Practical Metaphysics by Eric Butterworth

Lecture 8 - Demonstration

"Let God be God in you — Meister Eckhart"

Eric Butterworth Practical Metaphysics Demonstration

Summaries:

124 - "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" John 8:32. What you experience will always depend on where you are in thought. "You are where you are because of what you are in consciousness, in thinking."
125 - Most persons come into the experience of truth because of a personal problem. This is why New Thought is often called "the science of problem solving" and the chief teaching has become the secret of demonstration.
126 - But the purpose of truth is not just to solve problems; is the purpose of food to prevent starvation? If we learn to eat correctly, then starvation loose relevance. We will come to a point where we have fewer problems. When Jesus said "take no thought for what you shall eat or what you shall drink" Matthew 6:25 he was saying to get our minds off of demonstrating and begin to center our thoughts in life.
127 - The whole idea of making demonstrations has been misrepresented in order to make the teaching practical. Too often Paul's statement "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" Romans 12:2 is used to "program the mind."
128 - The result is that truth is used to solve problems and many people become "metaphysical hypochondriacs." Too often they ignore Jesus' teaching to "take no thought."
129 - Since consciousness always tries to outpicture itself, the subconscious mind must receive from Super-conscious mind. We tend to view ourselves as mind and bodies and to eliminate Spirit. Because we're not working from oneness in God, we unconsciously are working with affirmations to achieve miracles from the outside.
130 - Demonstration is not magic and it is not "working miracles." The moment we place the emphasis on the miracle, it takes us off the hook. We must work from within out. The demonstration is with you, not with something outside of you.
131 - The temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4) is story of our own mind trying to lead us down the path of demonstrating things, to "turn the stones into bread." So Jesus was hungry.
132 - The secret of demonstration is the "secret of the ages" which is "Christ in you your hope of glory" Col 1:27. The allness of the infinite mind is always enwrapped within you. Demonstration is releasing your own uniqueness, not adding on anything from without.
133 - God can only do for you what he can do through you. You are limited only by what you can accept in your consciousness.
134 - The promise of practical metaphysics is that you can have anything you desire, but this is true only because you cannot really desire anything that is not already part of the divine desire within you seeking to express through you. You can't really desire unless it were already part of you. This is "de-siring" on a heavenly level.
135 - Filling our mind with covetousness is desire from human consciousness; this is selfishness even though it is possible to demonstrate this way. This is "demonstration from without." But there can be a "demonstration from within" that attracts without effort.
136 - The Master Formula for Demonstration is C plus B equals A. What you can conceive in mind and believe to be reality you can achieve in life.
137 "For the earnest expectation of the creation (that which you really desire) waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God (the awakening of your own divine pattern)" Romans 8:19 Mind knows that which we have need, so let it go! And the "revealing" will come.
138 - Human desire is all wrapped up in the ego and the will to demonstrate is ego centered. "See thou tell no man" Matthew 8:4. Story of man who demonstrated seven jobs and never found the job that was perfect for him.
139 - The second part of the Master Formula is the believing power of the mind. But we must avoid the "magic of believing." Faith does not make God do special things for you. Faith relates to the reality that is.
140 - The spiritual process is at work in you all the time. When you are in tune with God consciousness then "it shall not come neigh onto thee" and "he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."Psalm 91. There will be a Spiritual Economics.
141 - So don't beg God to help, but rather be still and know your oneness and affirm the truth. An affirmation is the term we use for scientific prayer, to "add firmness." Treatment is a process where we get the sense of oneness and add firmness to it by speaking the word of truth.
142 - Faith is giving consent to the constancy of the Universal creative intention. When you believe you can do it, then the "how to do it" naturally unfolds.
143 - The achievement of the Master Formula is to be about your business and to do what comes naturally, or as the Quakers would say, "move your feet."
144 - Affirmation of the treatment is not to make something true. It is to tune in to the activity of truth. Even though we think of demonstration as "an end," life doesn't come to ends. Life is an experience. It is demonstrating from within. Rather than "making the demonstration, it is allowing the demonstration to "make me." I will be the demonstration.
145 - Don't try to demonstrate the truth; it is a waste of time. Truth demonstrates itself. The deed is to know the truth, identify with the truth and it will demonstrate itself. We don't have to create the good life; we only unfold the good life. We don't need to program the mind, but to know that I have been programmed from within. "Let God be God in you" - Meister Eckhart.
146 - The great secret of demonstration is the divine resource within you.
147 - Meditation - Unfolding of the divine pattern within you.

Audio

Transcript

124 Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. This is a fundamental concept in the teachings of Jesus. It is a basic premise in what we have been calling practical metaphysics. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. This is a key to scientific prayer. What you experience will always depend on where you are in thought, in consciousness, in feeling, in self-awareness. This is fundamental. If the focus of your thought is negative, the experience will tend toward limitation. This is something we study, we listen to, we practice to find wonderful realization. If your thought is centered in truth, the tendency will lead toward wholeness in mind, body, and affairs. Now obviously this is a great concentration of our whole teaching process, to try to get the focus of our attention in truth .

In other words, what this says is that you, are where, are because of what you are. You are where you because of what you are. Now that's a very difficult teaching to accept and there's a lot of folks who don't want to accept it. You will recall it was said of Jesus that when he really got down to the nitty gritty of his fundamental teachings, that many people turned and followed him no more because they wanted to have pat potions, they wanted to have their hands held, and their backs patted, and so forth, but He said "I came not to send peace, but a sword." "I didn't come to love you into complacency, to tell you how lovely and wonderful and sweet everything is, but to help you to understand the truth and know the truth and find releasement through it."

