Excerpts from
  The Gospel Series in Spiritual Science
by Emma Curtis Hopkins




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I find that my mind is fed by the steadfast gaze I direct toward that Being which is beyond my idea. That which is beyond and out of the range of my thoughts is that which rules my thoughts. That then is God—the true God.

Does not a combination of invisible gases rule water? Is not gas then the ruler of water? Does not water rule the land, forming and unforming it as it decrees? So above and out of the sight and cognizance of land is its ruling principle, the hydrogen and oxygen gases.

I, the embodied thoughts of a life, move and walk by reason of my thought of what is good. But my thoughts are set flowing by the operation of a principle more subtle than thought. What is that which is more subtle than thought? Is it not the vague hope of a good coming to me beyond what has ever yet touched my life? Is not the prime mover of my thoughts then some un­named good? So God is the unnamed Good.

My thoughts rule my world. They are God over my world. But the unnamed Good rules my thoughts. So by analysis I discover that the God who rules me is never named by me. Can I name that God who has been before unnamed? If I do come to where I name that God who, as nameless Being, rules my thoughts, shall not that name resolve my thoughts back into itself and leave me thought devoid?

And then if by my thoughts I am embodied here in your sight and in my own sight, shall I not disintegrate into formless space by yielding up my thoughts? By the word of the angel, the earth shall dissolve. For the word of the angel is the resolve of thought back into its un­named expectation of Supreme good, as waters resolved into gases are not visible.

I have been told that at the sound of a tone which they have never heard before, the stones will disappear like shadows. The forces which have held the stones together would be resolved back into the finer essence which the stone expressed. So the rock-bound destiny I fulfill as I stand here the embodiment of my own thoughts, shall melt if my thoughts are resolved back into the name of the Good that no man has named, but which rules all thoughts and all actions.

“Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it en­tered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath laid up for them that love him.”

I make haste to resolve my thoughts back into the naming of that never-spoken God which has ruled my thoughts, yet itself is not my thought. I willingly keep my thoughts still that the unnamed Good may be named.

As ideas make up my body which I show unto you, I being ready to resolve into my original Good—that which has ruled my thoughts without ruling them—I now surrender my ideas, that having no ideas I may be exalted into the unnamed Good toward which my soul hath forever yearned.

I find that to be beyond my ideas of good is the secret trend of my being. To the good that my thoughts endeavor to move me, I now find I must come by no thoughts. Does the water resolve into its original essentials by flowing on as controlling waters? Does it not touch the gases by the marvelous heat of the chemist jars?

What is that heat to which I may subject my thoughts and resolve them into that of which thoughts are com­posed? I gladly resolve my thoughts into the anhydrous state of invisible good. What heat shall I use? You need not tell me it is love. For love is the unnamed Good toward which my being is hurrying. Love is but another name for that Good into which I seek to be resolved. It is the nameless expectation of my soul that it shall love its life entirely. Love is the Good itself. But there is some way by which my thoughts may become the constituents of thoughts, as water becomes gases. To this end you study the Science of Christ. To this end I speak and come and go.

It is my believing privilege to believe that there is a quick solution of ideas in the heat of some principle which is not an idea. This principle which shall act with my thoughts as heat acts with water is my power of under­standing. My understanding power is finer than my thoughts. My understanding being then my heating power, if I increase my understanding shall I not in­crease the heat which can resolve my thoughts into that original which is God to my thoughts?

As the fireman puts in more fuel to increase heat, so I put in more fuel to increase my understanding. I find that the fuel upon which my understanding fire is fed is a fine white substance generated by words of Truth as electric charges are generated by batteries. Words which deal with any subject generate a substance in the airs. Words which deal with such subjects as money, houses, lands, children, temperance reforms, prisons, schools, etc., generate a coarse substance which causes the understand­ing of mankind to heat up with coarse tastes. Thus man­kind likes beef and lamb to eat; cows and dogs to clothe itself with, swine and whales to handle with its hands. These things suggest coarse thoughts again. The thoughts discourse upon them still again. So round and round the coarse products turn themselves.

