From: The Thunder of Silence
 
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When we hear that Voice, we need not concern ourselves about protection against bombs; we need not concern ourselves with depressions or recessions. One thing alone then concerns us: the ability to be still and let God manifest and express Himself as the still small Voice within us.
 
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We need to understand the simple little truth that the still small Voice is the power that destroys the illusions of this world. That understanding does not consist of our having a power to do something to error: It consists of the truth that no power is needed to destroy error because error has within itself the elements of self-destruction. We bear witness to that as we stand and look at the unfruitful tree and watch as it withers. We do not wither it: Its own barrenness withers it. So error is dissolved as we sit in quietness and stillness, a witness to the divine Power, and watch as harmony descends upon all around us.
 
 
 
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The world is to be saved by My Spirit, but this Spirit operates only through the consciousness of a person who opens himself to It. Therefore, it is our responsibility to become a spiritual rock upon which the harmony of our neighborhood and community, even of our nation, can rest.
 
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The spiritual word cannot penetrate the human mind; but we can and will help the world rise above war and disease by being the light in our own family, not preaching to them or trying to force them into our way of thinking, but by holding our peace within ourselves and retiring from the battle between good and evil, by going within and realizing that only in the degree that we resist not evil can the peace that passes understanding descend upon us.
 
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God functions through individual consciousness, and that becomes our consciousness when we have learned to be still enough to hear the thunder of the Silence. (...) If necessary, let us sit in a chair all day and all night, until the Spirit of the Lord is upon us and dwells in us.
 
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God does not impart His glory to another; therefore, let us not attempt to be spiritually powerful, but be spiritually humble and let God's grace perform Its functions through us and as us.
 
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We can stand still and think no thoughts -- just be receptive and let God's thoughts flow to us and permeate our being. And then our work will be accomplished. But I must remind you that Spirit is never working for us. It is working in and through us as we yield and surrender ourselves — even our thoughts so that God can take over.
 
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In His presence there is fullness of life -- nothing is absent. When we have God's presence, we have God appearing as food, as clothing, as housing. But there is one requirement: to have His presence -- not meaningless affirmations or the mouthings of the deep truths of Scripture, but His presence.
 
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Is asking God for things an indication that we understand God to be Intelligence and Love, or do not such requests imply that we believe God is withholding something from us? Can we really be concerned about food, clothing, or anything in this world when we have the direct assurance that our heavenly Father knows that we have need of all these things?
 
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We owe it not only to ourselves but to the world to know no man after the flesh, but to know every man as we would be known by him, to give up ascribing qualities of good and evil to friend or enemy, to cease thinking about his human history past, present, or possible future—and to look at him only as a person and see him in his true spiritual identity: "God is the Soul of this individual; God is his mind and intelligence. It is God that is pouring Itself through into expression as individual being." Is there anything in all the world more desired by the human soul than this recognition of his real Self?
 
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Knowing the truth does not imply a knowing of the truth about human beings or about any condition that is mortal. There is no such truth. Knowing the truth means knowing the truth about God and God's creation, and this knowing of the truth awakens man and lifts him above and out of his mortality.
 
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They live in a constant fear of and for one another, a longing and a desire to see and be in close proximity to one another. That does not exist in spiritual love, and yet in that spiritual love, there is always the joy of tabernacling together.
 
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Some period every single day should be set aside for consciously remembering that we are holding no man in bondage to his sins, that we want no man to suffer or even be punished for them. To forgive means much more than to be content with such cant as, "Oh, yes, I don't want any harm to come to anybody." It is not that simple. It is the ability to sit down and face whatever the enemy may appear to be and realize, "Father, forgive him his offenses and open his eyes that he may see."
 
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There is not anything or anybody that can forgive us. Therefore, there is not any possibility of our ever being forgiven except under one condition, and that is when there is no possibility of the offense being repeated. In other words, no matter what the offense may have been, as long as there is the potentiality within us of its being repeated, we are not wholly forgiven. (...) That is the true idea of forgiveness. There really is no God to forgive. When the state of consciousness that could be guilty of resentment, anger, jealousy, malice, or whatever it may have been "dies," there not only is nothing to forgive, and nobody to forgive.
 
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One of the most important lessons for all of us to learn is that there is no room in the spiritual life for the return of evil for evil there is no room for anything but a life of forgiveness.
 
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Anything that enslaves one enslaves the world; anything that sets one man free tends to free the entire world; anything that impoverishes one man, one race, or one sect impoverishes the world; anything that brings one grain more of supply into the life of an individual, race, or nation tends to set the entire world free from lack.
 
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Prayer must be a desire for spiritual fulfillment. Through seeking first the kingdom of God, giving up hope of gaining any thing, and being satisfied to let the things be added unto us, we open ourselves to fulfillment. Who of us can know where spiritual fulfillment will lead or leave us? It may leave us in our present work or present mode of living, or it may lead us into new activities and an entirely new life.
 
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The absence of fruitage in prayer merely bears witness to our failure to go deep enough into our consciousness to make contact with the Presence which is always there and which is ever available.
 
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According to Jesus, prayer must be practiced in secret.
 
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We relax, not into letting the world do what it wants with us, but into that Spirit which is within us in order to let It take over and govern our experience.
 
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If, instead of fighting a problem, we are willing to admit that to all appearances this problem seems to be overwhelming and turn within asking to have the reality revealed, then we are not trying to rise above or destroy the problem. We are merely trying to understand not understand the problem, but understand the reality behind the problem. If we can be perfectly quiet and perfectly still with no attempt to overcome, destroy, remove, or escape from any situation or condition, the flow of the Spirit will rush in and there will be freedom.
 
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The conditioned mind forms our problems, and there are times when that mind might form an answer to the problem, but that is not what we are seeking. What we want is a higher capacity than the human mind, and so now, without calling upon the thinking process, we let our mind be an instrument through which the Soul can reveal Itself.
 
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Let us learn to sit quietly, resting in the realization that underneath are "the everlasting arms," and that no amount of praying will put those everlasting arms there: They are already underneath us.
 
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Human existence is based on a belief or trust in two powers, and even religion is based on the power of God over evil; but in heaven there are no powers of good or of evil: There is only God Itself, living Its own life as you and as me, and as a heavenly universe.
 
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The solution to all human problems rested in the ability not to fight back, not to fight error, but on the ability to rest in the one Power.
 
 
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