So fundamental then is you are where you are because of what you are, because of what you are in consciousness, because of what you're thinking. If you're willing to take responsibility for your life, to really take responsibility for your thoughts, and the patterns that go on in your subconscious mind, then even as your consciousness has put you where you are, so by a change of consciousness you can change where you are. You can change your experience. This is why we say every single day on the radio, you can change your life by altering your thoughts. This is fundamental. It's the law that's always working. Its working whether we know it or not, working whether we want to accept it or not, it's working even in times when it seems to be injustice.

125 Coming into truth because of a problem

That's probably true that most persons have come into the aura if you will, or the experience of truth, simply because of some personal problem. We could ask you if we wanted to take a little survey, and this is a great day for polls, how many of you came into truth because you had a problem. I won't even bother because I'm sure most of you would raise your hand and those of you who don't are probably not admitting it. Its always been true that we don't need truth, we don't need religion, we don't need spiritual things, when everything is going right. This is the story of the Bible. Israelites wandered and as long as they had their flocks were well fed and they had secure positions and they didn't have any enemies around they fell away from God. They began to worship all sorts of idols as the Bible puts it figuratively.

It was when they really had troubles, when they had lost their holy of holies, when the enemy had destroyed their armed forces, when their cities were in ravage, when they were in isolation from their good, then was the time they began to sing praises unto God. Now this is hypocritical of course, but then this is somehow the way human consciousness tends to work. The fact is that most of us have come to understand the truth or come at least into the aura of truth at times when we've been given up medically, when we have great problems, when our religion has not helped us too much, when we're at the lowest ebb, or as the AA people say, when we've been driven to our knees. This is a time when we've come to look for help and healing through this "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make ye free" process. Thus, truth or New Thought or metaphysics is normally viewed as the science of problem solving and the chief teaching has become the secret of demonstration, which incidentally is a term most often used for answered prayer.

126 The purpose of truth is not just to solve problems

But I want to ask you something, because you see, even though this is essentially correct, we need to see it all in perspective. Is the purpose of food to prevent starvation? Is the purpose of breathing to prevent asphyxiation? All would seem so, so it's in this context that we think of the purpose of truth to solve problems. So you need the truth when you have the problems and when the problems are solved you don't need them anymore. But you see actually if we learn to eat and breathe correctly, then starvation and asphyxiation lose all relevance for us. They just don't exist in our life, they're not even possibilities. They become a part of the rhythm of life and they're not last ditch efforts to save us from difficulties. So what we need then to understand and to take this step beyond, or receive the truth not as simply a problem solving series of techniques, but as a fundamental key to abundant life.

We really begin to use the truth. We are not simply using to solve problems, but we'll actually come to the consciousness where problems have lesser and lesser experience for us and finally we don't even see problems as a part of our life, but we know the truth because it keeps us in tune with the dynamic upward swing of life. Jesus says "Take no thought what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink, but seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added." He's saying take your mind off the idea of making demonstrations in life and begin to assemble your thoughts in the deeper awareness of life and ultimately you'll come to know that your demonstrations will make you.

127 The secret of demonstration

We're talking about the secret demonstration today, so it would seem that we're going to center all our thoughts upon how to make demonstrations, how to get jobs, how to heal yourself, how to overcome your problems, and obviously this is implicit within it all. But even as we're going to deal with the principals by which these things can happen, we want to be very sobering, as it were, in helping you to understand that the whole idea of making demonstrations, has been to a large extent misrepresented and misapplied.

In the attempt to make the teaching practical, quite often teachers of truth and books of truth teachings have evolved extremely simple and sometimes simplistic techniques leading to demonstration. Now Paul says, "Be ye transformed by the renewing or your mind" (Rom. 12:2). This is a dynamic realization, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind", there's no other way to be transformed, no other way to be changed, except to change your thoughts. To put this in its simplest possible way, and the way it has been presented normally in truth, put a new thought in your mind to replace the limiting one. Quite often this is accomplished by suggestion, by affirmation, by treatment, by programming the mind with a new pattern, with a new attitude, with a new idea, a positive statement that articulates what you desire to be true and what you want to see manifest in your life. This is the way truth is often presented, and just hold this thought in mind, or affirm it, and affirm it, and affirm it or treat it and treat it and suggest it and suggest it until it becomes established in mind and then you will demonstrate the help or healing you desire, its as simple as that.

It's a case of affirmations on the run for busy people. As we said last week sometimes the height of the whole process is give me an affirmation so I can run about my business and still at the same time work out this problem.

128 Metaphysical hypochondriacs

But in the long run, even though a fundamental is correct, the approach to it is completely oversimplification. It is a simplistic approach to the overcoming process, and thus is quite often extremely misleading. The result is we're basically involved in preventing the starvation, or using the truth to solve problems and I think many folks in truth become what I call metaphysical hypochondriacs. They're not aware of this, but all they can see the truth is doing for their life is solving problems, so they're always looking for problems to solve and they never seem to get to the point where they have this tremendous faith in the activity of God within themselves, that it completely eliminates problems so the person who is a good truth student thinks of the practice of metaphysics, as when I eat food I must bless my digestive system, bless my elimination process, bless my body so it will take this food, probably some blessing, blessing, treating, treating.

When you go out for a walk you bless your feet that you won't have fallen arches, that your corns won't hurt you. You go to work, you're blessing the people ... you're always blessing. It's a marvelous thing of course, this is great, but unfortunately, we're always trying to prevent the starvation. To prevent asphyxiation. We never seem to get that thought as Jesus expresses, "take no thought what ye shall eat, what ye shall drink" (Matt 6:25). Take no thought that you've got problems moving before you. Get yourself in tune with the dynamic spiritual process which takes care of itself, if you keep yourself in perfect peace, if you keep your mind centered in the light.

