Lillian DeWaters
Lillian DeWaters was a prolific writer of The Absolute, during the first half of the 20th century.
“She was a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy who is the founder of Christian Science. Lillian broke away from Christian Science and became a well-known author. She wrote over 60 different books that were translated into 14 different languages. She was well-known as a healer and as a Christian Science Practitioner. Lillian was famous for her teachings at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, where she had many students and clients.
Her first books were first published through the Christian Science organization, then she went out on her own, forming her own publishing house, and went beyond the limits of the “religious dogma” which sometimes inhabits organizations and inhibits the Teaching.”
(excerpted from the Lillian DeWaters website)
For more information about Lillian DeWaters and a library of her books please visit:
Mystics of the World - Lillian DeWaters
Below is a sample of her writing:
The Time is at Hand
By Lillian DeWaters
Practical Demonstration Series
WE BELIEVE that the time is at hand when a comprehensive statement of the Science of the Absolute, also of its practice, should be set forth with indisputable clarity, accuracy and conviction. The marriage of The Word with human thought and action is celebrated in proportion as the letter and the spirit together hear witness to Reality. Some of the essentials which are considered in this booklet and are explained lucidly and exactly are as follows: THE SENSES: THE MIND: CREATION: INFINITY OF PERFECTION.
THE SENSES
SUPPOSE that while one is seated at a window overlooking the street an accident suddenly appears before his vision. He reports that he sees injury, and that he hears cries of distress. The question for metaphysical consideration and explanation is this: When, apparently, one sees injury and hears discord are his senses reporting correctly and truly or are they reporting otherwise? Does the reader feel capable of answering this question readily, accurately and understandingly? Let him pause a moment and consider it carefully before reading the author’s view of it. Some one may say: “My physical senses are reporting inharmony but my spiritual senses are recognizing Reality.” Now those who speak of the Senses as being physical are in need of deeper insight and a more scientific mode of expression. The Senses are not dual in substance nor in operation. Either they are unreliable, mortal and corruptible or they are impeccably indestructible and immutable.
Another answer may be: “My senses are spiritual, but they are reporting untruly, for they are seeing an accident.” Here one is deciding inconsistently, for how could perfect Senses report imperfectly?
This question inevitably places one in a dilemma unless he is thoroughly grounded in an intelligent and accurate understanding of this branch of metaphysical Science, and, moreover, has dipped deeply into this vital subject of the operation o f the Senses. The facts are these The spiritual Senses, (and there are no others), are always reporting correctly and truly, for Perfection is forever manifesting and registering Perfection. No matter what seems, or appears to be, our Senses are always Divinely trustworthy and ever at the point of perfect operation.
Some one asks, “When I see an accident are not my eyes telling me so? Are they not witnessing the injury?” No. Your Eyes being spiritual and perfect, are seeing no accident whatsoever. Your eyes are functions of Soul and can see only that which is before them,─the perfect Universe of everlasting Glory. And though you report that you hear cries of distress your Ears are all the time hearing perfectly, and are bearing witness to a scene of joy and happiness, for in a Universe of All─Good there is nothing to be heard but gladness and harmony.
If while walking in the twilight, one mistakes a post for a tramp are his eyes reporting the post or the tramp? Pictured on the eye is the post, for this is what is present. The eyes are not reporting a tramp, for the simple reason that none is present. Likewise, when one reports that the coiled shape on the floor is a serpent his eyes are not deceived. His eyes are seeing the rope but his mind is falsifying the evidence. The mirage which makes trees and lakes appear to be where they are not is not seen by the eyes, nor do they see the lands, oceans, or people which one beholds in his night dream; such creation is wholly mental, pictures appearing in the mind only.
Turn again to the original question which was this: When, apparently, one sees injury and hears discord are his senses reporting correctly and truly or are they reporting otherwise? Now clearly discern its correct answer, which is: “My Senses are reporting truly and correctly, and they are seeing and hearing the Glory and Harmony o f the perfect Universe.” It is erring mind, or human sense, (not Senses), which weaves the illusion, just as when the picture of a tramp appears instead of the actual outline of the post. The mind so long mistaught as to the function of perfect Senses and the perfect Creation, reports that it sees what it merely believes to be true. Since it believes in accidents, in injuries and disasters the mind declares that it sees them, but it is practicing a deception upon itself, and is thus a victim to its own illusions.
No matter what the erring mind may report the truth is that the Senses are ALWAYS experiencing Reality, just as when at night the mind reports trouble, pain or danger in a dream the Senses at the same time are reporting unequivocally Quiet, Peace and Harmony. When the mind agrees with the Senses that the scene is peaceful, comfortable and free from intrusion the picturization of flying bullets, or storms, or commotion is gone. When human sense agrees with the spiritual Senses that the Kingdom of perfect Health and changeless Harmony is OMNIpresent, here and now, then only may we behold the desert blossoming as the rose, the lion lying down with the lamb, and hear the songs of joy and gladness springing from all who inherit that Kingdom.
