I Do Not Frustrate the Grace of God
August 1st, 2018
Dear Friend,
Let us clean out our house and begin a anew. Let us witness God filling our empty house and show us what we and our house (our consciousness) truly are, what our world and all it constitutes truly is, and what our purpose of being truly is.
It is only as we have been lifted to understand the importance of thoroughly cleaning out every belief, every concept, every opposite, that the light of the Master's statement begins to shine in us. “Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.”
The only way we can save our lives, the only way we can truly live is to know who we are, what we want, and how we want it. In other words, in order to save our lives, we must awaken to the truth that we have been living as a personal sense of self, living in personalized bodies and worlds, with personal conditions and circumstances, not only separate and apart from each other, but from God.
As personal selves are you one with me? Am I one with you? No, you are you and I am me, and you have yours and I have mine.
Is your body mine, and mine yours? Is your world mine, and mine yours? Is your money mine, and mine yours? Is the love in you mine and the love in me yours? Is your home, neighborhood, talent and business mine and mine yours? Is your purpose mine and mine yours? Is your fulfillment mine and mine yours? Is your God mine and mine yours? Is what you seek from your God for me as much as it is for you?; and is what I seek from my God for you as much as it is for me?
Ah, if you are seeking anything from your God that I am not from mine, we do not have the same God and we certainly don't have the God of the Bible, of the Gospel of Thomas, of the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, of Meister Eckart, Brother Laurence, Hafiz, Rumi, Fakhruddin 'Iraqi, and all the other mystics of the world. We do not have God as God is. We have our own concept of God that, of course, is a concept we believe will serve us, fulfill us, do for us despite others and despite the circumstance or condition we are struggling with.
We have a personal God which is a God of belief only. Then we can ask, Is your God performing for you, fulfilling you? Is your body filled with the life, health, vitality and eternity that your God promised you? Is your world filled with the good, the harmony, the love, the happiness, the treasures, the freedom your God promised you? Is your mind filled with your God so that none of God is hidden from you? If your answer is no to any of these questions, you have a God of belief; and a God of belief cannot do much for you other than let you down.
Only when we reach the point of realizing that anything personal we know, desire, need or do (even when our doing is deemed as serving or doing good for another or for the world or for God) is belief only, and only when we realize that every belief exists in contradistinction with its opposite, do we begin to awaken to the true meaning of the Master's profound statement, ”Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it.”
If we seek God for our benefit (which is how we all start off seeking God until we awaken sufficiently to what God truly is, therefore what we truly are) we are on our way to losing our life because we are seeking amiss.
Personal Seeking Is Seeking Amiss
If we seek God for our good we seek amiss. All we are seeking is belief. We are seeking a personal God to fulfill a personal self. We have a world full of belief and we get busy seeking our believed good to replace believed bad.
Among the worst mistakes the personal sense of self has made is creating the word healing. Others are the words human or humanity, earth as opposed to heaven, physical, material, corporeal as opposed to spiritual and incorporeal.
Even the word God is a mistake, and we know it the moment we are high enough in spiritual awareness to realize that the word God has caused the greatest confusion that exists in life – that of the sense of difference and separation between God and our existence, between heaven and earth, between spirit and matter.
The word healing suggests that something needs it, that the body or an organ or a function or a cluster of cells or the blood or the brain is diseased and requires healing, and that there is a God who performs the healing for us – a spiritual God who will perform a physical, material, structural healing for us.
Worse, we believe that healing is dependent on our knowing God aright, praying to God correctly, meditating and sitting in silence correctly, sufficiently devoting ourselves to God by, it is believed, sacrificing our personal lives, our personal fulfillment, and our personal freedom and joy for it.
God itself is far beyond belief, far beyond concept, far beyond the personal sense of self. God is far beyond all either-ors or neither-nors. God is far beyond anything we can know, anything we can think, anything we can do, anything we can desire, anything we believe we need.
God is. God is the only is. All that is, is God – God alone. This is why we hear the Master telling us that it is only if we lose our personal sense of life, that we save our true life. Only as we drop and clean out of ourselves all belief, all concept, all personal sense of self, all either-ors and neither-nors to the point where we have nothing of self left, to the point where we are empty, void, transparent, a literal nothingness of personal self, do we find ourselves filled with the life we truly are and have, which is God, the infinity of all, the love of all, the purpose, freedom, fulfillment of all – infinitely greater than any concepts we have of these.
It is what the apostle Paul describes. “I live, yet not I ( not the personal self, not belief, not concept), but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) When the personal self has died and truth lives me, I do not frustrate the grace of God (the visible, tangible presence and activity of God as individual being).
