Because of our emotional nature, love is generally expressed through the sex desire. But too great an expression of this desire is destructive, for it depletes the vitality and demagnetizes the one who overindulges. This is the meaning, and the whole meaning, of the story of Samson and Delilah. "He that hath an ear, let him hear." All people look, and occasionally someone sees.
SEX NOT NECESSARY TO THE EXPRESSION OF LOVE
The sex relationship is not necessary to the expression of real love. Love is the givingness of the self, and if this givingness is complete sex will take care of itself. But energy must have some outlet. It is only when the unexpressed desire remains in the subjective that destruction follows in its wake and strews the shores of time with human derelicts. Liberty and license, freedom and bondage, heaven and hell, happiness and misery, good and bad, all, all, are tied up in human desires. Energy is energy and will be expressed or blow the top off, just as a pipe will stand only so much pressure before bursting. Millions are daily being blown up, mentally and physically, through the suppression of desires. Desire is a dynamic force and must be taken into account.
WHEN SEX BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE
Sex desire becomes destructive only when it remains an unexpressed longing. This theory is not put forth to encourage free love nor to advocate indiscriminate relationships; for neither the one nor the other is believed in by the writer. It is stated as a fact patent to any thinking person. "Libido," may be expressed through more than one avenue; through transmutation, freeing life's energies and lifting them into an avenue of constructive expression; or through sublimation, transfusing the essence of energy into high action and producing a magnetism that is irresistible and wonderful in its scope. The atmosphere of one thus charged is complete; for the energy then takes the form of real Love and is the highest and most powerful vibration on the physical plane.
MALE AND FEMALE
Man, coming from Unity, is both male and female, and has, within himself, both attributes of reality. In some the male predominates; in others the female. We have two distinct types in man and woman; but they are types of one fundamental principle. There is also an intermediate sex; that is, one in which the two attributes seem to be almost equally balanced. The greatest men and women of the ages have belonged to this type, for it is a more complete balance between the two which are really one. But this is too great a topic to discuss in this course of lessons.
THE SOLUTION
The solution to the problem of desire is to transmute any destructive tendency into some form of action that is constructive. However, an intellectual form of expression alone will not do this, for only those things to which we may give the complete self will solve the problem. Love is the givingness of the self to the object of its adoration. We should all have something that we love to do, something that will completely express the self, something that will loose the energies of Life into action and transmute the power into creative work. We should learn to love all people and not just some people.
It is very disastrous to feel that we cannot live unless we possess some one individual, body and soul. This is not love but is an idea of possession, which often becomes an obsession. No soul is really complete until he feels compete within himself.
This does not exclude the great human relationships which mean so much to all of us; but it does take the sting out of life and does free the individual to love all, adore some, and find happiness everywhere.
To feel that love is unrequited creates a longing so intense that it tears the very heart out of life, and throws the one so feeling into a fit of despondency from which it is, indeed, hard to recover. This feeling is met in the Truth by knowing that Love is Eternal and Real and cannot be added to nor taken from.
This may seem like a hard teaching; but the problems of humanity deal largely with the human relationships and until they are harmonized, there can be no lasting happiness.
Happiness is from within, like all the other qualities of the Spirit. Within, Man is already complete and perfect; but he needs to realize this truth.
I can imagine some one saying: "This is too impersonal a teaching." It is not impersonal at all; this does not mean that we care less for people; indeed, we shall find that for the first time in life we shall really care; but the sting will have gone.
Refuse to have the feelings hurt. Refuse yourself the pleasure and morbidity of sensitiveness. Come out of the emotional intoxication and be YOURSELF. Never allow the thought to become depressed nor morbid. Engage in some form of activity that will express the better self. Do not attempt to draw life from others; live the life that God gave you; it is ample and complete. "But," people will say, "I believe in affinities." If by this one means that each is only one-half of a real person and must find the other half in order to be expressed, he is mistaken. Such persons usually find a second affinity as soon as the first disappears. We all have a natural affinity for each other, since we all live in One Common Mind and in One Unified Spirit. It is all right if we wish to specialize on some particular love; but the hurt will remain unless love has a broader scope than when narrowed down to one single person.
Live, love and laugh! Let the heart be glad and free; rejoice in the thought of life and be happy. Realize God, in and through all, and unify with the Whole. Why take fragments when the Whole is here for the asking?
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
Psycho-analysis is a system of analyzing the soul, or the subjective mentality. It is a mental process of diagnosis which seems to be technically perfect when used by those who understand it. It goes into the past and unearths the objectively forgotten emotions, brings them to light and causes them to be self-seen and so dissipated. It is based upon the theory that Nature is Perfect and when let alone will flow through man in a perfect state of health. The purpose of the analysis is to uncover the complex and heal the conflict, through removing it. It takes into account every experience that the individual has ever had, paying much attention to his early training, and more especially to his mental reactions to life.