We need have no concern whatever about making any correction in the Senses themselves, for the Senses are eternally changeless, perfect and ideal, and so must EVER operate correctly. They are functions of Soul, Spirit, the Christ. Down through the centuries mankind so misled by the mind’s picturization of pain, disease and death appearing in the body, has discredited the Senses: but that which needs correction and redemption is human sense, or erring mental action. That which delivers to man freedom from this ignorance is Intelligence. That which “binds the strong man,” (mind), and “seizes his goods,” (his illusions), is Understanding. Thus there is brought to this dream-world of time and space, birth and death that Knowledge of the Truth which enables Reality to come into unreality. While the rope could never transpose the serpent, nor the post “swallow up” the tramp, still the understanding o f Reality may reach the mind of the individual and automatically cause the illusion in that mind to vanish so that one may consciously experience the drama of Truth.
“Ho, everyone that thirsteth!” come, listen to the Word which is your freedom and your release. Your Senses are not really looking out over a perfect Creation and reporting instead pain, disaster, and death. Your Senses cannot inform you of destruction, bondage, sin, or mortality. Stop discrediting, therefore, the marvelous and supernal Senses with which you were from the beginning eternally endowed. Listen now to the voice of Intelligence: “So that things which are seen were not made o f things which do appear.” (Heb. 11:3) Let God be true, but every man a liar.” (Rom. 3:4)
The “things which are seen,”─for instance, the post, is not the tramp which appears. The Kingdom of perfect Creation which you actually see, and hear, and feel, in which you really live, and move, and act, is not the world of sin, sickness and death which the mind beholds. Let the truth of the real, spiritual Senses be understood and known to all mankind, everywhere, so that all will come to accept the revelation that nothing has ever, or can ever, affect these spiritual Senses. Moreover, let one discern that it is mistaken sense which has made of him a false witness, causing him to report a serpent instead of a rope, a tramp instead of a post, and a world of sin, sickness, disease and death instead of a Universe of Glory, Harmony and everlasting Perfection.
Let those who seek release from their problems listen to this clarion call of intelligent Understanding to the reign of Right Practice. For over fifty years its message of Light and Truth has been sounding in modern tongue: “The reality and individuality of man are here to be seen and demonstrated.” “Believing a lie veils the Truth from our vision.” “The scientific Man and his Maker are here; and you would be none other than this Man if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to the spiritual sense and source of being.” “Sight, hearing, all the spiritual Senses of man are eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immortality are in Spirit.”
“Who told thee that thou wast naked?” was the penetrating query which Divine Intelligence propounded to mankind in the beginning. Who told you that you were born? Who told you that you live in a world of sin, sickness and death? Not your Senses, but a false belief of them, and it is this erring belief which Jesus called “a liar from the beginning.”
Come now, and bring this human sense into the Light of intelligent Understanding. “Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as wool,” and though your mistakes be legion they shall be as harmless as pictures. Though your body may appear crippled, diseased and disabled it IS strong, and radiant and whole. Now the Truth, or true Understanding, does not actually bring health and healing to the body, (although the idea that the Truth heals the physical body is a stepping─stone in the progress of human sense), for as the tramp, and all his make─up, is but a false picture in the mind of the beholder, and as such needs no correction whatever, so the pictures thought to be wasted cells and disabled organs are but dream─shadows cast by an erring imagination, and as shadows need no improvement whatsoever. As the tramp could never change into the post, neither can diseased cells and tissues be changed into healthy and living Realities. The Body is perfect already
When this glorious fact is clearly perceived, and its recognition exercised, instantaneous healings will be as easily performed as snapping the fingers, or the forming of a wish. When you can grasp the Science of the Senses then sickly dreams and deceptions will fade away as surely as shadows disappear in the light. The Science of the Absolute presents the fact that Being includes both the perfect Body and its perfect Senses. Those who practice the Truth from this high position are not expecting to bring to pass that which has already taken place. One need not wait for the coming of health, nor for the reconstruction of cells and tissues, for according to the testimony of his Senses he is ever a changelessly perfect Being.
You remember that in the instantaneous healings which Jesus performed no time was allowed for dead cells to gradually put on life and activity, nor for a withered arm to slowly put on new flesh and vigor. Here the mind received such sudden enlightenment it could not go through its usual farce of rebuilding tissues and cells but was instantly brought to silence, or a point of agreement, and at that moment the mind of the (so─called) patient functioned in Intelligence, and he lived and acted in accord with his impeccable Senses.
It was as if Jesus had said to that mind, “Come, unite your sense, or belief, with your actual Senses. These Eyes are seeing perfectly for they are seeing Creation as it IS,─whole, immune, ideal. These Ears are hearing perfectly for they are receiving reports of Joy, Glory and Abundance. This Christ─being is knowing, feeling, rejoicing that the Reign of Harmony is HERE and NOW. As light dispels darkness, so each false belief of human sense, when contacting the light of Jesus’ Vision and Understanding, could no longer practice its dream of falsity and lo! the man stood declaring, “Whereas I was blind, now I see;” or the paralytic leapt to his feet and danced for joy; and he with the withered arm suddenly stretched it forth in joyous abandon.
