By My Spirit

“NOT BY MIGHT nor by power, but by MY spirit saith the Lord.” It is not by trying or forcing, nor yet by doing nothing and waiting for the manifestation that it comes into being, but by MY SPIRIT. By the Spirit which moves on the face of the deep and reveals that which is hidden therein. It is by the recognition of this Presence so completely that to “call upon Me” is to have the answer, “before they call I will answer.” It is all too divinely subtle to human reasoning, with its thickened hearing and its dim sight. It cannot “see nor yet hear” what the Scriptures say unto the Churches (bodies). Unto you. What the Spirit is saying to YOU, and what you desire of all things to “hear,” cannot come by force, power or might, but through Spirit.

It is maddening to the human intellect to have such a thing said to it. Just as it is not understandable to hear, “Take no thought of the body, what ye shall wear,” etc. For the business of the human mind is “taking” thought, and holding thought and working with thought in spite of the admonition to “take no thought.”

How is it that a “house divided against itself shall fall?” Because you cannot profess to follow after Jesus Christ and then go against one of the foremost laws laid down by Him—i.e. “Take no thought for the script, the journey, the purse, the upper chamber, the ring, the robe,” etc., etc., ad infinitum.

“Well then, what do I do?” You do as the Master told you to do—”BELIEVE.” And this “believing” has nothing to do with wishing, hoping, affirming or “knowing the truth.” It is a state of consciousness which is able to accept that which the human mind finds impossible. It can do this with certainty only when it has stopped looking for a sign. No more signs will be given—if you want your blessings, you have to “believe” without the sign. This should not be difficult, when you remember that you have made a colossal failure in the human way of achievement. So it should not be hard for you to completely give over and “let” the Light and the mind be in you which were also in Christ Jesus, since everything you have “tried” to do has gone awry.

When once, through the acceptance of the simple teaching of Jesus Christ, you have come to the “believe” state of things, then do you experience the “inspiration of the Almighty which shall lead you into all things.” Do you believe this? Not by your human thinking, for there is no way you can teach or learn “inspiration”—the quality of Life that suddenly makes itself manifest in you when you have come to accept the Presence as here and now. It is the “quickening” influence that is yours—and you are aware of it all suddenly. This will make a success of whatever you are doing, no matter in what degree it is at present. If you are already successful it will make you more so, because it takes away all fear, and all guessing about life, and promotes something in your work which causes it to be uniquely original and individual, and automatically draws to you manifestation from every direction. Do you begin to see why it is not by “might nor power,” but by my Spirit that things are brought to pass that could not come to pass?

The more natural the words and works of Jesus Christ become to you, the more you will enlarge the borders of your tent and launch out into deeper waters. The more you will push out into new fields of manifestation. You will dare, do and “be silent” in a new way, for now you are not trying to impress any one that you are a great spiritual light. If you are such, it will be seen without your efforts. The whole thing takes place within you, and there is also the place of accounting. Nothing can be lost or misappropriated in this place of the Father. You will get full credit and wages for all that you do. As the “laborer” you are “worthy of your hire.” Since this is a LAW, nothing any man can do can take it from you. Nothing that any organization or false belief attempts to establish shall keep from you that which is yours, and you will not bother about appearances, for once you have performed it in consciousness it is yours in manifestation.

The more you turn to the Father within and acknowledge your Oneness and magnify the Lord, the more you will see your desires coming into being— by a way you knew not of. “Heaven and earth are full of Thee.” And “Thee” is all that you need. If it is full of THEE (the “Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”) you will understand why it is so essential for you to recognize the Presence.

The more “you” (mortal) decrease, the more “I” (Spirit) will increase. And the more the power of the Father will be felt guiding the affairs of the temple or Jesus, until finally the two are completely ONE and then the “will of God is being done,” which means a life of constant harmony and joy, filled with the surprises that keep it fresh and new and possessed of an endless variety of expression. Believest thou this?

