Chapter XI
As we stood watching the sunset, on the eve of our departure, one of the party said that he had begun to wonder how old civilization and religion really were and whether the two had really come hand-in-hand down the long ages of time. Jast replied, “That depends upon what you mean by religion. If by the use of the word, `religion’ you mean creed, dogma or sect, or perhaps superstition, it is very young and does not antedate twenty thousand years. But, if by the word you mean a reverence for the true philosophy of life, a true reverence for life itself, thus a true reverence for the sublime purity of God, of the great Creative Cause, then you may trace this back beyond all history, all mythology, all allegory, to the time of man’s first advent upon earth. Before kings, emperors, or man-made rule held sway in the heart of the first man there burned or shone forth the greatest reverence for the source of all life and the beauty of that life; the beauty and reverence of that pure soul shines undimmed through the long ages and so it will shine on undimmed through all eternity.
“When man first took up life, he knew full well the source. He had the deepest reverence for that source and that reverence you now know as the Christ. But, as we come on down the dim corridors of time, we find them divided into the innumerable sects, creeds, and dogmas until those corridors are divided into such a network that they present a veil of disbelief and superstition. Who, I ask, divided them—did God or man? Who is responsible for the great vortex of sin and inharmony this division has caused? Will you pause for a moment and think deeply, then ask yourselves, is it God or man that is responsible? Then think, does God sit somewhere in the sky looking down on this great web, altering a condition here or a condition there, interfering here or smoothing out a life there, praising one or condemning another, holding up the hands of one while he tramples the other? No, if there be a true giver of life, he must be Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, far above, around, and in all, pouring out his life to all, through all and above all, else he is not a true giver of all life. Thus you may differentiate this idea into the innumerable varieties of form but, when you reach the final one, you will find that you reach the one at the beginning also; and the two become a cycle with no beginning also; and the two become a cycle with no beginning and no end. Were this not so, there could be no basis, no hypothesis, no truth.”
Here someone asked, “Do you attempt to overcome death?” The answer was, “Oh, no, we rise up over death by letting life express to its absolute fullness. Thus, we do not know even what death is. To us there is nothing but more abundant life. The great error of the majority is that they attempt to hide their religion behind some veil or secret instead of throwing it open to the broad expanse of God’s pure sunlight.”
Someone of the party asked whether Jesus abode with them, meaning Jast’s people. He replied, “No, Jesus does not live with us. He is only drawn to us by the thoughts we have in common, the same as he is drawn to all by the thoughts they have in common. Jesus abides only to be of service, as all great souls do.”
He went on to say, “It was while sojourning in northern Arabia that Jesus had access to the library that had been collected from India, Persia, and the Trans-Himalayan region. Here Jesus first contacted the secret teachings of the Brotherhood. These teachings only served to drive home more firmly the conviction already forming, that the true mystery of life was God expressed through the Christ in the individual. He saw that, in order to express this fully, he must withdraw from all forms of worship and worship God expressing through the individual, and God alone. He saw that, in order to demonstrate this fully, he would be obliged to withdraw from those who had taught him, even though by withdrawing he should incur their displeasure. This did not deter him for a moment, so steadfast was he in his devotion to his cause and the great service he saw he could render to the world by that devotion.
“He saw that if man ever arose to the lofty power of that mighty Indwelling Presence; if a mighty Son of God, one in whom the Divine Wisdom abode in fullest measure; one rich in the outpouring richness of all of God’s treasures, the fountain of the outpouring waters of life, the Lord, or law of compassion and wisdom; was actually to take flesh upon earth, he must come forth and claim these possessions. Then, with pure motive he must live the life and he would bring forth that life, to which manifest Presence the name of the Christ has been given.
“He stood forth and boldly proclaimed that the Christ that abode in him abode in all; that the celestial voice that proclaimed him the Beloved Son proclaimed all sons of God, joint heirs, and brothers all. This epoch is marked at his baptism when the Spirit was seen descending from heaven like a dove upon him and it abode with him. He also said all are God’s, manifest in the flesh.
