Chapter VI
The man we had left in the village to observe Emil joined us here and reported that he had conversed with Emil until nearly four o’clock of the day he was to keep his appointment with us. Then Emil said he was about to keep his appointment. His body immediately became inactive and reposed upon the couch as though asleep. It was in this position until about seven o’clock in the evening, when it gradually became more indistinct and disappeared. It was at this time in the evening that Emil came to us in the lodge at the little village.
We had made a number of short trips from our headquarters with either Jast or Neprow accompanying us and in every instance, they had shown their sterling qualities and worth. On one of these trips Emil, Jast, and Neprow accompanied us to a village where a temple called The Silence Temple, The Temple Not Made By Hands, is located. This village contains the temple and the houses of the attendants and is located on the former site of a village that had been nearly destroyed by the ravages of wild animals and pestilence. We were told that the Masters visited this spot and found a few inhabitants left of about three thousand population. They ministered to them and the ravages of the wild animals and pestilence ceased. The few villagers vowed that, if they were spared, they would, from that time on, devote their lives to God, serving Him in any way He chose. The Masters left and when they returned later they found the temple erected and attendants in charge.
The temple is very beautiful, situated on an elevation overlooking a wide expanse of country. It is about six thousand years old, is made of white marble, and has never needed repairs, as a piece chipped off replaces itself, as was proven by members of our party.
Emil said, “This is called the Temple of Silence, the Place of Power. Silence is power, for when we reach the place of silence in mind, we have reached the place of power—the place where all is one, the one power—God. `Be still and know that I am God.’ Diffused power is noise. Concentrated power is silence. When, through concentration (drawing to a center), we have brought all of our forces into one point of force, we have contacted God in silence, we are one with Him and hence one with all power. This is the heritage of man. `I and the Father are one.’ There is but one way to be one with the power of God and that is consciously to contact God. This cannot be done in the without, for God manifests from within. `The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silent before Him.’ Only as we turn from the without to the silence of the within can we hope to make conscious union with God. We will realize that His power is for us to use and we will use it at all times. Then we will know that we are one with His power.
“Then will humanity be understood. Man will learn to let go of self-delusions and vanities. He will realize his ignorance and littleness. Then will he be prepared to learn. He will realize that the proud cannot be taught. He will know that only the humble can perceive the Truth. His feet will feel the firm rock, he will no longer stumble, he will be poised in decision.
“To realize that God is the only power, substance, and intelligence may be confusing at first. But when man does realize the true nature of God and brings Him forth into active expression, he will use this power at all times. He will know that he consciously contacts His power at all times—when he eats, when he runs, when he breathes, or when he does the great work before him. Man has not learned to do the greater works of God because he has not realized the greatness of God’s power and has not known that God’s power is for man’s use.
“God does not hear us through our loud and vain repetitions nor our much speaking. We must seek God through the Christ within, the invisible connection which we have within ourselves. When the Father within is worshipped in Spirit and Truth, He hears the calls of that soul which sincerely opens to Him. The one who makes the connection with the Father in secret will feel the power flowing through him as the fulfillment of every desire. For he that sees the Father in the secret place of his own soul and there abides, him the Father will reward openly. How often Jesus disclosed his individual contact with the Father. See how He constantly held Himself in conscious communication with God within. See how He talked with Him as though He were personally present. See how powerful this secret inner relation made Him. He recognized that God does not speak in the fire, the earthquake, or the great wind, but in the still, small voice—the still, small voice deep in our own souls.
“When man learns this, he will become poised. He will learn to think things through. Old ideas will drop away, new ideas will be adjusted. He will soon find the ease and efficiency of system. He will learn at last to take all the questions that perplex him into this silent hour. There he may not solve them but he will become familiar with them.
Then he will not need to go hurrying and battling through the day and feel that his purpose has been defeated.
“If man would come to know the greater stranger—himself—let him enter his own closet and shut the door. There he will find his most dangerous enemy and there will he learn to master him. He will find his true self. There will he find his truest friend, his wisest teacher, his safest adviser—himself. There will he find the altar upon which God is the undying fire, the source of all goodness, all strength, all power—himself. He will know that God is in the deepest part of the silence. He will find that within himself abides the Holy of Holies. He will feel and know that his every desire is in God’s mind and is, therefore, God’s desire. He will feel and know the closeness of the relationship of God and man, the Father and the Son. He will realize that only in consciousness has there been any separation of these which have seemed two—just as his spirit and his body have seemed to be two—but which in reality are one.
“God fills both heaven and earth. It was this great revelation that came to Jacob in the silence. He had slept on the stone of materiality. In a great burst of divine illumination he saw the outer is but the out-pressing or expression of the image held within. So impressed was he by this that he called out, `Surely the Lord (or law) is in this place (the earth or body) and I knew it not. This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate to heaven.’ Man will realize, as Jacob did, that the real gate to heaven is through his own consciousness.
