God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24
I the Father of this universe, the Mother, the Supporter, the Grandsire, the Holy One to be known, the Word of Power. The Bhagavad-Gita
The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. The Tao Te King, Part I
Our lesson tells us that God is the Father, the Mother, the Supporter, and Grandsire. It tells us that from the Oneness of God proceeds the Law, the Essence and the Word. Then it tells us that God is spirit. Wonderful indeed is this conception of the union of all life, which Jesus proclaimed in the ecstasy of his illumination. “I and the Father are one.” All cause and all effect proceed from the invisible Spirit. Man is one with this Spirit and cannot be separated from It. His word has power because his word is the action of God through his thought. Power is, we use it, we do not create it. Let us seek to use the power of this word more generously, with a greater idea of its beneficence, its abundance and its availability. When we learn to believe, then our belief is increased. Receiving much, we shall receive more; giving everything, we shall, in return, receive all. Let us be willing to die to the lesser in order to become resurrected into the greater. This is the true meaning of the thought that we let go of ignorance if we would gain knowledge; we must stop walking in darkness if we would talk in the light.
Today I walk in the light of God’s Love. Today I am guided and my guidance is multiplied. I know exactly what to do; exactly how to do it. There is an inspiration within me which governs every act, every thought, in certainty, with conviction and peace.
TODAY I BESTOW THE ESSENCE OF LOVE UPON EVERYTHING
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: … The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Psalm 19: 7, 9
For the Self-begotten One, the Father-Mind, perceiving His own Works, sowed into all Love’s Bond… so that all might continue loving on for endless time, and that these Weavings of the Father’s Light might never fail. The Chaldaen Oracles
But love will the God of Mercy vouchsafe to those who believe and do the things that be right. The Koran
“The Law of the Lord is perfect” and the Law of the Lord is Love. We are made perfect in the Law when we enter into the communion of love with one another and with the invisible essence of Life. Love is the fulfillment of the Law, that is, we never can make the most perfect use of the Law unless that use is motivated by love, by a sincere desire to express unity, harmony and peace. As the true artist weds himself to the essence of beauty, imbibing her spirit that it may be transmitted to the canvas, or awaken a living form from cold marble, we so must wed ourselves to the essence of Love that we may imbibe its spirit, and, transmitting it, give loveliness to all events. We should not hesitate to express our appreciation for people, things and events. There is too little enthusiasm about life. We sacrifice hope on the altar of unbelief and fail to extract the essence of Reality from the invisible because we refuse to rejoice in our apparently trivial human relationships. Love will not remain abstract. Its power of transmutation in human events comes only as we catch its vision and mold it into human experience.
Today I bestow the essence of love upon everything. Everyone shall be lovely to me. My soul meets the soul of the universe in everyone. Nothing is dead; everything is alive. Nothing is ugly; everything is beautiful; everything is meaningful. This love is a healing power touching everything into wholeness; healing the wounds of experience with its divine balm.
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And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 1So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” 1And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
Sermon Points
What is Positive Prayer?
Positive prayer is the way to form a permanent attitude of mind that reflects the eternal, benevolent activity of God so that we may truly express our nature as the children of God, created in God’s image to express God’s likeness here on Earth.
How to Build Mustard Seed-Sized Faith
Fast: All Purpose Denial: (This) is powerless to take or keep my good from me.
•”When we think or say denials, we tell our subconscious minds that they are not to react to the negative appearances but are to act upon the affirmations, which we then make. The process opens us to receive whatever divine idea we need to deal positively with the appearance and prepares us to allow the activity of God to do its perfect work.” From Handbook of Positive Prayer (Hasbrouck)
Pray; Affirmation are your “YES” state of mind. The mental movement that asserts confidently and persistently the Truth of Being in the face of all appearances to the contrary.
Fast and Pray
Fast – Denial: This situation is powerless to take or keep my good from me. Prayer – Affirmation: What God has done for others, God can do for me, and more
Employment Fast – Denial: The lack of a job is powerless to take or keep my good from me. Prayer – Affirmation: There is the perfect job at the perfect pay open for me right now.
Forgiveness Fast – Denial: This offense (insult, snub, unkindness, and so on) is powerless to take or keep my good from me. Prayer – Affirmation: The freeing love of God liberates me from mistakes of the past and the results of the mistakes of the past. I am a new creation through the power of God, the Christ, within me.
Whatever it is Fast – Denial: This headache, This debt, This heartbreak, This argument, This car accident, This loss of a loved one, This diagnosis, This fear, This pandemic. Prayer – Affirmation: Greater is the Power and Presence of God in me than anything circumstance or situation that appears. Nothing is too big for God.
