"Know
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you?" "God is in his holy temple." Augustine said
that the pure mind is a holy temple for God, and Emerson that God
builds His temple in the heart. Seneca said that "temples are
not to be built for God with stones . . . He is to be consecrated
in the breast of each."
Every
man is an incarnation of God, and since each person is an individual,
everyone is a unique incarnation. We believe in the Divine Presence
as Infinite Person, and personal to each. God is not a person, but
the Person. This Person is an Infinite Presence filled with warmth,
color and responsiveness, immediately and intimately personal to each
individual.
The
Spirit is both an over-dwelling and an indwelling Presence. We are
immersed in It and It flows through us as our very life. Through intuition
man perceives and directly reveals God. We do not have to borrow our
light from another. Nothing could be more intimate than the personal
relationship between the individual and that Divine Presence which
is both the Center and the Source of man's being.
Not
some men, but all men, are divine. But all men have not yet recognized
their divinity. Our spiritual evolution is a gradual awakening to
the realization that the Spirit is center, source and circumference
of all being. It is in everything. (See Your Invisible
Power, an Institute publication. Also read carefully
section on The Perfect Whole in The Science
of Mind, textbook of the Institute.)
The
main body of the Christian religion is built upon three grand concepts:
first, that God is an Over-dwelling Presence; next,
that God is also an Indwelling Presence; and third,
that the conscious union of the Indwelling and the Overdwelling,
through the mind of man, gives birth to the divine child, the Christ,
the Son of God.
It
was this revelation which enabled Jesus to perform his wonderful works.
He became so conscious of his union with God that the very words he
spoke were the Words of God spoken through him.
The
only way that the Power of God can be manifest through man is by man's
realization that it is the Father who dwelleth in him who doeth the
works. Everyone should practice this close and intimate relationship
between the individual and the Universal. Everyone should practice
the Presence of God. This Presence is a reality, the one, great and
supreme reality of life. There is a "light which lighteth every
man." Man is spoken of in the Bible as "the candle of the
Lord," and Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is
in heaven."
Through
spiritual intuition Jesus perceived his union with God. What suffering,
what unuttered anguish, what persistence, effort and discipline this
man may have gone through to arrive at this exalted state, we know
not, but we may be gratefully aware that he passed through every gamut
of human suffering and emerged triumphant, supreme. Christ is the
divine and universal Emanation of the Infinite Spirit incarnated in
everything, individualized in man and universalized in God.
Whatever
God is in the universal, man is in the individual. This is why all
spiritual leaders have told us that if we would uncover the hidden
possibility within, we should not only discover the true Self, the
Christ, we should also uncover the true God, the One and Only Cause,
the Supreme Being, the Infinite Person.
Jesus
taught a complete union of man with God. He proclaimed that all men
are divine; that all are one with the Father; that the Kingdom of
Heaven is within; that the Father has delivered all power unto the
son; and that the son thinks the thoughts of God after Him, and imbibes
spiritual power through realization of his union with his Source.
