Lecture by Father Paul Blighton

Tape 708

Now to introduce this, this is just a sample of a new textbook that we're getting written and in shape. This is just the -- some original notes and draft, of course, which will be reworked. But this is going to become a textbook for us in the -- as far as the nature of being is concerned, of man, and I just wanted to use this as notes for tonight's lecture. And if there's any questions, why then, we'll go into the questions, but I will make room for the questions.

(reading, from here to middle of page 3):

Man became an individual the day he discovered he could think. Man became an individual when he discovered that he could plan, and execute the plan. Before that he had been an instinctive man who hunted by his instinct and lived by his instinct, strictly. Possessed an inner something, or life, which is God in man, or the idea of God working through man. Well, working God through man, but man as an individual using all his power to build up a great civilization; for this was one of his plans, one of his ideas.

"He felt there was something missing, that something he knew not; but he knew he had life. He didn't call it life, but he knew that life was there, something greater than what he possessed outwardly. He was unhappy, sick, lonely and afraid. Most of his endeavors failed, either sooner or later, but ultimately. Death crowned his life and work, and all things seemed to cease to exist. Thinking man asked the great question, why? Why all this and then nothing? And his cry appeared to go forth into an empty nothingness, but the instinctive voice answered, "Man, know thyself." Know thyself. And man's response to that voice led him to the discovery of mind. This was a very important step in man's evolution.

"Man previously had believed it was the brain which did the thinking, and when death stilled that brain, man could cease, would cease to think. Then man came to know that the brain merely is an organ used for thinking while one is on the earthly plane and using the vehicle which is the human body. The brain, like all other parts of the body, has its function directed by the other something, which is the human body. The brain, like all parts of the body is used by the thinker and does, within each of us, unseen but quite obviously, extend itself. Since no part of the body can function without the thinker, it follows that no part of the body can be sick without the thinker thinks "sick".

"When man discovered the mind, he began to understand memory as a storehouse of all his conscious thoughts, his experiences, and a little something else which he didn't know where it came from. And that led him further to discover the subconscious or unconscious mind, which is the product of his memory. And the next step came to discovery that it's the subconscious mind that keeps the body going. It at least appeared that way, by acting on the thoughts of the conscious mind. So it follows that a strong conscious thought will cause the subconscious to do what that conscious thought directs. But still, there seemed to be a further reality. Out of this came the greatest discovery of all. God made me perfect but He also made me an individual, which means that I can do with myself as I will. Each one of the organs of my body represents a perfect idea. I can will to make my body uncomfortable or keep it perfect.

"Each mental attitude could be traced to its physical correspondent. Thoughts of peace produce a peaceful condition. Thoughts of fear produce a disturbed condition. Confidence made him strong, while fear made him weak. Man thus discovered the law of mind by observation, of course, which is no more mysterious than the laws of electricity, and which operates with exceptional infallibility. The law of mind works like this. Always think of your body as being perfect and you will always feel healthy. If your body appears to be sick and you are actually suffering, or you think you are suffering, turn away from the sick body, go back to the mind and think new thoughts of the body as being perfect, saying, "I am perfect," no matter what the appearance may be. Your body must respond. You are the master of your universe.

"The law of mind works also on sickness which one really doesn't recognize as disease: nervousness, for example, a product of certain combinations of thought developed in the subconscious or unconscious mind. These subconscious ailments would disappear as one kept expressing the knowledge that he was perfect.

"Then came the discovery that one could heal not only himself, by thinking of himself as physically perfect, but he could heal others by the same process, even if he were some distance away. Did that mean that he could clean his own thoughts from his mind into the mind or the body of another, sometimes over vast distances, though it meant that there is a common mind through which one's thoughts operate? That which one thinks of as his own individual subjective mind is only the personal use he makes of the universal Mind, and the law of the Father God.