129 Not just mind and body but Superconscious Spirit

Now, consciousness works. That's fundamental. And the subconscious mind will always tend to out picture itself and this fundamental. But unless the patterns of the subconscious mind come from within, out of what we sometimes call the super-conscious mind, thus they're experiencing that inner pattern, that divine image likeness, then what you have in your subconscious mind is what you had consciously put there to do some particular thing so it becomes the medicine that you're taking, the pills, the potions that you're putting into your subconscious mind to try to reproduce themselves in your life. So then we find that we have to continue to treat, over and over and over again, to maintain the conditions in our experience. We're constantly involved in saying "Now, I've gotta be very sure that I take this treatment, that I use this affirmation to correct that condition", but we do not along the way, have the feeling and the faith in the super-conscious process. We do not tend to accept ourselves as whole creatures.

So that I feel that a great deal of the metaphysical system is taken out of context and I think the reason for this is a tendency to think of us as minds and bodies, but to eliminate spirit. To eliminate the realization that you're not simply a subconscious mind that reproduces itself, but you're a super-conscious awareness which is the activity of the whole of God at the point of view which thus flows through your subconscious mind and does the working process as it manifests itself in life, but all is manifesting the image likeness of your divine pattern within yourself. Now we'll see that as we go along today in a very more, perhaps a graphic and more experienced way, but what happens is because we're not working from the foundation of our wholeness in God, when we're ignoring the truth or treating a metaphysically affirming truth. Unconsciously we're working to demonstrate wholeness as a condition miraculously formed from the outside, instead of awakening our unfolded activity of health from within.

Think of it in another sense, a person is in need of employment or he's concerned about his job and so he seeks to demonstrate job security or to demonstrate a job itself. If he has taken the whole process of his life out of the context of wholeness, and he uses truth to demonstrate the job. So he thinks of the job out here, the technique out here, everything is out here trying to get it into his life or get patterns into his subconscious mind to reproduce them in his life, but he doesn't' seem to lay hold of the idea that the greatest need is to recognize his attunement with the divine creative flow. A job out here will always be a right and good job for you or you'll be moved into a right and good place if you're in tune with the idea of the creative flow within yourself. So the demonstration of a job is not magically producing a job, but it's unfolding the consciousness that causes the job to come too easily.

Unless we understand this, then we demonstrate the job, but the job has it's own built in limitations so that forever will [we come to] points where either the job is unsuitable or the job runs out so we having to demonstrate another one, and another one, and another one, always working to demonstrate, to bring health and healing and harmony and justice into our job and prosperity and success, but again the hypochondria process. The meaning is, as Jesus would put it, "Seek first the kingdom within" the consciousness of your own relationship to the divine flow and this is the demonstration process. To demonstrate your awareness of the continuity of divine activity and then all things will be added. The jobs will come, they'll come easily, but the demonstration is not materializing the job, it's spiritualizing your ideas about yourself in relationship to jobs, you see.

Now this is very subtle. Now a lot of folks have never quite grasped this. I hope that somehow during this hour today or in the homework process of working on it, you'll catch that consciousness because it will really change your life. It will change the importance of what truth is all about.

130 Demonstration and miracles

Some people say the idea of demonstration is closely related to magic and the folks who are always talking about the secret of demonstration are also always talking about "the miracle working power of minds, we're working miracles!" Well, here I go again, because I have a thing about miracles. I don't mean to say that impossible things cannot happen because all things are impossible to human consciousness, but possible to God and who understand this process, so I'm not saying that you can't do wonderful, tremendous, dynamic things in your life, but the moment we place the emphasis on the miracle it gets us off the hook.

I don't have to do it, God will work his miracle for me, so the demonstrations is pushing buttons up here, getting God to work a magic miracle to take the bugaboos out of our life, to get these so and so's out of our office, and to bring a continuity of supply into our life. And I don't have to do a thing about it, just sit and experience "the magic of believing." But that's misleading. If we're really going to make any progress in the demonstration of truth we've got to work from within out. The idea of demonstration is not working magic, it's not working miracles, it's not the presto chango, here it is, ex nilo, something out of nothing kind of process. It's releasing your imprisoned splendor. That which you desire is already within you, but there's something you have to do to release it so the demonstration deals with you, not with things that are happening to you.

131 The temptation of Jesus

You may remember the wilderness story of Jesus, when he was tempted of the devil. Unfortunately we think of this as a fairly exterior situation, so we see Jesus, this great holy man, we see the devil with this character with a forked tail and a pitchfork and fire coming out of his mouth and the horns on his head, coming up to Jesus and tempting him. This is the way the traditionalist and the artists have captured the thing, totally misleading of course. For the only way the Bible has meaning is that we see it in terms of wholeness, that we see it in terms of the whole of each individual involved in the whole of you, symbolized through the individual, so that from a symbolical point of view, the story of Jesus and the wilderness is the story of yourself in those experiences when you come face to face with your problems and with your own inner awareness of them. So that the saving that comes to Jesus is purely a part of his own subconscious mind, it represents the inner thoughts of his own consciousness. Represents his own fears, his own inbred limitations, and of course many folks don't want to think of that because they think of Jesus as a perfect experience of God, God expressing himself as man so Jesus couldn't have a limiting thought.

