The Still Waters

Divine Sufficiency and the Knowing Mind

October 2003

      "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." (II Corinthians 9:8).

     "Not that we are sufficent of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God." (II Corinthians 3:5).

      "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32).

     Having sufficiency in all things doesn't seem to be a fact of life. Yet, spiritually speaking, it is. Spiritually speaking, we're always at one with God, that infinite Spirit of life and intelligence, the source of all substance, including the substance of all life forms. This means that Spirit is the source of our body substance, our mind substance or intelligence, our health, our life, our supply, even our goodness of character. Yet, how can this be, when we don't even detect this spiritual source we call God with any of our physical senses?

     Consider this. The sun is 93 million miles from the earth. Yet, a ray of light emanates out from the sun, travels this unfathomable distance, streams through the transparent glass in your living room window, and warms the carpet where the cat snuggles up to snooze. Even allowing for refraction, or bending of the light ray, nothing has gotten between the sun and this ray. The sun, itself, isn't in your living room. The ray that warms the cat and pours in the light has emanated out from the sun for 93 million miles, without anything separating this ray of light from its source. The sun is with this ray. This ray couldn't exist if it wasn't still connected to its source--the sun. And wherever this beam of light lands, it's still connected to its source, which nourishes and replenishes it, keeps it in full strength, so it can do what it exists to do. The ray of light is always sufficient because it's always connected to its source, which keeps fulfilling it. There's a great, spiritual lesson in this symbolism.

     This, you see, is how sufficiency works. Sufficiency always has a source. This source engages in a perpetual pouring out, or emanation, sending its own substance out, away from its center, but never away from its essence. In just this way, every son and daughter of God, Spirit, emanates out from the center of God's own being, yet never breaks its connection with God Itself. That's why eternal life not only is possible, it's the only possibility.

     Every creature and identity created exists in the spiritual essence of God, its source, and that connection cannot be broken. "For in him, we live,and move and have our being…" (Acts 17:28). Thus, every good thing that goes to make up our true selfhood, is pouring out from God, eternally, keeping us whole, sound, balanced, ordered, sufficient, good, intelligence, talented, everlasting; in fact, every quality that applies to God, applies to our true being. This is how the divine Intelligence keeps man and woman as Its image and likeness. "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." (Luke 15:31). We are actually made of the same substance and essence of God, Itself; this substance and essence is Spirit, not matter.

     Of course, believing ourselves to be physical beings, disconnected or exiled from our spiritual Father/Mother, we don't seem to be an emanation of anything. We seem to exist in a finite from, disconnected even from our human mother. Our only source seems to be the cells in a fleshly body. Our condition seems to be a material one. We do everything in our power to keep this physical source of our life and health in some kind of whole and undamaged state, so that our invisible health and life force is protected; but time (we believe) will take care of that too--we'll age and die anyway. Or so it seems.

     Yet, over two thousand years ago, Christ Jesus did some remarkable things that broke all the laws and rules of materially mortal, finite existence and selfhood. He not only healed some diseases, he healed any and all that came to his attention. Add to this his healing of injuries, heredity disabilities like blindness, deafness, lameness, birth defects, and the great grand-daddy of them all, death. And he didn't just defy death for himself, as if his true selfhood was different from anyone else's true selfhood; when he heard of the death of Lazarus, here was Jesus' words: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." (John 11:11).

     Now the disciples, hearing Jesus say Lazarus was sleeping, thought he really meant normal sleeping. So the account continues, "Then said Jesus unto them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead.' " (John 11:14). The Master's reference to death as 'sleep' shows that he was speaking of a mental state, for sleep is just a lower state of consciousness--not cessation of life. This shows that death in the physical body doesn't stop life any more than human sleep does; it's just a movement of consciousness. No one and nothing can kill what God creates, because the selfhood that God creates was never separated from God, Itself. Since spiritual selfhood was never separated from its everlasting source in the first place, it's impossible to pass into non-existence in the second place. So, calling to this true, spiritual selfhood of Lazarus, Jesus stood at the tomb of his friend, and Lazarus heard. From the deeper sleep of death, he awoke from the mistaken view of physical selfhood, and walked out of the tomb.

     Now, without the Master's presence, perhaps Lazarus fell into the sleep of death another time; but there's no record of that one way or another. What we do know, is that Jesus taught the principles and truth about spiritual being to many of his disciples, and showed them how to heal with this knowledge held in consciousness. He even said, "…He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father." (John 14: 12). Jesus was ready to leave the material conscious level of existence for good, returning to his truer identity in Spirit. So the healing work to be done on this lower-awareness level had to be passed along to others.

