High Mysticism by Emma Curtis Hopkins
Chapter 8 — Ministry
The point of each chapter or lesson in Mystical Science is its practice point. The practice point of the fifth lesson for instance is not the acknowledgment of the Vicarious Jesus, but the Self recognition that He practiced and urged all mankind to practice, that each one might do something great in his own line as He Jesus of Nazareth had done in His line. His leadership in Self recognition was His credential to special acknowledgment and special praise on the part of all mankind. Self recognition follows recognition of the Angel of the Presence as Miracle-Working Nearness. “I will not let thee go except thou bless me” should be the Jacob cry of all the world, face to face as all the world is with its Jacob Deliverer.
The practice point of the sixth lesson is our own inspiration or inbreath of the Breath of Brahma. “I put my breath in you and ye shall live. I put my spirit in you and ye shall know.” “Why 0 man will ye die, having power to partake of the breath of immortality?”
The practice point of the seventh lesson is recognition of the Angel of God’s Presence as the original Self of every man, woman, child. Two are ever in the field, one should be taken the other left, as Jesus himself discovered.
To notice the unweighted, flawless, everlasting Self, or Angel of man is to notice the Christ Self, strong son of God, lover divine. lt produces a change in the bodily and mental presence of anybody to notice his unweighted, everlasting divinity with praiseful acknowledgments silently spoken or audibly declared. “A right word how good it is, who can measure the force of a right word.” “With right glance and with right speech man may superintend the universe, animate and inanimate.” Notice always how potent is a glance “Glance up often, so shall thy life renew.” “Look unto Me and live.”
An eminent bacteriologist found that the indicator in a delicate instrument moved back and forth with the direction of the eye looking at it through a sighting slit. The mystery of vision will some day be declared by science in such a way that mankind will know that to set the eye toward the divinity Self of the neighbor is to find its tangible beauty coming forth; and to sight toward Deity is to experience the workings of Deity. “Seek ye the Lord and his strength, Seek his face evermore,” will not be a beautiful sentence on a page, but a living fact according to high science. “Deity onlookcth thee. Onlook thou Deity. This, to thy salvation.” Or, “Look unto Mc and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.”
To endure as seeing the invisible is to fetch it into visibility. That means that we see toward what we cannot see till it arrives into our living experience.
A certain set of people choosing to see toward health, wholeness, unspoiledness, declare that sick people are made whole by their practice. Another set of people arc seeing toward riches, and riches come into their living experience: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you,” said Jesus. The whole and beautiful kingdom of which he was speaking was noticed by Brahmins: “Above this visible nature there exists another, unseen and eternal, which, when all things created perish, does not perish,” they said. lt was “The Perfect Land” looked toward by Egyptian seers of most ancient times. “The Archetypal world, the Yesod, the nourishment of all the worlds” wrote the seer of the Cabala. “The mother of Moses saw that he was a goodly child,” reported Ezra, the illuminated priest of Babylon. And forth came the all-competent Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, a matchless warrior, a godlike law giver, a miracle worker unsurpassed. That mother must have had inner vision toward the flawless, victorious Angel of the Presence to have brought forth such a victorious man. It is written of him that he was a finished mathematician, the inventor of boats and engines, instruments of war and hydraulics; also the author of the accepted Egyptian hieroglyphics, ever leading by his lonely self the ascetic life that he might pursue high philosophical speculations and prophetic insights. Secular history presents him a noble example of the effect of noble vision, — so noble that critical intellectuals have not been able to believe that such a character ever really lived on this earth.
Whoever glances upward toward the Countenance that shines on his face begins to be lifted upward. Why should he not be lifted upward out of ignorance and feebleness altogether by ofttime returning the ever-seeing toward him of the Perfect Deity? Does not the hidden oak tree of the rotting pulp inside the splitting shell come up into another country and another breathing space by ofttime glancing upward toward a sun it sees not and untold homecoming for which its heart is ever dumbly yearning?
Mankind yearns for a country and a comradeship he cannot find except by enduring as seeing toward that city which hath no need of the sun or the moon to lighten it, for his own Beloved is the light thereof.
St. John of the Cross looked up toward a finished kingdom, and the furrows in the Monastery field were found to be miraculously plowed.
Even the most intellectual critics of mystical claims acknowledge that “the concepts of future creation are present in their completeness in the Eternal Now before being brought to birth in the material sphere.” But they neglect to mention in such splendid assertions how to fetch to birth in the material or tangibly visible sphere the heavenly eternals already finished. For this we must look to Mystical Science. “And he brought him (Abram) forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven, and I will give thee a son of her (Sarai) and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.”
The finished kingdom, the “Archetypal World” is forever wooing the sons of men to look toward it that they may find themselves and their environments blessed with supernal newness.
The stone was rolled away for the two Marys because their inner gaze was wooed heavenward. Lavater’s gaze was upward toward the All-Knower, and his mathematical problems became easy. Martha’s gaze was toward pans and brooms and bread for supper, but Mary’s gaze was toward the Perfect Country, and Jesus said she had chosen the better part, or the visional direction that brought better results.
The Wooing Countenance shining into our faces from above was Agni to the Parsecs of old. They declared that man must have been formed out of the eye of Agni, because his initial and compelling faculty was his eye faculty. Wherever his vision was directed, there his other faculties caught their sensations. This explains why the great Catholic Saints caught such tangible experiences. Lukardis of Ober-Weimer secretly gazing toward “some delicate invisible refection which the Convent could not afford, there came to her one day the most loving Infant bearing in his hand food, and begging her to eat it for his sake. She did so and was wonderfully strengthened.” So writes Baron von Hugel, among other mentions of visible things appearing from invisibles with tangible outcomes, because of sighting toward.
