Lesson 29
One of the many ways that temptation comes to a person on the way, (who has realized certain things, has observed self, and then is subject to more subtle means of being tempted by mammon) is that of idolatry. Ordinarily, we think of idolatry as bowing down and worshiping some man-made image, some great stone or wood statue or something of that nature. However, idolatry has been described as making anything important, or as depending on it. One of the things that has been described through the ages as an idol of things that one has made important or upon which one depends, is the human physical body. Now, the physical body is an instrument of X, for expression of the things that X knows to do for the information it receives from awareness. However, inasmuch as the physical body is the source to awareness, it is the mediator through which vibrations of various kinds come from the environment and therefore, has sensations. It is very easy to be identified with, and unless one is in a constant state of attention, being heedful, of watching, it is very easy to begin to depend on the physical body. Other things that can slip up on a person that we make important are conversations, companionships and many other things of a like nature.
In order to describe some of these things in more detail, we will read from a book which possibly many of you are not familiar with. It is called the Book of Wisdom. It is a book that possibly antedates the Christian era, the birth of Christ, by some 150 years. The history of it is that it was written in Greek for a School in Alexandria, Egypt, that was operated as a branch of the House of Israel. There was still some vitality in the various Schools — they had not degenerated to the point that the Scribes and Pharisees had when this book was written. We will read from Chapter 13 in this book and make comments as we go along. We would like you to keep a record on one of your sheets of paper (I am sure a fat notebook by now) that says IDOLS.
We will begin to be aware of the idols that we might be tempted to worship, or have inadvertently been tempted to worship; or shall we say, to make something important or to depend upon, and we will observe all the people that we come in contact with and what they are making idols of. This is the things that leads man away from remembering that he is a servant of X, and that X does all the work; that Spirit does everything, the walking, the talking, etc. The physical body cannot walk, X walks it. The physical body cannot see, only X can. Awareness can experience seeing, but no one knows how to see. This is X working. It is very easy for us to forget X because we are somewhat creatures of sense, and we are aware of the sense factors but we do not pay attention to what makes the senses work. You have only to look at a dead body to see that the body does not see. It doesn’t sense that it is only an instrument.
So reading from the Book of Wisdom, “But all men are vain.” In other words, all men have a false picture of themselves and a false picture of their capabilities. “All men are vain in whom there is not the knowledge of God.” If one is aware that X, Spirit, God is doing all the functioning, then one has ceased to be vain. But if one thinks “I” am doing this, one is vain. As the Christ said, “Of myself, I can do nothing. The Father within doth all the work.” “All men are vain in whom there is not the knowledge of God and who by these things that are seen could not understand Him that is neither by attending to the works have acknowledged who was the workman.” We see the work of walking, and we do not think who is the walker. We experience seeing and do not think who is the seer. We hear and do not think who is the hearer. So we begin to depend on eyes or ears and not on the hearer or the seer. “But have imagined either the fire, or the wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the great water, or the sun and the moon, to be the gods that rule the world.” If you doubt that, you can stop in most any store and see the many books and objects on astrology. You can also find many people who feel that the stars rule their lives. Usually, in most daily papers there is a horoscope, a daily column, so that people can see what the stars are doing, and they begin to feel that the stars control their destiny. Would you say this is a form of idolatry? Would you observe that it is a very common form of idolatry in this very day?
“With whose beauty, if they be delighted, took them to be gods; let them know how much the Lord of them is more beautiful than they. For the first author of beauty made all of those things.” So all the things that one sees, such as the stars and the moon, have been made by Spirit, and they are only instruments by which something is done. They obviously have no power. The instrument is never the power. The greatest computer is a very fine instrument buy has no power except that it is programmed and operated by intelligence and that intelligence coms from where? Is there intelligence in the human brain or is it when intelligence departs, the brain is merely a piece of flesh?
“Art thee admired their power and their effects.” People saw the wind blow, the storms come, and so there was power. So they said that there was a storm god, and a wind god, and they began to depend on them, honor them, fear them. They made them important in someway or other. “Let them understand by them that He that made them is mightier than they [the wind, etc.] for by the greatness of the beauty of the creature, the creator then may be seen, so as to be known thereby.” If one can see a beautiful human being, the human body, recognize the beauty of the creator of that body; if one sees graceful movements of a lovely dance or performance, great skill exercised with someone, who is doing the work? Do we honor the physical performer, or do we see that Spirit is behind the whole thing and does all the work, and that our whole effort is to be concerned with recognizing the Spirit within? As we see that, we cease to be idolaters. As long as we are fascinated by the sense objects the objects that we can sense, and do not see the motivating power within, we are then to a degree an idolater because we put value on or make important things that can be sensed.
