Devitalizing Evil

“I CAME to fulfill, not to destroy” – there is nothing to be destroyed in all the Holy Mountain. Not even the devil; nor even the sickness, poverty, and hateful bondage of human life. Nothing is to be destroyed. It is to be fulfilled.

The egg is not destroyed when it becomes a bird, the caterpillar when it becomes a butterfly, and yet in a sense they are destroyed. The thing which is left when the egg becomes a bird is a thin shell it crumbles and drops into the dust, and even the place thereof is no more.

Jesus counseled the taking away of the attention from appearances and centering it upon this Power which fulfills — by this very process of taking away the attention from the appearances we devitalize the problems of life, which are entirely dependent upon the thought-substance to keep them alive.

The reason your problems have not been met is due to the fact you have been trying to overcome them – you have been fighting against something and at the same time exclaiming there is nothing but God in the universe. When you awaken to the Presence you will see the process, “Ye must decrease — I must increase,” take place before your very eyes as the power is withdrawn from the problem and merged into the Presence for reshaping and re-embodiment. In other words, the devitalization of the manifestation of evil will take place.

It is very much like letting the air out of a balloon — the moment you take your attention from the appearances and judge righteous judgment then the manifestation begins to fade out, just as a parasite begins to wither when the sap of the plant or tree is taken from it.

Once you see this simple method you will understand why it is that the Kingdom of Heaven is given to the child — the attention can be taken from the appearances, the snapping of the thought which is feeding the evil manifestation takes place and the manifestation falls into the dust, not being able to support itself.

“Magnify the Lord within” and disregard the appearance of the problem and you will begin to experience the consciousness of it cracking up — falling away for the new embodiment to take place; just as the egg cracks before the new embodiment of the eagle, which is leaving nothing behind it but the thing which formerly made it egg, but which is now only a broken shell falling into the dust of oblivion. So will you stop the effort to catch fish in the sea which is filled with fish and you will begin to “let down your nets.” The moment the thought is taken away from the problem, at that instant the lifeeam is cut from the manifestation and it begins to perish.

The old idea of fighting- against evil and calling on God to destroy something, which in the next breath you admit does not exist, is the densest kind of “metaphysics.” The manifestation of disease, though it may have a history years long, is only as old as the last thought about it. Out of consciousness — out of manifestation – the Walls of Jericho must and will crumble when you have taken your attention from them. At the precise instant the word shall be spoken and a crumbling of appearances will take place — a strong breath of life will dispel the crumbling mass of manifestation into nothingness. It is wonderful – the power which is inherent in the Risen Lord.

“Working” against the condition — or “working” to know there is no condition opposite a state of self hypnosis — you are caught in the language of metaphysics. Dead words — “Awake, thou that sleepest”; are you still under the hateful law, “Earn your living by the sweat of your brow”? Are you WORKING in this human sense of the word when you pray?

“Behold! I come not to destroy” — do you hear? – I said, “I come not to destroy.” Then what are you trying to destroy? An appearance” A belief? What for?

If God comes not to destroy, who are you to destroy? “I come to fulfill”; and, when the thing is fulfilled with the Spirit, when you recognize the Presence, you will burst the thin and narrow confines of the manifestation which is so ugly and untoward. Behold I make all thingsnew. We are not seeking to recover something lost, something once used. “Behold I make all thing new,” and when this idea comes to you, you Will perceive that immediately the new creation is a new consciousness with a new embodiment. So the egg becomes the bird — so you are embodied in a consciousness which is more sensitive to the PRESENCE than you were formerly, and hence are capable of accomplishing things that were utterly impossible before.

“Behold, I make all things new.” The moment you begin the devitalizing process of evil, even the devil and hell are made lifeless and must fall into nothingness — the life is taken from them.

