How To Live Life And Love It
	Personal Intimacy With God <  Previous Contents Next  >

PUPIL: Please tell me a definite way to get closer to God, to push the little love and understanding that I have further into the Great One-ness until my limited vision is completely absorbed in the Unlimited. Will you do this just for me?

MASTER: Gladly. Since this is your own book, you may take all the time that you require, and at such intervals as you please, to study it, then study it still some more, and to practice it until you have really mastered it and made it a part of your very self. The very best way to completely sublimate your human self, your sense self with all of its limitations, into the INFINITE is to establish within yourself a PERSONAL INTIMACY WITH GOD!

PUPIL: But can this be done? Do you mean to say that we may actually be on terms of personal intimacy with God, as with a friend or other loved one? Such a thing seems too good to be true, too strange and mysterious to believe.

MASTER: Yes, this can be done. In fact it is done in each of us at all times whether or not we are aware of it. Remember always that each of us was made by, and out of the same stuff as, the Ever-Present, Intelligent, Creative Life Itself. Each of us was fashioned out of It Itself; and each of us IS It Itself in a physical form. This being so, it automatically follows that each of us is always in a MOST PERSONAL INTIMACY with God! God IS our Maker, our very life, our body, our thoughts, our desires, our everything!

PUPIL: Then why are there any troubles at all in this world? Why is not the lot of every person peace, joy and perfection at all times?

MASTER: That question I have answered a number of times, in one form or another. But yet once again let me say that it is all a matter of each individual's own CONSCIOUSNESS. Our thoughts make us what we are! The whole shape of our lives, and of what we call "conditions," take their form FROM OUR MOST HABITUAL THOUGHT AND FEELING! Don't ever lose sight of this outstandingly important fact. The Originating Creative Power is UNformed relative to your individual life UNTIL IT FLOWS THROUGH YOUR THOUGHT! It is through out CONSTANT AWARENESS of the truth that God IS ever-resident within us, IS forever flowing through us as thought, that we are lifted right out of the old, limited habits of judging everything from external appearances, or from sense-consciousness only.

PUPIL: But I still do not quite see how this awareness will change the whole life from darkness to light. Just how will it do it?

MASTER: If you are CONSTANTLY AWARE of the fact that YOU REALLY ARE GOD HIMSELF in miniature, that you ARE always on terms of personal intimacy with Him as with your own self, then you will not any longer think thoughts that are unlike Him. You will not think thoughts of limitation of any nature; you will not judge anything or anybody from the standpoint of sense-consciousness. And when you have changed your Thoughts and Feelings to the point where you are HABITUALLY THINKING ONLY FROM THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF THINGS you will readily discover that to really KNOW GOD IS TO BE GOD! Then indeed are you in constant personal intimacy with God; and you will leave far behind you the dismal bogs of failure, lack, disease, loneliness and despair. You will emerge into, and abide securely in, the GREEN PASTURES of the fulfillment of your every treasured desire!

Persist, persist and yet again persist, in your steady recognition of the Truth that the actual purpose of the Divine in having projected YOU into being from its own Bosom was this and this ONLY: That it might CONTINUALLY FLOW THROUGH YOU AS CONSCIOUSNESS, and that it might always SPECIALIZE IN YOU AS HEALTH, WEALTH, PEACE AND JOY! Through this realization you lift your thought and feeling above limitations, and this is the solution to every problem. Yes, through the radiant gate of PERSONAL INTIMACY WITH GOD we step into a NEW WORLD in which ALL IS LIFE AND LIBERTY! Truly God IS an EVERPRESENT EVERYWHERE ALL-THE-TIME, LOVING, RESPONSIVE, CREATIVE POWER!

PUPIL: Since you often encourage us to use the Bible as a standard and a way-shower, can you refer us to a place in the Bible in which we are given a means of establishing this conscious personal intimacy with God?

MASTER: Certainly. The Bible is replete with illustrations of this very principle. For instance, let's turn to St. Matthew, Chapter 22, verses 36, 37, 38, 39 and 40; and note what Jesus, the Greatest of all Great Teachers, says there. Let us study it and analyze it carefully. Here it is:

(a) Verse 36: "Master, what is the GREAT COMMANDMENT in the Law?" This question, asked of Jesus by the lawyer, was one of vital importance; and in the answer that Jesus gave is the GOLDEN KEY that millions desire. Note the reply below:

(b) Verses 37 and 38: "Jesus said unto him: 'Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with ALL THY HEART, and with ALL THY SOUL, and with ALL THY MIND! THIS is the FIRST and GREAT commandment." Kindly note very carefully, and ponder deeply, the THREE steps that are united into ONE through His use of the word "LOVE." The heart, the soul and the mind constitute ALL of the SPIRITUAL BEING! Hence if we really love God with ALL of our heart and soul and mind, we are in fact loving Him with ALL OF OUR ALL! Is this not true? Indeed it IS! Here then we have Jesus' own way, His own method, of establishing within Himself PERSONAL INTIMACY WITH GOD!

