Bread Of Life To You – [The Impersonal Life by Joseph Brenner]
During the latter ages you have been, as it were, gradually throwing off layer after layer of human consciousness, dissipating the mist or glamour thrown around your mind by the intellect; subduing, controlling, spiritualizing, and thus clarifying the intellect itself; until now you are beginning to awaken and to see, through the ever thinning remaining layers, occasional glimpses of Me, the one Great Reality, within all things.
Just as an artist sees in his mind the perfect picture he wants to paint, but his hand cannot quite portray with the crude mediums of brush and color the true quality and effect he sees, so do You see Me within Your Self and know We are One, but always are prevented, by the imperfection of the earthly material of your human personality, with its animal body, its mortal mind, and selfish intellect, from perfectly expressing Me.
Yet, I created your body, mind and intellect, in order to express My Self through you. The body I made in the Image of My Perfection; the mind I gave to inform you of Me and My works; the intellect I gave to interpret My Idea as I inspired it to the mind. But you have been so distracted by the human phases of this body, mind and intellect, and their outer uses, that you have forgotten Me, the One and Only Reality within, Whose Divine nature I AM ever seeking to express to and through you.
The time is soon here when the outward uses shall no longer distract, and My Reality shall be revealed unto you in all the glory of Its perfection within You. You, when I thus reveal My Self, shall not be more blessed than before, unless that which I have revealed shall become the Bread of Life to you, and you shall live and manifest the Life It reveals.
Now I have purposely not stated clearly all the how and why of these things; for I have reserved for you, when you call upon Me so to do, and are capable of receiving it, an inspiration from within with a far more comprehensive vision of the unfoldment and development of My Divine Idea, and Its final perfected expression, than is herein pictured.
Then and then only, when nothing of the personal consciousness remains to prevent My filling you full to overflowing with the consciousness of Me, can I point out to you the glories of My Real Meaning, for which this whole Message is but the outer preparation.
Just so will You soon be thinking My Thoughts, and be conscious that I AM speaking within directly to your human consciousness, and you will then no longer have to come to this or to any other of My outer Revelations, either spoken or written, in order to perceive My Meaning. For AM I not within You, and AM I not You, and are You not One with Me, Who live in and express through the consciousness of all minds, knowing all things?
All that remains for you to do is to enter into the All-consciousness of My Mind and abide there with Me, even as I abide within My Idea in Your Mind. Then all things shall be Yours, as they now are Mine, being but the outer expression of My Idea, and existing only by reason of the consciousness I gave them when I thought them into being. It is all a matter of consciousness — of your conscious thinking.
You are separated from Me only because you think you are. Your mind is but a focal point of My Mind. If you but knew it, what you call your consciousness is My Consciousness. You cannot even think, much less breathe or exist without My Consciousness being in you, — Can you not see it?
Well, then, think, believe you are I, that We are not separated, that We could not possibly be separated; for WE are ONE, — I within You, and You within Me,
Think this is so; determinedly image it as so; and verily the moment you are conscious of this, that moment are you with Me in Heaven. You are what you believe you are. Not one thing in your life is Real or has any value to you only as your thinking and believing has made it such.
Therefore, think no more you are separated from Me, and abide with Me in the Impersonal Realm, where all Power, all Wisdom, and all Love, the threefold nature of My Idea, but await expression through You.
Now I have spoken much of this, and have apparently said the same thing more than once, but in different words. I have done this purposely, presenting My Meaning in different lights, that you might finally be brought to comprehend My Divine Impersonality, which is in Reality Your Impersonality. Yes, I have repeated and will continue to repeat many Truths, and you may think it tedious and unnecessary; but if you will read carefully you will find that each time I repeat a Truth I always add something to what has already been said, and that each time a stronger and more lasting impression is made upon your mind.
This done, My purpose has been accomplished, and you will soon come into a Soul realization of that Truth. If you receive not such impression and still think such repetition a useless waste of words and time, know that your intellect only is reading, and that My real meaning has altogether escaped you. You, however, who do comprehend, will love every word, and will read and re-read many times, and consequently will receive all the wondrous Pearls of Wisdom I have held in reserve for you.
These words and their message will be to you hereafter merely a fount of inspiration, or a door through which you will be enabled to enter into the Impersonal estate and to hold sweet communion with Me, your Father in Heaven, when I will teach you all things you desire to know.
I have been picturing the Impersonal estate from many viewpoints, in order that it may become so familiar that you can unerringly distinguish it from all inferior states, and may learn to dwell consciously in it at will.
When you can consciously dwell in it so that My Words when and wherever spoken can always find lodgment and understanding in your mind, then will I permit you to use certain faculties I have been awakening in you. These faculties will enable you more and more clearly to see the Reality of things, not only the beautiful and lovely qualities in the personalities of those about you, but their weaknesses, faults and shortcomings, as well.
