====== The Inner Life ====== == THE HERALD OF THE NEW AGE | JANUARY 1938 == ---- ==== SOUL COMMUNION ==== “DEAR FATHER, how may I always know what is Truth, when I read or hear others speak, so that I may not be deceived or be wrongly taught or guided.” “Dear One, you need but to keep the mind stilled with its concern and turned within to Me, listening carefully to My quiet Voice and to what I will always say about what is being read or heard. By training yourself to keep the right side of your mind (if a man, or the left side, if a woman) as it were, listening for and noting what thus comes from without, and the left (or other) side turned to and listening to Me within, and I will always from within point out what I want you to accept or reject. And if you listen carefully I will then further explain or amplify what is read or said, so that you may know all that I intend when causing you to pay attention to any particular statement that arouses interest or concern. “Try to realize that I Am always within watching over and directing all that you do, inspiring in you a desire to hear a certain speaker, to receive certain teachings, or to read a certain book, or causing you to enter upon a certain experience, no matter what it is, for purposes of My own—but always for your guidance and instruction. And whether you are aware of it or not, I Am always teaching you during such experience, which causes you to react as you do; for that which impels or urges you to do or say anything is My Voice, but speaking so silently that you know it not as a voice, but as the most common thing in your life. “For from the very beginning, in earliest childhood, I have been thus leading you through experience after experience, teaching you everything you have learned; and I but used parents, brothers and sisters, playmates, friends, employers, teachers and preachers in the outer as the means, through what they said or did, to impress upon your mind’s consciousness what I wanted you to learn and do. “You must admit that from childhood you have been led by something within to do everything that you have done; that of yourself often you did not want to do as you felt urged to do, and you rebelled—but to no effect, you had to do it; and were either sorry or glad, according to whether or not you got the lesson from the experience at the time. That ‘something’ was I compelling you, and endeavoring to teach you what I wanted you to learn; and from the experience, whether what you did was ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ as the world judges it, more or less good resulted, in that I was able to impress more or less of the truth the experience was intended to teach. “I know that you may not accept that I Am responsible for and cause you to do all that you do—especially if it be ‘evil,’ but if evil tendencies are still in you, and you still respond to them, only by causing you to respond can I thus bring forcibly to your attention the results of such acts, with their penalty of inharmony and unhappiness; and only then can I get you to listen to My quiet Voice speaking within when I point out the lesson of such experience. “Yes, I Am always within, and I always know best what experience you need, for I alone know your weaknesses and shortcomings and what is necessary to round out your character and perfect you for My highest expression in this life. So you may know that every experience, every teacher, teaching or book that I attract to you is brought to teach you some lesson you need to learn—but which lesson may be the exact opposite of what the book, teacher or teaching tries to teach.” “Do you require, dear Father, that I accept everything that the Inner Voice says in simple faith? And how may I know when it is YOUR Voice speaking and not the voice of self?” I require you to accept nothing, especially when you are not sure it is I speaking. For the very fact of your uncertainty proves that you do not hear clearly when I speak. When I speak with authority you obey unhesitatingly—even though afterward you may think that you made a mistake. Yet I led you through that seeming mistake purposely in order to teach you what was not the right way; for without that experience you could not hear and understand My word when pointing you the right way. When I speak quietly and without authority, and you do not clearly hear, it is then that you do not get My meaning, and which causes you to doubt, hesitate and fear. As for always knowing when I speak and when it is the voice of self that speaks, this you must first learn—to know all about self and its ways. That is why you have a mind and a body that are seemingly far from perfect—they are what your mind believes is so. What your mind believes yourself and your body to be is what is now manifesting. Therefore, it is necessary for Me to perfect your mind in understanding, so that it may know Me as I Am, and let Me teach it consciously the truth of all things; and that I Am doing, by the training and discipline I am giving it in all kinds of life experiences, permitting it to commit sins and make the mistakes it does; until it has learned to know with surety when I speak, and when I show it what is not the right way in all conditions of life, and will just naturally then do and go only the right way. In this way only is discrimination gained, by perfecting the mind and all its faculties so that it will be a selfless and obedient servant for My use. Only then will it learn perfectly to know My Voice and not be deceived by the voice of self. For discrimination is the faculty of knowing and obeying unerringly My Voice when it speaks; and no one who does not possess a perfectly developed mind and trained intellect ever attains it. “Dear Father, may I ask just who You are? I know you are my REAL Self—but WHAT is that Self? Is it my Soul, my Christ Self, or my Father in Heaven?” “Listen, My Son, and know the truth. I who now speak, and who have spoken, taught and guided you from earliest childhood, Am your real and only Self. I Am the soul of you, the Father of your human mind, in that I have extended My Consciousness and Life in you in this life, even as I extended it in many bodies in many lives in ages past; and you in this life are as much of God’s or the One Consciousness as I have unfolded, and as much spiritual understanding as I have gained from all past experience and Am able to convey to your brain-mind, and which I Am giving it as fast as I can develop and prepare it to receive it. “But even as I Am equipping your brain-mind for My use in the outer world, that you under My guidance may master all the forces of your lower nature; so is My Father in Heaven equipping Me as a soul, as fast as He can unfold in Me the fullness of His Love and His Wisdom, so that He can express His Christ nature in Me and I in turn in you, even as He is expressing it in Heaven. “But try to realize that as God is All in all, He is All that I and you are, and only when He has grown us to where the Christ, His Holy Spirit, shining in the midst of Me, can come forth and illumine perfectly My Consciousness as a soul and yours as a mind, can they be wholly One with His Consciousness, and thereby wide open channels through which He can express perfectly His Christ Nature. And then only can you know with Me that I Am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. “For then we will be truly One, will dwell in and BE His Consciousness, will know all things, will be all Love, and will have all Power.” ————o———— ==== THE GREAT ILLUSION ==== ONE morning early God took me up and showed me the earth and the people on it. And while I looked on God explained to just the attitude my mind should have when He wants to use it. He said, “Do not care. Do not be concerned in any way. Do not desire to see visions. Express no emotion. Let the mind be completely empty. Do not be elated over results; I AM doing My Work, and the results are all Mine. Do not look around or wonder or care; that which I do is according to My Plan that has been from the beginning.” He talked thus to me for a long time and often repeated some of His Words with much patience so that my mind would understand perfectly. And all the time I was looking far down on the earth at the people there. Their bodies were unclothed and Oh so beautiful; they were a lovely pink in color—not at all like the humans we know. They were going through all kinds of imaginary motions and doing imaginary things. I suppose they imagined they were earning their living and performing imaginary daily duties. But some of them were shirking and did not do fully their part. Others were making useless motions that were accomplishing nothing. They all had imaginary problems and were going imaginary places. And Oh, they were so hypnotized with all this imaginary nothingness! Not one saw us or raised their eyes from the earth. The earth was all white—just a pure realm of consciousness. And the people were but living and moving centers of that consciousness.—Nancy. ---- {{ soulcommunion193801_20.jpg |}} ---- {{ soulcommunion193801_21.jpg |}} ---- {{ soulcommunion193801_22.jpg |}} ---- {{ soulcommunion193801_23.jpg |}} ---- //← [[two_dreams|previous]] // | [[:the_inner_life_vol._6|The Inner Life 1938]] | //[[god_never_ordered_it_thus| next]] → //