From Walking Up and Down 

And To and Fro…

BUT where did evil come from in a perfect world? And how did it all happen-the leaving of the Garden of Eden, and all these false ideas that man has accepted and under which he has functioned? A thousand questions of this kind surge through the mind of the Seeker of Truth. He has a right to ask such intelligent questions. He also has a right to the use of his own Free Will. If man were merely an automaton, and had no will of his own, no power to choose (were nothing but a machine, such as the typewriter I am using), then there would be no possible reason or excuse for the appearances of evil in his life. But man born of God is given the happy faculty of Free Will, and allowed to develop the gifts with which he is endowed according to the light of his own choice.

“Choose you this day whom ye will serve” shows the wonderful freedom of the Sons of God. This liberty is your heritage, and most of you have used it to a point of prodigality. We know what a dismal thing life becomes when it is com­pletely legislated by another. When life is completely legis­lated by another we have prison. Your free will and choice are taken away. You must obey the law of another. You do not relish the idea, nor would you appreciate the universe of God run on the same lines, even though it had saved you from many of the problems through which you have gone.

It is true that if a man has himself locked up in a cell he is not going to be injured by an automobile. In fact he will entirely escape all traffic problems and dangers ensuing there-from. But he will also have lost all his freedom.

Jesus counseled, “Be in the world, but not of it”—knowing that when man is properly aligned with the Father within, he finds everything verging to a point of harmony. When his choice is right, the results follow with mathematical accuracy. People who are crying for a cut-and-dried Heaven which will cause everybody to conform to the laws of what they call goodness would only find themselves in such a hopeless state of monotony that they would do anything to break the tedious spell of it all. The glorious freedom of the Sons of God allows you to choose the way of Life. “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law,” and so you move in a world and are not of it. You give to every man that which he asketh, but in having discharged this blessing you do not wait to see-thisdoubt foretells the failure of your gift.

“Go not back to your former bondage”-do not become entangled again by the mistaken choice you have made. You may have chosen wrongly, and arrived at conclusions which make for inharmony for you. There is no condemnation in this, however, and the moment you discover it and make your right choice, as did the Prodigal, your Father, seeing you a long way off, comes towards you with the robe and the ring. It is marvelous, the statement that the “former things shall pass away and shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more.”

A thousand and one instances of the creation of evil out of belief have been cited. A woman covered with diamonds created a thief for herself out of a suspicious looking man, and as she neared her destination—a dark railway station in the country—she saw him rising to leave the train. At this juncture she remembered something. Turning to the man she said,” I live some distance from here. Would you mind acting as my escort and protector? I will gladly pay you for it.” The man assented. At the door of her home she offered him money, which he refused. He paused a moment. “Say, lady, I was going to rob you when I saw you on the train, but your making me your protector made it impossible.” Where was the robber, where the protector?

Where did disease come from in a perfect world? From the same freedom of choice and the mistaken sense of accepting the appearances. To the sight two lines running away con­verge and seem to touch, and at first a good many mistaken conclusions might be drawn from such a premise, but later you can say with assurance, “the appearances do not move me. I know the lines do not touch.” When you know the Truth and understand it, then the appearances do not deceive you, any more than the converging lines make you accept what your sight tells you is true. It is marvellous what the Lord has revealed unto us.

It is unnecessary to cite the many specific instances where disease has been caused by a mistaken belief and resulted in death. A person suffering from hay fever has been known to manifest all the symptoms, in the dead of winter, on seeing a harvesting scene on the screen. A thousand and one instances of this kind may easily be found. If, then, disease can be caused entirely from a mental state, resulting in physical manifestation, it is plain to be seen that the point of attack is not in the physical. It is also plain that the conscious-thinking part of the individual is entirely responsible for the ills or the disease he experiences in life. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” shows the unstable nature of the conscious mind. The Mind of the Christ changes not. God is a Changeless Being, and hence we find Jesus fleeing from the personal or conscious-thinking, wherein lay all limitations.

If the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God, because of its shifting, changing basis, then how much more is the wisdom of God foolishness in the eyes of man? Who can believe that good, and more good, and more good, can and will continuously flow into manifestation through a mere alliance with the Power of Christ within? A thousand questions raise themselves in the minds of the people. None of them can be answered to their satisfaction, for they are working from the wavering basis of the conscious-thinking which says, “When I would do good I do evil.” So uncertain is the conscious mind of its point of direction that it hurts that which it would help, and vice versa.

What a curious hodge-podge of coming and going the conscious-thinking offers man. Sickness—health; poverty—riches; happiness—unhappiness; an internal swinging back and forth between limitations on the pendulum of conscious-thinking. What a serene sense of Peace comes from the God Mind—a changeless consciousness of the Presence—an awareness. “God is mindful of His own” begins to mean something.

The following letter was recently received

“I am in town lecturing every afternoon. It is wonderful the revelation that has come through, but this afternoon I felt a very strong opposing factor-a terrible antagonism. The audience simply would not let me use the Word of God. I could have toppled off the platform and wept.”

So it would seem that all the glorious Power, which swung the universe into space, and caused the seasons to come and go, is powerless before a little despotic mind thinking against it. What a puny little God it is which cannot use His Temple to express Himself, because some pygmy intellect has a per­sonal grudge. What a fiasco the whole idea of God becomes when reduced to such measures. Do you see what it means to enter into the cesspool of Conscious-Thinking wherein lies all the evil that man can experience? You cannot feel anything that you do not recognize, that is sure. Just the moment you drop down to the Conscious-Thinking you see all sorts of evil things through your “glass darkly,” and many of these are pure imagination. Allowing that someone in the audience is antagonistic, and wants you to fail, it is too stupid for words to imagine that this little gnat of human intellect is going to obscure the light of the Sun. Let him fly against it. If your light is burning and you are looking straight into the face of God, you have no further disposition to make of the gnat. Many an evil thought has singed its wings and fallen into the pit. “Fear not; I Amwith you.