Do you begin to understand that the way of Manifestation is not by Might nor by Power, but by My Spirit? The more natural this becomes to you the more you will expand into new fields of activity. And find the answer before the question, and perceive that the Inspiration of the Almighty is yours to draw upon at a moment’s notice and whenever it is necessary to step up the powerless human consciousness. The moment you accept these great truths as real, natural and eternal, that moment you begin to experience a new setup in your daily life. For this “inspiration of the Almighty” will lead you into ALL things— and all is enough. Do you hear, it says ALL things —not some things—but ALL things whatsoever you will? Do you believe? Can you believe? It is so wonderful what happens by this simple truth as given by Jesus Christ.

The leaven has already entered the three measures of meal, and the change is taking place NOW. Little by little the whole substance is changed into leaven, and then it is changed again into bread. So is it with you. The Word of God has already descended into the stagnant pool of your human thought and has troubled the waters and started the change of base necessary for the new rate of vibration, of Spirit, to express. It is, in a way, like unto changing electrical equipment in order that greater watt power may be released.

You cannot graft holiness onto unholiness, neither can you force the fine subtle substance of Spirit through the opaque consciousness which is entirely unsuited to express or understand it: “Ye Must be born again” is the only possible solution, and this borning again is actually taking place in you at this moment. A new instrument of receptivity is being developed within you, a new consciousness which says in reality, “Whereas before I was blind, NOW I can see.” See what? See what has always been there to see, but which could not be perceived by the human consciousness. Just as the human consciousness with its laws of physics cannot see how a heavier- than-water body can possibly walk on the water, and how an inflammable thing like flesh can walk through flames and not be burned. It has nothing in its mental make-up with which to understand these things and quite naturally comes to the conclusion that they are impossible, and so they are—to that state of consciousness. Jesus explained them when He said, “I  can of Myself do nothing.” It is wonderful how the Light is gradually coming through—that you must put on the “incorruptible”—the new consciousness—if you expect to appropriate the gifts of Spirit.

Remembering again that all this is possible to the child, do not become involved with some method of making this appropriation. It needs only acceptance. As soon as the recognition or the acceptance takes place, the fertile egg is under the hen and nothing can keep it from coming into its new state of consciousness, unless the warmth of the mother-bird be taken from it. So is it with you, so was it with Mary. She magnified the Lord within her, and the development took place along natural and normal lines. Your part in bringing out this new recognition is to cease once and for always looking for “results, or examining into the development, and to keep the attention on “magnifying the Lord within you.”

You see then how utterly impossible it is to continue to live at the level of mental demonstrations, working with the human consciousness. You see also the need for secrecy in the new manifestation, for no one “whose breath is in his nostrils will believe you.

“It is by MY spirit”—by the Spirit of this LORD that the unexplainable change or transmutation takes place. It is not by “power nor by might.” It is not by argument nor by working with thought-forms called matter. It is not by trying to overcome fire that you walk through fire. lt is because you have recognized a degree of Spirit which is not affected by fire. And so will it be along all the other phases of your life. You will finally see that the consciousness into which you are moving is not an overcomer in any sense of the word. lt is a degree above the condition and therefore has dominion over the condition. It is not at war with the condition.

So with the consciousness of prosperity. It is not at war with a belief in poverty. It is not fighting a lack, nor yet a sense of lack, for in this new place of expression there is nothing to be desired. It is just so, and no matter how many times the manifestation may be swept away, it will replace itself because it is eternally in consciousness. The manifestation of substance takes place, then, with ease and naturalness, and it does not thrill you in the sense that you have done something difficult or something unique. It is more and more understood as the natural thing to take place. Anything that attempts to prevent the sense of continued harmony in the realm of the manifest is disseminated by this “SPIRIT” and not by might nor by power. It is the wholesale acceptance of this Jesus Christ that causes you to see the change that is even now going on within you.

A blessed new estate where the former things are passed away and shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more.

So into the world—your world—you go to preach the Gospel. You come into it with this new consciousness which is not going to destroy, but to “fulfill.” Yet this very fulfilling actually does destroy the limitations of the former consciousness. But you come into your world silently and easily, and everything you contact, if it but touch you, will be healed and made whole because, you have stopped “using” the Spirit of the Lord. You are that SPIRIT, and any thing or body who recognizes this can and will receive the Light therefrom. They may not—in many instances—do it consciously. From a conscious standpoint they may not know it has taken place at the moment, and from the human sense of things you may not get credit, which is a grand thing to know, because you do not need credit from the outside. All that is taken care of from within.

