Lesson 4 – No One To Change But Self
May I take just a minute to clarify what was said last night. A lady felt from what I said last night that I am anti one nation. I do hope that I am not anti any nation, race or belief. If perchance I used a nation, it was only to illustrate a point. What I tried to tell you was this — we become what we contemplate. For it is the nature of love, as it is the nature of hate, to change us into the likeness of that which we contemplate.
Last night I simply read a news item to show you that when we think we can destroy our image by breaking the mirror, we are only fooling ourselves. When, through war or revolution, we destroy titles which to us represent arrogance and greed, we become in time the embodiment of that which we thought we had destroyed. So today the people who thought they destroyed the tyrants are themselves that which they thought they had destroyed. That I may not be misunderstood, let me again lay the foundation of this principle. Consciousness is the one and only reality. We are incapable of seeing other than the contents of our own consciousness Therefore, hate betrays us in the hour of victory and condemns us to be that which we condemn. All conquest results in an exchange of characteristics, so that conquerors become like the conquered foe.
We hate others for the evil which is in ourselves. Races, nations, and religious groups have lived for centuries in intimate hostility, and it is the nature of hatred, as it is the nature of love, to change us into the likeness of that which we contemplate. Nations act toward other nations as their own citizen’s act toward each other. When slavery exists in a state and that nation attacks another it is with intent to enslave. When there is a fierce economic competition between citizen and citizen, then in war with another nation the object of the war is to destroy the trade of the enemy. Wars of domination are brought about by the will of those who within a state are dominant over the fortunes of the rest. We radiate the world that surrounds us by the intensity of our imagination and feeling. But in this third-dimensional world of ours time beats slowly. And so we do not always observe the relationship of the visible world to our inner nature. Now that is really what I meant. I thought I had said it.
That I may not be misunderstood, that is my principle. You and I can contemplate an ideal, and become it by falling in love with it.On the other hand we can contemplate something we heartily dislike and by condemning it we will become it. But because of the slowness of time in this three-dimensional world, when we do become what we contemplated we have forgotten that formerly we set out to worship or destroy it. Tonight’s lesson is the capstone of the Bible, so do give me your attention. The most important question asked in the Bible will be found in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew. As you know, all of the Bible stories are your stories; its characters live only in the mind of man. They have no reference at all to any person, who lived in time and space, or to any event that ever occurred upon earth. ************** The drama related in Matthew takes place in this manner Jesus turns to his disciples and asks them, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” Matt. 16:13 “And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” “He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?” “And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” “And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” Matt. 16:14-18 Jesus turning to his disciples is man turning to his disciplined mind in self-contemplation. You ask yourself the question, “Whom do men say that I am?”
In our language, “I wonder what men think of me?” You answer, “Some say John come again, Some say Elias, others say Jeremiah, and still others a Prophet of old come again.” It is very flattering to be told that you are, or that you resemble, the great men of the past, but enlightened reason is not enslaved by public opinion. It is only concerned with the truth so it asks itself another question, “But whom say ye that I am?” In other words, “Who am I?”
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