LESSON NUMBER 8 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CONCERNING MEDITATION, PRAYER AND COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

How often I have told you that the greatest miracle which can happen to you is the discovery of your immortal Self. I would say that again and again for a thousand times.

Let me add to it by telling you that one inspiring hour alone with God, in communion with Him in His Light, is worth more to you than all the possessions of all the earth, all of its jewels, its gold, yes, even its richest thrones.

This highest of all the attainments of man, I am trying to open up to you through your continued growth of comprehension. Do not think it is easy for you to acquire such a high goal overnight. That is impossible. Many write that they have followed my instructions carefully but cannot decentrate to the stillness of zero, try how they may. The following is typical of many such questions.

QUESTION. “Although your instructions seem explicit about decentrating to the zero of stillness I have great difficulty in doing so at will. Does this mean to hold the Mind steady and quiet without thinking?

If so it is a very difficult thing to do. Just once have I reached the point of absolute stillness and it was beautiful. I was unconscious of anything but being merged in that pure light. How I wish I could attain that state at will.”

ANSWER. The more you can attain that state the easier it will be to repeat it. Your question indicates that you make too great an effort to accomplish that result. This means that you are concentrating upon having it happen, instead of decentrating to LET IT HAPPEN.

Do not look for the symptoms of it. Do not expect it or try to make it happen. Just say to yourself: “I want to be alone with God”, and the majesty of that thought, and your desire for aloneness with God will drive all things else from your Mind.

The effort you indicate you are making gives me the impression that you are making your brain very active in trying to make your Mind still. Forget your brain. Forget your body. Take the attitude that nothing in the world interests you, nothing whatsoever. Think of beautiful music to stop your thinking about your grocery bill or your visitor who is coming or any problem that weighs heavily on your heart. Meditation comes from the heart. Do not let the brain interfere with your inspiring communion from Soul to Soul.

It is wonderful that it happened even once to you, for that means that it must happen again, often and more often, as you open your heart to it.

You might as well expect to play a symphony after one music lesson as to expect to be able to decentrate to that ecstatic state of inspiration at once. You must realize that your unfolding to the point you have already arrived at has been a long one. You are ready for the Light NOW, else you would not have so keenly desired it.

My Light, and my inspirations, however, cannot reinspire you immediately for you always take first instructions, or first readings through your senses by recording them on your brain, before it is finally absorbed by your Soul to become knowledge, just as you have to first take food into your stomach before it is absorbed into the blood stream to become nourishment.

Very many even expect to attain full Cosmic Consciousness immediately by applying my instructions. That is as utterly impossible as it is undesirable for one who is not ready for it.

Students often write me that they have “been in metaphysics for twenty years” and think that is a sufficient reason for the attainment of the highest, and rarest of all human attainments. One can be in metaphysics for fifty years without having one’s Soul touched by the Light for even one second.

The study of metaphysics, like a university training, may give one much information, without any real knowledge. Many great metaphysical authorities may be enabled to make many scientifically true statements of facts but have no knowledge of them whatsoever. They would be unable to explain them if asked to do so. Such a metaphysical authority might be as completely unable to commune with God in his heart as a student of musical history and theory might be unable to compose even a simple melody–much less a concerto.

How many there are all through the metaphysical world who perpetually repeat the same scientifically true statements who could not explain them because they do not know what they mean.

I have heard such statements as “All things are one” hundreds of times but when asked to explain how the fifty men in the room–plus everything else in the universe–are one, they become as silent as the scientist becomes if asked what light or gravitation are.

The only way you can ever find that great treasure which is your Self is to be able to decentrate to the point where you can forget your body and be aware of your immortal Soul. I can tell you how to do this through these lessons, and I can undoubtedly reinspire you with the Light of my inspiration, but only through your own great desire in cooperation with the principles, practices and instructions I am giving you. I cannot even do that unless you let my Soul touch your Soul instead of just reading my words with your senses.

Metaphysical students and teachers have often told me that they have known some of the things I am teaching for twenty-five years. This is not true, for most of the knowledge given in these lessons has never before been known on earth.

I want this to be thoroughly understood, for it is important to you that you know the difference between stating a fact–which really is a fact–and KNOWING it. I will give you a simple example to exemplify meaning.

