At other times the same Hebrews decided to adopt the gods of their neighboring tribes, the pagans around them.  Always they had to be whipped back into worshipping one God because human nature is that way, you know sometimes we are that way now in metaphysics, if we don’t think our practitioner is healing us fast enough we get another one to help along, and then sometimes a third one.  It is the same idea you see.  The one God can’t do it, let’s have two.

Now, throughout all history there have been mystics.  There have been five major mystics each of whom gave the same teaching; the teaching of Krishna, the teaching of Lao Tzu, the teaching of Gautama the Buddha, the teaching of Jesus Christ.  All of these agree on one thing and that is there is no such thing as a God—that God actually is the soul of man, the consciousness of man. That’s why we speak of the Buddha mind, or the mind that was in Christ Jesus.  If you had the mind that was in Christ Jesus, you wouldn’t need any other God, and you wouldn’t have to do any praying because you would be healing the multitudes and feeding the multitudes without any prayers. In fact you would be saying to the sick and the sinning, “What did hinder you?  Pick up your bed and walk.”  You never heard Jesus praying to God to heal anyone, or to feed one, or even to forgive them their sins. Oh, no. “I forgive you.  Thy sins are forgiven.”

Now you see the secret of all mystics is the same: The kingdom of God is within you.  The question then arises: “The kingdom of God is within me, and it is this kingdom of God that is within me that is to make my life practical, demonstrably happy, healthy, wealthy, wise, successful, but what is my approach to that Spirit of God within me, that consciousness of God within me, that God consciousness or Christ consciousness, what is my approach to it?” And the answer is one word, “Prayer.”  But in order to understand that word, you must first forget all that you have ever been taught about prayer, because if what you have been taught about prayer was true, none of us would be here in this room tonight.  That prayer would be taking care of each and everyone of us bountifully and beautifully.  The only reason we are here is the prayers of our childhood, and the prayers of our churches, did not fulfill their promise. And the answer is in the Bible also: If you pray amiss, it won’t work.  To start on this mystical life you will have to acknowledge that you have been praying amiss.

Now, you will not take my word for what is prayer in spite of what it has done for me and what it has done for the tens of thousands of families who have adopted this way of prayer, because I’ve said this to many classes, the most dangerous path you can fall into is the path of faith.  Heaven help you if you have faith in anything.  Sooner or later you are going to regret it.  And I have never yet asked anyone to have faith in what I have said, taught, or written.  I merely present this as my experience and the experience of those who have been following in that way. But for you, I present it with the opportunity that you may try it, experiment and see where it gets you.  You see, faith means having faith in something or somebody.  And there isn’t anybody that you have any right to have faith in whatsoever.  It is a dangerous path.  Faith in an unknown God is a very dangerous path; faith in anything unknown is a dangerous path.  The Master does not say have faith in the unknown, but he says, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  But ye shall know the truth.  And you can try the spirits too and see whether they work.

Now, this is the most important part of the entire mystical path—to know God aright; to know the nature of God.  It will do you no good to have faith in God; it will do you no good to believe in God; it will do you no good to rest back and say, “Let God do it.”  It is really a scriptural truth, a mystical truth, that you must know God aright if you want life eternal.  You must know God aright.  Nothing less will do.

Now let us see about God—the presence of God that is in you and in me. Let us see if we can discover its nature so that we will know how to pray aright.  The prayer of a righteous man availeth much. It doesn’t mean necessarily the prayer of a moral, or the prayer of a churchy man because the Master said that John the Baptist was the greatest of the Hebrew prophets but he wasn’t going to get into heaven.  He did not understand God; he had blind faith.  He had an emotional faith, but no understanding.  And so he said, “The least of these will get into heaven before even that great Hebrew prophet.”   You must know God aright.

Now let us see: Scripture reveals that the nature of God is omniscience which means all wisdom.  And if this should be true, if this should be true that God is omniscience, the all wise, the all knowing, then it must mean that we have no right to tell God anything—that He already knows our needs.  And that any prayer that has in it anything of the nature of telling God, must be an erroneous sense of prayer—a mistaken sense; it must be praying amiss.  Even to tell God that we are praying for Mrs. Jones or Brown or Smith or whether we are praying for Mr. Jones’ business—it’s all nonsense, because if God is omniscience God knows what we are praying for before we start to pray.  The mere fact that we are going to close our eyes in prayer, God is there before us in all-knowingness. Therefore, we need not speak or think one single word. Now remember, to think one word or to speak one word is to violate prayer; it is to pray amiss.  We have to go to God—close our eyes with the realization: “God in the midst of me is omniscience—the all knowing.”

Then we further learn in scripture that God is omnipresence.  Now you know this is a tremendous thing because you don’t have to go to Jerusalem; you don’t have to go to Rome; you don’t have to go to a synagogue; you don’t have to go to a church.  As a matter of fact, if you are lost in a desert or if you are in a rubber boat out in the ocean, you don’t have to go anywhere.  God is already there as omnipresence.  It doesn’t make any difference which room you are in in your home: living room, bedroom, bathroom, out in the garden—it makes no difference because wherever you are the presence of God got there just before you, or at least came with you.  Yes! Came with you because the presence of God is in you.  “The kingdom of God is within you.”  Therefore wherever thou art, I am.  Wherever I am, thou art.  If you mount up to heaven, you will find the Spirit of God is there with you.  If temporarily, you are making your bed in hell, turn within and you will find that the Spirit of God is there with you.  And if you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, turn within and you will find that the Spirit of God is there with you.  And then, even if you should be a little late and find that you are dead, you will discover that neither life nor death has been able to separate you from God, for “I and the Father are one.”  You mean that isn’t practical to know that I cannot get outside of God’s presence?  I cannot get outside of God’s grace—in heaven and hell and sin and disease and death.  Even the woman taken in adultery wasn’t outside the presence of God, for neither did I condemn her.

Do you see the practical nature of mysticism—that you cannot escape God as long as you are not praying to God for yourself, your children, your neighbors, or for any thing.  As long as you are not praying for health or supply or companionship; as long as you are merely praying, “Thank you Father for omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence.”  We nearly missed omnipotence didn’t we?

Do you know what separates all prayer from fulfillment?  Expecting God to be a power over your sins and diseases and lacks.  And if God is omnipotence there are not such powers for Him to be a power over.  Therefore looking to God for power is enough to separate you from divine grace.  If  God is omnipotent, how can you fear sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation, when you have the opportunity of praying, “God the all knowing, God the omnipresent, God the omnipotent,” and then turn over and go to sleep and let the truth make you free.  Don’t try to manipulate the truth into making you free.  Just know I in the midst of thee am mighty, and let that truth work.  You know we pray and then try to put the prayer at work, and then try to harness God up.  Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Oh, I’m so sorry to tell you that it’s all over.  It is a shame really and truly.  I haven’t started.  So I will say good night and I hope you will come back and let me finish tomorrow because I am just bubbling with it.

Thank you.