Latest / Non-Fiction Library / The Heavenly Life - James Allen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The divine center. The secret of life, of abundant life,
- 0:06Speaker 1: with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace, is
- 0:10Speaker 1: to find the divine center within oneself, and to live
- 0:14Speaker 1: in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference
- 0:18Speaker 1: of disturbances, the clamors, cravings, and argumentations which make up
- 0:23Speaker 1: the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the
- 0:29Speaker 1: mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by
- 0:32Speaker 1: him who would penetrate to the central heart of things,
- 0:36Speaker 1: to life itself. Not to know that within you that
- 0:40Speaker 1: is changeless and defiant of time and death, is not
- 0:44Speaker 1: to know anything, but is to play vainly with the
- 0:47Speaker 1: unsubstantial reflections in the mirror of time. Not to find
- 0:52Speaker 1: within you those passionless principles which are not moved by
- 0:56Speaker 1: the strifes and shows and vanities of the world. Is
- 0:59Speaker 1: defined nothing but illusions, which vanish as they are grasped.
- 1:05Speaker 1: He who resolves that he will not rest satisfied with appearances, shadows, illusions, shall,
- 1:12Speaker 1: by the piercing light of that resolve, disperse every fleeting fantasy,
- 1:17Speaker 1: and shall enter into the substance and reality of life.
- 1:21Speaker 1: He shall learn how to live, and he shall live,
- 1:25Speaker 1: he shall be the slave of no passion, the servant
- 1:28Speaker 1: of no opinion, the votary of no fond error. Finding
- 1:33Speaker 1: the divine center within his own heart, he will be
- 1:36Speaker 1: pure and calm, and strong and wise, and will ceaselessly
- 1:41Speaker 1: radiate the heavenly life in which he lives, which is himself,
- 1:47Speaker 1: Having betaken himself to the divine refuge within and remaining there,
- 1:52Speaker 1: a man is free from sin. All his yesterdays are
- 1:57Speaker 1: as the tide washed and untrodden sands. No sin shall
- 2:01Speaker 1: rise up against him, to torment and accuse him, and
- 2:04Speaker 1: destroy his sacred peace. The fires of remorse cannot scorch him,
- 2:09Speaker 1: nor can the storms of regret devastate his dwelling place.
- 2:13Speaker 1: His tomorrows are as seeds which shall germinate, bursting into
- 2:17Speaker 1: beauty and potency of life. And no doubt shall shake
- 2:21Speaker 1: his trust, no uncertainty rob him of repose. The present
- 2:26Speaker 1: is his only. In the immortal present does he live.
- 2:30Speaker 1: And it is as the eternal vault of blue above,
- 2:33Speaker 1: which looks down silently and calmly, yet radiant with purity
- 2:37Speaker 1: and light upon the upturned and tear stained faces of
- 2:41Speaker 1: the centuries. Men love their desires for gratification seem sweet
- 2:46Speaker 1: to them, but its end is pain and vacuity. They
- 2:50Speaker 1: love the argumentations of the intellect, for egotism seems most
- 2:54Speaker 1: desirable to them, but the fruits thereof are humiliation and sorrow.
- 3:00Speaker 1: When the soul has reached the end of gratification and
- 3:04Speaker 1: reaped the bitter fruits of egotism, it is ready to
- 3:07Speaker 1: receive the divine wisdom and to enter into the divine life.
- 3:12Speaker 1: Only the crucified can be transfigured. Only by the death
- 3:16Speaker 1: of self. Can the Lord of the heart rise again
- 3:18Speaker 1: into the immortal life and stand radiant upon the olivet
- 3:22Speaker 1: of wisdom? Do you have trials? Every outward trial is
- 3:28Speaker 1: the replica of an inward imperfection. You shall grow wise
- 3:32Speaker 1: by knowing this, and shall thereby transmute trial into active joy,
- 3:37Speaker 1: finding the kingdom where trial cannot come. When will you
- 3:41Speaker 1: learn your lessons, o, child of earth? All your sorrows
- 3:45Speaker 1: cry out against you. Every pain is your just accuser,
- 3:49Speaker 1: and your griefs are but the shadows of your unworthy
- 3:52Speaker 1: and perishable self. The kingdom of Heaven is yours. How
- 3:57Speaker 1: long will you reject it? Preferring the lurid atmosphere of hell,
- 4:02Speaker 1: the hell of your self seeking self. There springs the
- 4:06Speaker 1: healing streams, quenching all thirst. There bloom the immortal flowers,
- 4:11Speaker 1: carpeting all the way with joy. There throng, swiftest and
- 4:16Speaker 1: sweetest hours. The redeemed sons of God, the glorified in
- 4:22Speaker 1: body and spirit, are bought with a price, And that
- 4:26Speaker 1: price is the crucifixion of the personality, the death of self.
- 4:31Speaker 1: And having put away that within which is the source
- 4:34Speaker 1: of all discord, they have found the universal music, the
- 4:38Speaker 1: abiding joy. Life is more than motion. It is music
- 4:44Speaker 1: more than rest. It is peace more than work. It
- 4:48Speaker 1: is duty more than labor. It is love more than enjoyment.
- 4:54Speaker 1: It is blessedness more than acquiring money and position and reputation.
- 5:00Speaker 1: It is knowledge, purpose, strong, and high resolve. Let the
- 5:06Speaker 1: impure turn to purity, and they shall be pure. Let
- 5:10Speaker 1: the weak resort to strength, and they shall be strong.
- 5:14Speaker 1: Let the ignorant fly to knowledge, and they shall be wise.
- 5:19Speaker 1: All things are man's, And he chooses that which he
- 5:22Speaker 1: will have. To day, he chooses in ignorance. Tomorrow he
- 5:26Speaker 1: shall choose in wisdom. He shall work out his own salvation,
- 5:31Speaker 1: whether he believes it or not. For he cannot escape
- 5:35Speaker 1: himself nor transfer to another the eternal responsibility of his
- 5:39Speaker 1: own soul. By no theological subterfuge shall he trick the
- 5:44Speaker 1: law of his being, which shall shatter all his selfish
- 5:48Speaker 1: makeshifts and excuses for right thinking and right doing. Nor
- 5:52Speaker 1: shall God do for him that which it is destined
- 5:55Speaker 1: his soul shall accomplish for itself. What would you say
- 5:59Speaker 1: of a man men, who, wanting to possess a mansion
- 6:02Speaker 1: in which to dwell, peacefully purchased the sight, and then
- 6:05Speaker 1: knelt down and ask God to build the house for him.
- 6:09Speaker 1: Would you not say that such a man was foolish?
- 6:13Speaker 1: And of another man, who, having purchased the land, set
- 6:16Speaker 1: the architects and builders and carpenters at work to erect
- 6:20Speaker 1: the edifice, would you not say that he was wise?
- 6:24Speaker 1: And as it is in the building of a material house,
- 6:27Speaker 1: even so it is in the building of a spiritual mansion,
- 6:30Speaker 1: brick by brick, pure thought upon pure thought, good deed
- 6:34Speaker 1: upon good deed. Must the habitation of a blameless life
- 6:38Speaker 1: rise from its sure foundation, until at last it stands
- 6:42Speaker 1: out in all the majesty of its faultless proportions. Not
- 6:47Speaker 1: by caprice nor gift nor favor does a man obtain
- 6:51Speaker 1: the spiritual realities. But by diligence, watchfulness, energy, and effort.
- 6:57Speaker 1: Strong is the soul, and wise and beautiful. The seeds
- 7:01Speaker 1: of godlike power are in us still. Gods are we bards, saints,
- 7:07Speaker 1: heroes if we will. The spiritual heart of a man
- 7:12Speaker 1: is the heart of the universe, and finding that heart
- 7:16Speaker 1: man finds the strength to accomplish all things. He finds
- 7:21Speaker 1: there also the wisdom to see things as they are.
- 7:25Speaker 1: He finds there the peace that is divine at the
- 7:28Speaker 1: center of man's being is the music which orders the stars,
- 7:33Speaker 1: the eternal harmony. He who would find blessedness, let him
- 7:38Speaker 1: find himself. Let him abandon every discordant desire, every inharmonious thought,
- 7:45Speaker 1: every unlovely habit and deed, and he will find that
- 7:48Speaker 1: grace and beauty and harmony which form the indestructible essence
- 7:53Speaker 1: of his own being. Men fly from creed to creed
- 7:58Speaker 1: and find unrest. They travel in many lands and discover disappointment.
- 8:04Speaker 1: They build themselves beautiful mansions and plant pleasant gardens, and
- 8:08Speaker 1: reap weariness, heaviness, and discomfort. Not until a man falls
- 8:14Speaker 1: back upon the truth within himself does he find rest
- 8:17Speaker 1: and satisfaction. Not until he builds the inward mansion of
- 8:21Speaker 1: faultless conduct does he find the endless and incorruptible joy.
- 8:26Speaker 1: And having obtained that, he will infuse it into all
- 8:30Speaker 1: his outward doings and possessions. If a man would have peace,
- 8:35Speaker 1: let him exercise the spirit of peace. If he would
- 8:39Speaker 1: find love, let him dwell in the spirit of love.
- 8:42Speaker 1: If he would escape suffering, let him cease to inflict it.
- 8:46Speaker 1: If he would do noble things for humanity, let him
- 8:49Speaker 1: cease to do ignoble things for himself. If he will
- 8:54Speaker 1: but quarry the mind of his own soul, he shall
- 8:57Speaker 1: find there all the materials for building whatever he will,
- 9:01Speaker 1: And he shall find there also the central rock upon
- 9:05Speaker 1: which to build in safety. Howsoever a man works to
- 9:09Speaker 1: write the world, it will never be righted until he
- 9:13Speaker 1: has put himself right. This may be written upon the
- 9:17Speaker 1: heart as a mathematical axiom. It is not enough to
- 9:21Speaker 1: preach purity. Men must cease from lust to exhort to love.
- 9:26Speaker 1: They must abandon hatred to extol self sacrifice. They must
- 9:31Speaker 1: yield up self to adorn with mere words the perfect life.
- 9:36Speaker 1: They must be perfect when a man can no longer
- 9:40Speaker 1: carry the weight of his many sins, let him fly
- 9:43Speaker 1: to Christ, whose throne is the center of his own heart,
- 9:47Speaker 1: and he shall become light hearted, entering the glad company
- 9:50Speaker 1: of the immortals. When he can no longer bear the
- 9:54Speaker 1: burden of his accumulated learning. Let a man leave his books,
- 9:58Speaker 1: his science, his philosophy, and come back to himself, and
- 10:02Speaker 1: he will find within that which he outwardly sought and found,
- 10:06Speaker 1: not his own divinity. He ceases to argue about God,
- 10:12Speaker 1: who has found God within. Relying upon that calm strength
- 10:16Speaker 1: which is not the strength of self, he lives God
- 10:20Speaker 1: manifesting in his daily life the highest goodness, which is
- 10:25Speaker 1: eternal life. The eternal Now. Now is the reality in
- 10:31Speaker 1: which time is contained. It is more and greater than time.