Francis d’Assisi saw the invisible five wounds of an invisible Jesus on an invisible cross so perseveringly that he the visible Francis had the five wounds visibly present in his own visible hands, feet, and sides.
The point of the eighth lesson or study is the executiveness of persistence, perseverance. “Seek ye my face ofttime evermore.”
“Persistence of vision” is a scientific term. It was called one-pointedness by the Brahmins. Man may behold the face of the Father in the Eight, wrote a lover of numbers, meaning that persistence in ofttime glancing lightly and quickly toward the Onlooking Deity, the God Countenance beneficently looking forever upon us, gives us the sense of friendship divine, effecting our awakening into our own flowering greatness. By persistent attention toward the Divinity Self, the Ageless Son of God, Plato found that “nothing can injure the immortal principle of the Soul.”
By watching toward Apollo, the invisible god of good gifts, for nineteen years, the Greeks and Romans saw him visibly present and heard him promising happy harvests and safe child-births. By much asking outward toward some invisible informant a great chemist saw as in a trance the form of a stranger who answered his question. By ofttime setting his inner eye toward the One Invisible filling the Universe, Parmenides saw himself as unified with that One so that the forces of nature desisted from their wonted operations for his sake.
“After eight days again his disciples were within .. . then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.” Everything that has to do with the visible ministry of the invisible Jesus blazing forever with the Christ Substance acts quickly, for that is Reality already complete. The suffering Jesus is an imagination of the heart and takes more time to tangiblize, as witness all the bearers of the stigmata, so long in manifesting the five wounds: lt is high time for us to take our inner gaze off the suffering Jesus and set it toward the Risen Victorious, Christ-empowered Jesus. “l if I be lifted up,” He said. It is time the world took its inner eye away from an angry God and set it toward “Him who healeth all our diseases, who redeemeth the life from destruction, who crowneth with loving kindness and tender mercy.”
It is time we took our eye off the grave and set it toward Him who promiseth forever, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave,” “Seek ye my face and live.” Let us remember that the grave cannot demonstrate our acquaintance with God; only “the living, the living shall praise thee.”
Even the ancients of Parsee lndia discovered that watching things that spoil and die affected them with spoilings, but ofttime upward glancing blotted out and washed away the spoilings. “Lift up thine eyes.” “l even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake.”
The point of the ministry of the eighth lesson, is “He sent me to preach deliverance to the captives.” All the world is groaning for its rightful deliverance. Some are groaning in the bondage of bodily pain. Some are groaning in the bondage of financial limitation. Some are groaning in the bondage of mental inadequacy. Some are groaning in the bondage of bodily inadequacy. It is no use trying to get free by any other attempting than upward face to face with Self-Existent, Untrammeled “Ain Soph, Great Countenance of the Absolute, above thinking and above being.” “Thou has redeemed us out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation,” acknowledged the high visioning John.
In the Dhammapada we are told that wisdom cometh from above and the wise man casts off all shackles; that right religion leads to escape from pain, and deliverance from destruction. Also that the best doctrine is that which removes pleasure and grief from the mind. As mind is mirror of the vision it stands to old-fashioned reasoning that visioning toward Free, Unattached, Unhindered God the mind must be free. And as body follows mind’s agreements body must be free also.
“Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created,” said the heavenly voice to Isaiah. “Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him.” The coming of the “Lord” is near, our own near angel of deliverance. Something mighty to save is near at hand to do the saving. “The angel of his presence saved them.” Always the Universal Absolute seems near as a strength beyond strength doing for us. Who notices the touch of the Almighty to save? “The hand of God hath touched me,” said Job.
The Brahmins called the Wonderful-Competent our Real Self of ourself. The Hebrews called it the Angel of God’s Presence. The Chaldeans called it the Stately Soul. The Christians called it the Christ Jesus ever present.
Some people are trying to show that Jesus of Nazareth did not claim to be the Promised Messiah, the Christ, the Saviour. But He did. Notice Him saying, “The Son of man came that he might give his life a ransom” — “l come not to judge . . . but to save the world.” “The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ . . Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.”
They also declare that He did not teach the Trinity. But He did. Notice Him saying: “I and my Father are One.” “The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things.” “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
They also proclaim that He did not urge any sacrifices or sacraments. But He did. Notice how He said, “lf any man will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross” (the practice of denial of all that is not Free God) . The ordinance of the Lord’s supper was His sacramental ordinance to all time. “This do in remembrance of me,” He said.
Keep the eye single to One Free Self-Existent God and you cannot help believing in Free Grace. You cannot help having a mind devoid of the pleasure and grief which worried the Brahmins and Buddhists. A new joy such as New Visioning gives causes the queer saying, “I believe hardships fall away of their own weight,” in place of, “l am in bondage to hardships, I cannot cure myself.”
Nobody is asked to cure himself of his particular bondage. He is asked to look up to Him who redeemeth the life from destruction, taking off every yoke. To Him whose only order has been, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” “The windows from on high are open, the earth is clean dissolved.”
To regard the Countenance that shineth into our faces from on high is to be aware of the Countenance as shining from all sides into our faces, and from below as the foundation under our feet.
All is promised those who follow the high watch even a new heaven and a new earth.
