The kingdom of God/Spirit/Consciousness is within each of us but first we must discover it; this we do by virtue of developing what Joel termed, the Listening ear. It’s more of an attitude of receptivity than it is of any process similar to that of hearing with the physical ear. Actually, from the very beginning, as we learn to meditate in the way it’s taught in the message of The Infinite Way, we’re making gradual strides in the development of that listening attitude.
The instant we start contemplating, thinking about, or pondering a statement of truth, and then later notice (hearing, if you will) thoughts coming to us relative to that statement, we’ve begun a practice that will only expand as we continue in it. It will be as if we only have to get the flow started by selecting some specific principle or statement as a means of direction, then the floodgates open and the infinite nature of our consciousness pours into our conscious awareness. We make little or no conscious effort as such. We do what is necessary to quiet the seemingly endless activity of discordant thoughts pervading our mind, then as we settle into a state of peace, of inner calm, that flow of the divine takes over. We simply are aware of It; and, we’re conscious of It by or through this inner sense of listening within ourselves.
Is there one of us who is unfamiliar with the way we recognize thoughts occurring in us? Why, of course not! The question almost sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Yet, this is the selfsame faculty that we’ll ultimately come to have highly developed in us so that by it we will come to know the absolute essence of all that is. God is a Spirit, and to know Spirit a different faculty must be awakened in us. I say awakened because it already is in us only it is dormant to our conscious awareness. This dormancy has resulted from the fact that we’ve accepted appearance based beliefs and these have all but blocked the entry of our spiritual resources into our awareness. Now, since we’re coming into a deeper understanding of our spiritual natures, we are learning to go within to experience our buried hidden treasure. This we do by turning from much thinking to a gentle relaxing in the invisible realm of our consciousness there awaiting, expecting a presence, a voice, a something to make itself known to us. The more we do this the more the wall of partition is being dissolved by the omni active truth in us. Once this power makes the slightest entry into our conscious awareness, never again are we quite the same individual.
The listening ear or attitude has to be cultivated. Although we use this faculty all the time, we’re not using it in a manner that will admit the conscious awareness of the presence of God. Presently, we’re aware of the constant onslaught of world beliefs and many other human, appearance based thoughts. These have been with us for centuries. We’ve been admitting them without any idea whatsoever that they are nothing but the offshoots of erroneous beliefs. Most have developed from our living in this world as human beings with very limited views of life. And the one limited view that is behind all the other erroneous beliefs is that of thinking of ourselves as physical entities who were born and will some day die. But, as we practice meditating, gradually our thinking mind recedes into the background as we become consciously aware of a presence in us that we didn’t know before. Our first encounter with this presence is so peace filled that we wish to experience it again, so we continue to meditate. In the very nature of our human selves though, now we attempt to make it happen by using mental effort. We think that it is something we can control or manipulate. This approach finds us losing the way, and so we’re ultimately led, sometimes in desperation, back to the practice of meditation in the manner that originally resulted in our experience of the presence.
The things of God are foolishness to man whose breath is in his nostrils, that is the natural man…in other words, you and I when we are still unillumined by the light of divine Spirit. This is why it’s difficult for us to understand at first how it is that something so elementary as getting quiet and listening within ourselves allows the spiritual transformation to take place. And before your expectations are aroused, be it known unto you that I have nothing to add that is going to make the whole matter any less disconcerting. It is sufficient to know that all others who have attained to some measure of spiritual enlightenment have gone this way too. Hopefully this will be of some consolation to those of us now well on our way to a rendezvous with our true selves.