- 10:36Speaker 1: It is an ever present reality. It knows neither past
- 10:40Speaker 1: nor future, and is eternally potent and substantial. Every minute,
- 10:46Speaker 1: every day, every year is a dream as soon as
- 10:49Speaker 1: it has passed, and exists only as an imperfect and
- 10:53Speaker 1: unsubstantial picture in the memory if it be not entirely obliterated.
- 10:59Speaker 1: Past and future are dreams. Now is a reality. All
- 11:04Speaker 1: things are now, all power, all possibility, all action is now.
- 11:10Speaker 1: Not to act and accomplish now is not to act
- 11:14Speaker 1: and accomplish at all. To live in thoughts of what
- 11:18Speaker 1: you might have done, or in dreams of what you
- 11:20Speaker 1: mean to do, this is folly. But to put away regret,
- 11:25Speaker 1: to anchor anticipation, and to do and to work now,
- 11:29Speaker 1: this is wisdom. Whilst a man is dwelling upon the
- 11:33Speaker 1: past or future, he is missing the present. He is
- 11:37Speaker 1: forgetting to live now. All things are possible now and
- 11:42Speaker 1: only now, without wisdom to guide him, and mistaking the
- 11:46Speaker 1: unreal for the real. A man says, if I had
- 11:49Speaker 1: done so and so last week, last month, or last year,
- 11:54Speaker 1: it would have been better with me today. Or I
- 11:57Speaker 1: know what is best to be done, and I will
- 11:59Speaker 1: do it toime tomorrow. The selfish cannot comprehend the vast
- 12:04Speaker 1: importance and value of the present, and fail to see
- 12:07Speaker 1: it as the substantial reality of which past and future
- 12:11Speaker 1: are the empty reflections. It may truly be said that
- 12:15Speaker 1: past and future do not exist except as negative shadows,
- 12:19Speaker 1: and to live in them, that is, in the regretful
- 12:22Speaker 1: and selfish contemplation of them, is to miss the reality
- 12:26Speaker 1: in life. The present, The present is all thou hast
- 12:30Speaker 1: for thy, secure, possessing, like the Patriarch's angel, hold it
- 12:35Speaker 1: fast till it gives its blessing. All which is real
- 12:39Speaker 1: now remaineth and fadeth never. The hand which upholds it
- 12:44Speaker 1: now sustaineth the soul forever. Then. Of what is to
- 12:48Speaker 1: be and of what is done, Why queriest thou. The
- 12:53Speaker 1: past and the time to be are one, and both
- 12:58Speaker 1: are now. Man has all power now, But not knowing this,
- 13:04Speaker 1: he says, I will be perfect next year, or in
- 13:08Speaker 1: so many years, or in so many lives. The dwellers
- 13:12Speaker 1: in the Kingdom of God, who live only in the now,
- 13:15Speaker 1: say I am perfect now, And refraining from all sin
- 13:19Speaker 1: now and ceaselessly guarding the portals of the mind, not
- 13:24Speaker 1: looking to the past, nor to the future, nor turning
- 13:27Speaker 1: to the left or right, they remain eternally holy and blessed.
- 13:32Speaker 1: Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.
- 13:37Speaker 1: Say to yourself, I will live in my ideal. Now,
- 13:42Speaker 1: I will manifest my ideal. Now. I will be my
- 13:46Speaker 1: ideal now, And all that tempts me away from my
- 13:50Speaker 1: ideal I will not listen to. I will listen only
- 13:53Speaker 1: to the voice of my ideal. Thus resolving, and thus doing,
- 13:58Speaker 1: you shall not depart from the highest, and shall eternally
- 14:02Speaker 1: manifest the true. A foot and light hearted, I take
- 14:07Speaker 1: to the open road. Henceforth I ask no good fortune,
- 14:11Speaker 1: I myself am good fortune. Henceforth I whimper no more postpone,
- 14:16Speaker 1: no more need nothing done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
- 14:24Speaker 1: strong and content, I take to the open road. Cease
- 14:29Speaker 1: to tread every by way of dependence, every winding sideway
- 14:33Speaker 1: that tempts your soul into the shadow land of the
- 14:36Speaker 1: past and future, and manifest your native and divine strength.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Now come out into the open road that which you
- 14:44Speaker 1: would be and hope to be. You may be now.
- 14:48Speaker 1: Non accomplishment resides in your perpetual postponement, and having the
- 14:53Speaker 1: power to postpone, you also have the power to accomplish.
- 14:58Speaker 1: To perpetually accomplish. Realize this truth, and you shall be
- 15:03Speaker 1: to day and every day the ideal man of whom
- 15:06Speaker 1: you dreamed. Virtue consists in fighting sin day after day,
- 15:12Speaker 1: but holiness consists in leaving sin unnoticed and ignored to
- 15:16Speaker 1: die by the wayside. And this is done can only
- 15:20Speaker 1: be done in the living. Now say not unto your soul.
- 15:25Speaker 1: You shall be purer tomorrow, but rather say you shall
- 15:30Speaker 1: be pure now. Tomorrow is too late for anything, and
- 15:35Speaker 1: he who sees his help and salvation and tomorrow shall
- 15:38Speaker 1: continually fail and fall to day. Did you fall yesterday?
- 15:43Speaker 1: Did you sin grievously? Having realized this, leave it instantly
- 15:49Speaker 1: and forever, and watch that you sin not now. While
- 15:55Speaker 1: you are bewailing the past, every gate of your soul
- 15:58Speaker 1: remains unguarded again, hence the entrance of sin. Now. You
- 16:03Speaker 1: shall not rise by grieving over the irremediable past, but
- 16:07Speaker 1: by remedying the present. The foolish man, loving the swampy
- 16:12Speaker 1: side path of procrastination rather than the firm highway of
- 16:16Speaker 1: present effort, says, I will rise early tomorrow, I will
- 16:21Speaker 1: get out of debt tomorrow. I will carry out my
- 16:24Speaker 1: intentions tomorrow. But the wise man, realizing the momentous import
- 16:29Speaker 1: of the eternal, now, rises early today, keeps out of
- 16:33Speaker 1: debt today, carries out his intentions today, and so never
- 16:38Speaker 1: departs from strength and peace and ripe accomplishment. That which
- 16:44Speaker 1: is done now remains, that which is to be done
- 16:48Speaker 1: tomorrow does not appear. It is wisdom to leave that
- 16:52Speaker 1: which has not arrived, and to attend to that which is,
- 16:56Speaker 1: and to attend to it with such consecration of soul
- 17:00Speaker 1: and consecration of effort as shall leave no possible loophole
- 17:04Speaker 1: for regret to creep in. A man's spiritual comprehension, being
- 17:09Speaker 1: clouded by the illusions of self, he says, I was
- 17:12Speaker 1: born on such a day, so many years ago, and
- 17:15Speaker 1: shall die at my allotted time. Let a man throw
- 17:18Speaker 1: off his illusions, and then he will see that the
- 17:21Speaker 1: birth and death of the body are the mere incidents
- 17:25Speaker 1: of a journey, and not its beginning and end, looking
- 17:29Speaker 1: back to happy beginnings and forward to mournful endings. A
- 17:32Speaker 1: man's eyes are blinded so that he beholds not his
- 17:35Speaker 1: own immortality. His ears are closed so that he hears
- 17:40Speaker 1: not the ever present harmonies of joy, and his heart
- 17:44Speaker 1: is hardened so that it pulsates not to the rhythmic
- 17:47Speaker 1: sounds of peace. The universe, with all that it contains,
- 17:51Speaker 1: is now put out thy hand, o man, and receive
- 17:56Speaker 1: the fruits of wisdom. Cease from your greedy striving, your
- 18:00Speaker 1: selfish sorrowing, your foolish regretting, and be content to live.
- 18:06Speaker 1: Act now and lo all things are done. Live now
- 18:11Speaker 1: and behold, you are in the midst of plenty. Be
- 18:14Speaker 1: now and know that you are perfect. The original simplicity.
- 18:22Speaker 1: Life is simple, being is simple, The universe is simple.
- 18:28Speaker 1: Complexity arises in ignorance and self delusion. The quote original
- 18:33Speaker 1: simplicity of Loyltsey is a term expressive of the universe
- 18:38Speaker 1: as it is, and not as it appears. Looking through
- 18:43Speaker 1: the woven network of his own illusions, man sees interminable
- 18:47Speaker 1: complications and unfathomable mystery, and so loses himself in the
- 18:52Speaker 1: labyrinths of his own making. Let a man put away egotism,
- 18:56Speaker 1: and he will see the universe in all the beauty
- 18:59Speaker 1: of pristine simplicity. Let him annihilate the delusion of the
- 19:04Speaker 1: personal pronoun i, and he will destroy all the illusions
- 19:08Speaker 1: which spring from that eye. He will thus re become
- 19:13Speaker 1: a little child, and will revert to original simplicity. When
- 19:18Speaker 1: a man succeeds in entirely forgetting annihilating his personal self,
- 19:23Speaker 1: he becomes a mirror in which the universal reality is
- 19:27Speaker 1: faultlessly reflected. He has awakened, and henceforth he lives not
- 19:32Speaker 1: in dreams but in realities. Pythagoras saw the universe in
- 19:37Speaker 1: the ten numbers. But even this simplicity may be further reduced,
- 19:42Speaker 1: and the universe ultimately be found to be contained in
- 19:46Speaker 1: the number one. For all the numerals and all their
- 19:49Speaker 1: infinite complications, are but additions of the one. Let life
- 19:55Speaker 1: cease to be lived as a fragmentary thing, and let
- 19:58Speaker 1: it be lived as a perfect whole. The simplicity of
- 20:01Speaker 1: the perfect will then be revealed. How shall the fragment
- 20:06Speaker 1: comprehend the whole? Yet how simple that the whole should
- 20:09Speaker 1: comprehend the fragment. How shall sin perceive holiness? Yet how
- 20:14Speaker 1: plain that holiness should understand sin. He who would become
- 20:18Speaker 1: the greater, let him abandon the lesser. In no form
- 20:23Speaker 1: is the circle contained, but in the circle all forms
- 20:26Speaker 1: are contained. In no color is the radiant light imprisoned,
- 20:31Speaker 1: But in the radiant light all colors are embodied. Let
- 20:36Speaker 1: a man destroy all the forms of self, and he
- 20:39Speaker 1: shall apprehend the circle of perfection. Let him submerge in
- 20:43Speaker 1: the silent depths of his being, the varying colors of
- 20:46Speaker 1: his thoughts and desires, and he shall be illuminated with
- 20:50Speaker 1: the white light of divine knowledge, in the perfect chord
- 20:54Speaker 1: of music. The single note, though forgotten, is indispensably contained,
- 21:00Speaker 1: and the drop of water becomes of supreme usefulness by
- 21:04Speaker 1: losing itself in the ocean. Sink yourself compassionately in the
- 21:08Speaker 1: heart of humanity, and you will reproduce the harmonies of heaven.