Therefore, leaving all the shows of human misery ofttime and ofttime rejecting them, seek ye the Lord and His strength, seek His Face evermore.
`The Eighth was Simeon the hearkener.” lt is certain that the inner ear back of our outer ear does hear statements from every direction where the inner eye directs itself. The Siena Saint heard a voice from out the silence saying, “My daughter, think of Me, and I will think of thee.” She knew it was Jesus the martyr, for the voice further informed her that he left her sometimes in order that she might feel herself deprived of consolation, and afflicted by pain.
How far this is removed from the voice of the High Deliverer speaking to Jeremiah, “They shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to deliver thee.” Or from the heavenly voice speaking through the transfiguring Christ Jesus, “Nothing shall by any means hurt you” — “l am with you alway.”
It is sign of ongoing in relation to that hidden objective toward which our inner all-compelling vision is oftenest set when we have inner auditions. And inner auditions from that direction we most certainly shall have. lf a voice sounds on our inner ear that a boat is to be shipwrecked and we must not set sail upon it, we may surely infer that our inner vision has been ofttime turned toward danger of some kind, or menacings of catastrophe. If we hear a voice on the inner ear saying, “Fear not, I am God thy Saviour and I am thy people’s Saviour”; we may know that our vision has been toward the High Deliverer, the Miracle-Working Almighty to Save.
The eighth lesson declares that ofttime glancing upward toward the Saving One we are saved, and as Paul was told, all they that sail with us shall be saved. Nothing shall have power to hurt them.
ls it any wonder that the wisely inspired ofttime have found themselves saying, “lt is not so,” when tales of danger and descriptions of calamity have been declared in their presence? “Nay, Nay,” said the Brahmin high watcher.
“I sign it all away by the mystic activity of the cross I carry on my shoulder, symbol forever of blotting out, erasing, undoing the heavy burdens, taking off the heavy yokes,” whispers the four-thousand year old voice of the miracle-working high watcher of forgotten old Egypt. The cross was once the symbol of such strong agreement with joyous Reality that all differentiations from joyous Reality were denied, rejected, blotted out.
Suffering, disappointment, poverty, degradation, death, those hieroglyphics against the Beautiful God, the Prince of Peace, the Miracle-Working Angel, are all erasable by denial, rejection, when they confront us as evidence of our past downward visionings. If thou wouldest accurately put away all contentious words, 0 Child, thou shouldest find that truly the Soul dominates” — the Free Unspoilable Self makes manifest.
“Salute no man by the way.” Salute no mighty claim except to wash it off the Ain Soph, Great Countenance of the Absolute, above thinking and above being.
All recognitions react. Notice the mysterious reactions that come from gazings toward a tormenting god: “A great desolation, the Lord increasing grief, pain that grows to such a degree of intensity that in spite of oneself one cries aloud,” wrote the Carmelite Teresa, steady watcher toward a terrible presence.
High Science recognizes only the God who extendeth peace like a river, who, like as a mother comforteth so comforteth He, saying, “l am the Lord that healeth thee,” “I give life to the faint, and to such as have no might I increase their strength.”
It makes a mighty difference to mankind what description of God they look toward. The tormenting, angry, partiality-showing God of old Sainthood made them most miserable in mind, body and affairs. Their consciousness of their own wickedness was terrible. “Wheresoever thou findest self drop that self” wrote one of them. But he did not say, drop that imaginary God whose impress on thee makes thee dissatisfied with thyself.
“All the gods of the nations are idols. Sing unto the Lord a new song. Declare his glory among the heathen,” shouted Ezra the learned descendant of Hilkiah the priest.
To endure as seeing Invisible Divinity is to extend all the faculties and sense the identity of all life with the Unlimited Supernal, the Free Self-Existent. To endure as seeing lnvisible Divinity is to become one-pointed. “Only the one-pointed succeed,” said the old Buddhist priests. When Sir lsaac Newton tried to explain the reason for his own great success he used words which meant that he had been one-pointed.
The seventh law of mysticism broaches the original heirship of all the sons of earth to One Divine All-Glorious Father. In the seventh we are told to keep our eye on the Lord Jehovah standing stately and majestic on the earth as the Self of our neighbor ever facing us, as Joshua saw the Lord Jehovah standing in the midst of moon-worshipping Jericho, and as King David foresaw the Lord always before his face. Face The God as Near and Awaiting.
This eighth law of mysticism urges standing by our recognition of the Lord Jehovah as the Self of our neighbor, in the face of all contentious appearances: “If thou wouldest accurately put away all contentious words, 0 child, thou shouldest find that truly the Soul (tile free Self) dominates.”
Every tongue everywhere seems to be proclaiming contentious words against the glorious Lord in the midst of man, against the Lord mighty to save, against the Angel of God’s Presence, his own and his neighbor’s Jehovah Sonhood. “l am unhappy,” says the woman. Of what “I” is she speaking? Of the “I” self that we sense by seeing toward joyous Divinity, or toward tormenting imaginations? “I am losing my grip,” groans the man. Of what “I am” is he talking? “I nearly perished,” wails the backward-looker. Whose past is this historian recounting? Who has strength of silent rejection sufficient to “accurately put away” such dark descriptives of the Self of himself and the Self of his neighbor? Have we not been told with the distinctness of trip hammers hitting bell rims that the True Self, the Son of the Highest is joyous, strong, imperishable? The “I” can say anything it ‘chooses about itself. And all its sayings are vitalized by that subtler activity the inward visional sense, so that when the “l” chooses to say “I am unhappy,” or “l am losing,” or “l perish,” we may know that according to law the “l” is blackhanding himself or herself with dark visions of himself that weave their words into cocoons of hiding, behind which only the vigorous at rejection can peer, enduring as seeing the Invisible, the Unspoilable.
