LESSON NUMBER 4 HOW TO MEDITATE AND QUESTIONS ANSWERED CONCERNING MEDITATION

Meditation is the key that will open the door to your inner Self wherein lies all the true power for material manifestation for as sound springs from the silences so does positive action come from inner KNOWING.

It has been said that one must lose one’s life to find it. Applied to meditation it means that one must lose (forget) one’s mortal body in order to become aware of one’s immortality.

That is exactly what happens when we seek the Light of Self illumination in our eternal Selves. The great glory of existence is reached only by Mind awareness. You can only reach supreme heights that way.

In that ecstatic existence is the seed and Source of all power and all knowledge which is yours by just desiring it. It is not easy to acquire the meditative state all at once even as carefully as these lessons tell you how to acquire it. It must come slowly and always through desire to talk with God.

There is no other way. You must either desire to live in the sensed body of earth or in the Light of the Mind kingdom of heaven. That is the answer to those who say they try to meditate but find that they cannot stop thinking to “get into that state of Mind”.

To those who are thus troubled in making the transition I would say that if you desired to talk to the President of The United States your Mind would be centered on the reason why you desired to talk to him.

Exactly the same procedure takes place when you wish to talk with God. Your Mind is centered on your desire. You could not possibly think of other things, nor could your thinking wander aimlessly. Concentrate hard upon your desire if you wish to, or just breathe your desire softly, or just write it upon your heart wordlessly. Perhaps your desire has no definite objective other than to find the peace of heavenly companionship by dwelling in the love nature of your Self and God.

It makes no difference what your desire is or whether your approach is in deep concentration upon some specific thing, or in dreamy decentration upon some nebulous forming idea, or upon nothing at all.

You cannot concentrate long in any case, not more than five to ten minutes before the reaction of decentration replaces it. Gradually the inspiration you ask for will come to you. Before you can realize it you will find yourself “stepping in and out of the body” in that alternation which always takes place while losing one’s sensed awareness completely in full forgetfulness of body and full awareness of the Light of knowing which Mind is.

Slowly - very slowly - read the answer to the first question on HOW TO MEDITATE - then follow through one step at a time letting the ego of your material self melt into the great Being of your Eternal Self. Gradually you will find it becomes increasingly easy to merge into the Oneness of the universe. The secrets of the universe will then be gradually revealed to you and YOU MUST THEN PUT YOUR INNER KNOWING INTO MATERIAL ACTION. REMEMBER YOU HAVE ALL KNOWLEDGE AND POWER WITHIN YOU so tap your inner reservoir and express your inherent genius.

QUESTION. “How can I decentrate into that stillness of the meditative mood? The more I try to stop thinking the more things I keep thinking of.”

ANSWER. “FIRST. Desire to be in the Light. Say to yourself wordlessly, I want to be alone with God. If you do want to be alone with God there is a reason for it. That reason is that you NEED God. You have a desire you want fulfilled–a problem to solve–illness—misfortune–financial loss or need–idea for invention–conception for work of art, no matter what it is you need whether knowledge, power or inspiration–no matter what it is–DESIRE IT IN YOUR HEART wordlessly. Do not talk to God in words. Talk to Him in essence. KNOW Him. Do not think of Him and thus make Him objective and apart from you. Be Him Let your Soul touch His Soul.

“SECOND. Your desire is written upon your heart. It is registered in your Soul. It is no longer your body desire, it is your Soul’s desire. You are in communion with God about it–not in words but in Light. You have an increasing sense of joyousness. Your desire is written into the universal heartbeat rhythmically. You are responding to it rhythmically. You are no longer just body–you are Soul–slightly aware of body–slightly aware of earth, and the heavens above, and of creating things. You are not thinking of extraneous things. You cannot think of objective things of earth while in the Spirit.

“THIRD. You are in a contemplative mood. There is an indescribable peace in its rest. Your Soul sees the beauty of the flower you are passing. It is not your eyes which see that beauty, nor your ears which hear the silences from which the sounds of earth spring. You are in the rhythmic world of imagining–the world of inspiration–the world of the high heavens–the formless, indescribable world of the high heavens.

“FOURTH. You are in communion with God. You are ONE with all things. All things are ONE. You KNOW all things as ONE. You KNOW the Light which all things are. You KNOW the love nature of God, and of all things. You KNOW God as love. You KNOW yourself as love. You KNOW the ecstasy of love. You know your Self. The mortal YOU has become the eternal YOU.