Hundreds of people are running about today with all sorts of Conscious-thinking ideas. Recently one came to me and said that the members of a certain Church were “treating against her.” She had spent restless nights, and terrible things had happened because this sect had such power. Where is God and what is God? And then, a little bit later, the same person came to me and said that the members of her own Church were practicing the same thing on her and had threatened her with all sorts of evil if she failed to do as they said.

Do you not think it is about time for you to awake, and arise from the pigsty of Conscious-Thinking and go unto your Father? Going prodigal means a lot more things than just eating and drinking and riotous living. It means going into the filthy Conscious-Thinking created by persons and peddled about in the name of the Christ. Teaching filled with fear, cursing, and hatred. Do you not think it is about time for you to “Arise and go unto your Father” and leave all these husks to those who trade in such theories?

Certainly they get results from it, just as the jungle witch­doctor gets results from his voodoo practices. But both they and he must be sure of one thing, and that is that the “patient” knows he is being worked upon. And this very necessary step uncovers the whole thing as a process of Conscious-Thinking. You are your own devil and your own evil power. Whenever you recognize evil you embody it, and it takes up active warfare against you. Jacob struggling all night with the angel found out that he was doing the whole thing himself. So he loosed it and let it go. How wonderful when you loose the fear that the issues of life and death are in the keeping of a person, and know that the issues of life are in God,and that as long as you are knowing God you are verging into Life Eternal.

“Stand and see the salvation of the Lord”-no wonder the Sons of God shout for joy; they are being freed, not from a god of evil, but from their own Conscious-Thinking.

“Who did hinder ye?” What are you going to answer to this when you are confronted with it? One woman came to me and said that she had been told if she read certain books or went to certain places she would be cursed. Cursing does not proceed from God-we are in the new day, when the God of Love has come, and in this recognition lies your sudden and complete escape from the beliefs of witchcraft, modern or ancient.

Dressed in a new garment, evil may be presented to you as Truth, but if you are staying by the teachings of Jesus Christ you will not be deceived. God is Love. Is it Love? Answer me.

“Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” “Awake, and arise from the dead.” There is no mediator between God and man except Jesus Christ. Why will you look to another and get yourself involved with the ideas of a man? “Little children, let no man deceive you.” If you are not following after a man, there is no danger of your being deceived. If you are following after a God of Love you will hear nothing, see nothing, and allow nothing but Love to enter your mind, and you will not be troubled by the “cursing” or the “treating” against you. You will be so busy contemplating the Power that you will have no time to set others right. “Vengeance is mine”-it is not in the keeping of any man.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Do you believe it? Or do you have to run to a person to see whether you are right or wrong, or if someone is working against you or can work against you? When you “stand and see the salvation of the Lord,” you see something which makes you know that “Those that are for thee are more than those that are against thee.” “Be still.” “Be still”-it is well. Do you understand the message I have written to you between the lines of this book?

“God is not mocked”-and so you do not need to fear that any can use this glorious Power in the name of evil.

Put the “coal of fire upon your lips”—know nothing, say nothing, and I will show you something not written in books or spoken by man.

“Yet a little while”—do you hear?

Christ Jesus came to fulfill, not to destroy. Do you hear?

“Call upon Me and I will answer you.” Do not work against those who are “working against you.” You are too busy with the Word of God to be bothered with such futile activity which only beats itself against imaginary principalities. “No­thing shall separate you from the Love of God.” Do you hear? Then of what are you afraid? If nothing can separate you from the Love of God, the hate of man is consumed like a feather in a blast furnace. Stay a little on this Love, “wait patiently on Him and He shall bring it to pass.” It doesn’t say maybe, or perhaps, or if, or but it says“He shall bring it to pass,” and if He brings His Love to pass in your life you have little or no concern about the hatred, which you have imagined being directed toward you, having any results. When He brings it to pass, you will not be able to find the “place thereof” of hatred any more.

“Follow Me”—come out of the bog of imagination which is filled with all evil and uncleanness and which is the hell of the Conscious-Thinking. It is in Conscious-Thinking that you create the hellish manifestations from which you suffer. “Follow Me”—your attention is taken away from the mirage of the double vision and is seeing the Love of God from which nothing can separate you.

“What is that to thee? Follow thou Me” carries such a nobility of the Spirit with it that it dwarfs the mountains of Conscious-Thinking. The Divine indifference to the appear­ances accompanied by the integrity of soul lifts you above the whole mirage, and when you look again the place thereof is no more.

“What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” Do you hear? If you will do this, you will find that your accusers or your “cursers” are no more. They have fled into the shadows of their own wilderness and hell of Conscious-Thinking. All that they offered you in the way of fear is an actual reality to them.

“The Lord is in His Holy Temple—let all the earth rejoice.” The Lord—in His Holy Temple—your embodiment. Does it not thrill you that this glorious Power is in the midst of you, and through you, and round about you, and that nothing can separate you from the Love of God?Nothing—not anything—person, place, organization, nor condition-can keep you from the Love of God. Only your Conscious-Thinking can soobscure the view as to make it appear all distorted by judging from appearances. “Believest thou this?” Believest thou that I Am able to do this unto you? Do you believe in the Love of God as transcending all the hate of the Conscious-Thinking, or do you believe a pygmy intellect, swelling itself with all sorts of imaginative power, can control, destroy, harm, or direct your path? “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths” is just as true today as when it was first said. What do you care about the opinions and beliefs of another if your path is being directed by Him? Be still! Be very still! You have something to hear that does not come through the noisy voice of man. It is wonderful-and so it is.

 

Walter C. Lanyon