"Scoffers may ponder the demonstrations by thought readers, usually called mind-readers, and the scientific proof of extra-sensory perception, ESP. Everybody admits that he can be affected adversely by the negative thoughts of people around him. Thoughts of discouragement by those around us make us feel discouraged. Remember wartime admonitions by the hard-bitten politicians and military leaders, that defeatism is contagious, for we only have fear to fear. Why then would not the positive thoughts of others act beneficially upon us? To guard against the negative thoughts, to guard against the negative thoughts of others, one must learn to build around oneself a mental wall, called divine protection, which cannot be breached unless one chooses to let it be. What if one does not believe any of this? Since the process is mental, he cannot be healed unless someone else's belief is stronger. But that must not deter the believers from healing themselves and others who believe, so doing they wait for the rest of the world to catch up. Or the man who doesn't believe, providing he'll accept the fact.

"If this law works on the body of man, does it also work on the conditions and the affairs of man? Can it, for example, change conditions of poverty and failure into conditions of material sufficiency and success? Yes, one can control his affairs by right thinking. Adverse conditions were never intended to be. They result from man's misuse of his power, from his innocent thinking -- incorrect thinking (which he felt was innocent). It (and put this in big capitals) IT IS WITHIN THE POWER OF EVERY MAN TO CHANGE HIS ENVIRONMENT COMPLETELY, AND HEAL HIS BODY COMPLETELY. Whether or not he will do this depends entirely upon his own conviction and his own determination. Something cannot come from nothing; something must come from something, but something was made out of nothing.

"Man had a three-fold nature: conscious mind or spirit, subconscious mind or mental law, and third, body. God is three-fold. God has Self-knowing spirit, God as law, or as the way in which the Spirit works, and God as body or the manifestation of the spirit. God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, God the Son. At the same time there is unity, the one unseen cause, the one Cause, the one Creator, the one God.

"At the beginning the human thought, man believed in many gods and in many devils or evil powers. As thought progressed, man came to believe in only one God, but also in one evil. That was the theory of duality; and duality, of course, presupposes a universe divided against itself, and the kind of universe that could not possibly hold together. Duality is a cause of untold unhappiness, teaching as it does that evil has as much power to curse as good has to bless. That there is damnation of the souls, that there can be a god of vengeance and hate. The truth is, as recognized by the great teachers and philosophers of all ages, that there is one power, one primordial force, one God who has told us through the lips of those great Teachers that we are divine beings, made in the image of perfection and with an endless destiny, according to our decree.

"Creation is a continuous process, infinite and eternal, a process which always was and always will be -- but then, we're talking about time, or are we? The universe is alive with action and power, with energy and life, world without end, the same yesterday, today and forever. But who is, what is forever? This is yesterday's now, tomorrow's now, or now's now.

"The subject of duality, of course, is a very much misunderstood one and a quite simple one. The reason the mistake is made in the theory of duality is because we have learned through science the fact that there is a plus and minus sign. That there is a positive and a negative, as it is called. And of course, they immediately assigned the negative to something evil or destructive, and it is not so. There is no duality in the universe. There is only unity, because God is one God, but within that God He is both the male and female, the positive and negative. So there isn't a duality, there is only one, because without the one, the whole would fly apart. There is the male-female and there is the positive-negative. Without this, there'd be no life motion. There has to be this in order to have life within the one. And here is the great argument which has gone on for a number of years, in metaphysics and down through the ages, which the mystics and the occultists both have had great debates about. And actually there is no debate, because we know that every man and every woman is both male and female, but they do predominate and manifest themselves as they wish to. Therefore, there is no division; it is the action from one substance to another."

(end of reading)

For instance, the life force of the body pulsates across this way, from one side to the other. It couldn't pulsate this way; it's impossible. The life force can flow down through, but it can't return that way. It has to return through the earth, because it has to go back to the center, or the sun. The life force within our own universe moves back and forth this way. The divine oneness within our own solar system, our personal universe as it's spoken of, or divine perfection, divine protection, is nothing more than the thing I've been trying to get through your thick heads for a long time, and that is to learn to use your own atmosphere, which you never, of course, think it's important enough to use. Now, the sooner you get with it, the more you will have protection and the more you will be able to determine what's going to be in your world. Now, I didn't originate this; this is about three or four thousand years old, only they didn't teach it to you that simple, you know. Never. Because those boys made sure that you didn't get anywhere right away.