As the coincidence of human sense with the spiritual Senses takes place in Perception the illusions called birth, sin, sickness and death are consumed in the fire of one’s own Glory. “The tares,” (human beliefs), and “the wheat,” (the spiritual Senses), grow together until the harvest,” until the light of Understanding brightens our pathway and we thenceforth live in the presence of the discerning Inspiration that the Senses are neither fallible nor temporal, physical nor mortal. The Senses are impeccable, (not liable to fault, nor sin), and luminous with Intelligence now and always.
THE MIND
THE TIME is at hand when those who are willing to entertain the metaphysical explanation of Life, with the aim to understand the problem of human existence, should discover WHAT the process of salvation includes, and How it is to be accomplished.
Textbooks on metaphysics speak of a spiritualization, reformation and redemption which is to be experienced by the aspirant before he can fully understand Reality and enter into the state of perfect peace and harmony. Now who, or what, is to be spiritualized and redeemed? Obviously perfect Man is changeless, and no action can assist an assumed man. Moreover, the perfect Body is in need of no correction, and the mythical nature of the physical appearance, or mental phenomenon, makes it impossible for any reformation or spiritualization to take place there. If, therefore, neither a perfect Man nor a false man, a true Body nor an unreal body are to be corrected what is it which stands in need of transformation and salvation?
The only problem that one ever has presented to him is that of his own mind. In belief, that which stands between the individual and his perfect experience is a mist-ification, or a mistaken sense which reports limitation and subjection to many ills and which must be brought, through the recognition of the Truth about them, to confess the perfection of Man and of the Universe, HERE and NOW visibly before us. “The Truth shall make you free,” said Jesus. Since one is actually already free but is unaware of it, and unconscious of functioning in that perfection, then the only freedom which can come to him is his liberation from his false sense of Life. We see that the Truth does not bring freedom to perfect Man, nor to the false man; to the Spiritual Body, nor to the material body; but the Kingdom comes to us “in earth as it is in Heaven” in proportion as a false sense is swallowed up in Understanding.
While we may be certain that Life is eternally at the point of completeness, fullness and satisfaction, a completely satisfying realization of this fact is still to be attained. As each individual consciousness progresses toward the Christ, (spiritual Reality), it would appear as though the spiritual capacity to apprehend the Truth enlarges and fills, and all sense of the false and the material atrophies and shrinks, until finally the human consciousness will have completely “put on Christ,” or have fully accepted the Reality of Being, and false sense is exchanged for Soul-evidence.
Statements such as the above, although they seem extreme, are applicable to this age and period as showing how the Divine Reality of the Christ appears to advancing consciousness. While, accurately and precisely speaking, there is no human mentality and no necessity for a correction of any kind, until one ceases to need correction in his sense and thought he will be practicing the wisdom of the apostle’s instruction if he continues to “put on Christ.”
No one can attempt to explain how one enters the Kingdom of Heaven without falling into verbal contradiction, for the Kingdom of Heaven is already fully established within us. The man asleep in bed and dreaming that a terrific hurricane is raging, threatening to soon demolish his home and his belongings is in no actual danger. His mental sense is racked by the belief of a raging storm when not a breath of that wind is near his bed. If he could recall to mind the peace and safety of his actual environment the panic and fear in his mind would cease and the storm would simultaneously be at an end.
There is in each personal consciousness a faculty capable of recognizing the Truth in part, and of enlarging his sense of it until finally one comes face-to-face with the Reality of his own Being. This practical age which we have entered upon is showing a rapid acceptance of advanced beliefs and convictions. In the life of Spirit there could be no transitional period of partial Truth for there is only the Divine Mind which is all-understanding. There is a false belief, or dream sense of Life which, despite the fact that it is nothing, or altogether unreal, must nevertheless be shown and perceived to be such before one may enter that state of rest called “the Sabbath,” which is the cessation of the false belief in mortality, limitations, subjection and unhappiness of every kind.
Think what it would actually mean if all belief in progress through painful efforts, of advancement by degrees, of change and disintegration should vanish from the minds of all people everywhere, and that they all should stop believing in the action of opposites called right and wrong, cause and effect, day and night, sin and piety! Wouldn’t it mean, that earth would be peopled with glorious beings experiencing fadeless joy, uninterrupted harmony, happiness and immortality?
Notions of evolution, progress, change are mental inventions helpful to those who cannot encompass AT ONCE the view of Fulfillment without a beginning. Since it seems impossible for human thought to accept immediately and without reserve this fact of absolute Being, it is accepted gradually and such degrees of progress, or steps in improved belief, have been called spiritualization, redemption and regeneration. The only place where there is any assumption of inharmony, or incompleteness, is in human sense, or mental action, and as the mind is instructed with the Truth it gradually improves its beliefs until the final perception of the finished Kingdom “at hand” is acquired, or received. Since the mind assumes a thing which has no actual existence, (like the appearance of the serpent in the rope), it must perceive the Truth which will throw light on such an assumption and dispel it.