There is the soundless lnvisible of our neighbor, his strong Son of God. lt is our true ministry to guide his speech into descriptions of his soundless Invisible. Isaiah speaks of the great rebound of such faithful ministry: He that stoppeth his ears — and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil, shall dwell on high.”
As evil is a weight, how can we help rising to happy heights as we reject evil? “No!” says the Sage of lndia. This is his way of put ting away contentious words spoken against his neighbor’s original Self. “I make the sign of the cross as if erasing marks on a tablet,” signals the priest of Isis. And the gods of ancient Egypt were sculptured bearing crosses to signify that they stood for accurately putting away contentious descriptions of the glorious Invisible ever facing mankind.
“Be not deceived,” said Jesus. This intimates that Jesus was brushing aside contentious descriptions. and being one-pointed to the unspoilable Invisible. “Judge not according to the appearance,” He said. This shows how persistent He was toward the Invisible as a waiting splendor.
Attention is the secret of success. Would Peace have folded all Firenze in its victorious arms, if Cosimo de Medici had not noticed it with his inward viewing, as a moveless lrresistible radiating forth from the non-resisting Antonino?
Would the hidden Lazarus have burst the bars of death if Jesus had not looked toward the One Life Undefeatable? Was not Cosimo ignoring the cries of hunger and fear in all his city, while the vision of Peace was holding him spellbound? Was not Jesus ignoring death while the vision of Triumphant Life held his gaze?
“Every tongue that shall arise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn,” said the prophet Isaiah. To condemn is to declare useless. ls not a bridge declared useless when the authorities have condemned it?
When the attention is wholly engrossed with peace, or life, or strength, there is a tacit rejection of turmoil, death, weakness. When the attention is strongly distracted toward the cocoons woven by the dusky “l am’s” of the downward watch toward death, disease, discord, we are told that we must use positive words of rejection to truly accompany our watch toward the Invisible.
“If any man will come after me (the Inviolate Unseen) , let him deny himself,” said the great Seer. Let him refuse the evidence of his outward senses, and watch, “What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.”
Their watch toward glory despite outward horrors has made the mystics of all time the most powerful engines for miraculous good that the world has held. They have all been miracle workers. They have not forgotten that outward and objective signs always manifest when true inward viewing is married to true positive speech. “Tabitha, arise!” said Peter, addressing Unkillable Vitality, paying no attention to visible death. “Your son lives!” shouted St. Anthony of Padua, disregarding the messenger’s death report. “Thou, Lord, holdest my precious gem! It cannot be lost!” said one facing the Owner of the spheres, and ignoring loss. “Thou art the Saviour of this woman from her own speech,” said another stopping both ears from the hearing of evil. All these endured as seeing the lnvisible Miracle-Worker, and for each a miracle was wrought. This is the Eternal Science. The ways of the stars may alter, the calculations of mathematics may readjust but recognition of the Almighty Uncontaminate shall not fail of the miracle of saving, healing, restoring, reviving.
“Therefore,” says Micah, 700 B.C., “I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of salvation: my God will hear me.” “Therefore I looked to the healing Lord standing before me, and the dying baby lived,” whispered the mystically trained nurse, 1916 A.D. This Science of the watch Godward shines brighter and brighter and works stronger and stronger as time wheels forward, finding more and more obedients who do the will to prove the doctrine. “Sing unto the Lord a new song.. . . Declare his glory.”
Every invisible objective upon being acknowledged has its own modus operandi; its own steps toward manifestation; its own time of manifesting, and its own expressions upon arrival. “Therefore,” said the son of Sirach, “do thou thy work betimes; he shall reward thee in his time.” “Ye believe in God, believe also in (the) me,” said the Greatest Expression.
As a right ministry we never forget that our neighbor has the Lord of his presence, his stately painless Soul, his Me, ever with him. We never forget that the Lord of our neighbor’s presence is his rightful Self, which it is our ministry to bring forward. Our watch toward the High Deliverer wakes our awareness of the One Life ready to break forth in full shining as we face our neighbor. Therefore if we had not been told to reject man’s false descriptions of himself we should find ourselves saying, “lt is not so!” when we heard him telling of his losses or his pains.
“Remember only that He is looking toward you,” said a certain Father Confessor to the Abbess of a convent. “Do not remember anything else. Exercise no self scrutiny.” (See Resume) . So the Abbess remembered only that the Vast, Vast Shining Countenance looked toward her. She ignored her mind’s reminders of her troubles. She ignored everything but the Shining Countenance. She was a true Obedient, for a stranger suddenly appeared before her offering her a bag of gold, though the stranger had no knowledge whatsoever that the sole trouble of the Abbess was lack of money to buy food for her waiting nuns. Thus was the obedient Abbess a plain demonstration of the promise, “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” By her volitional absorption into Invisible Kindness she was visibly befriended.
“Holy Ann” of Canada spoke to lnvisible Kindness on the subject of refreshment for the cattle, and suddenly a dry well was filled with water in time of great drought. (Holy Ann, p. 77.) A Jewish youth praised Invisible Goodness for making him a genius and much beloved. Genius began to wake in him and everybody began to love him.
