Human beings only live on the exterior part of life. That is why they find no satisfaction. In childhood they have toys, and they get a momentary pleasure out of it, and they smash it. It’s no longer useful; no longer satisfying; let’s break it… Another toy and another toy. And then mankind finds a game, and then they find a business, and then they find a church, and everything they find is in the exterior world; they live on the surface of it. They get a little pleasure out of it, and a little profit out of it, and a little joy out of it, and then they want to break it up. It isn’t any good anymore. It doesn’t bring satisfaction, and nothing ever will in the exterior.

The kingdom of God, of reality, the whole source and fount of this world of God is within us. When we learn to let the invisible flow release Itself through us, It appears as fruitage of which we never tire.

Oh yes … Don’t go to the city to buy me meat, I have meat ye know not of. You see, when you learn of this invisible world, this kingdom of God which is so beautiful, so satisfying, so complete, the invisibility appears as your outer fruitage. It appears as your food, clothing, home, human relationships, marriage, whatever it is. And then it is satisfying, then you never weary of it, you never tire of it; it is always joyous and you pass from glory to glory, because you no longer hold on to form, but you find joy in this city or that city.

You find companionship in this person or that person. You find truth in this religion or that religion. You find a peace in this church or that church. Why? Because you didn’t seek it in the external form, but you released it from within your own being, and then it appeared outwardly as an infinite, eternal, joyous, satisfying form.

This world within you is called a mystical world, and the life that flows from it is called a monastic life. Now people have misunderstood those two terms, and they’ve thought of the mystic as something mysterious. The mystical was something mysterious and often even evil. The monastic life has been thought of as going away to a monastery or a convent and bottling one’s self up away from society, and thereby avoiding sin and labor.

Isn’t it foolish? Some of our hardest workers are in monasteries and convents. And I can tell you this that if they haven’t lost the sense of sin, they’ve carried their sin right into the monastery, and into the convent. You can’t bottle yourself up anywhere where you won’t find lonesomeness, sinfulness, lack, limitation.

The mystical life is the life I’m describing to you. The life that you live when you recognize that the invisible, spiritual presence and power within you is the reality, and that it forms the joys of your outer experience. That’s the mystical life. When we find the source and substance of our joy, our prosperity, our happiness, our wisdom, our love, within us, and then, automatically find it developing into fruitage in the without.

The monastic life is one of the results of that mystical life. The monastic life is the life that you live in the interior where you find your self-completeness in God. And where you discover that you do not need anyone or anything, because you have found self-completeness in God. And then, when you open your eyes you find yourself with wonderful companions, wonderful associates, wonderful relatives, wonderful business associates. Because on the outer plane, the monastic life bears fruitage in harmonies and good, forms of good.

You are living the monastic life when you’re in your business if you’re surrounded by a thousand people, because you are living as I and the Father are one—within. You are living the monastic life when you’re married, if you have found your self-completeness within, and then share it with your companion without.

You are not living the monastic life if you’re married and dependent on parents, wife, husband, children, and can’t find your peace without them, you have not found monastic life. You haven’t found monastic life, if you have to be out in the business world, with all your dependencies on person, influence, power, money.

The monastic life is the life that we are leading this minute—a self completeness within ourselves. In this very moment with a hundred of us together, we are leading the monastic life, because we do not need each other. We have found our self-completeness right here within ourselves, and yet, what we’ve discovered within we’re sharing with each other. That is the true monastic life.

You don’t have to be separate and apart from your family; you don’t have to be separate and apart from your business. You don’t have to be separate and apart from this world. You can be in political office and lead the monastic life if you have an inner integrity and bring to your political life the integrity of your inner life.

Let us understand this. The greatest place in the world is within you. That’s the most wonderful place to be—within you. For there you can tabernacle with God, with Christ, the Spirit of God in you. And be not surprised if you meet in that temple within yourself the saints and the sages of all time. For the saints and sages of all time are only spiritual consciousness at different levels. And you must expect to meet spiritual consciousness within yourself at many levels.

Don’t be surprised, when you find your contact with God within, if you also find yourself in the external realm making contact with the right companionships, right business associates, right family associates, for we establish our outer life when we are within. And by what takes place within, do we establish the degree and the intensity, the quality and quantity of the without.

The kingdom of God is within me. Whatever I seek, I must seek in the kingdom of God within me, then release it in action, and wait patiently until the fruitage appears in our experience.

Living in the interior world gives us a perfect balance in life. Living an interior life balances every event in our outer life. If we live wholly on the outer plane, everything with which we come in contact, becomes ultimately just a toy that either breaks of its own weakness, or that we break ourselves because it’s lost our interest. If however, we live part of our time in this interior world, tabernacling in the kingdom of God, communing with these inner presences, inner powers, inner joys, we will then find that that inner substance that we have released will appear outwardly as a successful day, a protected day, a day in which we can bless those with whom we associate.

Do you know this? That you of your own self can’t bless anybody? Do you know that I of my own self can bless nobody? And that I’m probably more aware of it than you are. Do you know that I know that I have no value for you. And that there’s only one reason that you are here, and that is for the experience of whatever measure of the Spirit I have contacted within. Take that away from me and you wouldn’t bother to come here. You wouldn’t even bother to come here from downtown, much more from far distances, for I of myself have nothing for you.

But I draw on the kingdom of God within me, and it has a way of satisfying you. It becomes meat to you, and drink, and opportunity, and supply, and home, and happiness, and joy. The very moment…Ah, ah, ah, he says, he says about “springs.” Springs, springs of water that come up into, bubble up into life eternal, wellsprings of water within me.

Yes, you do not have to draw water with a bucket, I can give you water. How does the Master get water for you? By living an interior life, by realizing that the substance of all form is within, then going in and being with it, praying with it, living with it, and releasing it. I have meat the world knows not of. He wasn’t saying that of himself, he was teaching a principle of life to you and to me. We have meat that the world knows not of, but we must go within to find it and share it, experience it, release it.