Nicol C. Campbell
My Path of Truth
School of Truth
Johannesburg, 2nd ed., 1954
[76] I think most of you are familiar with the admonition: "Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass."
In practically every part of the country to which I have gone, in some house or other I have seen that quotation from the Bible on a little plaque, perhaps in the hall, in the dining room or in a bedroom, and most of the people living in those houses and seeing those words before them have no real faith in God.
It sounds so reassuring, does it not, "Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass", but what does this 'committing thy way' mean, and who is 'the Lord'? How do I commit my way unto Him? If you think of Him as a personality, the whole message is lost, but, if you read it this way, 'Commit thy way unto the Law, trust also in It, and It shall bring your good to pass', then you have found the secret of the inner meaning of the promise.
We speak of the Law--you and I--very glibly. We say, "I am a follower of Truth." I hear people all day long say that they are practicing the Law and that they cannot understand why God does not do something constructive; why He does not bring health into their [77] sick bodies, why He does not bring abundance in the place of lack, or peace, harmony, and understanding into the discordant, unhappy, chaotic conditions obtaining in their lives? But in every instance you find that those people really have no idea of what the Law represents.
To me a law is something that is completely abstract, that you cannot change, and that I cannot change either.
Let us say that there are two people here in this particular--shall we call it--garden, the one wants a beautiful day and the other needs rain, and they both believe in God. There appears to be the immovable object and the irresistible force. Whose prayer will God answer? He cannot give both sunshine and rain in the same place at the same time. It is utterly impossible to have a beautiful day in that particular garden simultaneously with a downpour, so whose prayer will He answer? It is not necessary to answer either.
We have to try to recognise the motive behind our prayer. What good--the greatest good for all concerned--shall manifest in this garden, a rainy day or sunshine?
If I am a student of Truth, I do not put myself first, I put myself last. If it is right for your abundance to manifest here, if there is a greater need for it than for something else, then let it be so, but, if it is of greater value to have the sunshine than the rain, then let that come forth.
This is the stand that I take myself every Sunday night when I come here. I may see storm clouds. I may see rain coming, it may even be raining, yet I do not say to God, "I want a beautiful effulgent, starry evening"; [78] I say, "Which represents the greater good for Your people, the rain or the message through me? If it is of greater value to have the rain, then let it be so, even though I recognise, just as You do that, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God', and out of every human mouth through which He elects to speak."
My attitude is always: 'Let that be done which will bring the greatest amount of good to you, not to me', for all of my asking must be unselfish.
There are, of course, people who think that by doing the unselfish thing they are depriving themselves of some good, they fear that by such action they will be compelled to retain the consciousness, that they have at the moment of unhappiness, disease, or poverty, but it is not so, rather is it the reverse. The Law says: "Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure heaped up, pressed down, shaken together and running over", so, in asking for myself, I must ask for others.
It is a spiritual law that has brought me, this physical human being, into manifestation, and by the word 'spiritual' I do not mean something that is super-natural. I mean something that is eminently natural. I am the manifestation of the unseen, intangible force that we call 'Life'.
Life is an attribute of God, one, therefore, with All-knowledge and All-power. If I want happiness for myself, I do not sit down and pray to God to give me happiness, I do not visualise people coming to me and giving me the type of happiness that I want, or that I feel I need. I commit my way unto the Law. In other [79] words, I have to set this particular law of happiness into operation myself. I am the storehouse--the Kingdom of Heaven.
I must begin to give of my happiness to you, and by giving you of that happiness--a loving word here, a kindly gesture there--by uplifting someone else, by putting myself entirely last and then by knowing that my motives are right and good, that happiness must go through me on its way to you, and so it becomes a magnet, operating for me, a tangible force that begins to draw happiness to me, the kind, moreover, that brings fulfilment, not merely a temporary alleviation of conditions. Such happiness is no evanescent thing that comes and goes like a mist, it is something that becomes an integral part of my consciousness and consequently endures.
I find that the more I give of my own happiness--the more that passes through me--the more inexhaustible and unlimited is the supply that accumulates within me, not outside me.
It may come through some human channel, for in aligning myself with the spirit of happiness within myself, which is the Spirit of Life, and is the same Spirit that is in you--we being indivisibly one, my happiness may come through you or yours through me for I am the same Spirit that is in you, constituting you.
