Point of Practice – # 1

And the first one is that idea of not seeking or chasing God, or looking for God, or searching for God but make the acknowledgment I have found God.  The place whereon I stand is holy ground.  Why, because I’m there, or because God is there?  And that’s very clear.  The place whereon I stand is holy ground, because God stands there.  Why search for God that’s standing in my shoes?  The kingdom of God is within you.  Then why search anymore?  Just acknowledge.  God is closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.  Why search anymore?  Why seek?  Why not make the acknowledgment, “Thank you, Father.  I and the Father are one right here and now.  The place whereon I stand is holy ground.”

It makes no difference if where I am standing is hell.  Please remember this.  That at some time and some place in our experience each of us stands in hell.  It may be the hell of sin.  It may be the hell of disease.  It may be the hell of lack, and limitation, and unemployment, danger, insecurity.  All of those things really are what we call hellish experiences, devilish experiences, horrid experiences, but many become transformed when you realize that even in the midst of this hell thou art there.  I still do not have to search for God or seek for God in hell for thou art there.  Ye though I walk through the valley shadow of death.  Many people in their disease or near death believe that in some way they have become separated from God, and then they struggle and strive to find God.  It’s all wrong.  That’s all wrong.  You’re no further from God ever than you are from your own breathing, from your own being.  You haven’t gotten separated from God.  You have merely let the word “I,” “me,” and “mine” get in too much and set up a “sense” of separation from God.  That’s not separation.  That’s like misunderstanding a friend and deciding whether to talk to them again and cutting yourself off from them.  And they’re still your friend.  You haven’t cut yourself off from their friendship.  You’ve just entertained a sense of separation.

Now, the sense of separation will act as disastrously as separation itself.  In other words, the moment you accept a sense of separation from God it is as if you had no God.  So the thing to overcome is not a separation from God but the sense of separation.  And there’s one way and one way alone that you can overcome a sense of separation from God, and that is to acknowledge God’s Presence regardless of appearances.  No matter what the appearance may be, roaring lions jumping into this room, gunmen jumping in and shooting off guns, or atomic bombs exploding in air.  Those are the appearances that would tempt us to believe in a separation from God.  Horrible sins, terrible diseases, these are the things that tempt us to believe in our separation from God, and we become victims of that belief.

Now then, to give up the belief of separation you have to do it in one way and one way only, and there is no other way, no other way that’s ever been discovered.  And that is to acknowledge the activity and Presence of God where I am.  The Father in the midst of me doeth the works.  Not the Father that I’m seeking or going to get at one with.  Not the Father that I’m searching for, or hoping to attain, or expect to be worthy of.  No, no, no.  The Father within me doeth the works.  When?  Now.  When I acknowledge it.  Because of Omnipresence.  Omnipresence means always present.  Is God Omnipresence or is God sometimes away somewhere?  No, there’s no place for God to be away to since God fills all space.  And since God fills all time and God fills all space, God is here where we are, and the only way to achieve the activity of God, the blessings of God is to acknowledge.

In spite of appearances, thou art there.  Thou are here.  I shall not fear what man can do to me.  I shall not fear what mortal man can do to me.  I shall not fear what circumstance or condition can do to me.  I shall not fear what anything—time or space—can do to me.  I shall not fear any presence or any power in heaven, on earth, or in hell for Omnipresence is with me.  The Presence of God goes with me.  The Presence of God goes before me to make the crooked places straight.  The Presence of God remains behind me to bless all those who pass that way.  The Presence of God walks on each side of me.  And that makes a complete Omnipresence and a complete sense or consciousness of Omnipresence.

Now, that is the first thing that must be achieved.  Give up this chase.  Give up the search for God and acknowledge, “Thank you, Father.  I’ve reached.”  In “The Infinite Way” in the last chapter, New Jerusalem, I am home in thee.  It was a wonderful day in 1937 when that realization came:  I am home in thee.  Well, of course, I had never been away from home, but I didn’t know it.  It was on that day that I realized that I didn’t come home.  I hadn’t been any place.  But I realized I am home in thee.  Before this I was a weary wanderer.  I was a searcher for truth until 1937, searching all over the place and in the libraries too, studies in library shelves, especially metaphysical libraries.  No, all the time God was in me, and I was in God.  But I never regretted those years of search and those books either and the times spent in them, because, in the end, they revealed that which had always been true that I was home in thee.  So let’s not tear up those books yet or tear down the libraries yet.  But at least let us realize what their function is.  Their function isn’t to give us God.  Their function is to reveal that we are in God, and God is in us.  We live and move and have our being in God, so let us bless every activity that helps to reveal that to us.  That is our point number one.