Now, the sum total effect of this practice is to spiritualize the consciousness of the individual engaging in the practice. In other words, with this practice and with each use of this particular form of work, the consciousness of an individual changes to where ultimately there is left in them no fear, no hate, and no love, no attachment to the forms of life. But there is now a breaking of all sense attachments, and don’t misunderstand this. It doesn’t mean that you lose your love for your family, or your sense of obligation to your country. It doesn’t mean that. It means that you are completely free of the undue influence of the emotions. You are free of the undue attachments that we humanly form so that, ultimately, we become so passionately fearful, hateful, or loving that all reason is thrown aside, and we become victims of our own emotions, rather than having dominion over everything that is on this earth or above it or beneath it.

You see, the object of spiritual consciousness is the attainment of our original God-given dominion. We were not meant to be victims of hate or fear. We were not meant to be victims of love. We were meant to have dominion over these things, so that we could handle each emotion as it arose. We could handle each situation as it arose, and not with venom, and not with partiality, but with the justice that is not of man, but which is of God.

The Master plainly indicated that he was not sent here to be a judge over anybody, and one of the acts of spiritual consciousness is to free us from sitting in judgment; and once we have been released from sitting in judgment, we are able to see the situation as it is, and deal with it intelligently.

Now, just the practice of the one Bible passage: The place whereon I stand is holy ground, is really enough to remove from us tons of fear, because no one can possibly fear when they are standing in the presence of God. I mean that would be an utter impossibility. We would need no words. We only need the assured feeling of the presence of God and fear would depart. Even if we were in the lion’s den, even if we were loose in a rubber boat on the ocean, even if we were lost on the desert, if we had the conscious presence of God, fear would depart. No circumstance in life could frighten us if we were consciously aware of a spiritual presence.

Now, think as you work consciously with the passages of scripture. Note how they are used in my writings, and see how they exemplify every healing principle. See how they are brought into use. At each instance where some opposite thought or emotion might be, in comes this Bible passage to release us, to free us, to give us release from what the Master called “this world.” He says ultimately, I have overcome this world, and I can tell you from experience that whatever measure of this world that we overcome, we will overcome through our spiritualized consciousness, and a consciousness that we can attain with the use of these scriptural passages.

The only other way that is known today of releasing a person from attachment to this world is what in the Orient is called the guru system. In other words, finding a teacher who is himself or herself released is some measure from attachment to this world, and spending some time in their consciousness. That contact alone often brings release, brings Christ realization to students, but we do not have this system in the Occident. We do not have it because we do not have teachers equipped for it.

But we do have a means of attaining this release ourselves, and that is in just this way that I am describing to you today, which really is the method that is employed throughout the entire Infinite Way teaching. As you read again any of the books that you have, or hear again any of the tapes, you will note that the entire message evolves around scriptural passages. Each passage is given and elucidated, in some way so that the passage itself can bring a release, or an awareness.

When we repeat often, as we do: Thou couldst have no power over me unless it were given thee of God, do you not see that the only purpose there is in bringing that to conscious remembrance is that we may also see that whatever Pilate is in our particular life: some disease, some sin, some false appetite, some person, some condition, that we, too, may instantly bring to remembrance: Thou couldst have no power over me unless it were given thee of God? In other words, only that which is ordained of God is power. Only that which emanates from God, only a law that comes forth from God is power.

When we realize that, and we’re faced with material laws, mental laws, legal laws, we can then say to any of them, Thou could have no power over me unless it were given thee of God. Unless it is ordained of God, you have no power. Only that which is of God is power. You find that this practice brings you, ultimately, to a release from the fears, from the doubts, from the situations, and in the measure of your release have you overcome this world or some facet or some phase of this world.

When you study well the four gospels, and note how the Master touched the leper, you have to ask yourself, “How dared he in the face of the belief, in those days, that this was the deadliest of diseases? How dare he?” Because he had overcome the fear that there is any external condition that can bring harm to my experience. He had overcome the fear that there was any power in anything external to himself.

Even on the subject of food, you remember, he said, “Nothing that enters the mouth defileth.” Nothing. It makes no difference what food you’re eating, or even if temporarily you have a bit of poison food. Don’t fear it, because it is not what goes into the mouth that creates the issues of life, but that which comes forth from our consciousness.

In other words, as ye sow, so shall ye reap, and if you persist in fearing the things of this world—if you insist in unduly loving the things of this world, they are going to react upon you. That’s because it is an emanation of your own consciousness.

In the degree then, that you are not controlled by fear or by love or by hate, but are controlled only by your realization of the presence of God, in that degree do you find, as Paul found: None of these things move me. None of these things move me.

Now, you’re reading in the papers, you’re hearing on your radio, the threats that are coming at the world from so many different directions. The question is whether or not you, as an individual, are hearing it merely as a bit of recorded day to day history, or whether you are permitting it to excite in you a fear; whether you are listening to it and saying, “None of these things move me. I’m merely seeing history, instead of reading it a hundred years from now.”

But remember, that a hundred years ago, people were going through the same experiences that we are today. They were experiencing what we are reading, and if they could have experienced them in the same way that we can read them, as if they were just passing shadows in time and space, they would have found their freedom from them as we can find our freedom from them. None of these things move me. Why? There is a grace of God in operation. There is a grace of God, and this grace of God is molding every situation on earth today. We are evolving, and we have been evolving, from the cave man days to the days of our present civilization where most of the responsible people on earth no longer wish to resort to the use of force to settle the arguments of nations or of individuals. And even industry is preferring the table for settlement, to the courts.

And so you find in every way, that there is an invisible force operating to free this world from its discords, but this invisible force is not something that operates of itself, because it would have freed mankind centuries ago. This force operates by virtue of what is taking place in individual consciousness. In other words, there is nothing up here, in time or space that is making our association with each other harmonious, loving, just, free. Nothing. There is nothing operating in time or space to do that.