It is as a man who owned a magnificent library of rare first editions. When he died, the library immediately began to disintegrate and was eventually scattered to the four winds. Why? Because it had nothing to hold it up. The moment your attention is taken from the appearances, the appearances fall to pieces. That is why Jesus kept saying, “What is that to thee? Follow thou Me” – the moment you do this the new embodiment is taking place. “Whatsoever you ask in My nature” — whatsoever you can conceive as possible to this nature — that will be made manifest through the Law of Christ Jesus.

In a moment of forgetfulness, many an invalid has done things which were seemingly impossible to do. “At a moment ye think not, I come” – you will see what a little is accomplished by taking thought. “Who, by taking thought, can add one cubit?” Are you ready to hear this? – or would you like to debate the issue, simply because the density of your mind does not apprehend the height, breadth, length of the Presence?

It is glorious when you glimpse the simplicity of this Christ message. It is up and away from the old thinking process — it is pure revelation, past the understanding of man. It is in the realm of the “peace” which passeth all understanding.” I said all — that includes your own and that of the greatest spiritual leader or teacher in the universe — it simply is something which transcends the thing called human understanding.

“Leave all” — do you hear? “Follow Me” does not mean that you let go of a thing, or that you go to any place. But you leave it all, as far as thought is concerned, and that is the quickest way to get rid of the manifestation.

As the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God, so is the Wisdom of God foolishness in the eyes of man. To the human unenlightened man he is sure that if he thinks hard enough or prays hard enough he will accomplish the destruction of the appearances — if he thinks money hard enough he will create it. He reckons with a human law which might, through some queer whim of fate, temporarily make a change. He cannot think it possible to attain these things and also to entertain the Presence the moment he stops the thought taking process and enters into the recognition of it all and begins to experience the deep and marvelous changes of the new embodiment being born.

“In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall bring it to pass.” Do YOU hear? Answer me. Well, then, what is keeping “it” from coming to pass in your life? Is it the thought taking, the judging from appearances, the trying to adjust, straighten, or arrange things or thoughts?

Perhaps it is — and perhaps you will “leave all” — I said all and follow Me, and begin to experience the deep delight of the rest that comes to one when he senses that God knows more than any combination of manifestation ever can hope to glimpse. “I have a way ye know not of,” slams the door shut tight in the face of the “man whose breath is in his nostrils” and who is trying to square the teaching of Christ by the yardstick of human intelligence.

“In all thy wars acknowledge him, and he shall give thee the desires of your heart.” Can it be possible? Can you begin to see how you are gradually coming out of the desert of working into a place of service and expression — into a place where man becomes a part of the gorgeous pattern of life, and can no more be kept from his expression than he can be sent into his expression by thought? There is a sudden doing away with the paraphernalia of the human thought.

Who told you to make the effort to express – who told you that a man held the power to keep you out of your place or to let you in? Who told you that you must get a man-made authority to express the substance of your mind? The world has told you, and it is true, as long as you are trying to sell yourself to the world — but when you merge into Spirit, when you are one Nature, there will be no need of entering into the limitations of man. He has his success and his failure; both are but human degrees. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the Power. God is not successful — that is a man-made limitation and is usually pictured out by dollars and cents.

God is not limited to the narrow confines of “success.” That is the measure man holds to the universe, hoping to get it full, but when he “proves Me” he will begin to see that his measure is far too small.

God does not ask permission to perform. You are the word of God made flesh — what about you? Why do you not accept My invitation, “Lean on Me”? — literally, lean upon the consciousness of this Presence. If you have the human decency and honesty to fulfill that which you claim you have, you will see definitely, “I will sustain you” – not after the limited manner of your thinking — “I have ways ye know not of.” Do you believe it?

When is the fire of the burning bush going to burn out all the dead manifestations which you have been holding to yourself so long? When will you flame with the joy of sensing, “Heaven and earth are full of Thee” — and mean it, and cast your burdens on the Lord and feel the Presence emanating through you? The hills shall be made low and the rough places smooth and the crooked places straight — all this symbology to make you see how the problem is devitalized when you take your thought away from it.

