"_And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and
the gates thereof and the wall thereof. And the length and the breadth and
the height are equal_."
The building of a glorious perfected selfhood, this is the work of every
life.
We all come into existence equal in privilege, we are all born equal in
latent power, which, if developed, will keep us shoulder to shoulder in
this game of living out; but not until this latent power is developed and
brought out into external manifestation can any life really declare its
mastery.
Life has one grand prize for all, and this prize is life's master
position. The chance to compete for this prize is given to all at birth,
but the power to push forward in the pursuit of it is only developed by
those who know that it is really within them, and knowing this begin
systematically to unfold it. Not everyone is equal in the externalization
of this latent energy, and no matter how much or how little any life may
possess it, still it has its own point of contact for power, and it can
come forth in its own way in wisdom of conquest.
Life as we find it here on earth is like a great garden; each soul comes
into this world garden and its place and keynote is struck upon the harp
of life and the registration is made in the universal harmony; then it
must work out its own part until it comes into perfect tune with the other
parts of the great universal chord.
Not a life is born into expression here, but in the unseen realm an angel
or higher master ministers at its birth, and its name is written in the
Lamb's book of life (or the Universal Cosmic Mind). Each life drops into
its own selected and appointed place; it has its own special mission to
perform, its own lessons to learn, its own part to work out, and its own
grand privilege of development.
In essence all life is _one_, and all humanity is the same; the
_One Life_ is in all and through all, without regard to class, creed
or color, but in manifested expression we must forever be different; some
lives are younger in their unfoldment--they are unfinished; some have
finer bodies through which to manifest consciousness; some are born into
positions where there is more required of them than of others, for the
price of usefulness is the ability to be useful; some are never useful and
live idle aimless lives because they have not yet incorporated within
themselves the power to be of use to others.
The nation, the race, the individual and the environment are simply
signals which we hang upon ourself of just what we created and unfolded
within our own consciousness.
We come the reaper of the things we sowed, and just where we find
ourselves here is the picture of how well or how ill we have used the
years behind us, but the privilege of new use and new development is still
within us; we stand each day on the threshold of a new lifetime, ready to
begin over and over again our new unfoldment.
Around each life is the _All Consciousness_, and it can fashion for
itself a new world, made of the cosmic substance with which it is
connected.
The great unfolding mass of humanity pass along, taking themselves as a
confused bundle of states of being, acted upon by the external force of
people and environment, and in turn acting back with no conscious idea of
creation, never knowing that with what measure we mete it shall be meted
unto us.
This process of being acted upon and acting back unconsciously, produces a
type of energy that cannot fail but bring forth masses of individuals who
are in bondage, body, mind and spirit, for spirit has not sensed its
eternal birthright of liberty.
Looking at this world garden full of natural wild flowers, called the
"human race," New Thought sees clearly that whatever response an
individual gives to his environment is the evidence of his own special
power, and that this personal power may, by conscious control and
direction, give him complete mastery, and through this he passes
uninterrupted into possession of life's master position and the prize of
peace and power and wisdom.
The individual is always the actor; the environment is always acted upon,
and this acting and acting upon again gives forth an expression, and the
exchange and inter-exchange between the two produces what the world calls
the character of a life, and looking upon the product of this play of
forces, we say "he is a genius," "he is a thief," "he is a God-man," or,
"he is a degenerate," measuring with the example that is hung before our
eyes.
Up to this point all men are really equal; they are simply alive in
consciousness, but just as the gardener takes the flower and transplants
it to specialized soil, and causes it to bud and bloom with all the energy
within it, just so man's own consciousness can take his soul and teach him
how he can lift himself into states of specialized human power and show
forth all the glory of a divinely developed man.
Everyone can take his place at any level of living that he chooses just as
soon as he knows that there is no one to say "no" to him but himself.
Strong positive thoughts put truth into the hearts of men, and this builds
them upward and inward towards harmony.
This great universal law of harmonious consciousness is the reed with
which everyone may measure himself and with which each one is taught to
take his own dimensions and never lay it down until his city of character
stands equal in height, breadth, and depth, and length.
When we measure ourselves by the golden reed of consciousness, we find by
the signs of ourself and our environment if our city of self is right, and
if it is not we can rebuild it in finer architectural fashioning.
There are many lives that have neither breadth, nor height, nor depth,
they have only length; they pass along through life tied to one idea or at
least a few ideas; they are narrow, bigoted, selfish and careless about
the other dimensions of themselves; they see through their glass darkly,
the things of their own immediate knowledge are enough for them; they are
exclusive and powerful in one direction, and humanity might break itself
to pieces just outside their narrow life for they neither hear nor care;
they are all right, secure in their length of narrow, personal endeavor.
They are afraid of anything that is outside of their own field of vision,
and their life is altogether too small and straight and strained, for any
but a few of their own kind to hold on to; their days are full of anxiety
and worry, for their hold on truth is too weak to bring them to power, and
wisdom.
Again, after we see how we measure in length, we can turn the golden reed
upon ourselves for specialization in breadth, and often again we find a
shortcoming. The breadth must also be equal; we cannot fail in our breadth
and come into true wisdom, true breadth means inclusion--this may vary in
degree, but there must never be exclusion of anything in the well-rounded
character, there is conscious selection, but never exclusion; there is
nothing _in_ or _under_ or _above_ the earth but that is companion
with us on our journey toward divine unfoldment.
To make the breadth of our life measure up in fulness, we must look with
wide open eyes at everything and everyone in life, and take it at its own
point of unfoldment. Not in every life is found true wisdom of thought and
expression, but if we know the truth we will see past all the undeveloped
things within, to the beautiful God-self it is becoming and with wisdom
and power and love include it in our own consciousness, waiting patiently
for its development.
