3. Looking Back

Someone said we didn't believe in Jesus; of course we believe in Jesus -- and we believe in Buddha, in Socrates, and we believe in Abraham Lincoln! We believe in every Wayshower. And more than everything else, we believe in our own soul; the only immediate testimony you and I will ever have that we exist, or that God exists, or that Jesus showed us a way.
 
Religious Science is not something I invented; I didn't make it up. I added a few flourishes to it, but it is the outcome of the thought and the feeling of the ages and the great minds of many denominations and religions. It embraces all of them -- Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Confucianism, Judaism, and all of the different sects of the Christian faith. It embraces the affirmative part of all of them and comes up with the idea that the universe is filled with God. Each one of us is an outlet to God and an inlet to God. 

Creation

Now what is the reason for our being? I'm going to tell you what I think; I think it exists for the delight of God. What else can it exist for? Someone will say you are here to get saved -- claptrap, jargon, nonsense, asininity, and confusion -- the universe exists not for us to save our souls, they are not lost, and I know darned well if I am lost there isn't anybody in the world that will know where to look for me. Nor has the devil got us: there isn't any devil, there isn't any hell. 

The universe must exist for the self-expression of God and the delight of God. You and I are born out of God, and we are born out of a divine urge that creates. God is the Spirit; the Spirit seeks; there is a pressure on everything to express life. The dog must bark, the cat must have kittens, the hen must lay eggs, the artist must paint (no matter how terrible it looks), the singer must sing, the dancer must dance -- everything must express life. We are born to create, and we can't help it. Why is that? Because God, the great Creator, is in us.

Suffering

There is nothing wrong with God. We may be wrong; we may suffer (we do); we may be impoverished (we are); we may be unhappy (we get that way). But we are born to be happy, to be abundantly supplied with every good thing, to have fun in living, to consciously unite with the Divine Power that is around us and within us, and to grow and expand forever. 

Would it seem possible that by an immutable law, we consciously invite people's reaction to us, which is held there until we release it ourselves? This is the only obsession and the only devils there are. We are the obsessing entity, and we are the only devil we will ever meet. I don't believe in a devil, but sometimes I believe in a lot of them. I say I don't believe in any hell we are going to, but I am constrained sometimes to believe in the one we are getting out of. 

The most destructive force you and I have -- and the most constructive -- is our own unconscious emotional and thinking and feeling state. All so-called death is unnatural. So forget it. Walt Whitman, who was kind of lazy like I am -- I find lazy people live longer and take it easier -- said: I loaf and invite my soul. I wonder if you and I do enough loafing? There is a divine something inside us, of that I am sure. It would be terrific if we would say, -- There is no law but my own soul shall set it under the one great Law of all life. -- If I have lost the object of my love temporarily, yes, I'll cry. Tears are made to be shed. I'm not afraid of tears, and I think it is a silly person who says he doesn't have to shed them and never feels badly. It isn't true. He is just lying to cover up a great truth, and that will never get him anywhere. This is not daydreaming or escaping from reality.

We are the most realistic people who ever lived on earth; however, it is a transcendental realism. We believe in the transcendence. Now we want love, we want happiness. How, if I sit here unhappy, hating everybody, saying the world is against me -- which all may be true in appearance -- how am I going to draw anything but that? The mind unconsciously pictures things and projects them and says, "Nobody likes me, I am not attractive; nobody loves me, I haven't got what it takes." 

Spirit, soul, and body

We live on three planes: we are spirit, soul, and body. We meet people on all three planes: spiritual, mental, and physical. If there is in us a spiritual transcendence, if there is a universal concept, people will feel it. If there is in us a deep love for everyone, they will like it. If consciously or unconsciously we are embracing the world, they will know they are included. If we are hurt and sensitive, it will repel people from us.

If I am afraid that people won't ever like me, they can't. I have planted in them the dream about me that I am interpreting through them. I know the time is coming when even in psychiatry and psychology they will say there is only one universal subjectivity and we use it. There is no such thing as an individual mind at all; there is a mind principle, and we use it. There is a Spirit, and we live by it; there is a law that governs everything, and each one of us has our awareness in it, reacting back to us because the universe is one system. This I know.

I know of no other system of thought that teaches it, not in our field or similar fields. Yet Jesus taught it, "Give, and it shall be given unto you." Laugh, and people will laugh with you. 

Resolve

Now it is going to be a pretty tough thing. The truth is not always easy to follow. There is something in you and in me that transcends tragedy and sorrow and grief and loss. Power perennially springs from the innermost recesses of that unborn reality which is evermore being born in us today. This is the glory of our work; this is the power of what we do; this is the presence of the Living Spirit we adore: Beloved, you are that Thing you seek; you are that Thing you long for. The great and the good and the gracious God exists in you. God can make you happy and make me happy. And because we are happy, people around us will be happy; because we love, they will love us; because we embrace, they will embrace us. Surrender to the dignity of that law, to the love of that Presence, to the glory and joy of that Being, and no longer be afraid of the universe in which we live.

As we turn to the great heart of love in and around us and recognize the divine nature of our own being and consciously unify ourselves with the living Spirit, we thank God. And as we look at each other, we behold there the living Presence, love and friendship, and joy forever and forevermore.