WE ARE so helpless on the surface, but we can all retire to the Hidden Strength. When we retire to the Hidden Strength, we take our stand in Omnipotence. When we take our stand in Omnipotence, we become surrounded by the Presence of God. When we are surrounded by the Presence of God, it moves forward with us, as we move forward to meet life’s experiences. Then, the hills of our difficulty “melt like wax at the Presence of the Lord, at the Presence of the Lord of the whole earth.”

Omnipotence can never fail: it is only our wavering faith that can cause weakness. The great thing necessary, then, is that we should maintain an attitude of faith and trust in Omnipotence, by keeping our mind stayed upon God. But, what do we mean by the words “keeping our mind stayed upon God”? What we mean is, ceasing the surface activities of the mind, and attuning it to the Hidden Harmony of the ever-present Divine order. On the surface of things there are strife and disorder. But beneath the surface of life, or at the Center of things, there are order and harmony—A Divine principle of order which is always operative. The disorders of life are due to a departure from this Principle of order. To stay our mind upon God, then, is to withdraw from the surface of life, with all its struggle and disharmony and become attuned to the Interior Divine order. “If thou forsakest the world, then thou comest unto That out of which the world is made. And if thou losest thy life, then thy life is in That for whose sake thou forsakest it.”—Jacob Boehme.

Yes, when we retire from the surface of things we enter into That which produces all things and which sustains the worlds. In order to do this, we must learn to relax. Not only must we cease our strained and agitated thinking, but we must also relax all tension of nerves and muscles, and become as a little child. “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” We have to be converted, so that our thoughts are all directed Heavenwards instead of engaging in fear, strain, anxiety and other undesirable things. If we think of Heavenly things, that is, if we attune our mind to the Interior Harmony, then we tend to relax our nerves and muscles.

But this is not sufficient. We should also relax, consciously, all our nerves and muscles. We can take a deep breath, and then lean back in our chair as we exhale, at the same time allowing our body to become just as limp and relaxed as that of a little child, when it is resting or is asleep. The majority of Western people, in this age of strain and tension, do not know what it is to relax. They do not relax, even, when they are asleep. When they lie on a bed they want to support the bed, as well as themselves. Instead of which, of course, they ought to allow the bed to support both itself and them. They should teach themselves to lie, limp and relaxed, as though they were going to fall through the floor, then they would find that the bed would support them, and that they themselves would rest in luxurious ease, and would become refreshed and strengthened, instead of waking up more nerve-tired and weary than when they went to bed.

The Truth student, or spiritually-minded person possesses a great advantage over a worldly-minded person, in that he can turn to the Lord—the One Centre and Source of Harmony and Order—and this in itself tends to bring about a state of relaxation. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” —Isaiah 4. 31.

Adam symbolises our breaking away from the Divine order, while Christ represents our return through grace to the Divine order. “Christ is in you and is the hope of your glory.” “The first Adam became a living animal; the last Adam is a life-giving spirit.”—Weymouth Translation.

In order, then, for us to retire upon the Hidden Strength we must learn to control our thoughts, to relax and let go, and to give up our outward man, after which we can find the Inward Spiritual Man, or Lord from Heaven, or Christ within, or, as it is called in the East, our true Self, or the Self, which is eternal, as distinct from the self, which has to be absorbed. “Though our outward man perish, yet the Inward Man is renewed day by day.”

The outward man, being what Paul, according to Weymouth, describes as a living animal, perishes day by day, but the Real Man, is a spiritual being, who is renewed from within and is thus kept in a state of perpetual prime. However, all this is merely theoretical, mystical or symbolical, and is of no practical value, except to the extent that it gives us a right direction for our thought. We need to learn how to retire from the circumference of our life, and to find the very inmost Centre of all Life, Who is the Self-renewing Source of Life, without beginning.

Jacob Boehme says that when we stop all our thinking and (self) willing, we find God. He even says that we are then what God then was. “Thou art that whereof He made thy nature and creature.” “When thou standest still from the thinking of self, and the willing of self. When both thy intellect and will are quiet, and passive to the expressions of the Eternal Word and Spirit; and when thy soul is winged up and above that which is temporal, the outward senses and the imagination being locked up by holy abstraction, then the Eternal Hearing, Seeing and Speaking will be revealed in thee, and so God heareth and seeth through thee, being now the organ of His Spirit, and so God speaketh in thee, and whispereth to thy Spirit, and thy Spirit heareth His voice. Blessed art thou therefore if thou canst stand still from self-thinking and self-willing, and canst stop the wheel of thy imagination and senses; forasmuch as hereby thou mayst arrive at length to see the great Salvation of God, being made capable of all manner of divine sensations and heavenly communications. Since it is nought indeed but thine own hearing and willing that do hinder thee, so that thou doest not see and hear God.”