The only way this makes sense is if we see Jesus in the wilderness spending 40 days in meditation and reflection and coming to grips with himself and finding the temptation of human consciousness seeking to lead him down the gloried path of individualized, miracle working power, to use the ego centered consciousness of the power to do other things. So Jesus gets hungry. He was a man, like you and me and as Paul says "tempted in all points such as you and me, except without sin" and this demonstrates that. He was tempted, he was hungry and he had this great consciousness of power so he was tempted to turn the stones into bread.

Why? Because he wanted to eat. This is why he was tempted to use his power for a worldly gain, to set himself on a throne. Why? Because he wanted to bring peace in the world and in the human consciousness he felt perhaps "if I could be the leader I could set up a government that would do a little better, even as the politicians always feel the outs can be better than the ins, so I can do better than the Romans, I can do better than the Sanhedrin. I can run a government."

This is the human consciousness, but always Jesus came to grips with this, knew his oneness with the divine flow and said "Get thee hence. Get thee behind me, Satan." He did not give into the human of his consciousness that wanted to lead him down ways of self limitation.

132 Christ in you, your hope of glory

One of the great secrets of the ages has by and large been lost under the weight of doctrinal confusion. It is found in Paul's letter to the Colossians, the first chapter, the 27th verse, he talks about the secret which had been hid from the ages, which is "Christ in you, your hope of glory" (Col 1:27). This is a dynamic realization. Unfortunately, traditionalists have misapplied it because it helped us to feel that the Christ in me is Jesus in me. That Jesus is miraculously somehow centered in me, but we're not talking about Jesus. The key to Jesus power, his demonstration power, the power to work so called miracles if you will, was the Christ in him his hope of glory, his own awareness of the divine pattern established within him.

So the secret of demonstration as far as you and I are concerned is the Christ in us and what this means is the whole oak tree is established in the acorn and the secret of the growth process, the secret of the demonstration of this growth process is the Christ in you, your hope of glory. The oak tree in you, your hope of the demonstration of the full process, you see. So it says that the allness of the infinite mind is already en-wrapped within you, and always en-wrapped within you. That's the means to unfold your good from within, and not simply to add it on from without. So let's be very sure now when we talk about the secret of demonstration, we're not talking about adding something on. We're not talking about packing your body up with new outward physical techniques. We're not talking about adding onto you new ways of making money. We're talking about releasing your own uniqueness, which is the fulfilling of your own divine pattern, your own Christ in you, your hope of glory.

133 God can only do for you what he can do through you

You are a limitless creature in spirit, but you can manifest in your life only that much of the limitless that you can accept in your consciousness. God can only do for you that which he can do through you. This is something I say often. God can only do for you that which he can do through you. God doesn't work miracles for you, God is the great miracle which can be released through you if you expand your consciousness to accept it, but it doesn't work for you, it works through you. Through your own participation. The universe has already given you everything. You don't have to get anything out of the universe, you've already been given everything because you are the universe or the allness of God, a divine mind, expressing itself at the point where you are as you. So the great key to demonstration is not to find something out here in the universe which will give it to you, but to become aware within yourself that you have the allness of the universal flow and to allow it to demonstrate itself through you so then you're not really trying to make a demonstration, but to let the demonstration of life make you.

Now again, this is not a play on words, this is very important, very fundamental. So the need is not to get God to give you more. We come back to this so often because most of us have been preconditioned with the idea of an exterior God. God up there in the sky somewhere, begging God, pleading God, you know we give up the traditional approach to God through pleading and supplicating and now use treatment and affirmation and in the same way we seem to be saying "God, I am now perfect light, wholeness, and perfection and I know that you are demonstrating light for me now" and I hope that you will. In other words, God is not perfect light because you say it. You say it because God is perfect light. You're perfect light. You're perfect health. And all the saying in the world doesn't make it true, but if you say it in the right consciousness you're saying it because you believe it is true and you're allowing you to be a channel through which that fulfilling process can work from within, not from without, not in some magic showing, but through the demonstration or the releasement or the unfoldment of your divine potential, which is always a part of you. This is so very important, you see.

134 The true desire within you

Now, the promise of practical metaphysics is that you can have anything that you desire. And that's really saying a lot isn't it. That would seem to be a wild claim, like the claim of a politician who says I'm going to change all the world, just vote for me. You can have anything that you want, anything that you really desire, but see the reason this is true is that you cannot really desire anything that is not already a part of the divine desire within you seeking to express through you. Now you can have all sorts of feelings and sensations and the urge to acquire certain things as a result of your inquisitive instinct and as a result of your envies and your covetousness, but true desire is that which is the Promethean urge within you. The upward pull of the divine which is seeking to lead you toward that which is rightfully yours. So you couldn't really desire it if it were not already yours and this is true if you see it from a perspective of wholeness, but there's different levels. You see it in the level of truth, its one thing, but if you see if in the level of human consciousness it's something entirely different.

So along the level of human consciousness people often say "anything I desire." I desire two wives. I desire twenty million dollars. I desire all the fun and all the activity that I want in my life, I desire all this you see, but he's thinking in terms of human consciousness, separating himself from the divine process. This is something different, you see, but on a divine level anything that you desire is the "de-siring," the siring being the fundamental God conscious that is seeking to reproduce itself, the "de-siring" of this consciousness seeking to manifest itself in you and it is yours already. "Before they call, I will answer" (Isaiah 65:24) says the [unclear], you see.

