You Are Not Afraid

“For the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me”—where did it come from? What is fear? Is it a person? Is it a power? Is it some strange product of superstition that suddenly jumps at you from the unknown? It states the thing you feared has come upon you; it is not the thing that someone else feared, because many times the thing you are fearing another person is perfectly free from. What is fear? Where does it come from? Where does it stay? In another breath, you are saying all is God—there cannot be more than all. When you use electricity in your home and life, you do it with impunity because you have respect for the principle back of it, but that same electricity which gives you light and warmth can also kill, why? Is electricity bad—would you try in any way to destroy electricity because it had wrought havoc? No—­no, you would say it had been misapplied, and that would end it as far as any discussion of electricity was concerned. Yet, when you are attacked by anything called fear and are cringing from it, you do not stop to think there is but One Power. There could not be two powers in the world of God—all evil then is a misapplication of the One Power. There is but one power. When the power is picked up—when that power is lifted up, or when you are lifted up to the true condition of the power, the evil instantly stops. When a person understands electricity even in a degree, he is not going to experience any more of the evils he did when he was ignorant of it. His fear which sprang from it is instantly dissipated. He is now at an elevation where he understands at least what is the power.

Caroline Weston has written the following lines:

“Fear is not the thing you run away from, it is the thing you cannot run away from—it is the thing that leaps at you from some dark corner of yourself—it is the thing that drives you back to simplicity—to God.” It is an interesting way of putting it, and brings to attention at the same time that the thing you call problem must be understood. It is not something to destroy you—it is some­thing to bring to your recognition oneness; it is illumina­tion;— it is Light, and when you see this, you will stop fighting the problem. Jesus did not fight disease, or a problem, or even his own crucifixion as far as that is con­cerned. He immediately returned to the ONE. This sounds so religious, so impossible and mystical, and so in­effective to the average human mind. When man says, “I go unto the rather,” he seems to think it all is some more religious talk. It has nothing to do with religion; religion has to do with it.

It is a law that when you come into the ONE, the “Two-thing” is destroyed;— the leaven and the meal be­come one, when they come together. It is a law that when the child understands mathematics, he makes fewer and fewer mistakes. He does not overcome them, he is mov­ing with the LAW and it automatically undoes or destroys the laws of human mind. There begins a subtle undoing of evil in your life, and more especially the patterns of fate which are considered so inescapable when this Oneness begins to take place. Sometimes there seems to be a fer­mentation as in the case of the meal and leaven, but presently all this is straightened out and the change is made.

So you are standing before a terrible condition—a con­dition that has been an established law with the ancestors for generations but when you learn there is nothing to overcome, you begin for the first time to HEAR Ye do not need to fight . . . “Put up . . . thy sword.” All this is talk until it becomes TALK—the talk that carries with it revelation and change, and can and does set aside every law of man—even that of the “Proud” waves, and of gravity and of established belief.

My words are (not maybe nor perhaps) Spirit, and they are truth—and they shall not—cannot—return unto me void, but MUST accomplish whereunto they are sent. When you say “MUST” it gives the impression of effort —but there is no more fighting-force to it than there is to an irresistible force—it just is—and it operates and causes you to know something of the ONENESS—the free oneness spoken of in the Orient— free one-ness. It is wonderful. Right now would be a good time for you to stop reading and go into your private office and shut the door—and stay in there until you discover there is no door. This is the language of Jesus Christ coded, so the wise and prudent should not destroy it. They cannot hear for they hear only words made up of dead letters, and they only kill.

 

So you, standing before the terrible picture of human thought (the mirage of evil that can, if you believe in it destroy you and your world.) have the ability and the power to perform that which Jesus performed when he “went unto the Father.”—He did not go anywhere physi­cally. He stood just where He was, but He suddenly merged into the ONE and the “Two” thing had no more power to picture evil.

When the evil has crept upon you and there is such an apparent reality to it, backed up by ten thousand, you will suddenly remember that ONE with God is a majority, and the minority which seemed so terrible and immense will dwindle away like a mist before the morning sun. If you could watch the law of mathematics run through a mass of mistakes, you would see no effort or straining but simply a coming into being of the Truth. And when you recognize—and I said recognize the truth of that which you declare, you would see how it is that God runs through, as it were, all the snarled up conditions you have been hanging on to and trying to get rid of at the same time. There is something about “Loose him and let him go” which applies to you when you can hear.

