REBIRTH
Rev. Joseph Murphy, Ph.D.
Excerpt from:
THIS IS IT: The Art of
Metaphysical Demonstration
Church of Divine Science
Los Angeles, 3rd ed., 1948 Revised
It is often
asked, “Why do we have dictators,
despots and tyrants in the world?”
These are extensions in space of the
dictator complex present in the hearts
and minds of all human beings. Instead of
trying to force our opinions on others,
we must learn how to change ourselves and
we will change the world.
What is the
world? The world is ourselves in
agregation. Napoleon still lives,
Ghenghis Khan still lives, as do Caesar
and all others. They live in the
consciousness of the race. Our boys and
girls learn about them at their
mother’s knees, at school and in
college. They burn with resentment and
rage at the apparent wrongs committed by
these men. They read avidly of the
crimes, atrocities, and acts of violence.
These states are impressed on their
subconscious minds. All of these moods,
feelings and thoughts which are
entertained become objectified as living
realities. Moreover, these boys and girls
suffer from nightmares, hysteria and
various complexes because these moods of
fear, hate, anger and resentment become
the ghosts that walk the gloomy galleries
of their minds.
Living in
these states of mind--dwelling on
dictators and tyrants, realizing that
whatever is impressed in consciousness
must be expressed in the world--man
should not be surprised when these
tyrants of the past are reborn into our
society, because we actually call them
forth. It is true in a sense, therefore,
that Ghenghis Khan is reborn or
reincarnated. He is an embodiment of the
state of consciousness of the people,
nation, race or world, whatever the case
may be. The reader will see, that it is
not a man who lived a thousand or two
thousand years ago who is being reborn.
It is a state of consciousness that is
born again.
When a
mother places a child on her knee;
whispers in his ear that he is God
walking the earth and tells him that he
can do all that Jesus did, she is seeing
her boy as God had planned. If the mother
believes her statements, her belief will
be automatically transferred to the
child’s subjective consciousness,
and he will become her ideal. “I
was young, now I am old, yet never have I
seen the righteous forsaken nor their
seed beg bread.” If parents live
the Law, if teachers teach the Law of
life--the Truth of Being to the young;
then their seed shall never beg bread.
This means these children shall never
become the beggars, outcasts, thieves and
tyrants of the world. No, they shall
fulfill the ideals of the parents. They
must fulfill the prayer of the parents
because true prayer is always
answered.
If parents
will impress their subjective minds with
wonderful dreams for their boys and
girls, then according to their
belief, “will it be done
unto them.” By changing our
opinions, beliefs, ideas and ideals by
teaching the youth of the nation who they
really are, by showing them the way, the
truth and the light, we can build the
Kingdom of Heaven on earth; then we will
prevent the rebirth of dictators,
despots--former undesirable states of
consciousness--which are perpetuated by
prejudices, racial hatreds and fear of
the unknown.
Let us teach
children of the great accomplishments of
the poets, artists, engineers, chemists,
physicists, astronomers and others. Let
them emulate these great men. There is so
much for a child to learn about the great
writers of the world and the giants of
world literature, that the beautiful
works of man cannot be exhausted in what
is ordinarily called “a
lifetime.” After he is taught good,
the child will emulate good.
In reality
we are all dreaming; when man fully
awakens he knows that planets are
thoughts, suns and moons are thoughts,
and his own consciousness is the space
which sustains them all. He begins to
realize that the whole world is a
thought. For example, he becomes aware of
the fact that the body is not real, but
it is a thought or idea held in
consciousness. The body has no life apart
from consciousness. He realizes that
there is absolutely no reality to matter
or the body of man; it is a group of
ideas and opinions. Man gives life to
ideas and opinions as long as he believes
them. When he disbelieves the errors,
these ideas have no life in them.
Man was
never born and he will never die. There
is no death. Death is an idea that exists
in the minds of men. As long as man
believes in death, he must witness and
experience it. Man has no beginning and
no end; he always was, just as God always
was, is and shall be. “God and man
are one.” “I am my Father are
one.”
The man who
is always quoting so-called authorities
to prove the modern theories of
reincarnation is himself without
authority. He is still crying in the
wilderness and calling other men masters
and adepts. Call no man master.
“Salute no man on the
highway.” Salute the God within.
The Kingdom of God is within, and if
someone tells you it is “Lo here;
lo there,” believe him not. The
Kingdom of Heaven is within man.
Where is the
Truth? It is within yourself.
“Look within--search the
Scriptures,” said Jesus. This means
that all has been written in your
subjective mind “from the
foundation.” All knowledge is
within; all wisdom is within; all beings
that ever lived are within you
now. You can project the likeness
of any living being, past or present; for
all men are states of
consciousness--qualities of mind
expressed. All moods, tones, qualities
and vibrations are within you, because
God is within and He cannot be
divided--all is contained in the
part. Christ cannot be divided, and
Christ means consciousness. The
subjective Self of man--the Christos or
Christ-man, the so-called Jesus Christ or
God-man knows all men are within himself.
He knows that, objectively speaking, all
beings are projections in space of
himself--the One Man.