“FIFTH. That which you desired to know you do know. That which you desired to have you now have. You have always known–and always have had that which you have but now desired. You have always known it in spirit for you are the Light of all-knowing which spirit is.

“God does not give you knowledge or power. He gives you an awareness that you already have all-knowledge and all-power that He has, for He makes you aware of your Oneness with Him. When you actually KNOW that you can then say “My Father and I are one.”

“Neither does God give you material things without your equal regiving, for that is the inviolate law regarding all material things. He gives you the seed but you must nurture the seed. He gives you His body to fashion into the form of your desire but you must give equally of your body to fashion it. God gives you the tools you need but you must use them. God manifests the spirit of His nature in His own body by creating His body in the image of His Self. You must manifest the spirit of your nature in your own body by creating your body in the image of your Self.

“SIXTH. In meditation you have stepped out of the material into the spiritual YOU. You have stepped out of the body of yourself into the Mind of your Self—out of the manifestation of Reality into Reality. You have stepped out of the conditioned universe of divided and unbalanced things into the unconditioned, and undivided universe of balance which controls unbalanced things. You have done this because you had desire in you which must be fulfilled.

“Your desire has been fulfilled. God has illumined you with the knowledge you desired. You have become inspired. Conception of idea in spiritual form is now in you–but can you now come back into physical world and transform your conceived image into a material one? You now know CAUSE. Can you translate it into EFFECT? God has given you what you have desired—but now comes the important question as to what you are going to do about it. How shall you use it? Have you the moral courage to use it or are you still a weakling, preferring to suffer the effects of your ills rather than remove their cause? Shall you work with God and arise, or against God and fall?

“Your body manifests your Mind. It will do what you command it to do. Is it ill? If so it is out of balance. Balance is in the eternal YOU–now extend balance to the mortal you. Whatever your problem was it has been solved in the spirit of you. Can you now manifest it? Can you now give it a body? Can you now extend your spiritual balance to your unbalanced physical body to stop the wreckage of your business–or heal your body–or regain a lost friendship.

“CONCLUSION. All of our problems of life lie in the fact that we are forever manifesting CAUSE by extending CAUSE into effect. What we know spiritually we are endeavoring to manifest physically. We succeed or fail, partially or fully. Our failure is certain if we work alone without God, for we can do nothing of ourselves alone. The measure of our ability to transform the Reality of CAUSE into its simulated manifestation is the measure of our God–awareness coupled with desire to work knowingly with God from moment to moment. To commune with God for inspiration alone, then forget God until later on when mediocrity is stamped upon your work, is to fall short of manifesting your Soul’s desire, but to create a masterpiece which truly manifests your Soul’s desire means that you must work knowingly with God every moment while interpreting the rhythms of your inspired vision into rhythmic forms.

“God’s creative processes are our creative processes. His creations are extensions of His knowing transformed into the desired form through action. Our creations are also extensions of our knowing transformed by action.

“If we think that God has not granted our desire it is because we have failed to manifest the awareness which he has given us. If our problems are still unbalanced it is because we have failed to extend our balance to them. We HAVE that balance to extend but do not extend it. We continue the CAUSE of our ills and then blame God for continuing their EFFECTS.

“In this manner we learn our lessons of failure or success, good or ill. Life is just a lesson–just a continuous process of learning how to transform CAUSE into EFFECT in such a manner that we accomplish what we desire to accomplish, or we do not.

“There is only one reason for failure to fulfill your greatest desire just as there is but one reason for fulfilling it abundantly. I cannot fully explain and define this one reason so early in the unfolding of this new knowledge, for you are not yet ready for it, and will not be until I am enabled to change some basic misconceptions commonly held by all mankind of this present age. Gradually, as the real picture of God and Nature unfolds this one reason will be given to you as the most basic and fundamental law and principle of Creation. Also it is inviolate whether heeded or unheeded.

“All I can say now is to repeat again the fact that this universe is based upon love and the law of love, which is the principle of rhythmic balanced interchange, or equal giving for regiving as the basis of what I shall try to gradually unfold.

“To say that it can now be comprehended is to assume that you know what love means–and you do not. Its meaning has not yet penetrated human consciousness sufficiently to become a part of human practice.

“Words alone will not convey KNOWLEDGE of God’s one law to you, you must know it in your heart until it becomes your nature. When it becomes your nature you will then practice it without compromise, or without the possibility of violating it.