When the law of mathematics enters into the human field of error and suddenly disintegrates manifestation and causes it to return to its native dust, where does the mistake go? Where does the thought go that knew disease? What happens to the thing called disease? Where did it go? You answer. Where does fear go? Where does the monster backed up with such terrific proof go when you deprive it of life and he falls into dust? You are told not to fight —­and to put up your sword—that does not mean a sort of bravado, a show off of power, anything but that, a casual letting of that which is come into its own. It means to relax into the recognition of the Presence—set yourself and see—it says, SEE—not see—but SEE—beyond the bornes of human thought and belief—even as high-powered binoculars go miles beyond the accepted vision; so does the Sight you are invited to use go beyond the limits of the human conception, and sees through the solid wall of belief. You are told to set yourself and see the salva­tion of the LORD. Many may see evil, experience evil, but it shall not come nigh thee because you have taken from it any ability or power to do anything but disinte­grate. If you can believe and stand a split second after everything in you, and about you, says it is impossible, then the doer of the impossible will come forward with healing in his wings and verily ye shall be saved from your belief.

Perhaps your disease is incurable by the law of the land. Perhaps you have never known anyone who has been healed. Perhaps your condition is absolutely hopeless in the eyes of man. Yet that one marvelous LAW—“SET yourself” recognize the principle, and let it alone and it will find its way through the most intricate passages of human thought and destroy the evil. Suddenly, you will “… see the salvation of the Lord which He will show toyou today.” It is close at hand.

There was a time when lightning was considered a rath­er personal power of God, which he sent as a vengeance to make you afraid. All this has passed.

The thing you fear is in you—as much as you dislike to admit this. You are sure that some person or some con­dition or circumstance has caused this to happen to you— ­but without recognition none of it can have life, and will wither away. Nothing lives in your life without thought. If it is entirely out of your thought, it is entirely out of your manifestation. I can say to you the thing you fear is in you—and the only place to rid yourself bf the manifesta­tion is within yourself. Do not go forth to battle with the midnight and the storm, “Put up thy sword.” You do not need to fight—set yourself and see the salvation of the Lord—this setting yourself is not a supine giving in to human belief. It is a sudden recognition—a sudden blend­ing, an almost sangfroid, because you have vitiated the power of the evil. It is an actual belief in God that clears out everything. Divine indifference destroys the mani­festation as if by magic. An actor who is not recognized is so to speak “Professionally killed” more surely than if he be scandalized—without recognition he dies,—so with evil.

You remember Peter when they put him into prison? There was no reason why he should have been put into prison, yet he did nothing about it; he did not protest his innocence. A thousand enemies of the word clamored for his destruction—but for some reason or other, he refused to accept the whole picture.

Peter did not accept the evil that had closed so tightly around him. He began to sing. This was Divine indiffer­ence to man and his beliefs. And so you recall (I wonder if you were there?) an earthquake solved the mystery. If it takes an earthquake—why not? Evil is plenty rampant when you believe in it—so we see Peter had his earth­quake; shall we say caused by his singing—no nothing facetious— just a reference to his Divine indifference—I said DIVINE. So Peter had his earthquake. Can you hear? You might need one, too, and if so, go ahead and sing and praise God and see what happens. The moment you strike the note of recognition, the walls—like the Walls of Jericho—will come tumbling down. It is wonderful— ­is it not?

Strange when he had the chance to escape he did not take it; he rather caused them—the same evil men who had put him there—to invite him to come out. Life can be beautiful, and so can an earthquake if you hear what I am saying—and shall I recall to you a law: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper”? So Peter came out, and discovered the law that “The Thing” that came at him in one way fled in ten, glad to take sanctuary in anything it could get. Evil disappears into the limbo, and those who have perpetrated it often go into the limbo too. The ugly thing that drives at you with all its seem­ing force and power is like the bird that dashes itself into the Light at night and bashes its brains out, Did the light kill it? You answer. Did the disease which you cannot identify as being a person, place, or thing suddenly dis­appear when it crashed into the consciousness that be­lieves in God? That is all it takes—the very thing you profess with your lips. The moment you take your thought from evil, it is devitalized. It is like a plane that loses its propeller in mid-air—it would crash to destruction, noth­ing could stop it regardless of the efforts of the pilot and passengers. So it is with the evil that attempts to destroy you. When you take away the thing that is causing it­ which is your acceptance of it— the manifestation crashes to earth.