And it's as one man the other day said to me: he said, "You mean you teach this in a couple of years"? I said, "Sometimes less than that." He said, "Do they study all the time?" I said, "Are you kidding?" I said, "You have to hit them over the head with a ball club to get them to study, most of 'em." He said, "God, they ought to spend every single minute that they're there." He said, "They don't know what they're getting." He said, "That would take them years to get in other schools, years," he said, "and even then we don't teach it."

I'm not going to tell you this man's name. You might recognize it. Now this is the truth. Now you're all -- you are here, all of you, presumably reaching for the priesthood. And I'm going to tell you the same as I told to missionary class tonight: until you are ready to produce the evidence that you can pray and make a prayer work, you are not fit for the priesthood! Because you're worthless. Now, this is the truth, because there's only one good that you can be out there, and that's to be able to produce the evidence. Because if you can't produce the evidence for these young people, you can't do anything for them. You know yourself you wouldn't have been here if we weren't able to produce the evidence in front of your eyes, every one of you. You had to see something or you wouldn't have been here in three or four weeks. Likewise, you've got to go out there and produce that same evidence, that same know-how of God's world and the power and force, and know how to use it, make it work. And if you can't do that, there's no reason in the world why you should be a priest, no reason at all, because without it you can't do anything for them, and if you can't do anything for them, you don't heal them; you just don't heal them, that's all there is to it. This is the cold, hard turkey of the thing. This is where it sets.

You have got to know how to use the power and the energy with it, besides some of it (went away?), besides your mouth. Because you can do all the talking you want to and you can put yourself behind the eight-ball doing it, but you're not going to do anybody else any good unless you can use the law and make it work. And that's where it is. And not only just sit down and say a prayer, but get it to the point where it's part of you. And any time that you set your mind on something, and you say, "My friend, it will be done. Arise and walk!", that's what Jesus said; that's where it is.

This is going to be produced for you. It'll cover the entire gamut of prayer and mind control. Why do you want to do it, when you want to reach for the Self? I'll tell you why you want to do it. Because once you learn that that law works beyond the shadow of a doubt, it can become a part, as much a part of your blood and breath, and the consciousness of the Self can produce the answers when you have learned to control your mind. But without control of your mind you are nothing, because you could not keep from thinking for three minutes or for one minute, and it only takes that long for a paragraph to come through from the Self. It only takes that long for an answer to be given to you, and you'd better get it the first time. Now this is the actual truth.

There are those here who have seen this demonstrated, and it works. And not just for one minute, but it will work for hours. How about it there, old boy, huh? You've seen it work for a few hours at a time? He knows. He sat there and took my dictation till his fingers pretty near dropped off. And I didn't get it all off a sheet of paper either. It was things that I hadn't studied in years, or hadn't learned of in years, and then that would apply to the modern day work.

Now, I am no different than you are. I'm not built any different than you are. The only difference is that I know that God Almighty is existent and that the Light of Christ will bring any answer that you want, and I'm willing to serve him. That's the only difference. And I don't ask for anything for myself. You can do the same and there's no excuse why you don't, and I expect it. I expect it. As far as those things are concerned, I expect you to function on that basis. There's no reason why you shouldn't. There's only one reason why you don't, and that's if you're too d. lazy to do the work. Excuse me, but that's just the truth, because every time a man is lazy he raises a block in his way that he isn't going to get any results, because you've got to give if you're going to get. That's plain and simple. Until you're ready to give, and I don't mean just money; I mean yourself, and your ideas and any cockeyed opinions you've got too.