“When you and many other men have acquired this understanding as a part of your nature the day of cosmic man will have dawned.”

QUESTION. “You say that God does not give us material things without our equal regiving. That is contrary to all of my whole life’s teachings which say that all God’s gifts are free–that God gives us everything–supplies all our needs freely and without price, as freely as the air we breathe.”

ANSWER. “That idea is one of the commonly accepted misconceptions I have just referred to. It is entirely erroneous because it is not either the nature of God nor does it conform with His law, as exemplified in the universal heartbeat and in the electric wave. Let us begin to reform our old conceptions, one step at a time.

“God works WITH you, not FOR you as man believes. God gives–but you must regive–and equally. God gives you the free will right to your action but withholds the right to the reaction. Woe betide you if your action is out of balance with its reaction, for God will not allow unbalance in all His universe.

“You have spoken of the air we breathe, God gives it to us from His body, but we must breathe it in. Then we must regive it equally to His body for regiving. Likewise God gives us our very bodies from His body and we regive them back to His body equally for regiving. He gives us our daily bread for our bodies but we must nurture and attend our bodies continually, else His gift of bread would be of no avail.

“God gives us the seed but we must nurture the seed. Those who believe that God’s gifts are free spend much time in wishful thinking and selfish prayer, and the making of many useless affirmations in the hope and belief that God will work magic at their request and drop money, or the applause of men, or the full grown fruit of their desire right in their laps, freely, and with no effort on their part, “Let God do it”, they say, and, “Ask and ye shall receive”, and, “With faith and belief you can move mountains”.

“Men have removed mountains by working with the knowledge and power given by God, but not through idleness and wishful thinking. God has given man the power to fly the heavens of the whole world, to talk simultaneously to the whole world of men,–to command the tides,–to sail under the seas–and to harness Niagara, but not by wishful thinking, nor by faith and belief, nor by sitting idly and letting God do it.

“The only way men have done these things is to regive of themselves for that which God has given of His Self. If you ask God to help you become a concert pianist He will unfailingly help you and work with you, but He will not work for you while you sit and affirm, that you are going to be a concert pianist.

“That is what I mean when I say that you must work knowingly with God–KNOWING that God is working with you–giving you exactly what You are able to give back equally from moment to moment, and not more–but setting no limitations on what He will give, for God lets YOU set those limitations which may be bounded or unbounded, as great or as small as your desire is great or small.

“God works with engineers and architects to build great bridges and cathedrals, with poets to create great epics, with painters and sculptors to create great masterpieces, with inventors to ease man’s burdens but God does not work FOR them. He gives all they ask and can receive but they must regive equally.

“Let us be specific. Let us say you want to have an apple orchard in your meadow. Your desire is for wonderful apples, the best ever grown. Your meadow is God’s body. If you put seeds in it where you desire the trees to be, God’s body will extend apple trees and apples in due time and of a quality measured by the equality and inequality of your regiving of your body in service of watering, pruning and other expressions of love given by you to match the love given by God. The wonderful apples of your desire will come only if love given by you equals love given to you.

“A story is told about a farmer who desired a wonderful farm and asked God for it. Soon he found a rocky and worn out farm and purchased it, whereupon a critical neighbor said; “You prayed for a wonderful farm. If this is what God gave you what good is prayer?” “God is answering my prayer, you wait and see. This is all I could give now to match His giving, but He will give more when I give more.”

So the farmer worked knowingly and lovingly with God, and God worked with him with equal love. Year after year God extended love from His body and the farmer from his, until the wonderful farm of his desire stood before him in all of its majesty as a co-creation of God and man.

“Five years of this and his minister looked out over the lovely well cultivated fields and said: “How wonderfully God has blessed you with this beautiful farm. How lovely and rich these fields are.”

“Yes,” said the farmer, “but you should have seen it when God worked it alone.”

“There is not the slightest irreverence in this story, for it is law, and it is the way God works. The critical neighbor was wrong in expecting God to give to the farmer more than he could re-give, and the farmer was right in stating that God was answering his prayer. “The law of equal giving for regiving is absolute. You must give equally for what is given you. An effort on your part must pay for the effort on God’s part. If you stop giving you will shut off your own supply. If the heavens cease giving rains to earth the earth ceases giving crops and forests to the heavens. God’s law will never give you anything without an equivalent repayment in action. You must nurture the health which is given you and give much care to your body as long as you you use that gift. You could starve with food ten feet away from you unless you gave effort to reaching for it and more effort in making use of it.

