Chapter 23

How His Truth Compels Allegiance

If the Master’s truth comes with a renewed life into the world, and especially in organisation form , it: will come primarily through the young men and women now entering the stage of action. They are of a truth-loving generation, thinking, searching, who quickly distinguish between truth and custom, truth and system. It is primarily in and through such young people that the hope of the Master must lie.

Youth is ever open to truth; and truth is ever young. Religion must be forever open to the flowing present with its continually unfolding truth, or it stagnates and cannot naturally and readily attract the young. That changes of conception and statement and methods must come and are brewing, no thoughtful person can have any doubt.

One may easily imagine the Master in conversation with an eager, clean-minded, clean-souled youth of today — and glad of such a hearer to whom he could give an epitome of his mind and purpose, and still more of his observations, that they might be carried by him on to others of his age and kind. Certainly it would be of great interest and value to the young man. The eagerness of youth today to get at the truth of things, especially of life and religion — of religion that may be of some value to life — would make the Master just as eager to embrace the chance of such a conversation. It would be in such thorough keeping with his accustomed methods while here.

As it was to Philip, one of his chosen disciples, that on a memorable occasion he gave a distinct message distinguishing between the flesh and the spirit, the symbol and the truth, so let us say that the name of the youth with whom he talks today is Philip. And let us suppose that Philip says eagerly: ‘Those wonderful sayings of yours of the power of faith, they are almost beyond belief, and so few of us really comprebend them. How can they be true?’

‘You of your day,’ replies the Master, ‘are just coming upon one of the greatest facts of life: that thoughts are forces, always creating. Faith, is but a positive, clear-cut type of thought. Held to, continually watered with expectation, it becomes creative in its action. Old as the world is the truth: as we think, we become. It is the law. We must sit as master at the helm: otherwise we drift, drift, drift. Thought is our sole possession. Prayer and faith and communion all come through the channel of thought. We must not only use it, but use it right. Courage comes through this type of thought.

‘Faith and courage, or shall I reverse them, courage and faith, are, I say, but clear-cut types of thought that are continually working along the lines that we are going. If not, what sense would there be in what long ago I said, “According to your faith be it unto you”? What right had I to say — “If thou canst but believe, all things are possible to him who believeth”? I have the right because thought is a force — a subtle, silent force — always creating and drawing conditions around us, in accordance with the nature of the thought that we entertain and live with.

‘We have it then in our own hands,’ says Philip, ‘to determine exactly what our lives are to be?’

‘Yes,’ replies the Master. ‘Search as you will, you will find no law more fundamental than that the life always and inevitably follows the thought. But come, it is of the Kingdom that we shall talk.’

‘Yes,’ says Philip,’and how I long to understand aright.

‘Know,’ continues the Master, ‘that there is but the One Life, the Father, in whom we live and move and have our bcing. The Life, the power that holds and moves the stars in their courses, is the Life, the power that is in you. Only, you must realise it, and live always in this consciousness. God is spirit — the spirit that is yours. Look within, realise the Divine Centre within you — the Christ within. This is my revelation of the Kingdom. When I said. “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly,” what did I mean? I said, “God is spirit,” and “the Kingdom of God is within you.” I meant that the Infinite Spirit of Life that is behind all, working in and through all, is the Life that is in you. As you realise this and live continually in this consciousness, you establish yourself in a conscious manner.

‘You make the condition whereby you become an ever-increasing centre of creative power. So my repeated injunction, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all other things shall be added unto you,” means: realise the Divine Life, the Divine Centre within you, and you make the condition whereby the God-life works in and through you, by way of augmented direction and power. This is what I intended by my saying, “The Father in me and I in the Father,” and, “As I am so shall you be.” This is the secret, the reason, of my greater insight and power — as it must be of every man’s.

‘It might be called “The Power of Silent Demand’’ — the recognition and intelligent use of a force which is an inherent faculty of every mind that realises its life as one with the Universal Life. This, moreover, is now being understood and effectively used by men and women in increasing numbers. An older prophet sensed it when he said: “Thou shalt decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee.” And so do you see what I meant when I said, “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly” — that this greater abundance of life becomes yours when you identify your life with the God-life within you?

‘In this, and in my reply to the lawyer, you have my entire revelation and message to the world. The lawyer asked an honest question: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” And I replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

‘With this the truly inspired ones, the prophets, seers, and saviours of all religions agree; as also that countryman of yours who had such a keen insight in separating the wheat from fhe chaff, your own sainted Lincoln, when, in his inspired answer to the question why he had not allied himself with a religious organisation, he said, “When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification of membership, the Saviour’s condensed substance of both Law and Gospel, that church shall I join with all my heart and soul.” And in this he prophesied what will in time become the qualification for membership in every real church in Christendom. Here lies not only the whole duty of man but the essence of all religion which is the consciousness of God in the mind and the soul of man.

