The Christ Within

  Excerpted from "The Healing Silence by Brother Mandus

"Be still, and know that I am God"

THANK You, Father. For we come to sit in the radiance of Thy Divine Love, to submit ourselves completely to Thee, knowing that in Thy Presence we shall be experiencing Thy Love for us. Take us as we are, and reveal Thy glory in our souls and minds and bodies. Let Thy Will be done and Thy words be spoken, that we may arise into Thy Holy Spirit, to be one with Thee, one with each other, and one with all people in Heaven and earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

. . . The Great Silence . . .

No matter how much we talk about God, we are always involved in opinion about that which can never be defined. No matter how much we may talk about Him, in the end we are always brought back to one basic need to experience the Presence of God as the active principle of life itself. In the end, there can be no other way than making ourselves available to Him in a realisation that there is only God in the entire universe, that nothing exists outside the range of this infinite Spirit.

Only when we know this realistically, as a fundamental in life, can we really begin that wonderful spiritual journey in which the Love of God becomes revealed in thought and word and action. What we are all really seeking to know is that we can never be separated from the Spirit of the Father.

I am sure that is what Jesus meant when He said, "If you have looked upon Me, you have seen the Father." If I look upon you, I see the Father. If God is at all points at all times, everything exists in, and through, and by His Spirit. He pervades and directs the orbits of universes a million light years away out in space, and upholds the atomic structure of every grain of sand. He is equally in a drop of water in a far ocean, and the air we take into our lungs. He is the life and plan in every created thing in every spiritual or material realm. No matter where you are, you are observing the miracle of Divine Love in action, the Living Presence which reveals Powers beyond understanding, obviously Almighty in its manifestation in its definition , and in its purpose.

In fact, when we look at one another, we behold the greatest miracle that we can see upon this earth. When we really see ourselves for what we are, living demonstrations of the Spirit of God in action, we shall be healed of the commonplace and begin to recognise the infinite Spirit in all His children, instead of seeing just ordinary people shopping or walking on the promenade or just Mrs. Smith next door.

When, in an illuminated state of mind, I look at you in that consciousness, then I cannot help but be staggered with the immensity of this wonderful being. For I see you as a spiritual entity, indwelt by the Life of God, revealing the Life of God, with intelligence, love, and body as vehicle of this Spirit. In fact the Father is expressing His Life through our personal consciousness at all times.

You do not need to think very deeply to realise that God has given us a creative faculty. The power of thought which we use in our own tiny human sense is creating something every day of our lives, both in our own personality and in the things we make, from cakes to castles, from writings to works of art. All the things which we behold in this world which man has created have been projected by the power of thought, this wonderful miracle-working power that we all possess in our own right, in our own beings. And this is linked with the almighty creative power of the universe.

For it is the Great Father Who is doing His thinking. It is the Father Who is indwelling us to reveal more and more of His almighty presence as the fundamental creative power in our own being.

So eventually it must come back to this - that we are one with the Father, and that the personality is manifesting in the midst of this Great Spirit. We have a personal consciousness within the Cosmic Mind, because that is how God gives us a personal experience, the right to think in our own power, the right of choice, freewill, by which a personality may emerge and grow. But God?s purpose in giving us personality is to teach us how to arise into an awareness and experience of the infinite intelligence and Love of God. So that while we retain personality, we have at our disposal all the creative power and faculties of God to manifest greater and greater experience, as partners with Him in His almighty creative enterprises. We are alive to learn how to live like infinite beings of light, manifesting this Almighty Love which is God in all kinds of personal ways, in the fulfilment of ever more wondrous projects and aspirations greater and greater now and unto all eternity.

In the end, therefore we can obviously only experience this infinite Power (Love) by making ourselves available to it, by reaching some point where we pass beyond speculation, beyond argument, beyond definition, into a simple acceptance that we are always in God?s presence. We must learn to know that we are ever receptive to His Love - which means of course His Infinite Perfection, His Knowledge, Wisdom, Healing, Blessing, Divine Adjustment and Almighty Power to create anything and everything. Until we learn to make ourselves available, receptive to God, it seems reasonable that we are not going to experience what our soul is really seeking.

You see, we can go on working out our destiny in our own limited consciousness, until such time as we learn to realise and accept the greater power that is available. But as long as we do that we remain in the realm of difficulty, of fear, of frustration, and are always working things out in our own puny strength. It is as though our personal consciousness held the Light of God, but that it was like a candle flame compared to the illumination of the sun. And what the Father is trying to tell us is, "Don?t just use this little candle flame of consciousness, but let all My sunshine illumine the whole of your life. Let it be My infinite power, instead of this guttering flame which can only illumine a very circumscribed orbit."

As a matter of simple commonsense, it is impossible to experience the Perfection of the Lord unless we submit ourselves to Him, and know He is projecting it through every aspect of our lives. We need, therefore, to recognise and accept the Presence, surrender self to Him, and know that Perfect Everything flows like a stream of Blessedness into our souls, minds, bodies and affairs. We must be secure in our belief in two basic facts:-

One - that God is Love, and the Almighty Presence within our own being, all around us, and in everything everywhere. Secondly - that the Great Father is a Thinker, too, and that He knows all about us, that He it was Who projected us into life upon this earth, that He it is Who is unfolding that life, and that He needs no instruction from us how to do it.

We have to acknowledge that He is infinite intelligence - infinite intelligence in infinite love - which naturally always desires to take the object of its love and give help, health and all goodness to it. When we really know that God is always there, and that He is always desiring to advance our lives - then we shall drop all resistance and limitations and allow His Spirit to supercharge our lives with His Love and Perfect Everything.

Which brings me to the next point. It seems to me that a fundamental of experiencing the reality of God?s Presence as an active principle must be to close down our own fretting, fussing, thinking, planning, worrying, striving, straining, in order to let this other principle flow through into personal realisation.

One begins to realise something of the experiences of the saints and mystics down the ages, in that they found they had to become still, to meditate, which really means to become still in God?s Presence and let God do what He wants to do. To become still, in a recognition that you have become still in the Almighty Presence of the Great Father, and that because you are not preventing Him by resistance, by lack of faith, by worries and fears and tensions, He now naturally manifests His Will, His Peace, and His Perfection throughout your being, as you allow Him to take charge of your mind and soul and body.

This meditation, this being still in God, is a fundamental. And yet, even amongst Christians, there isn?t one in ten thousand who seriously practices meditation as a fundamental need of the Christian Way of Life. We talk our way to God - yes - in many prayers. We try to understand the infinite by definition. We listen to dogma and creed, and often great philosophies concerning God. But very seldom do we close down our thinking and say, "Here Lord. Here am I. Take me as I am. You know what to do with me, Father. Do it. I am here." And to be still, receptive and listening to all that God will pour forth. It can only happen when we become absolutely convinced that the Great Father will do these things in the Silence. It can only happen when we are absolutely sure that the greatest activity that can ever happen in a human being comes when we become still and stop doing ourselves.

The frightening thing in this civilisation is that we have become obsessed by the idea that the only things that will ever get done are those which will be done in our own strength, by our own consciousness, by our own activity. And I suppose, until we really know something of this infinite activity of God, we shall continue to find it difficult to believe that simply by becoming still all power is swinging into action to bring forth every necessary Divine Adjustment.

That is where your faith comes in. You have to do it in order to experience it. It is the testimony of countless people right down through recorded history, from the ancient mystics of the East long centuries before Christ to present-day experience, that when they come into meditation, when they learn to become still in the Presence of God, dramatic events begin to unfold in their lives.

 

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