Because if you go in there with any idea that you think you know anything, you aren't going to get any answers. Want to know the proof of that? Just sit down and talk to somebody that thinks he knows it all and see how much he's going to respond to you, if you try to know it all. Just try and -- try it sometime. See how much you can get another person interested if you know it all. You know as well as I do that there's one way to get a man interested. That's to listen to him, isn't it? Well, you just try listening to the Self and see how much it will talk to you. It works just exactly the same way. Now this has got to be your boon companion. The first -- not the first, the second guy you speak to in the morning. First is the Father, and if you get up without talking to the Father, there's something wrong with you. You've got a hell of a big ego, and I mean it just the way I said it, a hell of a big ego.

Now, we're going to get down to the nitty-gritty of things, and we're going to build some priests that work and get some results, because there's too many thousands of people out there that's got to have some results; that's for sure. The sleigh ride's over with, gentlemen. There's only one kind of pay you can give me and that's all of you, and I won't accept a darn thing else, and I'm going to expect some real strides and some real improvements, and some real moving forward to get out there in that field and start, stop sitting around on your butts in here. I didn't set here and talk for hours and I discovered one thing: that I have sat here and talked to these missionaries, missionary class, many times, and they can't answer several questions. And I'm not here to amuse anybody either, not a bit. Now, that's just where it sets. And a month from now I want to have two more priests ready to be ordained, and I mean it. I want two more students ready for ordination, and if I don't get it, God help the rest of you, because I'm going to start laying in disciplines until I find out how many men here that I've got, and women too.

You know, you've never had any disciplines. You've had some regulations to the house and a few things like that, but never any disciplines, really. And you're going to start to get 'em if I don't see some advancement here. Now, you've been taught all that you need to know, but you haven't worked on it. All you've done is pitter-patter around. I want to see the results. Every time I come back into this place after pounding pavement out there, I want to see an improvement and I want to see somebody ready, to prove that they are ready. And there's no reason why you can't do it. I'm not asking anything unreasonable of any of you. You're all just as intelligent as you can be. That's one of your troubles. You're too intelligent. I think sometimes I've taught you too much.

Now I've got to have men in the field. I want them right out of this class. You need it; you need to be out there. You need to be working. You need to be doing something for God, for Christ, for your own Master of this order.

Within the next six months I need at least twelve or fourteen priests. Where am I going to get them? I want that fulfilled all the way, all the way. I don't want any more holding on. You've been given a lot of time, most of you. It's time to do something now for somebody else. Then when you come back, you will know how real it is. (end side 1 of tape) Then you'll be able to set here and really absorb what's being said. You'll really understand then what's being said. You'll really know that this is the truth, and that the power and the force of Christ will do anything.

It took us a long time, but I'll mention one event that took place, and that's Bill Eastman. And if Jesus Christ can fill Bill with the amount of zest and enthusiasm that he's got now, after being out there a little while, he can fill anybody with it and he can take and make a good man out of anybody, that's for sure. Because Bill was the most -- he was a nice guy, he always came in and did things as far as money was concerned, but he was the worst man in the world to get him to do anything otherwise than that. It wasn't that he willfully disobeyed, but he just didn't seem to get anywhere, because Bill had an inferiority complex about (?). He isn't that way now. He isn't that way now. Bill Eastman has

(?) and he has seen what's happening. He has seen it with his own eyes and he knows.

I tell you, you people want to get ready, because if you don't some night you're going to see the Master right in front of you and then you are going to hurt. Then you are going to hurt, because it's starting to happen, and he said it would. Then you'll know when I say, "The Master appeared," I wasn't kidding at all. You know that it will happen, and some of you people, if you don't get with it, you will hurt from it, I'm telling you. I'm warning you ahead of time, because this is no idle talk. This is the plain simple truth. Now, it's time you get with it, because he's starting to appear to people that have taken on his work.

Now, they're not all in the order either, the people that have been very close to him. Any questions? I'll answer your questions on this lecture or the last one. Just in winding up I want to say one thing. We are going to cover this United States this year. I'll guarantee you that; because I'm going to cover it or I'm going to crack skulls, one or the other. Because I found one thing. The men that I treat gently never make it. I'm not going to let any of you out. You're going to make it or you aren't going to be here, one or the other. Now, I am going to cover the United States this year, that's for sure. Get ready. You're going to be called, you people that have gone through -- have had the door of realization opened. You're going to be called to prove it; you're going to be called into the ministry. And when you do, you're not going to hang around here. You're going to go out. Is there any question about that?

