If I Be Lifted Up

“IF I BE lifted up I will draw all men unto me.” This “up” state of consciousness is the secret formula for materializing Heaven here and now. The Automatic Power immediately “draws” all manifestation into visibility. It might be likened unto a magnet drawing all things unto it. The quotation reads, “All Men unto me.” It says “all men,” or “all manifestation,” shall be drawn into alignment when the consciousness is “lifted up.”

The state of consciousness you are in eternally out-pictures itself, no matter whether it be good, bad, or indifferent, and so the “lifted up” state of consciousness immediately casts its shadow into the world of Relativity, or draws all things to it, thereby embodying itself.

Manifestation must be used when it appears, as was necessary with the symbolical manna. Attempting to hoard the substance shows a misunderstanding of the “drawing” power of being “lifted up,” and this cuts the manifestation off from visibility.

You have seen a toy magnet automatically collect bits of steel in close proximity to it the moment it is introduced into a new field; perhaps you have seen a terrifically powerful magnet pull great masses of steel and iron unto itself with the same ease, a magnet which is so strong that everything in the nature of iron immediately feels the “pull”?

“I Will Draw All Men (Manifestation) Unto Me.”

The drawing of all manifestation, which is referred to in the Law is quite as automatic and effortless as is the drawing of steel by the magnet. The state of consciousness to which you are lifted immediately embodies itself or draws unto itself manifestation. A strange way of escaping the bondage of the former state, and a simpler way than fighting against the limitations, and trying to get rid of them by the way of man.

“If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me,” and yet how utterly impossible it is to be “lifted up” literally. Living and moving and having your being in the Presence which is everywhere precludes the possibility of being “lifted” anywhere. In the poverty of language we use these words to indicate various approaches to the same idea. Lifting up is merely another word for recognizing the Presence.

The being “lifted up” or the entering a New Mansion (consciousness) is something like going into a warm room. You partake of the nature of it automatically; in fact you become warm; you are one with it, and it is manifested in every particle of your body.

All these illustrations are inadequate to express the glorious Presence. They will suffice until such time as you can throw yourself off the wheel of conscious thinking unto Revelation.

“I will arise and go to my Father.” No outside preparations are made – no changing of clothes, no getting ready. The symbology is sincere and plain. “I will arise.” You will come to that place where you will “arise” from your present state of consciousness instead of “commencing-.to- begin-to-get -ready- to start” to do it. You will arise from the soiled and dirty robes of human belief. You will spend no time regarding the road, the possible obstacles thereon, what reception you will receive, for the moment you “arise,” or are lifted up, you begin to function in the new consciousness. It is something that is beyond human thinking and planning, for the “wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God.”

The effortless nature of God shows how futile it is for a person to “try” to think a thing out. The more he tries to think evil out of the pictures, the more it persists in his mind. Humanly speaking, if you would have a person think about a thing, tell him definitely not to think about it; the perversity of the human mind will do the rest.

“In a moment ye think not” does not appear to be a response tothinking. The very thinking that tries to create something which it knows does not exist results in futility and weariness. If you cannot “believe,” then it is impossible for you to see. If you can believe, then nothing can stop the manifestation from coming into visibility.

There is a glorious radiance about the agreement that is made on the heights of the new consciousness and then dropped from mind. It is like the good seed which is cast deep into the ground. In due season (which, by the way, may be immediately) it will bear fruit a hundredfold. You will find it happening all the while. That which you have accepted, and “believed” and released into silence will come to pass. It Is the out-picturing of the law which says, “At a moment ye think not I come.” When the doubting, worrying, anxious thought is eliminated, and the agreement is rested in the secret place, it will burst into fruition unannounced. It is wonderful to contemplate the ways of this Glorious God Power.

All the puny efforts of the human thinking are put to flight the moment consciousness is touched. All the particles from the invisible are drawn into visibility, and the thing that you see and accept in the new consciousness takes body and form.

We cannot get rid of sickness by eternally having warfare over it. The being “lifted up” to the new state of consciousness will bring the healing forth as a natural state of that consciousness. You are, then, not performing a miracle. The miracle only appears so to the mind which is functioning on the mental plane. The functioning of the natural laws of the Consciousness to which you are lifted up seems like a never-ending stream of miracles.

Many marvel at the earning capacity of certain financiers. From the financiers’ point of view they are merely functioning naturally. It is not a miracle to them; it is a natural action of the law. So is it with the Awakened Man. He begins at once to “look again” and see. “Whereas, before I was blind, now I can see.” What can he see? Anything that hehas not already seen? Wasn’t all he saw always there? Why did he not see it? You say he was blind. You say in his blind state of consciousness none of these things which you saw with ease were visible. They did not belong in the consciousness of a blind man, and yet they were there all the while. Now, then, suppose you consider this blindness from the symbolical standpoint. You realize in being lifted up the same thing happens to you, and you exclaim, “Whereas before I was blind, now I can see,” and what you see has been there all the while. You have created nothing. So is the teaching of the Master Jesus. He was able to see the Kingdom of Heaven here and now. Every time he explained anything he saw in this Kingdom, those who were “blind” thought they were seeing an unnatural law going into manifestation, which they called a miracle.