Does Perfection exist now and here, or must one attain it step by step, and by degrees? Now a man asleep in bed and experiencing an unpleasant dream is in fact at peace but he is not then conscious of his true state; actually he is comfortable and happy, while in his confused sense of things he is fearful and unhappy. If one could change this disturbing dream by transmitting to the dreamer a sense of joy and harmony he would deliver him, without time or labor, over to that state of peace and comfort which he is actually enjoying in his real environment.
Of course, if one did not sleep he would not evolve dream-creations. Likewise, if one did not ignorantly ignore the Perfect Kingdom which is here, “at hand,” he would not seem to experience a world of sin, darkness, and separation from his Good. We call our lack of power to remain awake, sleep, and similarly we call the failure to contact, accept and utilize Reality, evil. Nothing whatever happens to the room, the bed or the individual himself while he sleeps. His dream is affecting a subjective state only, for in this state he has accepted pictures of an unreal world of illusion. In this state he is unhappy, while in reality he is quite content; in this sense he may be in pain, while in reality he is perfectly comfortable. If in any way his sense of things should change, it would bring about a change in his dream-pictures. Man asleep and dreaming that he is subjected to the force of a raging hurricane is just as much in his quiet room as he ever could be. That is, awakening him from the dream or opening his eyes to his room, he will in no way change his environment. Equally true is it that though one believes that he is seeing inharmony, feeling pain, experiencing lack, sorrow, or any other separation from his good he is just as actually and completely in the Kingdom of Heaven at that instant as he ever was, or ever will be. To perceive this reassuring fact even in a partial degree, enables one to discern that as man is never actually in his dream at night and needs only to extricate his mind from the belief that he is, so also Man is never actually in a material world and needs but to open his vision to this fact to be set free from his sense of the opposite belief. He can then practice being “in the world but not of it,” ─ he can then in this present existence, or illumined dream-state, experience right HERE and right Now the joy and satisfaction of actually participating in the perpetual, uninterrupted harmony and glory of Heaven.
Similarly, in one’s everyday experience the mind may be delivered gradually, through improved beliefs, until it is entirely emancipated from the suppositions of dreams and illusions and accepts the Fact of Reality as all there is; or one may practice the more advanced Science of Ascension, which is the Science of Insight, and, becoming insensible to the mental instrument, may awaken to the Truth that there is no difference between himself and Reality; that now and here he is seeing, hearing, feeling, in every way experiencing immortal Health, Harmony and Abundance. In this light it can be understood that we are, now and here, perfect spiritual beings, living in a Universe of perfect Ideas and Entities, but that these Ideas and Entities are not present to one’s sense while he sleeps in the belief of a material world full of personalities and subject to limitation of every kind. As soon however as this sleep of ignorance is broken the dream experiences of evil in his world are dispelled.
The first step in this Science of Ascension, or Science of Insight, is to perceive that as the things in a dream are wholly imaginative, that the objects, situations and circumstances which one creates then are wholly without substance, life, form or reality, (hence nothing), so also the mind which evolves these surroundings and circumstances is also nothing. For if the product, or dream-creation, is nothing, there is no action and therefore no Actor. Such discrimination eliminates the two-fold creation of dream-action and the dreamer.
So one is to perceive that in his waking experience all land and water, people and things, circumstances and environments appearing as changeable or mobile, as inharmonious or unstable, as relating to time and place, are images of his thought only,─and as such are literally nothing. No Mind of Intelligence is causing them to appear, consequently no Real Activity is evolving them. Let Insight open his vision, not only to perceive the nothingness of all which appears to be evil but to the nothingness of his belief in them, and the nothingness o f the mind which evolves them. Let him not stop half─way. Let him acknowledge and boldly proclaim the totality of the negation of everything which is believed to be either physical or mental.
Such Insight is neither destruction nor improvement of a mental instrument but is the perception of the Individual Ego. Just as with the coming of the knowledge and recognition of a round earth the belief in a flat earth was dispelled, so with the recognition, through Insight, that all mental action is as illusive and unreliable as dreams are there will appear to redeemed sense and sight the multitudinous Forms and Entities which surround us. This perception of Actuality, and the Kingdom “at hand” may not be called “spiritualization of the mind,” for we have seen that the mentality cannot actually be spiritualized; it should be thought of as a transparency, like crystal. Such attainment is by way of Insight or Discernment.
To everyone who would practice Understanding there must come the willingness to renounce belief in mental action. He must know that the Truth is not thought, that the Truth is not a result of mind, but that Truth is Divine Intelligence in operation. It is not sufficient to perceive that sickness is a dream, but one must see also that there is no personal mind believing in sickness. It is not enough to say that sin is forgiven, but one must come to admit that sin was never sinned. It is a step up to discern that sorrow and limitation are the results of false thinking and living, but it is a step higher still to discern that there was never a mistake made, that there is no one who believes in mistakes and in sin. Disease and death were never included in the Intelligent activity of the All-Good.