To have breadth we must open our ears and our life to the call of the
world voice and live to answer it. We must hear it socially, ethically,
individually, financially, politically, religiously, spiritually, mentally
and physically not only in our own way, but in every way can that one find
God within himself before he can find it through humanity; but when
measured by the golden reed for the building of the new self, we must find
God or Good in and through every living creature.
All people love themselves and most people love their own families; and
this is right and good that it is so, but the breadth and height and depth
must be equal and that means inclusion of the universal as well as the
personal self. Jesus again told this when he said to the man who asked him
"What shall I do that I may have eternal life?" And He said unto him:
"Keep the commandments" and, "Thou shalt not bear false witness:" "And the
young man saith unto Him, 'All these things have I kept from my youth up;
what lack I yet?'" "Jesus saith unto him: 'If thou wilt be perfect, go and
sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure
in Heaven and come and follow me.' But when the young man heard that
saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." So when
Jesus measured him by the reed of breadth and deeper inclusion, he
followed him no more, for the height, the breadth and the depth were not
equal.
To give to ourselves and to our own, or to those who seem to have a claim
on us for anything, is good, but, to give to those who have not claim or
kinship nor power over us is _greatness_. To include them in our own
world, not by might or force, but through recognition of union with the
one life--this is consciousness of breadth that remains immortal.
Again, the depth of a life must be equal, and how do we lack in this?
There are thousands today who flit along on the crest of the wave of
life's current, butterfly-like; they never really have a conscious
thought. If "it only does not affect me" is their watchword, and freedom
from anything serious is their only really serious problem. They know in
an indifferent way that hearts break, that tears fall, that there are
prayers that stagger upward through life's storm, but the froth and foam
of life is in their eyes; they look out on the rim of a life where they
see only self-indulgence, and when now and then they are hushed long
enough to listen to the world cry, they turn away quickly for fear they
will actually touch lives with the common people.
So long as they keep afloat they are content, their lack of depth does not
disturb them, but often after they have wasted their all in riotous
living, and the realities of life fall upon them, they cry out from the
depth of their own self-made despair; their life was like a palace built
on sand which the first fierce flood tide could destroy; it had no root,
no place in consciousness when measured by the golden reed--the height,
the breadth and the depth were unequal.
Unless the soul has root in soil divine, it cannot face earth's
overwhelming expressions of the working out of the human laws which it
sets in motion in the round of human living.
The life that would build sublime and lasting things to stand the test of
time, must drop its consciousness into the Absolute, and sink the string
of thought into the fathomless!
Lights and shadows are strangely blended all along the human pathway; so
from the very center of the deeps of life the incense of our illumined
selves must still send up a faint sweet breath outward and onward,--then
the breadth as touched by the golden reed is equal.
Again, the height of the perfect self is also measured. No house so low
but it must have a window opening to the sky.
Again, there are many lives that touch the golden reed as it measures
outward, downward, but are insensible of upward power.
Above the surge and din of life, amid its sorrows and its strife, the soul
that comes under the glory of the golden reed, must lift itself to the
hills of specialized wisdom greater then the common consciousness.
We can find many noble, moral, natural lives equal in length and breadth
and depth, but the height is lacking. Within many minds is lack of great
sublime ideals, ideals that should be born in the illumined centers of the
self. There are many who have no communion with their source; they are
kind, sociable, natural, humanitarian, but lacking in that great wonderful
psychological essence which makes the human half divine; the height of
their life is unfinished, the golden reed is broken; they walk on superior
in their knowledge until in some supreme hour of human grief, their soul
is forced through some Gethsemane and opens its eyes to the need of a
strength beyond their own. Death, the grave and love teach them to look
up, and hope higher than the earthly kingdom.
And once more the measure of our soul goes on, and we find that often all
is equal, but the height is _over-reached_; there are many forgetting
breadth and length and depth who measure into the very hill-tops of
illumination, making their whole expression a dream of no value to
themselves or others. They are pure children of spirit; they live in a
world peopled with the dream-children of their mind and everything they
produce is vapid and useless in the world in which they live and have
being; everything seems to pass away from them and their productions are
as nothing under the crush and strain of life around.
_Use_ is the world's great test of anything; unless it can be
utilized by some one it is valueless to aid humanity; everything that
comes forth into form from any state of consciousness must prove its own
power to persist, or it vanishes and is forgotten.
Nothing too high, nothing too low, nothing too wide, nothing too narrow,
too shallow, but all perfectly adjusted--this is the measure of self, and
when we know this the illumined life works out its own unfoldment, passing
at will to any degree of consciousness.
This is the finished product of the life that knows how to specialize in
consciousness and it is made possible through deeper illumination. It
gives to everyone the glorious physical, a depth of perception, radiant
with a refined energy and alive with all the latent power of instinct and
harmony, and with this the brilliant mind with its breadth of unanswerable
logic, its fine facts, science of order and laws of physical adjustment.
And added to both these we find the dream vision of the psychic, with the
poet's soul of inspiration, sublime ideality and the gentle tender heart,
alive with all the common human emotions; and at last, blended and
transmuted and made vibrant by that great spiritual insight born on the
heights of human revelation we find ourselves whole, grand, developed,
humanly divine creatures, walking in glad comradeship with God.
This is the "Holy Grail" of selfhood and in the light of our higher
understanding we look downward and outward and upward, and the length and
the breadth and the height are equal. We pass from the old race thought of
limitation and live in a divine atmosphere, and can say with a wisdom born
from this fuller comprehension:
"_We know that if our house of this earthly tabernacle were dissolved,
we have a building of God--an house not made with hands, Eternal in the
heavens_."