A certain woman spoke praisefully to the Lord as Divine Beauty everywhere, and slowly beauty began to express in her own form and features. She praised Unexpressed Health, and bones and sinews, blood and nerves speedily began to express health. “Behold the beauty of the Lord,” sang King David. “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works,” sang Ezra, after keeping the saint praises himself he had urged others to keep.
We are told to ignore untoward appearances. We are told to gather unto with undivided choice. For what we gather unto we express.
The Hindus call the ever waiting Kindness, “Consciousness,” or “Brahma” (from brih, to expand as Omnipresence); and they show that every particle of existence is a particle of Consciousness. Therefore we as consciousness gathering to Original Consciousness, express its Beauty and its Health if we gather to Consciousness as Beauty or as Health. We express it as Strength if we gather to it as Strength. We express it as Triumph if we gather to it as Triumph. We express nothing of Beauty, Strength, Triumph, if we do not choose Brahma — Supernal Consciousness, in lts native expression as Beauty, Health, Triumph. We must keep on devoid of health, triumph, strength, if we as consciousness gather not to Divine Consciousness. This is the genesis of rejection of the devoid states called disaster, weakness, failure. “Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, 0 captive daughter of Zion.” To us there must be no God sending tribulation. Only the God letting the oppressed go free and taking off every yoke is our God.
There are reservoirs of Good back of all appearances of sickness or unhappy circumstances. “The eye of Judah is red with wine” to discover the reservoirs of Good. Judah means praise. He who praises the Unseen Providence just above his head experiences the Providence. He who chooses Providence puts away contentious appearances, by firm rejections, like the Abbess of Port Royal, or he ignores them like Cosimo de Medici, in the rapt vision of Peace. His eye, inspired to right viewing (“red with wine”) , is the eye of wisdom that Solomon says “seeth precious things.”
The guru sees intelligence in his chela. He does not stop to criticize the chela’s stupidity. With steadfast gaze toward intelligence, like as Hufeland toward health, the guru enlarges the borders of intelligence. “Enlarge the place of thy tent,” saith the voice of the Lord to lsaiah. “Salute no man (or claim) by the way,” said Jesus. When the injured Chicago man talked to the strength back of his weak joints and muscles, he talked to the reservoir of good, the waiting Lord watching him. He saluted no claim of weakness hugging down over his bodily frame. And strength expressed itself so greatly that he who before could lift nothing, did suddenly lift heavy weights. “Ascribe ye strength unto God,” sang David. And as we are always like the God we secretly describe, so David further sang, “God is the strength of my heart.”
A boy in the cold is selling newspapers. Whose eye is “red with wine” to see the Lord strong and triumphant standing up tall and stately by or in the newsboy’s presence, wilfully rejecting his rags? Whoever opens eyes red thus with inspiration to see the precious Life, soon sees the newsboy in some great University teaching the music of the spheres. The ways of the Lord are always miracles.
There are reservoirs of gold back of all gold pieces. On behalf of the facing Unlimited, erase, reject the limitations hieroglyphed over the gold pieces. This throws them out to the Universal Unlimited. Simon Magus had his “eye red with wine” to sec the levitating principle back of the attraction of gravitation. “Lift me up,” he said, ignoring all pullings earthward. And the Responsive Centrifugal lifted him into the air.
“l will make an everlasting covenant with you,” saith the Lord. “Ask what ye will.” — “And concerning the work of my hands command ye me.” This Covenanting Almighty faces us everywhere. Even Talleyrand, foreign minister for Napoleon, found that strength, success, and haughtiness stood forth in his colleagues if he recognized them as strong, successful, haughty; and that they drooped in weakness, failure and dejection if he neglected them. Rachel the actress, a contemporary of Talleyrand, could see a thousand people smile, and they would smile, or see them weep, and they would weep. Napoleon himself could vision men as victorious or defeated, and they would execute his views of them. He wrote to his unfortunate brother Henry: “I have seen with pain that you represent everything to yourself on the black side. Take a resolution and stand by it with your whole strength.” In other words, face something worth while.
When Marcion of the second century advocated the ascetic life, he did so because he saw that success lies in being one-pointed, and in rejecting all that distracts from One Victorious Objective.
Jesus asked mankind to regard him as the great expression in toto of the Victorious Unseen. Some said they must attend to their wives. Some said they must attend to their enterprises. Some said they must attend to their dead. They did not catch the mystic essential of His doctrine, that He that hath chosen Me, hath chosen the Finished Co-Efficient, touching all undertakings with flawless Finish, touching all undertakings with supernal completeness. For “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” And all things are right with him.
The Parsecs of old declared that ninety-nine persons out of every hundred die by reason of the evil eye. They see their own spot of pain or illness so distinctly that it expands into a sum total of shadow for them; and the sum total of shadow is the full manifest of devoid, or death. A certain commissariat in the federal army could always foretell what soldier was to be killed in the impending battle. He told this by the shadowy haze that he saw clinging to the soldier’s face. After the War he could by the same token select which of his parishioners was about to pass into devoid. When this commissariat- clergyman learned of the principle of rejection, putting away, refusing death, disease, failure, on behalf of God the “o’er all victorious” then present, he spoke with great firmness to the shadowy haze whenever it claimed his attention: “Go away! l’ll have nothing to do with you! Leave this man to his Life! 0 Life! Stand forth! Stand forth Free Life, bold and joyous!” And the mysterious devoid would give way to Life and Health, the rightful manifest of all mankind. Who can deny that this clergyman did perform the noble Christian Ministry, set into the form of command, “Heal the sick, raise the dead.”