There are hundreds of people out there. We are going to start the -- I'm putting in a notice this week, when our HOOM magazine goes out, that we're going to start the wheels rolling for the discipleship program, out there amongst the people themselves. You know you're going to meet people when you get out there, because there's going to be a lot of them ; because this is a program that will let people who have homes and children and families work with this thing. It's a way that they can. It's a way that they can work with it when they couldn't possibly come into the order. Because there are some people who have responsibilities that they couldn't get away, and we couldn't handle them because of their responsibilities. But they will be working out there, and some of them will eventually be teaching out there, the philosophy and the Testament, and that thing is going to spread. What I mean, it is going to spread and this I'm sure of. We haven't pushed it because we weren't ready for it and now we've got to start to get ready, to make a real test.

And we'll have lots of people coming in. I expect a young priest out of the Jesuit order here before too long, maybe another two or three weeks, within a month. Well, maybe two or three priests too, but one especially that I know, I expect. When he catches fire, brother, he's a fire-eater, don't you think he isn't. He's had lots of experience, and to this man these teachings will fit right in place.

So let us carry it, and let us go out on those patrols, and let us make it a patrol, not a picnic. A patrol, where you keep in mind what you're there for! And what you're trying to do. This is one thing that has fallen down. Our patrols have fallen down, they are not what they were. And I want to see that. I'm watching it the last couple of nights. They are falling down. And I don't think that everybody's conscious of it either. But let's reorganize ourselves on those patrols. Let's get out there

and do something. Don't tell me that San Francisco has gotten so almighty righteous that it doesn't need the street patrols, and that there isn't things that can be done by those street patrols. And I'm not just talking about bringing somebody into the order either. I'm talking about doing some good. There are certainly things to do out there. I don't think San Francisco's changed that much.

Let us remember that it is our men and women that are out there to carry the Light. And those missionaries are looking for the backup too. So let's get with it every night in prayers and give 'em that backup. And don't think they're not conscious of it either. If you do, just ask to go through the letters from the different places, and you'll soon see that they are very conscious of it. Let's give that support; let's give it every night, because it's tough out there in many places, and they need it. There's no difference if you ever attain anything else in this lifetime. If you attain the fullness of that, boy, what a job you will have completed. What a job you will have completed..

(reading the remainder)

"We are therefore in a state of accord with all things everywhere. The result of such an experience is not like that of an intuitive flash. It is not a mere command, but the revelation of a perfect plan which causes us to realize an ideal which we know at the time is for us and that we should attain. It is not like visualizing a distant light in the darkness, toward which we must grope and stumble, take many false steps and perhaps bark a few shins. Our Self, in many ways, because we reach it. Rather, it is like the castle we have seen as children in a story book, beautiful, appealing sitting on a rocky eminence, we seem to know that if we reach them, we will find in them many great treasures. We see more than the goal. We are also shown the path that leads to it. We see leading from ourselves to the goal a winding road that is well-marked, plainly visible, with many signposts.

"The person who is so fortunate as to perfect the technique of attaining cosmic consciousness, which for various reasons all do not, can very frequently become and can make cosmic contact. Because of that, he is often adjudged by others in life with whom he is associated and who do not understand what he has accomplished as being unsuccessful, or as being a being fortunate. Actually his objective intelligence has not been particularly developed. Rather, he has the ability through cosmic consciousness to take his problems to an infallible source for help. This makes him appear as a genius sometimes, to others who do not understand his state of living. No person can lay down a plan of attaining this. No person can teach it as a word reality. They can only teach it through the feeling, through the consciousness of being able to say those words in a different way on the other side.

"Very interesting little thing that Socrates said one time: "Beloved Pan and all ye gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul and may the outward and the inward man be at one, because I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man, and he only, can bear to carry." Anything more, the prayer, I think, is enough for me.