Page 122
GOD IS LIFE, and wherever the pulse of life beats, there God is. Man cannot give nor take life, but so long as he thinks he can slay the living and so long as he proceeds to slay either man or beast, he will be at enmity with life. Those who would lay hold on eternal life must seek in every way to preserve the forms in which it manifests.
We all have life, and it is God's eternal life, but it does not become ours in reality until we consciously realize it. The one who enters into eternal life, as did Jesus, must lay hold on that omnipresent life and make it one with his body. This is the secret of inheriting eternal life.
So long as man continues to lose his body through death he will be in doubt as to the reality of eternal life. Eternal life means to be eternally conscious of life in its fullness. By his very belief that life can go out of his body, man shows that he is not in the consciousness of eternal life. In theory he may see that life is omnipresent, and may reason to himself that he cannot therefore get outside of life, yet the appearance is that he lets it slip away from him. To entertain thought that life can even temporarily slip away will rob man of the consciousness of eternal life.
Page 123
The remedy is: Lay hold on eternal life. Have compassion on the life in the body of every living creature, and especially in your own body. Declare life perpetually abiding in the organism. Erase some of the ways through which you are dissipating the life of your organism. Robbers are at work on your body every day. They are the lusts of passion and appetite. Resolutely drive them off. Give life the sanctuary of your present thought and pay the price of overcoming.
God is life, and they who worship Him must worship Him in the life consciousness; that is, in Spirit. When I worship Him in this way, I am vitalized immediately. In order to build up the real, permanent life consciousness I must touch the great inner life current. There is no other way.
The first step in the realization of life is always to know that God is life, abundant, omnipresent, eternal, and the second step is to make positive connection with God life by declaring oneness with it.
Within my body is the center where pure life is generated. This center is the fountain from which shall spring rivers of living water. When quickened by Spirit through faith in the indwelling Lord, the source of life, the waters of life are set free and purified.
By keeping my mind steadily on the pure, sweet, redeeming life of Christ, and refusing to allow any thought to come in that stops the consciousness of the universal life flow, I increase my power to appropriate
Page 124
more life, and every cell in my body thrills with the new life of Spirit. Go in mind to the spiritual place that can be described only as I AM. When you touch I AM, it changes the whole course of your thought and your life. You are the offspring of God, of life. In life you live, move, and have your being.
In Scripture the divine life combined with divine substance is termed "the Lamb of God." This phrase carries the symbology of the lamb's purity, innocence, and guilelessness. Its nature is to vivify with perpetual life all things it touches.
The pure life of God flows into man's consciousness through the spiritual body. This is the "river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb," referred to in the 22d chapter of Revelation.
Jesus came proclaiming, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life"; "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly"; "I am the bread of life ... which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die."
The whole race groans waiting for the redemption of their bodies. Jesus gave us the one and only way to redemption, which is to incorporate the great I AM into our consciousness. "I am the resurrection, and the life." Make the resolve that you are master over all the life forces of your being. Do not look away off for help; you will never find it outside your own consciousness. God's power must be incorporated
Page 125
in your consciousness, and you must understand how it works and work with it. Through thought you must work Truth into every part of your body temple. This is not too difficult, but it requires attention and persistence. The body requires spiritual quickening, because it carries on a line of action beyond the realm of conscious thinking. If I live in a temple that belongs to me I should know what is going on in it.
Life is of God, and is therefore precious in His sight. When life has been conceived in the flesh within a woman and an attempt is made to do away with it, it is virtual murder. Such an attempt leaves a scan on the soul that has to be worked out somewhere, sometime, in great tribulation. One will be blessed in the end by obeying the law, "Thou shalt not kill," and thus not destroying that which is created in God's image and likeness. [TruthUnity note: this paragraph was removed in later editions of Keep a True Lent. I am placing it back not because I agree with the position, but because it is what was originally written. Readers will form their own opinion.]
The lifting up of the life forces and resurrection have the same significance. One who has discovered the Truth of Being is raised, lifted up in consciousness, resurrected daily out of old subconscious negative thought conditions into the one positive reality.
The body is the fruit of mind. Do not talk about the body as being a low vibration, or as material. In the study of mind action, take the body into consideration as the fruit of thought, and affirm that it is pure, holy, undefiled.
The life source is spiritual energy. It is deeper and finer than electricity or human magnetism. It is composed of ideas, and a man can turn on its current by making mental union with it.
Page 126
The higher life is a higher state of mind. It exists as the soul of God; and you know it when you realize, "I am the Son of God." You bring this life into manifestation by acting from the divine life idea. The consciousness of eternal life places one in the stream of life that never fails.
Through repeated and constant affirmation in mind of the one and only pure substance of God everywhere present, we change the life currents in the organism until the corruptible flesh puts on in-corruption.