It continues, “But yet to these, they are less to be blamed.” The idolaters are not to be blamed. “…for they perhaps err seeking God.” They really are looking for God. They understand there is a power, but never having had instruction of any kind, they are seeking wherever they can see an expression of power. They don’t see what is doing the expressing; they only see the instrument through which it is expressed. “And they are being desirous to find God for being conversant among his works, they search and they are persuaded that the things are good which are seen.” The physical bodies, the storms, the rains and all of these, but what made them? What has them working? Without the intelligence of Spirit, nothing happens. “But then again they are not to be pardoned.” Now he will say why they are not to be pardoned. “For if they were able to know so much as to ask a judgment of the world, how did they not more easily find out the Lord thereof, but unhappy are they and their hope is among the dead.” Things that are totally worthless, dead instruments of various kinds.
“Who have called gods the works of the hands of men, gold and silver, the inventions of art, the resemblance of beasts, or the unprofitable stone, the work of an ancient hand.” Sometimes people find an old old statue and they begin township it because they feel it must have come from heaven. Many years ago there was a rough stone that fell out of the sky, and they called it “Diana of the Ephesians.” It somewhat resembled a human form but it was apparently a meteorite. Because it fell out of the heavens and had something of the resemblance of a human form, a great religious system was formed around it called “Diana of the Ephesians.”
“…or if an artist, a carpenter, has cut down a tree proper for his use of the wood and has skillfully taken off all the bark thereof and with his art diligently formed a vessel possibly for the common uses of life.” He’s made a bucket, board, table or a chair, or something of common use. “And uses the chips of his work to dress his meat [chips to cook his meat] and taking what was left thereof which is good for nothing, being a crooked piece of wood and full of knots, he carved it diligently when he had nothing else to do, and by the skill of his art, fashioned it and made it like the image of a man.” A man took the scrap and because he had nothing else to do, but something else to fit with it (it would not even burn good)” …he made the image of a man or the resemblance of some beast.” (Laying it over with red paint and covering every spot that is in it.) “He made a convenient dwelling place for it and set it in a wall and fastened it up with iron.” He set up a statue on his wall. “And providing for it least it should fall, knowing that it is unable to help itself for it is an image and has need of help.” We night not have to travel far to see people know before various and sundry statues that have to be fastened up and held in place with various forms of metal or other kinds of support to keep it from falling over. It is simply a piece of wood. But they bow down and say prayers to it as an image.
“And then make a prayer to it, inquiring, concerning his substance or his children or his marriage.” They want all these things make it known to me that my children shall prosper, tell me whom to marry, make it known to me what business I shall go into so that I may prosper, and isn’t it fairly easy make all these things important? One makes a relationship important and depends upon it for a state of being or one makes children important. They are very interesting. They are very wonderful little folks to observe growing up, but are they important? Only as they are an expression of Spirit. And especially is it important that we make a business succeed? Or is it only important that we use the business as a place of relationships that we may apply and see in action all the principles of the Teaching.
“And he is not ashamed to speak to that which has no life.” Man speaks to a wooden image sometimes and he pleads with it and it has no life at all! He is only working from an idea that because he has been told that it is an image of a certain figure maybe that has a reputation for being a very wonderful person, a saint, a resurrected being, or some other creature that he give it due reverence and would feel that he had committed a sacrilege if anything happened to it, or if it fell from its place on the wall.
“And for health he makes supplication to the weak.” Not only is that true of supplication towards a statue, for health does one make supplication to an inner pill, stimulant, sedative or chemical which has no life in it, something that is toxic when put into the body. The body rebels against it and tries to throw it off by all manner of changes taking place. One attributes it to the drug but it is throwing the remedy out of the body. You know, a person takes a laxative and thinks the laxative has an effect, but the laxative is a toxin and X, recognizing it from the sensations arising, makes every effort to throw it out of the body. So it throws it out and a few other things of with it and the person gives the credit to what? Carter’s little liver pills or to X? “And for life he prays to that which is dead and for healths calls upon that which is unprofitable.” Do we for health call on all manner of drugs and remedies?
So do we call on the “horriblescope” (excuse me, the horoscope), or do we look to X for help? Or do we look to the Teaching that shows us where we are erring in our reporting to X? Do we look for help from that which is weak, or do we look for that which is real that when applied, then everything works right. Do we really need help, or is that only an idea that we are the victim of some evil something that interfered with me, and that only a normal adaptation, pointing out that I was not fully awake? I was awake to certain facts but certain ones are still uncovered, and man has as his ever-non-ending job to be aware of WHAT IS day by day. It is not a chore; it is not a struggle. It is to be divinely awake, alert, full of enthusiasm, vitally interested and seeing relationships where one has never seen them before. It is to be alive, where formerly one was dead and took everything for granted.
