It has been said that to find heaven one must be born again. The rebirth of one’s outlook and attitude to life will prove this saying.
Let us take a look at what is termed the “average man”. He comes into the world as a tiny crying baby and as he grows his thoughts and emotions appear to be mainly fashioned by the thoughts and actions of his parents and also by his own reactions to his environment in general.
In a home where one of the parents completely possesses him he is unable to follow his own instincts freely by constant frustration. His parents decide his future and indoctrinate him with their own religious and political views. In fact he is like a prisoner brainwashed to a particular way of life. He has no choice of his own – no opportunity to live his own life or no chance to exercise his own intelligence. All through his life his thoughts and opinions are coloured by those hammered into his mind by his parents or by the community in which he is brought up. When he is away from his parents his happiness is thwarted because he finds that the things he really wants to do become impossible because of the shackles of set ideas and opinions. He finds his job or profession a bore, fails in his marriage and dies an entity who has never really lived. The majority of mankind experience something similar to this in one way or another.
What does one possess of his own? What knowledge does one really gain without the aid of books? All knowledge gained from books is but the experience of the author. If he writes on philosophy his summing up is nothing more than his own conception. If a writer interprets the scriptures the result is only that which he believes himself no matter how impassionately he may observe. Many drift through life with nothing of their own to give or live by but merely quoting the existing platitudes and sayings of others who remain their idols.
To be born again one should strip himself of all pre-conceived ideas and all set opinions – because they cement one’s “feet” firmly into a rut and one then cannot be free to explore the wide open spaces of freedom in the vast expanses of joyful living.
The great panorama of life’s events is continually changing. Ideas change – moral values change. What seemed true yesterday is but a dream today; and what new surprises will tomorrow bring? The God of the scriptures seems, at the moment, but a myth – some aloof being who is out of touch with His own creation. But this is only how man has made it. Church services appear to be empty – a shell into which the older persons crawl to protect themselves should the story of the final judgement or a life hereafter be true.
The Master Jesus told his hearers that he had come to bring joy and peace here and now and that the kingdom of heaven was within them. If his statements are true why do we look for something in the future and for a heaven after we die? Since he taught that there is no death in actuality pure logic cannot see anything or anywhere to go after that which in reality does not exist. St. Paul in his epistle to the Colossians states that “in Him (the life within) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” If this statement is studied carefully in its right context one can immediately see that he was not referring in particular to the man Jesus but to everybody who lives according to the Christ Law. He goes on to say “Ye are complete in Him….” If we are complete in Him we must have all that appertains to Him at each moment – so why do we argue and fuss? If we really believe that we are complete in Christ we forget “tomorrow” and know that all things will be fulfilled. Did not Jesus say (Matthew chap 6 v 34) “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof?” In other words – let us live today as it should be lived, then we will be more prepared to deal with the problems of tomorrow. Each situation rightly approached today gives us more and more experience and we proceed like “wise master builders” constructing a heavenly mansion for ourselves here on earth and not “a house built on the sand” – to quote St. Paul and Jesus again.
What we are experiencing at the moment, whether it be a situation of complete unhappiness and muddle, or a condition of peace and joy, is something we have created absolutely by our own attitude and reaction to life. A hard truth you might say – but truth always hits our weakest points and needs to be proved.
If by your own efforts you think you can change your life from its present state to one more harmonious – then the same laws must still be in operation. They have not changed just from this moment to enable you to do something about it now and have not been operating in the past. The law of life says what you experience now you have made for yourself in the past and what you experience in the future you are building now. If this is not true then you are wasting your time taking these lessons – because if you have not built in the past you surely cannot build now. You see – it is a natural process – we build for good or ill all the time whether we are aware of the fact or not. If you say that by the application of the laws of right living you are going to experience more happiness – you could say that by applying the laws of wrong living, in the past, you are in the state you are in now. Whichever way you look at it you have been responsible for everything that happened to you and are equally responsible for what is going to happen to you in the future. Study these remarks carefully and you will see a great truth. We are not trying to trap you by juggling with words but that you should try to realise a very important fact around which our teachings revolve – that we, of ourselves, are the cause of all the effects we experience in this life.
By accepting the foregoing statements one is aware that man is a very powerful creative entity and looking upon what conditions he has made on earth at the moment in his ignorance – that which could be accomplished in the true knowledge of his powers would be astounding. To bring this realisation to man has been the message and works of the great teachers in the past but man has so enmeshed himself in a net of materialistic thought that he has made his own laws to protect himself from the truth. One way of recognising the truth is that when we come up against it, it hurts our pride and upsets our own little world of dreams. Truth is not always something that gives us a warm, comfortable feeling, but makes us face reality. That is why the world saviours are persecuted in one way or another.
There are many systems, many philosophies and many dogmas, each based upon the assumptions, and in some cases mere theories, of those who express them; but the nature of the universe is something that cannot be grasped in its fullness by any one person. We can only measure its qualities in our own individual experiences. The most remarkable we have discovered is that whilst its nature seems quite impersonal in many aspects, it expresses itself in diverse ways for the benefit of each individual in a personal sense.
For example, whilst Mr. A might find fulfilment in business success according to his own desires, Mr. B might be pushed out of something he thinks will bring him happiness into something entirely opposite which in the end brings to him that which he has really sought, namely peace and harmony. Let us explain this more fully.
We have stated that all human beings seek harmony and peace of mind. This is what they REALLY desire. The trouble is that we all have the habit of assuming within ourselves what we think will bring us this. We conjure up ideas like having possessions, plenty of money or doing things we like doing. All this is actually a hoodwink to our sincere nature. Everything, as we have said, in the external world is changing from day to day so these things are unstable and unreliable. These kinds of things are transitory sensual enjoyments and many people waste endless energies in trying to get them only to discover that when they have got them they are still unhappy. The happiness they thought they would get in the acquirement of such possessions was just as far off. Happiness is not in things but in a state of mind within one’s self.
A right attitude to life will bring goodwill and friendship that cannot be taken away. To be free from that which we classify as “personality traits” leaves one unaffected from outside emotional disturbances. By “personality traits” we mean such things as one puts on the surface of his character – a kind of always seeking to impress others, possessing people or things, having fixed opinions, jealousy, hatred, resentfulness and refusal to see the truth – to name only a few. These are all but false make-ups and masks of the real inner man and a denial of the indwelling godhead. By grappling with these tendencies in our make-up we find that “miracles” sometimes happen. Miracles really are when natural law has been allowed to perform its proper function in our experiences: The false giving way to the real.
Learn to find beauty in everything around you – even in the things that at the moment seem squalid. This does not mean that you have to look into dustbins and rubbish but into the hearts and minds of those who have, or seem to have, to live in these conditions. Even amidst the lowliest and coarsest types of beings you will find a spot where the divine artist has placed a mark and you will find that “He that is your servant is the greatest among you,” according to Jesus.
If you can grasp the fact that the description we give of the Universal Consciousness or God is the Truth and that this is the only Reality as opposed to that which is classed as real through the senses or the knowledge which is based on man-made assumptions you will understand the teachings more readily.