Chapter V
MEDITATION
THE LAW OF God is written in man's heart more surely than it was written by the finger of God on the tables of stone for Moses: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it" (Jer. 31:33). In the Psalms we find this definition of the law: "Thy law is truth" (Psalms 119:142)). The I AM or Christ within each of us is the Truth, and if we but turn within to this law of our being and make complete union with it, there is nothing more needed, for we shall find in it the fulfillment of all our needs, the consummation of all our desires, the righting of all our wrongs. This is what the Master sought to reveal when He gave the two great commandments as love of God and love of man, signifying the Christ characteristics that potentially belong to and exist in every man. It is this I AM or Christ within us that can say, "I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Each of us, as we become conscious of the indwelling Christ as the real I and are governed in all our thoughts and words and acts by the standards of the Christ, can declare and prove: "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven [mind], and earth [body]" (Matt. 28:18). It is through meditation on this rulership at the throne place within that the promise is fulfilled: "I will ... show thee great and difficult things, which thou knowest not" (Jer. 33:3). Greater and greater will be the revelations of the omniscient Christ as we open ourselves completely to Him and let Him have His perfect way with us.
Greater and greater will be our understanding and use of the law hidden deep within our own soul as we sink the mortal thoughts in meditations on the Most High. The place of glory prepared for us from the beginning is only entered through prayer. Heaven is within, a place that we enter through thought.
Jehovah made many covenants with His chosen people. All who choose to serve Jehovah are His chosen people and are served of Him. This is the relation of reciprocity that the Master sought to reveal to His disciples when He took a towel and washed their feet. A covenant is an agreement, or a promise of a blessing to be fulfilled by one party when the other fulfills his part. The covenant made by Jehovah with Joshua was that if he would meditate on the law day and night with the purpose of living according to it, Jehovah God would be with him wheresoever he went. Further, "then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then shalt thou have good success" The promise in the 1st Psalm to those who delight in the law of Jehovah and meditate on it day and night is that whatsoever they do shall prosper; they are likened to a well-watered, well-nourished tree that fruits every season. The Psalmist says that he has more understanding than all his teachers "for thy testimonies are my meditation" which was probably the difference between the intellectual understanding of the teachers and the spiritual understanding of the singer. David, beloved of God, whose inner meditations have sung themselves down the ages so that all who will may
receive from them, says, "The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul"; and he adds, "More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold." He ends this wonderful song of the 19th Psalm with a prayer that each of us should voice often:
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in thy sight,
O Jehovah, my rock, and my redeemer" (Psalms 19:14).
To meditate on a subject is to give it attentive, earnest thought with the idea of having all its meaning revealed; that is, all the meaning that one is capable of receiving at the time. Aeons of time are needed to have revealed to us the deep mysteries of the kingdom, the fullness of which we shall find only when we awake in His likeness, but each moment we give to meditation on the higher truths reveals to us fresh glories. At any moment, in the night watches or in the midst of the duties of the day, in any place, on a busy street corner, at home or in the office, alone in the open field or deep in the woods, one can drop all outer things, relaxing from crowded thoughts and activities, and sink down, if for only a moment, into a holy meditation that will bring him forth filled with peace and strength, refreshed in mind and body.
Isaac went out into the field at eventide to meditate, and although we do not know what his meditations were we are told that in lifting his eyes he beheld his beloved. Suppose you seek to meditate in
the open, and resting relaxed in the shade of a tree, you begin to meditate on the I AM or real self of you. As you meditate the potentialities and powers of the I AM begin to open to you, and in this revelation all else is forgotten, the floating clbuds, the rustling leaves, the song of birds, the hum of bees, even the creeping things. In your contemplation of your real self and its possibilities when realized, you lose contact with all things on the outer plane, things in which you are usually much interested. In meditation you are lifted up to behold your Christ self, the soul's beloved. "I AM, I AM, I AM" the conscious mind repeats over and over, until the words become alive in the consciousness and take on their real power. They sink deep into the subconsciousness, erasing all personality as separateness. Both lifted up, the consciousness and subconsciousness become open and receptive to the superconscious mind, and from this high place is poured the glory of the I AM. The strength and power of the I AM! The love and tolerance and patience of the I AM! The justice of the I AM, the real me! The wholeness and purity, the youth and beauty of the I AM, the Christ self! The wealth and wisdom, the courage and freedom of the I AM, the limitless I! The I AM, true self of me, God-created, made in God's image, after His likeness, given power and dominion over disease and death, over the environment, over the elements! I AM, Son of God, created to be fruitful and replenish the good, created to subdue all error! I AM, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient Christ of God. Let me behold
Thee as myself! At this moment, being lifted into the superconscious realm, we behold the beloved. To us comes the revelation that came to Peter (faith) when he faced the question "Who say ye that I am?" and from within came the answer: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then do we know beyond a doubt that this revelation of the I AM has not come from the intellect, that flesh and blood has not revealed this to us but the Father within. We become thrilled yet strong and steady with the power of the I AM that possesses us. We become conscious that our I AM has made union with the great "I AM THAT I AM" and that our whole being is lifted to a higher plane. We have discovered a new heaven and a new earth, and ever after shall our thought and word and act be expressed from a higher consciousness of our real being. This is true meditation, and when constantly practiced will transform us in Christ's image from glory to glory until we awake in His likeness. This is the part of prayer in which we become ready for the way which leads us into the presence of God, to wait for His message to be revealed to us.