- 21:13Speaker 1: Lose yourself in unlimited love toward all, and you will
- 21:17Speaker 1: work enduring works, and shall become one with the eternal
- 21:20Speaker 1: ocean of bliss. Man evolves outward to the periphery of complexity,
- 21:27Speaker 1: and then devolves backward to the central simplicity. When a
- 21:32Speaker 1: man discovers that it is mathematically impossible for him to
- 21:36Speaker 1: know the universe before knowing himself, then he starts upon
- 21:40Speaker 1: the way which leads to the original simplicity. He begins
- 21:44Speaker 1: to unfold from within, and as he unfolds himself, he
- 21:48Speaker 1: enfolds the universe. Cease to speculate about God and find
- 21:53Speaker 1: the all embracing good within you. Then you shall see
- 21:57Speaker 1: the emptiness and vanity of speculation, knowing yourself one with God.
- 22:03Speaker 1: He who will not give up his secret, lust, his covetousness,
- 22:07Speaker 1: his anger, his opinion about this or that can see
- 22:11Speaker 1: nor know nothing, He will remain a dullard in the
- 22:14Speaker 1: school of wisdom, though he be accounted learned in the colleges.
- 22:19Speaker 1: If a man would find the key of knowledge, let
- 22:22Speaker 1: him find himself. Your sins are not yourself. They are
- 22:26Speaker 1: not any part of yourself. They are diseases which you
- 22:29Speaker 1: have come to love. Cease to cling to them, and
- 22:33Speaker 1: they will no longer cling to you. Let them fall away,
- 22:37Speaker 1: and yourself shall stand revealed. You shall then know yourself
- 22:42Speaker 1: as comprehensive vision, invincible principle, immortal life, and eternal good.
- 22:49Speaker 1: The impure man believes impurity to be his rightful condition,
- 22:54Speaker 1: but the pure man knows himself as pure being. He also,
- 22:58Speaker 1: penetrating the veils, sees all others as pure being. Purity
- 23:04Speaker 1: is extremely simple and needs no argument to support it.
- 23:08Speaker 1: Impurity is interminably complex and is ever involved in defensive argument.
- 23:15Speaker 1: Truth lives itself a blameless life is the only witness
- 23:20Speaker 1: of truth. Men cannot see and will not accept the
- 23:24Speaker 1: witness until they find it within themselves, and having found it,
- 23:28Speaker 1: a man becomes silent before his fellows. Truth is so
- 23:33Speaker 1: simple that it cannot be found in the region of
- 23:36Speaker 1: argument and advertisement, and so silent that it is only
- 23:40Speaker 1: manifested in actions. So extremely simple is original simplicity that
- 23:46Speaker 1: a man must let go his hold of everything before
- 23:49Speaker 1: he can perceive it. The great arch is strong by
- 23:53Speaker 1: virtue of the hollowness underneath, and a wise man becomes
- 23:57Speaker 1: strong and invincible by emptying himself. Meekness, patience, love, compassion,
- 24:04Speaker 1: and wisdom. These are the dominant qualities of original simplicity.
- 24:10Speaker 1: Therefore the imperfect cannot understand it. Wisdom only can apprehend wisdom.
- 24:16Speaker 1: Therefore the fool says, no man is wise. The imperfect
- 24:20Speaker 1: man says, no man can be perfect, and he therefore
- 24:23Speaker 1: remains where he is. Though he live with a perfect
- 24:27Speaker 1: man all his life, he shall not behold his perfection.
- 24:31Speaker 1: Meekness he will call cowardice, patience, love, and compassion. He
- 24:36Speaker 1: will see his weakness, and wisdom will appear to him
- 24:40Speaker 1: as folly. Faultless. Discrimination belongs to the perfect whole and
- 24:45Speaker 1: resides not in any part. Therefore, men are exhorted to
- 24:49Speaker 1: refrain from judgment until they have themselves manifested the perfect life.
- 24:56Speaker 1: Arriving at original simplicity, opacity disappears, and the universal transparency
- 25:02Speaker 1: becomes apparent. He who has found the indwelling reality of
- 25:06Speaker 1: his own being, has found the original and universal reality.
- 25:12Speaker 1: Knowing the divine heart within all hearts are known, and
- 25:16Speaker 1: the thoughts of all men become his, who has become
- 25:19Speaker 1: the master of his own thoughts. Therefore, the good man
- 25:23Speaker 1: does not defend himself, but molds the minds of others
- 25:26Speaker 1: to his own likeness. As the problematical transcends crudity, so
- 25:32Speaker 1: pure goodness transcends the problematical. All problems vanish when pure
- 25:38Speaker 1: goodness is reached. Therefore the good man is called the
- 25:41Speaker 1: slayer of illusions? What problem can vex where sin is not?
- 25:48Speaker 1: O you who would strive loudly and rest, not retire
- 25:52Speaker 1: into the holy silence of your own being and live
- 25:55Speaker 1: therefrom So shall you, finding pure goodness, rend in twain
- 26:01Speaker 1: the veil of the temple of illusion, and shall enter
- 26:04Speaker 1: into the patience, peace, and transcendent glory of the perfect.
- 26:08Speaker 1: For pure goodness and original simplicity are one the unfailing wisdom.
- 26:16Speaker 1: A man should be superior to his possessions, his body,
- 26:19Speaker 1: his circumstances and surroundings, and the opinions of others and
- 26:24Speaker 1: their attitude towards him. Until he is this, he is
- 26:28Speaker 1: not strong and steadfast. He should also rise superior to
- 26:33Speaker 1: his own desires and opinions. Until he is this, he
- 26:37Speaker 1: is not wise. The man who identifies himself with his
- 26:41Speaker 1: possessions will feel that all is lost when these are lost.
- 26:47Speaker 1: He who regards himself as the outcome and the tool
- 26:50Speaker 1: of circumstances will weakly fluctuate with every change in his
- 26:55Speaker 1: outward condition, and great will be his unrest and pain.
- 26:59Speaker 1: Who sin to stand upon the approbation of others, To
- 27:03Speaker 1: detach one's self from every outward thing, and to rest
- 27:07Speaker 1: securely upon the inward virtue, this is unfailing wisdom. Having
- 27:13Speaker 1: this wisdom, a man will be the same, whether in
- 27:16Speaker 1: riches or poverty. The one cannot add to his strength,
- 27:20Speaker 1: nor the other rob him of his serenity. Neither can
- 27:24Speaker 1: riches defile him who has washed away all the inward defilement,
- 27:29Speaker 1: nor lack of them degrade him who has ceased to
- 27:32Speaker 1: degrade the temple of his soul. To refuse to be
- 27:36Speaker 1: enslaved by any outward thing or happening. Regarding all such
- 27:40Speaker 1: things and happenings, as for your use for your education,
- 27:45Speaker 1: this is wisdom to the wise. All occurrences are good
- 27:50Speaker 1: and having no eye for evil, they grow wiser every day.
- 27:55Speaker 1: They utilize all things, and thus put all things under
- 27:59Speaker 1: their feet. They see all their mistakes as soon as made,
- 28:03Speaker 1: and accept them as lessons of intrinsic value, Knowing that
- 28:07Speaker 1: there are no mistakes in the divine order. They thus
- 28:11Speaker 1: rapidly approach the divine perfection. They are moved by none,
- 28:16Speaker 1: yet learn from all. They crave love from no one,
- 28:20Speaker 1: yet give love to all, to learn, and not be
- 28:24Speaker 1: shaken to love where one is not loved. Herein lies
- 28:29Speaker 1: the strength which shall never fail a man. The man
- 28:33Speaker 1: who says in his heart, I will teach all men
- 28:36Speaker 1: and learn from none, will neither teach nor learn whilst
- 28:40Speaker 1: he is in that frame of mind, but will remain
- 28:43Speaker 1: in his folly. All strength and wisdom and power and
- 28:48Speaker 1: knowledge a man will find within himself, But he will
- 28:51Speaker 1: not find it in egotism. He will only find it
- 28:55Speaker 1: in obedience, submission, and willingness to learn. He must obey
- 29:00Speaker 1: the higher and not glorify himself in the lower. He
- 29:05Speaker 1: who stands upon egotism, rejecting reproof, instruction and the lessons
- 29:09Speaker 1: of experience, will surely fall yea he has already fallen,
- 29:15Speaker 1: set a great teacher to his disciples. Those who shall
- 29:19Speaker 1: be a lamp unto themselves, relying upon themselves only, and
- 29:23Speaker 1: not relying upon any external help, but holding fast to
- 29:28Speaker 1: the Truth as their lamp, and seeking their salvation in
- 29:32Speaker 1: the Truth alone, shall not look for assistance to any
- 29:35Speaker 1: besides themselves. It is they among my disciples who shall
- 29:40Speaker 1: reach the very topmost height. But they must be willing
- 29:44Speaker 1: to learn. The wise man is always anxious to learn,
- 29:48Speaker 1: but never anxious to teach, for he knows that the
- 29:51Speaker 1: true teacher is in the heart of every man, and
- 29:55Speaker 1: must ultimately be found there by all. The foolish man,
- 29:59Speaker 1: being governed largely by vanity, is very anxious to teach,
- 30:04Speaker 1: but unwilling to learn, not having found the holy teacher
- 30:07Speaker 1: within who speaks wisdom to the humbly listening soul, be
- 30:12Speaker 1: self reliant, but let your self reliance be saintly and
- 30:17Speaker 1: not selfish. Folly and wisdom, weakness and strength are within
- 30:22Speaker 1: a man, and not in any external thing. Neither do
- 30:26Speaker 1: they spring from any external cause. A man cannot be
- 30:30Speaker 1: strong for another, he can only be strong for himself.
- 30:35Speaker 1: He cannot overcome for another, he can only overcome for himself.
- 30:40Speaker 1: You may learn of another, but you must accomplish for yourself.