You may literally touch some one who has a secret ill, unseen by mortal eyes, and heal him. You could do this as you passed through the crowds. Or could you? Certainly not if you passed through the crowds as a “healer” or a wonder worker; for the moment you think yourself to be “something” lo! You are nothing—and so it goes. So you move in the consciousness of this new degree! It does not have to be held into place by affirmations nor by any system that has come to you in the nineteenth century. It is actually you—just as the yeast and flour are changed into bread, so you have been changed into the new consciousness and automatically you go about doing the works. It is thrilling to sense this, and presently you will have much confirmation. Everything yon touch, everything you say, everything you do and all the contacts you make are charged with SPIRIT and you have completely subordinated the idea of “might and power.” Spirit is something so natural it might be likened to the perfume of a flower. It releases itself into the surrounding atmosphere, and only by this subtle diffusion is its presence known. As long as Spirit is something within you which has to be brought out by “might or by power” it will not be natural nor normal, and every time you have made a display of it you are forced into retirement until you can again come forth with a new manifestation. Then in the New Day you begin to exhale the aroma (Spirit) into the world in which you live. Inbreathed with the breath of GOD you become a living soul and nothing but the breath of God can come from you filled with glorious, healing light and revelation.

You may pass along the way and not meet with any so-called experiences of the spirit within you, but you are SPIRIT and so any one touching the hem of your garment (consciousness) will receive the healing. More than this, new extended dimensions of the senses will come unto you. Sometimes you will know instantly that you have been brought into a situation to clarify it. It will be one of those conscious things which has its answer before the asking. And then again you will know that nothing can be done, for the failure of others to accept the Word will be too colossal; in which case you will “shake the dust from off your feet as a testimony against them.” Sounds rather drastic but Jesus put it this way to show you that when you are in this Father consciousness, the failure to bring about results for another is not to be considered or wondered at. There is no time spent wondering why it did not work. It did work, but it was not accepted, and you could do nothing more about it. In which case you shake the dust from off your feet. You dismiss it and do not go over the human facts and thoughts for a possible reason.

All this “shaking the dust from off your feet” is not done in the superior way of an old-fashioned practitioner trying to justify his failure. You have come to the consciousness that does not concern itself with the number nor yet the importance of your works. It is just you, and the more you realize this the more you will be unconcerned about results. You will stand at the DOOR and knock and IF any man HEAR your voice and open, you will enter in and sup with him. This partaking of substance will bring out the release that he is after, and will be quite as natural as literally “breaking bread” with a friend.

Remember how frequently Jesus reminds you of the naturalness of manifestation? How He makes it so simple that the child can do it? Finally you begin to see.

Transformation and transfiguration take place through Spirit, which renews the mind. The renewed consciousness or new consciousness must and will bring out its own true manifestation just as the old human consciousness brings out the things it holds to be true.

In this new understanding of the SPIRIT, which is perforce couched in the old hackneyed language of truth, the transformation takes place first in the unseen. The temple is purged. It is changed within, before the surface is touched. The changing of the unseen is so much more essential than working with the condition on the outside. The great dynamos must be perfected before the increased power can come over them to enable their outer manifestation to take on more widely diversified expressions. So, deep within you the Spirit, which docs the work, is changing the very organism of your body, replacing the old rigid “thought” ideas with the new free expression. “I shall take away the stony heart within you and give you a heart of flesh.” The Flesh which has seen God or’ experienced the resurrection from the thought-graveyard. Do you begin to sense the new and subtle revelation that is passing through us NOW? As the organs of the matter-temple become “flesh” they shall see God into manifestation, and shall be able to function above the level of human thought. “They shall run and not be weary,” etc., etc. All this is impossible with the present worn-out equipment of the thought-world. It is glorious to sense this SPIRIT which works by itself instead of by force (knowing the truth) or by power (trying to force God to do your bidding).

It is all so lovely and natural, and so secret. Again the secrecy—for you are now talking about something on the new plane of consciousness and it is all “foolishness” in the eyes of the mentalist. So put the “coal of fire” on your lips, and “magnify the Lord within you.”

 

Walter C. Lanyon