Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is One Lord. (Deuteronomy 6:4)
In our agreement and understanding that God is one, God has no opposite, and there is no opposition.
With God as one, there is only one activity, one being, one cause, one power, one law.
When the Master was asked which of the commandments was the greatest, he answered, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all they soul and with all thy mind. Therefore, the first and greatest commandment is Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
We think of God as power, and so the commandment is Thou shalt acknowledge no other power but God.
What then are we fearing – germs, infection, contagion? Since God is the only power, can these things have any power? According to the Master's teachings, they could have no power except such as was given them by God.
Do we fear lack or limitation? How can lack or limitation affect us? Do we fear war and hydrogen bombs? According to the first commandment, only God is power. What would happen to the power of the hydrogen bomb if we realised God as the only power? Think on this deeply, because there must come a moment of transition when we can intellectually declare, Why, that is right. If God is the only power, what do we have to fear from all the so-called powers of earth and hell?
Then there must come a moment of transition when we go from that intellectual agreement to spiritual agreement, a feeling of agreement within, Yes, that is the truth. I feel the truth of that one power. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Therefore, God is the only law. We are now faced with a startling question. Is there a law of disease? God is the only law. What then is causing disease? What is perpetuating it if there is no law of disease? We are told in Scripture, According to your faith, so be it unto you; and therefore, if you have confidence, faith or belief that there is a law of disease, so it must be unto you.
You see, the world is trying to remove disease through the study of the laws of disease, and there are no such laws. According to the Master's teachings and the teaching of all spiritual wisdom throughout the ages, there is only one power, one law, one being.
Think, now, because this is the point to which we are leading: There is nothing in all this world to use God-power for or against.
Since there is no power apart from God, there is no sin, no evil; since there is no law apart from God, there is no law of disease, no law of lack or limitation, and we no longer have to turn to God to overcome these things, to help us rise above them, to destroy, correct, or remove them.
That is the function of this teaching, the teaching that we may call a teaching of is – just the two letters i-s – and it is just as simple as the revelation which brought The Infinite Way into existence, also a two letter word, a-s, as.
God is expressed, manifest as you and as me; God is appearing as your being and as my being; God is appearing as, God manifest as, this universe.
There is no selfhood apart from God since God appears as this universe; there is no condition apart from God since God appears as the substance and activity of this universe.
God appearing as logically leads up to God is. Is has no point of comparison, since it always, eternally and immortally is what it is, and that is, is Spirit.
God is not some degree of human good; nor is it some degree of human evil. It is – spiritually, harmoniously, joyously, eternally, immortally, infinitely is. Is.
Law is. There is not good law or bad law. There is only law – God is. There is not good or evil power. There is only power – God is.
There is no power to oppose anything, so there is no use praying to it to overcome our enemies, no use praying to it to overcome sin or sinful desires or appetites, no use praying to it to overcome disease, since there is only one power and the power that is, is God.
We must be arriving now at a state of consciousness called is, and we must rest in that is. We have no evil to oppose or from which to be protected, and we do not have to pray in order to get God to do something for us, since God, Good, already is.
If, deep within us, we can feel a responsive agreement, that is our prayer, our treatment, and our communion with God.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord – one in essence, one in cause, one in effect, one infinite Good. You are led into a continuing state of consciousness, in which you do not, even by suggestion, think of turning to God to do something for you, since that of which you are thinking already is.
Never do you pray for something or someone. Your whole prayer becomes an inner agreement that it already is and always has been.
Before Abraham was, I am.....
Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.....
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Is, am, is – I am with you. It is so. No longer do you reach mentally for some statement of truth. There is now only one statement of truth and it comes in one word, is. It already is.
Many, many years ago it was revealed to me: That which I am seeking, I am. I already am. It already is. It always is. With that understanding came the realisation that I could give up seeking. I could give up searching. I could even give up praying. It already is.