- 30:45Speaker 1: Put away all external props, and rely upon the truth
- 30:48Speaker 1: within you. A creed will not bear a man up
- 30:52Speaker 1: in the hour of temptation. He must possess the inward
- 30:56Speaker 1: knowledge which slays temptation. A speculat relative philosophy will prove
- 31:02Speaker 1: a shadowy thing in the time of calamity. A man
- 31:05Speaker 1: must have the inward wisdom which puts an end to grief. Goodness,
- 31:10Speaker 1: which is the aim of all religions, is distinct from
- 31:14Speaker 1: religions themselves. Wisdom, which is the aim of every philosophy,
- 31:20Speaker 1: is distinct from all philosophies. The unfailing wisdom is found
- 31:25Speaker 1: only by constant practice in pure thinking and well doing,
- 31:29Speaker 1: by harmonizing one's mind and heart to those things which
- 31:32Speaker 1: are beautiful, lovable, and true. In whatever condition a man
- 31:37Speaker 1: finds himself, he can always find the true, and he
- 31:41Speaker 1: can find it only by so utilizing his present condition
- 31:46Speaker 1: as to become strong and wise. The effeminate hankering after rewards,
- 31:52Speaker 1: and the craven fear of punishment, let them be put
- 31:55Speaker 1: away forever, and let a man joyfully bend himself to
- 31:59Speaker 1: the faith performance of all his duties forgetting himself and
- 32:04Speaker 1: his worthless pleasures, and living strong and pure and self contained.
- 32:09Speaker 1: So shall he surely find the unfailing wisdom, the god
- 32:13Speaker 1: like patience and strength. The situation that has not its duty,
- 32:19Speaker 1: its ideal was never yet occupied by man. Here or
- 32:24Speaker 1: nowhere is your ideal. Work it out therefrom and working, believe, live,
- 32:32Speaker 1: be free. The ideal is in yourself. The impediment, too,
- 32:38Speaker 1: is in yourself. Your condition is but the stuff you
- 32:41Speaker 1: are to shape that same ideal out of what matters,
- 32:45Speaker 1: whether such stuff be of this sort or that, So
- 32:49Speaker 1: the form you give it be heroic or poetic. Ow
- 32:53Speaker 1: you that pine away in the imprisonment of the actual,
- 32:58Speaker 1: and cry bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein
- 33:01Speaker 1: to rule and create. Know this of a truth. The
- 33:05Speaker 1: thing you seek is already within you here and now.
- 33:10Speaker 1: Could you only see all that is beautiful and blessed
- 33:14Speaker 1: is in yourself, not in your neighbour's wealth. Are you poor?
- 33:20Speaker 1: You are poor. Indeed, if you are not stronger than
- 33:23Speaker 1: your poverty, you have suffered calamities. Well will you cure
- 33:28Speaker 1: calamity by adding anxiety to it? Can you mend a
- 33:32Speaker 1: broken vase? By weeping over it, or restore a lost
- 33:35Speaker 1: delight by your lamentations. There is no evil, but will
- 33:41Speaker 1: vanish if you will wisely meet it. The godlike soul
- 33:45Speaker 1: does not grieve over that which has been, is, or
- 33:49Speaker 1: will be, but perpetually finds the divine good and gains
- 33:54Speaker 1: wisdom by every occurrence. Fear is the shadow of selfishness,
- 34:00Speaker 1: and cannot live where loving wisdom is doubt. Anxiety and
- 34:05Speaker 1: worry are unsubstantial shades of the underworld of self, and
- 34:09Speaker 1: shall no more trouble him who will climb the serene
- 34:13Speaker 1: altitudes of his soul. Grief also will be forever dispelled
- 34:17Speaker 1: by him who will comprehend the law of his being.
- 34:22Speaker 1: He who comprehends shall find the supreme law of life,
- 34:26Speaker 1: and he shall find that it is love, that it
- 34:29Speaker 1: is imperishable love. He shall become one with that love,
- 34:34Speaker 1: and loving all with mind. Freed from all hatred and folly,
- 34:38Speaker 1: he shall receive the invincible protection which love affords. Claiming nothing,
- 34:45Speaker 1: he shall suffer no loss, seek no pleasure, he shall
- 34:49Speaker 1: find no grief, and, employing all his powers as instruments
- 34:53Speaker 1: of service, he shall evermore live in the highest state
- 34:57Speaker 1: of blessedness and bliss. Know this, you make and unmake yourself.
- 35:05Speaker 1: You stand and fall by what you are. You are
- 35:09Speaker 1: a slave, if you prefer to be, you are a master.
- 35:14Speaker 1: If you will make yourself one. Build upon your animal
- 35:18Speaker 1: desires and intellectual opinions, and you build upon the sand,
- 35:24Speaker 1: build upon virtue and holiness. And no wind or tide
- 35:28Speaker 1: shall shake your strong abode. So shall the unfailing wisdom
- 35:32Speaker 1: uphold you in every emergency, and the everlasting arms gather
- 35:37Speaker 1: you to your peace. Lay up each year thy harvest
- 35:41Speaker 1: of well doing, wealth that kings nor thieves can take away.
- 35:47Speaker 1: When all the things thou callest thine goods, pleasures, honors, fall, Thou,
- 35:54Speaker 1: in thy virtue, shall survive them. All the might of meekness.
- 36:02Speaker 1: The mountain bends not to the fiercest storm, but it
- 36:05Speaker 1: shields the fledgling and the lamb, And though all men
- 36:09Speaker 1: tread upon it, yet it protects them and bears them
- 36:12Speaker 1: up upon its deathless bosom. Even so is it with
- 36:15Speaker 1: the meek man, who, though shaken and disturbed by none,
- 36:20Speaker 1: yet compassionately bends to shield the lowliest creature, and though
- 36:24Speaker 1: he may be despised, lifts up all men and lovingly
- 36:28Speaker 1: protects them. As glorious as the mountain in its silent might,
- 36:34Speaker 1: is the divine man in his silent meekness, like its form,
- 36:39Speaker 1: his loving comparison is expansive and sublime. Truly, His body,
- 36:45Speaker 1: like the mountain's base, is fixed in the valleys and
- 36:48Speaker 1: the mists, but the summit of his being is eternally
- 36:51Speaker 1: bathed in cloudless glory and lives with the silences. He
- 36:58Speaker 1: who has found meekness has found divinity. He who has
- 37:02Speaker 1: realized the divine consciousness and knows himself is divine. He
- 37:09Speaker 1: also knows all others as divine, though they know it
- 37:12Speaker 1: not themselves, being sleep and dreaming, meekness is a divine quality,
- 37:19Speaker 1: and as such is all powerful. The meek man overcomes
- 37:24Speaker 1: by not resisting, and by allowing himself to be defeated,
- 37:28Speaker 1: he attains to the supreme conquest. The man who conquers
- 37:33Speaker 1: another by force is strong. The man who conquers himself
- 37:38Speaker 1: by meekness is mighty. He who conquers another by force
- 37:43Speaker 1: will himself likewise be conquered. He who conquers himself by
- 37:47Speaker 1: meekness will never be overthrown, For the human cannot overcome
- 37:52Speaker 1: the divine. The meek man is triumphant in defeat. Socrates
- 37:58Speaker 1: lives the more by being put to death. In the
- 38:02Speaker 1: crucified Jesus, the risen Christ is revealed, and Stephen, in
- 38:07Speaker 1: receiving his stoning, defies the hurting power of stones. That
- 38:13Speaker 1: which is real cannot be destroyed, but only that which
- 38:16Speaker 1: is unreal. When a man finds that within him which
- 38:20Speaker 1: is real, which is constant, abiding, changeless, and eternal, he
- 38:25Speaker 1: enters into that reality and becomes meek. All the powers
- 38:30Speaker 1: of darkness will come against him, but they will do
- 38:33Speaker 1: him no hurt, and will at last depart from him.
- 38:38Speaker 1: The meek man is found in the time of trial.
- 38:41Speaker 1: When other men fall, he stands. His patience is not
- 38:45Speaker 1: destroyed by the foolish passions of others, and when they
- 38:49Speaker 1: come against him, he does not strive or cry. He
- 38:53Speaker 1: knows the utter powerlessness of all evil, having overcome it
- 38:57Speaker 1: in himself, and lives in the changeless strength and power
- 39:01Speaker 1: of divine good. Meekness is one aspect of the operation
- 39:06Speaker 1: of that changeless love, which is at the heart of
- 39:09Speaker 1: all things, and is therefore an imperishable quality. He who
- 39:15Speaker 1: lives in it is without fear, knowing the highest, and
- 39:19Speaker 1: having the lowest under his feet. The meek man shines
- 39:24Speaker 1: in darkness and flourishes in obscurity. Meekness cannot boast, nor
- 39:30Speaker 1: advertise itself, nor thrive on popularity. It is practiced and
- 39:36Speaker 1: is seen or not seen. Being a spiritual quality, it
- 39:40Speaker 1: is perceived only by the eye of the spirit. Those
- 39:44Speaker 1: who are not spiritually awakened see it not, nor do
- 39:47Speaker 1: they love it, being enamored of and blinded by worldly
- 39:51Speaker 1: shows and appearances. Nor does history take note of the
- 39:56Speaker 1: meek man. Its glory is that of strife and self.
- 39:59Speaker 1: Agree his is the glory of peace and gentleness. History
- 40:06Speaker 1: chronicles the earthly, not the heavenly. Acts. Yet though he
- 40:10Speaker 1: lives in obscurity, he cannot be hidden. How can light
- 40:15Speaker 1: be hid? He continues to shine after he has withdrawn
- 40:20Speaker 1: himself from the world, and is worshiped by the world
- 40:24Speaker 1: which knew him. Not that the meek man should be neglected, abused,
- 40:28Speaker 1: or misunderstood is reckoned by him as of no account,
- 40:32Speaker 1: and therefore not to be considered, much less resisted. He
- 40:37Speaker 1: knows that all such weapons are the flimsiest and most
- 40:41Speaker 1: ineffectual of shadows. To them. Therefore, who give him evil,
- 40:46Speaker 1: he gives good. He resists none, and thereby conquers all.
- 40:52Speaker 1: He who imagines he can be injured by others, and
- 40:56Speaker 1: who seeks to justify and defend himself against them, does
- 41:00Speaker 1: not understand Meekness does not comprehend the essence and meaning
- 41:05Speaker 1: of life. He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me,
- 41:10Speaker 1: he robbed me. Those who harbor such thoughts hatred will
- 41:15Speaker 1: never cease, For hatred ceases not by hatred at any time.
- 41:21Speaker 1: Hatred ceases by love. What do you say your neighbor
- 41:27Speaker 1: has spoken of you falsely? Well? What of that? Can
- 41:31Speaker 1: a falsity hurt you? That which is false is false,
- 41:36Speaker 1: and there is an end of it. It is without
- 41:38Speaker 1: life and without power to hurt any but him who
- 41:42Speaker 1: seeks to hurt by it. It is nothing to you
- 41:46Speaker 1: that your neighbor should speak falsely of you, But it
- 41:49Speaker 1: is much to you that you should resist him and
- 41:52Speaker 1: seek to justify yourself. For by so doing you give
- 41:57Speaker 1: life and vitality to your neighbor's falseness, so that you
- 42:01Speaker 1: are injured and distressed. Take all evil out of your
- 42:05Speaker 1: own heart. Then shall you see the folly of resisting
- 42:09Speaker 1: it in another, you will be trodden on. You are
- 42:13Speaker 1: trodden on already. If you think thus, the injury that
- 42:17Speaker 1: you see as coming from another comes only from yourself.
