But, he didn’t include any of those in his peace. He didn’t include any of those. In fact, at one time, he said if you don’t leave those, you’ll never find My peace, My kingdom. So we know that his teaching was based on the fact that this truth is about your Father and my Father, not only these holy men, but your Father and my Father, the Father that is within you, that we now learn is “closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.”

So that we have established that from the earliest recorded time, up to and including the time of the Master, and three hundred years thereafter, we have known that the goal of life is the attainment of that spiritual consciousness. The goal of life is not attaining wealth, or reputation or fame. The goal of life is attaining that fourth-dimensional consciousness.

Now this never made for asceticism because anyone who ever attained that found automatically that harmony began to flow into their affairs, and abundance—always with twelve baskets full left over. Everyone who has ever touched that realm of consciousness has been a better musician, or a better artist, or a better architect, or a better lawyer, or a better something or other than they ever could have been on their own responsibility or wisdom.

So that, by today, really the entire world should be so spiritualized that all of the evils of the world should have disappeared. But, unfortunately, this secret of the attainment of this mind has been lost always within one or two generations after its discovery, or rediscovery. That is what has held the world back.

One of the very first who had the revelation, not only of this kingdom, the inner kingdom, and how to attain it, and what fruitage comes forth from it, was Gautama, the Buddha, the man who had his illumination and then discovered the greatest secret ever known to man. Nothing from before that day to this day, and I’m sure nothing in the future, will ever equal the discovery that he made, or the revelation that was given to him in his illumination. And, that was, of course, that the inner realm, the spiritual world, is a perfect and complete world, and that what we have thought about this universe is maya or illusion.

In other words, we hold an illusory concept of this world. With that revelation, he became the first of the well-known healers in the world. He went all over India doing mighty healing works. He not only did that, but he taught the secret to his disciples, and they did such wonderful healing works that, within the fifty years that Gautama remained on earth, ashrams, temples sprung up all over India. And in these, healing works were carried on, as well as all of the other works that come forth from an illumined consciousness. However, before he left this earth, he realized that his disciples, or their students, had lost it.

And they lost it in the same way that some of our modern metaphysicians have—When it is revealed that this world that the Master spoke of is an illusion, and My kingdom, the Christ kingdom, is not of this world. This world is an illusion. If you understand that, you can become a healer in five minutes because it’s the only secret necessary for anyone to know to make them a spiritual healer.

That is, that what we perceive as this world is not this world at all because we are only seeing it through a glass darkly. We are seeing it through the finiteness of the third dimension. Now, the moment you know that, you take the next step and you realize:

 “Ah, then God did make all that was made, and all that God made is good, even though I’m seeing it through a glass darkly, even though I am seeing it in limited form, or sickly form, or deathly form.”

Ah yes, but, the glory that was India’s was lost because this great teaching, this great revelation was twisted. So that, they began to say, “Oh, this world is an illusion. Oh, this body is an illusion. Well, let’s not bother with this body. Let’s not bother getting rich. Let’s not bother building a city. Oh, we don’t need water. We don’t need irrigation. This is all illusion. Just wait long enough, and we’ll die out of it.” And, that is the teaching that remains in India to this day, that causes even its holiest men to sit there diseased, and unwilling to be healed, because it’s all illusion anyhow, and soon as they die, they’ll be out of the illusion. That is why they have resisted building cities, and building dams, and building aqueducts, and building modern equipment. Why, this is all illusion!

Well, it isn’t. An illusion cannot be externalized. If you were crossing the desert in a car, and all of a sudden saw an ocean of water in front of you, not knowing about deserts, it would undoubtedly cause you a great deal of concern. Unless somebody along side of you said, “Don’t worry. That’s a mirage.” Oh, well then you drive right ahead. Why? Because a mirage cannot be externalized.

If you were with an alcoholic while he was in delirium tremens and he was fighting these snakes, you would say to him, “Stop it. Stop it. Resist not snakes. They have no power. In fact, there aren’t any. That’s an illusion.” Well of course, he wouldn’t agree with that because he’s not only seeing them, he’s feeling them and probably smelling them, in his imagination. But you know that they are imagination. Therefore, you know they are illusion. Therefore, you know that they have no external form. They have no external existence. They have no externalization of any nature. You know that. And, therefore, you don’t fear them, and in your lack of fear, pretty soon, even your patient wakes up.

Now, many modern metaphysicians approach their work from the standpoint that this world is an illusion, and that sin, disease and death are illusion. And then, of course, they want to get rid of the illusion. Any of you who have practiced know that you get calls continuously, “Oh, I’m suffering from this illusion. Will you help me get rid of this illusion?” After you’ve declared it’s an illusion, what more is there? Since an illusion can’t be a thing or a person, or a condition, it can only be an image in thought without substance, without cause, without reality.

Now, we come back then, to this: that in the presence of enlightenment, the darkness disappears. The man or woman on the next seat to you in the car who has the light to say to you, “This isn’t water, this is mirage,” awakens you. Or we shall call it, heals you. The metaphysician who has developed enough spiritual consciousness to be aware of the fact that God is infinite, and that God is Omnipotent, also knows that besides Omnipotence, there can’t be anything else and, therefore, regardless of the nature of the appearance, can rest quietly in that inner assurance of the unreality of these appearances. And then the patient is awakened, and realizes, too, that these things only existed in a false sense.

So, let’s come back now to this, that every individual on the face of the globe has within themselves the kingdom of God, or the Christ-consciousness. The task of each one of us is to break through our material sense that says the mirage is real. Or break through our mental sense that says one mirage can cause something else, until we reach that spiritual realm, until we develop within ourselves the fourth-dimensional consciousness and then, your treatment does not have to take on the form of words or thoughts. Or if you’re not in the healing work, your concern for your profession, your business, your art all disappears because now you know that in the presence of this enlightened consciousness, only enlightenment, or intelligence, wisdom, love can come forth. So from earliest times to the present moment, we have this revelation: the kingdom of God is within you. There is a present possibility for each one of us to attain, in some measure, this enlightened consciousness.