When we take a thought and meditate on it to the exclusion of all else, this thought becomes a power within us, a power for good or a power for evil, a power to upbuild or a power to destroy, according to the kind of thought it is. Many times a day we meditate on the things that are interesting to us. It does not seem hard. It seems the natural thing to do. It is said that the mystics of India become so enrapt
in their meditations that the birds build nests in their hair. Poisonous reptiles crawl over them and do them no harm. Why? Because the mystics have dropped the personal ego, which has in itself fear, hatred, cruelty, prejudice. They have entered into the ego that is one with all life, one with divine love, and they are conscious of nothing else. When every cell in the body is taught to join the mind in its worship of the Highest, the time will soon come when nothing outside of us can distract or disturb our communion with our God, and the whole man, mind, soul, body, will then receive that which is needed to make him perfect, complete, powerful.
Concentration and meditation, when rightly practiced, do for our mental self what mastication and digestion do for the physical self: they give nourishment and growth. Concentration may be likened to chewing the food, preparing it; meditation to digesting it, using it. Concentration, like mastication, comes under our conscious control and, if rightly done, leads to powerful meditation, even as thorough mastication of food prepares the way for good digestion. A wise choice of thought is as necessary as a wise choice of food; then comes the wise use of it. Watch the butterfly and the bee we recognize the difference between productive and unproductive meditation. As in the case of the bee, when we give ourselves fully to our meditation we receive that which is for our own growth as well as a blessing to others. In the first case, like the butterfly, we flit from one thought to another, giving
nothing to our meditation, receiving nothing for ourselves or for others.
In true meditation one becomes joined with the Giver, contact is made with the source of all good, and such faith and harmony and peace is established in mind that through it the body and affairs are opened to receive. One holy thought meditated upon becomes a mighty magnet and draws to it other holy thoughts, which in their unity become so powerful that all opposition, danger, sickness, poverty, and inharmony are swept before them. The promise is that one shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight. Only in spiritual thought is this possible. Suppose that, so believing, you have a premonition of evil, or think you are in danger, or you fear persons or things; you will then immediately turn to Omnipotence and meditate on the power of the One mighty to save, on His love and His promise to rush to the rescue of all who call on Him, believing. As you meditate you become lost to fear and enter into unity with His love and power and strength. You will feel His presence infolding you, and while you are in this realization, any hand that may be lifted against, you will drop helpless and any danger pointing toward you will be turned aside. To hold fast to the angel presence is to be led out of dangers, to be held out of the way of all evil, no matter what the seeming circumstance, condition, or appearance may be.
Premonitions and warnings come that we may learn to hide ourselves in Omnipresence, where nothing
of error nature can penetrate. Thought is the channel through which all fear enters, concentration or holding the fear thought leads to meditation on it, and all kinds of fear thoughts flock in to possess us. This gives the thought power and strength to project itself in our world. It is the inner picture or film that takes on big proportions in our world if we let it become definite enough in the mind to become active in the life. Sometimes a tiny thought of fear is given so much attention in concentration and meditation that it becomes an obsession, a difficult experience to deal with for the one who has encountered it, which may entail much mental and bodily suffering unless he knows how to take the Christ, in vision and thought and word, as the leaders, and hold to Him only. By changing the thought of fear instantly before entering upon concentration and meditation and by giving high attention to the inner lordship, the I AM, we become identified with the power that is quick to dissolve error, and as we rest in this consciousness fear with its power is taken from us. Nothing can enter our world except it find access through a thought of something similar that is already present in our mental world. Nothing can stay in our world unless it remains somewhere in our thoughts, and thoughts are meditations even prayers. Many times we really pray for a thing we do not desire by holding it in our mind in fear, holding it fast in worry, all the time begging and beseeching God to take it away, while we ourselves will not let it go. We need to watch the fear and worry meditations and,
when going to our Father for a need, put them far away, taking for meditation a thought that will leave the appearance far behind and make us to feel and see and know only God.
In deep meditation on a holy thought the intellect retires, reasoning ceases, the emotions are stilled, the body forgotten. Even the thought with which the meditation started becomes absorbed in the other holy thoughts that it has attracted, as they flow in to possess us. It is but a step from this high attention to the one Presence and Power in the universe to the silence, the home of the soul; only a step into a four-dimensional or spiritual world where there is neither time nor space, personality nor place, where one waits for nought but for God to make Himself known.
Let the flaming sword of Thy presence, O God, ever guard the door of my mind, that only holy thoughts may take up their abode in me. Let Thy pure creations continually fill me, mind, soul, and body, until I am lifted into an abiding consciousness of my Christ self.
Christus
Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness,
An inward stillness and an inner healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only!
– Longfellow
"Let thy soul tread softly in thee
As a saint in heaven unshod,
For to be alone in silence,
Is to be alone with God.""Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalms 46:10)
"Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace." (Job 22:21)
"My soul, wait thou in silence for God only;
For my expectation is from him." (Psalms 62:5)"Jehovah hath heard my supplication;
Jehovah will receive my prayer." (Psalms 6:9)"In thy presence is fulness of joy;
In thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." (Psalms 16:11)"Wait for Jehovah:
Be strong, and let thy heart take courage;
Yea, wait thou for Jehovah." (Psalms 27)