- 42:22Speaker 1: The wrong thought or word or act of another has
- 42:25Speaker 1: no power to hurt you unless you galvanize it into
- 42:29Speaker 1: life by your passionate resistance, and so receive it into yourself.
- 42:34Speaker 1: If any man slander me, that is his concern, not mine.
- 42:39Speaker 1: I have to do with my own soul, not with
- 42:42Speaker 1: my neighbors. Though all the world misjudge me, it is
- 42:46Speaker 1: no business of mine. But that I should possess my
- 42:50Speaker 1: soul in purity and love. That is all my business.
- 42:55Speaker 1: There shall be no end to strife until men cease
- 42:58Speaker 1: to justify themselves. He who would have wars cease, Let
- 43:03Speaker 1: him cease to defend any party, let him cease to
- 43:07Speaker 1: defend himself. Not by strife can peace come, but by
- 43:13Speaker 1: ceasing from strife. The glory of Caesar resides in the
- 43:17Speaker 1: resistance of his enemies. They resist and fall, give to
- 43:22Speaker 1: Caesar that which Caesar demands, and Caesar's glory and power
- 43:27Speaker 1: are gone. Thus by submission does the meek man conquer
- 43:31Speaker 1: the strong man. But it is not that outward show
- 43:35Speaker 1: of submission, which is slavery. It is that inward and
- 43:39Speaker 1: spiritual submission, which is freedom claiming no rights. The meek
- 43:45Speaker 1: man is not troubled with self defense and self justification.
- 43:49Speaker 1: He lives in love, and therefore comes under the immediate
- 43:53Speaker 1: and vital protection of the great Love, which is the
- 43:56Speaker 1: eternal law of the universe. He neither claims, aims, nor
- 44:00Speaker 1: seeks his own. Thus do all things come to him,
- 44:04Speaker 1: and all the universe shields and protects him. He who
- 44:08Speaker 1: says I have tried meekness and it has failed, has
- 44:12Speaker 1: not tried meekness. It cannot be tried as an experiment.
- 44:17Speaker 1: It is only arrived at by unreserved self sacrifice. Meekness
- 44:23Speaker 1: does not consist merely in non resistance in action. It
- 44:27Speaker 1: consists pre eminently in non resistance in thought. In ceasing
- 44:32Speaker 1: to hold or to have any selfish, condemnatory or retaliatory thoughts.
- 44:38Speaker 1: The meek man therefore cannot take offense or have his
- 44:42Speaker 1: feelings hurt. Living above hatred, folly, and vanity, meekness can
- 44:49Speaker 1: never fail. O you who search for the heavenly life,
- 44:54Speaker 1: strive after meekness. Increase your patience and forbearance. Day by day,
- 44:59Speaker 1: be did your tongue, cease from all harsh words, withdraw
- 45:03Speaker 1: your mind from selfish arguments, and refuse to brood upon
- 45:07Speaker 1: your wrongs. So living you shall carefully tend and cultivate
- 45:12Speaker 1: the pure and delicate flower of meekness in your heart,
- 45:16Speaker 1: until at last its divine sweetness and purity, and beauteous
- 45:20Speaker 1: perfection shall be revealed to you, and you shall become gentle, joyful,
- 45:26Speaker 1: and strong. Repine not that you are surrounded by irritable
- 45:31Speaker 1: and selfish people, but rather rejoice that you are so
- 45:35Speaker 1: favored as to have your own imperfections revealed to you,
- 45:39Speaker 1: and that you are so placed as to necessitate within
- 45:42Speaker 1: you a constant struggle for self mastery and the attainment
- 45:46Speaker 1: of perfection. The more there is of harshness and selfishness
- 45:51Speaker 1: around you, the greater is the need of your meekness
- 45:54Speaker 1: and love. If others seek to wrong you, all the
- 45:57Speaker 1: more it is needful that you should cease for all
- 46:00Speaker 1: wrong and live in love. If others preach meekness, humility,
- 46:05Speaker 1: and love and do not practice these, trouble not nor
- 46:09Speaker 1: be annoyed. But you, in the silence of your own
- 46:12Speaker 1: heart and in your contact with others, practice these things,
- 46:17Speaker 1: and they shall preach themselves. And though you utter no
- 46:21Speaker 1: declamatory word, and stand before no gathered audience, you shall
- 46:25Speaker 1: teach the whole world. As you become meek, you shall
- 46:30Speaker 1: learn the deepest secrets of the universe. Nothing is hidden
- 46:33Speaker 1: from him who overcomes himself. Into the cause of causes,
- 46:38Speaker 1: you shall penetrate, and, lifting one after another, every veil
- 46:43Speaker 1: of illusion shall reach at last the inmost heart of being. Thus,
- 46:48Speaker 1: becoming one with life, you shall know all life, and
- 46:53Speaker 1: seeing into causes and knowing realities, you shall be no
- 46:57Speaker 1: more anxious about yourself and others and the world, but
- 47:02Speaker 1: shall see that all things that are are engines of
- 47:05Speaker 1: the Great Law canopied. With gentleness. You shall bless where
- 47:10Speaker 1: others curse, love where others hate, forgive where others condemn,
- 47:16Speaker 1: yield where others strive, give up, where others grasp, lose
- 47:22Speaker 1: where others gain. And in their strength they shall be weak,
- 47:27Speaker 1: And in your weakness you shall be strong. Yea, you
- 47:31Speaker 1: shall mightily prevail. He that has not unbroken gentleness has
- 47:36Speaker 1: not truth. Therefore, when Heaven would save a man, it
- 47:41Speaker 1: enfolds him with gentleness. The righteous man the righteous man
- 47:48Speaker 1: is invincible. No enemy can possibly overcome or confound him.
- 47:53Speaker 1: He needs no other protection than that of his own
- 47:56Speaker 1: integrity and holiness. As it is impossible for evil to
- 48:00Speaker 1: overcome good, so the righteous man can never be brought
- 48:04Speaker 1: low by the unrighteous. Slander, envy, hatred, malice can never
- 48:10Speaker 1: reach him nor cause him any suffering, and those who
- 48:14Speaker 1: try to injure him can only succeed ultimately in bringing
- 48:18Speaker 1: ignominy upon themselves. The righteous man, having nothing to hide,
- 48:24Speaker 1: committing no acts which requires stealth, and harboring no thoughts
- 48:28Speaker 1: and desires which he would not like others to know,
- 48:31Speaker 1: is fearless and unashamed. His step is firm, his body upright,
- 48:37Speaker 1: and his speech direct and without ambiguity. He looks everybody
- 48:42Speaker 1: in the face. How can he fear any who wrongs none?
- 48:48Speaker 1: How can he be ashamed before any who deceives none?
- 48:53Speaker 1: And ceasing from all wrong, he can never be wronged,
- 48:58Speaker 1: ceasing from all deceit, he can never be deceived. The
- 49:02Speaker 1: righteous man, performing all his duties with scrupulous diligence and
- 49:07Speaker 1: living above sin, is invulnerable at every point. He who
- 49:12Speaker 1: has slain the inward enemies of virtue can never be
- 49:15Speaker 1: brought low by any outward enemy, neither does he need
- 49:19Speaker 1: to seek any protection against them, righteousness being an all
- 49:23Speaker 1: sufficient protection. The unrighteous man is vulnerable at almost every point.
- 49:29Speaker 1: Living in his passions, the slave of prejudices, impulses, and
- 49:34Speaker 1: ill formed opinions, he is continually suffering, as he imagines,
- 49:38Speaker 1: at the hands of others. The slanders, attacks and accusations
- 49:42Speaker 1: of others cause him great suffering because they have a
- 49:45Speaker 1: basis of truth in himself, and not having the protection
- 49:49Speaker 1: of righteousness, he endeavors to justify and protect himself by
- 49:53Speaker 1: resorting to retaliation and specious argument, and even to subterfuge
- 49:58Speaker 1: and deceit. The partially righteous man is vulnerable at all
- 50:02Speaker 1: those points where he falls short of righteousness. And should
- 50:06Speaker 1: the righteous man fall from his righteousness and give way
- 50:10Speaker 1: to one sin, his invincibility is gone, for he has
- 50:14Speaker 1: thereby placed himself where attack and accusation can justly reach
- 50:19Speaker 1: and injure him, because he has first injured himself. If
- 50:24Speaker 1: a man suffers or is injured through the instrumentality of others,
- 50:29Speaker 1: let him look to himself, and, putting aside self pity
- 50:33Speaker 1: and self defense, he will find in his own heart
- 50:36Speaker 1: the source of all his woe. No evil can happen
- 50:41Speaker 1: to the righteous man, who has cut off the source
- 50:43Speaker 1: of evil in himself, living in the all good and
- 50:47Speaker 1: abstaining from sin in thought, word, and deed. Whatever happens
- 50:52Speaker 1: to him is good. Neither can any person, event or
- 50:56Speaker 1: circumstance cause him suffering, for the tyranny of circumstances utterly destroyed.
- 51:02Speaker 1: For him who has broken the bonds of sin, the suffering,
- 51:06Speaker 1: the sorrowing, the weary and broken hearted ever seek a
- 51:10Speaker 1: sorrowless refuge, a haven of perpetual peace. Let such fly
- 51:16Speaker 1: to the refuge of the righteous life. Let them come
- 51:19Speaker 1: now and enter the haven of the sinless state. For
- 51:23Speaker 1: sorrow cannot overtake the righteous. Suffering cannot reach him who
- 51:27Speaker 1: does not waste in self seeking his spiritual substance, and
- 51:32Speaker 1: he cannot be afflicted by weariness and unrest, whose heart
- 51:36Speaker 1: is at peace withal perfect love. The children of Light,
- 51:42Speaker 1: who abide in the Kingdom of Heaven, see the universe
- 51:45Speaker 1: and all that it contains as the manifestation of one law,
- 51:49Speaker 1: the Law of Love. They see love as the molding, sustaining, protecting,
- 51:55Speaker 1: and perfecting power imminent in all things animate, and inanimate.
- 52:01Speaker 1: To them, love is not merely and only a rule
- 52:04Speaker 1: of life. It is the law of life, It is
- 52:08Speaker 1: life itself. Knowing this, they order their whole life in
- 52:12Speaker 1: accordance with love, not regarding their own personality. By thus
- 52:17Speaker 1: practicing obedience to the highest, to the divine love, they
- 52:22Speaker 1: become conscious partakers of the power of love, and so
- 52:26Speaker 1: arrive at perfect freedom as masters of destiny. The universe
- 52:31Speaker 1: is preserved because love is at the heart of it.