Words concerning the character of a Being who thinks of none of the things the words of matter suggest generate a finer substance for a finer understanding power to feed on. They make a heat which is seven times hotter than the talk of swine and soldiers. This heat begins to cause my thoughts to refine as heat causes water to refine into steam. I will keep on telling of Christ and God till my words are so true that they generate a substance finer than any that any understanding has ever fed on. Thus I will be the chemist standing here at the laboratory of my mind and resolving my thoughts back into gases. I will have no thoughts with which such a world of beggars and deaf and blind men and women can be made. I will become in the estate of my own con­sciousness that which I am in fact at the head of my Being—I will be that God which rules thoughts . . . exalted into my Self.

This exaltation is not fed by an understanding of opposites. It is fed on knowing that I AM now come into my own estate. I stand here and speak of my Self. Of my original element which is the unnamed Good I speak. My body is quickened. It is made of that which is finer than thoughts of material things and finer than thoughts of numbers and logic. It is fed on my understanding of God. It is a new body in my new understanding. This is Transfiguration.

I take by choice thoughts which all the world call the mountain peaks of thought. These are of God, who is finer than understanding of God. I keep them going in the wheeling batteries of my mind. They generate a substance upon which my understanding feeds. This un­derstanding is hot. It melts my old thoughts and dis­solves my old body. It then takes new thoughts of God. And beyond itself generates a newer substance so white—fuller and whiter than anything on earth. A finer and clearer understanding breaks forth. It speaks and I see what body God created. I am in the understanding of God. This is rest. This is the rest of God. It is action so swift that it is no action at all. I seem to be doing nothing. I seem to be thinking nothing. But my fine true thoughts heating my understanding till it dissolves thoughts is swiftly putting me into my transfigured body of God. It is by Spiritual Science reasoning’s that I generate that substance which feeds understanding.

All that has ever been accomplished of greatness and goodness and beauty has been brought to pass by true words generating a substance fine and white which fed understanding till great things came to pass by its word.

The heaven of freedom sought for by the Buddha’s of old cometh clearly visible by melting the bands of the chains of thinking of good and evil.

It is not heaven to be famous among men. To be chained to the hope of fame is to be hitched like a dog to the chariot of Mercury, the star of fame. Dante, the poet, generations ago discovered that to be thinking of fame is to generate a substance that feeds understanding with a fuel that is heating fuel as coarse though more subtle than looking for shoes and wagons of matter. He calls the exercise of thoughts striking their wheels against each other to make praise of mankind the destruction of freedom. He tells how the mind which looks for praise of mankind never shines by its own light but reflects the light generated by the appreciation of fellow beings. A man’s fellow-beings are thus more in the cause of truth by seeing his powers than he is himself. He clashes his thoughts and words together and the people catch the fine meanings he carries. Their pleasure pleases him. But he has eaten none of his own manna. If you are de­pending upon praise or appreciation you are not fed by the true manna. Understanding is not fed with its right fuel, so its heat does not melt your thoughts.

On his mind stairs Dante kept ascending by thoughts, and thus explained why the brilliant genius is so often unhappy and restless. He gets his pleasure only in praise. Even with the Mercurial religious saint, says Dante, we cannot tell how much his religion is genuine. His re­ligion is bright like the noon sun. He tells of the doc­trines of that religion. His hearers feel how true it is and praise him. But he has not felt his understanding fires burn and so his thoughts of worldly things do not melt.

Do you feel troubled if success of enterprise does not attend you? If so, then surely it is success of enterprises upon which you are trying to feed your understanding fires.

I am not here to be fed on the manna fuel generated by talk of prosperity, by talk of healed bodies, say the Divine fire which can melt my thoughts into gases. I yield all things to the Spirit of Understanding for the sake of being resolved into love. God is love.

By love I do not mean the feeling experienced by those who adore some man or some woman or some child clothed in what seems to be flesh. This is the heaven of the planet Venus, says Dante. It is narrow and sur­rounded by the high banks of never wishing to leave the earthly ways. The love that is the good toward which my heart is forever yearning is not named in the earth. Nothing is resting in the love which it feels for one in the flesh. It always fears something will happen. The love that my thoughts are losing their life for is the love that has never heard of apprehension. Thus is God ex­alted in my hope above love.

