Lo and Behold
Behold! Behold! Behold! “I AM he that should come.” “Or look ye for another?” This is the question to be answered by each individual. Either you are beginning to see that it is necessary to find the Master within your own consciousness, or else continue wandering in the wilderness of human opinions and beliefs.
“I AM HE that should come” settles once and for always the arguments about “masters, guides, etc.” Know ye not that “the government shall be upon his shoulders— “on the shoulders of the “Mind which was also in Christ Jesus” and which is in every man, no matter who he is or what his station in life? When you begin faintly to recognize this you will see how the recognition of the Master within you, and the alignment of yourself with it, causes you to cease your wandering amid the shadows of human teaching.
Once you discover this inner Lord and see that it is the permanent Identity, and that “That which is created a little lower than the angels and which was given dominion over all the earth” is the manifestation of this Permanent Identity, you will begin to understand how the bush by the wayside became a burning bush.
The moment’ you identify yourself with this true self, and begin to rely upon it, even though it have small beginnings, from that moment on your whole life will turn into a new avenue of expression. It takes you entirely out of the dimension of demonstration and into the place of expression. It cannot be understood by the human thinking, for that is the measure of the man whose breath is in his nostrils and who judges from appearances. This man is eternally trying to find masters in the strange psychic field of imagination. He can only come to grief. No matter how sincere he may be, the belief in anything apart from God will get him into trouble. To believe that there is anything to come before the Jesus Christ consciousness is to imagine and concoct all sorts of strange things called masters and the like.
Masters who are supposed to have such sublime capacities are apparently nothing but puppets with which little human beings play.Imagine the Ascended Jesus being at the beck and call even of his disciples. “What went ye out for to see?” Answer me. What are you looking for, “a Person or a Principle? ” It is only the sluggishness of the conscious-thinking which still holds to the appearance of things that finally creates anything so fantastic as a band of advanced souls who spend their entire time going over trite and hackneyed sayings.
When you discover the Master within, and begin to see that this is a natural thing instead of a psychic disturbance, you will do away with all the ghastly pictures of saints and Masters, with substance spurting out like clouds of fog and vapour from a human form. Do you find anything in the revelation of Jesus that does anything but take you out of the “fog” of human thinking? What is all this hypnotic idea that a Master is going to “work” through you? Where do you come into the scheme of things? How can you ever arrive at the place of hearing, “Go thou and do likewise”? I said “likewise”—not nearly likewise. How can you do it if you are merely a shell through which something else is acting?
All this belief in controls, etc., etc., is merely an excuse of the human mind. Having become so surfeited with its own limitations, and having seen its best efforts fail, it suddenly excuses everything by charging the work off to another entity, who is supposed to have the power and capacities which the person lacks.
The belief that someone—master, guru, entity, or spirit—is doing the work frees the sluggish mind from accepting its own responsibility, as well as its apparent limitations. It is a spurious way of attaining the Kingdom, and will result in being cast out in the darkness of fear.
When you begin to find “It” within, you will find it without. This strange statement of the new dimension is entirely contrary to the relative teaching. “Judge not from appearances” is the law, and it must be found within, before it can be seen without as a reality, else it will be nothing but a creation of the imagination without body and form—in short, a “spirit” in the sense of a fog or vaporous being. See what the Master Jesus said upon resurrection. “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side”—and see that a spirit [the creation of human imagination] hath not flesh and blood.”
What do the masters you hear about, and have never seen, look like translated from the murky findings of the vision through the “glass darkly” of some imaginative soul?
Do they have flesh and blood, or are they misty and foggy?Can they eat and drink, and do they act as stilted stage creations, or are they the real substance of Life?
Whenever you recognize the Risen Lord in the midst of you, you will have plenty of signs and wonders, but these will be too sacred to be cast unto dogs. “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.” They cannot be written in any book—but if you know, you know. They will not be fantastic, psychic manifestations of distorted, troubled minds. Do you hear? Do you believe in the WORDS of the MASTER Jesus Christ when he asked you to exceed him in works? “Even greater works than these shall ye do.”
Do you begin to see how absolutely necessary it is to find this Power within yourself and glorify the One and Only God? It is the secret of all transformation—you are to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The mind is renewed when it becomes conscious of the new dimension of the Christ Jesus within. It is all so precious and filled with sacred assurance that never again will the babbling, loose tongue of mortal speculation occupy your attention.