Let one bring his Perception to reveal the utter nothingness of experience, so that he will not only see that all which is called “material” is mental, but that he will be able also to understand that all which is mental has no Being, and never had. Insight delivers a dauntless spirit as one perceives that when deception is discovered to be such one functions in Intelligence, and expresses Freedom.
There is no world of birth and death, sin, sickness and sorrow outside of a mental belief in it. The erring personal mind is the (seeming) source of all inharmonious dream-experience, hence in order to dramatize Harmony in the dream experience it is essential that the mind be freed from misconceptions about Life. But it may be stated that the mental faculty itself is to be preserved to act as a reflector when dramatizing Creation, but that it is to be illumined and freed from the belief of any laborious effect therein, from disturbances, and blurred images of every kind and it is to be kept like pure crystal, unobstructing the reflection of spiritual Reality.
Now here is a fact which can be discerned only through Insight. It is generally believed that all illusion is extraneous, that it is outpictured before the vision like environment, and the things we see about us; but it is all within the mind, always introflexed. Illusion is never objectified, or actually out-pictured. When the mental instrument is disturbed by fear, or other ignorance, the deflection is one of discord, irrationality, inharmony; but when, luminous with Insight and Understanding, the mind keeps its purity or transparency, one’s experience is then the reflection of Infinite Realities, and the drama is “in earth as it is in Heaven.”
When a mirror is free from dirt and imperfections it serves as a perfect reflector of everything placed before it; likewise when the mind is clear of all thought of time, limitation, bondage or responsibility, it may reflect Happiness without explanation, Health without dependence, joy without measure, and Harmony without interruption. Let one discard the belief that his mind is something essential and let him perceive the nothingness of all of its activity, and its images, recognizing it to be but a mirror-like instrument. When we say “There is no mind,” we mean that there is no mental action, inasmuch as all relative good and evil are mental concepts only and one should be able not only to say “There is no matter, no evil, no sin, no sickness or death,” but he should perceive that the mental action sustaining such dream-pictures is as unreal and as fabulous as its deceptive creation. When one is not afraid of the Great Negation, but values its usefulness in emancipation as it deserves, he can himself practice Creation according to his degree of Enlightenment.
Intuition, Inspiration, Revelation are faculties of the Soul and are not products of the personal mind. While one is insensible to the thought instrument as such he may often function in Intelligence. The truth that one is free Spirit, the changeless Ideal, remains FOREVER the truth and when the personal mind is illumined with this Understanding it ceases to weave its chaotic illusions, and yields itself, a willing transparency, to catch the brilliancy and reflect the immensities of the Soul. Then human sense begins to waken and to rise out of its dream, perceiving that there can be no loss, no separation, no sorrow, sickness nor death in all Creation. One now discovers that he is maker and master of this mirror-mind and that its only purpose is to reflect the fulfillment of his every wish; to dramatize the glory and harmony of the eternal, spiritual being.
CREATION
CREATION is perfect. “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, or maketh a lie.” (Rev. 21: 27) All forms of Creation are radiant, glorious, ideal; without limitation, without mutability, without imperfection of any kind. We must not only perceive and accept the fact that the Truth about Life is unlimited, irresistible and glorious but we must also discern and acknowledge that the BODY which is the Image and Form of the Truth in expression, is exactly as perfect as the Truth of Spirit Itself. And inasmuch as the Truth of Spirit is ALL there is, then the Truth about Creation is ALL that can ever be seen in it. In the Truth of Love, and Intelligence, and Power, there is no concept of lack, or limitation; no belief of fear, or ignorance; no notion of sickness, sin or death. Certain it is that Creation can express only that which is in the divine consciousness o f Eternal Spirit.
Since the Truth ever affirms that Creation is perfect and “very good,” and that Spirit and its Creation are All-in-all, how then does the evil suggestion regarding Creation ever present itself? The assumption of evil is not in the mind of the Creator, nor in His Creation but it is a false belief of false mind. No one believes that there is evil in God, Spirit, but he does believe that he can see imperfection and discord in Creation. The mind assumes a fact which does not exist anywhere but in its own false conception of things. Thus in proportion as it is certain.
Truth to us that Creation is perfect, changeless, ideal, and present now and here, does the assumption leave our minds that Creation could he discordant or evil. The conviction which claims and holds to this vision of our true Self as the One Self who is the Creator of all perfect Ideas and Concepts, and of our Bodies as the image and likeness, or perfect manifestation of the universal Self, liberates and converts our minds so that they cease to testify falsely and become our auxiliaries and our support.
Let your vision of the Creation as well as of the Creator, of Body as well as of Being, be one of purity, indefectibility and permanence and let this vision, as Understanding, be a certainty in your mind, never to leave it. Let it be as certain to you as that you have your Being in Spirit, the Self of Absolute Glory and Immortality: so true is it that your Body is that expressed perfection also, “with face as the sun, and raiment white as the light.”