For centuries people have made these two true statements: God is Love and God is Light, yet no one up to this day has any knowledge whatsoever of their meaning. Until today the meaning of Love is an abstraction to the metaphysicist, clergyman or layman alike, and the meaning of Light has never been defined or explained by science.

If mankind ever knew the meaning of love we would have had a different kind of a civilization. Its scientific meaning as law applicable to every phenomenon in the universe has never been known. Likewise, the scientific meaning of light, electricity, gravitation, magnetism, energy, polarization, atomic structure and many, many other things have never yet been known on earth, and are herein being revealed for the first time in the history of man.

So much for the true statements which are made but not known. There are an equal number of untrue statements constantly being made in both metaphysics and science which are believed to be true, but cannot be tested as true or untrue because of lack of knowledge regarding them.

I will also quote two of these as examples. Metaphysicists and metaphysical books have for years been saying: “Get into the high vibrations of the spirit, and out of the low vibrations of matter”, and: “It is only in your Consciousness so it is not real.” not knowing that the Light of Consciousness is the only reality.

There are no vibrations whatsoever to the spirit. The Light of the spirit is absolutely motionless, while the vibrations of matter increase with density and decrease as they approach the stillness of space. Such teachings are very confusing when one says in one breath, “Seek the high vibrations of the spirit”, and in the next breath: “Be still and know.”

There is one thing in particular which The Divine Iliad Message teaches that no one has ever heard of before, nor taught. That is the principle of decentration, or expansion of the senses, in order to forget body and become wholly Mind when in meditation or communion with God.

Teachers have taught that one must concentrate in order to conceive idea for creative expression. Such teachings defeat the very purpose of meditation, for concentration focuses the senses to a point, and thus forces body awareness, while decentration expands the senses and thus aids body forgetfulness and spiritual awareness.

Decentration is a relaxation of the senses to give freedom to the Mind to conceive idea from its Source; while concentration tenses the seat of sensation in the brain and prevents reaching beyond the electric activity of the brain into the stillness of the seat of Consciousness from where our knowledge comes.

My teaching regarding decentration is an entirely new principle for no one has ever thought of–or suspected it as an attribute of the Mind until God gave me this knowledge and commanded me to teach it. You have read a few of the words of God’s command to me in Lesson No. 7.

As proof that this principle was never before known on earth, or had ever entered human Consciousness is that no word which covers that idea has ever been provided. The dictionary makes no provision for the thought, for it has no word for it.

In the same sense many will say that they know God, and have always known Him, basing such a statement upon the recognition or belief that God exists. Belief is not KNOWLEDGE. I say to him who believes that he knows God: If you KNOW God you can define Him and relate Him to Nature and Nature’s processes. Can you do that?

Naturally he cannot, for no one has yet known God sufficiently to define Him as a scientific fact until He himself gave that knowledge through His Message to those who are able to comprehend it. That is the way God unfolds all creating things. He gives that for today which is of today.

If God had long ago been definable there would be but one religion and one concept of God, instead of many religions because of the many concepts of God.

Out of this new knowledge contained in The Message, and its teachings, will come the One God and One Religion. Nothing can stop it for it is God’s plan to now blot out the vast ignorance of man which is keeping him in the barbaric stage of unfolding where he still kills, in order to take, and is himself killed because he still takes.

Until human relations are based upon the love principle of giving for regiving which God gave as His One Law of RHYTHMIC BALANCED INTERCHANGE IN ALL TRANSACTIONS OF MAN AND NATURE, mankind will be on the descending direction of self-annihilation in the mass–while the few who do know, and who live the love principle, will survive. And out of these few a new civilization will be born unto the glory of God.

I tell you this because of the present decadent state of man in the mass whose ever growing greed for possessions, even to whole world ownership, will as surely break him in the measure of his own breach of the law. These present wars of man are the manifestation of GREED KILLING GREED, and greed must disappear before love can be in the world.

In relation to this idea, God’s words in The Message are: “If love be in the world hate cannot also be.”

QUESTION. “How long do you think it will be before people will stop praying to God as a God of fear and wrath and know Him as a God of Love?”

