Chapter 7 - Attaining Cosmic Consciousness

"And this is Life Eternal: to know God."

Cosmic consciousness or conscious unity with Eternal Spirit can only be attained by a continuous and sustained effort on the part of man. The extension of consciousness always requires a mental effort; and this mental effort, when it is a seeking for unity with Spirit, constitutes prayer.

Prayer is an effort of the human mind to become acquainted with God. It is not an effort to establish a relationship which does not exist, but to fully comprehend and recognize a relationship which already exists. Prayer can have but one object, and that is unity with Spirit; for all other things are included in that.

We do not really seek, through prayer, to get health, peace, power or wealth; we seek to get unity with God; and when we get unity with God, health, peace, power and wealth are ours without asking. Study the intercessory prayer, as it is called, in the seventeenth chapter of John, and you will see that Jesus asks nothing for men except that they may be one in mind with God. This is the one thing needful; all other things are contained in it.

Whoever has full spiritual consciousness has health, peace, power and wealth.

Oneness Through Prayer and Will

Jesus laid great stress on prayer in His teachings, and demonstrated His reliance upon it in His daily practice. The gospels abound with references to His praying; to His going apart to pray, continuing all night in prayer, and so on.

It is evident that His consciousness that He and the Father were one was only retained by persistently and continuously affirming and reaffirming the fact. This fact, it must be remembered, is in direct contradiction to our objective consciousness.

We appear to think, live, move and have our being entirely in ourselves and of ourselves; our physical senses deny the existence of a God. God is not found by extending the outward or objective consciousness. "God is Spirit," said Jesus, "and they who approach Him must approach Him through their own spirits."

To attain cosmic consciousness, the effort of prayer must be, first to arouse to activity the spirit in man and second, to unite that spirit in conscious union with God.

The spirit of man — the ego — the man himself, is aroused whenever the will acts.

Only the man himself can will; and when he wills it is his whole personality which comes into action.

We see, then, that Jesus was perfectly scientific in laying down His first requirement for attaining cosmic consciousness — that one must will to do the will of God.

He plainly ascribes His own power to His setting His will to do the will of Cosmic Spirit; and He says:

"He that willeth to do the will of God shall know."

To will to do the will of the Father, to keep His sayings, to do His works; this was the first step toward unity. And the next was the prayer of faith.

The Prayer of Faith

The prayer of faith is clearly described in Mark 11:23-24. "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

"Therefore, I say unto you, what things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them (now), and ye shall have them."

We see, here, that the prayer of faith cannot be offered twice for the same thing. As soon as you have asked, if you have real faith, your prayer changes to an affirmation of possession. Having willed to do the will of God, and having asked God to receive you into Himself, nothing is left you but to declare, "I and my Father are one."

This is the point which has been missed by most commentators — that the prayer of faith, when uttered, becomes an affirmation of possession. You cannot continue to pray for a thing when you believe that you receive it; you can only return thanks and assert that it is yours.

The Process of Receiving

First, will to do the will of God, and then (2) pray that you may be one with Him; and then (3) affirm, "I and my father are one."

And when you have definitely established in your consciousness the fact of your unity with Spirit, then draw your deductions of health, peace, power and wealth from this fact, and affirm them; otherwise you may not demonstrate them, for while they are all included in the fact of your unity with God, the mere assertion of that may not bring all the corollaries to your consciousness.

When the disciples came to Jesus asking Him to teach them to pray, He gave them the Lord's prayer; and it begins: "Thy kingdom come." When one has said that, he has asked for all there is; in the Kingdom of God no one would be without daily bread, or suffer evil; but these things are included in the prayer in order to make the thing prayed for more definite to the understanding.

So, the general affirmation of unity with God is not sufficiently definite to bring us health, peace, power and wealth; we do not clearly understand that these are included, and it is better to affirm them. But we must be definite and specific in our understanding of the fact of our unity with God.

"That Mind Which Was in Christ Jesus"

"I and my Father are one." That is good, but it does not convey the idea to the modern mind with sufficient distinctness.

"There is one Intelligence, and I am one with that Intelligence." Better, but somewhat clumsy.

"There is one MIND, and I am that MIND." That is a most clear-cut and concise statement of the fact; it would be hard to put it more tersely.

"There is ONE MIND." When you say that, think of the one Intelligence, permeating all things, vitalizing all things, giving coherence and purpose to all things. Get your thought fixed on this MIND, so that it seems to you that you can see and feel it! Then say: "I AM that MIND."

It is that MIND which is speaking, when I speak; which is acting when I act.

I-AM-that-MIND.

It takes affirming and reaffirming to get this fact fixed in consciousness, but all the time you put into the work is most profitably spent. You can well afford to go, as Jesus did, into the desert to fast and meditate for forty days; you can well afford to spend whole nights in prayer, if by doing so you can arrive at a full consciousness of your unity with God.

For then you will have entered the Kingdom.

"There is one MIND, and I am that MIND." Say it continuously, and always when you say it, try to comprehend all that it means. You; you who speak, are eternal mind; eternal power; eternal life.

All things are yours, and all things are possible unto you, when once you have banished the false idea of separateness from your consciousness.

Your word will be with power, and you will speak as one having authority; you will demonstrate health, power, wealth and wisdom when the consciousness that you are the ETERNAL ONE has obtained complete possession of your mind, objective and subjective.

And you can bring this about; only faith and continuing in affirmation while you will to do the will of God, are required.