The God who rules my hope is the presence of the happy kingdom into which I am exalted when I do not think of things that are material any more at all; neither do I think of life, or truth, or love. I look beyond my ideas into the great Fact of Life. This looking into Life, the great fact, away from my idea of life is the dissolu­tion of my ideas. I willingly see my ideas dissolved in my sight by the inner God of my Being looking straight out over the universe of God folding me here. I am at the center of my being called to look out upon God. “Look unto Me.”

The whole secret of freedom is in silent looking. As Mary looked beyond all ideas into the God beyond ideas she brought forth Jesus Christ. As I look into the home that is beyond my ideas I bring forth home for the people of earth. As I look into the God who is support beyond my idea of sustaining and supporting I bring forth the plenty I see as I look.

There is a power of my mind called “looking” by which I am able to see what is beyond my thoughts. While I am looking at God as One who knows nothing of supporting me, I find myself saying, “God is my sup­port.” After speaking this truth I have new clothes, new home conditions, new strength. Now if I had spoken the words over many times that God is my support before I had dropped the idea of support and looked beyond my idea, I should have had to wait for my words to gen­erate the white Substance for fuel to my understanding. Then my understanding would have looked in silent adoration at the God who is beyond understanding and I should have spoken the words, “God is my support,” after a long time of waiting.

I have by this manner of thinking come to see that I need not generate the fuel for my understanding to flame by if I do not choose. I may look straight past all ideas into that which is not idea. And then I shall be think­ing the vital principle that makes health but never speaks of health. I am the speaker of health.

Mary returned from her speechless sight of Good be­yond her ideas of good and spoke of Messiah. I now re­turn from my speechless sight of Good beyond my ideas of good and I speak that all is the unresisted action of the Living Spirit through all the earth now.

I now return from my speechless sight of Good be­yond all ideas of good and proclaim that the Healing Spirit is now acting with unresisted freedom through you all and through all the earth now. This is the loss of my ideas in the unnamed Good. It is the refinding of my ideas in the nameless Good. I have willingly let go all ideas to be lost in the Good my unthinking mind sees.

I obey the one injunction I have heretofore omitted, viz., “Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.”

As Mary brought forth Jesus by her immaculate sight of Good, I by my immaculate sight of Good say now that the strengthening Spirit is acting with unresisted freedom through all the earth and you now.

This also is Jesus Christ. The movement of the Spirit of that which is beyond thought makes thought.

My sight of there being a good beyond the excite­ments of the ideas and feelings I now apprehend finally gets immaculately free from the dust of my opinions of material things and unspiritual ideas. This is forgetfulness of matter and thoughts. Pure forgetfulness is im­maculate sight of the Good that has never been named. The sight of that Good formulates new environments. They are the perfect conditions which alone can rest my heart. Perfect conditions are Jesus Christ come again. So I bring forth Jesus Christ to this age. My Jesus Christ is a whole world in the same estate of power and life and understanding as Jesus Christ had and does have and forevermore shall have.

I must know a good higher than blessing God for giving me something He does not give you. God does not give and withhold. He is above giving and with­holding. He hears no thanks offered from a mind that feels he is capable of giving and not giving at one and the same moment. I believe in God beyond God. The God beyond God is His nature toward whom my heart panteth, toward whom my feet tend.

These words generate a fine light. On that light my understanding feeds. I understand God, there I am dis­solved.

The stillness of the unnamed Good stands in my presence. I am as silent as it is silent. Suddenly my voice shall break forth with a new tongue. I will come down from the high stillness into speech as a river flows down from its mountain. As water falls down from its gases. From the everlasting calm of the good beyond thoughts I bring you this word. God cannot be exalted. God is abiding in stillness which is “in hell and on earth.”

The sounds on the shores of time disturb not the silence of God. My excitements of pleasure or pain touch not the stillness of the God beyond God, dwelling within my being.

I AM above goodness I AM beyond wisdom; I AM beyond virtue; by reason of the everlasting mountain and valley and sea and land of stillness abiding in me. This is not lifting up or putting down.

It is the mystery of Everlasting Kindness.

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