Since happiness is a spiritual quality, I can never be limited in any way as to the amount of it that I shall receive in my own life. I can never be short of happiness because my bank is one that is inexhaustible, infinite.
The moment I have set the Law in operation, when [80] I have committed myself to It, having put my whole trust in It, whatever I am seeking is brought to pass. This seems perfectly simple, rational, and logical to me.
It operates in the same way with regard to health. I do not need to think in terms of: "If only I could find some help outside of myself! If only I could find someone with an instantaneous cure to pass on to me! If only some friend, doctor, chemist could and would give me a particular pill, capsule, or medicine that would heal me!" If I did this, I should be dealing entirely with effects instead of getting down to causes.
I do not say it is wrong to call upon these people. It is as right for you to go to a doctor as it is for you to go to church, as right as it is for a child to learn to crawl before it walks, and to walk before it tries to run; it all depends upon your state of development. Some people have the consciousness of either health, happiness, or supply, but they lack that of other forms of good. If, at first, they seek these from material sources, through human channels, they are not to be condemned even though they are dealing with things instead of with ideas. In treating external conditions, I am handling effects, which may thereby be eliminated temporarily, but, when it is a question of a spiritual disease--that is a lack of the consciousness of God-within-you -- if there is a conscious separation between the physical and the spiritual, you will experience the effect that this state of mind brings with it and it will remain with you, no matter how you try to weed it out, until you seek the underlying spiritual cause and treat that.
I am told that I am the 'temple of God', the temple [81] of Life, must not then health, divine health, be radiating itself through me as a perfection? Is it not an inner consciousness, an inner quality within myself? Some have all the health in the world and cannot demonstrate abundance, others have all the abundance they would wish for but cannot demonstrate health. If I try to find the solution to my problem of the lack of these things outside myself, it will always elude me, it will always be just ahead of me.
What I have to do to obtain that, which I am seeking, is to begin to give of it to others. The Law says: 'Give and it shall be given unto you'. How can I give of that which I do not possess? If I am sick, how can I possibly give something but ill-health? What, however, is this sickness or ill health? It is only a manifestation, the outer scum, as it were, on the edges of a stream, not the stream itself.
I can begin to give of my spiritual nature, which is abounding health, to all in need thereof. I can begin to pray, or affirm, to meditate or concentrate, call it what you like, for some other human being and, as I do this, the Truth that I am holding in consciousness for him, it cannot do otherwise, and, as I give to my neighbour, I, too, receive.
What happens to darkness when light passes through it? Is there any kind of darkness that can destroy light? I switch on the little light within me, that spark of God, 'the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world' and it begins to glow and neither you nor I can ever be separated from It. It begins to flame up in me, [82] taking my mind off my sense of the lack of the Presence of God within me, of disease in myself, and, as I, conscious now of my God-derived all-good, pass on both health and light to others, these must dissolve all that is unreal in me, and, when that happens, faith springs up in me as I find that in giving to my neighbour, in praying for my brother, I am doing it unto myself. My body becomes healed by reason of the health that is passing through me on its way to my fellowman.
All that I am doing is committing my way unto the Law of health. I am trusting It. The very fact that I am praying for you shows that I have that grain-of-mustard seed faith of which Christ spoke, since to pray at all I must believe on your behalf even though my faith may be weak and tentative. And that poor, small faith shall be honoured of God, and health shall bring itself to pass through you.
And what of supply? How fearful we human beings are, how limited is our consciousness when it comes to the substance called money! How ready we are to say, "This is all I have, I cannot afford more." "This is the shabby way in which God treats me."
It is, of course, not God who treats you thus, it is yourself. It is according to your own faith in abundance whether you have 5, 5,000 or 50,000 pounds; no man, but yourself, gives you either lack or plenty, no man can deprive you of one jot or tittle that is yours. It is you and I who deprive ourselves by separating ourselves in our own thoughts from the affluence that is our heritage.
Yet here again the Bible says: "Commit thy way unto the Law; give, and it shall be given unto you," and [83] we reply, "But I cannot afford to give," and you cannot while you think that it is so.
As long as you believe in lack, as long as you limit yourself to this, that or the other amount of substance, you are committing your way, not unto the Law of your being, but unto the law of lack in your own mind. You are trusting also in it and it shall--and must--bring itself to pass. Giving is the safety valve, the instrument of release. It is the only thing that has kept me believing in God, the one tangible expression of my faith in what or in Whom, I believe.