And, in like manner, you are invited out of the prison that has bound you. So is it with the Power that Jesus Christ, the Magnificent, gave. I said gave—no price— ­no preaching—-no affirmation to make it so—only ac­ceptance. You are the Beloved of God—but, until you recognize who you are, and what you are, and are willing to permit the power to function through you in its way—­ not your way—there is no manner of ridding yourself of the evil belief. The thing that YOU fear—not some one else—has come upon you. Why does it not come to an­other person? Because that person will not feed it with recognition. As you begin to see this, even in a small way, you will manifest the peace that passeth all understand­ing. It says ALL understanding—surpasses all this we are talking about. So suddenly you are relaxed, and so sud­denly the operation of the law takes place; it searches the joints and marrow; it loosens the disease that has clung to you—suddenly it slides off, because “Every plant, which my heavenly rather hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Every noxious plant that has blossomed in your life to bring unhappiness, to bring fear, to bring limitations, to bring chaos into the Kingdom of Heaven is suddenly up­rooted.

You are the BELOVED of God—do you hear NOW? The thing you fear is being uprooted—–you see what it is NOW. It is not something you can run away from—it is something you can completely eliminate by breaking the thought. We do not overcome any condition in the sense that we go out to fight it. Whatever you fight, you make real. You cannot deny NOTHING; you must have some­thing.

You are told to go within and shut the door. That is not running away from evil, but it is going to the place of ONENESS—and instantly you begin to experience the free-oneness; at this place all the noise and clamor of human thinking is shut out—also the race consciousness which says you are incurable, you are hopeless—the situ­ation is beyond human help.

When it is beyond human help, it is at the right place, for then the human thinking has had its day and is through, and the revelation of the Almighty (which when it comes to you shall lead you into all things) has come. When there is no hope for you, then it is that the magic called the impossible can, and will, take over—and the connection between the evil and the manifestation is broken; it lets go, it begins to disintegrate and return to its native dust. And so you suddenly leap through forty years, or one year, or five minutes of fear and evil and ugly conditions, and praise God. When you think of the man at the temple gate who sat for forty years in all his disease and pain, sud­denly leaping up through what?—the garment of thought, the straight-jacket of ancestor teaching which says it is impossible. To the outside mind, the reasoning mind, it was impossible just as your condition seems impossible ­but acceptance works wonders. And then the one who prays and begs and beseeches God for help, wonders why God has passed him by. Perhaps you have discovered why? You could die on the lap of Jesus, if you did not accept his WORD. And the man at the Temple might not have been a good man, but he did something that you do when you turn on electricity; you cause it to work and that is the story of acceptance.

Yes, says the unbeliever (the Thomas) : “I would like to SEE it before I would believe”—but you cannot see it because you do not believe. If God would heal me, I would believe—but he cannot because you cannot believe and so it goes. I just heard over the air about some men who had gone into the jungle and discovered a voodoo man who had terrific power—and his followers were sing­ing to death a man who had offended him. They thought this was terrible and unusual, but the same thing happens at home. Many a man or woman has been sung to death by the screeching voices of scandal-mongers. Mortal Mind is the same the world over. We imagine there are certain ones who have special gifts of healing. I once heard a man tell how he cursed plants and they withered away, and the same man blessed plants and they flourished. Who can take the scepter from the hands of God and use it for evil?

Ask yourself and watch, watch, and you will see what a boomerang it is.

Until you recognize, and I said recognize, the Power of God as something beyond human thought, you cannot see it in operation. No man can do any of these things if he is so dense as to imagine he can use it for personal ends —but if he knows it and recognizes it, the personal end of his life will be magnificently cared for. Are you afraid to believe? The action of God is automatic and natural­— you cannot make it work—you cannot work it— it has to work you, and so you have to be absent from the embodi­ment of human thought and present with the Law.

Presently you understand the law and how all these words that are so much foolishness to the erudite are gushers of power in the desert of human waiting. Yes, you are coming near to the moment when many words will be decoded. You will see how this marvelous law has been protected down through the ages. The man who borrowed and refused to repay because the paper he signed was outlawed found there is no discount in the. law of justice; nothing shall be removed until the law is ful­filled—not one jot or tittle.

Jesus spoke in a coded language and his disciples be­lieved what he said apparently, but we find them question­ing his resurrection. Thomas had to put his hand in the wound. And we, too, have sometimes said if I could only see it; but you cannot, for you are in the category of hav­ing eyes that see not. So do we find the Master giving the law to this disciples when he asked them the question: “But whom say ye that I am?”—and “Then saith he to Thomas . . . . . and be not faithless, but believing.” The one who has to be shown does not believe.