‘And how easy it is to understand the significance of “Love thy neighbour as thyself” when we once know that we are all partakers of the One Life, the same Father, and hence are all brothers. Love is the great cosmic law of all advancing and satisfying life, the law that brings order out of chaos, the law that becomes the solvent of the riddle of life. All human relations await the capitalisation of love, sympathy, mutuality, and their resultant, co-operation, to make them that splendid thing they can and eventually must be.’

‘It would actually mean then Heaven on earth, and the men and women of all nations would be the gainers?’

‘Yes, Philip; when men and women are wise enough to know and eager enough to follow this law, this Way of Life, a new life is born in each, and a new world order comes in. And when, and only when, this is done, will this your world be changed from the rule of the tooth and claw of the jungle, with its periodic fields of carnage, into the paradise, the kingdom, it must and shall be.’

‘I know now,’ says Philip,’that it is true.’

‘It is true not because I say it. I say it because it is true. The power of love is the primal force of the universe. The men and the nations that do not understand it march in ceaseless columns to their own destruction.’

As Philip sits with rapt attention, and thinking of himself, he asks: ‘What about the sinner?’

‘For struggling and seeking men and women, for the sinners and the care-encumbered men and women, I always had pity — infinite pity and love. The only ones I ever condemned were those I spoke of as scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. They were those who would take the truths of the prophets and the inspired ones and, interested in themselves and their own systems rather than in the essence of the truths, would weave them into thorny crowns to press on other men’s brews.

‘And so today, as through the ages, the enemies of my truth and my cause — the hinderers — are those who conjecture and build systems about me, but who fail to keep my commandments, to do the things I have said to do, and to pass them on in simple purity to a sorrowing, fearing, and half-living world.’

‘Oh, had I but known this — what your real message to the world is — how different my life would have been, and how different it would be today!’

‘You have suffered,’ replies the Master, ‘but you have great love. It is because of this, and your longing to know the truth which makes men free, and which makes their life full, joyous and abundant, that I am glad to talk with you. My message is this message of the Kingdom. Find this inner Kingdom. Live in it. And then, as I said, do not worry about your life. Take it, and find in it peace and power. Neglect it, miss it, and you will continue in fears and forebodings, in weakness of mind and of spirit — and its resultant weakness of body.’

‘What about your death being a substitution, a ransom for the sins of the human race ?’

‘Do you mean before or since my time? We know now that vast millions lived on the earth before I came. But in either case it was all news to me. Otherwise I would have said something about it during my life and ministry here. It was founded upon a mythical, an imaginary, occurrence that you know now never took place. It was founded upon the imagined and alleged fall and consequent degradation of the human race. I knew nothing of it in my time. Be that as it may. My revelation and entire teaching were exactly the opposite—not the natural sinfulness and degradation, but the divinity, of the human soul. All are sons of God and God is love, not anger and as such demanding an early Jewish conception of a sacrifice and of an atonement for an error or a sin, especially one that the individual never committed.

‘That such a thing could be believed and made to enslave so many people mentally and spiritually is astounding. That it persists in even a few minds yet, in the light of my teachings, and especially when combined with your present-day knowledge, is even more so. The vast amount of money made from benighted, fearful people, through the ages and strangely enough even now, in dealing in my body and my blood, is amazing. But as fear and ignorance go, the truth that I taught will grow: that God is love and as a loving Father longs always for the son’s return, longs for him to repent and turn again to His love and care, Read now again my parable of the Prodigal Son. Why did I give it? I realised that so many have need of this same light.’

‘Why,’ asks Philip, ‘hasn’t the world this wonderful truth, which seems now so simple, after all these years ?’

‘Men are divided, and have at times grown even to hate one another in their divisions, because they were unable to agree in theories about me, mere matters of opinion — things that do not matter — while they miss the one great thing that does matter, the truth that I brought to the world. This has fallen upon deaf ears. They do not do as I said. They do not keep my commandment. ‘They do not seek the inner Kingdom that brings everything else in its train. They do not find the Christ within. They do not love one another. The result is fear, fear everywhere, discontent, want, envy, jealousy, strife — and periodic war and world disruption.’

‘I shall bless the day,’ says Philip,’when we shall understand, so that it will not be so hard for you.

‘Yes, at times, my heart bleeds — for I would be the Saviour of men, by saving them from their lower conceptions and selves, and lifting their minds and spirits up to that Divine image and heritage which is theirs. But my great joy is in the rapidly inc0reasing numbers all over the world, who are now getting my real message, and the wonderful Life that unfolds in them with the getting. And when enough get it, then a new world comes in.’