“I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by means of the law, then Christ died in vain. (Galatians 2:21) I do not frustrate the grace of God. If God depends on us and what we know, what we can achieve for God on earth; if the light of God, the presence of God, the evidence of God depends on us and what we know and what we can achieve; if healing, peace, prosperity, love depends on us and what we know and how spiritual we can make ourselves, then we are most certainly frustrating the grace of God, and Christ indeed has died in vain (which should be interpreted as Jesus, not Christ, has died in vain) because we still do not catch the truth the Master taught and demonstrated – ultimately by dying for us and, by resurrecting, showing us that death is untrue and without power.
The “grace of God” means the consummate presence of God – the pure presence of God, free and unconditional, truth without belief, without opposites, without concepts, without personal self, without a trace of “and” or “otherness” in it. God is God alone – is alone. God is. And that is is the finished kingdom, the whole, complete one; indivisible, un-defiled, un-contaminated, pure incorporeality.
In one there is nothing except oneness. One is pure, whole, self-contained, self-complete, self-fulfilled – the one, only self; the one, only mind; the one, only body; the one, only earth; the one, only presence; the one, only form; the one, only experience.
In one there is no otherness, no difference, no separation, no inner vs. outer, no ethereal vs. structural, no invisible vs. visible, no intangible vs. tangible, no unmanifested vs. manifested, no still-to-be-demonstrated vs. demonstrated, no impractical vs. practical, no absence vs. presence; no need, no desire, no past, present, future; no cause, no effect, no time, no space; no I and mine vs. you and yours vs. the rest of humanity and theirs; no place, no condition, no amount, no heaven, no earth, no God.
There is no personal god in God. If we still have a god, we have only a personal god, a god of belief. God has no god in it, because the word god is just a concept, a belief. God itself is God alone, which is entirely unknowable, imperceivable, unreachable, indemonstrable.
Hear that: you cannot demonstrate God. God is already demonstrated. How then, can we demonstrate God? We are attempting to do what is already done.
No way exists to make God manifest, or to demonstrate God, or to make God visible and tangible. God already is. Is is the only existence.
God is what you are, who you are, what your mind is, what your body is, what your world is, what everything in and of your world is; therefore you and all in your universe is that one is. All already is. Nothing else exists, so nothing exists for you to do. All is already done.
Nothing exists for you to know, or to become, or to achieve or demonstrate. All already is, and because all already is (and is far beyond belief, far beyond concept, far beyond the personal sense) you personally cannot know, become or achieve; you cannot do. Now, what have we all been doing these years as spiritual students? Might it be exactly these things – making effort to know, to become, to achieve, to do, to demonstrate God, to bring God forth?
How has that worked for us?
Because only God is, and because God already is, “you” are not, “I” am not. You and I are nothing in and of our own selves, therefore we cannot have a condition, either positive or negative. We cannot be healthy or unhealthy, in love or out of love, happy or unhappy, wealthy or poor. we cannot be spiritual or non-spiritual, we cannot have sufficient or insufficient spiritual awareness, we cannot gain more God and we cannot lose some of God. And because God is all, God is the world, which means that we cannot gain more of the worlds good. All already is.
Let us sit in silence with this for a few minutes.
Deeper Into Is
Let us delve deeper into is. Let us more deeply understand oneness, only-ness, so that we can be rid of everything of belief and be filled with God as God truly is by becoming a nothingness, a void, a vacuum of being, and beholding is in action.
Let us understand the one presence, the one power that God is, that is the I am, the is of all existence.
Is is omnipotence, the one power, the one law; and because is is the only, omnipotence is the only.
Life is omnipotence, mind is omnipotence, body is omnipotence, thing is omnipotence, world is omnipotence. Omnipotence does not act on an entity that is different from itself, on a person or condition that needs it, on a circumstance that isn't omnipotence at the moment and can be turned into omnipotence when omnipotence acts upon it.
All is omnipotence, which leaves nothing else, nothing other, nothing that can need omnipotence to act upon it in order to become healthy, wealthy, loving, peaceful, harmonious. Anything that seems to lack God, lack omnipotence, anything that seems to be different from God or omnipotence appears to be so only because we are entertaining belief about it. And if we entertain belief about a thing we also entertain its opposite.
If we believe there is a solution to a problem, a healing for a disease, wealth for lack, peace for unrest, harmony for disharmony, and that God is the good that overcomes or overpowers the bad, all we have is belief, concept, personal sense. All we are seeking is a personal God, a God of belief alone, and that obviously means we also believe that we all have different Gods to meet our different wants and needs.