Are there
not thousands of cases over the world of
men who have completely lost their former
identity and personality; assumed new
lives; entered different professions, and
in many cases even remarried? These men
were victims of amnesia, or loss of
memory concerning their former selves.
They could not remember their former
wives or children. They had no
recollection of their former professions
or occupations. They assumed a new role
in life. They were changed men entirely,
because they had changed their
consciousness. There is only
consciousness!
Let us stop
quoting authorities on spiritual
subjects. As long as we quote
authorities, we cease to be THE
authority. All power is given to us in
Heaven and on earth. Let us use it. In
the spiritual sense we are all victims of
amnesia. We have forgotten who we
really are, and we tell ourselves
that we are worms of the dust.
Take, for
example, a man who goes to sleep and when
he awakens he has completely forgotten
who he is, and gravitates to the slums.
His social world becomes the slums. His
friends, knowing what has happened, try
to coax him back to his former status.
Because of amnesia his former way of life
is entirely blotted from his memory. He
believes his place is in the slums; he
only smiles at these old acquaintances
whom he no longer knows. He accepts as
true the role he now plays.
The day
comes when his memory is restored and he
awakens to his rightful status. With
certainty and promptness he returns to
the environment consonant with the
dignity of his upbringing. He wonders why
he is in the slums. What has transpired
is all a dream, a dream of the unreality.
“Awake thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall
give thee light.” (Eph. 5:14). Let
us awake to the Real and return to our
Father’s house. “Every one
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,
and he that hath no money; come ye, buy,
and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk
without money and without price.”
(Is. 55:1)
Man does not
have to become a victim of amnesia in
order to change his consciousness. He can
read the 10th Chapter of Samuel, book I,
and learn how he can be turned into
another man. This is accomplished through
prayer. Take the story of the boy born of
lowly parents, in a manger, having all
the handicaps socially and financially
that any child could have at that period
in history. It was said, “Can there
anything good come out of
Nazareth?” (St.John 1:46). The word
“Nazareth” symbolizes to
sprout or grow, and man should be ever
watchful not to despise the day of small
beginnings.
This boy
Jesus walked the earth and imagined
himself to be the perfect man, capable of
seeing only perfection in everything. He
felt the reality of the wish within him
and it became a conviction. Having
imagined the state he wished, and having
felt the reality of the state imagined,
all the necessary qualities for the
fulfillment of that state came from
within himself. They were always there,
but they had to be recognized before they
became manifest in the world of man. This
boy did as Samuel said man should do,
which was, “Go up into the Hill of
God--thou shalt meet a company of
prophets coming down from the high place
playing music, and thou shalt prophesy
with them,--and shalt be turned into
another man.” (Sa. 10:5)
The Hill is
a high state of consciousness; the other
prophets represent the eternal trinity
employed in the creation of all
things--consciousness, idea and the
joyous feeling or conviction that it is
done. The “feeling” is the
conviction that unites consciousness
desiring with the thing desired. The
joy of answered prayer is the music of
the three prophets. It is the inner
silent knowing of the soul. Therefore,
any man can turn his back completely on
the past;--forget all the old beliefs and
foolish ideas of the race mind; enter
into the joyous thrill of being Jesus
(saving consciousness) and do his work.
If he remains faithful to this mood and
sustains it, he will automatically
develop all the qualities necessary to do
“even greater work.”
The story of
Jesus is a portrayal of what all men
should be. It is a complete refutation of
all age-old beliefs regarding man’s
handicaps of race, national origin,
environment and circumstance. All these
things are as naught when man discovers
who he really is; so let us keep our eyes
on God. It is there, where man sees no
obstacle. When he takes his eyes off God,
or his good, he sees his limitations and
obstacles. NOW is the day of salvation;
let us see the light now; for God is the
Eternal Now--since time is an illusion of
the senses. The awakening takes place
now.
We know that
everything exists in the Infinite. There
is nothing that any man can think of, no
matter how fantastic, that does not
already subsist in the Infinite. It may
be said to exist when we acknowledge it
or witness it. Nothing is made;
nothing becomes; all is and all is
God. We are wedded to the belief in
time, so we conceive of ourselves
conditioned by time. Yet the Bible tells
us, “For a thousand years in thy
sight are but as yesterday when it is
past, and as a watch in the night.”
(Ps. 90:4)
If time is a
belief, which it really is, the common
belief of reincarnation cannot be true.
The theory tastes good and looks good,
but let our prayer be: “lead us not
into temptation.” God tempts no
man, but our conscious mind and five
senses are tempted to believe this false
doctrine. It becomes a panacea assuaging
our wounded pride or feeling of
inferiority. Moreover, it causes us to
turn back or tempts us to eat of it.
“But in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die,”
because we are eating of the fruit of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil. This
tree means world belief, power in other
gods hence the breaking of the first
Commandment, “Thou shalt have no
other Gods before me.”
We must eat
of the tree in the midst of the garden,
which is man’s consciousness--God
dwelling within him giving all power to
Him. We “eat” of Him by
taking part in a psychological feast of
being a noble, dignified and Christ-like
person. We must see the Christ in all
men, sermons in stones and good in
everything. When we do this, all other
things shall be added unto us.
