Saturday, January 21, 2017

THE GLORY OF THE LORD Psalm 24

In the dictionary, I find the word glory, defined as radiance, spendour. "Mine eyes have seen the radiance of the Lord" that means the law in action. We cannot see God, for God is principle, Power, the Supreme Intelligence within us, but what we see are the proofs of God. "Prove Thou me herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of hearing, and pour you out a blessing, so great, there be not room enough to receive it." We prove God by directing God-power and trusting in It to do the work. Every time we get a demonstration we have proved God. If you have not received the desires of the heart, you have "asked amiss," that is, you have "not prayed aright." You receive your answer in the same way in which you sent out your demand. Your dreary desires are answered drearily, your impatient desires are long delayed or violently fulfilled.

Suppose you are resenting lack and limitation and living in poor surroundings. You say with great feeling, "I want to live in a big house, with beautiful surroundings!" Sooner or later, you may find yourself a caretaker in a big and beautiful house, but you have no share in this opulence. This idea came to me as I was passing Andrew Carnegie's house and grounds on Fifth Avenue. It was all closed and the entrance and windows boarded up. There was just one window open in the basement. This is where the caretaker lived. It was certainly a dreary picture. So ask (or wish) with praise and thanksgiving, so that you will see the glory of the law in action.

All life is vibration. You combine with what you notice, or you combine with what you vibrate to. If you are vibrating to injustice and resentment you will meet it on your pathway, at every step. You will certainly think it is a hard world and that everybody is against you. Hermes Trismegistus said several thousand years ago, "To change your mood you must change your vibrations." I make it even stronger; I say, to change your world, you must change your vibrations. Turn on a different current in your battery of thought, and you'll see the difference immediately. Suppose you have been resenting people and saying you are not appreciated. Take the statement: "God appreciates me, therefore, man appreciates me, I appreciate myself." Immediately you will meet with some recognition on the external.

You are now a master workman and your tools are your words. Be sure you are building constructively, according to the Divine Plan. Judge Troward said: "Man is a distributor of God-Power, he does not create this force." We find in Hebrews: "What is man that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; and hath crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, Thou hast put all things under his feet." Thou hast put all things under our understanding.

We are now coming into an understanding, age.

We no longer have the faith of peasants, we have understanding faith. Solomon said: "With all your getting, get understanding"; understanding of the working of Spiritual Law, so that we distribute this power within us in a constructive way.

The law of laws, is to do unto others as you would be done by; for, whatever you send out comes back and what you do to others will be done to you. So, the woman who refrains from criticizing, saves herself from criticism. Critical people are always being criticized. They are living in that vibration. They also have rheumatism, for acid thoughts produce acid in the blood, which causes pain in the joints. I read an article in the newspaper. It said a physician had had a peculiar experience with one of his patients. The woman had boils every time her mother-in-law paid her a visit. There is nothing peculiar in this, as she was boiling within (how many times we have heard people say they were in a boiling rage), so the boils appeared on her body. This does not include all mothers-in-law. I have known some very wonderful ones who have brought only peace and harmony with them. Skin trouble shows that someone has got under your skin. You have been irritated or angered. Here we see again, that man gives direction to this God-power, through himself. Vibrative to this power, all things are under his feet. "All sheep and oxen, yea the beasts of the field. The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas." What a picture of power and dominion for man!

Man has power and dominion over the elements. We should be able "to rebuke the wind and the waves." We should be able to put an end to drought. I read in the paper that the people in a certain drought district were requested not to sing, "It ain't going to rain no more." Knowing something of metaphysics, they realized the power of negative words. They felt it had something to do with the drought. We should be able to stop floods and epidemics, "For man is given power and dominion over all created things." Every time we get a demonstration we are proving our power and dominion.