God is God alone – is, is, is alone; and is is the one presence, the one power. That which seems to need God – need the power of God, the demonstration of God – is belief alone; and because God is the one, the only, the all-of-all, every belief is unreal, without power, without presence, without intelligence, without awareness, without acuity, without ability.
“This World” Exists Only As Belief
The whole world as it is believed to be is unreal. All the good and all the bad believed to constitute the material world exists nowhere apart from in belief. It has no reality, not even temporal reality that you have to deal with today. It has no power, no form, no life, no actuality, no ability. It is nothing of its own self. It is belief alone, supposition alone; and because it is, it cannot act upon you if you do not act upon it. If you leave it alone in knowing that God alone is, you discover the supreme truth that nothing has power over you, nothing can hinder you.
Nothing that appears to be un-God-like can sustain itself in your experience. No condition or circumstance, which before you got busy attempting to heal or transform, can sustain itself in your experience from the moment you awaken to the fact that only God is and that God already and eternally is, and that that is is the only is.
The power you believed you needed to heal a negative condition or circumstance you now realize you do not need. You would only need a power if there was a condition that that power could act upon, could heal or harmonize. But there is no and, no otherness. Only God is; only omnipotence, only God presence, God being, God form exists. You know this now, therefore you do not need God or God power.
The spiritual awareness you believed you needed in order to have God, witness God, to have your healing, your health, your wholeness, you now know you do not need. Is is is – the only is – therefore is is the only spiritual awareness.
Is
Is is the only God, the only spirit, and the only awareness of itself. “You” cannot be or have spiritual awareness. Only is is, therefore only is itself is and has spiritual awareness; and because only is is you are that, I am that, all is that, therefore all you have and all you experience is is. Nothing remains for you to do, for me to do, for the Master to do. Is has it and is is it, and is is aware of what it is and has. Is fully sees all that it is and has. You know this now, therefore you do not need the spiritual awareness you formerly believed you needed – the spiritual acuity you believed you needed – in order to bring God, good, into your life. The spiritual ability you believed you needed to heal or to transform your or another's life you now know you do not need.
This all being true, how does one's practical experience heal, transform, pacify? How does disharmony turn into harmony, lack turn into plenty, unhappiness turn into happiness, commotion or disagreement or war turn into peace? How does aversion or hate turn into love, how does dark turn into light? Dark is not an entity; dark is simply an absence of light. Where the presence of light is, dark does not exist.
Because dark is nothing of its own self the presence of light dispels it. The experience of light has nothing to do with the activity of dark. No matter how hard dark could attempt to know, to be, to do, to achieve light, it must fail. Dark cannot bring forth even one second of light because all it is and has is darkness. Only light itself is light. Dark is nothing; dark is non-reality, non-entity, non-power, non-presence, non-form, non-ability. Only the presence of light itself fills our experience with light. Dark is not involved.
In this very way, only the presence – the conscious awareness – of God itself fills our experience with the true good. We of our believed personal reality and sense are nothing. The personal self is non-being, non-self, non-mind, non-body, non-world, non-experience and cannot evidence God, no matter how hard it attempts to. Only God is, and only God itself is visible in and as tangible experience. Only God itself is God experience.
You are that, I am that, all is that, but we have to know this truth and stop acting upon what seems to act upon us. We have to stop misidentifying good vs. bad and attempting to change bad into good. We have to drop and relinquish that which seems to be, even the most threatening and frightening condition or circumstance and know that it is nothing of its own self, that only God is. Then in emptiness and nothingness, let God be what God is as all that we are and all that we experience.
If we have even the slightest belief about that which seems to be we have more cleaning and emptying to do. Even the slightest belief is an entanglement in non-reality. Our belief, our concern about what seems to be is itself the very attachment that keeps good vs. bad sustained in our experience. As soon as we stop it and drop it, and empty ourselves of everything but God itself – which means we make a nothingness, a vacuum of ourselves so that all that is left of us is God itself – we discover that even the most seemingly overwhelming problems are rendered powerless substance-less, and formless in our experience – and quickly so.
All that is un-God-like is rendered as powerless as dark is in the presence of light.
Even in the face of seemingly overwhelming or urgent challenges, and even in the face of the world's good (which is less and less appealing or satisfying to me) I sit down, become quiet and peaceful, turn within and surrender all that I personally am, all that I know, and all that I believe I still need to know; all that my personal mind and body are and what they seem to need, even urgently need; all that my family, home, business, finances seem to need, what both the good and the bad of these seem to need.