It will be noticed that Jacob Boehme describes no passive, negative, receptive condition, such as is practised by mediums. The intellect and will are passive only to the expression of the Eternal Word and Spirit. The soul is “winged up” above that which is temporal. This is the very antithesis of sinking down into a state of negative passivity and listening to astral voices. Although we relax and retire from the circumference of our life, we yet rise to a higher plane of spiritual and mental activity, where things which transcend the ordinary sense of life, and nature, become possible.

True mysticism is a reaching up to God, as a result of which we become attuned to the Mind and Heart of God. It transcends entirely and completely both the human consciousness, and the psychic plane or realm. It brings into activity a new intuition; or, rather, it arouses a faculty of direct knowing by the soul, which previously has been dormant. The terms “whispering to thy “Spirit,” and “heareth His voice,” are figures of speech, merely. We do not hear God speaking, but we know by intuition. Truth wells up within, so that every day we become stronger and more confident, because we KNOW that we are Sons of God, and true children of Eternity, at-one with That which changes not.

We rise above all that is mutable, to discover That which is Immutable; and we find our true inward selves strangely at-one with It. With eyes closed we look upwards to the invisible Light. The Light of lights is invisible to the physical eyes, but when with closed eyes we look upwards towards That which transcends the physical, our spiritual eye begins to function, after which we become filled with the Light of Understanding.

Retiring to the Hidden Strength, finding God’s peace, and so on, all refer to the same thing. The soul has two faces, one which looks down into time and sense, trouble and care, sorrow and pain, and the other which can be trained to look upwards towards God and into Heaven itself. The practice of the right type of Mysticism develops the ability on the part of the soul to look upwards to Heavenly things instead of down into earthly or even infernal things. Retiring to the Hidden Strength is not a process of strain and effort: that is, when we attain to it. It is the result of much search and mental and spiritual activity, yet it cannot be reached by strain and effort, for one of the first things we have to do is to relax and let go.

The principle difficulty is in stopping the wheel of our thought and imagination, so that God’s thought and imagination can function. It may seem strange to some that in order to find the Hidden Strength we must first relax and cease our efforts. Yet, such is the case. John Burroughs realized this when he wrote his famous poem, beginning:—

I stay my haste, I make delays:
For what avails this anxious pace?
I stand amid eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

This is exactly the same as all other teachings on the subject, by those who know the Truth which makes us free. Our Lord said that we should cease our anxious thought, and that we should seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all needed things would be added unto us.

We find the same truth in the Simple Way of Lao Tze. In the Tao Teh Canon this mysterious action in inaction is termed Wu Wei. This is how the compilers of The Shrine of Wisdom version of The Simple Way describe it:

“The Simple Way of Tao is the way of the gentle breeze that whispers in the trees; of the bird that soars into the free, clear, blue sky. It is the way of the artless flowers, which bloom without effort, and through Wu Wei catch the warmth and blessing of the sun. It is the way of the waters which course through the veins of Mother Earth, reaching the most inaccessible places and overcoming obstacles without striving, passing eventually into the wide spreading ocean. It is the way of fire, ever tending upwards; and of light, ever shedding itself without becoming less. A quiet unassuming love quickens in the heart, silent and almost imperceptible, but strong and all-embracing. Peace comes, through complete dissolution of personal desires and happy self-surrender to the life and keeping, of Tao, who doeth all things, and yet appeareth to do nothing.”

Yes, it is when we are able to stop the wheel of our thought and imagination, that the action of God takes place. Then it is that healing comes to our life and consciousness, harmoniously and beautifully, like the rising of the sun on a beautiful spring morning. No effort, no strain, no violence, but night gives place to dawn, and dawn to the full orbed day.

And so we enter into God’s peace; and are filled with Heavenly bliss and joy. —From The Science of Thought Review, May 1938.