135 Desire from human consciousness vs spiritual oneness

But if we don't see it light consciousness, if we see it in part, than all we're really trying to do is fill our mind with covetousness, with the pictures of all the things we see in the world that we want to have in our own life, in our own experience. Before we assume then, according to the metaphysical process, all we need to do is fill our mind with desires, too often we tend to do this by the technique of treasure mapping, visualizing, get the pictures of all the things in the magazine and oh, my mouth just waters. I'd like to have this fur coat, I'd like to have this car, I'd like to have all these things, so we make pictures of all these things and we put them before us and we imagine ourselves surrounded in full by riches, riches, riches, gold as blessings coming down from the sky.

It's a beautiful thing. Beautiful, but also sickening because it's misleading because it deals with ourselves on a purely human consciousness. It deals with the most basic emotions of humankind, our selfishness, our inquisitiveness, our covetousness, our envies. At this level all we do is boil a lot of delayed problems that come to us in life. Not that it's not possible to demonstrate in this sense.

But what happens we demonstrate the car but because the demonstration has been the magic showing out of a car, [then] comes, and suddenly comes, the realization I gotta pay for it. I've got to buy gas for it, which may be more than we're paying for it. The tires wear out, I have to demonstrate another one. I'm constantly demonstrating protection, make sure someone doesn't steal it, I gotta buy insurance for it. All these things which we don't really think about when we talk about the demonstration from without.

But the important thing you see is to know that if we have a desire, if we go within, and listen to what the desire really is, which means to relate to it on the level of our spiritual oneness and the desire is plugged into a divine flow which releases from within ourselves the unfolding process that eventuates in the kind of consciousness, if its the car for instance, that attracts the car, attracts the substance, attracts all the continuity of needs that may be a part of it, and it comes without effort. See of course "the kingdom and all these things shall be added unto you." And this is the way demonstration should work when we deal with it in spiritual consciousness.

136 The Master Formula for Demonstration

There's a formula which I have often used through the years, it's a formula that I put together some 30 years ago and it's become very popular and its used a great deal through the whole metaphysical movement, and I'm very glad about this. It's what I call the master formula for demonstration. Now many of you have had this experience because we talk about it from time to time, but I use it for a series of radio broadcasts and so forth.

What it really says is C plus B equals A. This implies that what you can Conceive in mind and Believe to be a reality you can Achieve or manifest. This seems simplistic, but it's simply a matter of trying to understand the process as it works. C plus B equals A. What you can convince in mind and believe to be a reality you can achieve or manifest in your life.

So the question is again what is it that you really desire? This is the starting point, it's where you are in consciousness. You have a physical problem, you need a job, you desire an increase in economic dollars and cents to help you to rise above the inflationary spire and so forth. This is where you are and you can only start where you are.

137 Romans 8:19 Revealing of the sons of God

Now, Paul has a statement that I love, he says "For the earnest expectation of the creation awaiteth the revealing of the sons of God" (Rom. 8:19). Let me say that again "For the earnest expectation of the creation awaiteth the revealing of the sons of God." Now your earnest expectation, this is your desire. What do you desire? Think about that desire then the real fulfilling process depends upon the revealing of the sons of God, which means an awakening within you of your own divine pattern.

The secret of demonstration then is the releasement of that divine pattern within you. In other words instead of holding to the desire as a goal, holding it as a vessel that you're determined to have filled, here it is, I have a physical problem, I have a relationship situation, I need a job, I need money, I need this, I need that, and holding it out here, please fill it God. You see. Instead of holding it out here to be filled, let it all go. Mind knows, the infinite consciousness within you knows, as Jesus said the Father knows what's in your head even before you ask.

Before you ask, so ask, don't ask, let it go. Lay it aside and turn within for a period of inner knowing. You don't even have to turn within and say "God, I want to know what this desire means" because the activity of God and mind within you knows and knows that it knows, so just turn away from the desire and let go and relax and have a quiet meditation time and it will come to you what Paul calls "the revealing," which is the conceiving.

This is the concept, the spiritual counterpart of that which your human consciousness is looking for and that spiritual counterpart is always present. Always present. If you have a physical problem, if you have a pain, if you can know that humanly your desire to overcome the pain, but then let it go and just relax and be still and be still and be still and be still and listen. There will come the divine counterpart which will reveal to you what the pain is really saying, what it's telling you and you'll learn your lesson and as you learn your lesson the pain will disappear.

Instead of taking the aspirins and the pills or even the metaphysical potions to get rid of the pain, which is again trying to solve the hunger and asphyxiation and then still be left without a correction in consciousness of that which the pain was really trying to lead you to in the first place. This again is very fundamental, you see.

138 The will to demonstrate is ego centered

So human desire is all wrapped up in the ego and the world will demonstrate is ego centered. This is why we always have a compulsion to talk about our demonstrations once we've made them. You ever wonder about that? I prayed for a job and the job came magically and it was a better job than I ever thought, the compensation is much higher than anything I've ever had, and the fringe benefits, why my goodness, you can't believe the things they're gonna do for me in this job. So we want to go out and shout it to the house tops, that the truth works wonders, look what it did for me. That seems right, but yet remember Jesus says "See thou tell no man" (Matt. 8:4). There was a reason for this "tell no man" consciousness, because if you want to tell everybody about it you're actually relating to it as an ego fulfillment.

Look what I've done, look what I did. It's like the nursery rhyme "he put in his thumb and pulled out a plumb and said what a good boy am I." "Hey, I'm really working this thing out, what a good truth student I am, look at the jobs I've demonstrated, look at the overcomings I've made." I've joked about this often so much that its become almost a cliché but I care about the fact that a man will say I demonstrated seven jobs this last year. Never seems to realize not that he's saying that he has a tremendous understanding of truth that enables him to demonstrate job, after job, after job, but the fact that he has become totally hypochondriachal because he's simply involved in the ego fulfillment of getting jobs, but he's not really getting into the consciousness which puts him in tune with the creative flow, so the jobs come easily and naturally, and jobs come securely, so he's not ever going to be looking for a job because he finds the job that's perfect for him.