Then, emptied of everything I can name and define, I simply sit as nothingness, a vacuum, letting God be God as God is, letting the only existence be itself as and for itself alone. As I practice the presence of God in this way I behold the miracle of truth taking place in my practical experience. All un-God-like form and activity melts and becomes powerless and substance-less as the light shines forth as and through me.
The Meek Inherit the Earth
Be still, rest, and realize: truth is inherited in and through meekness. “The meek inherit the earth.” (Psalm 37:11) Those who surrender all that their personal selves are and have, those who surrender all the demands made upon them – demands of health, of money, of decision, of skill, of responsibility, those who surrender even their spiritual effort, those who become a nothingness, clean and empty of belief concept knowledge, need desire – these are the meek who inherit the earth, these are they that inherit earth as it is in heaven.
Be still for a few minutes. Rest; let God be what God is as itself as you.
(Silence for a few minutes)
We hear in the Psalms that the meek shall eat and be satisfied. Their hearts shall live forever; the meek he will guide in judgment, and the meek he will teach his way, the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The Lord lifts up the meek and casts out the wicked, the un-God-like, the Lord takes pleasure in his people – people in a God state of being. He beautifies the meek with salvation.
And in Matthew we hear: ”Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
Be meek, be still. Rest, be a nothingness, a void, a vacuum. Remember, even the least in the kingdom of heaven are the most on earth. Hence, the meek inherit the earth.
Be still, rest, be empty, feel the presence happening, feel the presence – which before you classified as yours but which now you know is the presence and activity of God tangibly experienced as you rest as a nothingness, a void, a vacuum, a receptivity.
Know that the very presence and activity of spirit you feel within (it is ok to call it the presence of you, the presence of me, as long as we know that what we are describing is the one presence, God presence, not the personal self presence) is the presence of IS, is the one power, the one being, the one activity of truthful experience.
Hear it: this very presence you feel happening within, this presence you are and which is taking place without you doing a single thing, knowing a single truth, attempting to achieve a single result, is the one power, the one activity and finished form of truthful experience.
As Fakhruddin 'Iraqi explains it: “All power, all activity is ours only so much as he is us.” Does this not sound like Paul's statement: “I live, yet not I, Christ lives my life”? Does this not sound like Isaiah's statement: “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.” Does this not sound like our statement: “Only God is, therefore only God can”?
The very presence of you is the whole universe of God clearly visible and tangible because the presence of you never has been what you believed it to be, but is God – the one, the only, and that presence is omnipotence.
You have never needed your own God power, your own acuity or even your own spiritual consciousness. There is no such thing as personal God consciousness, therefore, how could “your” consciousness be required to evidence God? If these qualities were needed, not only would God not be the one and the only, but truth would be a lie.
The moment there is anything but God in our system, there is no God in practical experience. God is infinite God; God is all of all, and God is only what God is. God is not a lie, God is the one reality, and that one reality is what you are, what everybody is, what all the world is, what all experience is.
Rest, and as you feel your presence realize it not the presence of a personal you, but as the presence of God itself. Do not grab it and take pseudo-ownership of it; do not personalize it.
Trust that it is the presence of God itself; and as the presence of God it is the presence of omnipotence – all the power and presence of God in perfect finished form and visibility, being and seeing for you.
Realize that there is no such thing as unformed God, therefore there is no such thing as unformed omnipotence. Only god is, only omnipotence is. The power and presence of God does not act upon anything, it is everything. There is nothing that the power and presence of God needs to act upon because all is God.
Even while we observe another's, or experience our own broken bone, or cold, or flu, or cancer; injury, lack, limitation, insecurity, fear, discord – incompleteness of any nature – what we are truly beholding is God. Only God is, therefore we always behold God, no matter how it appears to be, either good or bad. But our translation or interpretation is poor. The way that poverty of awareness appears to us is as if we are experiencing something other than God, something un-God-like that needs God's power, God's presence, to heal it. Nothing, nothing can be more untrue.
Only God is, therefore only God is true. The very presence of you is God. The whole universe of God, your universe in perfect finished and omnipresent form and experience – the presence of God objectively sensed as you, your very natural presence – is itself, supports itself, sustains itself, is the image and likeness of itself and is the clearing of the fog of unawareness, and the transparency of clear seeing.
The very presence of you as you truly are (God as individual being; pure God consciousness; your I) is itself the power and presence that renders anything and everything that seems to oppose it, that seems to be different or less than it, that seems to be un-God-like, that seems to resist or delay the experience of God as mind, body, world, and affairs – a cloud of nothingness. Literally, my precious friends, anything that seems to be a real problem, anything that causes you pain and suffering; any condition that seems to limit you, imprison you, cause you fear, is rendered as a cloud of nothingness the very minute you turn everything over to God and let God be your awareness, your sight, your one reality – your health, your money, your family, your business, your protection, your safety and security in all ways, your all-of-all.