And now my prayer is no longer asking or affirming. My prayer is the realisation, the recognition, of is. Whatever of good has come into your consciousness in the form of desire or hope already is.
There is no power to bring it to you tomorrow.
The question of time enters here. You cannot live yesterday, can you? No good can come into your experience yesterday, and so far as we know, no-one has ever lived tomorrow. The spiritual literature of the world seems very much in accord that now is the only time we will live, and for that reason, now is the only time.
So, you see that prayer that would have to do with yesterday or last year or perhaps the last incarnation, would be a waste of time. You will never live an hour ago, so there is no use praying for or about anything that concerns itself with an hour ago.
Let the dead bury their dead. Let yesterday bury yesterday, and let us concern ourselves with now.
Since we cannot live tomorrow there is no reason to wish or desire or hope for tomorrow. There is only one time in which our prayers can materialise and that time is now. It is for this reason that we must learn and understand the instantaneousness and spontaneousness of healing and reformation, since it can take place only now.
What great fact do we discover? Above all, we discover that I am! I am now! You will ask, What is "I am"? That you must learn from within, but one thing is certain: If I am, all that the Father is, and all that the Father has, is right now in that I am-ness. All that the Father has is now. All that the Father has is mine now. All that the Father is, I am, now.
If you are able to follow this, you are feeling: Why, that is just is again; is – not to be hoped for and not to be prayed for. Why not? Because in this now there is only one power, the one presence, the one law, which I am. All that God is I am now.
So far as we know, the Master never prayed for anything for Himself. Can you understand why he never seemed to have a need. If it came to healing, he could heal multitudes; if it came to supply, he could take care of multitudes. At no point was he seeking to get or to acquire.
The Bible states that he was an hungered, that he was tempted to turn the stones into bread. Was he tempted to believe in lack? No! He recognised his divine sonship, he recognised that all that the Father had was his now, and that he did not have to make it so. It already is. Get thee behind me Satan. Get behind me – the temptation to believe that I can acquire something a minute from now, when in this now-ness is my is-ness.
It is, now. All that God is, I am. Surely, deep within your consciousness comes the feeling of agreement that right now I am in the midst of you. All that ever has been is now. All that ever will be is now, for now is the only time – the divine harmony of God is your being now, and that is your prayer.
So, once again we are admonished to withhold all judgement, because if we judge by appearances the world is full of skies that sit on mountains, or rail tracks that come together. Yet these are only appearances or illusions, only temptations to keep us from venturing forth.
You can readily see that you cannot discuss this with friends or relatives, because they live by appearances, and appearances are the very bread and butter of their daily living. All of the conversation of humanhood is about appearances, so it is useless trying to talk, argue or reason this out with them.
Be still and know, but be very still. Be very still and spiritually know that this is the truth. There is no law of disease, there is no evil. There is no power that can harm. Spiritually feel the rightness of this.
If you feel it spiritually you are praying aright rather than praying amiss. If you can feel the rightness of the one law, the one presence, the one power – that there is nothing to overcome, nothing to destroy or to remove – then you will know, I already am.
It is. God is. Harmony is.
As we walk through the experiences of each day, temptations to judge as to good or bad, sick or well, rich or poor, sin or purity will continually arise. We are faced, not only with the Master's three temptations, but with three million.
There is always the temptation to look at the woman taken in adultery and throw a few stones, or at the thief caught in the act and judge. From morning to night we are tempted to believe in appearances and label them good or bad, right or wrong, but we must resist these temptations by learning to look at person, circumstance, condition or disease and withhold judgement.
We must realise is – is – and let the Father define, outline and show forth that which spiritually is.
My kingdom is not of this world. There is no use trying to judge the spiritual kingdom from appearances – it will not work. The study and practice of The Infinite Way is the development of spiritual consciousness. It is not going through human existence picking out all the wrong things and finding a system whereby to make them right. It is looking through the appearance of both human good and human evil and learning to behold the spiritual reality which is, even where the appearances seem to be.