“He boldly taught that ignorance is the cause of all sin. He saw that, in order to practice forgiveness or the science of forgiving, man must be enlightened to the fact that man has the power to forgive all sin, discord, and inharmony; that it is not God who forgives sin, for God has nothing to do with the sin, sickness, and inharmony of man; that man, himself, brought these into being and man is the only one who can erase or forgive them. He saw that man must learn that ignorance is disregard and lack of understanding both of Divine Mind as the Creative Principle and of his relation to that Principle. He saw that man may have all intellectual knowledge and be versed in worldly affairs, yet if he does not recognize the Christ as the living, vitalizing essence of God within him, he is grossly ignorant of the most important factor governing his life. He quickly saw the inconsistency of asking a perfectly just and loving Father to heal a disease or sin. He taught that disease is the effect of sin and that forgiveness is an important factor in healing; that sickness is not punishment sent from God, as many believe it to be, but is the result of man’s misunderstanding of his real being. He taught that it is the Truth which sets free. The purity of his teachings has caused them to outlive those of his teachers.
“When Peter said that he forgave seven times, Jesus’ answer was that he forgave seventy times seven, then went on forgiving until the act was universal. In order to forgive hate, he centered his attention on love. This was not only when it touched his life, but when he saw it manifest in the world about him. This Truth was the inherent light that he saw in all, which would lead them out of darkness when applied with understanding. He knew that every overcomer was covenanted with his Lord to be continually forgiving sin, in meeting every inharmony with Truth; and this was his way of being about his Father’s business. He saw and understood that in no other way could the earth be transformed and peace and harmony prevail among men and he said, `If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.’
“In order to appreciate the full value of this statement, you may ask, `What is the Father?’ The Father is Life, Love, Power, and Dominion and all of these attributes belong to the child by rightful inheritance. This is what Paul meant when he said we are joint heirs with Christ to the God Kingdom. This does not mean that one has more than another. This does not mean that the eldest son gets the larger portion and the other half is divided by measure to the remaining children. To be a joint heir, with Christ, to the Kingdom means to be an equal participant in all the blessings of the God Kingdom.
“Sometimes others accuse us of making ourselves equal with Jesus. That is because they do not understand what is meant by joint heirship. I am quite certain there is not one among us that would say he was on the same plane of enlightenment as the great Master, with his great white purity. This joint heirship means to have the possibility of the same power, the same strength, the same degree of understanding. And yet there is not one among us that does not realize the full truth of the promise of Jesus to all of God’s children, to every true disciple, that they may be full participants in all the qualities of the Godhead as fully as he is. We fully recognize his meaning when he said, `Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ We know full well that that great soul never for a moment asked of his disciples a mental or moral impossibility. When he saw and asked perfection of man, he knew that he asked only that which man can live up to. A great many have taken false comfort in the belief that they never can be as perfect as the Master is perfect. They argue that he was Divine and that, because of his divinity, he did marvelous works which no other member of humanity could possibly do and that, therefore, it is absolutely useless to try. They say they are here with nothing better or more skillful or scientific with which to carve out life’s destiny than mere human will power. The great Master made it clear that, while it did take some human will power to start, THE MERE HUMAN WILL IS NOT A GREAT FACTOR IN THE CASE, THE GREAT FACTOR BEING DIVINE UNDERSTANDING. How many times did he say, `You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free.’
“Let us reduce this to the simple physics of the world about us. The moment men become fully acquainted with the truth of anything in the physical world about them, that moment they become free of their ignorant concept of that particular thing. The moment men became acquainted with the fact that the world was round and that it revolved around the sun, they became free from the antiquated idea of a flat earth and the rising and setting sun. The moment men become free from the belief that they are mere human beings, subject to human laws of life and death and the limitations which human beings have imposed, that moment they will see that they are free from all human limitations and may become Sons of God if they will. The moment they realize they are Divine, they are free from all limitations and possessed of the strength of divinity; and man knows that this divinity is the place where being comes most directly in contact with God. Man is beginning to see and know that this divinity is not something to be injected into each from without. He is beginning to know that it is the very life of each and every man.
“We know that the ideals we see in the lives of others take root in our lives and in compliance with the Divine Law, bring forth after their kind. As long as we believe in the power of sin and see the effect of sin as a reality, the punishment of that sin will be vital in our own lives. But, as we give to ourselves and others truly righteous thoughts for all inharmonious ones, we are making ready the harvest of a great spiritual feast which is certain to follow the seedtime. Thus forgiveness has a two- fold mission. It frees both the erring and the loving one, for back of the application of forgiveness is a deep and radiant love, a love founded on principle, a love that desires to give for the joy of giving with no thought of regard save that of the Father’s approval in the words, `this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’
“These words are just as true for us as they are true of Jesus. Your sins, sickness, or discord are no more a part of God, or your true self, than fungi are a part of the plants to which they attach themselves. They are the false excrescences which have gathered upon your bodies as the result of wrong thinking. The thought of the disease and the disease are merely the cause and the effect.