It comes easily. Effortlessly, you see. So if you're constantly faced with a problem, if you have stomach ulcer, after stomach ulcer, headache after headache, physical challenge after physical challenge. If you have one rebuff after another in your relationships with people then the fact is, something in life is trying to tell you something. The need is not to find someone that is going to take away your loneliness, but to find what loneliness really means. Come to understand your relationship to the divine flow. One can never really be alone if he understands that he is all one and when you're all one and solve the inner problem and get that set focus of divine flow of love within yourself, than actually you find that love process flows easy and you attract to yourself more relationships than you know what to do with, but especially the one relationship that becomes the fulfilling experience of love that everybody hungers for. But it comes easily not by grasping it, as I say so often "In love it's a matter of finding the right person, it's becoming the right person" and when you become the right person and understand yourself as a channel for love, then you will always attract the right relationships easily and effortlessly.

So it is with jobs, so it is with money, so it is with all the things that we try to demonstrate. Again, understanding that we're not trying to work out something without, but we're trying to release that divine flow from within. If you pray for health and success, faith does not make you well or bring manna from heaven. The important thing is it actually releases the divine flow that's already within you.

139 The believing power of the mind

So we see the second part of this C plus B equals A is the believing power of the mind. When you have this revealing, when you suddenly see and conceive of this idea, this identity, this inner need, and then believe it with the believing power of your mind, then you will achieve. Its just as simple as that, but again we want to avoid this idea of the magic of believing, or we're right back into the mind alchemy syndrome again.

Faith does not make God do special things for you. So important to understand it. We talked it about a few weeks ago, but we need to review it. Faith does not make god for you, faith doesn't make things happen around you, faith is the special state of awareness that accepts that which God is and which in principal, you have always been. It puts you in tune with the divine flow and enables you to live with what Thoreau calls from "a license of the higher order of beings" (clip 51), things work for you easily for you because you're in tune with the consciousness of the divine flow, so when you pray for health or success, your faith isn't going to make you well, your faith isn't going to magically bring manna from heaven. Faith relates to the reality that is.

Faith is not a magic wand, presto chango, everything works because I have faith and I have faith that it's gonna happen, he's gonna change, the job is going to come. There's not a magic wand to making things happen, it is a perception that sees beyond darkness to light. A perception that sees beyond illness to allness. It sees beyond the limited person to the Christ in you, your hope of glory, to the divine pattern.

140 The spiritual process is at work in you all the time

So a spiritual process is at work in you all the time. Now this is important. The spiritual process is in work in you all the time. When a person thinks in terms of the outward approach to truth, its like he's thinking about there are times when everything is arid, when there's no water, when we have a great drought as we think of in nature, you see. But you see in spiritual consciousness, there's no such thing as a drought. It's only a case of closing your eyes to the divine process which is always present. As someone once said, I think it was Harry Emerson Fosdick used to say, rather facetiously, but seriously, that when you're in tune with God you can go for water and strike a well, artesian well, anyplace you drill. That's the important thing, you see.

When you're in tune with God consciousness, when you really have the awareness that you are a spiritual being in tune with the divine flow, then no matter what difficulties are out here, even in the midst of the Great Depression, that's a word nobody talks about, or a recession when unemployment is rampant, when your dollar is being eroded in terms of its value, even in the midst of this economic chaos — it shall not come nigh onto thee. That's the message of the 91st Psalm. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the almighty, it shall not touch you" (Psalms 91:7). There will be a self regulating process which will make your money go farther, which will work for you in spiritual economics, so that no matter what happens, it will not come nigh to you, accord to the scriptural concept, you see.

Now that's important. We're not trying to change things out here, we're trying to change the way we relate to them, the level of consciousness in which we function. So in other words, by praying, you do not make God work for you, as we said last week, but by praying you evidence the fact that God is already working for you.

You pray, reflecting this God activity and allowing that God activity to express itself through you. Understand that. Condition yourself to get that realization in your consciousness, so that never again will you ever pray with a thought of "Oh, God help me". Now that's the old attitude and many of us carry this over into our approach to truth. "God, please help me, I need help! Please, please", all the pleading and supplicating and receding in the world is not gonna cause God to be more than God, or less than God. You cannot change God. God is the allness that is present in your illness, the super-conscious realization of truth that is present in your doubts and your fears. Always present.

141 Be still — know oneness — affirm truth

So don't beg God to help. Be still and know your oneness and then affirm the truth. Someone last week asked, "What do you mean by affirmations?" And of course I suppose we take too much for granted, we assume that everybody involved in a meeting such as this has some background in truth and of course this is obviously not true.

An affirmation is a very simple thing, it should be. Its simply the term that we use for scientific or metaphysical prayer. The old kind of prayer was intercession, "Oh, God, here I am miserable sinner am I. Please help me, please guide me, please protect me". This was the old prayer approach, asking God, interceding with God, trying to change God's will. The truth approach is accepting the realization that as the scripture said "Behold I have loved thee with an everlasting love", that there is an eternal process, the Promethean will that is always seeking to express itself through you. Before they call, I will answer, says the Old Testament. It is my Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, so there's something within you that's always seeking to express itself, so we don't need to ask for help, or to plead for help, or to pray in supplicatory tone, but to add firmness. This is what the affirmation means, but to add firmness to our consciousness of oneness, so get the sense of oneness and add firmness to it, by speaking word of truth and saying "Oh, God please help me" you put it into affirmative tone and say "I give thanks that I am now helped, or now being helped by the divine flow within me", that's all.