It is told of Pope Pius IX that his vision worked ill luck with unfortunate speed. Doubtless he was clairvoyant to troubles about to come to pass according to the law of cause and effect; and probably he knew nothing of the Trismegistian law, “lf thou wouldest accurately put away contentious words, thou wouldest find free Spirit, untrammelled Life dominating.” And the pope did certainly ignore John’s beautifully executive treatment — `That thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
All people with the habit of looking for the best have the good and the favoring eye. The good and the favoring eye coalesces with the Deific eye: “We cried unto the Lord God of our Fathers” and He . . . “looked on our affliction, and our labour and on our oppression, and he brought us forth out of Egypt.”
Joash saw himself as Lord undefeatable. Amaziah looked him in the face on the plains of Beth Shemesh hoping to defeat him. The lordly Self-viewing of Joash won the day for him as lordly Self-viewing always wins the day for any man. “Why criest thou out aloud? ls there no king in thee?”
Did not Hegel discover that “by oft recourse by inward viewing, the mind goes on to know and comprehend?” Mind is the ostensible and tangible nearest to ostensible and tangible outward activities. Hegel wrote his books about mind, because his inward viewing stayed not where his own words led him. Steadfastly maintaining his cause he would have written his books about the antecedent to mind, and so would have planted on earth the beautiful doctrine of viewing Godward, that the New Age might speedily usher in —
“When peace should over all the earth
Its final splendors fling,
And the whole world ring back the song
Which now the angels sing.”
Pilate’s wife urged him not to see Jesus crucified. But Pilate could not take his eye off the crucifixion. This premonitive viewing was suicidal for Pilate, as the vision of the crucifixion is always suicidal. “To the Christ that never was crucified! To the Christ that never was buried! To the Christ that never rose from the dead! To the Eternal Almighty Christ, I commend you!” cried Elias Hicks in one great great moment of ecstatic vision. To endure as seeing the Triumphant Unkillable is to renew the life forces and catch the breath of Omnipotence. But Elias did not endure as seeing such Invisible. He altercated with sinful adversaries, fellowshipping with Chrysostom’s fateful forgetfulness.
Somebody must maintain the doctrine, that He that beholdeth Me on high shall behold Me on all sides. He that beholdeth Me on all sides shall behold that I am watching him. Did not Hagar discover “Thou God seest me?”
“The fourth beast whose ‘look was more stout than his fellows, made war against the saints of God, and prevailed against them, till the Ancient of Days came,” wrote Daniel, seeing past, present and future beastly strong secret viewing toward devoids, as being some day defeated by enduring vision toward the Eternal Almighty.
Steadfast vision tangiblizes. “There are eight conditions to right living, and the first is right view,” whispered the mystics of old India. “With right glance and right speech man superintendeth the universe,” insisted the far past Zoroastrian mystics. Francis d’Assisi sat with closed eyes, inwardly beholding Jesus on the cross. With profound sympathy of feeling he entered into the pains of the wounded hands, feet and side of the image he thus vividly visualized. Suddenly he himself showed wounded hands and feet, and all the people cried, “Wonderful! Wonderful!” Can you not see that his only wonderfulness consisted in his persistence of view? Where would the world now be in demonstration if Francis d’Assisi had persisted in beholding the Unkillable Almighty, the High and Lofty One inhabiting Eternity, “who healeth all our diseases, who redeemeth our life from destruction, who crowneth us with loving-kindness and tender mercy?”
Gregory the Great attested that St. Fridian changed the bed of a river by his strength of inward viewing, or one-pointed gaze. Dr. Gentry tells of a man who caught eczema from a picture of eczema. Hot focus of inward viewing tangiblizes. This is the genesis of the axiom, “He that findeth me findeth life.”
“Turn ye even to me with fasting — and behold, the Lord will do great things.” Fasting and circumcision, and the sign of the cross and sacrificing have ever been the outward ceremonies of mankind intended to signify putting aside the rigors of the law of cause and effect. Mankind everywhere vaguely senses his sinfulness, or darkly surmises himself in the wrong somehow, and therefore bound for punishment for the same. Why not, if his God is a punishing God and not the God who blotteth out transgressions?
Mankind has tried fasting from food and other normal goods in the hope of mayhap squaring his account with the great Lawgiver. Mankind has tried sacrificing his treasures of flocks and gold in the same hope. He has tried circumcision to set himself aside from human hordes, and seal himself to the God of his own description, still grovelling to placate the Lawgiver. Now and then one has boldly proclaimed that all these outward processes convey inward meanings, as that one should be circumcised from his heart’s desires, or sacrifice himself for Principle, even to being burned at the stake or sawn asunder: “0 ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised of heart and of ear,” cried Stephen, “ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do ye.” Stephen is going far towards true circumcision, for the High Deliverer is always speaking wonderful words to him who endures as seeing the Invisible. How can the ears of the downward watcher, clogged with the stories of war and death, catch the voice of Him who saith, “I will instruct thee and teach thee?” “Walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.”
Odilo of Cluny understood the sign of the cross as a blotting out and rejecting signal, and when he wet his fingers and made the sign of the cross, to indicate that he would have nothing to do with blindness chalk-marked across the shining God looking hitherward, blindness immediately disappeared from the eyes of the man born blind. By the same heavenly erasive signal he refused to see the ecclesiastic’s great tumor; and it disappeared. The idiocy of a child was erased by this symbol of annulling, uttering forth from his inward viewing toward the Unspoilable Almighty looking straight into his eyes.