Remember that the conscious thinking has not seen nor heard, nor has it capacity to know, the things which are prepared for those who lovethe law. We can well imagine in this lifted-up consciousness how it was Jesus saw the finished mystery, the fields white, the hungry fed, and the sick healed.

The moment you are in a new state of consciousness, a new set of manifestations come into being. A man running along the road, say, six miles an hour is under certain laws which definitely affect him. He becomes fatigued; he soon comes to the end of his endurance; the road is rough, or the road is smooth, etc. These are all in the consciousness of the runner. Suppose he is picked up by a car going at sixty miles an hour. Instantly an entirely different set of laws come into play. He finds that he moves ten times more rapidly without expending a single bit of energy to do so. None of the limitations of the former state have to be overcome. He cannot possibly get out of breath, and cannot possibly feel fatigued. Rough and smooth roads are only slightly perceptible. The same thing happens when we go from one mansion to another.

So is it with the Power of Spirit. When a man “arises,” he immediately leaves all the laws of the former things behind. He does not overcome them. The new consciousness does not find that necessary. He is not a sick man made well, nor a poor man made rich. In the consciousness in which he is functioning these things do not exist neither as “has beens” nor “possibilities.”

No wonder Mary magnified the Lord within her. She had good reason to contemplate this Inspiration which we are told will lead into all things.

“The cattle on a thousand hills are mine.” Just what do you mean? Is it possible to make this symbolically true by affirming it? And yet it is so, in a certain state of consciousness. It is everlastingly true. The silly mind that tries to “claim” things in which it does not believe, and which it cannot handle, even if it possesses them, is thrown into a flurry of futility and confusion. Do you believe that the cattle on the thousand hills are yours?

You see, beloved, the reason for the oft-repeated commands, “Be still,” “Salute no man on the highway,” “See that ye tell no man.” What man is going to understand that the “cattle on a thousand hills are yours” when he knows definitely that you haven’t money enough to pay your next week’s lodging?

Running along the road at six miles an hour, stumbling and falling with fatigue, is a very good background for you tell about the wonders of the car which goes at sixty miles per hour and which expends none of your energy in doing so. It may be so, but it is a miracle. Miracles are best shown and not talked about.

The Lord’s Prayer has been recommended strongly for the simple reason we see that “Our” Father is in Heaven. Jesus cleared the whole mystery for us when he said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” and even closer than at hand, being within us. If you can fulfill the prayer, recognizing that “Our Father is in Heaven, He will open your eyes and you will see.

It is wonderful, when we arrive at the understanding that life is not made up of the “getting” or “demonstrating” things. The servant (the body) has yielded himself to the Father, and is ready and willing to carry out the work that the Father has already done. It is a marvelous thing toexperience the Lord’s Prayer.

The moment we recognize the Father in Heaven, the Kingdom begins to appear on earth, the word becomes flesh. For the Will of this Father is being done. It is wonderful. The mere asking for the “daily bread” is met with the opening of the hidden storehouses of substance. In this state of consciousness the old debts are wiped out. The old trespasses have faded into oblivion, for “I am of too pure eyes to behold iniquity.” The final recognition comes, for “thine is the glory and the power for ever and ever, amen.” Can you pray this glorious prayer as commanded by the Master? You, who read this line? It is so much more replete with manifestation, for it

lifts you up to consciousness, where all men are drawn unto you. The ennobling effect of this recognition of the presence of the Father within, as contrasted by the shouting “Money, money, money – health, health, health,” or some other group of words, is too evident for comment. What thinkest thou? What believest thou?

Do you begin to understand the glories that await you when you “arise and go unto your Father”?

As you walk in the Light you cast the shadow of Spirit which men call manifestation, or matter, and which is wholly dependent upon that state of consciousness. Take the consciousness away from it, and it immediately disintegrates. The real, then, is not the shadow, or matter, but the Spirit back of it.

Manna was cast into manifestation as long as there was a need of it, and a consciousness accompanying it. Mistaking it for substance, many tried to hoard it, only to find that it became worthless. Yet that same consciousness of manna is just as present today. It is wonderful when you begin to understand Spirit as reality. It will adjust all your values in life, and cause you to free the symbol. Health that is not used deteriorates and disappears; an inactive body, though it be healthy, will finally tell its own story. The Manna of the Day must be used.

The “temple not made with hands,” we are told, is “eternal in the Heavens.” What do you think about this kind of a body, as compared with the one which we have been travelling in? Do you begin to see vaguely the possibility of merging into this glorious manifestation which is eternal in the Heavens (consciousness), and which cannot perish or fade away, and which is not subject to the laws of human thinking?

The temple can at last be made a fit dwelling-place for the Lord. The temple not made with hands cannot be unmade by hands (human opinions, beliefs, or laws). It is wonderful to contemplate the truth of the glorious statement, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.”

Walter C. Lanyon