Now, this then must be practiced by you. You must know that when you close your eyes in meditation, you are now in the same consciousness that Jesus Christ was in. You are in the same consciousness Buddha was in. You are in the same consciousness Lao Tzu was in. And anything at all that any of these knew, and a lot of things that they may not have known, are available to you because nobody has yet drawn forth all the spiritual wisdom that exists in consciousness. Now, once I realize that when I close my eyes I am in the divine consciousness, and I am to bring forth infinity, I must take the next step and realize I’m not bringing it forth for myself. There is no plan in the divine kingdom that any one of us have a monopoly on good.

Therefore, Thomas Edison couldn’t bring forth electric lights for his home alone, and Henry Ford couldn’t bring forth automobiles for his family. When something comes through, it is universal, and you must be prepared to let it flow. There must be no thought of, God sent this to me. No, I brought it forth from God, but now it must flow. Always it must flow. There must be twelve baskets full always to share with whatever it is, it makes no difference. If you are not pouring it out like the fruit on the tree, you know what happens, it will just dry up, and it will prevent the next crop coming out.

Always, whatever we are, ah, you see, this is a theme of prayer. The greatest barrier to prayer is to go within and want something for me because there isn’t any God in there that knows me. God is just there fulfilling himself, expressing himself. Heaven forbid that it should ever be for me because he’d be cutting off the whole world, wouldn’t he? No, no.

When I go within, it shouldn’t be for me. It should be for the revelation and the unfoldment of whatever God has, and then whether it’s for me or for you, let it come forth, and if it’s for you, let’s share it. See that? There always, because the lesser is included in the greater, as long as I go within for the unfoldment of good, without thinking of it as my good, I’ll have lots of good unfold that I can share, but because of the other, my own is included in it. In other words, I’m not left out, but I am left out if I go within for me, or if I go within for mine.

Just think if I were to go within and want the health of my child. If there was such as thing as a personal God, can’t you hear him laugh and say why, is your child better than your neighbor’s? What is there that I have that’s for your child any more than for your neighbor’s child? So I can’t go in and ask for something for my child. I can only ask for a revelation of whatever children need. Then I have it for my child, but I also have it for all the other children who may come into contact with my experience.

You see how we’ve been conditioned on prayer. We have thought of going within to prayer to pray for something for me, and we’ve wondered many times why it didn’t happen. What we want to go in meditation or treatment for is universal good. Father, reveal thyself. Father, reveal thy truth. Not the truth about me. There’s no more truth about me than there is about you. Otherwise, God would be a respecter of persons. Whatever truth comes through about anyone must be the truth about everyone. Whatever truth comes about everyone must be the truth about every individual one.

Therefore, when we pray, don’t pray amiss. Just remember, you’ve closed your eyes, you’ve shut the outside world of appearance out, and now you find yourself in the divine consciousness of being, in the infinite consciousness of being. Now don’t go in there to bring forth a few coppers. Let a whole diamond mind come out, and if it’s too much for you, then just share it, that’s all. But don’t limit what’s going to come out. Don’t go in seeking something for some tiny little purpose or tiny little person. Let God reveal himself in his fullness, and then you’ll find that your needs are all taken care of and you’ve got these twelve baskets full left to share with others.

Now, I said that we must go a point beyond the illustration of the branch and the tree and here, we have to raise ourselves a bit and stop thinking in terms of the material form of the tree.

All right, our eyes are closed, and now we know that we’re not turning just within me. Now we know that having closed our eyes to the outside appearance of separate-ness, that we are really in the consciousness of each other. In other words, we are in the one divine consciousness, which is the consciousness of each other. Now see that’s spiritually, not physically. And then, now here we are, all together in one consciousness.

Can you see that whatever blesses one of us blesses all? And can you see if it were possible for any one of us in there to harm another, that he would only be harming himself? Because he is in there, as a part of that Allness. Well, this is what you must see because this is why the Oriental teaching of karma came into existence that the evil that you do another, you’re doing to yourself and must pay back. The good that you do to another, you’re doing to yourself, and it will come back. And this same teaching was carried over into the teaching of Christ Jesus, and he called it, as ye sow, so shall ye reap. As ye do unto another, it will be done unto you.

Now, there is no God deciding this at all. This is a law that we set in motion, and if I am filling my thoughts with truth and love about you, that is what has to come back to me. You don’t have any power to withhold it any more than you have power to send it out. I’m the one who has sent it out, and it’s going to make a circle. It’s going to reach you, go through you, come back to me, but remember, if I send out evil, greed, lust, animality, jealousy, envy, hate, don’t you forget that you don’t stop it. It has to go to you and through you and around back to me. Why? We’re not really two separate beings. All you have to do is close your eyes and know we’re right there together in that one, in and of that one infinite consciousness. So you can see that it would be an utter impossibility to share truth, life, and love with you without it completing the circle. Round and round and round it goes in eternal expression.

And so you can see that the moment we’ve let any universal belief of hate, envy, jealousy, malice, we are aiming it at ourselves. There’s no God punishing us. Don’t ever believe there is. We set in motion the law. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have set in the law in motion that will come back to you. Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least, my brethren, ye have set in motion the law that is going to come back to you, you see, it’s ye. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. It isn’t going to bother your neighbor on either side. It’s ye, and it isn’t going to be visited on your children onto the 3rd and 4th generation. That’s another lot of nonsense. It is going to come back to the individual. Now, while those who have already reached the stage of spiritual unfoldment where they are no longer indulging the world’s degree of sensuality or hate or envy or jealousy or malice, you find, whatever you find of that among spiritual students is in a far lesser degree than there is out in the world. But there is a fault that is still found among the spiritual students because of their ignorance of it, and that is this.