Chapter V
SELF-DISCOVERY THROUGH TRUTH
W. John Murray
The
Realm of Reality
Divine Science Publishing Assoc.
New York, 1922.
“And the very God of peace
sanctify you wholly; and I pray God
your whole spirit and soul and body be
preserved blameless unto the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ.”
--1 Thess. 5:23
[55] If what
is called the New Philosophy of Life has
any purpose, it is, it seems to me, that
of leading mankind out of the morass of
its self-imposed limitation up to those
heights of Self-knowledge whereon it is
possible to see the object for which the
all-creative Mind originated Man as Its
highest Idea. Despite our most earnest
endeavors to attain to those conditions
which are ideal, so ideal as to be
considered unattainable, we feel
convinced that whether this goal is
reached or not, there is something within
that will not let us rest with our
present status, and hence the urge to
rise above circumstances with which we
are not satisfied. With all our quests,
and there are many, there is one which is
most important, and which ought not to be
placed second to anything, and this is
the discovery of the self.
[56] To that
man who would be what he desires to be,
it is a matter of great import that he
should heed the advice of the Greek
oracle whose precept was, “Know
thyself.” With the ancients
self-knowledge was based on the
perception of the underlying Principle of
Being, and not upon anatomy or
physiology. It was not a question as to
how much a man weighed in a physical
sense, or as to how much he knew of
physical laws; it was a matter of his
consciousness of a self that is neither
material nor mortal, and is superior to
material and mortal conditions. It is of
little real value to us to know how many
bones we have in our bodies if we do not
know how many faculties we have in our
minds and how to use them. If a man had
as many bones as a fish and only the
intelligence of a fish, he might swim
like a fish but he would not think like a
man, and unless a man thinks like a man,
he is not going to enter into the
possession of a man’s
blessings.
When a man
realizes his true self it is like finding
one’s direction by means of the
compass. It is no longer a question of
private opinion, but a discovery based
upon science, so much that if the most
profound scientist in the world told the
simplest boatswain that he was sailing
west when the compass indicated that he
was going east, he would accept the
verdict of the inanimate compass and
reject the statement of the animate sage.
This is a case of science against the
scientist, or human opinion against
Truth.
Just as
there is a compass which serves to [57]
direct a mariner so that he may take
advantage of all favorable conditions and
avoid the unfavorable, so there is a
compass which will so direct a man on the
sea of existence that he may take
advantage of every wind of God that
blows, and avoid all those ugly currents
of human and false opinion which are
responsible for all the misery which
afflicts mankind. This touchstone to
which we allude is that which Paul
designated as the “Christ in us,
the hope of glory.” And lest we may
make a mistake, which is so often made
when Christ is spoken of as a person, we
want to affirm that Christ, as we
understand the word, is not so much a
person as a Principle, which Principle,
when understood and co-operated with,
will lead us out of our difficulties as
unerringly as the principle of
mathematics leads us to the solution of
our problems whenever we apply it and
abide intelligently by its rules.
The door to
all achievement will be opened to us when
we find this key to every situation. The
key is Truth, and the Truth is Christ,
even as the Way and the Life is Christ.
When we use these synonyms for Christ,
such as the Way and the Life and the
Door, we realize how impersonal the
Christ is. It is the Way which leadeth to
all Truth, and through Truth to that Life
which is not physical but metaphysical,
not mortal, but immortal.
There are
three ways by which men discover
themselves, but only one of them is fully
satisfying. [58] In our infancy we
discover ourselves physically, as when a
baby becomes aware of its toes and plays
with them, or its thumb and at once
begins to suck it. As it grows in
consciousness it finds other members and
other inclinations, but these are largely
on the physical plane until it reaches
the intellectual stage when it becomes
cognizant of a new world, and a new self
springs forth from the inside of the old
self, which is now perceived to be not
the real man or self, but the outer
garment or shell. This fresh area which
is opened up by the key of the intellect
is often so marvelous as to cause us to
feel that it is the last word in
self-discovery. We discover through the
intellect that man is not an animal
merely, but a thinking being to whom the
explorations of the physical world, and
the investigations of the artistic,
aesthetic, and poetic realms become a
fascination.
Under this
spell the intellectualist makes the
mistake of believing that the mind is
everything and the Spirit nothing. It is
as if the baby should conclude that its
toes or its thumb were all and there were
no hands or feet. When an intellectualist
uses his intellect to prove, “There
is no God,” he is in the same
position as a baby would be if it were to
attempt to prove it had neither hands nor
feet simply because it is not yet
conscious of these members, but only a
portion of them. But the baby does not
attempt any such thing, and it is
fortunate that only a very few [59]
intellectuals seek to prove the
non-existence of anything higher or other
than mind.
Assuming,
then, that we have found the intellectual
self within the physical self, so to
speak, shall we rest content with this
sense of self and not seek deeper? A few
may do this, but there comes a time when
this view of the self becomes too limited
and we cry, as did Job of old, “Oh
that I knew where I might find Him! that
I might come even to His seat!”
There is a self-seeking that is not to be
condemned but is an exercise of the soul
to be applauded. It is the yearning of
the best in us for the best in the
universe, a thirsting of the soul after
God which is likened by the Psalmist to
the painting of a hart after the water
brook. Mystics in all ages assure us that
he who knows himself in the highest and
most spiritual sense knows God, and that
he who knows God as the result of this
self-knowledge on a spiritual plane,
knows all that is worth knowing.