ANSWER. Just so long as fear, wrath, crime, selfishness and greed and the wars which are their harvest continue as the practices of man, just so long will his God be a wrathful, vengeful God who invents untold tortures for sinners.

Man conceives a God of his own image, and that conception which he imagines always reflects himself.

QUESTION. “Why is it that people ever got the idea of a God of fear and wrath? The Bible is full of it. Why should it be in the Bible if it is not true?”

ANSWER. When man first began to think at the dawn of Consciousness he then began to arise from his jungle ages and he was slow to throw off the habits and practices of the jungle.

Early man was fearing man of wrath. He feared the wrath of all things, tempest and avalanche, torrid heat and icy cold which froze his infants at their mother’s breasts. He feared the jungle animals and reptiles which smote him mercilessly, even as he, himself, smote mercilessly.

When he suspected the existence of a God he could not think of Him in any other character than a wrathful God of fear for he knew naught else but wrath and fear and killing mercilessly–for he was still brute man and he could not conceive of any other kind of a God than a brute God.

He could not possibly conceive a God of Love for he had not yet begun to have the slightest trace of knowing what love meant.

All during those early pagan and barbarian days men appeased God and gave Him pleasure by slaying men by thousands, sacrificing their own sons, and shedding rivers of blood upon their altars. They filled fountains with the blood of dozens of animals to baptize new born infants. They cleansed sinners by plunging them beneath those bloody founts which we still sing about in our hymns.

The entire Bible is a true record of the history of its day. It tells of the nature of people of that day and that record is invaluable to tell us the nature of past ages of people. Long after the Bible was assembled gladiators still killed each other for the amusement of women and children of that day.

In the time of Jesus the very altars were daily drenched with blood. Kings thought nothing of ordering all male babies slain, or of killing thousands upon thousands of prisoners taken in war, sparing only the virgins for their own pleasure. During that time practically every tribe warred against every other tribe. Killing and looting was common and people held great festivals to see prisoners slaughtered and their raiment divided.

If the Bible did not truly record its day and age it would be as valueless as a history of today which left out the atom bomb to give posterity a better opinion of us.

QUESTION. “What evidence is there that the unknown writer of the Bhagavad-Gita was a cosmic conscious mystic?”

ANSWER. All who have known the Illumination speak the same language in words which may differ but in meanings which are identical. No matter what words are used by any past mystic, other mystics who follow always recognize the one meaning which is in all writings, or in the spoken word, such as those of Jesus who did not leave any written record for posterity. I will quote some passages from the Bhagavad-Gita which sing their own glory in language unmistakable.

“Another Sun gleams there; another Moon; Another Light,–not Dusk, nor Dawn, nor Noon–Which they who once behold return no more; They have attained My rest, life’s utmost boon.” (Chap. XV)

“I am what surveys. Only that knowledge knows the known by the knower.”

“Fain would I see, as thou Thyself declar’st it, Sovereign Lord, the likeness of Thy Form wholly revealed. O Thou Divinest One, if this can be, if I may bear the sight, make Thyself visible, Lord of all prayers, Show me Thy very self, Eternal God.

“Behold! this is the Universe!–Look! what is live and dead I gather all in one in Me! Gaze, as thy lips have said, on God ETERNAL, VERY GOD! See Me! see what thou prayest.

“Thou can’st not!–nor with human eyes ever mayest! Therefore I give thee sense divine. Have other eyes, new light! And look, this is My glory, unveiled to mortal sight. (Chap. XI)

“Of many thousand mortals, one, perchance, Striveth for Truth; and of these few that strive–Nay, and rise high,–one only–here and there–Knoweth Me as I am, the very Truth. (Chap. VII)

“For in this world Being is twofold; the Divided, one; The Undivided, one. All things that live Are “the Divided.” That which sits apart. “The Undivided”.” (Chap. XV)

“I am the Spirit seated deep in every creature’s heart; From Me they come; by Me they live; at My word they depart.” (Chap. X)

Every line of the entire Bhagavad-Gita is recognizable by any mystic as the unmistakable work of a supreme mystic. Furthermore, any writing purported to be the work of an illumined mystic, but is not as represented, would at once be known by another mystic.