“Love means exchange of service for service–and God’s law demands that service given must equal service rendered.”

QUESTION. “What I cannot understand is your constant insistence upon the word equally in relation to giving and regiving. I have always been brought up on the belief that God gives abundantly, very much in excess of what effort we regive. If we put a bushel of potatoes in the ground God multiplies them a hundredfold for us, and for every measure of wheat we give to Him He gives us a hundred to our one, Please explain that?”

ANSWER. “The key to that answer is that God’s universe is founded upon balance–one balanced condition which He divides into two equal and opposite conditions of His electric thinking.

This electric universe of matter is composed entirely of these two equal and opposite conditions.

“Every effort of every creating thing is expressed by the motion of interchange between those pairs of opposite conditions, such as matter and space which constantly interchange equally by breathing into and out of each other equally. Without that equality of rhythmically repeated interchange the universe could not continue. That rhythmic interchange constitutes the heartbeat of God’s body. Its rhythm and balance are absolute because the division in God’s electric thinking is equally balanced.

“Now as to the question. It is not a bushel of potatoes, or a measure of wheat which you give to God’s body for regiving from God’s body, it is a measure of seed which multiplies its patterned form in God’s body by transforming one form into another form. There has been no multiplication of God’s body nor has its balance been upset. An equal substance of earth has been transformed into an equal substance of potatoes or wheat.

There is no more and no less in God’s body by transforming one substance into another.

“Neither has that multiplication of potatoes or wheat been given to you until you regive in effort or service. If you do not regive to obtain them they are still God’s body and will re-transform their forms and substances into the formless earth from which they sprang. You cannot have what you do not pay for. Love given must be paid for with equal love regiven. Service accepted must equal service rendered. The potatoes or wheat in the ground are still God’s body. He has not given them to you for your body, or your use, until you regive equally to earn the gift.

QUESTION. “I see that clearly now, but how would you explain its application to a man in business who gives more than he is paid for, or more than is expected of him–or of a genius who gives all he has with less pay than a workman,–or of a great inventor like Goodyear who starved all his life but gave untold value to the world many millions of times in excess of what he received?”

ANSWER. “The man you refer to could not give more than he has received. He could not give more of himself than he is, for all his life he has been given that which has made him what he is. If he gives more than is expected of him God’s law will balance it in promotion or increased salary. If that is not his motive, and if an increase is not given him, he has enriched himself by experience and better judgement in the management of his life.

“The genius who gives his all of great value for less pay than a materialist has ten thousand times more reward of the kind of pay he wants than the materialist. He has the ecstasy of living in the high heavens-the joy of self expression-of hearing heavenly rhythms which do not exist for the materialist-and his immortality lives forever in the memory of man while the materialist is forgotten.

“Goodyear’s body starved but his Soul was enriched for aeons to come by having demonstrated his immortality. His reward was a satisfaction that all the money in the world could not equal. He won the gratitude of the world. You are still regiving love to him for the love he gave to you, and so is the whole world.

There are other values than money values, and money values have no meaning whatsoever unless they are the manifestation of love.”

This gives me an opportunity to say something that I have been leading up to say to you. I am trying to unfold the cosmic mentality of the coming race of man by helping mankind to realize that the nature of God, and of man, and of all creating things, and of all the laws and principles relating to creating things, and all the laws and principles relating to man’s dealings with other men, are founded on LOVE.

God is LOVE–and Creation is LOVE MANIFESTED. The universe is founded on love. There is naught in the universe anywhere, or in anything, or in any experience of man, or animal, or the elements, or of the starry systems that does not express love.

It may be difficult to change such misconceptions as sin, evil and wickedness in general, but sin or evil do not exist, and I shall fail in my task if I cannot demonstrate to you with conviction that this is God’s universe which expresses God’s nature, and that it is all GOOD.

We have lived in an evil universe long enough. Wars, fears and hatreds have been the fruit of it. God sent a Message of love into the world two thousand years ago to prepare man’s mind for the thought of love which was then unborn in him.

God sent another Message of love to man of new comprehension for the express purpose of gradually ending man’s Barbarian days of fear and hate and transform him to the ways of love.

That is the reason for these steps in trying to unravel the great complexities of the unknowing life of material sensing to the KNOWING life of cosmic expression of the God nature in all the ways of man.

QUESTION. “Do we meditate with our Mind or our brain?”

