplicity holdeth no temptation. Come nearer unto God! Trouble not! An infant counteth not the Nations of the earth.

Great joy cometh unto thee. Be patient! Await the Coming of the King. By joy shall the Kingdom of Heaven be justified.

Set thy love upon the Angels in High and Holy Places; it shall find expression: the earth cannot hold Love; the sea cannot contain it.

Keep in the way of Angels. The Angel hath not any Will, neither of self nor any glory save in the expression of Divine Spirit.

God hath veiled Himself in thee as a human soul; let it be God. There is perfect peace in doing the Will of Him Who sent Me.

Dear Lord, make the place of thy dwelling holy!

Beloved! I would fain express Myself further unto thee. Wilt thou express Me? for thereby thou wilt free Me.

Trust in the guidance of the Angel. Why dost thou not more simply leave the direction of thy moments unto Him Who knoweth the Will of the Father.

I am The Father! Think not of Me only as God.

I await to shelter thine impotency. Trust in Me more simply. It is impossible for the Eternal Father to fail thee. Thy doubts, thy hesitancy are outside of thee and Me. Thou art in Me; while I am enfenced with everlasting strength.

Thou must learn to know thine own Spirit; it hath been as a stranger in a strange land; and all the way of thine ascent has been the retracing of thy wandering steps toward the place of Universal Spirit.

Those that perish are in multitude; but lo! the Saviours are few.

Redeem thine own soul, for God maketh a saviour of thee.

He calleth the saviours unto the desolate Mountain of Overcoming; but lo! how few there be.

Take up thine abode in the heart of another. Let thy gaze be toward the mountain-tops with the eyes which have seen sadness.

Be simple, be humble, be patient: the face of thy brother is toward thee; and the impress of the Divine Christ shall not be lost.
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==== A VISION ====
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Received by a Brother

This morning during my meditation I had this vision (everything seemed to take place within my body, nothing outside).

As I turned within and tried to recognize my Father’s perfect image and likeness there—my Higher Self, my body seemed to become a temple, and I knew that within was an inner chamber, always shut to the outside world, in which dwelt the Image of my Father. The entrance to that chamber was a door which was very heavy. I then saw Christ going in and out of that door, but He seemed always to close it behind Him, so that I could not see within the inner chamber.

This inner chamber seemed to be in the very center of my body, yet at the same time deep within my mind and raised as on a high platform. This platform was surrounded by people on all sides, and I understood that these people were my thoughts, ideas and concepts about God, Christ, my self, my life and my fellow men. At times Christ would come out of the door and talk to the multitude, and at times He brought forth bread (Truth) sometimes small and sometimes large quantities. Then I saw different individuals in the audience come forward and accept from Him a portion of the bread, He would give some a small piece while to others He gave larger pieces, but no one received a full loaf. As these individuals carried those pieces of bread back to their seats they seemed to become illumined, according to how large was the piece accepted and carried away with them.

Some took pieces to those sitting in the audience who couldn’t come forward themselves to get it. They too became illumined, but not to the same extent as those who carried to them the bread. As all the people passed out again into the world those who had received the larger portions stood in awe when they looked upon all nature, for they found they were one with all nature. While those who had gotten the smaller portions went forth more illumined than they before had been, and all nature seemed to respond to them—but they weren’t conscious of it. While those to whom the bread had been carried by others received their first real appreciation of the light of truth; and even those who didn’t receive any bread at all seemed to be more harmonious, but there was no more light of understanding than before.

Then these words came to me, as if Jesus were speaking them: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one cometh unto the Father but by Me. I am the keeper of the door of the Kingdom. I feed My own, and My own are they who recognize Me and give themselves into My keeping. I give forth the true Bread of Life as given to Me by my Father just as ye are able to receive it. I feed each with Light and Love and Understanding as they are given into my care, that My whole temple may become pure and holy and acceptable in the sight of My Father who is in Heaven, and that My temple may be ready so that ye may of yourself enter consciously by the door of the Kingdom and sit at My right side.”
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The above is an instance of how the Father within—the Higher Self—often teaches His son—the human mind, when the mind in true meditation turns within to Him for light and understanding.

The human mind, because of its sense of separateness, can receive Spiritual truths only in terms of form or pictures, so that such symbolical illustration is used that will best convey to the mind the truth sought.

The image or likeness of God—the Christ Self—of course is hidden from mortal consciousness deep within the mind, as in an inner chamber. Even when one is able to go in consciousness during meditation into the Silence, this inner chamber seems above our heads (or our understanding) as on a high platform. But in the Silence the Christ often comes forth and teaches or gives glimpses of the truths of the Spirit, symbolized by the portions of bread. These glimpses illumine all our other thoughts and ideas that we had before about the realities of God and life and nature, and every such contact in the Silence is a great inspiration and brings us closer to God and to the Kingdom and makes Christ more real and true to us.

Now read the vision again in the light of the above, and especially what the Christ spoke to our brother, and try to get the full meaning of His Words, remembering that the Christ is Love—God in man.🔅
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