Now this Understanding, which fills your consciousness and glorifies it, reveals to you the fact that the instrument called “mind” does not create either good or evil. The Creation of perfect Ideas and Concepts is the act of the Intelligence of the Divine Self and that which seems to be a dual creation resulting in imperfection, discord and inharmony, is but the mind’s misjudgment of the true Creation. As ignorance is dispelled from the mind a world of wonder and delight is found to be dramatized “in earth as it is in Heaven.” If one’s perception of Life and Its changeless identity with Spirit is clouded, limited and restricted, he will not reflect this identity as It is, but the facts of Life will appear to him temporal, mutable and destructible. Moreover, as one enlarges his understanding of Divine Mind and the identity of Its Ideas he simultaneously clears his clouded vision so that it is true that (in the relative), one lives according to his own mental attitude, his right conception or misconception, and his experiences in his world are wholly contingent upon the degree of his realization of Reality.
That which seems to act as separator between Man and his perfect experience of the true Self is described by the Illumined to be as a mental mist, or a dream sense, which may, at any moment, be penetrated by Insight and Illumination. Thus instruction comes to arouse one to the wisdom of viewing Creation as ever perfect in its totality, as complete and changeless Satisfaction. This revelation is the discovery that there is no power which can influence Man to believe other than the Truth that he is “Lord of Creation” in Heaven and in Earth, and a subject in neither. The garden lily which seems budding, blooming, and fading is not that Lily-Idea which our spiritual Senses perceive as radiant in its undying beauty of outline and color, for we are reflecting the image through clouded vision. One is not required to correct either a spiritual Idea nor a mental phenomenon, but it is required of him that he correct his belief in order that he may enjoy HERE and Now the Heaven of perfect and changeless Realities.
The human mind, of itself, can never deliver to man the experience of his real Being, the glory of his complete state, but as it is lighted by Insight, and is made a clear reflector of all Substance, it brings forth to one the images of his desires which it portrays and reflects as the pictures of his drama of human experience. This is the function of the mind,─to send forth Ideas into experience as images and pictures. If one understands the secret of surrendering his mind to the point where its action is mirror-like, and of bringing his emotions to a pure transparency, he shall be able to bring to his human sense and sight the fulfillment of his true desires,─the product called the Creation of True Experience.
The Soul is free from all bondage, without outline, limitations, or opaqueness. Since Eyes and Ears are perfect Ideas, whence comes the delusion that Sight and Hearing may be impaired, or destroyed? Never but to human sense; never but in the dream of them. The only deficiency one ever meets is met in his mind, for his Body is forever perfect now and here, his Senses are ideally trustworthy now and forever, for all of God’s Ideas are changeless and eternal. Sight and Hearing cannot actually be impaired or obstructed by a mental sense of imperfection any more than the sun can be impaired or obstructed by clouds. The Eyes do not behold the glorious Universe of perfect Form and its Identity with Spirit and call it “matter” and “chemical force.” The Eyes are perfect always and are ever registering a perfect Creation. It is the individual himself, the being who calls himself “the ego,” who stands between his Senses and his human sense, between the Universe of perfect Form, in which everything is fair and lovely, and the world of changeability and inconsistency.
Spiritual Ideas reflected as form, color, tangibility and substance are never finite nor destructible. There may be outline, but never limitation, to spiritual Formation. The Form which you Now have in the spiritual world is perfect, unlimited, indestructible, eternal. The appearance called the physical body arises from mental mystification, and is but a false view of the true Form. Our Individual Identity with Spirit is never lost. “Mind spake and Form appeared.” Such Form was not a mental phenomenon, was not that which is subject to limitation, destruction, death, for the Forms of Life are one with that Life and are that Life in expression. The ears which in your slumber rest on the pillow do not hear the reports of your dream-cannons nor do the eyes which are closed to the familiar room see your enemy’s approach. Similarly, entirely separate from the sense─belief which reports limitations, bondage, disasters, and ills of every sort, in your every-day waking experience is the Reality of your Being which constantly and uninterruptedly informs you of the totality and the changeless perfection of the Creation which you share.
INFINITY OF PERFECTION
AS LONG as means are used in healing whether (so-called) material, or mental, or spiritual, there will remain the necessity for healing,-there will appear to be sickness, sin and death in this world. But when one looks beyond a method of healing to the Science of Reality, then the seeming necessity for healing what is already whole diminishes, longevity increases the life─span and the desert of human experience begins to blossom as the rose. But the tares of human mistakes and the wheat of spiritual Realities may seem to grow together and apparently intermingle until the end, until all ignorance is illumined by proper understanding.
It is written, “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt then.” (Mark 16:1.3) Does this promise mean that one might take poison into his body and it would not harm the body? It surely does. Nothing could hurt a shadow-body, nor the real Body, for it is the immutable, incorruptible reflection-likeness of Spirit, Soul. Yea, if all the poisons of earth were diffused about or within it none could ever harm the body, ─ that reflection of our Perfection which shines more radiantly than the sun at noon-day.