I know that, where my heart is, there is my treasure, and, where my treasure is, there will my heart be also, so my salvation lies in never retaining too much lest I become possessed by my possessions.
So, how do I open my safety valve? By holding on to what I have, by filling my mind with thoughts of poverty and fear, or by giving, not in a sporadic sort of way, but systematically and freely?
You can all answer that question, and all of you will sooner or later have to build up an orderly system in your minds, according to the spiritual concept of Law and Order Which is God.
You need faith--a great measure of it--and all the faith that you can ever need is in the Kingdom of God within you, but each and every one has to release it for himself. Begin, therefore, in a small way, by giving. Recognise, firstly, that you are taking into partnership the universal, unlimited supply of God, then realise that what you are giving away is not your substance but your fear. You are getting rid of your [84] limitations, you are breaking away from the old, negative law of anxiety and mistrust and in its place you are building up a consciousness of abundance, the Presence within you of God.
You no longer need to ask, "What do I mean by committing myself to God?" You are students of Truth and you have found the way. You cannot avoid it, nor can you escape it, you have to walk along it.
If you want happiness, peace, success, affluence, and fulfilment in your lives, you will have to give these unto others, for, knowing the Law, it remains only for you to practice it. It is changless and immutable; it cannot produce health when the mind is clogged with thoughts of disease, it cannot bring forth abundance where only lack is entertained, it cannot produce good where the consciousness is filled with evil.
Everything rests with yourselves as it rests (for me) with myself alone. If there comes a period of lack in my life, I do not say to God, "Why have You done this to me?" I say, "Where is the crevice in my own consciousness through which this lack is seeping?"
I am not negatively introspective about it, I start some positive thinking, and I begin to investigate as to where I have broken down. I know, if it is a question of unhappiness for myself, then the cause is at home, if it is a matter of lack, then the definciency is in me and I look into my happiness and my supply consciousness respectively, for I realise that it is being done unto me according to the Law that I have set in motion.
I recognise that this Law has no inherent power of choice, that it must obey Its own terms, and that I am [85] no exception as far as It is concerned. I can spend all my time, 24 hours a day, giving love and service, being good and kind, doing everything in my power to help people, yet such action of itself will not produce for me health, happiness, success, or abundance. I have to set the Law in motion, but that is not enough, I have personally to direct It towards those ends that I desire. When I commit to It my way, I have to trust in it, and how can I trust in anything unless I test it? How can I develop muscles unless I exercise them? Can I become proficient on the piano without constant practice? How can I be anything at all in life without devoting myself to the particular thing that I want to do or to be? I--and I alone--have to make the effort.
We jog along expecting God to open His windows and to pour into our lives all the good, the happiness, success, and supply in the world, while we ourselves do nothing about it.
We are too apethetic, or we have not the requisite quality of faith, or we are too lazy to set about earning what we desire to possess, but things do not work out without our own co-operation.
Let me repeat, it is we, we, WE who have to bestir ourselves, and it is the aim of the School to show you how to help yourselves. We teach you how to bring your minds so into tune with the Spirit of Good, the Spirit of God that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, that there can be in your awareness no separation between yourselves and It and consequently no lack, discord, or evil of any kind in your lives, or your affairs.
[86] Some have greater burdens to bear than others, bigger difficulties to face, but the Truth will set you free--all of you, there can be no exceptions. There is no human being in all the world that can make you think differently from the way in which you want to think, there is none that can make you feel as you do not want to feel, and it is your attitude of mind that is of paramount importance.
Everything rests with you. If you have the consciousness of God, no matter what may appear to be, there is always a super-abundance of the particular good you need in you, flowing through you, and if you have faith that this is so, it must manifest.
So, as you ponder upon these things, take unto yourselves these few, simple words, indelibly imprinted on your hearts: "I have to think, to live, to act in tune with the thing that I desire. I have to trust, to the best of my ability, the spiritual Power within me and It will, without any doubt, bring my all-good to pass for me."
This is the Truth, the Truth that sets you and me and everyone here on earth forever free. Let us then know it, practice it, rejoice in it, and give thanks for it to our Father-God Whose love for us forever passeth understanding.
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