Nicol C. Campbell
My Path of Truth
The School of Truth
Johannesburg, 2nd ed., 1954.
[64] The greatest promise made by Spirit through man to you and me is the promise: "Fear not, for I am with thee. Be not afraid, I am thy God." Those are the most reassuring words that could ever have been uttered to the man and woman starting out in Truth.
When you look about you as you take your first steps in Truth and see the multitudinous problems presented to almost every individual you know, you wonder if it is really possible that God can be this beneficent Power of which you have heard, a Power that will manifest through your bodies as health and in your affairs as harmony and peace, abundance and success.
For me, God, Whom I can neither see, touch nor feel--Whom I know to be abstract in the universal, yet personal to each one of us individually, is a very close and constant Friend Who loves me in spite of my many faults. He is a Friend Who gives to me His very all; One Whose eager hands uplift me when I fall, Who will lead me when I go astray, Who will be my health should sickness overtake me, my guidance when I become confused, and my supply should there be any lack--a very personal Friend indeed.
[65] I talk to Him just as I do to you, as I would speak to my own father, and, although I know that He is not conscious of any problems since His nature is Perfection--Beauty, Love, Abundance, Peace, and Health--I still come to Him with all my difficulties connected with these things and so get them off my chest. I have to talk to someone or something that understands because I find that the majority of people to whom I speak, Truth students included, are filled with negation, and the very fact that many of them have had numerous demonstrations over all kinds of conditions still does not convince them of the Omnipresence of God, but I, in order to carry out my work, have to persuade myself of that truth perhaps a hundred or two hundred times a day; when I see in my path some problem that according to human thinking appears to be insurmountable, I have to reassure myself with those words again and again, not using them as an affirmation, or statement of Truth in which I want to believe, but listening to the Spirit within saying to me, "Fear not, I am with you. Be not afraid, I am your God. I am All-knowledge, All-power, All-presence, there is no problem that can be presented to you that I have not already solved, there is no disease, no matter how chronic, that My Life cannot instantly dissipate, no lack of any nature that My Substance cannot fill, no discord, no disharmony that may enter into your affairs that I cannot remove, if you but trust in Me. I am already the Peace and the Harmony waiting for you to allow the Substance of My very Being to flood your consciousness as a complete awareness of All-good."
[66] I do not walk around in a state of tension, with regard to conditions, affirming and striving by visualisation or imaging literally to draw Him out from the spiritual realm into my physical body and material concerns. I just listen to the Voice saying, "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not afraid, I am your God", and what I do you must do also if you would be set free.
First you must visualise His Presence within you, Which will dissolve in you--as in every other human being--all conditions of disharmony and discord as they come into your lives. We can think of our bodies and emotional make-up as we would of a building; a storm may be howling outside, accompanied by hailstones, thunder, and lightning, but we feel quite safe and secure; we are not in the least afraid because we know that nothing will harm us unless we open the windows and doors and admit the fury lashing and flashing without. We are, of course, not able to still the tempest simply by closing the windows but we do prevent it from entering our place of sanctuary, and so it is with our lives. Storms are constantly raging, storms of poverty and disease, of unhappiness and lack, of failure and discord, but they cannot touch us as long as we keep our mental and emotional windows closed for, in so doing, we have contacted the Presence within and we have heard Him say: "Fear not, I am with you. Be not afraid, for I am your God."
We still have to remind ourselves that these outer happenings have no power except that which we, as [67] individuals, invest in them. We have yet to know that there is no human being in all the world that can do us any harm unless we furnish him with an opening and consciously accept the evil that he has to offer, but does the student who finds himself faced with the difficult situation usually turn to God, or does he say to himself: "I must do something about this! I must not allow this or that person to do thus and so to me, I must protect myself lest he or she harm me. I shall have to take very practical steps," and, in doing so, is he not actually giving way to fear? Although we proclaim to all and sundry that we believe there is a Presence called God, Whom we know to be All-presence, All-knowledge and All-power, we still behave as if He were unable to help us, and we take action ourselves instead of relying on Him, and, in so doing, we are governed surely not by faith but by fear. Many times I have asked myself, "What is my underlying motive in doing this or that?" If I feel that the steps I am taking are in tune with Truth then I know that I am endowing God, the Presence within me, with all knowledge and all power and paying no attention to human beings, having realised that they are of no account.
I can ignore their injustices, or that which passes for human justice and is generally perverted or warped, knowing that neither of these is important, but what is vital is that I should be very clear as to what my own attitude is to be.