The Divine Iliad says of this fact; “Light knows Light and there need be no words.”

I would suggest that you procure a copy of this work. It comes in several translations. The one I like best is called THE SONG CELESTIAL, and is written by Sir Edwin Arnold, It is a small pocket size book. The only other book which I would recommend for you to read upon the subject of Cosmic Consciousness is the fine book by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, published in 1910, eleven years before my Illumination in 1921, by E. P. Dutton & Company, entitled COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS. In 1925 someone called my attention to this book which is a very close description of what happened to me in my thirty-nine days and nights of Cosmic Consciousness in 1921.

Dr. Bucke actually experienced the severance of Mind from body in a partial Cosmic Conscious experience for a few seconds or moments which utterly transformed him. His own words are very illumining in this respect. I hereby quote him from page 9 and 10 of his book.

“It was in the early spring, at the beginning of his thirty-sixth year. He and two friends had spent the evening reading Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Browning, and especially Whitman… .

His mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the reading and talk of the evening, was calm and peaceful.

“He was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment. All at once, without any warning of any kind, he found himself wrapped around as it were by a flame-colored cloud. For an instant he thought of fire, some sudden conflagration in the great city; the next he knew that the light was within himself.

“Directly afterwards came upon him a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Into his brain streamed one momentary lightning flash of the Brahmic Splendor which has ever since lightened his life; upon his heart fell one drop of Brahmic Bliss, leaving thenceforward for always an aftertaste of heaven.

“Among other things he did not come to believe, he saw and knew that the Cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of the world is what we call love and that the happiness of everyone is in the long run absolutely certain.

“He claims that he learned more within the few seconds during which the illumination lasted than in previous months or even years of study, and that he learned much that no study could have taught.”

Dr. Bucke also says (Page 6) “The Saviour of man is Cosmic Consciousness–in Paul’s language–the Christ.”

This experience was never repeated with Dr. Bucke but he gave his life in study of it as related to the few mystics of all time. He lists 37 partial and complete illuminations, and cites many extremely interesting facts, in comparing one with another, which will help you comprehend this supreme happening much better.

When you read of those very few cases out of billions of men born on earth during the last three thousand years it should not make you wonder why it does not happen to you immediately after becoming aware of it as an existent fact. Nor should you feel disappointed because I cannot open that door at once for you which you alone can open.

Rejoice, rather, that the Light comes to you a little at a time more and more, as ignorance is voided with knowing as comprehension of The Message gradually reaches your heart and Soul. That is why I keep persisting that you take one paragraph at a time and meditate upon it until your Soul KNOWS what your senses have read in words and recorded upon your brain. Until it gets beyond your brain into your Consciousness you do not KNOW it.

Swannanoa, Waynesboro, Virginia

Treasured Cosmic Friends:

To all of you who have RE-GIVEN to us so sincerely and deeply for that which we are giving to you in these cosmic lessons, which God gave through my blessed husband for His messengers of today, we send a great big THANK YOU. The letters have been so richly rewarding after the first four lessons and mean more to us than words can ever say. Through you we hear God’s Voice telling us that by giving this course of study in this way that that is what He wants us to do–and NOW.

We heard HIS call to give The Message in this manner through you for it was the repeated requests of so many who were unable to come to Swannanoa to study with Doctor that made us decide The Message must be given through an INTIMATE HOME STUDY COURSE so that this need could be met.

Thus does God direct us - all and every one in unfolding His great plan.

You will remember reading in lesson seven how God commanded my husband to spread The Message through his well chosen written word to all nations and people and in giving this Home Study Course he is obeying that sacred command.

So that we may share with you the words written to us by other cosmic messengers - of whom you are all such a tangible part - we will give some brief excerpts from some of the precious letters received. The most glorious human experience is that of sharing and while it may be many months before we can know the touch of your warm handclasp we CAN share the warmth of this love regiven.

Wish we could share all the recent letters with you for all are so wonderful since they portray an understanding and appreciation that only comes with Knowing. However space will only permit these few and later we will share more with you.

(These excerpts are from a clergyman, lawyer, doctor, business men and women and homemakers.)