Now, you may not have taken the deadly poison of the earth into your body, but have you accepted the poison of earth into your mind? Have you believed that Heaven is somewhere else, not here, beyond the reach of your vision? Can you not see that eternal, immortal, pure and sinless Being is now standing forth in its Substance radiantly before you? And listen further! Even if your personal mind were filled with all the venom of ignorant beliefs, and even if it were tainted by the whole evil of earth, none of this could ever harm You!
What difference does it make what falsities you may have taken into your personal consciousness? What difference does it make who may have communicated them to you, or how long they may have rested in your thought? Lo, if your sins be as scarlet they cannot harm You, for You are divine Being,─You are the Truth of Life. All the darkness of the world cannot put out the light, and all the venom of mortal thought cannot harm one who participates in divine Being! Be persuaded that “Neither death, nor life,…….nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,” nor any false belief can separate Man from being what he IS,─the Truth of Spirit, the immaculate, incorruptible Being of Glory and Immortality.
What difference does it make whether you believe that the lamp post is a thief or a beggar? What difference does it make whether the trouble seems in your hands or in your feet? Come, bring your mind to this Fountain of the Living Water, and from the Light of Eternal Glory receive your inheritance of Insight and Understanding. It makes no difference what the sense-report may be, Ears are not deaf ears; Limbs are not crippled limbs; Cells are not wasted cells. Like a cloudless sunrise let this radiance of Light suffuse your mind until it yields itself wholly to Reality─until it confesses the Truth of your being.
“Whom say ye that I am?” (Luke 9:20) This is the question put by your Soul, the Spirit-consciousness. “Whom say ye that I am?” and the mind, redeemed from its darkness and yielding up its illusions answers with joy, “THOU ART THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD!” Are you ready to make this confession,─the confession of sense to Soul? Yea, “the time is at hand,” the new Day has dawned. Soon every tongue will confess to every other mind and heart: “You are the Truth! You are the Christ! You are the Light of the World!”
Now the Truth does not have to open deaf ears, nor heal blind eyes, nor change diseased bodies. The nature of Truth has only to be true to Itself,─to be conscious of Its own OMNI-presence. We are told that the Truth may come like “a thief in the night”─swiftly, unexpectedly, necessitating quick insight and action. As the lion crouches unseen and unsuspected, as the earthquake is unanticipated, so may Insight take the mind unawares and bring it to a passive silence. Then, stripped of its false dreams, it sees that there could be neither poison on the face of the whole earth, nor anything that could work as poison in the personal mind; nor is there anywhere any single thing which might hurt or destroy, which might make sick or sinful, for all Being is free from all evil!
Now as this precious gift of Insight comes to you to shine through the countless veils of mysery and illusion, rise above them to things as they ARE. Bring your mind to confess the Truth of your Being, the report of your Spiritual Senses, the presence of your glorious Form. Be filled to overflowing with the joy of this confident message─that there is no poison of any kind in the whole of earth, nor in the mind of any person, that “the time is at hand” for your immediate liberation. Let this thrilling Truth, though it may come to you “like a thief in the night,” strip all the foolishness of ignorance from before your Vision, that you may function in the harmony and the freedom of your own glory, all through the drama of human experience.
There can be no actual process of transforming or readjusting either the personal mind or the body, for they have no real Being, and the value of treatment lies in knowing this. Perfect Being, perfect Form, and perfect Experience, cannot change, nor alter, and nothing can reverse any one of the divine Ideas present in infinite variety and abundance now and here. We may demonstrate our joy, Health and Harmony by knowing that there is no concept in Mind of sorrow, loss, or discord; there are no mistakes in a Universe lighted by the presence of wisdom; and in Reality there is no one who could believe contrary to the Truth of Spirit, since Man is the very presence Itself of the Truth. Man is the power of the Word. Man is the proof of the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of God. This is why he can demonstrate “all sufficiency in all things.”
Why stop at saying that the Truth of things is perfect and that Heaven is Perfect in Itself, when it is your self, your body and your experience which you wish to see picture forth the “Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory?” Open your vision to the fact that there is only one Being, and that this is your Being. For Being is not dual. Claim the completeness, the infinity, the perfection of your entire Being which includes your Body. All Creation, and all dramatization of that Creation, is ideal, lovely, enchanting and satisfying. There are really no “others,” for in your universe you stand as one with all. In such realization of Yourself as The One there is no mistake to be corrected, no sickness to be healed, no person to be redeemed. The seeming problem disappears: simply to withdraw from all belief of duality, multiplicity and sense of otherness, and to hold the High Watch, brings instead the vision of the completeness and infinity of all Good, all Health, all Abundance, all joy now here and anywhere. In proportion as one can rise to perform this act of the Truth can he fulfill the commission, “Heal the sick and raise the dead.” And who are the sick? Who are the dead? Verily, who can they be and where can they exist if the Self is ALL? The commission is fulfilled in Realization.
