And here you would see what would happen to you as you went through an entire day in that way leaning not on your own understanding for whatever it is you are to be called on to do, but remembering always that the presence of God in you is your wisdom, your intelligence, your love. The presence of God in you is your safety and your security and your inner peace. The presence of God within you is the cement in all of your human relationships.

In other words, it is that spiritual bond that exists between all of us. There is only one thing that keeps us at peace in this room. There is only one thing that keeps a relationship of love between us, only one thing that keeps a spirit of sharing between us, and that is the presence of God. If it weren’t for the presence of God we would be about seventy-five individuals, each one living his own life, each one responsible only to himself, each one not caring for the other, each one not sharing with the other, each one concerned only with getting, receiving, achieving. But, the presence of God in our midst changes that entire relationship to one of sharing, one of communing, one of helping each other in whatever way the spirit may direct.

In other words, we can always maintain a spirit of love, a spirit of harmony, a spirit of peace and prosperity among ourselves merely because of our continued recognition of the presence of God in the midst of us.

Now, we can go forth from this room and carry that same spirit with us by the same means—taking these two Bible passages and living with them, moving with them, having our being in them, thereby exemplifying a passage of the Christian scripture: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God…Every spiritual truth. And you see the use of those first two passages is a fulfillment of the third.

In other words, by living with the first two passages we would now demonstrate and prove that we are no longer living just by means of our salary or the food we eat or the families we have, but now there is another factor that has entered our lives, and that is a spiritual grace, which has come about because of our living with every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Well, it would only be a short time until—actually you can’t help a smile coming to you—when this passage, all of a sudden, comes into your thought and you understand it, I have meat the world knows not of. Doesn’t that make you smile now, when you think what the Master meant. I live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and that word of God which I am entertaining in consciousness now becomes my meat, and my drink, my substance, my staff of life on which I can lean.

Oh, you see that scripture really fits into a pattern once you begin to understand that these passages of scripture were given to us for the purpose of developing that spiritual consciousness, or testifying to what happens in the life of an individual when they have attained some measure of that spiritual light.

There are several of the Hindu religious teachings which have a practice that they call “Ramnam,” and it means, “name of God,” and the practice itself consists of a continuous repetition of the word “God.” An individual, from waking in the morning until sleeping at night, repeats over and over and over just God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, to such an extent that even when they are conducting business, even when they are reading or studying, regardless of what they may be physically and mentally doing, there is a little area of consciousness back there that is repeating over and over and over again: God, God, God. In other words, they are keeping alive in them the conscious recognition of the presence of God.

There is, however, a fault with that, and that is, if one isn’t careful, the repetition of the name can become hypnotic, and a person can really believe there is some power in the word “God,” and I have witnessed this too often. The whole of reality, the whole of the world disappears from some people who attempt this, because they get hypnotized with just the repetition of a word.

There is a mystical Russian order that has the same premise, only they take it in a different form. They have a short prayer that is called the “Prayer of Jesus,” and they repeat this “Prayer of Jesus” over and over and over again, not only hundreds of times a day, but thousands of times a day. No matter what they are doing, there is an area back here in which this “Prayer of Jesus” is repeated and repeated and repeated.

And again, in spite of its good quality, it has the drawback of becoming hypnotic, of actually hypnotizing a person to the extent where they’re not thinking it anymore. It’s really become a part of the subconscious activity, and begins to lose its effect. But the purpose of it is good, the same as the purpose of “Ramnam” is good, because it is the same purpose that we have in the use of our spiritual passages. With the use of our scriptural passages there is no possibility of any self‑hypnosis taking place, or any mesmeric sense, because we do not fasten on to one particular word or passage and let it become hypnotic. We take the circumstance as it may arise in our day’s experience and bring to conscious remembrance a particular passage that may apply to that situation. In other words, there is nothing hypnotic or mesmeric or as the Master warned against, vain repetitions, in this.

In this, it is more on this line: If a particular problem presents itself to me that at the moment seems a little difficult, I can bring to conscious remembrance: He performeth that which is given me to do; He perfecteth that which concerneth me. And I can relax in that assurance that there is a He and that if I am just still, this He that is within me will supply me with the answer to this problem, or even do more than this, work it out for me.

In the same way that at times we are presented with problems that have to do with time and space, and immediately we know that I of my own self could never accomplish this with the time that is at hand, or with the space that is involved. And so we call to conscious remembrance the truth that there is a spiritual presence that goes before me to make the crooked places straight. The spiritual presence is not confined to time or space and therefore, can be instantaneously in any part of the globe, at the same moment that I am thinking that this presence goes before me to make the crooked places straight.

We come, sometimes, to legal matters, matters which have to do with courts, and here too we remember instantly that justice and truth are not qualities of man, but of God, and for us to look to man whose breath is in his nostril for justice, for equity, for truth, for love, would be—well, it would be an error. It would be a sin, because we have no right to expect truth from man. We have no right to expect justice from man, for these are properties and qualities of God.

And therefore, if we are to go into a court of law, let us go in with the realization that God alone is the source of justice. God is the source of law. God is the means and mode and activity through which and as which truth and love appear. Then we find that these qualities come through a judge or jury or witnesses, whereas left to man whose breath is in his nostrils they could very well be withheld.

So it is, you see, that we are the very opposite of being hypnotized by a statement. We are always alert for a particular truth, for some particular facet of truth that will apply to this particular situation with which we are faced.