The priests of Plutonian Serapis made signs of the cross to signify their blackhanding with the evil on which their gaze was fastened. In this Christian day there are unwitting disciples of Serapis, first regarding the cross as sign of trouble, and second describing themselves on the devoid side. “l am all undone,” says one. “I have been three days without food,” says another. Both these are blackhanding their triumphing Lordship with devoids. And we who say, “I am sorry for you,” are doubling their blackhand. We must silently stand by our true ministry: “It is not so!” we silently declare, offering our sacrificings of denial with secret shoutings, like the priests of Judah. We give our best praises to the Angel of their presence, their Jesus Christ Self, with face shining as the sun, and raiment white as the light. “Thus have ye done it unto the Mysterious Me,” and prosperity and joy gleam boldly forth.
All subjective or secret images come to the ostensible. William Blake, the poet, in his subjective or inward viewings, revelled in the hells as essentials of God; but when he outwardly beheld the suffering children, he flamed with indignation. He could not bear these tangible ostensibles of his own hidden limnings. He forgot his doctrine that hells are essentials. We must have a doctrine that we are glad never to forget — the doctrine that Invisible Kindness comes out to heal the starving children, rewarding our undiverted, right secret viewings with love hurrying into childhood’s daily life. “ls not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke.” Fast ye from stories of pain, disappointment, poverty. They are only hieroglyphics painted across the joyous Presence. They represent looking away from the true God.
There is a force more mighty than mind, more potent than thought. It is the “Dayspring from on high” that falls down over the upward watch, giving light in darkness, and guiding into peace. It is the resistless Holy Ghost, waiting to be heard by the ears from the hearing of evil. Micah heard it telling the Jews that the Lord was their redeemer from the hand of their enemies. Zephaniah heard it telling them that the Lord in the midst of them should cast away their enemies so that they should not see evil any more. Habakkuk heard it telling him to write his vision and make it plain.
Euripides wrote out descriptions of his visions of outwardly unseen men and women, gods and goddesses more powerful in battle and more daring and original in social encounter than any his outer eyes had beheld. So steadfast was his gaze toward these transcending images, that they made him know the words appropriate to their state and greatness. Then when Euripides the son of an herb seller, entered the theater, the Athenians rose as when their king appeared, and they cried that “the glory of the Athenian stage descended into the tomb,” when Euripides ceased writing his immortal plays.
Whoever is one-pointed to any objective begins to know its speech. Thus the eighth stone of character is the beryl stone, significant of one who hearkens to the teachings that wait at the silent heights. It stands for writing out the teachings. “What thou seest, write and send it unto the churches” said the voice of the Lord to John the Revelator. “Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee,” is said to the man that heareth. “The Eighth was Simeon the hearkener.”
Only one objective is worth our one-pointed, undivided attention. Only one objective has healing on its returning beam. That objective is the Watcher hitherward, whose soundless call is, “Look unto Me” — “Behold I bring thee health and cure.”
Archimedes gave his undivided attention to mathematics. “Noli turbare circulos meos,” he said to the soldiers driving their swords toward him. Could any attention be more undivided? But his beautiful mathematics did not save his life. For mathematics has never said, “I will contend with him that contendeth with thee.” Beethoven with undivided attention to notes that burst forth into delectable sounds, was hard of hearing, for music has never agreed to unstop deaf ears, open the eyes of the blind and cause the lame to leap like harts. Only the Healing God has promised such lovely service. A deaf child prayed to God, and her ears were unstopped. A blind women prayed to Him, and her eyes were opened. “Therefore I will lift up mine eyes unto Thee, 0 Thou that dwellest in the heavens.” “He bindeth up their wounds.”
We are all walled into chambers of imagery, taught Ezekiel. Of course! Why not, if our executive sense is drawing pictures from other objectives than the Free Universal? Why not, if our attention is drawing ideas from minds in all directions set toward us with their knowledges all foolishness to Original Wisdom? How unhappy was the little Dalai Lama of Lhasa, always reflecting the minds of those who came near him, speaking the almost forgotten dialects of strangers, and reading their innermost thoughts! How could he help even dying young under the burden of so much imagery?
The greatest adept of time was Jesus of Nazareth, who drew his knowledges altogether from God. “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” He asked, “a reed shaken with the wind?” A being standing proud and glad at beholding your favorable opinions; drooping and ashamed at your disapprovals? Whoever stood so on his own feet, independent forever of the estimates of mankind! He ignored their estimates. What he was he was, and they could not kill him with secret hatred or with open castigation. “No man taketh my life from me — I lay it down of myself,” he said. “What went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.” Samuel had been a great prophet. He was one who like Talleyrand, and Rachel, and Napoleon, laid his views on mankind so thickly they could not hold their own. “Thou art a victorious soldier,” laid Samuel’s estimate on young Saul. And Saul rose up a victorious soldier. “Thou art a king,” pictured Samuel, and up went Saul to the throne of Israel. “Thou art no king,” imaged the same prophet, and down went Saul, mindless and throneless.
But Jesus never offered to paint men any different from their original estate. “Call no man your father upon the earth. One is your Father.” “Ye are the light of the world.” “Not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” He put away from his Apostles the estimates of the whole world and their own estimates also. They were dull fishermen in the world’s esteem, but he wrought forth their original light as the noonday, and their native radiance that height nor depth nor things present nor things to come can ever dim.