“Judge not from appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” Thedesire of your soul, which is the thing in its incipiency urging upon you for fulfillment, is possible of fulfillment, though it must have a new embodiment — not necessarily a new shape, but a new height of consciousness which can accept the new revelation as natural instead of the old idea that it is something that must be demonstrated.

The literal interpretation of the Scriptures begins to take place the moment you have found the soul of it all. Without an embodiment the unseen is unexpressed and is worthless — it must be embodied; and this power of embodiment in the face of such binding limitations as a shell, a prison wall, a fearful disease or reputation, can only take place when you turn your attention to me and magnify me within.

“What is that to thee?” is the password thereafter — the attention has been taken away from the appearances. This does not necessarily mean that you are closing your eyes to it; just suddenly you have taken the thought from it, and the “What is that to thee?” stays with you as a guardian angel until the moment comes for you to blow the breath and see the walls crumble.

All the while, from the moment the attention is taken away from the appearances, the leaven of the Presence has been devitalizing, undermining the solid appearances of belief, so that when the breath of Life is blown upon the thing, it goes up in a cloud of smoke and you enter in. The Jericho of your desire, walled away by impossibilities, becomes yours. You do not climb over, fight against, tear down, or in any way attack the walls — you devitalize them by taking your thought away from the appearances.

It is wonderful what a little contemplation on this thing will do for you. Suddenly you will see why Jacob struggled all night with the Angel, and how finally he loosed it and let it go. So you will take the very light out of hell or the devil by this same process. When you stop regarding the flames of hell and recognize Me, you devitalize hell, and it becomes heaven. Even while you are momentarily in the flames you experience the holy command, “The flames shall not burn thee.” It is glorious, this oneNature of the Jesus Christ consciousness.

The appearances may be solid and filled with terror, the roadway filled with armed charioteers and horsemen; destruction is near; but “look again” – and the devitalization takes place. We are not going to fight. “Put up your sword” is just as true today as it was two thousand years ago.

“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” Where is the Christ? When Jesus raised his eyes to Heaven, did he look up? And if so, where are you going to look? When he performed the gesture in his Consciousness he must have stayed on the Power and magnified that, if the embodiment necessary was to take place, and eventually before his eyes the spectre of appearances which manifested hunger and lack, fell to pieces, and the embodiment of plenty took place.

“Believest thou this?” Can you believe in the Divine nature to the point that the embodiment necessary to put the child on earth will take place, by a way ye know not of? Outside of the laws of mankind? If so , you can rejoice, for all flesh shall see it together.

In every instance of so-called miracle cited in the bible, we see Jesus practicing this devitalizing process. The attention is taken from the appearance, and the manifestation has the life-flow snapped instantly. It may wag about until sundown, but the “What is that to thee?” keeps you in perfect peace — the walls crumble as you enter in. You enter in through the door which no man can shut — I said no man, organization, person, place, or thing. By your yea, yea, “Believest thou this?”

“Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have life eternal.” You see yourself moving through every character and every situation of the Bible, and yet you suddenly realize that you see yourself, and it is the you which is seeing yourself that has the power to accomplish that which changes the face of all nature.

“At his coming” — what is this his? At his coming the earth melted. (Is your problem harder than the solid earth?) At his coming the hills skipped for joy and the trees sang, and so is the glorious pastoral poem of the symbolizing of the Presence.

So will the manifestations of evil suddenly lose their shape and form at his coming just as hell melts into heaven at his coming into manifestation, and the devil fades into oblivion. The running from appearances ceases; he can go or stay when you have taken the life out of him. He will be powerless, and will prove it over a thousand times.

Can you begin to see why you are sent into all the world? Naked, yet unafraid — alive, awakened to your true nature. Shed with the preparation of the gospel, wearing the breast-plate of righteousness, etc., is but the symbology of becoming conscious of your nature. It is not a preparation for combating evil. No, not even by the old-fashioned method of begging, beseeching, and praying to a tribal Jehovah.

“In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall bring it to pass.” Do you hear? What, then, is going to hinder the manifestation of it here and now?

 

Walter C. Lanyon