At the Feet of the Master

“AND they found him clothed, and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of the Master.” They found that maniac who had been living in the tombs; who had torn himself in anguish; who had frightened others; “clothed, and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of the Master.”

The story of the maniac is the story of every man. It is your story. When the Christ passes by he finds you in the tombs of the past, dwelling with dead thoughts and conditions. Living with the whited bones of past accomplishments, or fears. Hiding behind the tombs of personality. Trying to make that which is dead and done with appear to be alive. Screaming to the passerby in a ghastly voice, swollen with pride and egotism, telling of your attainments. No wonder, then, when the voice of the Christ is heard, you call out, “‘What have we to do with thee? Go away and leave us alone.” The old personality, with its graveyard full of pride of personal attainment, fears to give up its only claim to attention. It has built tombs, elaborate and ornate, to each of its accomplishments. It has dug deep into the stones the records of what it has done, and it hates to see this passing into the limbo of oblivion.

Many a man has awakened to find himself in this graveyard, living the life of a maniac, fingering over the dead things, and wondering why life was so uneventful and ugly. Mentally he lives with the dead. He heeds not the injunction, “Let the dead bury their dead.” He has his tombs to which he is bound. There are in every mental cemetery ghastly vaults of ugly things, memories of failure, disease, and limitation. Their history is scratched deep in the cold marble.

“Let the dead bury their dead; follow thou me,” must be obeyed implicitly. Nothing in the past is worthy of consideration; nothing that you have done or left undone is worthy of remembrance. “Come out from among them and be ye separate.” Come out from the graveyard of your own making, leave every tomb and be free. You give up nothing when you give up the personal idea for the Christ. The new day dawns across the cold marbles of the past, and you awaken to glorious possibilities. The Master speaks to you and says, “It is well.”

The dirty rags of personal beliefs and griefs fall away, and you are naked, stripped of your personal impedimenta – everything seems to go away, and then you are “clothed” and in your right mind (the Christ Mind), sitting at the feet of the Master (the Inner Lord). At last “the peace that passeth all understanding” enfolds you, and you rest. The floods of forgetfulness wash away the debris of yester-years, and in the place of the tombs are fields of lilies – fields of fresh attainment and glory. You are alive, and the dead thing has been carried out of your life. “Though a man were dead, yet shall he live,” has been made literally true for you. The new life that is surging through your being is the life that has left the past forever.

It is reported that, when the maniac child was brought to the Master, his parents went into elaborate details of the evil from which he suffered: and then said, “If you possibly can, good Master, heal him.” The Master replied, “Why did you say ‘possibly’?” Whether this is accurately recorded or not, it brings with it the strident, flaming question, Why did you say “possibly”? Why do you, who admit the all power of God, and yourself as the Son of God, wonder if He can possibly accomplish the trifling thing that you are seeking? “O ye of little faith” is the rebuke that comes to us time and time again, as we see that we are constantly returning to the cemetery of past failures – looking among the dead bones of yesterday for a spark of life, whitewashing the rotten caskets of yesterday’s attainments, trying to make them as new.

Caught in the old beliefs, we recite the evils we have suffered at great length. We go into the ghastly details of past accomplishments. We tell what we have done to the glory of God, instead of showing forth the true consciousness of God in the present manifestation.

The Light burns high these days; the Coming of the Christ is taking place in many – not through or by some creed, but through the awakening of the “maniac” in the tomb of dead beliefs. “The wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God.” Then the man with this wisdom must be insane in the truest sense of the word. Inversely speaking, “the wisdom of God is foolishness in the eyes of man” – and Jesus was accordingly considered a fanatic or insane man. But, once the glory of the Christ steals upon you and you are ready to “rise and follow ME,” YOU Will know the peace – the glorious peace “that passeth all understanding.”

Beloved, you are not giving up anything when you leave the tomb of yesterday; when you leave the graveyard of relative thought and belief. You are coming out into the new dimension – the dimension of infinity, as it were; the place where you begin to see the naturalness of God’s love toward you. This love enables you to see clearly beyond the dead beliefs into life eternal.

What a glory comes to you when you find yourself in your Right Mind. For the first time the feeling of assurance comes to you. The consciousness of peace. The beauty of balance and soundness.

Lazarus comes out of his tomb, and the grave clothes of yester-beliefs are cut away from him. “Ye must be born again.” To be born again does not imply a process of making over an old thing. It is a casting off of the old, as it were, and an appropriation of the new. It is a conscious recognition of the agelessness of Spirit in all its glorious manifestation here and now.

Are you the maniac in the tomb? You who read? Have you the tombs of cold marble hidden away in the darkness of your mind? The Master is passing; even now, as you read, I Am speaking to you. I Am calling you to “come out from among them and be ye separate.” Leave all the dead things of the past and come out into the glorious sunshine of today. You are not losing anything by this giving up.

When the maniacal thoughts of relativity are cast from you, they are self-destroyed. They are drowned in the sea of oblivion. They are gone forever. And their name is legion. A thousand little dishonesties and conceits disappear before the searchlight of the New Idea. The coddling and petting of the human personality is cast off as so much excess baggage. You stand revealed and free – the Son of the Living God – not asking again “if you possibly can,” but rather accepting the glorious gift of “decreeing,” of “speaking the word.” What is so strange and weird about the fact that a universe evolved out of a God power should be found in full possession of this God power? What is so magical about the fact that you should find this God power operating in your life, and bringing out the natural results of this power? As we recognize the Presence more and more, we realize that its manifestation is only natural, Drink deep, beloved, of the waters of Life – the refreshing sense of joy that comes over you when you realize that you are clothed and in your right mind, sitting at the feet of the Master. It is well. Fear not.

Walter C. Lanyon