We must be lifted up in consciousness for the King of Glory to come in! As we read the statement: "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light," we seem flooded with an inner radiance. The single eye means to see good only, to be undisturbed by appearances of evil. As Jesus Christ said: "Judge not by appearances: judge righteous (right) judgment." There is an occult law of indifference. Jesus Christ knew this law. "None of these things move me." None of these things disturb me, we might say in our modern language. Selfishness and personal will bring defeat and failure. "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it." The imaging faculty is a creative faculty, and your fear- pictures will appear on the external, the result of your own distorted imagination. With the single eye, man sees only the Truth. He sees through evil, knowing out of it comes good. He transmutes injustice into justice and disarms his seeming enemies by sending good will. He is now backed by unnumbered hosts of Power, for the single eye sees only victory.

We read in mythology of the Cyclops, a race of giants said to have inhabited Sicily. These giants had only one eye in the middle of the forehead. The seat of the imaging faculty is situated in the forehead (between the eyes), so these fabled giants came from this idea. You are, indeed, a giant, when you have "the single eye."

Jesus Christ, the greatest of all teachers, reiterated, "NOW is the appointed time, TODAY is the day of your salvation." A few days ago, I saw a motion picture which showed the futility of trying to live in or bring back the past. It is a French picture and is called "Life Dances On." It is the story of a woman, who, when sixteen, had gone to her first ball. She is now a widow of about thirty-five. She had married for money and had never known happiness. When burning old papers, she came across a faded dance programme. On it were the names of six men she had danced with at the ball. Each had sworn to love her all his life! As she sits with the programme in her hands the memory of the ball is pictured on the screen; a scene of loveliness, the dancers almost floating to the strains of an entrancing waltz. Her life is now empty and she decides to recover her lost youth, by finding out what had become of the men whose names were on the programme. A friend who is with her says, "You cannot recapture your lost youth; if you go back you lose the things of today." However, she goes in search of them, and with all, comes disillusion. One did not remember her at all. When she said: "Don't you remember me? I am Christine!" He replied, "Christine who?" Some of them were living sordid lives. At last she returns to the town of her girlhood, where the fifth man lived. He had become a hairdresser. He talks to her gaily of old times, while he gives her a permanent wave. He says, "I don't suppose you remember your first ball, it was right here in this town, and tonight there will be a dance in the same place. Do come with me, it will remind you of the old days!" She goes to the ball; everything looks cheap and tawdry. Unattractive, badly dressed people are on the dance floor. She requests the orchestra to play her waltz, the waltz of her lost youth! Her escort tells her the others won't like such an old-fashioned waltz. However, they play it. The contrast is too much; all her illusions have vanished. She realizes the ball she remembers never really existed the way she thought it did. It was only an illusion of the past. She could not recapture her past.

It has been said that the two robbers on the Cross stood for the robbers of time. One spoke of the past and one of the future, and Jesus Christ replied, "NOW is the appointed time, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise." In the old Sanskrit poem we are told: "Look well, therefore, to this day. Such is the salutation of the dawn." All worry and fear are robbers of time.

The occult law underlying indifference is one of the most profound, for it contains the attainment of a state of consciousness in which the outer world of sensation has no influence upon the action of the mind, and it can, therefore, be in complete at-one-ment with the Divine Mind. Most people's lives are a succession of disturbances: lack, loss, limitation, mothers-in-law, landlords, debt or injustice. This world was popularly known as a "vale of tears." People were all mixed up in their own affairs, fighting their battles and carrying their burdens. If a man judges by appearances, he finds himself in an arena most of the time. The arena of adverse conditions and facing lions of lack and limitation. "If thine eye be evil (if you are imaging adverse conditions) thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" The light of the body is the inner eye (or imaging faculty); if, therefore, thine eye be single, you are seeing only one power, one plan and one planner, your body and affairs will be full of Light. See yourself, daily, bathed in the Light of the Christ. This inner radiance is invincible power and dissolves anything not Divinely planned. It dissolves all appearance of disease, lack, loss or limitation. It dissolves adverse conditions, or "any weapon that is formed against you."

We have always at our command, this Light when your eye is single. We should learn to turn on this Light, with the same assurance with which we turn on the electric light. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all right things shall be added unto you." The Chinese Proverb says: "The philosopher leaves the cuff of his coat to the tailor." So, leave the plan of your life to the Divine Planner and you will find all conditions permanently perfect.

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