CHAPTER 14 THE HUMAN SPIRIT
CHAPTER 14 THE HUMAN SPIRIT
The Bible tells of the human spirit's never-ending struggle to assert its supremacy over the natural mind. Believing in the reality of the world outside, the natural mind rules sleeping man, while the human spirit is God in man, struggling to awaken and assert its supremacy over all. The poet Faust knew this when he said, "Two souls are housed within my breast. One to heaven doth aspire and the other to earth doth cling."
In the 25th Chapter of Genesis this struggle is told as the story of Isaac's two sons, Esau and Jacob. Coming first as outer skin and hair, Esau is recognized as your personality, while the smooth-skinned Jacob is your human spirit. We are told that when their mother Rebekah became aware of the struggle within her, she questioned the Lord who told her, "Two nations are in your womb and two people born of you shall be divided. One shall be stronger than the other and the elder shall serve the younger.
Your external world is known by reason of your critical faculties; therefore, you can always discover the psychological state in which you reside by observing your thoughts of the day. Now, every state has its limitations and restrictions from which there appears to be no escape. If you believe you are the state in which you now reside, you will never be able to leave it. But the story of Esau and Jacob tells you there is a way of escape and how to accomplish it.
Esau exists in your mind as the outer world of fact and Jacob as the inner world of imagination. As their father, you have the power to give either son the right of birth. Always seeing from where you have placed your attention, you are called upon to blind yourself to the outside world by drawing your attention from it, then deceiving yourself by imagining the world as you want it to be. This is done by closing your eyes to the so-called "facts" of life and turning your thoughts inward. Now, clothe your thoughts in the feeling of reality until they are just as solid and factual as those known to you by reason of your outer senses. When this is done you, Isaac, have given your son Jacob the right of birth.
Your objective world is always reflecting your inner, subjective state. Therefore, it is impossible to change your outer world until you have changed your inner, subjective state. Knowing the state you want to occupy, completely absorb yourself in it as though it were a sponge and you the water capable of entering and being absorbed by it. So lose yourself in the feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment that when you open your eyes and Esau (the world without) returns, you know you have given his birthright away. Although you have been self-deceived by imagining the state to be real, you have given it the power to be born. How it is going to come about I do not know. Only your Father in heaven knows, for he has ways to make your desired state alive and His ways are past finding out.
Now, there is an essence in you that is sound asleep and must be awakened. When you give Jacob the power you have given Esau, watch. You will discover that Esau will no longer react violently but will become passive. Then you will know that you have brought about a reversal of order. As you are aware of being Jacob, you will persist in seeing what you want to see and experiencing what you want to express, thereby awakening your true essence to the truth that the world is yours and all within it.
You are the Rebekah the Bible tells about and you are constantly bringing forth your Esau and your Jacob who are forever at war with one another. The elder is the world you know by reason of your critical faculties, while the younger is the one you know subjectively. The person you want to be is struggling for birth. As long as you look at and accept the outer world as the only reality, you will never give birth to your fulfilled desire. You must turn your attention inward and subjectively appropriate your objective reality.
When you read the 25th and 27th Chapters of Genesis, remember, all the characters recorded there are in your mind. Although unmarried, you are always giving birth to twins. The world in which you live is the outpicturing of your state of awareness. That state is your first son which must be supplanted by your second son, or desired state. Throughout the Bible, you will find there is always a second son which replaces the first: Jacob supplants Esau; Jesus supplants John the Baptist; and the human spirit supplants human matter.
When you know what you want, define it as vividly as you can. Then blind yourself to your externalized state by sending it hunting. You cannot touch your second son (your cherished idea) until you do. This is accomplished by turning your attention away from all thoughts of denial and clothing your desire with the skins of reality. In his "Ode to a Nightingale," Keats said:
"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense as Though of hemlock I have drunk."
Having felt the reality of his experience so vividly, when he opened his eyes, Keats asked:
"Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: do I wake or sleep?"