     In spiritual healing (beyond material healing) knowing or realizing the spiritual truth of our true selfhood as God's image and likeness is the crucial ingredient. However, when in the midst of a bad human situation, or when manifesting an illness, we are often confronted with the devilish suggestion that we don't know enough spiritual truth to heal something. Then, if we swallow this material lie about our mind, it mentally paralyzes us; we don't even put forth the effort to see or call from within our own, divine consciousness, the Christ Consciousness, the spiritual truth and comprehension we need to adjust the human error facing us.

     What we often do instead, is call someone else to provide this service for us--call upon someone we deem to be more spiritual, to address his or her own divine consciousness and see the spiritual truth for us, (and about us) since we feel inadequate to do the task ourselves. And while it's true that calling someone else is one way to experience spiritual healing, if this becomes a dependency habit, the result will be spiritual growth for the one doing the mental realization, rather than ourselves.

      On the other hand, when we don't swallow this lie of human, spiritual inadequacy, if instead we turn to God (as our divine, innate Intelligence or Mind) rather than a person, a wondrous thing happens: truth begins to come forth into our own thoughts, like a light dawning, and we then See mentally what we needed to comprehend spiritually. Then the healing result to the physical body or human situation comes from our own mental effort, and we have grown spiritually, awakened just a little bit more, because of it. So why is this able to occur? Why are we always completely adequate to be our own 'healers'?

     This occurs because God is the only Creator, and there is no creation besides the spiritual one which God formed. True, due to our use and reliance upon the physical senses to define reality, it may be appearing to us as a material place; yet this assessment is the mist that evaporates with the light of spiritual realization--the realization that the substance and essence of every thing and every one is spiritual, rather than physical. Therefore, different rules or 'laws' are in play than we've previously believed.

     It's vital to recognize that our sufficiency in all things includes our sufficiency in spiritual truth. It also includes our sufficiency in knowing and understanding this truth. Divine truth exists in the one, infinite Mind that is within us all. All creation, all creatures, have this one and only Mind within. If the reader doubts this, watch what we call 'Mother Nature'. The fish of the seas and waterways go by an Intelligence unseen. The seasons and heavenly bodies move in a precision of awesome proportions--a great Intelligence behind them all. Even in the daily affairs of humanity, people often act upon and do things (without intending to) that often results in a harmony that defies explanation. These things happen because God isn't someone out there in the great somewhere; God is here, within our own conscious being.

     At the age of fifteen, I learned the great truth of spiritual being, which resulted in a dramatic physical healing that defied medical science at the time. (In the near future, the entire account of this healing will be published under my pen name, Rachael Wolfe. I use this name to publish my auto-biographical writings, to distinguish them from my spiritual healing articles.)

     Briefly summarizing, here's what happened: on a hay-ride on a Friday evening, I fell off the hay wagon, and the iron wheel ran over my leg. While trying to walk to the doctor's office the next morning, I became angry with God for allowing me to be injured and not taking care of me. When the pain grew too intense, I hopped over to a tree for support. (That same tree is still there today, right where I left it.) As I stood, men tally complaining to God, a strong message came into my thought. Basically, here's what I heard: 'I was accusing God unrighteously. There's a you (this mental voice told me) that is always safe in God's love, and was never touched by anything in this world. This you is entirely spiritual, not physical. Neither are there two of you, one physical and one spiritual. No, there's only the spiritual you that everyone in this place thinks is physical. People think the life force is filtered through the fleshly form…the blood, the bones, the nerves, etc. This is an illusion of the human mind. You can neither feel the flesh nor be in it. But believing you are makes you "feel" mentally its pain and sensations. You exist apart from the physical form, in the realm of Spirit, safe and sound forever in God's love. I was told to try to see or realize the truth of this.'
     Hearing this inner message, I said something like this, "Well, that's just crazy! They'd lock me up for sure, if I told that to anyone!" But inwardly, I knew it was true. From other spiritual experiences in my life, I knew the physical world was not what it seemed. This new explanation made perfect sense to me.
     The voice within then told me to step down on my leg. I did so, and the pain was gone. I was told to run on the leg. I did so, and when I arrived at the doctor's office, they were stunned that I could even stand on the leg. (The whole town knew of the accident that had occurred the night before.) My leg was x-rayed, but the doctor didn't want to touch my leg, except to put an ankle wrap around my knee for rigidity. A day or two later, I was told that the leg had been cracked all up the calf bone and had been set perfectly, with about three-months healing tissue. It was healing super-rapidly.
     The doctors and hospital staff in the nearby city wanted to know who had set it; they'd never seen this type of break (crack) fixed or set in that way, so perfectly. They wanted to take my blood to study and tried to convince me I might have a rare, healing agent in my blood. I declined. For months I was bothered by the doctor and medical establishment, but I knew what had really happened, and told them that no physical thing had been done to me. That's all I would say. It was 1958--I was no fool. I never even told my parents what had happened.