How many times have you said when something went wrong, “That is just my luck.” Well, why not rejoice that you can always make your luck come to pass even nega­tively—and why does it come into being with such ease—could it be because you accept it, and take your thought from it and let it function naturally? You apparently can­not help it. If it is just your luck, why do you fight against it? But just saying it, will not make it happen. It must have recognition back of it, and the understanding that Jesus Christ was a Truth-sayer instead of a liar as many who profess to follow Him make of Him. It is an under­standing that the three dimensional mind cannot grasp. But when you awake, even in a small degree, you begin to loose him and let him go—you let the old patterns and beliefs go.

None of the evils of life can operate without your recognition of them. They have no power, and so presently you fund you have, symbolically speaking, been going up an inclined plane and are beginning to experience that the fire does not burn, nor the water quench; the sword does not pierce, and the wall does not prohibit.

You were created by God, period. Everything else has been added to you since that time; you have accepted the pictures shown to you by the ancestors—but now you are beginning to see the Light.

By following the pictures of the ancestors, you are rush­ing on to death—hoping thereby to gain heaven—yet the Beloved told you that this is the Kingdom of Heaven. Am I asking too much that you begin to believe after all these centuries of disbelief, after you have come to the place of complete frustration and despair? Is it asking too much that you believe just a little—about as much as a grain of mustard seed— that is not too much is it? What results follow. It is unbelievable. Why do you not believe— ­just one mustard seed size of faith? You are the beloved of God—not your human father—but think, you are the Beloved of God—it is so written in the law. I did not make it up, but it is wonderful when you discover it, as I said just one mustard seed’s worth. Do you believe? Do you hear? “Yes, I know, but everything in my life seems to be just the reverse. You would think the devil had control, the way things have happened and how things have piled up. Everything in the world happens at the same time.” Yes, it happens and it is like the torrent that comes down the mountain. When you recognize the Pres­ence, it is like an avalanche of snow that landed in the Sahara, instantly it melts and is sucked up by the sands and is gone. So it is with you and your so-called problem. A handful of snow at the top of the mountain can become an avalanche in the valley. So is it with the evil thoughts and ideas you entertain; they increase and spread rapidly. They have narrowed your action down to a negligible point of expression.

But the wonder of it all is that Nothing happens but my Love allows—suddenly takes over, and you begin to see you are. working on an entirely new basis. You are beginning to see that “whereas I was blind, now I see” is something more than poetry. Do you hear Now? Yes, it also says that one touch or recognition of the Power causes you to be in your right mind sitting at the feet of the Master; whereas you had been playing with, dead men’s bones—old worn out cliches and ideas which had no life in them and then suddenly you are sitting at the feet of the Master. Do you hear now? A little—perhaps as much as the man did who had the mustard seed size of faith.

Man knows all about it—but his “ceiling” is the egg and the chicken. He still does not know which came first, and he has heard but did not believe that you find the blossom before the seed; he does not know anything but foolishness, and out of this foolishness he has created end­less disease and misery. He has made himself a worm of dust, and is going through the passions that Jesus went through to show him he did not need to suffer any more.

People have become so hypnotized to the human thought pattern, they think they are serving God when they suffer —when he definitely said, “I came that your joy might be full”; and then went through every hellish invention of human Adam-thought to prove the nothingness of it all. Yes, He deliberately chose to go through the most dif­ficult problem of human mind—death—and He rose from it into the perfection of immortality, and said you were to do the works that He did. When do we begin? When do we get the mustard seed sized faith to work—and watch it expand until it covers the whole world?

There were many things I could not tell you, because of your unbelief. I did not say I would not tell you_{, —-} but it is difficult to find one who will listen and who wants to listen to the WORD. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem …. how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

I told you, and showed you how to open the eyes of the blind, raise the dead, and heal the sick. Why not believe a little and see what the spirit bath to say unto the churches?

You are to appropriate that glorious Presence which in­stantly neutralizes evil, and that which approaches you at this level is confounded, dumbfounded, turned awry and driven into the desert of futility. That is the LAW—walk thou in it, turn not to the right, nor left. The man whose breath is in his nostrils knows everything, and nothing. He is a liar and the father of it, and when he says in­curable or hopeless, he is saying words only of his own vocabulary, and they are meaningless to the one and only Power called God. You, beloved, were created for the pur­pose of permitting this power to take shape and form through your body. You are the Beloved of God—you are the Christ of God. Behold!

 

Walter C. Lanyon