It is with this kind of intensity that I would ask you to clothe yourself as you feel yourself already the person you want to be. Now, stretch out your imaginary hands and touch the objects there. Listen with your imaginary ears. See with your imaginary eyes. Walk in your imaginary world as you taste and smell the objects there. Your creative power can be used for anything, be it a fur coat or a new hat. It is my hope that you will use it for some noble state such as greatness in your chosen profession, whatever that may be. Now, let us look at the 38th Chapter of Genesis where the story of Judah and Tamar is told. "Judah" means "praise" and "Tamar" means "a desired state; a palm tree oasis. As Tamar, you thirst for your desire. Give it to yourself by going into your desired state and making it real by becoming one with it. Feel the sense of satisfaction that your prayer has been answered and you are the woman called Tamar and the man named Judah.
You will find another account of twins in the 48th Chapter of Genesis. This is the story of Manasseh (which means to forgive) and his brother Ephraim (which means to affirm). One is negation and the other affirmation. When you take your attention away from your problem by affirming its solution, the problem is momentarily forgotten. Persist in your affirmation, not in repetitious form, but in feeling. As you feel the solution, the problem dies from lack of attention.
This teaching is not for the complacent but for the human spirit who hungers and thirsts after right thinking. As we are told in the 5th Chapter of Matthew, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Awaken the Jacob in you by observing your thoughts uncritically. Think of yourself as two beings, one who sees with the organs of sense and the other who sees through the mind of imagination. The sense man is a creature of habit. He is dynamic and active; yet, through the daily practice of self-observation, he can be brought into a passive state and his power transferred to the man of imagination. There are always two decided outlooks on the same world, i.e., the one you see with your outer organs and the one you know only mentally. Your desire is mental, without shape or form. It is your second son who will supplant your present world when your power of awareness is turned within.
Do you have a longing? A consuming desire that you want fulfilled now? Allow that desire to clothe your mind. Knowing that its fulfillment is based upon feeling, ask yourself what the feeling would be like if your desire were now realized. Whatever your problem is, its solution is within you. Turn your attention to your desire's fulfillment and clothe it in the skins of objective reality. This is the technique of reversal and should never be taken lightly because the moment you feel yourself into a state, you instantly take upon yourself the fruit of that state.
I hope you now know how to clothe your subjective longing. Think of your desire as Jacob; then clothe it in the skins and hair of Esau. The time it takes for your longing to materialize is proportionate to your feeling of its naturalness.
The kingdom of heaven is within you. Humanity cannot enter this kingdom, but your imagination can when you detach yourself from that to which you are now attached. There must be a separation, for only the human spirit is called, and only the human spirit can pass, singly, through this "I."
Now, that which requires a state of consciousness to produce its effect cannot be effected without such a state. Once you have entered a state, don't be concerned as to how it will be externalized, for everything comes into being through consciousness. You never create a state. All states were created before the world was. Rather, you enter a state and it simply displays itself. Enter the state of poverty by saying, "I am poor" and you will see its evidence displayed on your screen of space. You do not generate health, wealth or happiness. The states are already there, completely furnished and ready for your immediate occupancy.
My words are true, but truth by itself can do nothing. It must be applied. Unapplied truth is like a lamp without oil, but applied truth is a lamp whose oil never runs low. Remember, there are no accidents, no cause other than an imaginal one. If an accident is fatal, it is an involuntary suicide. Are we not told, "No one takes my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again." An accident is not a force external to the individual's consciousness. "No one knows a man but the spirit of the man who dwells in him," and man is simply the sum total of his reactions to life. No one comes into your world save you call him. You have the power to call anything into being, for you are the author of the drama called life.
The Bible refers to God as the Father; as I AMness, or light, but the word means consciousness" which, like an atom, has no age. consciousness is living substance which has no beginning and no end but simply displays arrangements of itself. External man consents to age, but the substance of consciousness does not. It never changes. Before the world was, I AM, and when it ceases to be, there will still be I AM. External man can say "I was" or "I will be," but the internal human spirit says only "I AM." Knowing your desire, persist in the thought that you already have it until your thoughts become habitual. If you do not, you will find yourself returning to your old way of thinking and perpetuate it, thereby never seeing your desire externalize itself.
I will leave you with this thought. While man is violent, animals must exist. The animal is only externalized evidence of man's violence. The dinosaurs were lumbering beasts with small brains and bore witness to the lumbering state of man at that time. The dinosaurs were not killed off but became extinct naturally. Let man become tame and all the animals will become sterile.
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