LESSON ONE

"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and whosoever shall know HIMSELF shall find it."

Love and blessings,

INSTRUCTIONS

Come give me your hand. I want to take you to a place I know. It is a beautiful castle but within it are two places that need lots of work done for it to be whole and truly beautiful again. Let's go upstairs. Have you ever seen an attic so jam-packed with a lot of useless plunder? Know what it is? IT'S YOUR MIND. Many of us go through life hauling a lot of useless freight simply because we don't know how to free ourselves.

Well, first I want you to take your main beliefs and examine them thoroughly. Then ask yourself, "Why do I believe this? Is it something I have proved or something handed to me by race, superstition, suggestion or man-made theories?" Examine each thing carefully because what you decide to keep, YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH.

Now let's go to the cellar, now down another flight. Dark isn't it? This is the dungeon where the lord of the castle keeps his prisoners. Each prisoner's name is on the cell door, criticism, hate, resentment, anger, and in the last and darkest cell the worst of all, fear. Recognize the jailor? YES, IT'S YOU! This dungeon is your heart (subconscious mind) and the jailor is just as much imprisoned as the prisoners because he has to stay with them, and feed and care for them. The only way he can be free, is to free the prisoners. A great teacher once said that ten minutes a day spent in forgiving ourselves and others was the best preparation for a good life.

I know you are shocked. I was too when I recognized myself. But I was glad too, because I realized what a perfect chance I have to wipe the slate clean, and begin a new life such as the gods themselves would envy.

Now is the time to start!



Beloved Friend:

Did you ever read Emerson's advice in his letter to his daughter? "Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could today; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, but forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is for all that is good and fair. It is too dear to waste a moment on the forgotten yesterdays,"

Jesus gave us another way of saying this, "Cast your burdens upon ME and I will sustain you."

Now let us find out about Me. Who is this Me Jesus speaks of? Is it the man Jesus? I think not.

He was speaking of that wonderful Me within You, God Himself.

But if we are to make progress in this new beginning we are making, it is absolutely necessary to STOP living in past events of your life and live in the present, the NOW. That is really all the time we ever have. The past exists only in our memory and no man can live the future, so you can readily see the NOW is the important time.

Why are our mental hospitals so full, and so many people struggling under such burdens it makes them ill to carry them? Are they the burdens of this present hour or day? No, I believe if you look into the matter thoroughly you will come to realize we are carrying ALL the burdens we have ever had, and the load is past bearing. We let the "dead past" color our bright new day and cast its dark shadows so we walk a darkened way. We measure everything by past experience, which is just as foolish as the forty year old woman who thought by wearing her hair in pigtails, and little girl clothes she could escape the responsibilities of adulthood.

We hug our past to us, the bitter with the sweet, never dreaming it no longer exists, except in our thoughts, but never realizing that our present is formed and shaped as it is because of our holding to the past. In memory lives the army of beliefs which strengthens our belief in good and evil. In admitting evil as a reality in the past, strength is added to our admissions of it in the present. Remembering and going over past evils, or problems, or mistakes will eventually cause them to RETRACE themselves in our present expression. Many a person is suffering, not from a sin, but the MEMORY of it, with its condemnation.

"Loose it and let it go." Free yourself from the memory of what you have passed through. It's the MEMORY of evil, drilled into us from childhood, that causes us to react so suspiciously toward the world. And yet we are told by the Great Teacher we must become as a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Child of whom He speaks is the Real Self of you; that pure and glorious and wonderful Self that has never really left heaven. And how do we become this Child? Is there anything in heaven or earth as wonderful, as pure, as lovely as a little child? He bears no grudges, has no prejudices, and finds everything valuable and of interest from worms to skyscrapers. He lives in a dream of bliss because he loves everything. He has no past to bother him, knows nothing about the future, so he lives fully the present day. When night falls, he sleeps secure in the knowledge that he is loved and protected by his parents. The world is his because he loves it.

We can be reborn into that world for already it lives in us and belongs to us by divine right because now beloved, you are the child of God.

If you could only realize for one moment, even to a small degree, what that means your whole life would change. The way to realization is to think about it, thrill to it, love towards it, until it becomes yours, as it surely will.

It is a fact that two things can not occupy the same place at the same time. So if you want something different in your life, something better than you now have, you must let go of what you are holding to NOW, else nothing new can enter in.

We have in these first two letters been trying to help you clear your decks for action. Next week we will start building, and I hope your building place is clear and clean. Remember, in using these principles it is YOU who will benefit. Are you ready?

Affectionately,