It is a wonderful system, and in the hands of the right people, is prolific of much good. But, in the thought of the writer, it is a thing without a soul, a skeleton without flesh. It lacks the warmth, the fire and the reality of spiritual realization. It is useless to remove a mental complex, unless at the same time we place in its stead a real realization of what life means. It is useless to tear down unless, at the same time, we build up. The proper analysis of the soul, coupled with real spiritual recognition, will do wonders, however, and is well worth while.
SELF-ANALYSIS
Go through a process of self-analysis; look into your own past and carefully remove every complex. This is easily done by the one who is not afraid to look himself in the face. Find out what you are afraid of and convince the mentality that there is nothing to fear. Look the world squarely in the face; sift the mentality to its depths, removing every obstruction that inhibits the free flow of those great spiritual realizations, such as will be found in the meditations that follow these lessons.
METAPHYSICS
The right kind of mental work will go beneath the surface and destroy the subjective cause of the complex, thereby easing the conflict. It will then supply a Spiritual Realization that will open the avenues of thought to the great Whole. This alone is real and lasting.
THE ATONEMENT
Atonement is defined as reconciliation: "To make an expiation for sin or a sinner," and "To be at one." The definition for sin is, "To commit sin, transgress, neglect or disregard the Divine Law; to do wrong or offend." Literally speaking, sin means missing the mark or making a mistake. "There is no sin but a mistake and no punishment but a consequence." To assume that man could sin against God would be to suppose that a Divine Law could be broken. To suppose that Divine Law could be broken would be to assume that man has the power to destroy Divine Harmony and wreck the universe with his actions.
Man may have power to go contrary to Law, but certainly he has no pow
er to break it. Man cannot break a law, but the law can break him if he goes contrary to it.
There is no doubt but that all of man's troubles come from his disregard of law, through ignorance. There can be no doubt that much of his trouble will be over when he comes to understand the law, and to consciously coöperate with it.
We live in a Universe of Law and a Universe of Love. The Law of God is Perfect, and the Love of God is also Perfect. The Law of God is the way in which the Spirit works; the Love of God is the Self-Givingness of the Spirit to Its Creation. The unity of Love and Law produce a harmonious Universe and a Perfect Creation.
Man, because of his individuality and the use that he makes of it, may go contrary to both Love and Law; but so long as he does this he will suffer. This is the real meaning of sin and punishment.
Man has gone contrary to the Law of Harmony and Love, and no doubt this is the reason for all his troubles. He will be saved to the degree that he returns to a state of harmony and unity with God and with Life. He can do this only as he first comes to realize that God is Love and that he lives in a Universe of Law.
The greater lesson that can be taught to the race is the lesson of Love and of Law. The lesson of Love teaches us that Life gives and that God is Good; while the lesson of Law teaches that there is a way to freedom through real Love.
If Love is the Self-Givingness of Spirit, then that man who most completely loves, will most completely give of himself to Life. The man who loves his work gives himself to it; the one who loves his art gives himself to it. We give ourselves to our friends and to our families and to the causes which we really love. Love is always the giving of the self to something; but the idea of self-givingness is not a morbid one and should never be thought of in this light.
We have always thought of the Atonement of Jesus as the act of His giving Himself, through suffering on the cross, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. But God surely does not need that any man shall suffer for Him, nor sacrifice himself to please Him. This would, indeed, be a limited idea of the Divine Being. God does not need an At-one-ment, since He is already at one with himself and with all Creation. It is man, not God, who needs an At-one-ment. The act of atonement must be on the part of man and not of God. Man may need salvation, but God is already conscious of Complete Life and Being.
MAN'S WHOLE TROUBLE
Man's whole trouble lies in the fact that he believes himself to be separated from the Source of Life. He believes in duality. The At-one-ment is made to the degree that he realizes the Unity of Good. Man needs, and always has needed, to know the Truth about himself and God; and anything that helps to fill this need would be an act of atonement.
Now a man who had reached the understanding at which Jesus must have arrived would find the ordinary channels of expression inadequate to portray His concept of Life. Jesus could have had no desire to become rich; neither did He wish to be made a king, nor to receive the plaudits of the world. He wished to show to the world what the Love of God could really mean in the lives of men; He wished to show that the Self-Givingness of Spirit is complete; to prove that Life completely gives of Itself to Its Creation. This he could do only to the degree that He let God become Man through His own Individuality.
CAREFUL PREPARATION
The whole thought and attention of Jesus was given to the accomplishment of one supreme purpose: to show that God is a Living Reality in the lives of all men. He must show the Nature of the Divine Being; he must take the place of God and reveal the Love and tender care of the Creator for Its Creation. No more complete plan was ever organized in the mentality of an individual than the plan of Jesus to prove the reality of Spirit.
His thought, being psychic, that is, being able to read mental causes, told Him just what would happen if He did this. (See chapter on Prophecy in lesson on Psychic Phenomena.) He knew that he would have to suffer physical agony, and for a time, at least, be misunderstood and abused. He also knew that the lesson would prove for all time that God is Love. He knew that in the end the lesson which He was to teach would be accepted by all; and in this way He would become a Living Witness to the reality of Divine Love and Goodness.
