Chapter 3

The Love and the Power of Life

Does my religion or what I term my religion depending upon whether or not it becomes a real vital creative force in my life—find its basis in the teaching of the Master that he so continually repeated, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you’ ? That there be no mistaking his meaning he likewise often said, ‘Say not Lo here! or Lo there! for behold the Kingdom of God is within you.’

It is that Divine Centre within, from which every thought and every act in life must spring. It is the ‘I am’ of every man.

‘Of myself I can do nothing,’ he so often said. ‘It is the Father that worketh in me; my Father works and I work.’ Here undoubtedly is the true significance of the vitality of his statement: ‘I and my Father are one.’ Here undoubtedly is the true significance and vitality of his teaching: ‘As I am you shall be.’ Here undoubtedly is the truth of his teaching in regard to prayer that he so continually made use of, and so continually advised all others to make use of.

Advising against public prayer, for show or for its rhetorical effects, he enjoined: ‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet [that is, a place apart], and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Here undoubtedly lies the significance of his statement that he repeated so often in one form or another: ‘According to your faith be it unto you.

Seek this Divine Centre of light, of truth, of illumination, and power—the God within you; Love and reverence and live in this realisation and then, do not worry about your life.

God is Spirit, he taught, and Spirit is life. It is the One life, the universal source and spirit of life, manifesting in all individual expressions of life, in love, and direction, and power, and supply, in the degree that the individual rises to the consciousness, and lives in the consciousness, of that which is his life.

This again is unquestionably what Jesus meant when he said: ‘I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.’

Each has life, but it is this more abundant life, this living in the vital consciousness of the life of God within, which is the thing that counts. It is this that culminates in a life lived to its full possibilities, and the joy that results from it. That the joy of life might be greater, might be full — he speaks of this so many times in one form or another.

The realisation that this Divine Source, this Divine Centre of life, is within, cannot bring other than joy in life, but it must be realised and lived in. It must be the dominating love, and force, and guide. To long for it, to invite it, to believe and live in it, brings, and automatically, that more abundant and more joyous life.

He was always in dead earnest to help his fellow men, and went right down among those who needed help the most. No pious phrases, no institutionalism, no dogma, no peddling of any system — but help, real God-given human help.

With that wonderful inheritance, that wonderful and almost absolute aptitude for discerning the things of the mind and the spirit, with that keen but simple mind and heart, fired finally to the point of evangelism through an undoubtedly long and devoted period of preparation, he begins his memorable mission as a wandering teacher, by proclaiming to a little group out in the open in his own native Galilee: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. This and its amplification, often in simple, homely parable form, which all who heard him might understand, constituted the essence of his entire teaching.

The exhortations may have been like this: Repent means to turn. Gospel means good news; and so I call on you to turn and to hear the good news — that the Kingdom of God is at hand. The prophets before me and the teachers, even the most enlightened ones, have taught that Jehovah-God is above and overshadows his people. This is well, but I bring you something of more transcendent worth, something more vital - that God, the Father, lives within, and so guides, directs, and cares for His people. This is my realisation, this I want to reveal to you. If you will not only hear my word, but believe and follow my word, you will experience a fuller, a richer, and a more joyous life.

. . . The time has come for an upward step in the evolution of human life. It comes through the knowledge that the spirit in man is one with the Spirit of life. The Spirit that has been believed as above and apart from man, is the life, the God-life that is in, and that is, the life of man. .

. . . This is the Gospel, the good news, that I bring you. I have realised it myself. I reveal it to you, you who are dead in your trespasses and errors and sins — with the results that follow.

. . . Not realising that larger source, that larger compass of life—the life of God within you—that larger illumining life of the Spirit, you have been living the sense-life only. But this is only a small portion, the more meagre portion of life.

. . . The sense-life is of value, but it must be under the guidance and the domination of’ that higher life, the life of the Spirit. Otherwise there is many times the violation of law, spiritual law, mental law, physical law; and many times excesses that lead to suffering as all violation of law reads to suffering — and many times we do not know what is the matter with us.

. . . The sense-life is of great value, and can be made the source of much happiness and satisfaction. The five senses, the physical senses, relate us to the physical world in which we live. There would be no life here without them, but there is something in life infinitely beyond. It is creative Principle, it is the force of life that animates and that manifests itself in all form. It is the I Am that manifested itself to Moses, and that imparted to him greater understanding and power. It is the I Am of me, and the I Am of you. Some call it God. I call it — the Father. So I understand and so I live — The Father in me and I in the Father.

. . . This fills me with the love and power of life. It illumines, raises, and gives a higher realisation of power in life. This I realise and, realising it, I live always in the consciousness, ‘It is the Father that worketh in me, my Father works and I work.’ This I reveal to you, that your life may be raised to its higher values.

It is the realisation of the Christ within. Christ is the universal divine nature in all. The Christ mind is the mind that realises this. The Christ within is this unfolded consciousness, that in time becomes the centre from which the life in all of its details issues forth and is lived. This I have realised in my own life; this I impart to you.

. . . It is the pearl of great price. It is the greatest thing that can be known in life. It is the greatest possession that any man or woman can have. It is the one all-inclusive thing, for all good things in life follow in its train. Believe my words. Do this. Raise your thought, and thereby your life, up to this higher consciousness and then — do not be anxious about your life.

. . . This higher life of light and power impinges on the consciousness of every man and woman, just as it has on mine. It is through the channel of the mind that we must open ourselves that it may break through and illumine the soul, and give light and direction and power. This is that more abundant life which I would have you know and live. This is the very soul and heart and substance of my teaching.

If you do not believe me and reject it, you reject me, and I cannot be of the help to you that I long to be.

. . . Hear me. Hear my words. Don’t reject this teaching of mine, this teaching of the Kingdom, this teaching of the life of God within. It will bring understanding to your mind, direction for your efforts and activities, supply for your needs and above all, perhaps, peace to your soul!

. . . It is indeed the new birth, that which I mean when I say: ‘You must be born from above.’ It is indeed as an earlier prophet said, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.’ But we must use our minds as I tell you. We must open them to the truth and the guidance of this inner Kingdom, this Kingdom of God, this Kingdom of Heaven within. And that you may understand its importance, its all-inclusiveness — whereunto shall we liken it? Or with what comparison shall we compare it?

‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. (Matt. xiii. 31, 32)

‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.’ (Matt. xiii. 33)

‘Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that held.’ (Matt. xiii. 44)

How hard the Master tried to make the simple minds before him understand his message, and, understanding, appropriate it to their own lives and needs. No wonder that the common people heard him gladly — they whose minds had been stultified, they who had been befuddled and misled, they whose souls had been starved by the ecclesiastical leaders and dogmatists of their time, who had been giving them stones instead of bread.

No wonder that an awe and a longing and a new hope crept in and possessed them. No wonder there was a confidence inspired in them. No wonder they thought, ‘Why, here is a man who speaks with authority.’ No wonder they intuitively perceived the warmth and the truth of a real leader, one who had no personal motives, one who had a real love and a sense of real service for his fellows. No wonder that his fame spread abroad and that many followed him.