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TODAY I SHALL WALK IN THE LIGHT, MY MIND SHALL BE ILLUMINED
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord should be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Isaiah 60:20
Who uses well his light, Reverting it its (source so) bright, Will from his body ward all blight. The Tao Te King
The virtuous and well-conducted man, your majesty, is like a medicine in destroying the poison of human corruption; is like a healing herb in quieting the disease of human corruption; is like water in removing dirt and defilement of human corruption; is like the magic jewel in giving all good fortune to men. Buddhism in Translations
There are so many illustrations in the sacred texts of the world, relative to the Light. The Spirit is thought of as being the essence of light. Man is spoken of as being the “candle of the Lord.” “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” That is, the darkness has no power over light; light will overcome darkness, but darkness cannot overcome light. When Isaiah said that “… the Lord shall be thy everlasting light …” he meant that there is a light within us, the light of Truth, of Spirit, of God, which cannot set, cannot be obliterated, cannot be blown out. The candle of the Lord” burns forever because its wick is sunk deep in the wellsprings of Reality – that light, that spring, that substance, to which Jesus referred when he told the woman at the well that if ever she drank from it she would never thirst again. It is no wonder that the woman asked him to give her of this water that she might no longer be compelled laboriously to draw from the fountain which can become depleted.
Today I shall walk in the light and my consciousness shall be illumined. My thoughts shall be guided and my way guarded, for I know that in my light there is no darkness. In this Divine Light there are no shadows.
I AM ALIVE, AWAKE AND AWARE, MY SPIRITUAL EYES ARE OPEN
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. I Corinthians 13:12
O ye people, earth-born folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of God, be sober now, cease from your surfeit, cease to be glamoured by irrational sleep! Thrice-Greatest Hermes
I ye knew God as He ought to be known, ye would walk on the seas, and the mountains would move at your call. The Kashf Al-Mahjub
“For now we see through a glass, darkly;…” How familiar this passage is to all of us, but what does it mean other than our vision is clouded by a material sense of things? Hermes tells us that we are both drunk and asleep; that we are ignorant of God. Emerson tells us that once in a while we awake from our slumber and look about us to perceive the world of reality, but too soon sink back again into sleep. And from another ancient text, quoted above, we are told that if we knew God as we ought to, we would be able to walk on the seas, that the mountains would come at our call. All progress is an awakening. Every new scientific fact is a discovery. This also is an awakening. It is really true that we are largely asleep, dreaming away the hours. “Awake thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life.” It is indeed “high time that we awake from this sleep.” No one can awaken us but the self. Let us, then, make every endeavor to arouse the mind to reality and to penetrate the gloom of fear and superstition; to cast aside doubt and uncertainty; to behold the Light which is eternal.
I awake! I awake! I awake! I am alive, awake and aware. My spiritual eyes are open. As from a long night’s sleep, I awake!
TODAY I ENTER INTO THE LIMITLESS VARIATIONS WHICH THE DIVINE SPIRIT HAS PROJECTED INTO MY EXPERIENCE
For all flesh is as grass, and all glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth forever. I Peter 1:24-25.
All products of Brahm, which is reality, are themselves real; and there is nothing different from it. Whoever says that there is (anything different), is not free from illusion but is like a man talking in his sleep. Raja Yoga Philosophy
The unreal hath no being; the real never ceaseth to be. The Bhagavad-Gita
The Gita tells us that unreality has no existence, while Reality cannot cease to be. Our lesson also states that all the effects of the Spirit are themselves real, and that there is nothing different from the Divine Spirit. Jesus tells us to judge not according to appearances. However, he did not tell us that appearances are unreal. The unreality of appearances lies not in the thing itself, but rather in our interpretation of it. If we spiritually interpret the universe, we shall understand it, enter into it, become one with it. We shall see that the bird, the rock, the mountain and the river are spiritual manifestations of the joy of the Divine Mind. The illusion is seeking to interpret them as being separate from the Infinite. The blade of grass may wither, and petals fall from the flower, but the idea, “… the word of the Lord endureth forever.” This is a very interesting lesson, since it teaches us that there is not only a fundamental unity, there is also an eternal variety. Without this variety life would become stagnant.
Today I enter into the limitless variations which the Divine Spirit has projected into my experience. I know that all things are good when rightly used. I perceive that all experience is a play of life upon itself. I enter into the game of living, then, with joyful anticipation, with spontaneous enthusiasm and with the determination to play the game well and to enjoy it.
TODAY I UNCOVER THE PERFECTION WITHIN ME IN ALL ITS FULLNESS
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 field. Matthew 13:44
Success (in the attainment of objects) forsaketh the person whose heart is unsteady, or who hath no control over his mind, or who is a slave of his senses. The Mahabharata
Without either hunger or thirst, beyond all grief (all) rejoice in the place of heaven. Katha Upanishad
Who would not be successful in the true sense of the term? For there is no success without happiness and a sense of certainty. There is something eternal about success. There is no grief in success, because one who is truly successful is no longer sad. He knows the things of this world are but temporary. His treasure is truly in heaven. Jesus likened it unto a treasure hid in a field, and he said he would sell everything we have in order that we might purchase this field and uncover this hidden treasure. This treasure, the Mahabharata tells us, cannot be found while the heart is unsteady, while one is slave to objective appearances, or while he lacks control over his thought world. All of this means that success, even in our objective undertakings, depends, first of all, upon stability of mind, consistency of purpose and concentration of effort. The kingdom of heaven is already hidden within us. The field which contains this hidden treasure is our own soul. The priceless Pearl is covered by the hardened shell of experience. We must learn to see God at the center of our being.