“Arise and shine, for thy light is come and the glory of the LORD Is risen upon thee.” Do you believe this? Can you arise? Certainly not by taking thought of the how and why; if you “arise,” it will be because you are ready to “arise” within yourself, having found something which transcends all human thought and belief. It is wonderful when the eyes are opened and the Kingdom of God descends out of the human beliefs into the reality of the here and now.
God is walking the earth again in the bodies of men, and this does not create a lot of demi-gods and egotistical fools who prate about their own power, but it does bring to light that the body is the Temple of the Living God, and that the recognition of this Inner Lord suddenly illumines the Temple and sheds its healing and curative effects quite unconsciously upon all who can come within recognition of this power.
When Jesus appeared to the disciples, “they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit.” It is easy to see the difference between the really resurrected soul and what the human mind is expecting. The human mind is expecting a vaporous form, with certain qualities of the old-time ghost, to appear, and give forth some ghastly information which, when it is sifted down, amounts to less than nothing.
But Jesus asked them the terrifying question which probed the extent of their belief “Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?” Why the speculation as to the possibility of resurrection? And why the “thoughts”? “Behold my hands and feet, that it is I myself;handle me and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
Isn’t it glorious that Jesus appeared as a normal being, not hung with all sorts of tawdry jewels and accoutrements? His only aim was to impress his hearers with the facts of Life which were so overpowering in their grandeur and wonder that jewels by the”dozen” or “bushel” would have been as dust on the face of the skies.Imagine being bothered by a handful of jewels or the cut and fit of a robe or the decorations of a stomacher in the presence of the facts of LIFE.”Take off your shoes—the ground you stand upon is hallowed.” Can you imagine the greedy human thought, thinking in terms of dollars and cents, coming into the presence of the facts of LIFE—the resurrected Master? Just ponder it a moment, and then try to hang Jesus over with jewels and gold. “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” Do you understand “give”? You have to be able to take a GIFT.
Not being satisfied with this complete revelation of self-resurrection, Jesus yet offered a further proof of the naturalness of LIFE away from the limitations of conscious thinking. “And while they yet believed not for, joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb.And he took it, and did eat before them.”
When you see that all of the teaching of Jesus is done through symbol, you will understand what wonders are awaiting you as you “go in and possess the land,” the new consciousness of the Jesus Christ within you—the Mind that was also in Christ Jesus the man. It is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and filled with light and revelation.
When you have accepted the Resurrected Lord you discover you are on the other side of the cross, for you are not looking for a new Messiah and you are definitely through with all teachers, leaders, books, and organizations. Through with all the outside manifestation and limitation, you can have them all, but none of them can have you to maul about in personal teachings. It is wonderful. When you realize the resurrected Christ within, you are finished with the crucifying power of man and are ready to receive the true baptism of Spirit. It will take place without striving or trying or imagining funny things and happenings.”Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.” Do you want this “opening of the understanding” as something sane, natural, and real, or do you want some horrible experience which will leave you in a dazed, half-crazed condition for the rest of your life? When you come by the way of Jesus Christ you escape all this foolishness of initiations and personal clap-trap offered you by the Adulterers of the word.
“Is this he that should come, or look we for another?” is completely answered by this resurrected Jesus Christ within you. You come to such a reverence for this true self that you no more doubt its authenticity. “And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou?knowing that it was the Lord.” Do you begin to see how complete the final recognition of LIFE becomes to you?
Once having discovered this “Mind which was also in Christ Jesus” within yourself, it is possible to see the word of God made flesh; it is possible to hear the voice of God made audible through any temple or manifestation, even the bush by the wayside, or even to the smiting of the actual rock and causing it to give forth living waters. But all this is far beyond the place of display or talk.
“If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” Can you even contemplate the majesty and sublime heights of this revelation without a heavenly sense of peace and stillness overtaking you which will silence once and for always the clattering human thought wanting to concoct masters and gurus and all sorts of helps on the outside? “Who are you?” Might you be the one—or might you be in the consciousness for which this one stands who may “tarry till I come”? Do you begin to see what the Master is saying to you? Are you satisfied, or are you looking for another? Peace be unto you.
Walter C. Lanyon
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