(c) Verses 39 and 40 read thus: "And the second (commandment) is like unto it (like unto the first one) Thou shalt LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF! On these TWO commandments hang ALL the LAW and the prophets." Please observe here the tremendous importance that Jesus places upon loving our neighbors as we love our own selves. There are many who pay lip-service to this Divine injunction, and who profess that they really DO love their neighbors as themselves. But when it comes to the crucial test of dividing their possessions in love with a less fortunate neighbor, or of going to any extremity of "trouble" for him, their protestations of love for the neighbors are far too often found to be only mere words, shallow and empty and vain. So remember this: in words WITHOUT DEEDS TO SUPPORT THEM there is NO VIRTUE! It is a FACT that our neighbors (every last one of them) are as precious in the sight of God as we are; in truth our neighbors are an integral part of ourselves, in other forms. It is a FACT also that we can not really love God unless we love our neighbor; and it is a still greater TRUTH that if we DO love our neighbor as we love our self we are loving God. God is ONE! Yet most of us make the tragic mistake of thinking that God is many, that our neighbor is one person and we another, etc. The DIVINE REALITY, however, is that ALL PEOPLE (yes every last one of the millions and millions on earth) are ONE BODY UNIFIED FOREVER IN GOD! This being so, it is impossible for us to help a neighbor (who is our self) without also helping ourselves. Neither can we criticize, condemn or injure a neighbor (who is our self) without doing ourselves greater harm than is done to the neighbor. In PERSONAL INTIMACY WITH GOD there is, in reality NO "neighbor" and NO "self," as two persons, as ones separate and apart from each other; rather each of us is also all other persons, and all other persons are our own selves! When the dwellers on earth learn this all-important lesson that Jesus taught, and when all persons are obedient to this Law, then we shall have the Millennium here in our midst -then will all of us be veritable angels of the ONE DIVINE BODY!

PUPIL: This is a most beautiful and powerful illustration. In addition to studying about it and thinking about it what else should we do about it?

MASTER: The most important thing of all is to PRACTICE it, to LIVE it! Otherwise there is no virtue in it at all. If you can accept these words of Jesus as Truth, then ALLY yourself with them in your THOUGHT and FEELING and ACTIONS, then will your whole being be fed with spiritual MANNA. You will be given constant suggestions by the Spirit regarding the sanest and most fruitful methods of living your own personal life in TRUE UNITY WITH GOD.

PUPIL: And will this not develop still more in us that great essential to which you gave such importance in Lesson Number One, namely a good disposition?

MASTER: Indeed it will! And no age in all of history has ever more needed to learn and practice this great lesson of GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT and true ENRICHMENT than the people of today. Many read the Truth; few assimilate it! Many hear the Truth; few heed it! Many know the Truth; FEW DO IT! That is exactly why there is a real MASTER only at long and rare intervals. The price of MASTERY is really easy; but it is so much contrary to sense-consciousness (out of which all selfishness is born) that FEW have the courage, the faith and the spiritual stamina, and the LOVE, to try it earnestly, or to stick to it through outward confusion, until it HAS BEEN PROVED!

PUPIL: Is there any other method you can think of that will help us to understand this Great Law still better? Are there any short cuts? In the study I mean, not in the practice of it?

MASTER: Yes, there are short-cuts from which a truly observant and intelligent person may find this Law actually fulfilled in beautiful harmony, and from which we humans may learn a very great deal, if we will. Perhaps the greatest of these shortcuts to ILLUMINATION is the one that is most widely distributed, and to which every last soul has access in one form or another, and with very little "trouble" if they sincerely wish to seek it out. I mean NATURE, of course. ALL of Nature shows forth the GLORY OF LIVING IN CONSTANT PERSONAL INTIMACY WITH GOD!

By way of example of what I mean, let us briefly study the four seasons of the year, and the reaction of Nature to each. Spring in all of Nature is the period of IMMORTALITY expressed anew, and in wonderful splendor! It is the season of budding, of flowering, of mating, of Generation and of Re-generation, all of which are among the HOLIEST of the functions of Nature. And mark well how all of Dame Nature's children are always OBEDIENT to the urge of Spring, to the sublime song of the Spirit! Only men are rebellious to the holy commands of the Spirit; and it appears quite obvious that only men sin. How long will it be before we who are human awaken to the TRUE GLORY that is OUR DIVINE BIRTHRIGHT?

In the realm of Nature summer is the time when fruits are formed, developed and ripened in fulfillment of the Law of the Spirit. It is the season when seeds are formed within the fruits so that with the coming of another spring all of Nature may obey again the great injunction found so often in the account of Creation in Genesis, namely; "Be ye fruitful and multiply, and fill the face of the earth with fruit."

With the autumn comes the PRECIOUS HARVEST, the time when the radiant PROMISE that was given in the spring is FULFILLED IN FORM, just as every promise of the Spirit to US will surely be manifested in form in our lives, and with a most bountiful harvest, IF only we humans will learn to OBEY the Spirit without question, as do the fair children of Nature, and cease our foolish rebellion that is the one and only source of all of our afflictions!

Then follows the winter and Nature RESTS from its labors of the spring, summer and fall, just as we also must have our periods of rest. But winter positively is NOT aging, or decadence, or death, not in Nature. It is the season of rest, of slumber, only. But if you want to think that winter is the symbol of "death," as some people insist upon doing, I will agree with you for a minute solely for the purpose of pointing out the FALLACY of death, or the belief in death, as clearly revealed by Nature. In winter Nature does APPEAR dead. BUT IS IT DEAD? By no means! With the first few warm days of spring the LIFE which has been merely SOMNOLENT in Nature, (but which has NOT perished because it can NOT perish, not ever) again RESPONDS! The buds, animated anew by the vitality of the Spirit, swell and burst; and the leaves and flowers that were HIDDEN from view (but THERE nevertheless) come harmoniously, joyously forth in their beauty and glory to express IMMORTALITY! As Nature DOES so may MAN DO ALSO if he only will. IF YOU WOULD KNOW TRUE ILLUMINATION, and the POWER and the GLORY that are born of it, GO THOU TO NATURE! STUDY HER WAYS AND BE WISE! STUDY HER WAYS AND REALLY LIVE!