If one believes himself to be bound let him now step forth free! Or if one thinks that he sees another who is bound, let him clarify his own vision! Is not THIS the Universe of the Infinite Glory, and is not THIS the place where God is all? One need never look beyond his own mind in order to give a treatment. If he sees deformity, lack, loss, sorrow or death let him treat himself, for is not his whole world contained within himself? Yea, verily. The treatment which one needs to bring to any (so-called) inharmony is the understanding and realization of the spiritual world as EVER PRESENT, in earth as in Heaven; that Man in his right mind can have no concept of discord or inharmony, for there is no such concept in his Being. There is but one Life, one Power, one Order, one Creation, and this is before us─yea, and we ARE beholding it.
Do we think we have lost loved ones who have passed beyond our vision? Then let us agree with our spiritual Senses that they are here at our side. Beloved, the time is at hand when we should part with the sense which, unable to pierce its self─imposed mist, informs us that we cannot see, or hear, or converse with Jesus, the Illumined Master, or those dear ones seemingly gone from view. We do see them, we do hear them, we do feel them, we do entertain them, and any sense falsifying this evidence is but a cloud which Insight can assuredly prove to be nothing. The time is here also when we may handle “the serpents” which we feared and find them harmless. What is any form of “serpent” but a false belief that we are outside of the Kingdom of Heaven, and that there is some power, or an influence, besides the Infinity of Perfection? Let us insist with conviction upon the Fact that there is no power which can influence redeemed Man to longer believe in falsity, or to accept the appearance of duality; to believe in anything but the true concept of the All-in-All. Since God and Perfect Man are one then this One is All, and this One is all there is to any of us. This is the Fact. This is what is so. Everyone is The One, above birth and death, and sin, without change, without suffering, without lack. All that seems contrary to this is not evidence upon which we can depend for such evidence is but a spell, or hypnosis of the mind. The time is now here when we should cast off this spell and allow ourselves to behold the Creation as it is.
“BE STILL AND KNOW”
WHAT words of greater comfort, sweeter compassion or tenderer love and understanding could ever be whispered forth into expression? “Be still and Know.”
Beloved, let this day be to you a new day, a moment in your experience in which, if you are believing in fear and doubt, loss and separation, suddenly there opens to you a marvelous transparency of vision, when you hear the Voice of your own Soul; when you see the wonder of Life divine.
What woe could not be hushed what pain could not be appeased, what lack could not be satisfied by the loving acceptance of these inspiring words─”Be still and know.” Into the daily life of us all comes the need that mental storms, or turmoil, should be silenced; that the waves of fear, or the darkness of despondency, be rebuked; that the mighty vision of Insight should be our refuge or our release. “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.” (Joshua 1:9)
Therefore the joy of certain Victory is ours. Sense is delivered from its nightmare of bondage, and its deliverer is the Truth. If before us rolls the Red Sea, if around us thunders the tempest and the uproar of dashing waves, even then let us be still and know that one is himself “The Way,”─himself the uncovered, dry land over which he shall walk to victory, to triumph and glory. Though the waters may look turbulent, angry and threatening, yet beyond, before our vision, lies the Promised Land. The Power which separates these waters into a bank on either hand, so that we walk unharmed on solid, dry foundation, is that same Presence in us which bids us “Be still and know.”
Now within each is ALL there is. Within each is his hearing, and that which is heard; his seeing, and that which is seen; his knowing, and that which is known; his experiencing, and the whole of Life Itself. One is himself the Light, the Way, the Open Door. To him who is awake to the Truth of his Being there is no evil, no spot or blemish in all Creation nor in its Creator. There is one Perfect Presence which is ALL, and which is Now and HERE “at hand.”
Since God and Man, Self and Body are one, and God, the all of Self, is perfect and complete, so Man’s Body, is identically perfect and complete. This is the vision which lifts us from the dream of separation, from the sense of incompleteness and mutability, presenting to our consciousness the realities of the true experience. Be still and know that as I am The Self which is God, so I am Man and his glorious Body, for I am Totality; I am All-in-all, ever indivisible, complete.
And what shall we say of thoughts of fear, of doubt and uncertainty? We must perceive that there is no concept of them in the Mind of God and therefore no concept of them at all in any mind. With this transcending vision we are able to understand that there is no one who is believing in fear, that there is no power which can influence Man to believe in fear, doubt, or uncertainty. There is One Being only, and this One Being is ALL Being, so there is no concept of fear in this mind which is my Being, your Being, and all Being. This God, the Self of the whole is the ONLY Power, hence there is none other which can influence my Being or your Being to believe in anything besides Us, and the Reality of Love, the Truth of Life eternal.
There is only perfect Being, perfect Creation, perfect Action, perfect Drama, now, always, constant, irresistible, unreversible. There is no possibility of existence except as this Reality.
“The time is at hand” when we should all bring loving hearts and willing minds to hear, with the Psalmist, the Voice which ever whispers,
“Be still, and know that I am God.”