Turns away from begging, to affirming, and this is what treatment it, a series of affirmations, a series of statements of truth in which you evidence the fact that you're in tune with the divine flow. You're not making it happen, but you're waking up to the realization of the divine happening, which is always the reality of you.

142 Faith is giving consent to the constancy of the Universal intention

You see, faith is giving consent to the constancy of the universal creative intention. And this needs to the "I am positive I can" attitude, which then releases the power and the skill which enables you to accomplish. When you believe you can do it, really believe that you can do it, then the how to do it naturally unfolds. Think you can and you'll unfold all the reasons why you can and how you can. Think you can't and you will find a 1,001 excuses why you shouldn't even try. Now that's important you see, because that's the way mind works. The potential is always present, if you have any kind of an experience its so easy to say "I can't do it" and if you say you can't do it, and deal with the things on the level of the "I can't" consciousness, you immediately evoke within your consciousness a 1,001 reasons why you can say "well, see I told you I can't, I know I can't."

There are valid reasons why you can't because you're dealing with it on the human level, but if I know that I can and I can because I am because I'm a spiritual being and the potential for achievement is always within me, always beyond my personal level of achievement, always beyond the past performance, always beyond what is on my resume, doesn't make a difference what I've done. The potential for doing and being is always present in me because I am a spiritual being, you see, and if I deal with it on that level and think that I can then the "how to" will easily unfold within my consciousness. This is the way truth works and we do use this time and time again, even if we don't know that we're praying.

143 The achievement of the Master Formula

So you see, the B of the formula, the believing, simply means saying yes to the full implication of the C, the ideal conception, and than finally the A of the formula, the achievement, if we're thinking in terms of demonstration with an eye toward magic. Normally the expectation is for instant results, presto chango, magic, its all done, marvelous, I demonstrated the truth. But actually when you conceive the inner vision of the good for you, and you begin to act as if you believed that it is true, a reality in your life, then the next step is to be about your business and do what comes naturally, and it will come naturally.

You don't just sit with folded hands waiting for the good to manifest, you get in tune with the divine flow and you do what comes naturally and you will find it coming naturally for you to make the context, do the things, or as the Quakers would say, "move your feet." And this is important because it is the activity of God in you that has revealed the goal and which has given you the faith in the goal. It all comes out of the divine process.

144 Affirmation is demonstrating from within

Now certainly its important to pray and to affirm and to treat for results. Of course, this is a part of the divine process, but always remember that the affirmation and the treatment is not an attempt to make something true. You can't make it true. If it isn't true, then forget the whole thing. If it is true, than its true whether you know it or not, whether you use it or not, whether you demonstrate it or not. So the affirmation is not to make it true, but to tune in upon the activity of truth. That ye shall know the truth and the truth makes ye free because that's what truth is all about, it naturally unfolds in you.

Quite often the hoped for a demonstration becomes an end, to goal, its a job, its the healing, its the relationship, an end that we're trying to achieve. A static condition of achievement or an object. Something all wrapped up in a ribbon. Something that allows the ego to say "Look what I did, isn't it great? I'm really doing good these days", but you see even though we think of the goal as an end, life doesn't come to ends. This is why we have such great, puzzling feelings after we've had a demonstration, like the person who demonstrates a vacation trip. All the joy and anticipation of the trip is where the real feeling for it is. When the vacation trip comes and its over, its not nearly as fulfilling as it was in demonstrating it. So it is in any aspect of life you see. Life doesn't come to ends, life is an experience in growth and going on. Many persons complain that they're not making demonstrations, the fact is they may be holding back their good because they're not letting the demonstration make them.

In other words, a person is praying for an increase in salary in his job, or better compensation, but if you're trying to demonstrate it with a pot of gold from the end of the rainbow, you're trying to do something outside of or irrelevant to your consciousness. If you're working from within you're seeking to demonstrate the kind of consciousness that's going to make this result inevitable. What does that mean? Probably means to work a little harder, go to work a little earlier, put a little more into your job, "move your feet" in other words. Get into the consciousness of creativity. Act as if you're already rich, act as if you already had all that you needed and felt good about it and you just went to work because you enjoy working.

Like the college professor said, "Actually I would work for nothing, if I could afford it". He wasn't really being facetious you see, he was really saying that "My work is not a place to make a living, but a place to make a life. To live my making" and this is sort of a thing that we'll often touch on in the Labor Day weekend because we're often talking about our work. Its so important to lift up your work into new consciousness, see it as an opportunity for you to project something of your own innate self, and quite often the need for greater supply or greater job security, you see, is that which comes not by making something happen out here, not by making a demonstration, but by letting the demonstration make me.

I would be the demonstrations. I will be the demonstration of the unfoldment of the creative process which will enable me to put new enthusiasm in my work, give new ideas, think of myself as a creative channel so that I know that it's an exciting opportunity that I have everyday that I go to work to be apart of this create flow and I will let the demonstration make me.

And suddenly all things will be added. The good job security, the money and all the other good things in life, they come easily and naturally. I didn't make them, but something within me made me and thus these are the things that added. These are the fringe benefits, as it were.

145 Truth demonstrates itself

You see we talk of demonstrating the truth and I think this is a term that truth students use often. Demonstrating, I'm gonna demonstrate the truth, I say don't try to demonstrate the truth, it's a waste of time, or I can't stop there or else we would negate everything we've said so far. But don't try to demonstrate the truth, it's a waste of time. Truth demonstrates itself. If you try to demonstrate truth, then you're trying to do something in the ego, something in personal willfulness. "I'm going to demonstrate the truth."

