Excerpts from
The Gospel Series in Spiritual Science by Emma Curtis Hopkins Order in Adobe PDF eBook form for $4.95 or click here to order in printed form from Amazon.com Book Description
Contents: The Knowledge of God as Changeless Good; The Law of Words; Gospel Lesson on Hezekiah, True Relation with Your Own Eternal Self and Practice of It; Necessity of Thinking in the Spirit; The Gateway of Silence; Bringing Forth the Fruits of the Spirit; The Eternal Substance; Face to Face; The Operation of Principle; The Truth of Dominion; The Finished Work. INTRODUCTION BY EMMA CURTIS HOPKINS 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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