There is one Shining Me, the Unalterable Fundamental, the High Reality of every son of man. This is the handwriting of God. All other sights and sounds of him are fictitious handwritings, as erasable by the right process as chalk marks on a blackboard.
lt is the province of this eighth lesson in heavenly law to woo mankind to willing erasure of all fictitious estimates. “Man can never behold the face of the Father except in the eighth” — was an inspired utterance of Saint- Martin “le philosophe inconnu.” This was Saint-Martin’s way of putting Isaiah’s words, “He that is escaped shall come unto thee to cause thee to hear.” One is escaped, or free to the view who has no imagery hieroglyphed across his presence. “Nay, not that!” says the Hindu, to all descriptions of the Lord of Life and Spirit.
“He is not Life, but Cause that Life is. He is not Spirit, but Cause that Spirit is. No descriptive fits the High Cause,” wrote the Egyptian wise men as they laid the symbol of high denial on the shoulders of their sculptured gods.
“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances against us — took it out of the way, nailing it to (signing it by) his cross,” wrote Paul, learned in the significance of all symbols. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world.”
“The accuser of our brethren is cast down,” said the voice of the angel to John the Revelator. Accusation does fall down. lt is the tongue silently or audibly detailing descriptives that do not apply to the Actual. “Then the ruffian looked at me, and wrought against me strange diseases,” said the Parsee, speaking for mankind become self-accused, or neighbor-accused by low watching. “So mayest thou heal me thou glorious Manthra Spenta.” Manthra Spenta is Lord, and lordly recognition of what lies back of the ruffianly accused heals. lt is the Parsee way of urging the healing high watch.
Even objects of Nature, trees, plants, winds, waters, have been ruffianly accused of hurting powers they hold not in themselves. “The waters drown, the winds devastate, the plants poison,” we are told. Not in themselves. Have they not all been pronounced good from the beginning? Did the waters drown Peter while his eye was on the Lord mighty to save? Did the winds overturn the ship while the sailors looked to the Master’s face? Can tea make the Angel of God’s Presence nervous? Or coffee cause Divine Intelligence to degenerate? Can rum spoil the beauty of God? It is ruffianly to speak of man or item of Nature as having the power to hurt. Look at them as glowing with the face of One ever watching from every infinitesimal point of the universe. “Wheresoever thou lookest there I am.” Take off the world’s estimates from that face, and lo, Beneficence only!
Do not go back on the knowledge that “Thou God seest me” from every direction. Thus are we dead to sin or aberrated viewings. Thus are we dead with the uncondemning Christ, that we may live with Him. Thus are we tabula rosa for truth from the circumambient kingdom in which we truly dwell.
“Multurn incola,” said the great Bacon. He was sensitive to world conditions. They made him ill and dulled his intelligence. He did not care what men called him so they kept out of his way and left him much alone to be sensitive to the wisdoms that fill the ethers. Thus being washed, set free from puny knowledges, he was taught new principles, which made him to be declared “wisest and brightest” of his generation.
Some way of getting multum incola, or much alone, has been the effort of all who would be powerful with Truth. Do not the Brahmins reject outward sounds and sights, and inward memories of sorrow and human vexations, until they are left alone with Brahma, or Universal Consciousness and its mysteries? Have the Brahmins not learned, by making themselves thus multum incola, many truths of the Universal with which they have practiced till their powers have astonished the world?
“Become relaxed,” say certain practitioners among us. “Drop sights and sounds; drop thoughts; drop emotions; become blank for a few seconds; then allow one positive thought to take possession. Hold the thought firmly. lt will demonstrate in time in outward conditions.”
This is their way of letting go, rejecting, on behalf of a thought. There is One above thought, above being, wrote the Seers of old Cabala philosophy. “lt is The Ain Soph,” they said. “Take no thought,” said Jesus. “Look up to the fields white for the harvest.”
Paul speaks of dropping the traditions and philosophies of men, that the life of Christ may take possession of us. Does not the magnet drop all sticks and stones and dust that its own may gather unto it? See the needles and the nails and the steel filings that the magnet loves, hurrying to gather to it!
“So runs the good with equal law
Unto the Soul of pure delight.”
“Thy lot or portion in life is seeking after thee,” said the Caliph Ali.
“Through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down,” wrote the prophet. “The Assyrian” is the power of darkness.
“The Messiah cometh to walk with men, when they hearken to the voice of the Lord,” promises the Talmud.
How can men hearken to the voice of the Lord with its soundless wordings, if the sounded wordings of their neighbors are thick on their ears? How can we know the grand verity of our neighbor’s Actual if we accept the outward shows and blatant estimates that make him cower and cringe to old age and death, disease and poverty?
This is a trumpet call that we take today, to accurately put away all contentious estimates and relate ourselves to the Right Estimate. It is the call of the Eight: “ln the eighth month . . . came the word of the Lord . . . to Zechariah, . . . the Son of lddo the prophet, saying, .. . Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Turn ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.”
How far reaching is the injunction, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” — the curative waters of erasure.
Go, gather unto the Unlimited. Erase age, destiny, inadequacy, disadvantage. On behalf of Divine Presence, One and Uncontaminate, reject its unlikeness.
Stand alone with Almighty Verity. Be one-pointed to the Ever-Facing Lord Jehovah. Declare the Unburdening Free God. Be undimmed heralding Star of Messiah’s Bright Morning.