“Before a good journey he petitions him who cannot walk.” The wooden statue or possibly many other things one looks to for a good journey, does one not? What do you use today to be sure that you have a good journey? Do you start out merely observing what is and let things be, or do we make some kind of effort to make sure it will be a non-disturbing journey, that there will be no second force; thus I did not have to much of an opportunity to discover or to add to anything that would aid the evolving, growth and development of the spiritual body.
“And for getting and for working and for the events of all things, he asks him that is unable to do anything.” One appeals to something that couldn’t do anything. Only X does everything. You see, this is possibly our greatest blind spot, and one in which we can spend much time in observing that X does all the work. When one is walking, it is interesting to watch X walk the feet. One is aware that one does not have the faintest idea how to move the muscles that bring about walking and maintain the balance of this frame that has so many joints, and it stands erect and walks with the greatest smoothness and grace. Who is walking? When eating, it is interesting to observe the food being taken into the mouth, to be chewed and swallowed, and to see that an intelligence, beyond the awareness, is doing it. Awareness only sees what to do. Intelligence, Spirit, X, takes care of all the how. But we are quite prone to begin to give credit, honor, or shall we say “worship,” to pay homage to something that cannot be done. We are prone to say: “I can eat, I can drink water, I can walk, I can work, I can play the violin, I can play the piano; all of which, if one observes, one sees that one doesn’t have the faintest idea how it is done and that one is observing X, Spirit at work.
So suppose for our practical application THIS WEEK THAT WE OBSERVE, FIRST IN SELF, ALL THE THINGS THAT X DOES. You may type, you may be cooking a meal, you may be walking, you may be driving an automobile. Observe all the motions that go on and realize that I, the awareness, is only seeing WHAT TO DO and that something which we refer to as X, Spirit (sometimes referred to by other names), is doing the work. This is beginning to recognize the presence of God. It is somewhere on the start of one realizing the union or oneness with God. This may happen sometime later, but not without being aware and paying attention to the greatest phenomena of all time, that Spirit is doing everything that I report.
I, the observing awareness, sees a rock in the road while driving. All of a sudden the car is turned, moved, maneuvered out of the way of the rock in one form or another. Then watch the self take credit for it: “Boy, I really did that well. I missed that rock and thousands of other things.” But we would like to see X, Spirit, at work. We see that it does all the things that one reports as being true and of value. What is and the value of what is. It is beginning to be possible for one to serve X, Spirit, much more completely, much more fully. One is aware of the presence of Spirit. One is aware and one is serving that presence. This is the approach to what is called faith. Faith is not something we can do. We have said it is something one experiences. And beginning to apply what we are discussing here, not for 10 minutes, not for 10 hours, but day after day, observing X doing all the work, that it does whatever one reports. It does the very appropriate thing for what one sees as what is and the value of what is.
You might review one of our early talks that tells something of the nature of X. It doesn’t say this is all, but it does discuss the nature of X, one thing being that X always does the appropriate thing for the information received from awareness as to what is and what is valuable or good about what is. When one has done this for a while, one will experience faith. But you see, one has come a long way since some of the other experiences of confession, surrender and repentance. One could possibly, not suddenly, justify something unexpectedly that one could sometime ago. You see, as one studies self, one has a tendency to be like Ecclesiastes, beginning to think one knows much and has wisdom. But as one continues along, one sees that mammon can trick him and overcome him quite often. This is when one begins to experience being humble, having experienced true humility. If one really studies self and observes it over a period of time, one certainly doesn’t have to try to be humble. He really is. One doesn’t have to try to be as a little child. One realizes that one has been a little child all this time. So as we observe this, we will begin to experience faith.
Keep a record and observe. Many times we cannot write it down, but let’s WRITE DOWN enough to keep us aware of it, that ALL THAT IS DONE IS DONE BY SPIRIT, that awareness can see only what and that only Spirit knows how. It is the only one that can even move a finger. I, the awareness, may see that it is desirable to wiggle a finger; only X can wiggle the finger. And it will do it if awareness sees it as desirable. The more one is aware that one is serving X by being a reporter of what is and what is good in what is, the nearer one is to faith.
Copyright © 1973 by Rhondell. All rights reserved. This material is for an individual student’s personal use; it is not to be duplicated or loaned to another.