Today I uncover the perfection within me. In its fullness I reveal the indwelling kingdom. I look out upon the world of my affairs, knowing that the Spirit within me makes my way both immediate and easy, for I know that “it is not I, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”
I SEE GOD IN EVERYTHING; PERSONIFIED IN ALL PEOPLE; MANIFEST IN EVERY EVENT
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:3, 4
Theirs was the fullness of heaven and earth; the more that they gave to others, the more they had. Kwang-Tze
One is the Sense that’s active through them – their passions for each other. ‘Tis Love Himself who worketh the one harmony of all. Thus, therefore, let us sing the praise of God. Thrice-Greatest Hermes
Jesus said, “Give and to you shall be given.” All the great scriptures have been announced this central and transcendent truth, realizing that every act carries with it a sequence, bringing the result of this action back to the self. This is what is meant by Karma, for Karma means the fruit of action. Emerson called it the Law of Compensation, and Jesus proclaimed the same law in his teaching that as we sow, so shall we reap. This is why Kwang-Tse tells us that the more we give to others the more we have. Whitman also refers to this when he says, “The gift is most of the giver and comes back most to him.” This all means the return of the self to itself. The great apostle did not tell us to forget the self, he merely told us to also remember everyone else. That is, we are to see ourselves each in the other and behold God in all. Hermes tells us that when we realize Love as the great harmony, we shall all sing the praise of God. Before we can do this we must perceive this harmony in each other and in everything. Thus, everything which seems separated is united at the root. “Over all, in all and through all,” the “sustaining Beauty” of the inevitable “seed of perfection” to which Browning referred as nestling at the center of our own being.
I see God in everything, personified in all people, manifest in every event. The Spirit is not separated from the person or the event; It unites each to itself, vitalizing each with the energy of Its own being; creating each through Its own divine imagination. I, too, am an instrument of Its perfection, and today I recognize my union which is perfect and complete.
I KNOW THAT I UNDERSTAND HOW TO SPEAK THE WORD OF TRUTH
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63
And where do name and form both cease, and turn to utter nothingness? And the answer is, “In consciousness invisible and infinite, of radiance bright.” Buddhism in Translations
All the objects in the world are of one and the same taste, are of one reality, have nothing to do with the modes of particularization, and are not of dualistic character. The Awakening of Faith
This lesson tells us that the objective world is quickened by the indwelling Spirit. The words of truth are life unto every form which they animate. All words which are spoken in a realization of the Divine Nature are words of truth, and all such words give life. ”It is the spirit that quickeneth.” Our lesson also tells us that all objects, that is, the entire objective universe, comes from One Substance. This Substance is differentiated, that is, manifest in many forms. It looks as though the cause were dual because the forms are all different, but our lesson clearly states that we must not fall under this delusion which is of a dualistic character, but, rather, penetrate the Unity back of all form. In our text from Buddhism, we have the idea that there is a place where both the objective name and form cease to exist as things in themselves. There is an invisible consciousness which radiates all forms. This does not mean a denial of the objective world, but, rather, an affirmation that is an effect projected from, by, and within a transcendent cause which has complete control over it.
I know that I understand how to speak the word of truth. I know that the invisible Power of the Spirit is with me. I know that my world is peopled with forms of light, with the Divine Radiance. I know that I am a perfect being, living under perfect conditions with other perfect beings in a perfect God.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
I John 2:17
And the horde of evil passions cannot tarry there, even for a moment. Hymns of Mahayana Faith
All that is with you passeth away, but that which is with God abideth. The Koran
Neither the Will of God nor the Nature of God can change. Reality is the same ‘yesterday, today and forever.” That which was is, and that which is, will remain. Man’s nature is spiritual. The only thing about him that can change is that which ought not to be permanent. We are changeless beings living in a changing world. Thus all of our experiences are bound together on a thread of continuity which Lowell called “the thread of the All-Sustaining Beauty which runs through all and doth all unite.” It is wonderful to know that something permanent, substantial and eternal stands in the midst of our being, and, I believe, watches with joy the eternal change taking place. To the Spirit these changes are merely variations of experience. The Spirit is never caught, tied or bound. Ugliness may seem to exist for a brief moment but Beauty, like Truth, endures forever. All that is evil passes; as our Hymn of faith says, it cannot exist even for a moment when faced by the Divine Reality. Everything that we now experience objectively will change, as it ought to, “… but that which is with God (of good) abideth.”
I know that I live in a changeless Reality. I am not disturbed by the passage of time, the movement around me, nor the variations of experience through which I go. Something within me remains immovable and says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” This “I Am” which is God within me, is substantial, changeless and perfect.
