January 2002

EMMA ONLY

    The story of creation as told in the first chapter of Genesis is the history of a thought of Eternal Mind coming forth from the mother -bosom to proof or manifestation of itself. It is a symbolic picture of the mind of humanity proving its divine origin, - its destiny and office.
    All the thoughts of God are clear and excellent to their Thinker. Their springing forth in creation only means that they must prove their nature and office to themselves and to others. This is called manifestation - revelation. "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known."
    We as thoughts of the Most High, have for our office the revelation of ourselves. And this revelation is the process with which we have to deal, the problem which we must work out. The creation itself is the reality in the mind of its Origin. The making manifest, or showing, is our work - the work of our thought. We are the thought, and "without it (thought) was not anything made that was made."
    The original mind creates. We - the likeness of that Mind - do a LIKE work. Not THE work of creating, but a like - the image of reflection of the Real - the seeming to create, which is not actual creating, but only the making manifest of that which is already created.
    The child of Good is in nature and office perfect. But he must prove this. When he has proved it to himself, he has entered into understanding. When he proves it to others, he does so by showing perfection of character, and power in work; - by his power to prove others also good.
    When a patient comes in illness, unwhole - unholiness - to be made over into health - wholeness, this wholeness or perfection is not created by the healer, it is only made manifest. The real self is never sick. When an appearance of sickness shows forth, the real self is not visible.
    No point is so difficult of making clear to the learner as this. What is this thing that appears to be a sick body? Is not my leg - my arm - my head, a real leg - arm - head? No! The real hand is absent from view, is invisible. There is in the invisible actual a divine reality, a perfect substance, which all the visible material things but stand for - shadow forth. But in no sense, even when most perfect, is any physical organ or any physical object anything more than a sign that there is a true, substantial thing near, though unseen?
    The true substance is the true mind of all things, the "Divine Idea" of the ancients. It's thinking faculty is pure understanding. This substance casts a shadow. This shadow is intellectual belief. So wonderful is understanding that even its shadow, a belief, has itself the power to shadow forth a belief, and this belief is called flesh! It is a belief, which has no actual existence of itself, but only shadows the actual, casts a sign of it.
    To speak either audibly or mentally of the real self, is to make it show itself. The real self is absent or present to belief, according to the believing power - that is, mortal mind, declares. If mortal mind declares a sickness, sickness shows. If it declares health, health shows. But that health, which is not declared from the mind that is grounded in spiritual understanding, is not the health which cannot be broken. It is only the belief of health, not the understanding of it.
    When the fleshy declares health to be the manifestation of the Spirit's perfect presence, then it cannot be changed into sickness. NO POWER WHATEVER can quench the light of this understanding, nor weaken the arm that is empowered by the strength of it.
    But the fleshy, (which by all its showing as matter, in not the real - being negation, not Truth) standing alone in it own weakness, believed what is not true. So it believes health, which is wholeness - which is holiness - which is God - can be destroyed, believes God can be destroyed, for God is The All. The All is Wholeness - wholeness is Health (wholth). God is the health of his people. "Acknowledge me" - "Prove me now." "And thine health shall spring forth speedily."
    I, in the flesh, must see God; you in the flesh, must see God. That is, flesh, which is the shadow, must know itself as the shadow - the unreal; must declare itself nothing, and must give way to Soul. When the flesh declares - "I am nothing, thou art all, O Spirit!" - then a change begins to come to pass in the mind. Ignorance disappears beneath the light of this truth, as a shadow grows less and less as the sun rises into midheaven, until when it shines directly overhead, the shadow is lost utterly in the substance - the real. Where does the shadow go? Where does the ignorance go? It is lost in Truth. And with the loss of the shadow - the ignorance is lost also. The miserable tumor, the vicious rheumatism, the ugly dyspepsia - these, themselves the shadows cast by ignorance, are lost with their shadow-father form which they had emanated.
    It is the lesson of most ancient teachings that when one knows that the actual Self of him is indestructible, unchangeable, never yielding to imperfection, he knows all that he need know. . .
Hufeland, body physician to the King of Prussia, agreed that "the real self, which is what we do not see, is never sick, and cannot be sick."
    To speak of this perfection, it to begin to prove it . . . The whole business of the real self is to show itself - to make itself manifest.
So when Truth absolute is spoken of ourselves, the physical lets go its claim, and the spiritual shines over and through us. "The mortal puts on immortality."
    "Let your light shine" means let your true self stand forth by telling Truth. You need not be always preaching and talking aloud, and thus exhibiting zeal without judgment; but your silent thought may shine and flash its excellence over the presence of the joyless and sick, over the people in the streets of restlessness, over the disheartened criminal in his cell, the cruel-hearted, the over-bearing and dishonest among the swarms of mortality's roving children. Send them your silent word: The vile and wrong are unreal! Only the good is true.
    There are many ways of speaking the Truth, but they all lead the mind up toward is desired goal - Understanding. . . . We must help on the millennial day - that one day when "all shall know Me from the least to the greatest."
    Spiritual understanding is the light that illumines the pages of Scripture. But it does not come to us, till we have faithfully worked for the Truth. People complain that they do not understand the Science. Have they worked to deserve understanding? What work? Worked how?
    Have they, with the word of their speaking, silent or audible, rejected the claims of mortal mind respecting their fellow-men and themselves, till all evil and undesirable conditions are as blank to them as to Swedenborg's angels, to whom only the good of each being is known? Do they speak only of the true and deathless excellence of life and mind, or do they fret at the misery and folly so visible to the children of darkness? "By thy words though art justified, and by thy words condemned."

Class Lessons 1888 - Chapter 6