Carefully He worked out His plan and patiently He waited for the right time to come to complete His life work; and when this time came, He unflinchingly gave of Himself to the necessity of the case. Man must come to understand God if he is ever to realize his own nature; he must come to know Spirit as a Living Reality and not as a myth.
THE VICARIOUS ATONEMENT
The Vicarious Atonement was the conscious giving of the Self to the needs of the human race—an example for all time that God is Love. Jesus perfectly understood the Law of Life and consciously chose to make an example of Himself that would cause all people to see what a real At-one-ment could mean. In order to do this, He had to take on the sins of the world; that is, He had to enter into men's mistakes in order to rectify them; not because God demanded this, but because man needed the example.
The suffering of Jesus, as He contacted the disorders of men's minds, was His vicarious atonement for the race. It was a wonderful example of what one man could do in proving the Unity of Good.
Any person who contacts the race-mind with the desire to lift it above its own level, will, thereby, go through a vicarious atonement. But the thought of morbidity that theology had given to the message of atonement is entirely erroneous. It is not a morbid thing but a glorious one. Atonement could not be morbid, but must always produce a realization of Unity and of Good. The life of Jesus is not a sad story, but is the account of a Man Who so completely realized His own At-one-ment that He had realization to spare and to give to all who believe in His teaching. His life was a triumphant march from the cradle into Eternity, and not from the cradle to the grave. He swallowed the grave in victory, because of His At-one-ment. Jesus left no grave and no dead man behind Him.
The At-one-ment, then, is a glorious recognition of fulfillment and completion. The vicarious part is lost in the greater realization of Unity and of Good. Jesus is the most Triumphant Figure of all history and the only Man, of Whom we have record, Who completely knew His own Nature. All thought of sin, shame, iniquity, poverty, sickness, obscurity and death are swept away with the empty tomb. No wonder that this lesson still remains and His teachings still hold good, for Reality never changes.
THE GIVINGNESS OF SPIRIT
As the human side of Jesus gave way, more and more, to the Divine Realization, He more and more completely became Divine; that is, He more completely became God, Incarnated in and through Man. In this mystic way He took the place of God, and we may, perhaps, say that through Him God proved the Love of God. Of course this is a crude way of putting it, but it does serve to point a moral and is, perhaps, the best way that we can conceive of the greatest lesson of all history.
THE WORLD HAS LEARNED ALL THAT IT SHOULD THROUGH SUFFERING
The world has learned all that it should through suffering. God does not demand that man suffer; and man suffers simply because he is ignorant of his own nature and because he misuses his power. Jesus proved the Truth and departed this life in joy, having fulfilled His Divine Mission. The lesson has been taught and the evidence is complete. The grave has been swallowed up in the Victory of Life and Love; and the tomb is empty for all time. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" 110 The time has come for rejoicing and not for sorrowing; for the fulfillment of that peace which was promised. "Peace I leave with you." 111 There need be no more sorrowing nor crying; for Reality is now known. Life is Triumphant and Love reigns Supreme.
OUR PART IN THE ATONEMENT
The Vicarious Atonement is over, but the real At-one-ment has only begun. We are just beginning to realize what Love and Life mean. Every time we give of ourselves to others, helping them to overcome their troubles, we are performing an At-one-ment; we are proving the Unity of Good.
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD
In our metaphysical abstractions we have come to the conclusion that God, or F
irst Cause, must be Infinite; and it is difficult to perceive how a power which is Infinite can, at the same time, be personal. Yet the soul longs for a responsive universe; and the heart yearns for a God Who responds to the human desire.
To take from the individual his idea of God as a personally responsive Intelligence, and leave him only a cold, unresponsive Law, is to rob the individual of his greatest birthright and to throw him, naked and bare, into the midst of an Eternity which holds no attraction.
To think of the Universe in terms of Law only, is to make of God only an Infinite It, a cold an bitter Principle, lacking that warmth and color which the soul craves.
This difficulty is removed when we realize that the Law of Mind is like any other law; it is a natural force, and, like all law, should be thought of from this angle. But back of, and working in and through the Law, there is a responsive Intelligence and a knowing Spirit, Which is God, the Father of all; and Who responds to all.
We will think of Mind, then, as Law, and of God as Love; we will use the Law and love the Spirit back of, and through, the Law. In this way, we will be robbed of nothing, but will see that the way to freedom is through Love and by Law.
JESUS AS A SAVIOUR
Jesus stands forth from the pages of human history as the greatest Figure of all time. His teachings contain the greatest lesson ever given to the human race; and His life and works, while on earth, provide the grandest example that was ever given to man.
In the Higher Thought no attempt is made to rob Jesus of His greatness or to refute His teachings; indeed, the Higher Thought Movement is based upon the words and the works of this, the most remarkable Personality that ever graced our planet with His presence; and, until a greater figure appears, Jesus will still remain the great Wayshower to mankind, the great Saviour of the race.
The Science of Mind Page 26