It is for
this reason that Solomon, the wise, says,
“With all thy wisdom
(intellectuality) get
understanding,” which understanding
is an inner conviction of the Truth that
man is, like God, a trinity in unity. The
Trinity in Unity of the Godhead is that
trinity in one divine Intelligence of
Life and Truth and Love, of which Man, in
the highest sense, is the three-in-one
expression of spirit, soul, and body
which Paul the Apostle expressly prays
may be “sanctified
wholly.” Not only is the
spirit of man, which is the highest
degree of spiritualized consciousness,
and the [60] soul, which corresponds to
mind’s capacity to appropriate
Truth, to be preserved, but the body
itself is to come under this preserving
power of God, expressing itself through
that transparency of Thought which comes
as the result of knowing that,
“There is nothing true but
God.”
If we can
accept the theory that the soul is the
thinking faculty of the individual, we
can also accept the theory that the
spirit is this thinking faculty operating
at its highest level, or at that point
where it contacts with the Universal
Spirit of all, or the Oversoul, as
Emerson terms it. On the other hand,
admitting that the soul is the thinking
faculty, we can understand that the body
is that thinking faculty operating at its
lowest level. This, then, resolves the
body into Thought, and because it
is thought expressed in shape, we
can assume that Thought may exercise
dominion over its own formation, on the
principle that that which creates, can
recreate.
One ought
not to find it very difficult to imagine
oneself to be a trinity of spirit, soul
and body if one will take the trouble to
analyze one’s own emotions. Under
the influence of an exalted emotion, from
any cause whatsoever, it is possible for
the soul, or mind, to become transported
to such heights of consciousness as to
be, for the time being at least, utterly
oblivious of the body with all its
so-called sensations. On the other hand,
it is possible for the soul, or mind, to
operate at such a low level that it is
conscious of nothing but the body, with
its so-called pleasures [61] and pains.
But such a state is spoken of by Paul as
that of being “carnally
minded,” the consequence of which
is death. It must not be inferred that
the body is a thing to be despised; it
needs merely to be dominated and made to
serve the highest impulses of the mind
instead of the lowest.
Someone has
likened the average man to a three-story
house, the occupant of which lives for
the most part in the basement, but there
is no reason why he should continue to
dwell in that region, neither should he
be content always to dwell even on the
parlor floor, for there are those
up-stairs regions to which one, with just
a little effort, may ascend and find rest
and refreshment. It is in the upper
stories of our being that we find that of
us which surpasses all merely human
conceptions of the self, for it is there,
in that “dome of the temple of God
in man,” that Thought rises like a
sweet incense, or like smoke from the
fire, to the most exalted perception of
man’s unity with his Maker. It is
on this high eminence of spiritualized
vision that one sees how vast is the
range of Pure Thought.
Like a
sunbeam which may be extended
indefinitely, but which cannot be
separated from the sun which gives it
birth, so Pure Thought extends itself to
that celestial range where “Mind
communes with mind,” where God
speaks with every man as He spoke with
Moses. And then down from this mount of
revelation Pure Thought extends itself to
those outermost bounds of human [62]
experience where sin and sorrow blind men
to their true natures, to that real self
“which knows no sin.” Living
in the basement, or on a level with the
body, we are like those fishes in the
Mammoth Cave which have eyes but see not.
But as we come out on to the roof garden
of our mental homes where the view is
unobstructed by the ceiling of
separation, we are able to see “God
as He is” and to perceive that
“we are like Him.”
It is when
the last shred of belief in separation
from God is torn asunder that we
“see as we are seen of Him That
created us,” and it is at this
point of our spiritual unfoldment that we
can say with Jesus, “I and my
Father are one.” This is the place
in Thought where one cannot say where
Divine Mind, or God, ends and Its idea,
Man, begins. May it not be that there is
no such line of demarcation, and that the
Self which is God merges into the Self
which is Man, as the dawn merges into
daylight without any break whatsoever? At
the point where the Christ is seen to be
the only and real self of man, where
Divine Mind and its Idea are as
inseparable as warmth is inseparable from
the fire which generates heat, there is
perpetual tranquility. In this region of
one’s being there is no disease and
no discord, for it is that “kingdom
of heaven” about which John was
thinking when he said, “There is
nothing in it that maketh or worketh a
lie.”
It is a
great step in the direction of a true
mental or spiritual healing to discover
that man, [63] in his real nature, is now
a spiritual being, and that all that is
necessary is to become conscious of this
Truth, for it is this Truth that frees us
from all the evil consequences of
believing ourselves to be something else.
Once we establish the conviction in our
own minds that we are the children
of God, with all that is implied in this
spiritual relationship, then we have a
foundation to build upon which is the
rock of Realization of eternal Principle,
and not the sand of human
speculation.
Like the
prodigal in the parable of Jesus who
“came to himself,” we must
come to that Self of us, and the Self of
all, which, like our Heavenly Father, is
the same “yesterday, and today, and
forever.” Through divine
understanding we must form such a Holy
Alliance with God that “No evil
shall befall us, neither shall any plague
come nigh our dwelling,” for is it
not written that we “live and move
and have our being” in Him in Whom
no evil is? As a child in the womb of its
mother is one with the mother, so man is
one with God from Whom “nothing
shall by any means separate”
him.
Chapter
6
* * * * *
The Realm of Reality
Table of
Contents
(Formerly at
Northwoods Divine Science Resource
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