Our Real World
I have had three letters this week on the subject of the kingdom within. (” The kingdom of God is within you,” said the Master.) The first I want to quote is from a Student who writes: ” I am daily being renewed with faith, hope and courage from within, and finding that kingdom within the Invisible is my real world where my treasure is.”
The second is from a Student in New Zealand, who writes by air mail: “The booklet ‘Overcoming The World’ and Bernard’s Weekly News. reached me yesterday and I have read them both through. In fact, the little book I have read twice. It should be read and reread for there’s so much in it one can’t take it all at one draught! After the old teachings it is hard to realise that our mistakes are forgiven here and now, and we can look up into God’s ‘face’ with confidence as well as love. But I do believe you, Bernard every word of it.”
The third letter is from a Student who writes: ” This last Lesson was wonderful. I now when possible have a ‘five minutes’ visit’ to God within, and I tell Him I am so happy to have found where He really lives and to have found Him a God of Love; and I say: ‘Bernard sent me. He told me the way, and told me You loved me ‘.”
Now, to many people these words and similar ones are very familiar. As they read they will say smilingly: ” How well I understand ” But to others it will seem ” all Greek.” They may even think wistfully of how nice it would be to be able to “visit” their God within, how much consolation it would give them when they have been buffeted by the world; how restful it would be when they are weary and how lovely to be able to share with Him their joys. (The Master knew this so well when He said to all those millions of people who would live after His own life on earth: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” And: ” Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He meant that His Spirit would draw us and we should inwardly be so fused with Him that as the apostle said” nothing could separate” us from Him. Right down the ages comes His wonderful, tender, all embracing invitation: “Abide in Me, and I in you.”)
To many, however, who hear of and read of these things, it seems to be an utter impossibility. They can think of a God away from them, a great Being far up in heavenly planes, but how can there be God’s Spirit, or the Spirit of His Son, or the kingdom within their own bodies? To them, a body is a framework of bone, clothed in flesh, and within it is a collection of physical gadgets for digesting and dealing with food. How can this physical within have any connection with such reverent things as a heavenly kingdom?
Let me try to explain for I have an idea you would be too shy to ask anyone to explain it to you. This physical within of yours is kept alive by life, and all the gadgets work through life, don’t they? Now, within that Life, within each cell of material matter, within each drop of blood, within the air in your lungs, is a Greater Life, a throbbing, pulsating Intelligence. Your every movement, everything that goes on within your body, your digestion, circulation, elimination the repair of damages such as cuts and bruises all are directed by Intelligcnce. You can see that? Now carry it a step further and realise that that life is part of a still greater and wider Life just as a drop of water is a part of the ocean. That from any point within you, you can reach out to a great Consciousness, are, in fact, a part of this great Consciousness. So that it is not by any means the entire kingdom which is contained within you but the door to the kingdom is there.
Does that help? Try to get that idea of a reaching out from with into something great and powerful and wide, but tender, sweet, and understanding, too.
God be with you all…
– Bernard