Lessons In Truth - Lesson 8 - Annotation 4
Can one person reveal God to another? Where must we all seek, and when do we become conscious of the indwelling Father?
4. One person cannot possibly reveal God to another. It is just as great an impossibility as it is for one person to eat another's food for him, to breathe air for him, or to learn his lessons for him.
The revelation of God to each of us is an intimately personal thing that can only take place within the depths of our own soul. The awakening and growth of Truth in us is an inner process and can be accomplished only by an intuitive recognition within our own consciousness. We may be stimulated by another, or by books and lectures, but the awareness of the indwelling Presence takes place only within.
"In a moment, in the turning of a thought,
I am where God is" (Walter Rauschenbusch).
According to Webster's Dictionary the word revelation comes from the Latin "revelare" meaning "to unveil." It is the act of disclosing something that has hitherto been concealed. The dictionary says also that revelation is the "act of communicating divine truth." Someone may tell us about God, just as one may describe to us the beauty of a rose or the music of a symphony. However, we do not actually know God until His Presence has been disclosed to us within our own consciousness (our thinking and feeling) any more than we are fully conscious of the beauty of the rose or the music of the symphony until we have actually seen the rose and heard the music.
Just as Peter's answer to Jesus' question came as a revelation from the Father within his own being, so our search for God must be within ourselves by thinking and feeling the ideas that make up the nature of God. "Think on these things" (Phil. 4:8) said Paul, for he knew that to dwell on the good would bring us into consciousness of the Presence of God, the source of the ideas that produce the things that are "pure ... lovely ... of good report."
To be conscious of something is to know it with our whole being. Therefore, it is necessary to think with the intellect, or conscious phase of mind, as well as to feel with our subconscious phase of mind, or what is sometimes referred to as the heart. The physical child learns to know his father by association. It is by direct association through prayer that we become conscious of our indwelling Father-God. Through the act of prayer we move into that deep inner silence where we listen as God "speaks" or reveals His divine ideas to us; this is spiritual understanding.
It is only through spiritual understanding that we come to know our Father as love, life, power; and no one else can do this for us. Teachers and ministers, friends and loved ones may point the way that we must go to make conscious contact with God, but only we ourselves can establish the contact within our own mind and heart. Our text (Emilie Cady Lessons In Truth 8:10) referred to spiritual understanding as the "new birth," and like physical birth it is an individual process.
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Preceding Entry: Can you cure yourself or another by speaking words of Truth from the intellectual plane of consciousness? Does true healing require something beyond this?
Following Entry: Will beseeching bring spiritual understanding? Does spiritual understanding come to one who is seeking with selfish motives?