     But my leg was healed. I doubt today that it would even show a scar or breakage evidence inside. But what stayed with me was the realization that spiritual truth, about a me, always safe in God's love from everything in this world, had flowed into my consciousness, or out of my deeper consciousness, making me disbelieve that I, my real selfhood, had ever been hurt or broken in the first place. This realization, this change in my own thinking and self-identification, caused the fleshly form of leg to stop manifesting bone breakage, and it changed the form back to wholeness pretty fast.

      I carried this message of a spiritual me from then on, but I didn't grasp the fullness of what I had experienced until I was twenty-seven, and was led to and studied the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and what she knew. My understanding was so small compared to hers. I also studied other metaphysical writers and healers, like Joel Goldsmith, and found that the principles of Christian Science were known throughout world thought now--the main principle being the realization of spiritual existence, rather than physical being.

     The fact that God is the only Creator means that it is the divine Intelligence that has formed the real (spiritual) creation and all identities in it. All bodies and mentalities belong to God, proceed from God, and remain in God--the all knowing, all seeing Mind or Intelligence of its own universe. Thus, God upholds our one and only "mind," our innate Christ Consciousness, so we always have enough truth—a sufficiency of truth--to know and see what we need to know and see.

     This spiritual consciousness, shared by all, is fed by the only real Intelligence there is. We are linked to this Intelligence. There is no lack of knowing…no lack of understanding. God has set within us, forever, the fullness of truth and understanding. We don't have to let truth in; we have to let it out. Having enough truth, makes one naturally adequate to comprehend it. So, we don't need to get truth, or try to pour it into our minds--it's already there, to be remembered and realized.

     Our sufficiency in having spiritual truth and understanding exists because God's Intelligence and resulting spiritual laws uphold Its entire creation. God upholds our true Mind, just as God upholds our true bodies, forever. Both our spiritual consciousness (mind) and our spiritual body (substance and essence) is in God's keeping, and God's alone. That's why the invisible realization of spiritual truth can "heal" the material form of all its distortion and diseases, since the true selfhood, body-soul-mind, is forever intact in God's keeping.

     No doubt, this explains why Jesus and his disciples could heal all ills of the flesh. Through the realization that God is Spirit, God's universe, including man, is spiritual rather than physical. This makes God the only power and lawmaker in the true creation. These early, healing works proved, beyond doubt, that in the kingdom of God, (our true creation) and in the will of God, there is no sickness, no injury, no aging, no death. There is no physical creation at all, except for the erring manifestations material thinking produces. Thus, the spiritual body and mind aren't controlled or affected by material so-called law, and a realization of our everlasting spiritual health and life in God restores the physical belief of our bodies to a condition of wholeness. One day, probably eons from now when all are awakened spiritually, the entire physical illusion will translate back to the spiritual view, and even the stars and planets will lose, to our comprehension, their finite forms.

     The physical body is actually thought, or material belief, externalized into fleshly form. But the flesh and the Spirit are contrary to one another. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (Christ Jesus, in John 6:63).

     Thought turned rightly into the spiritual realm begins at once to display a manifestation of health and wholeness, that better patterns our true, spiritual state of being. But even a healthy, material body isn't the truth of being; for our only being is a healthy, spiritual embodiment of life. What form this spiritual 'body' might take is invisible to us now; but its substance wouldn't be in finite form, as one might imagine. It would, most likely, be as everywhere present as God.

     Since our true being is always safe and sound in God's own spiritual essence, the false, material sense of existence, (even when accepted in thought) can't really make us sick, or make us well. Not even universally accepted beliefs can touch our true being. In God's knowing, there are no destructive elements in creation to harm man in the first place, nor any need for a healing agent in the second place. Our divine sufficiency exists entirely separate from the physical form that we believe ourselves to be. So does our sufficiency of mind exist apart from our human belief about a physical mind, needing to grow in truth.

     The forgetfulness of spiritual being has something to do, no doubt, with what the Bible and other religious writings refer to as the "fall of man." I don't know what this fall actually was, perhaps just a falling asleep into a lower level of consciousness, where our spiritual memory is suppressed and needs jolting. For even when we sleep at night and dream our dreams, we don't remember anything about our waking life when we're seemingly in a dream.

      So, maybe this is a clue as to how consciousness works--perhaps when on any one level of consciousness, we don't remember anything that exists on another level. I do know that spiritual awakening brings an awareness of the spiritual level as reality, diminishing the material. And, perhaps the most important thing, in this human experience, is to let go of our attempt to see the whole picture of Spirit's truth at once; but rather, just find Spirit's path and walk it as needed, one step at a time.