- 52:34Speaker 1: Love is the only preservative power. Whilst there is hatred
- 52:38Speaker 1: in the heart of man, he imagines law to be cruel.
- 52:42Speaker 1: But when his heart is mellowed by compassion and love,
- 52:46Speaker 1: he perceives that the law is infinite kindness. So kind
- 52:50Speaker 1: is the law that it protects man against his own ignorance. Man,
- 52:55Speaker 1: in his puny efforts to subvert the law by attaching
- 52:59Speaker 1: undue importance to his own little personality, brings upon himself
- 53:03Speaker 1: such trains of suffering that he is at last compelled,
- 53:07Speaker 1: in the depth of his afflictions to seek for wisdom.
- 53:11Speaker 1: And finding wisdom, he finds love and knows it as
- 53:15Speaker 1: the law of his being, the law of the universe.
- 53:19Speaker 1: Love does not punish man punishes himself by his own hatred,
- 53:24Speaker 1: by striving to preserve evil, which has no life by
- 53:28Speaker 1: which to preserve itself, and by trying to subvert love,
- 53:32Speaker 1: which can neither be overcome nor destroyed, being of the
- 53:36Speaker 1: substance of life. When a man burns himself, does he
- 53:41Speaker 1: accuse the fire. Therefore, when a man suffers, let him
- 53:46Speaker 1: look for some ignorance or disobedience within himself. Love is
- 53:51Speaker 1: perfect harmony, pure bliss, and contains therefore no element of suffering.
- 53:57Speaker 1: Let a man think no thought and do no act
- 54:00Speaker 1: which is not in accordance with pure love, and suffering
- 54:03Speaker 1: shall no more trouble him. If a man would know
- 54:07Speaker 1: love and partake of its undying bliss, he must practice
- 54:11Speaker 1: it in his heart. He must become love. He who
- 54:16Speaker 1: always acts from the spirit of love is never deserted,
- 54:20Speaker 1: is never left in a dilemma or difficulty. For love
- 54:24Speaker 1: impersonal love is both knowledge and power. He who has
- 54:29Speaker 1: learned how to love, has learned how to master every difficulty,
- 54:33Speaker 1: how to transmute every failure into success, how to clothe
- 54:37Speaker 1: every event and condition in garments of blessedness and beauty.
- 54:43Speaker 1: The way to love is by self, mastery and Traveling
- 54:47Speaker 1: that way, a man builds himself up in knowledge as
- 54:50Speaker 1: he proceeds. Arriving at love, he enters into full possession
- 54:55Speaker 1: of body and mind by right of the divine power.
- 54:59Speaker 1: Perfect love casteth out fear to no. Love is to
- 55:03Speaker 1: know that there is no harmful power in the whole universe.
- 55:07Speaker 1: Even sin itself, which the worldly and unbelieving imagine is
- 55:11Speaker 1: so unconquerable, is known as a very weak and perishable
- 55:15Speaker 1: thing that shrinks away and disappears before the compelling power
- 55:20Speaker 1: of good. Perfect love is perfect harmlessness, and he who
- 55:25Speaker 1: has destroyed in himself all thoughts of harm and all
- 55:29Speaker 1: desire to harm, receives the universal protection and knows himself
- 55:34Speaker 1: to be invincible. Perfect love is perfect patience. Anger and
- 55:40Speaker 1: irritability cannot dwell with it nor come near it. It
- 55:44Speaker 1: sweetens every bitter occasion with the perfume of holiness, and
- 55:47Speaker 1: transmutes trial into divine strength. Complaint is foreign to it.
- 55:53Speaker 1: He who loves bewails nothing, but accepts all things and
- 55:57Speaker 1: conditions as heavenly guests. He is therefore are constantly blessed,
- 56:01Speaker 1: and sorrow does not overtake him. Perfect love is perfect trust.
- 56:07Speaker 1: He who has destroyed. The desire to grasp can never
- 56:10Speaker 1: be troubled with the fear of loss. Loss and gain
- 56:14Speaker 1: are alike foreign to him. Steadfastly maintaining a lovable attitude
- 56:19Speaker 1: of mind toward all and pursuing in the performance of
- 56:23Speaker 1: his duties a constant and loving activity, love protects him
- 56:28Speaker 1: and evermore supplies him in fullest measure with all that
- 56:32Speaker 1: he needs. Perfect love is perfect power. The wise, loving
- 56:37Speaker 1: heart commands, without exercising any authority. All things and all
- 56:42Speaker 1: men obey him who obeys the highest he thinks, and
- 56:47Speaker 1: low he has already accomplished. He speaks, and behold a
- 56:51Speaker 1: world hangs upon his simple utterances. He has harmonized his
- 56:56Speaker 1: thoughts with the imperishable and unconquerable forces, and for him,
- 57:00Speaker 1: weakness and uncertainty are no more. His every thought is
- 57:05Speaker 1: a purpose, his every act and accomplishment. He moves with
- 57:10Speaker 1: the great law, not setting his puny personal will against it,
- 57:14Speaker 1: and he thus becomes a channel through which the divine
- 57:17Speaker 1: power can flow in unimpeded and beneficent expression. He has
- 57:22Speaker 1: thus become power itself. Perfect love is perfect wisdom. The
- 57:28Speaker 1: man who loves all is the man who knows all.
- 57:32Speaker 1: Having thoroughly learned the lessons of his own heart, he
- 57:35Speaker 1: knows the tasks and trials of other hearts, and adapts
- 57:39Speaker 1: himself to them gently and without ostentation. Love illuminates the intellect.
- 57:46Speaker 1: Without it, the intellect is blind and cold and lifeless.
- 57:51Speaker 1: Love succeeds where intellect fails, sees where intellect is blind,
- 57:57Speaker 1: knows where intellect is ignorant. Reason is only completed in love,
- 58:03Speaker 1: and is ultimately absorbed in it. Love is the supreme
- 58:07Speaker 1: reality in the universe, and as such it contains all truth.
- 58:12Speaker 1: Infinite tenderness enfolds and cherishes the universe. Therefore is the
- 58:17Speaker 1: wise man, gentle and childlike, and tender hearted. He sees
- 58:22Speaker 1: that the one thing which all creatures need is love,
- 58:26Speaker 1: and he gives it unstintingly. He knows that all occasions
- 58:30Speaker 1: require the adjusting power of love, and he ceases from
- 58:34Speaker 1: harshness to the eye of love. All things are revealed
- 58:39Speaker 1: not as an infinity of complex effects, but in the
- 58:42Speaker 1: light of eternal principles, out of which spring all causes
- 58:46Speaker 1: and effects, and back into which they return. God is Love. Therefore,
- 58:53Speaker 1: then love, there is nothing more perfect. He who would
- 58:56Speaker 1: find pure knowledge, let him find pure love. Perfect love
- 59:01Speaker 1: is perfect peace. He who dwells with it has completed
- 59:05Speaker 1: his pilgrimage in the underworld of sorrow, with mind calm
- 59:09Speaker 1: and heart at rest. He has banished the shadows of
- 59:12Speaker 1: grief and knows the deathless life. If you would perfect
- 59:17Speaker 1: yourself in knowledge, perfect yourself in love, if you would
- 59:21Speaker 1: reach the highest ceaselessly cultivate a loving and compassionate heart,
- 59:27Speaker 1: perfect freedom. There is no bondage in the heavenly life.
- 59:33Speaker 1: There is perfect freedom. This is its great glory. This
- 59:38Speaker 1: supreme freedom is gained only by obedience. He who obeys
- 59:43Speaker 1: the highest co operates with the Highest, and so masters
- 59:47Speaker 1: every force within himself and every condition without. A man
- 59:52Speaker 1: may choose the lower and neglect the higher, but the
- 59:55Speaker 1: higher is never overcome by the lower. Herein lies the
- 59:59Speaker 1: revel of freedom. Let a man choose the higher and
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: abandon the lower. He shall then establish himself as an overcomer,
- 1:00:08Speaker 1: and shall realize perfect freedom. To give the reins to
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: inclination is the only slavery. To conquer one's self is
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: the only freedom. The slave to self loves his chains
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: and will not have one of them broken, for fear
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: he would be depriving himself of some cherished delight. He
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: clings to his gratifications and vanities, regarding freedom from them
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: as an empty and undesirable condition. He thus defeats and
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: enslaves himself by self. Enlightenment is perfect freedom found whilst
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: a man remains ignorant of himself, of his desires, of
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: his emotions and thoughts, and of the inward causes which
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: mold his life and destiny. Having neither control nor understanding
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: of himself, he will remain in bondage to passion, sorrow, suffering,
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: and fluctuating fortune. The land of perfect freedom lies through
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: the gate of knowledge. All outward oppression is but the
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: shadow and effect of the real oppression within. For ages,
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: the oppressed have cried for liberty, and a thousand man
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: made statutes have failed to give it to them. They
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: can give it only to themselves. They shall find it
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: only in obedience to the divine statutes which are inscribed
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: upon their hearts. Let them resort to the inward freedom,
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: and the shadow of oppression shall no more darken the earth.
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: Let men cease to oppress themselves, and no man will
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: oppress his brother. Men legislate for an outward freedom, yet
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: continue to render such freedom impossible of achievement by fostering
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: an inward condition of enslavement. They thus pursue a shadow
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: without and ignore the substance within. Man will be when
- 1:02:00Speaker 1: he is freed from self. All outward forms of bondage
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: and oppression will cease to be when man ceases to
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: be the willing bond slave of passion, error, and ignorance.
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: Freedom is to the free. Whilst men cling to weakness,
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: they cannot have strength. Whilst they love darkness, they can
- 1:02:21Speaker 1: receive no light. So long as they prefer bondage, they
- 1:02:25Speaker 1: can enjoy no liberty. Strength, light, and freedom are ready now,
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: and can be had by all who love them, who
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: aspire to them. Freedom does not reside in cooperative aggression,
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: for this will always produce reactively cooperative defense, warfare, hatred,
- 1:02:45Speaker 1: party strife, and the destruction of liberty. Freedom resides in
- 1:02:51Speaker 1: individual self conquest. The emancipation of humanity is frustrated and
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: withheld by the self enslavement of the unth You who
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: cry to Man and God for liberty, liberate yourself. The
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: heavenly freedom is freedom from passion, from cravings, from opinions,
- 1:03:12Speaker 1: from the tyranny of the flesh and the tyranny of
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: the intellect. This first, and then all outward freedom as
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: effect to cause. The freedom that begins within and extends
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: outwardly until it embraces the whole man, is an emancipation
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: so complete, all embracing, and perfect as to leave no
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: galling fetter unbroken. Free your soul from all sin, and
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: you shall walk a freed and fearless man in the
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: midst of a world of fearful slaves. And seeing you,
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: many slaves shall take heart and join you in your
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: glorious freedom. He who says, my worldly duties are irksome
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: to me, I will leave them and go into solitude,
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: where I shall shall be as free as the air,
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: and thinks to gain freedom thus will find only a
- 1:04:05Speaker 1: harder slavery. The tree of freedom is rooted in duty,
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: and he who would pluck its sweet fruits must discover
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: joy and duty. Glad hearted, calm, and ready for all tasks.