“The lessons are truly wonderful. I have read and reread them with much joy and inspiration, and I am glad to say with constantly increasing understanding. These lessons are very precious to me as instruments for developing Cosmic Consciousness.

I want to be illumined to know my oneness with the Eternal Light. These lessons are moving me toward that goal. If the first lessens are a prophesy of the forthcoming ones then I am already assured of complete envelopment in the glorious Light. The lesson on meditation is a masterful presentation,” E. H. Arizona.

“Your Home Study Course is most inspiring. It is just what I needed. It inspires me with confidence and strong faith that I shall comprehend every bit of it and begin to live every minute in ecstasy and in balance. Even the structure of the course and the manner in which you express your knowledge seems to contain and express to us your infinite balance and loving ecstasy.” H.T. Chicago, Ill.

“You certainly know and show the scientific and true reasons for the “WHY” of the universe and cover them as no teacher has ever done or even attempted to do from anything I have heretofore read. I hope that by careful study of what you have so carefully written to someday get a feeling realization of your wisdom.” C.L.J. N. Jersey

“Although I’ve been an earnest student of metaphysics and philosophy for 24 years yet I was never too sure about my foundation. Your lessons are clearing up many misunderstandings. “M.L.F. Moline, Ill.

“We want to thank you both with all our hearts for The Home Study Course. It is the most wonderful Teaching of God and His Love for man we have ever heard in our lives. We thank you with all our hearts for showing us the Light and how to know our God.”

“It is so tremendous in its application yet you make it so simple.” J.V.M. Detroit.

I wish I could tell you what such letters mean to my husband personally for to know that those have come who are beginning to comprehend the true Nature of God is a tremendous inspiration to him. The comprehension and the living of God’s Universal Law must and will come and you who are the forerunners and leaders of the New Cosmic Age will have the knowledge for the founding of an order of world peace and happiness never before known on earth.

Your next four lessons are extremely important for in them Doctor will explain the hereto-fore unknown meaning of what Father-Mother mean when we speak of God that way. No one yet knows what it means, nor how basic is this tremendous idea of the Creator as being FATHER-MOTHER of this sexed-electric universe. When you get these lessons you will realize the fundamental import of the Father-Mother principle in every thought and action of your life and of all Nature’s phenomena.

You will then begin to know the mystery which shrouds the electric thinking process which extends from the Light of Mind to manifest the knowledge of Mind, and how motion seemingly emerges from stillness to create this physical universe of form.

You will begin to have the very foundation of this majestic illusion of unreality which emerges from the One Reality. Gradually this idea will be constructed by simple diagrams and simply worded postulates, axioms and examples which will give you so vivid and clear a comprehension of this sexed-electric universe that your inner vision will see God face to face, and hear His inspiring

Inner Voice in communion with you in a manner which would be impossible without that comprehension.

My husband believes that he can now make you fully comprehend why this physical universe is not real, being but an illusion of God’s imagining. How comforting when one comprehends that in the unreality of matter there can be no death, sin or evil leaving naught but love and eternal life. He has long felt that it could not be explained to one who has not himself known the complete Illumination into Cosmic Consciousness, but now fully believes that by laying a proper foundation in point to point simple steps the unreal universe can be comprehended for the unreality it actually IS.

The undivided Father-Mother principle from which emerges the divided Father AND Mother principle of pairs of sexed opposites will be the first simple step in the direction of transforming you into an advanced scientist.

Remember my husband is entirely God taught and perhaps is the only man who has ever earned a Doctor’s Degree of Science without going through college, for as you know he was forced to leave school at nine years of age.

So, by taking his teaching one step at a time you will not only unfold in God-awareness, which means, personal happiness to the ‘nth degree, but you will find yourself becoming a natural scientist and confounding professors in physics as some of Doctor’s students write him that they have already done.

Always remember to take these lessons slowly for on first readings you may well miss the deep import of an explanation which may appear too simple to ponder on. As I often hear my husband say: “A simple story is the hardest to tell” and I would add it is the simple story of life that man has made complex by his unawareness of its basic simplicity.

Know our every thought is with you always and know too we treasure you so deeply for your help in spreading God’s Message with us.

Our love to you,

Sincerely yours,

Lao Russell