Chapter 6 - The Source of Power

Jesus ascribed all His marvelous power to the mental relationship which existed between Himself and the Father. He uses the terms Father and God interchangeable, and says: "My father, of whom ye say that he is your God" (John 8:54).

And in His talk with the Samaritan woman, He explains clearly His conception of God, declaring that "God is Spirit" (Not A Spirit, as the King James version has it), and that He is not to be worshipped in some particular place like Jerusalem, or on some specially consecrated mountain, but may be approached, or worshipped in spirit and in truth, anywhere.

The Father, as described by Jesus, is Universal Spirit, working in all through all, and FOR ALL. He describes this spirit as making the sun to shine, and causing the rain to fall, and so as being the POWER behind nature; as clothing the lilies of the field, and causing the hair to grow on man's heads, and so as being the one and only LIFE; as quickening and leading men to truth and so as being the one and only INTELLIGENCE.

Every man is a God, according to Jesus, because it is Spirit which lives in man; He said to them: "Ye are Gods" (John 10:34). Spirit holds the earth in its orbit, makes the sun rise, sends the rain, and causes the coming of seedtime and harvest; Spirit lives in the lily and clothes it finer than Solomon was arrayed in all his glory; Spirit lives in man.

There is only one power, only one life, only one intelligence.

Unity of Man in God

As I have said, Jesus ascribed all His power to His conscious unity of mind with this One Intelligence. "I and my father are one," said He. "I do always his will."

And He went on to declare that because He always did the will of Spirit, Universal Spirit worked in and through Him. "I do always those things that please him," said he (John 8:29). "I come, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." "I seek not mine own will, but the will of him" — and so on.

He made it perfectly plain that it was because of this unity of mind with the Father — which we call cosmic consciousness — that the Father could work through Him.

Because I will to do his will, said Jesus, my father and I act as one; and so it is not I that do the works, but the Father that worketh in me. He was consciously one with the one Spirit, and so all power in heaven and earth was at His service; He was consciously one with the one Life, and so He could transfigure His body, and heal others; "there went out from him a virtue (a realization of truth) that healed them all"; He was consciously one with the one Intelligence, and so all knowledge and all wisdom were His.

This is a point we must not lose sight of; that all that there is in the life of Jesus which transcends the ordinary, He positively declares to be due to His cosmic consciousness; to unity of mind and will with the All-Spirit.

Cosmic Consciousness

I will quote you a few more passages on this point; "He that sent me is true, whom ye know not; but I know him" (John 7:28-29). "I know him, and keep his saying" (John 8:55). "The son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father do" (John 5:19). "As the father knoweth me, even so know I the father" (John 10:15). To "know" the father can have but one meaning; and that is to be conscious of Spirit; to have my own consciousness so unified with the consciousness of Spirit that what Spirit knows I know; what Spirit sees I see; and what Spirit does, I do.

My father is greater than I; I proceeded forth and came from Him; but if I unite with Him in consciousness, He is in me and I in Him and He and I are one.

Jesus declares that this cosmic consciousness is the source of all power; He demonstrates that it is perfect health, both in His own person, and by healing others; "and this is life eternal to KNOW thee" (John 17:3). He asserts that it gives perfect wisdom — "The father loveth the son, and showeth him all things." "My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the father" (John 8:16).

And He asserts that it is wealth; "All things that the father hath are mine" (John 16:15).

Christ's Brothers

He does not trace His power to something peculiar about His birth, but to His conscious unity with Spirit.

He does not say that God is His father alone, but that He is our father. He says; "One is your father, and all ye are brethren."

He says in the sermon on the mount; "It is your father who feeds and cares for you; be his children in mind and will, as you are in fact."

He does not assert that He is a demi-god, and that we are men; but that He is God, and we may be God, too, if we will; "He that willeth to do the will of God, shall know"; "shall enter the kingdom," and so on.

"The works that I do, ye shall do also; and greater works than these shall ye do."

The consciousness that He had, He seems to think quite possible for all of us; "That they may all be one," he prays, in the seventeenth chapter of John, "as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us." "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." What He is, we can any or all of us become, He says.

Jesus' Relationship to God

It is not within the scope of this little book to study whether Jesus really was born in a different way from other people; that inquiry must be reserved for a more pretentious work. But this is quite certain, that He Himself made no claim to being different from the rest of us, except as to the extent of His consciousness.

He was conscious of a relationship with Spirit which the world knew nothing about; this relationship existed for the world as well as for Himself, whenever the world would recognize it, and enter into it. And for all to enter into this conscious unity with Spirit would save the world from sin, sickness, ignorance and poverty; it would establish the Kingdom of God.

He could pray for no greater good than that they might be "one with the Father," even as He was one with the Father. To be one with the Father is to be one with Spirit; and to be one with Spirit is to so harmonize with it that thought, life, power, and wisdom shall come in a continuous inflow from Spirit into our minds and bodies.

Man's Relationship to God

There is, according to Jesus, one Spirit who is all the power there is, all the life there is, and all the intelligence there is; and this Spirit has children, who are of the same substance as Himself, and who have power to think independently, and to separate themselves in consciousness from Him.

And the power to think independently implies the possibility of thinking erroneously; if man separates himself in consciousness from God, he is sure to fall into error, for he can see only an infinitesimal portion of the truth.

Man's life, man's power, and man's wisdom decrease in exact proportion to the extent of his separation in consciousness from God.

Jesus found a world of men who had lost the consciousness of God, and because of doing so had become afflicted with the most horrible diseases; had fallen into the vilest depths of sin and debauchery; had sunk to the lowest levels of poverty and misery, and were in danger of losing life itself. To this lost and struggling world, He gave a demonstration of the possibilities of a life of cosmic consciousness — of conscious unity with Spirit. He demonstrated power over nature by calming the storm, and precipitating the food elements from the atmosphere to feed the hungry multitude; He demonstrated the power of Life to heal the sick; He demonstrated the Wisdom which is beyond the limited consciousness of Man, and He demonstrated wealth; and finally, He demonstrated power over death.

And He told them how He did what He did, and how any other man might do the same, and even greater works.

The method of attaining cosmic consciousness we will consider in the next chapter.