‘If I can but keep this vision,’ says Philip, enraptured, ‘and live this life, and can even to a humble degree impart it to others . . .

‘You will, Philip, for I feel that now you understand. Always remember, then, that I gave summary of my life and my revelation to the world in my reply to the lawyer, when I said that the whole of life is love of God, and love and service to the neighbour. From this all else flows.

‘Love to God is realisation of the Divine life within us, and living always under its care and guidance. Love to the neighbour shows itself in sympathy and in kindly regard for all men. You have now the secret of life. I need you. I long for my message to go more simply to the minds and hearts of eager, care-encumbered people. You have come through suffering. You have eaten of the husks, and now you have the real bread of life. You know now that the human spirit is divine, part and parcel of the infinite Divine life. You will grow in this realisation, and growing in and living it, you will play a part in bringing others to a knowledge of the Kingdom within.’

Then turning as if he listens to something in the far distance, Jesus says: ‘I shall go shortly. A ruler asks my help — earnestly he seeks to follow the Way — he is fearful and disturbed, but his heart is right. He is getting the clear vision that there is but the one Life, the Father, and that all men are brothers; that love, service, mutuality, co-operation constitute the way of life, and that until this is realised and all human relations built upon it, there is no hope in sight. When it is really learned, a new world comes in.’

The historian of the future will, I believe, point to ours as a time when a great change took place in Christendom.

Men and women, and especially young men and women, now far more free from ancestral and inherited inhibitions than any before them, begin to ask, not, do you believe this or that about the Christ? but, do you believe the things of the Christ — the things he taught? Do you sense his life and his power? Do you believe him when he states the source of his power, and when he says that the same power, under the same law, is available for all who believe his words and who follow him? A new spirit, a wonderful spirit comes into Christianity, with promise of a great religious revival throughout Christendom, more profound and vital than it has ever known.

Men and women in a growing host find God, and the peace and the power that come with the finding, and they manifest God, They realise as never before their relations one with another. They begin to understand that love is the fundamental law of the Life of the universe.

With this new vision, they begin to put love, sympathy, mutuality, and co-operation to work, so that they actually pervade their personal lives; and next their social, their community, their business and industrial lives; then the affairs of their State and nation; and finally their relations with all other nations. From their ranks comes a poet and prophet, saying:

No matter how the die is cast,

Or who may seem to win,

We know that we must love at last -

Why not begin?

This is really the culmination of what that clear-seeing writer of another nation, Victor Hugo, had in mind when he said; ‘There is one thing that is stronger than armies, and that is an idea whose time has come.’

Young people in vast numbers — they who for a time seemed to their elders to be drifting on mere pleasure bent, even as the prodigal young people in vast numbers come and sit at the feet of Christ, and learn of him. They find him free, frank and open — the enemy of cant, formalism and hypocrisy in religion and life. They find him arresting and virile; in love with life, especially the life in the open, just as they are. They find a matchless love and beauty in his personality that thrills and captivates them, and draws them ever closer to him.

They find him eager to give forth life, the more abundant life, the free life of the spirit, which he, through his great faculty of discerning the laws and the things of the mind and the spirit, perceived and lived — so that he speaks to them as one having authority: the life which transformed him from Joshua Ben Joseph, the carpenter of the little village of Nazareth, to the Christ Jesus, the world Saviour.

And truly they say, as they know him better, ‘He is our Saviour; for he saves us from our lower conceptions and selves. He is our Redeemer; for he redeems us from the domination, the bondage, of the senses and excesses — and the heavy bills that we eventually would have to pay. He is truly the Son of God, the Mediator; for he shows us that we too are the sons of God.

‘Truly God is our Father, as well as his Father, even as he said, and we are brothers. We will be true to his teaching of the Way — to our own better sclves. We will so live and work, that a new world order will come in, the Kingdom of God here on earth. For did he not say: “The Kingdom of God is at hand”? And his life, revelation, and work will bear more nearly the fruit that he so longed for — that he so magnificently lived, and so heroically died for.’

Thinking men and women the world over, sitting in an ever-larger company directly at the Master’s feet, are discovering that he perceived unerringly, that he lived and taught, not a creeping-through process, but ‘our Father in Heaven’ — the unity, the at-one-ment, of the human spirit with the Divine. They are finding that to know God the Father, whom he so intimately knew and revealed, and to know Him as by him revealed, gives a religion of a joyous, conquering power, by virtue of the higher forces of the Divine life and power, eternally latent within, springing forward into a useful, creative, and ever-growing activity.

They believe, moreover, that he who knows God here, and gives evidence that he knows Him, by a loving, upright, manly, helpful, and humble manner of living, will be known by God, both here and hereafter, as the Master so clearly taught. They believe it because they are drawn irresistibly, as they know him better, to believe the Man Who Knew.

THE END