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: Is he who is freed from self. Irksomeness and weariness
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: cannot enter his heart, and his divine strength lightens every
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: burden so that its weight is not felt. He does
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: not run away from duty with his chains about him,
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: but breaks them and stands free. Make yourself pure, make
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: yourself proof against weakness, temptation, and sin. For only in
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: your own heart and mind shall you find perfect freedom,
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: for which the whole world sighs and seeks in vain.
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: Greatness and goodness, goodness, simplicity, greatness. These three are one,
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: and this trinity of perfection cannot be separated. All greatness
- 1:05:06Speaker 1: springs from goodness, and all goodness is profoundly simple. Without goodness,
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: there is no greatness. Some men pass through the world
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: as destructive forces, like the tornado or the avalanche, but
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: they are not great. They are to greatness as the
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: avalanche is to the mountain. The work of greatness is
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: enduring and preservative, and not violent and destructive. The greatest
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: souls are the most gentle. Greatness is never obtrusive. It
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: works in silence, seeking no recognition. This is why it
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: is not easily perceived and recognized. Like the mountain, it
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: towers up in its vastness, so that those in its
- 1:05:49Speaker 1: immediate vicinity, who receive its shelter and shade, do not
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: see it. Its sublime grandeur is only beheld as they
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: recede from it. The great man is not seen by
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: his contemporaries. The majesty of his form is only outlined
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: by its recession in time. This is the awe and
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: enchantment of distance. Men occupy themselves with the small things,
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: their houses, trees, lands. Few contemplate the mountain at whose
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: base they live, and fewer still essay to explore it.
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: But in the distance these small things disappear, and then
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: the solitary beauty of the mountain is perceived. Popularity, noisy, obtrusiveness,
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: and shallow show. These superficialities rapidly disappear and leave behind
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: no enduring mark, whereas greatness slowly emerges from obscurity and
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: endures forever. Jewish rabbi and rabble alike saw not the
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: divine beauty of Jesus. They saw only an unlettered carpenter.
- 1:06:59Speaker 1: All true genius is impersonal. It belongs not to the
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: man through whom it is manifested. It belongs to all.
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: It is a diffusion of pure truth, the light of
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: Heaven descending on all mankind. Every work of genius, in
- 1:07:16Speaker 1: whatsoever department of art, is a symbolic manifestation of impersonal truth.
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: It is universal and finds a response in every heart,
- 1:07:26Speaker 1: in every age and race. Anything short of this is
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: not genius, is not greatness. That work which defends a
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: religion perishes. It is religion that lives. Theories about immortality
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: fade away, immortal man endures. Commentaries upon truth come to
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: the dust. Truth alone remains. That only is true in art,
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: which represents the true, That only is great in life,
- 1:07:58Speaker 1: which is universally and eternally true. And the true is
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: the good. The good is the true. Every immortal work
- 1:08:08Speaker 1: springs from the eternal goodness in the human heart, and
- 1:08:11Speaker 1: it is clothed with the sweet and unaffected simplicity of goodness.
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: The greatest art is like nature artless. It knows no trick,
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: no pose, no studied effort. The critics, not understanding the
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: wise simplicity of greatness, always condemn the loftiest work. They
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: cannot discriminate between the childish and the childlike, the true,
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: the beautiful. The great is always childlike, and is perennially
- 1:08:43Speaker 1: fresh and young. The great man is always the good man.
- 1:08:48Speaker 1: He is always simple. He draws from nay, lives in
- 1:08:54Speaker 1: the inexhaustible fountain of divine goodness. Within he inhabits the
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: heavenly places, communes with the vanished. Great ones lives with
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: the invisible. He is inspired and breathes the airs of heaven.
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: He who would be great, let him learn to be good.
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: He will therefore become great. By not seeking greatness aiming
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: at greatness, a man arrives at nothingness. Aiming at nothingness,
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: he arrives at greatness. The desire to be great is
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: an indication of littleness, of personal vanity and obtrusiveness. The
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: willingness to disappear from gaze, the utter absence of self
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: aggrandizement is the witness of greatness. Littleness seeks and loves authority.
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: Greatness is never authoritative, and it thereby becomes the authority
- 1:09:50Speaker 1: to which the after ages appeal. He who seeks loses.
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: He who is willing to lose wins all men. Simple self,
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: your better self, your impersonal self, and low you are great.
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: He who selfishly seeks authority shall succeed only in becoming
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: a trembling apologist, courting protection behind the back of acknowledged greatness.
- 1:10:18Speaker 1: He who will become the servant of all men desiring
- 1:10:21Speaker 1: no personal authority, shall live as a man, and shall
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: be called great. Abide in the simple and noble regions
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: of your life. Obey your heart, and you shall reproduce
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: the foreworld again. Forget your own little self and fall
- 1:10:39Speaker 1: back upon the universal self, and you shall reproduce, in
- 1:10:43Speaker 1: living and enduring forms a thousand beautiful experiences. You shall
- 1:10:49Speaker 1: find within yourself that simple goodness which is greatness. It
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: is as easy to be great as to be small,
- 1:10:56Speaker 1: says Emerson, and he utters a profound truth. Forgetfulness of
- 1:11:01Speaker 1: self is the whole of greatness, as it is the
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: whole of goodness and happiness. In a fleeting moment of
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: self forgetfulness, the smallest soul becomes great. Extend that moment indefinitely,
- 1:11:15Speaker 1: and there is a great soul, a great life. Cast
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: away your personality, your petty cravings, vanities, and ambitions as
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: a worthless garment, and dwell in the loving, compassionate, selfless
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: regions of your soul, and you are no longer small.
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: You are great, claiming personal authority. A man descends into
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: littleness practicing goodness, a man ascends into greatness. The presumptuousness
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: of the small may for a time obscure the humility
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: of the great, but it is at last swallowed up
- 1:11:51Speaker 1: by it. As the noisy river is lost in the
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: calm ocean. The vulgarity of ignorance and the pride of
- 1:11:58Speaker 1: learning must disappear. Their worthlessness is equal. They have no
- 1:12:03Speaker 1: part in the soul of goodness. If you would do,
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: you must be. You shall not mistake information for knowledge.
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: You must know yourself as pure knowledge. You shall not
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: confuse learning with wisdom. You must apprehend yourself as undefiled wisdom.
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: Would you write a living book, you must first live.
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: You shall draw around you the mystic garment of a
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: manifold experience, and shall learn in enjoyment and suffering, gladness
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: and sorrow, conquest and defeat, that which no book and
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: no teacher can teach you. You shall learn of life
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: of your soul. You shall tread the lonely road, and
- 1:12:51Speaker 1: shall become you shall be. You shall then write your book,
- 1:12:57Speaker 1: and it shall live. It shall be more than a book.
- 1:13:01Speaker 1: Let your book first live in you. Then shall you
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: live in your book. Would you carve a statue that
- 1:13:09Speaker 1: shall captivate the ages, or paint a picture that shall endure?
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: You shall acquaint yourself with the divine beauty within you.
- 1:13:18Speaker 1: You shall comprehend and adore the invisible beauty. You shall
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: know the principles which are the soul of form. You
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: shall perceive the matchless symmetry and faultless proportions of life
- 1:13:31Speaker 1: being of the universe. Thus, knowing the eternal true, you
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: shall carve or paint the indescribably beautiful. Would you produce
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: an imperishable poem, You shall first live your poem. You
- 1:13:47Speaker 1: shall think and act rhythmically. You shall find the never
- 1:13:51Speaker 1: failing source of inspiration in the loving places of the heart.
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: Then shall immortal lines flow from you without effort, And
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: as the flowers of wood and fields spontaneously spring, so
- 1:14:05Speaker 1: shall beautiful thoughts grow up in your heart and enshrined
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: in words, as molds to their beauty, shall subdue the
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: hearts of men. Would you compose such music as would
- 1:14:16Speaker 1: gladden and uplift the world. You shall adjust your soul
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: to the heavenly harmonies. You shall know that yourself, that life,
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: and the universe is music. You shall touch the chords
- 1:14:30Speaker 1: of life. You shall know that music is everywhere, that
- 1:14:34Speaker 1: it is the heart of being. Then shall you hear
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: with your spiritual air the deathless symphonies. Would you preach
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: the living word, You shall forego yourself and become that word.
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: You shall know one thing, that the human heart is good,
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: is divine. You shall live on one thing, love. You
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: shall love all, seeing no evil, thinking no evil, believing
- 1:15:02Speaker 1: no evil. Then, though you speak but little, your every
- 1:15:07Speaker 1: act shall be a power, your every word a precept.
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: By your pure thought, your selfless deed, though it appear hidden,
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: you shall preach down the ages to untold multitudes of
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: aspiring souls. To him who chooses goodness, sacrificing all is given,
- 1:15:26Speaker 1: that which is more than and includes all, he becomes
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: the possessor of the best, communes with the highest, and
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: enters the company of the great The greatness that is flawless,
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: rounded and complete, is above and beyond all art. It
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: is perfect goodness in manifestation. Therefore the greatest souls are
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: always teachers heaven in the heart. The toil of life
- 1:15:57Speaker 1: ceases when the heart is pure. When the mind is
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: harmonized with the divine law, the wheel of drudgery ceases
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: to turn, and all work is transmuted into joyful activity.
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: The pure hearted are as the lilies of the field,
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: which toil not yet are fed and clothed from the
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: abundant storehouse of the all good. But the lily is
- 1:16:19Speaker 1: not lethargic. It is ceaselessly active, drawing nourishment from the
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: earth and air and sun by the divine power imminent
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: within it. It builds itself up cell by cell, opening
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: itself to the light, growing and expanding towards the perfect flower.
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: So is it with those who, having yielded up self,
- 1:16:40Speaker 1: will have learned to cooperate with the divine will. They
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: grow in grace, goodness, and beauty, freed from anxiety, and
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: without friction and toil, And they never work. In vain.
- 1:16:54Speaker 1: There is no waste action. Every thought, act, and thing
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: done subserves the divine purpose and adds to the sum
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: total of the world's happiness. Heaven is in the heart.