The true presence of you (that you already are and have) exerts dominion over all that seems to be un-God-like by knowing and doing nothing about the it of it. “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil.”
Un-God-like form and experience only masquerade as reality in the thoughts of a believer. They instantaneously disappear in the presence of reality.
Two plus 2 equals “5” may seem to be real to those who are poor in math, but “5” can only masquerade as reality for as long a mathematician is absent. As soon as a mathematician is on the scene, “2 + 2 equals 5” instantly disappears and 2 plus 2 equals 4 is evident as the one and only reality.
Forget all appearance in itself. Empty yourself of all you have believed about yourself and the world of good vs. bad. Become a nothingness, a void, a vacuum which “God abhors”. Realize that in your emptiness and nothingness God is present and visible. In your void and vacuum of being God is perfectly real and tangible in experience, as experience, to and for experience. In your nothingness, God is the one and the only. In your emptiness, nothingness, void, you are and have the power of God; the very presence of your true identity is the presence and power of God – clearly evident.
Rest. Rest as a nothingness and let whatever God is be.
Be such a nothingness that God itself has space and freedom within you to be what God is – for God and to God.
Want nothing, need nothing; know that you are and have all that God is and has, and tangibly so, when you are resting like this, as a nothing, simply feeling or experiencing God getting on with being God as the whole universe of you.
Be still, empty, silent, a nothing of self, devoting yourself to God, to what you truly are, to what I truly am, to what all truly is.
(Silence for a few minutes).
Now lift higher. Realize that the true presence of you is the presence and power of God whether or not you are sitting in silence or active in your day.
It does not matter to God what we are doing. God is not God only when we are quiet, silent, inactive. God is God no matter what.
It is only our experience that suffers if we lose conscious awareness of God as being all-of-all – God as the one and only, ever actively visible and perfect power, presence and form.
Realize this truth. Realize that you are not an assistant to God. God is no matter what. Awaken to this truth now. God does not depend on you or me or the Master to be all-of-all. God is; nothing can change the infinite isness of God.
Is is; is needs no person or condition to be or become is in practical experience. In fact, there is no person or condition except is.
We, like the Master, must devote much time to being still and silent, a nothingness, so that God can truly fill us and live itself as us. We must devote ourselves to God as much and as many times throughout the day as we can. In doing so, we discover our infinity and power of being. But it does not mean that when we are up and active that we have separated ourselves from God, that God is absent, that God is not as active and as present and visible as when we are “formerly” still and silent.
God is. We are that is no matter what we are or are not doing. No matter what, God is. Constant God awareness is the key that enables un-God-like experience to dissolve in our presence, even when we are busy. It is staying in a God state of being, no matter what we are doing, that enables un-god-like experience to dissolve and dissipate, everywhere we are.
God is. Period. When we constantly know this truth, therefore constantly make way for it by our emptiness of self and our fullness of God – by making sure we stay in a constant God state of being, a nothingness of self – that dark turns to light wherever we are.
Dark turning to light has nothing to do with us or our power or our ability. It has to do with God alone because God is the only existence; God is already the present and perfect image and likeness of itself in tangible experience. It is when we know this truth and let this truth live us by our constant emptiness and nothingizing of self, that we find every un-God-like appearance dissipating in our presence.
Mary Baker Eddy saw the face of God in the storm cloud and watched it become peaceful. In this same way, as you look out at every person, every thing, and every condition and see nothing but the face of God in it, all un-God-like form and activity turn peaceful and true.
By remaining in constant God awareness, knowing that God is forever operative and real, visible and tangible, the one power and presence, forever active, you lose the belief in a personal self needing to be personally spiritual and personally spiritually effective in order to witness true good throughout your experience.
The only effort you are required to make – and it is certainly a serious, constant effort – is the effort of losing the personal self, dropping belief, cleaning yourself of every concept – all the either-ors and neither-nors – becoming a nothingness, a literal nothingness as far as you have known yourself to be.
Be one of the few true humble and meek ones who inherit the earth. As Fakhrudin Iraqi says: “I could see you a thousand times a day and still desire to see you once again. . . . Between me and my Lord, the only difference is that I come forward in servitude; my poverty [of personal sense] and my preparedness are the keys to his generosity.”
I am with you, my Friends, as you continue your journey into nothingness of personal self, thereby into real and constant God experience.
Blessings,
Paul
Copyright © 2018 Paul F. Gorman
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