About 500 B.C., Lao Tse stated, A name cannot name the eternal. Nameless, it is the source of Heaven and Earth; with names, one comes to creation and things.
In other words, if you can name God, it is not God. And so it is that anything you could think about God would represent only your concept of God. If you say, God is Love, or God is Mind, that is a concept of God; it is not God.
So praying to Love or to Mind would be praying to concepts, not to God.
You could go through all the synonyms for God, and declare that God is this or that, and you would be wrong. That would not be God at all; it would be only a concept of God and praying to it would bring no results.
Since any thought that you might think about God would represent an opinion, a theory or a concept and would not be God, how then are we in The Infinite Way to consider God.
Actually, there is only one thing you can know about God – God is. Of that you can be very sure.
You have no way of knowing whether God is life or God is love. These may be quotations which merely represent ideas formulated by the saints, seers, and sages down through the ages. They may be perfectly correct in their estimate of what God is, but you will have to admit that anything that may be said about God represents a theory, a belief, an opinion, or a concept – all except one thing – God is..
That you know – God is.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths....
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.
Acknowledge Him and keep your mind stayed on the God that is. God is. That is enough to know.
What more can you do in the way of communion with God than this inner acknowledgment that God is? All else may be speculation or opinion, but one thing that no man can take from you is the realisation that God is. As long as you acknowledge that God is and rest in that inner assurance, in some way, mysterious to human sense, God will reveal all that you need to know about God.
We have been leading up to this very important point: Do not be concerned with what anyone teaches about the nature of God, and do not be concerned with what anyone has written about God. Much that you read and study may appear right to you; much you may question. There is only one fact about which you can feel complete agreement, about which no doubt will ever enter your thought: God is.
Be satisfied with that until God reveals to you, from within your own being, what God is, when God is, how God is. Let God reveal Himself to you.
I have had my own inner experience with God, with the realisation of God, and with the actual feeling of the presence of God, but I cannot make this real to you. Many could not even believe that I have had the experience.
Unless you have had some measure of God-experience, how could you possibly know if I am telling the truth, or whether I myself might not be mistaken? I know, but I cannot convey that knowledge to you.
On one point you are already in agreement. God is.
If you willingly accept that is-ness of God, that inner point of awareness and realisation that God is, and ponder it, soon, God will define Himself. God will reveal Himself, unfold Himself, and disclose Himself within you, in an original way, and with the experience will come some measure of what we call healing.
You will not find health and wealth added to you; you will find that health and wealth have been included in you since before Abraham was.
You will find that since God is the infinite nature of your being, all harmony and all good are included in the infinitude of that one spiritual being. This you will experience for yourself, not by believing me, and not by accepting my word.
I only wish that by believing me, spiritual wisdom and demonstration could come to you, but it cannot be so. Spiritual experience can come only through your own realisation.
I can tell you only this: If you, without prejudice or opinion, without a theory or concept of what God is, can realise, God is and dwell with that and ponder it, keeping your thought in that line, from out of the depths of your consciousness within will come the experience revealing what God is and how God operates and acts throughout this marvellous universe.
This will be through spiritual discernment, and this will not come merely by agreeing with what others have said or have written about God. Spiritual discernment will come with every God-experience, and you can have a God-experience only through knowing the truth.
And what is the only truth you know? God is – that is all the spiritual wisdom you know or will know until God reveals more from within your own being.
The ancient Hebrews said, The Lord our God is One Lord, but that is also a restatement of a concept of God. We go on from there and say that God is one power, one law, but until God, Himself, reveals that, it remains a concept.
To me it is no longer a concept – it is a revealed truth because of an experience that took place in my consciousness, but to you it may be just a statement that I am repeating.
One thing you do know – God is.
Hold that to yourself, live with it, be satisfied with it until, to what you already know, to what you already have of spiritual wisdom, will be added the balance.