Truth demonstrates itself. The deed is to know the truth, know the truth, identify with the truth, get into the consciousness of what the truth really is in terms of your life and it will demonstrate itself. So we see the secret to demonstration is a very simple thing. It's not a matter of this, it's not saying affirmations and gold dust blessings and all these other things which aren't going to change everything in the world for you, but it's know the truth. Know yourself. Know the divine pattern that was within you. Emphasize it, affirm it, and see it as flowing forth from within you and the truth will demonstrate itself and the demonstrations will make you all that you desire to do and be.

You see, you don't have to create the good life. You don't have to, and you shouldn't try. The meaning is to unfold the good life. There's no need to program your mind with the success pattern and that goes against the grain of a lot of metaphysical teaching, but I say again, you need not program your mind. As a matter of fact, to attempt to program your mind in most cases means trying to put something within me, trying to make my subconscious mind accept the fact that even though I'm a swan, that I'm a beautiful duckling, that I'll always be an ugly duckling you see. The need is not to program my mind so that I fit in out here, but to know that I have been programmed from within from the beginning of time when I'm created in God's image likeness.

First to know that inner awareness, "the Christ in me, the hope of glory," and that that concept programs the subconscious mind with the belief of what I really am, not what I'd like to be, but what I am. And then it will reproduce itself in my life, but it will be real, it won't be superficial, it won't be a paste on thing. It'll be what I really am in expression. You don't need to tell God what to do for you, or even try to direct the divine activity, you need only to as my dear friend Meister Eckhart says, to "let God be God in you" (Clip 7).

146 The great secret of demonstration

So remember the great secret of demonstration is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Christ in you being your own divine pattern, your own divine sonship. When you were created in the image-likeness of God in the very beginning and it's always been so and can never change, world without end. So the secret is the divine resource that is always within you, Jesus calls it the kingdom of God, it's always within you as your resource.

The need is not to make it happen, but to let it happen. Not to make the truth work, but to let the truth do it's perfect work through you and in through your life. It's an easiness, that's what its all about and that's the fundamental part of this whole study of truth that I think we need to get into our consciousness. The truth is not some thing by which we can make magic demonstrations and work the magic of faith and miracles in my life and so forth, but it's "let go." Not let go, an emptiness of mind, not let go and just be lethargic and indifferent, but let go in the dynamic realization of the allness of God within me and the divine pattern within me and the desire to let that divine pattern express itself in my life and it will express in ways beyond anything that my human ego could desire.

In other words, you let go of the desire for the Mercedes, as it were, and you simply get in tune with the divine flow within you and mind knows your needs. You'll probably have ten Mercedes, instead of one or whatever represents that in human terms, but it will come easily and effortlessly and in a marvelous, outward demonstration of that which is a revealing, Paul calls it "a revealing of the sons of God".

147 Meditation - Unfolding of the divine pattern within you

I'd like you to get still with me for a moment now. We're not going to outline for you any kind of a homework assignment for you today, because today is the conclusion of the series of studies, but we'd like you to go back if you've really been working on it and give some serious thought to the various assignments you've had all the way through and a review of your own program that has been a part of your consciousness.

Especially today, to review in consciousness the idea of "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Not Jesus in you, but the Christ which was the secret key of power within Jesus, and which is also the secret key of power within you. We go on our way this day in the consciousnesses that we don't leave anything behind us. Quite often a person will say, "Oh, gee, I feel so good when I'm listening to a lecture or when I'm involved in the study of truth, but when I go out and meet the world, and ride the subways, and go into my office, and meet the many difficult, challenging experiences that are out there, then I find that I come up with a blank." The important thing is that you don't leave anything behind you. If anything has excited you, then it is already within you and you've been excited by it because something of the divine process has been "in-sighted" with you and that insight is a remembrance of what has been yours from the very beginning of time.

Just say yes to it, just acknowledge it, say beautiful, wonderful, I think the Father, yes it's true. And go on your way just feeling grateful. Grateful that you've been able to perceive it, to sense it, to experience it. If something has happened during this hour that has been exciting to you, then give yourself a pat on the back for being here because it's your consciousness, its your perception, it was your guidance that brought you here. It is you that experienced it in consciousness and actually it is you that has the answer even before you call. We give thanks today, that each and every one of us, and I must put myself in this as well as you, and I know Olga wants to join me in this too, each and every one of us is involved in the study and practice of truth, which is purely and simply a matter of awakening within ourselves the divine pattern, and I want to do that for myself. I want to be a greater channel for the receptive expression of this fundamental creative process and I want to see you as being a greater channel. Namaskar. Which is the oriental expression for the divinity within me salutes the divinity with you.

I see in you this divine flow manifesting this day in greater and greater ways and from that consciousness in myself, I say Namaskar. I see in myself this flow of divine creative expression unfolding in beautiful and wonderful ways. So each and every one of us, all of us together, and each of us separately, going from this place today, committed, dedicated, consecrated to a greater expression of the truth. The goal of course is keep on. Keep on, keep on, and on and on. In the keeping on there will be great unfoldment of the consciousness of God as a dynamic presence and power at work in every experience of our life. Helping us to meet every challenge, every turning of life's way, from the highest possible perception. Remember as Emerson says, "For what is prayer, but the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view" (Clip 37).

Praise God for the truth that makes us free. Praise God for the consciousness that perceives the truth as the very wealth of the kingdom that is within us and we let that kingdom come, that will, that Promethean will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven and so be it. Amen.