“Hear, O Israel, the lord our god is one,” are words that were spoken to, or meant for, only those who were receptive to spiritual wisdom. They were not uttered to the world at large. The word Israel referred to the spiritually receptive wherever they happened to be found. The prophet who uttered those words realized that the world couldn’t possibly receive them in their true light because it required a certain measure of development along with the presence of God consciously realized to be of any value. And at that time there were no human beings at that stage of readiness or preparedness. The majority of people then (as now) were only interested in God from the standpoint of learning what they could get or accomplish through God or with God’s assistance. The focus was on the getting of some person, place, thing, circumstance, or condition. The Master, however, informs us that the kingdom of God, Spirit, is in us, it is spiritual, so we are to turn our attention away from the material to the invisible to allow the Spirit to awaken us to the real things of life. These partake of the essential nature of their source which is Spirit. It is imperceptible to the human mind how it is that the invisible fruitage of Spirit can fulfill our human desires and needs. The human is ruled by his stomach and other appetites, and how something so intangible as a spirit can satisfy them is literally unthinkable. Notwithstanding, we are told to take no thought for our lives; our heavenly Father knoweth we have need of such things and it is His good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Note that it doesn’t literally state that our heavenly Father would give us the things that would satisfy our appetites but rather that whatever it (the kingdom) is that the Father has to give would fulfill our every wish. After all, hasn’t it been stated that “ I am the bread, meat, wine, and water; I, the I within you…that you hear… is life eternal.”
Each time we consciously experience the stillness within our awareness we’re drawing nearer to the day when the still small voice will make Itself demonstrably known to us. Nothing in all our work is more important than this because it is the only sure way toward individual conviction that there truly is a living presence in us. And we must be absolutely convinced of this.
The time must come when we place our whole reliance on the voice we hear or feeling we sense in the silence of our soul. As we continue our receptive expectancy of It revisiting us, and even when our expectancy isn’t readily met, we find that our life takes on a greater degree of harmony as discords normally and naturally evaporate. The truth welling up from the depths of our consciousness is dispelling all the storms of our human mode of thinking. The long held images accompanying such thinking are likewise dissolved.
It is the thinking, plotting, planning, scheming human mind with its nonstop mental activity that is a blockage to our ability to hear the voice of the Soul. It isn’t possible for us to stop this activity, and we don’t have to ourselves. If we permit our intellect to become absorbed in the contemplation or pondering of spiritual truth of some kind, our mind will eventually become still on its own. This is just what we allow to happen when we meditate in the fashion that we’re taught in the message of The Infinite Way. We don’t make any effort whatsoever to influence, direct, or control our thinking. The selection of some scriptural passage or other statement of truth as a starting point itself redirects our attention away from the train of habitual thoughts filling our mind. And from here we begin to consider the selected statement or scripture in as many ways as we can. It won’t be long before the disturbing thoughts subside, and in the degree that they do will we notice a sense of rest, relaxation, or relief engulfing our entire being. That’s because the source of our previous disturbance was the erroneous appearance based beliefs that we had come to ignorantly accept. As we redirected our conscious awareness to some statements about that which was actually the truth, the harmony produced by these considerations dissolved all else which wasn’t the truth and therefore resulted in a peace within.
It’s vital we understand that our “ignorant” acceptance of erroneous beliefs isn’t a personal fault of ours. No, each one born into a sense of humanness has done so only as a result of appearances being exacted upon consciousness at a time when it was impossible for the truth, though already indwelling him, to nullify them. So there’s no need for anyone to waste time deliberating over and condemning him/her self for their plight; sufficient is it that we have come to the realization of how we got into this predicament of separation from our Source in the first pace. All of this awareness wells up from the infinite storehouse of intelligence within us as this listening inward capacity is gradually developed. It’s left to each one of us to be patient in the continuous seeking of God-realization by attaining the inner stillness as often as we can. If we have to, we must steal precious moments during the day while at our usual routines of work and other activities to retire from the world to touch that still place in us. This need only take a few minutes at first. It will expand in time of its own accord because we will want to return to that place again and again to be refreshed anew.
In quietness and in confidence shall be our strength, but we must first attain that state of inner serenity and stillness. It doesn’t happen overnight or by any human mental effort. There isn’t anything we have to do other than to be diligent in our practice of meditation, making sure that we engage in the contemplative portion long enough to exhaust all thoughts so that we can then wait in the ensuing silence listening as if expecting to hear the voice of Spirit, because, it truly is an act of grace. As we learn to listen we acclimate ourselves to this inward posture of allowing the mind to settle into a restfulness that’s followed by a depth of stillness which defies description in words or thoughts.
GG
In Stillness,
John Drewery
GG…Glorifying God abbreviated