But the reason you are enabled to see these faults and shortcomings, is not that you may criticize or judge your brother, but that I may arouse in you a definite resolve to overcome such faults and shortcomings in your own personality. For, mark you! — You would take no note of them in others were they not still in your self; for I within, then would not need to call them to your attention.
As all things are for use, and use only, let us study the use you have hitherto made of other faculties, gifts and powers I have given you.
You must realize by this time I have allowed you all things. All you have, or are, be it of good or evil, of blessing or suffering, of success or failure, of riches or lack, I have allowed you or attracted to you. — Why? For USE — in awakening you to a recognition and acknowledgment of Me as The Giver.
You could not honestly acknowledge Me as such until you knew I AM, The Giver. Your personality, in fact, had become so engrossed in trying to get rid of or to exchange many of the things I had given you for other things you thought were better, that of course you could not even dream, much less acknowledge, Me, Your Own Self, as The Giver.
Possibly you do now acknowledge Me as The Giver, as the Inner Essence and Creator of all things in your world and in your life, even of your present attitude toward these things.
Both are My doing, for they are but the outer phases of the process I AM using in the expression of My Idea of your inner Perfection, which Perfection being My Perfection is gradually unfolding from within you.
As you more and more realize this, will the true meaning and use of the things, conditions and experiences I send be revealed unto you. For you will then begin to glimpse My Idea within, and when you glimpse that Idea will you begin to know Me — you own Real Self.
Before you can truly know Me, however, you must learn that all things I give you are Good — and that they are for use, My use, — and that you personally have no interest in or actual right to them, and they are of no real benefit to you, only as you put them to such use.
I may be expressing through you beautiful symphonies of sound, color or language, that manifest as music, art or poetry, according to human terminology, and which so affect others as to cause them to acclaim you as one of the great ones of the day.
I may be speaking through your mouth or inspiring you to write many beautiful Truths, which may be attracting to you many followers, who hail you as a most wonderful preacher or teacher.
I may even be healing through you diverse diseases, casting out devils, making the blind to see and the lame to walk, and performing other marvelous works which the world calls miracles.
Yes, all these I may be doing through you, but of absolutely no benefit is any of it to you personally, unless you use and apply these harmonies of sound in your every spoken word, so that to all hearers they will seem as the sweet music of heaven; and unless your sense of color and proportion so manifests in your life that only kind, uplifting, helpful thoughts flow from you, proving that the only true art is that of seeing clearly My Perfection in all My human expressions, and of allowing the quickening power of My Love to pour through you into their heart, picturing to their inner vision My Image hidden therein.
Likewise no credit attaches to you, no matter what wonderful Truths I speak or works I perform through you, unless you, yourself, live these Truths, daily, hourly; and make these works serve as a constant reminder of Me and My Power, which I ever pour out freely for you, My Beloved, and for all, to use in My Service. You, to whom I have apparently given none of such gifts and who deem yourself unworthy and not yet advanced enough to serve Me in such ways, — to you I would say:
Just to the extent that you truly recognize Me within and seek in real earnestness to serve Me, just to that extent will I use you — no matter what your personality, no matter what its faults, tendencies and weaknesses.
Yes, I will cause even you who thus seek to serve Me to do many wondrous things towards the quickening and awakening of your brothers to a like acknowledgment of Me. I will cause even you to influence and affect the lives of many of those whom you contact, inspiring and uplifting them to higher ideals, changing their way of thinking and their attitude towards their fellows and therefore towards Me.
Yes, all you who seek to serve Me, no matter what your gifts, will I make to be a vital force for good in the community, altering the mode of life of many, inspiring and molding their ambitions and aspirations, and altogether becoming a leavening influence in the midst of the worldly activities in which I will place you.
You at the time will probably know nothing of this. You may even be still longing to serve Me, and hungering for a more intimate consciousness of Me, thinking you are doing nothing, are still making many mistakes and failing to live up to your highest ideals of Me; not realizing that this longing and hungering is the avenue through which I pour forth My Spiritual Power, which being wholly Impersonal, is used by you, unconscious of its being I within you using it, to bring about My Purpose in your heart and life and in the hearts and lives of My and Your other Selves.
So, as you finally grow into the realization of all this, as you surely will, and prove it by the practical use of all you have in My service, wiil I gradually give you the strength and ability to consciously to use Impersonally My Power, My Wisdom, and My Love, in the expression of My Divine Idea, which is eternally striving to manifest through You Its Perfection.
Therefore will you soon see that your human personality, with all its faculties, powers and possessions, which are in reality Mine operating and manifesting through you, is likewise for My use wholly, and that true success and satisfaction can never be found except in such use.
For such use develops, as the planted seed develops the harvest, the ability consciously to use all My Spiritual faculties in the final perfect expression of My Idea, which can be expressed only through your human personality.