ANSWER. “We meditate with our Mind. There is only one Mind which is God’s Mind. God’s Mind is the one KNOWER, the one THINKER. The reason you think that you have a separate Mind of your own is that the thoughts you think are the ones stored in your brain as memories of experience of your own body, or of your own thoughts.

“God’s Mind motivates those thoughts which you think of as your own. You could not think except for the motivating power of desire in you.

“Mind thinks ideas of its knowing into form by dividing one idea which can be known into many parts. These parts are electrically projected into a three dimensional universe through the pulsations of thinking. The brain records the thought forms, symbols, and other electric actions but records of thoughts are not thoughts.

“Thinking is electric, but electricity is not knowledge, it is but the motivating power for expressing know1edge.”

QUESTION. “What relation is my Mind to my brain?”

ANSWER. “Your brain is electric matter, just electric waves which all matter is. Matter does not think nor does it know. You do not think with your brain, you think through it by projecting an electric current through it exactly as you project an electric current through your phonograph to motivate phonograph records.

“Your phonograph may have a dozen recorded ideas but it does not know what is recorded upon them. Your brain has thousands upon thousands of ideas recorded upon it but your brain does not know what is upon them. The intelligence which selects the desired record for your phonograph also selects the desired record from your brain. The electric current of your desire motivates those records into action.

“Your brain is a part of the electrical machine which is your body. Its function is to record memories, experiences and information. It is also the central nerve gangallion of the body which acts automatically to fulfill the demands of the body, or when willed to act by the intelligence which centers it.

“The brain does not know what it is doing any more than the automobile knows what it is doing, or where it is going when activated by the intelligence which centers it. Knowledge is a quality of Mind, and not of matter. Matter records knowledge but a record of knowledge is not knowledge any more than a printed book is the idea recorded in the book.

“One student reminded me that science has proven that the brain thinks because an instrument has been invented that records electric wave pulsations in the brain.

“That instrument does not prove any such thing. It merely proves that an electric current is passing through the brain when Mind thinks, just as the same instrument can prove that an electric current is passing through your recording phonograph, or washing machine, or wire recorder, or your refrigerator, but that does not prove that those machines think. It merely proves that all electric matter obeys the intelligence which motivates all matter. Electricity is the servant of Mind, but is not Mind.

“Witness, for example, the telegram which passes through an electrically motivated wire as an electric current. You know that the idea in the telegram is a Mind extension arising from an intelligence which thought the idea into form. You know that the wire is not thinking that thought. You know also that the wire is but recording form symbols automatically, and that it has no knowledge of what it is doing. You know also that the telegram itself does not know the idea which it manifests just as books do not know the ideas and diagrams which are printed in them.

“In this whole universe we have only Mind and matter to deal with. Mind alone can know things and think things.

“Matter is electric and can only sense things. Sensing is not knowing. The brain is composed of electric vibration.

“Vibrations belong to the physical universe of motion. All matter is motion only, electric wave vibrations of motion, and the sole purpose of matter is to build bodies in forms and patterns conceived by Mind and imagined into form by the electric thinking of Mind.

“Electricity is the tool used to fashion Mind conceptions of the Creator into form, but the tool used by any creator is not the creator.”

QUESTION. “What is the relation of my Mind to my brain?”

ANSWER. “Your invisible Mind has its center of Consciousness within the visible brain, and that conscious center coordinates with the seat of sensation which the brain obeys whenever your Consciousness demands action by it. There are machines made which will do a thousand complex things when buttons are pressed by the will of Mind to compel those machines to obey one’s will. The machine adds or subtracts, prints columns and computes totals more accurately than the human machine can do them but the human brain has no more awareness of what it is doing than the computing machine.

“Ideas and concepts formed by your intelligence are expressed through the brain but not by the brain. Your meditations are spiritual. You interpret them into matter electrically. The physical universe of matter is but the electric record of thoughts of Mind but it is not thought.

“Much confusion arises from the assumption that we are thinking when we are but sensing. The brain is constantly receiving electric messages from all over the body. Such messages are not mental. They are purely electrical. They produce sensation.

The brain senses and records every message and sends counteracting Messages to other parts of the body.

“A message from the arm says, “I am in pain.” Pain is a sensation not a thought. Sensing comes from the body while thought comes from the Mind. We believe that we are thinking when we are but electrically sensing.