“It is this `ladder’ of consciousness, revealed in a vision to Jacob, which each of us must climb before we can enter that silent secret place of the Most High and find that we are in the very center of every created thing, one with all things visible and invisible, in and of the Omnipresence. In Jacob’s vision he was shown the ladder reaching from earth to heaven. He saw the angels of God descending and ascending upon it—God’s ideas descending from Spirit to form and ascending again. It was the same revelation that came to Jesus when the `heavens were opened unto him’ and he saw the wonderful law of expression whereby ideas conceived in the divine Mind come forth into expression and manifest as form. So perfectly was this law of expression revealed to the Master that at once he saw all form may be transformed, or changed in form, through a change of consciousness in regard to it. His first temptation was to change the form of stones to that of bread to satisfy personal hunger, but with the revelation of this law of expression came the true understanding that stones as well as all other visible forms have come forth from the Universal Mind Substance, God, and are in themselves true expressions of divine Mind; and all things desired, (not formed) are still in this Universal Mind Substance ready to be created or brought forth to fill every desire. Thus, the need for bread but showed that the substance with which to create bread or any other needed thing is at hand without limitation and bread can be created from this substance just as well as stones can be created therefrom. Every good desire man has is God’s desire; therefore, there is an unlimited supply in the Universal God Substance all about us to fill every desire. All we need do is to learn to use what God has already created for us and this He wills to have us do that we may be free from every limitation and thus be `abundantly free.’
“When Jesus said, `I am the door,’ He meant that the I AM in each soul is the door through which the life, power, and substance of the great I AM, which is God, comes forth into expression through the individual. This I AM has but one mode of expression and that is through idea, thought, word, and act. This I AM God Being, which is power, substance, intelligence, is given form by consciousness; and for this reason the Master said, `According to your faith be it unto you,’ and `All things are possible to them that believe.’
“Now we see that God is within the soul as power, substance, and intelligence—or in spiritual terms, wisdom, love and truth—and is brought out into form or expression through consciousness. The consciousness which is in the infinite mind of God and in man is determined by the concept or belief that is held in mind. It is the belief in separation from Spirit that has caused our forms to age and die. When we see that Spirit is all and that form is constantly being expressed from Spirit, then shall we understand that that which is born of or brought out of Spirit is Spirit.
“The next great truth to be revealed through this consciousness is that each individual, being a concept of the divine Mind, is held in that Mind as a perfect idea. Not one of us has to conceive himself. We have been perfectly conceived and are always held in the perfect mind of God as perfect beings. By having this realization brought to our consciousness, we can contact the divine Mind and so reconceive what God has already conceived for us. This is what Jesus called being `born again.’ It is the great gift the silence has to offer us; for by contacting the God-mind we can think with God-mind and know ourselves as we are in reality rather than as we have thought ourselves to be. We contact God-mind through true thought and so bring forth a true expression; whereas, in the past, perhaps through untrue thought, we have brought forth an untrue expression.
But, whether the form be perfect or imperfect, the Being of the form is perfect God- power, substance, and intelligence. It is not the Being of the form that we wish to change but the form that Being has assumed. This is to be done through the renewing of the mind, or through the change from the imperfect to the perfect concept, from the thought of man to the thought of God. How important then to find God, to contact Him, to be One with Him and to bring Him forth into expression. How equally important is the silence or the stilling of the personal mind, that the God-mind in all its splendor may illumine the consciousness. When it does, then we shall understand how `the sun of righteousness (right-use-ness) shall rise with healing in his wings.’ The mind of God floods consciousness as sunshine floods a darkened room. The infusion of the Universal Mind into the personal mind is like the entrance of the vastness of the outside air into the impurity of that which has long been held in some close compartment. It stands alone, supreme, and we realize that we are to build but one temple. The Temple of the Living
God is the blending of the greater with the lesser through which the lesser becomes one with the greater. The impurity was caused by the separation of the lesser from the greater. The purity is caused by their union, so that no longer is there a greater and a lesser but just the one good, whole, pure air. Even so must we know that God is One and all things visible and invisible are One with Him. It is separation from Him that has caused sin, sickness, poverty, and death. It is union with Him that causes one to become a whole Being or to become conscious of being whole.
“The separation from unity is the descent of the angels on the ladder of consciousness. The return to unity is the ascent of the angels upon the ladder. The descent is good, for unity then becomes expressed in diversity, but in diversity there need be no concept of separation. That which is diversity has been misconceived from the personal, or external viewpoint, to be separation. The great work for each soul is to lift the personal viewpoint to such heights in consciousness that it becomes one with the whole. When all can `meet with one accord in one place,’ that place in consciousness where it is understood that all things visible and invisible have their origin in the one God, then we stand upon the Mount of Transfiguration. At first we see Jesus and with Him Moses and Elias; or Law and Prophecy, and the Christ, (the power within man to know God); and we think to build three temples, but the deeper meaning comes. We are given to realize the immortality of man and to know that divinity is never lost, that Divine man is deathless, eternal. Then Moses—the Law, and Elias—the Prophecy, disappear; and the Christ stands alone supreme and we realize that we have to build but one temple—the Temple of the Living God within our very selves. Then the Holy Spirit fills the consciousness and the sense delusions of sin, sickness, poverty, and death become no more. This is the great purpose of the silence.
“This temple from which you may chip a piece and the scar will be instantly healed but typifies the temple of our body, of which Jesus spoke, the temple not made by hands, eternal in the heavens, which we are to bring forth here on earth.”
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