Man’s life on this plane is like
the several stanzas of a poem or the
scenes of a play, because it really is
the One Being dramatizing Himself as the
many. Common sense is the most uncommon
sense, because it is God’s or good
sense. Wisdom or common sense teaches
that illumination or the great awakening
to our Godhead can happen here and now.
“If it be not now, yet it will
come; the readiness is all.”
In order to
elucidate this point, take a solid,
metallic substance and heat it. The
temperature rises, but for a while it
looks as if no change were taking place.
However, the moment that degree of heat
is reached, which denotes its melting
point, it begins to liquify, thus
changing its shape and seemingly its
nature also. Likewise, water can be
turned into steam which is
invisible--pure steam cannot be seen.
Water also becomes snow, ice and
hail--all different rates of vibration of
the one substance. When a liquid is
changed into a gas, these changes are
brought about by an increase in the
rapidity of vibration of the constituent
particles whether they are solid or
liquid. The same applies to man. What is
true on one plane is true on another, for
God changes not. The rebirth comes to
that man here and now--not in the after
life. There is no transforming power in
death. Man raises his rate of vibration
by lifting himself up to a high state of
awareness, by entering into the thrill of
being that which he longs to be, and by
feeling the joy of accomplishment.
Man is a
porous being, plastic and pliable,
capable of being moulded into any state
he can imagine. He is nothing but
“liquid light.” In the
meditative mood he stills the mind,
thereby immobilizing the senses by
focussing his attention exclusively on
the one ideal--only one. He suggests
sleep to himself by feeling sleepy, being
careful not to fall asleep, however; the
mystic in meditation must always keep
control. In this mood he knows, feels and
sees himself as being bathed in a sea of
liquid light. A flame or lights appear
all around him and he knows that in this
floating liquid state he can mould,
fashion and shape all that he longs to
be, to do and to possess.
In this
state he contemplates the joy of the
answered prayer. The feeling of
accomplishment fills him, and he dwells
on the reality of his desire for perhaps
five minutes, two minutes or ten minutes.
By constantly praying in this manner,
there is an expansion of
consciousness--it is like the heat that
melts the solid. The day comes when man
melts away all inhibitions, fears and
doubts, and becomes the God man here and
now. To such a man, physical laws and
time disappear. This change may come in
the twinkling of an eye like the
volatilization of a liquid into a
gas.
The reason
the modern theory of reincarnation is
popular is because man, using his five
senses only, is like the five foolish
virgins--he has no oil or wisdom in his
lamps. He finds that this explanation
gives him solace and tells him what he
wants to hear. At the same time it seems
to unfold many unexplained phenomena.
Such acceptance retards spiritual
progress, checks the awakening process
and is a destructive, superstitious
belief. The modern accepted belief in
reincarnation is very old; as is the
belief in purgatory, hell and the
devil.
The Bible
mentions reincarnation several times and
some of these references are explained in
this book. The Scripture informs us that
Herod believed in reincarnation. Herod
represents the world or the five-sense
man, the man ignorant of spiritual laws
who subscribes to tradition and family
beliefs. A man who believes that John,
Elias, or some prophet long since dead,
is risen from the dead, is symbolized by
Herod. What this type of man fails to see
is that it is always God coming forth as
a quality, tone, or mood of man
himself.
. . . . .
The worldly-minded man called Herod in
the Bible, believes in a physical
reincarnation, and he desires to see
Jesus, or the Truth as told in the ninth
chapter of Luke. However, the Truth
student will readily see that such a man
cannot see him, “as no man hath
seen the Father.” The latter is
always a subjective perception or feeling
within man. Man awakens by degrees,
slowly or quickly. On arising from bed in
the morning, he rarely awakens all at
once. It takes him a minute or so. The
thermometer, however, does not skip any
degrees. Before man fully awakens from
his dream no necessary step in unfoldment
will be omitted. All limitations and
inhibitions will be dissolved.
The
following article about the violinist
Zimbalist appeared in “The New
Yorker” some years ago:
“Nobody told Zimbalist he was
supposed to play the piano, too; during
the final examinations in his eighteenth
year, they handed him a Beethoven Sonata
to be read at sight in the presence of
the whole faculty. He had never touched a
piano except to get his ‘A’.
He sat down, however, got his breath and
played. When he finished he was told to
close the book and repeat the whole
Sonata from memory. He did so. After a
moment of silence the room broke
unanimously into applause--an unheard-of
demonstration.
The man of
the world would not conceive of this as
being possible. The power within man is
capable of setting at naught all human
beliefs and man-made laws. We must begin
to take our attention away from the
limited, human concept of ourselves; then
we shall, like Mozart, compose music at
six, statues at seven, and at the age of
twelve we will confound the wise men of
the world. Many cases are reported where
cripples invalided for years leap and run
in the presence of fires. In emergencies
mothers lift automobiles to extricate
their children. Where is this power? It
is within themselves. Fires and
emergencies are not needed to stir the
gift within. Man can do this in the quiet
of his own soul. We create in
“silence.”
* * * * *
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