“All day long the body is telling the body, through the brain, that it is hungry, that it needs a drink of water, or wants to dance, or that it is cold, and a hundred other things. The senses of the body are thus continually intercommunicating with the senses, but these electrical sensations are not thoughts until those sensations make us mentally aware of them. We then think, and we decide to do something about them. We give our body a drink of water, or gratify its desire to dance, or put a coat on it to warm it. Our mental decision is a thought but the electric message of the body to the body is but a sensation. It is the body speaking to the body.

“Such a sensation may not even come from your own body to your own body. Another body can record his thought into an electrical sensation by ordering his senses to record the thought in words which are again recorded as a telegram to you.

“A series of sensations which have no meaning in themselves are translated into meaning by your intelligence and you then mentally decide to do something about it. The sensations in matter which have taken place between the mental operation of the sender and the receiver are purely electrical. They have no relation to Mind nor to thought of Mind.

“Again we repeat this fact in other words of the same meaning; all matter is but sensed electrical vibrations of motion. Matter has no intelligence, nor knowledge, nor power to think or meditate. That applies to your brain, for your brain is naught but matter, centered by a guiding intelligence. The same thing can be said of your automobile.

“All material bodies have what might be termed an electrical awareness of each other, and of their relation to each other. The brain is the seat of such an electrical awareness in man.

“Electrical awareness is necessary to an electrically mechanized universe, but electrical sensations, or vibrations, between mechanized parts of matter are not mental, for an electrically controlled machine in your factory has exactly the same electric awareness that you have. Its wired nervous system conveys electric messages to all of its parts for the dual purpose of motivating them as well as for adjusting all parts to each other.

BRAINS HANDICAP MEDITATION

“It might well be said that, instead of our brains aiding in meditation, we meditate in spite of our brains. For perfect meditation we need to lose our body–to forget it as though we had no body

“One cannot lose, or forget his body if his senses will not let him do so. Imagine a musical genius trying to compose a symphony in competition with sensations. He could not do it except by long practice of being able to shut out any sensations whatsoever, such as of noise, discomfort or inharmonious environment. A master can do this but not a novice.”

QUESTION. “Does that explain why geniuses are so far greater than other men?”

ANSWER. “Yes it does. The genius is ahead of other men because of his awareness of his divine power which he has multiplied and remultiplied a thousand fold by his life long habit of seeking aloneness with himself for the purpose of unfolding that divine power for his own creative expression.

“Your own genius is as great as any man’s on earth. The only reason that you do not know it is because you have never given yourself a chance to know of your divine inheritance by forgetting your body long enough to become aware of your Soul.

You allow emotions and tensions of body sensing to dominate you instead of your sleeping Soul. Go into the deep forest and awaken your Soul.

“That is what meditation is for, and the moment you begin to practice it that moment you begin to express the unlimited power of the awakening genius within you. If you acquire the habit of meditation you multiply your knowledge and the power to express your knowledge. You also give your body an escape from its tensions which heals it of all ills by restoring its balance.

“Through meditation Edison acquired the knowledge and power to unfold an idea not yet known on earth. Through meditation he got the concept for that idea in a flash of inspiration and created a body for it through concentratively thinking the idea of that concept into a physical form.

“Through meditation the great writers, painters, sculptors, poets and musicians are enabled to work knowingly with God as One with Him. Having acquired their concept from God’s all-knowing Mind they “create” their concept into material form by knowingly working with God’s hands to create eternally living masterpieces which will endure because their very nature is God’s nature manifested in them.”

QUESTION. “How can your Mind relax when you say that Mind is unchanging? Also do I have to concentrate to meditate?”

ANSWER. “It is not your Mind which relaxes it is your electric thinking. When your thinking is concentrated it is under the same stresses and strains which a clock spring is when wound up tight. It is an effort to wind a clock spring up tight for it resists being wound, and it is straining to become unwound. I will draw you a picture which will illustrate that. It will also illustrate your thinking when concentrated.

“When you release all tensions the clock spring relaxes. It expands to a position of rest. It is utterly released from effort to resist strains. I will diagram that also. It will illustrate your thinking when decentrated.

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Figure 1 - is a clock spring would up tight to exemplify concentration

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Figure 2 - Same spring unwound to exemplify decentration

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Figure 3 - represents water concentrated into a drop.

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Figure 4 - represents water deccentrated into vapor.

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Figure 5 - Concentration and Decentration

Fig. 5 represents concentration of light rays to a point. Light rays thus concentrated through a lens will burn a hole through paper or fabrics.