Erase, forgive the cause and the effect disappears. Erase the false belief and sickness vanishes.
“This was the only method of cure that Jesus ever resorted to. He erased the false image in the consciousness of the one to whom he ministered. He first raised the vibrations of his body by connecting his own thoughts with those of Divine Mind and holding his own thoughts steadfastly in accord with those of the perfection of the Divine Mind for man. Then the vibrations of his body became equal to the vibrations in Divine Mind. Having thus raised the vibrations of his own body by his steadfast thought of the Divine Perfection, he was able to raise the vibrations of the body of the applicant with the withered arm to the point where he could erase the image of the withered arm from his own consciousness. Then Jesus could say to him, `Stretch forth your hand.’ He stretched it forth and it became whole. Thus Jesus raised the vibrations of his own body by seeing the Divine Perfection for all and this enabled him to raise the vibrations of the one he healed until the image of imperfection was entirely erased; then perfection was instantaneous and the forgiveness was complete.
“You will soon find that, by fixing your thoughts and attention steadfastly on God and His divine perfection, you can raise the vibrations of your body so that they will blend so harmoniously with those of the divine perfection that you are absolutely one with the divine perfection and thus one with God. You are then able so to influence the vibrations of the bodies of others with whom you come in contact that they see the perfection that you see. Thus you may fulfill the divine mission and your part is complete. Or you may see imperfection and thus lower the vibrations until imperfection is the result but if you do this, you cannot escape reaping the harvest of the seed you have sown.
“God works through all to carry out His perfect plan and the perfect, loving thoughts continually going forth from the hearts of all are God’s own message to His children. It is these thoughts that keep the vibrations of our bodies in direct touch with the divine and perfect vibrations; and this seed is the Word of God that finds lodgment in every receptive heart, whether man be consciously aware of his divine nature or not. We are approaching more fully to our divine inheritance when we can keep our thoughts so fully upon our divine perfection and the divine perfection of all, as held in the Mind of God, that the vibrations of our body are in direct harmonious accord and one with the divine vibrations sent out from the Mind of God. But, in order to bring forth the abundant harvest of spiritual understanding, our thoughts must continuously vibrate with, and lay hold of, the perfect harmonious thoughts from Divine Mind, or Mind of God, to man, His beloved son. We soon find we have the power to enslave or to free ourselves, as well as to forgive every sin of the whole human family through our attitude of thought, word, or deed and, through the vibrations thus released, to the whole world. Once having chosen to shape our thoughts along definite lines, we soon find that we are sustained by Omnipotence itself and find, as we go through the discipline necessary to assure ourselves of mastery, that it is a glorious privilege—this power which we have to free ourselves and our fellow men from bondage through the process of divine thinking.
“All of Jesus’ healings were on the basis of removing the mental cause. So we find that it is necessary to reduce the idealism of Jesus to practical demonstration and, by so doing, we find we are only doing that which he enjoined us to do. Many sins vanish at the first few rays of light shed into the dark concept, while others more firmly rooted in consciousness require patience and perseverance to overcome. The forgiving love of Christ must prevail if we do not obstruct but give it full sway. True forgiveness purifies and blesses all and begins in the heart of the individual. This is, at first, a thought reformation and thus, a resurrection. Realizing that God is the only Mind and this mind is pure and holy will do much to keep one holding steadfastly and worshippingly the Truth that the Mind of Christ is having its perfect way in you and establishes you in these harmonious constructive thought-currents. You become aware that you are always in the ever- flowing stream of the loving thoughts which God is pouring out to His children.
“You will soon know that you are fast approaching a period in which you will be living in a world of thinkers. You will know that thought is the most potent agency in the universe. You will soon recognize that thought is the mediator between Divine Mind and every bodily ailment or discord in the world. If you practice looking immediately to the Divine Mind, the Kingdom within, when discord or inharmony arise, you are immediately united with Divine Ideas and you will find that Divine Love is ever ready to give its healing balm of pure love to those who seek.
“Jesus lives today to wipe out of human consciousness the power and reality of sin and its effects. Fresh from the heart of Love, he came understanding the relation between God and man; and in his fearless, free recognition of Spirit as the only power, he proclaimed the supremacy of Divine Law which, when understood and applied to every act of living, will transform suffering men into radiant beings and usher in the only real kingdom of perfect citizenship, the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth.” Here Jast ceased talking.