- 1:17:07Speaker 1: They will look for it in vain who look for
- 1:17:09Speaker 1: it elsewhere. In no outward place will the soul find
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: heaven until it finds it within itself. For wherever the
- 1:17:17Speaker 1: soul goes, its thoughts and desires will go with it,
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: and howsoever beautiful may be its outward dwelling place. If
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: there is sin within, there will be darkness and gloom without,
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: for sin always casts a dark shadow over the pathway
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: of the soul. The shadow of sorrow. This world is beautiful,
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: transcendently and wonderfully beautiful. Its beauties and inspiring wonders cannot
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: be numbered. Yet to the sin sodden mind it appears
- 1:17:48Speaker 1: as a dark and joyless place. Where passion and self are.
- 1:17:52Speaker 1: There is hell, and there are all the pains of hell.
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: Where holiness and love are. There is heaven, and there
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: are all the joys of heaven. Heaven is here. It
- 1:18:05Speaker 1: is also everywhere. It is wherever there is a pure heart.
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: The whole universe is abounding with joy, but the sin
- 1:18:14Speaker 1: bound heart can neither see, hear, nor partake of it.
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: No one is or can be arbitrarily shut out of Heaven.
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: Each shuts himself out. Its golden gates are eternally ajar,
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: but the selfish cannot find them. They mourn, yet see not,
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: they cry, but hear not. Only to those who turn
- 1:18:38Speaker 1: their eyes to heavenly things. Their ears to heavenly sounds
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: are the happy portals of the Kingdom revealed, and they
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: enter and are glad. All life is gladness when the
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: heart is right, when it is attuned to the sweet
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: chords of holy love. Life is religion. Religion is life
- 1:18:59Speaker 1: and all is joy and gladness. The jarring notes of
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: creeds and parties, the black shadows of sin, Let them
- 1:19:07Speaker 1: pass away forever. They cannot enter the door of life.
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: They form no part of religion, joy, music, beauty. These
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: belong to the true order of things. They are of
- 1:19:21Speaker 1: the texture of the universe. Of these is the divine
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: garment of life woven. Pure religion is glad not gloomy.
- 1:19:31Speaker 1: It is light without darkness or shadow, despondency, disappointment, grief.
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: These are the reflex aspects of pleasurable excitement, self seeking,
- 1:19:43Speaker 1: and desire. Give up the latter, and the former will
- 1:19:47Speaker 1: forever disappear. Then there remains the perfect bliss of heaven,
- 1:19:53Speaker 1: abounding and unallied. Happiness is man's true life. Perfect blessedness
- 1:19:59Speaker 1: is his rightful And when he loses his false life
- 1:20:03Speaker 1: and finds the true, he enters into the full possession
- 1:20:06Speaker 1: of his kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is man's home,
- 1:20:11Speaker 1: and it is here and now, it is in his
- 1:20:14Speaker 1: own heart, and he is not left without guides if
- 1:20:17Speaker 1: he wills to find it. All man's sorrows and sufferings
- 1:20:22Speaker 1: are the result of his own self elected estrangement from
- 1:20:25Speaker 1: the divine source, the all good, the Father, the heart
- 1:20:30Speaker 1: of love. Let him return to his home, his peace
- 1:20:34Speaker 1: awaits him. The heavenly hearted are without sorrow and suffering,
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: because they are without sin. What the worldly minded called troubles,
- 1:20:45Speaker 1: they regard as pleasant tasks of love and wisdom. Troubles
- 1:20:49Speaker 1: belong to hell. They do not enter heaven. This is
- 1:20:53Speaker 1: so simple it should not appear strange. If you have
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: a trouble, it is in your own mind, and nowhere
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: else you make it. It is not made for you,
- 1:21:04Speaker 1: It is not in your task. It is not in
- 1:21:07Speaker 1: that outward thing. You are its creator, and it derives
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: its life from you. Only look upon all your difficulties
- 1:21:16Speaker 1: as lessons to be learned, as aids to spiritual growth
- 1:21:20Speaker 1: and low They are difficulties no longer. This is one
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: of the pathways up to heaven, to transmute everything into
- 1:21:28Speaker 1: happiness and joy. This is supremely the work and duty
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: of the heavenly minded man. To reduce everything to wretchedness
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: and deprivation is the process which the world they minded
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: unconsciously pursue. To live in love is to work in joy.
- 1:21:48Speaker 1: Love is the magic that transforms all things into power
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: and beauty. It brings plenty out of poverty, power out
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: of weakness, loveliness out of deformityness out of bitterness, light
- 1:22:02Speaker 1: out of darkness, and produces all blissful conditions out of
- 1:22:06Speaker 1: its own substantial but indefinable essence. He who loves can
- 1:22:11Speaker 1: never want. The universe belongs to goodness, and it therefore
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: belongs to the good man. It can be possessed by
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: all without stint or shrinking for goodness, and the abundance
- 1:22:23Speaker 1: of goodness, material, mental, and spiritual abundance is inexhaustible. Think lovingly,
- 1:22:31Speaker 1: speak lovingly, act lovingly, and your every need shall be supplied.
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: You shall not walk in desert places, and no danger
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: shall overtake you. Love sees with faultless vision. Judge is true.
- 1:22:45Speaker 1: Judgment acts in wisdom. Look through the eyes of love,
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: and you shall see everywhere the beautiful and true judge
- 1:22:55Speaker 1: with the mind of love, and you shall err not,
- 1:22:58Speaker 1: shall wake no wail of so tomorrow. Act in the
- 1:23:02Speaker 1: spirit of love, and you shall strike undying harmonies upon
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: the harp of life. Make no compromise with self. Cease
- 1:23:11Speaker 1: not to strive until your whole being is swallowed up
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: in love. To love all and always. This is the
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: heaven of heavens. Let there be nothing within you that
- 1:23:23Speaker 1: is not very beautiful and very gentle, And then will
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: there be nothing without you that is not beautified and
- 1:23:31Speaker 1: softened by the spell of your presence. All that you do,
- 1:23:35Speaker 1: let it be done in calm wisdom, and not from desire, impulse,
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: or opinion. This is the heavenly way of action. Purify
- 1:23:46Speaker 1: your thought world until no stain is left, and you
- 1:23:49Speaker 1: will ascend into heaven. While living in the body. You
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: will then see the things of the outward world clothed
- 1:23:56Speaker 1: in all beautiful forms. Having found the divine beauty within ourselves,
- 1:24:02Speaker 1: it springs to life in every outward thing. To the
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: beautified soul, the world is beautiful. Undeveloped souls are merely
- 1:24:12Speaker 1: unopened flowers. The perfect beauty lies concealed within and will
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: one day reveal itself to the full orbed light of
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: heaven seeing men. Thus we stand where evil is not,
- 1:24:26Speaker 1: and where the eye beholds only good. Herein lies peace
- 1:24:31Speaker 1: and patience and beauty of love. It sees no evil.
- 1:24:37Speaker 1: He who loves thus becomes the protector of all men,
- 1:24:42Speaker 1: though in their ignorance they should hate him. He shields
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: and loves them. What gardener is so foolish as to
- 1:24:50Speaker 1: condemn his flowers because they do not develop in a day.
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: Learn to love, and you shall see in all souls,
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: even those called degraded, the divine beauty, and shall know
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: that it will not fail to come forth in its
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: own season. This is one of the heavenly visions. It
- 1:25:09Speaker 1: is out of this that gladness comes, sin, sorrow, suffering.
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: These are the dark gropings of the unopened soul. For light.
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: Open the petals of your soul, and let the glorious
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: light stream. In every sinful soul is an unresolved harmony.
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: It shall at last strike the perfect chord and swell
- 1:25:34Speaker 1: the joyful melodies of heaven. Hell is the preparation for heaven,
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: and out of the debris of its ruined hovels are
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: built pleasant mansions, wherein the perfected soul may dwell. Night
- 1:25:48Speaker 1: is only a fleeting shadow which the world casts, and
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: sorrow is but a transient shade cast by the self.
- 1:25:56Speaker 1: Come out into the sunlight. Know this, olez listener, that
- 1:26:00Speaker 1: you are a divine. You are not cut off from
- 1:26:04Speaker 1: the divine except in your own unbelief. Rise up o
- 1:26:08Speaker 1: Son of God, and shake off the nightmare of sin
- 1:26:11Speaker 1: which binds you. Accept your heritage, the kingdom of Heaven,
- 1:26:16Speaker 1: drug your soul no longer with the poisons of false beliefs.
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: You are not a worm of the dust unless you
- 1:26:23Speaker 1: choose to make yourself one. You are a divine, immortal,
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: god born being. And this you may know if you
- 1:26:31Speaker 1: will to seek and find. Cling no longer to your
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: impure and groveling thoughts, and you shall know that you
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: are a radiant and celestial spirit, filled with all pure
- 1:26:43Speaker 1: and lovable thoughts. Wretchedness and sin and sorrow are not
- 1:26:48Speaker 1: your portion here unless you accept them as such. And
- 1:26:52Speaker 1: if you do this, they will be your portion hereafter.
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: For these things are not apart from your soul condition.
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: They will go wherever you go. They are only within you. Heaven,
- 1:27:05Speaker 1: not hell, is your portion here and always. It only
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: requires you to take that which belongs to you. You
- 1:27:13Speaker 1: are the master, and you choose whom you will serve.
- 1:27:17Speaker 1: You are the maker of your state, and your choice
- 1:27:20Speaker 1: determines your condition. What you pray and ask for with
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: your mind and heart, not with your lips, merely this
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: you receive. You are served as you serve you are
- 1:27:33Speaker 1: conditioned as you condition you garner in your own. Heaven
- 1:27:39Speaker 1: is yours. You have but to enter in and take possession.
- 1:27:43Speaker 1: And heaven means supreme happiness, perfect blessedness. It leaves nothing
- 1:27:48Speaker 1: to be desired, nothing to be grieved over. It is
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: complete satisfaction now and in this world. It is within you.
- 1:27:57Speaker 1: And if you do not know this, it is because
- 1:28:00Speaker 1: as you persist in turning the back of your soul
- 1:28:02Speaker 1: upon it, turn round and you shall behold it. Come
- 1:28:08Speaker 1: and live in the sunshine of your being. Come out
- 1:28:11Speaker 1: of the shadows and the dark places. You are framed
- 1:28:15Speaker 1: for happiness. You are a child of heaven. Purity, wisdom, love, plenty,
- 1:28:22Speaker 1: joy and peace. These are the eternal realities of the Kingdom,
- 1:28:27Speaker 1: and they are yours. But you cannot possess them in sin.
- 1:28:31Speaker 1: They have no part in the realm of darkness. They
- 1:28:35Speaker 1: belong to the light which lighteth every man that cometh
- 1:28:38Speaker 1: into the world, the light of spotless love. They are
- 1:28:42Speaker 1: the heritage of the Holy Christ Child, who shall come
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: to birth in your soul when you are ready to
- 1:28:48Speaker 1: divest yourself of all your impurities. They are your real self,
- 1:28:54Speaker 1: but he whose soul has been safely delivered of the
- 1:28:57Speaker 1: wonderful joy, child does not forget the travail of the world.