Light rays proceeding in the opposite direction will expand and cool by decentrating toward space.

“The whole physical universe of forming growing bodies is due to the fast motion of concentrative thinking. Conversely all degenerating and decaying bodies are due to the expansion of decentrative thinking.”

CONCLUSION

I hope you can all clearly see that the only desire you should ever have is the desire to acquire God-awareness in you for the purpose of extending God’s nature from you as your nature, His power as your power, and His knowing as your knowing.

Meditation is for the purpose of acquiring this awareness. And if you acquired it just for the bliss of it, for the ecstasy and peace of it for yourself alone that is not enough, for the God nature is purposeful and you must be purposeful by extending your nature to all other men for their cultural uplift. World culture comes alone from those who have God-awareness in them. Without God-awareness in man he is of the jungle. The measure of his growing God-awareness is the measure of his growing culture.

What applies to man as a whole applies to you. Your masterliness is of your own making as well as its mediocrity. One of my favorite sayings is this: Genius is self bestowed and mediocrity is self inflicted.

THE WORLD OF IMAGININGS

Meditation transports one from the transient world of matter to the real world of dreaming, visions, and imaginings where ideas and concepts are born. That is the world where sounds are heard in the silence of your Soul where no sound is–where rhythm of symphony and poem are the rhythms of cosmic pulsings of God’s thinking manifested in the heartbeat of His universe.

God’s ecstatic kingdom of the Light is the uncreated universe of Souls of things which have not yet appeared in form but which eternally are. Go thou there.

You may journey to that ecstatic world in God’s high heavens for just your Soul’s asking to be transported to that kingdom of the Souls of things.

Desire that stillness within your Soul–and behold, you are the Soul of all the universe of countless uncreated ones which spring from One in you.

Behold your Self, your uncreated Self–eternal YOU,–not yet manifested, or, if manifested, have forgotten it as though it never were.

Desire thou that kingdom and behold it standeth before thee. And if there are those among men who ask; Wherein shall I seek that kingdom of the Souls of uncreated things, I say; Go thou and seek beauty.

And where shall I find beauty?

You will find beauty where love is, for beauty lies in the giving of love, and its regiving.

But where shall I find love in this sordid world of fear where no peace is–of hatred where no love can be–of ugliness which stifleth beauty–and evil which driveth love away?

Seek it within your Self. When you find Self you will find love, for naught but love is within Self. Where love is neither fear nor hate can be. For evil exists not. There is naught but experience in extended bodies–and all experiences are good–for, I say, all experiences extend from love and love awaits their completion in love.

Remember our Father-Mother’s saying in The Message of The Divine Iliad, “I am a patient God. All men will come to me in due time, but theirs is the agony of awaiting.”

These are God’s words to cosmic man.

You have undoubtedly read these lessons straight through all at once from beginning to end. Now begin from the beginning again, slowly, carefully, a sentence at a time, a paragraph at a time and a page and chapter at a time until their deeper meaning becomes a part of your inner Consciousness.

This is new knowledge and new thinking. You cannot transform your past ages of traditional thinking into new KNOWING without giving such deep and earnest thought to it that it becomes a part of your very Self.

New thinking cannot be grasped at once. Do not be discouraged if you do not attain expected heights immediately.

You would not expect to play the classics at once if you studied music for that would be new thinking for you and you would have to begin with scales and finger exercises.

When you begin to think cosmically you will advance rapidly if your desire is keen, but from the very day you begin you will note increasingly greater power in your work and a still greater transformation of your personality.

This message to you is from my Soul to your Soul and not to the senses of your body. By giving deep thought to it you will find that which you seek. I can open the door for you through which I have entered and found the Light, but only you, yourself, can make it a part of you by giving yourself the time to absorb it completely.

Realizing this fact I have not asked you to send in examination papers, reports or essays, such as you would be required to do if you were obtaining information which could be remembered and repeated at will. To apply the customary rules of examination by questionnaires would not be fair to you for one can be examined only for what information he has. A man cannot be examined as to what KNOWLEDGE he has for the depths of knowledge cannot be sounded. Knowledge is Light from which all ideas of things are born about which you can become informed, but information concerning EFFECT is not knowledge of their CAUSE.

Whatever emanates from you as a result of this new knowing will be creative expression, not mere repetition. Knowledge is the one basis for creation. To become knowingly a creator is to achieve the highest pinnacle of human expression.