I cannot compromise where God is concerned! For me He either IS, or He is not, and, if the latter [68] conclusion were true, I should have to believe that some human being had more power than He had and should find myself compelled to worship an individual and go out of my way to pander to a personality, and to appease him for the sake of what I might get out of him, but any such supposition is entirely untenable for we know that, even though God is for us intangible and unseen, He alone is All-power, All-presence and All-knowledge and is therefore supreme both in Heaven and on earth.
Is it then so important how your neighbour behaves to you? I know your little human minds do not like to see someone else getting away with what appears to be yours. I know that we all suffer an inner hurt when such things happen, and we feel we must get our own back on these people in some way or other, but all this is completely insignificant. In the long run it does not really matter what the other person does to you or thinks about you; it is solely your own reactions that are of vital moment as far as you are concerned. It is your own thoughts and feelings alone--whether directed towards yourself or others--and not the actions or intentions of outsiders, that can harm you, therefore your only course, if you would be protected, is to think in tune with God, and no matter how the world may scoff, it will still be true that you and God are a majority, and that, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the Shadow of the Almighty."
There was a time when I used to be afraid of people, of what they might say about me or do to me until I [69] discovered that what I was experiencing in that respect was just a basic fear within myself, then I realised that, if I pleased God, I should perforce please humanity too, for that, which is acceptable unto Him, cannot possibly harm any of His children.
There is no individual that can destroy your health or mine, no one who can influence your happiness or mine, none that can prevent your success or mine, for these are spiritual states which only we ourselves can jeopardise, if we give power to the little people around us, by admitting, erroneously, that they are mightier than God.
Every human being is self-sufficient. Each one of you, when you consciously ally yourselves with God, is a majority with Him. When you refuse to split His power with anyone else at all, no matter if everything appears to crumble around you, or to be taken from you, you will be safe and sure under the shelter of His love.
God abhors a vacuum; therefore, whatever is withdrawn, is promptly replaced by what flows in, so there is nothing in this whole wide world for you or me to fear. Nothing, that is, except ourselves.
We have the promise, not my promise, but one which I have seen manifest hundreds of times in my own life, and thousands of times in the lives of students: "Fear not, I am with you." But 'I am' can only be 'with you' when you realise what 'I am' means and Who 'I am' is. 'I am' is Love, and I--the individual--am identified with 'I am' Which is God, only when I am in a state of love, because perfect love, love of [70] all people--good, bad, indifferent--who are expressions of God, is the fulfilment of the Law.
Is not this oneness with God what you are seeking? Is it not purely a security of mind that you want? You may think that what you really desire is this, that, or the other thing, but what you are actually seeking, what brings you here and takes you to other teachers, and ministers, and churches, is the fulfilment within yourselves of peace and protection and freedom from all fear.
What a different world it would be if we could all be released from the tyranny of outer conditions that bombard us daily and shout hysterically, crying: "Look at me! I am greater than God!" But what exactly is there to any single thing that menaces you? Each threat to your safety or your happiness is like a mighty mouse that puffs itself up and swells and swells until, like a balloon, it bursts and is gone, unless you endow it with the substance of your faith, which builds (for you) reality around it.
I can assure you, without any reservations, that on the day that I find that any human being is greater than the power of God, in Whom I believe, when I feel that I have to pander to an individual, or when I see you toadying to personalities instead of trusting in God, that will be the time when I shall no longer be either a teacher or a student of Truth.
I cannot compromise where God is concerned; I cannot mix that which is evil with something that is good. I cannot allow anything less than God to overcome God. I cannot afford to do this by being [71] concerned about circumstances, or by permitting these to persuade me that I am being deprived of my rightful heritage; if I did, I should be having faith in them instead of keeping my trust centered upon God. In any case, how could such a thing happen? What power is there that could rob either me or you? It is your fear--and mine--that deprives us, our negative faith that cuts us off from God and allows our good to run out like sand in a sieve.
There is no power except God, God Who does not say to me alone, but to every single individual in this universe: "Fear not. There is nothing to be afraid of. I am with you. I am your God."
This is the Truth that frees you, but it is according to the way in which you receive it that it is able to bring salvation to you or not. If you adopt a tense or doubting attitude, it cannot enlighten you or take root in your consciousness. You must have a quiet, inner realisation that within me God, the Spirit of Love, is saying to me individually, "Nicol Campbell, or John Smith or Mary Jones, I am with you, I am your God, there is nothing to fear."
It is up to you to achieve, and to maintain, this spiritual mastery by shutting your eyes to the clamouring of conditions, even if, as is only natural, you are somewhat panic-stricken because you cannot see how or when God will take over.
God's time is always the right time, it is the EVER-NOW, and it will now come to pass if you create the spiritual channels through which the [72] Substance of Life can manifest itself as fullness of all good.