However, if you need further clarification of anything which may not have been made sufficiently clear to you write your question CLEARLY and as BRIEFLY as possible and send it here. All such questions, if not duplicated by others, will be printed in the Question and Answer sections of following lessons.

A PERSONAL WORD TO ALL READERS.

Dear Cosmic Friends:

Your desire for God’s Message for the new Cosmic Age was expressed when you enrolled for the INTIMATE HOME STUDY COURSE and if I can but impart this new knowledge to you during the coming months I will have worthily fulfilled my mission on earth, which is to bring the Cosmic Age of Man into being.

In these first four lessons I know you will realize the trend of my desire in respect to each one of you individually, and as a whole. This letter is to make my purpose a little more clear. Let us, therefore, look back on man’s cycle of unfolding to aid in clarifying my intent.

The human race is about to undergo a third great transition which will uplift it to heights as yet undreamed of. The purpose of these lessons is to prepare you for your own uplift, and to become a leader for world uplift.

THE PAGAN AGE OF MAN.

The first transition occurred at the dawn of Consciousness when man first began to think and know. Out of his search for a greater Being the Pagan Age of Idol worship of many gods arose, but man was still brute man, fearing all things, still loving to shed blood for self purposes and to appease his many gods whom he also feared.

THE BARBARIC AGE OF MAN.

The second transition occurred when mystic messengers told of the One God of love but man could then conceive only a God of wrath and vengeance whom they feared, and whom they appeased with blood shed on their very alters in exchange for mercy and absolution. This present Age of Barbaric Man has but One God but many religions. Out of fear of [a] God man created hate and evil. He divided into tribes, then nations, which killed for plunder and for power over other men. The Barbarian Age is still killing and is still afraid of God and man, but it has already begun to dissolve because man is beginning to comprehend the unity of God and man, the meaning of love and the interdependence of man, and his ability to vision the possibility of One God, One Religion and One unified World.

THE COSMIC AGE OF MAN

The third great transition now dawning is the New Age of Cosmic Man of spiritual Mind knowing who has transcended his body sensing.

Cosmic man is illumined with the Light of love and its application to life and law. Cosmic man knows God in him as one. He communes and works with him as one, and knowingly interprets God’s nature as co-Creator of God’s universe.

It was for the express purpose of bringing the necessary new knowledge into the world, to affect this transition into a world of One God, One Religion and One World that God illumined me during a whole life time to demonstrate the multiplied power of cosmic man to multiply his versatility and masterfulness in creative expression, and for giving that knowledge of the Light for the illumining of other men.

To present most effectually, this all important, and least known subject, The Illumination, I have decided to define, describe and explain Cosmic Consciousness and The Illumination by my own experiences, beginning at the age of seven with partial illumination every year in May, with deeper illumination every seventh year, and with full illumination in 1921 covering a period of thirty nine days and nights.

I had thought that I would never reveal this most sacred experience as a personal one but Lao and I now feel that I owe it to the sum of human knowledge, for so many centuries it has been known as an extremely rare human event, but which no one who has experienced it has been able to explain because of the inability of past ages to comprehend it.

There are an ever increasing number of cosmic humans who are now ready and able to comprehend Cosmic Consciousness. Lao and I know of many. Some have come here, others have written from all over the country, and many are now taking this study course. Everyone who is deeply inspired by The Message of The Divine Iliad is ready for it otherwise my books would have no meaning for them.

For the above reasons I believe that it is incumbent upon me that I should now unfold this greatest of all mysteries of the universe. Any hesitation which I have had in making this decision has been dispelled by my beloved Lao whose life, with mine, is likewise dedicated to the infiltration of the love principle of Nature into our human relations to replace the fear, hate, sin and evil which have dominated human relations of the past and have caused man to kill man in war succeeding war which will eventually destroy the human race unless saved from destruction by love.

Now as I told you to do at the end of the fourth lesson; study these four lessons carefully and slowly. Remember always it is new knowledge and therefore has a new language. Next month I shall not only explain and define Cosmic Consciousness but give the scientific explanation of Prayer. Many have told me their prayers are not effectual, thus proving that they have not yet learned HOW to pray and the true meaning of prayer. All prayer is answerable in the Light of all-knowing and I shall endeavor to unfold more of this inner power for you by giving you every possible explanation on this all illumining subject next month.

With our love and blessings, I am Sincerely yours,

Walter Russell