If only I could make you feel, just for one moment, what it means to have something to which you can really hold on, not a blind belief, not even what is called a 'blind faith', but a conscious inner realisation that knows that God is taking care of this thing for you, that God is Love and that, if you are living love and truth, it must work out, under grace and in a perfect way. If you are not in tune with God, there is no channel for it to use. If you are bitter and resentful, if you want to hit back, you merely block up the way. Divine Justice never errs; it is like Divine Love, ever waiting to express itself in and through you.
It is always within you as spirit, but you must be aware of this for It to manifest through your body and in your affairs.
Try to understand this. Do not just affirm, hoping by your clamouring and the noise you are making that God will hear you; go apart and sit quietly in a chair, or on the grass in a park, and realise silently that you are one with Omnipresent Wisdom, Omnipresent Love, Omnipresent Omnipotence, and that the still, small voice within you is whispering these wonderful words of cheer and encouragement to you, "Fear not, I am with you. Be not afraid, I am your God."
After you have told yourself this or listened to it for a few moments you will lose the terrible fear obsessing you. You will find your problems, that loomed like mountains before you, dissolving into their native nothingness because the Voice of God--Which [73] you will either hear, or only apprehend--will have spoken to you, giving you new heart, so that you will know, in spite of appearances, that the Father Himself is being your faith through you.
You will sense that it is He feeling, rather than you, that He is thinking of you, speaking to you, and acting through you. It will seem that you are merely the vehicle that He is using. You will appear to be a reservoir, a dam, that you are yourself opening up so that His supply is freed and flows out flooding and filling every void in your life whether of disease, discord, failure, unhappiness, or lack of His abundant good to spare and to share.
I had an instance of this when a lady came to my office one day to show herself to me. She asked, "Do you remember me?" I did not, so she continued, "Some time ago I telephoned your School for aid. I had been brought up from the Free State to undergo an operation here in Johannesburg. My leg was so gangrenous that it was about to be amputated, and I asked your help so that, if it were God's will that it might be saved, it should be so."
She was quite resigned, if it were His will that this leg should be removed, that it should be done, but her complete abandonment to, and faith in the fatherly love that surrounds us and permeates us, did His work through her and the leg was healed during the week that she was waiting upon the surgeon.
Is your problem any greater than hers? any more urgent? I know a great many of you. I know how sincerely you believe in the Presence of God and yet [74] how quickly you waver when difficulties present themselves to you. You forget God as your minds become focused upon the condition, become fascinated by it as a rat is fascinated by a snake, and yet, if you but knew it, that Presence is waiting to set you free. It is waiting to release you, first by the sublime peace that will enfold you and then by the fulfilment that will express through you, to you, and for you.
I know how, at times, when you have fallen short, you feel humbled and abashed, just as I used to be covered in shame when I thought I had let God down, and would cry in deep distress, "If only I had held on, had been less impatient and had clung to Him instead of surrendering to the condition."
From my own experiences I can assure you, here and now, that you have nothing to fear. I do not say these words of myself, yet, whether I say them or the man in the street says them, they are TRUE. It has been proved millions and millions of times that God is the living Presence of Love and that the ache in your hearts for freedom is the urge of God trying to free Himself through you as the fulfilment of your desires.
It is only because your eyes and your minds are concentrating upon the condition that you feel that it is greater than God; yet how will you get to know God unless you can succeed in listening to Him? How are you going to realise that God is your supply or your health or your protection, unless you give Him a chance to be these things to you, without compromise or doubt? Even if there appears to be failure, you must go on because it is not God Who fails, it is we [75] ourselves who have failed--but for the moment only--we have not really failed for every step taken into the darkness is one taken into the Consciousness of Spirit, into the realisation of His Presence.
All the forces of Life, Love, and nature are coming to your rescue! It is never too late! God is never late, though at times it may appear so and you may say to yourselves--as I, too, have said-- "God has let me down. Is this how Truth works?"
But the skein is unfolding. The pattern is becoming a perfect tapestry in which later on, when you look at your lives in retrospect, you will be able to see the complete design and you will realise that the particular conditions, the by-paths, and the deviations that beset you, all lead you to your fulfilment, which you could have attained a thousand times more quickly than you did, without at all struggling for it if you had been able to put your complete trust in your loving Father.
None of us can go backwards, and each and every one should be capable of learning by his experiences. The time will come when we shall recognise that all the delays and diversions were of our own making, and, as we journey forwards and onwards, the Voice of God will go with us, encouraging, uplifting, promising: "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not afraid, I am your God."
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