Our Spiritual Diet

'HE soul of man must be fed as well as his body, and the food of the soul consists of the thoughts and feelings that belong to the mind and heart of God. These are embodied in the words of spiritual masters, whose sayings have ever been the spiritual diet of those who have desired to advance spiritually. But the wisest Master of all left us a complete dietary of Words to eat and drink, that are all-sufficient for us to make the same attainment that he did.

Though Jesus Christ spoke thousands of words that are not recorded, yet by inspirational memory (John 14:26) his disciples remembered just those words that supply the complete means for nourishing the true in us and purging us of the false-just enough words and no more. Other masters have given much teaching, and their followers have culled from their words what they pleased, often refusing the bitter words, not knowing their place in the economy of their spiritual development. But this Master of masters provided against such unwise and childish discrimination by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that our blessed heritage from him consists of a choice of his sayings, commandments, doctrines and parables, as shall form the perfect dietary to regenerate our whole nature and prepare us a body fit for the Christ demonstration of immortal life here upon the earth.

For the beautiful utterances that fill us with love and peace. comfort and strength-faith, purity, wisdom, patience, joy, illumination, all the virtues of heaven and beauties of the Christ character, we need no special urge in accepting, studying, assimilating and incorporating to the very best of our ability.

But there are the strong denunciations, the flaming "woes," the rebukes, the plain exposures of the deceitful pretender-what about these? These are most essential to cleanse us of self-righteousness, to rouse us from the smugness of the world-life, to warn us before the carnal deceptions, subtleties and other errors that have stumbled the feet of so many aspirants who have fallen short of the great attainment. Let us swallow them with the same grace with which

we have received the gracious words. They may be bitter to our taste but they will prove tonics to our enervated spiritual energies.

"Drink ye all of it." Eat and drink every word and those that seem most unwelcome, meditate long upon. Also sayings that seem only words, perhaps good words that have become a dry food because hackneyed, difficult to receive as renewing and helpful although they are good, because associated with human views and interpretations that are not true.

Under every saying of Jesus Christ lie deep, mystic meanings that the faithful shall receive. All the secrets of the universe are enfolded in those words. When the Master declares that he has given us all the words that God gave him, and that he has withheld nothing, he virtually declares everything that is necessary for us to know is in these sayings which are his legacy, his "testament," to us.

This is the real Passover that we are to eat, the true Communion. As the Israelites ate the lamb, all of it, and, by that act under the guidance of those who knew what this obedience meant, were defended from the scourge of death that passed over them without harm yet took its deadly toll from every Egyptian family, so we who will eat this Lamb of God will be saved from death and all that leads to it-sinning, sicknesses, accidents, famines and the ravages of the elements, of wars, wild beasts and other worlddangers.

We eat the flesh of Jesus Christ by eating his Words which are one with the Substance (Spirit) of his flesh. We drink his blood ("the blood is the life") by drinking his Words which "are Life to all that find them and health to all their flesh."

When mystically referring to his flesh and blood as the "Bread from heaven" which they were to eat, Jesus saw how his hearers were misunderstanding him, and he hastened to explain "It is the Spirit that gives life ("quickeneth") the flesh profiteth nothing; the Words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life," or my Words are my flesh and my blood, eat and drink them. Make my Words, flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood.

What we eat we identify ourselves with, a power and substance to upbuild or to tear down according to the way we appropriate what we receive.

Man's body is the out picturing of his thoughts. Think the thoughts of Jesus Christ and you will show forth the body of Christ

as it now is, glorified and immortal. The body of regeneration is built by the thoughts and feelings of our Divine Self with which we make connection through the mind and heart of Jesus, expressed by his words. As the body of generation was built by bread from earth so the new body of regeneration is built by Bread from Heaven.

Many students of Truth are candidates for the new birth; some know they have been reborn; all feel they are but babes in Truth. When a babe is given food it does not know why, or what will be the result, or how the result is achieved. So it is with our young consciousness of Truth. As aspirants to go all the Way with Christ, to live the true life, exercise divine powers, have the new senses and enter into all the joys of heaven while yet on the earth, we eat the Words of Jesus Christ. Some of them are constructive and they strengthen and comfort us. But there are others that are drastic and purgative, and we eat these words with wonderment, not knowing they are among the most essential in rousing our human nature from its deadness and self-complacency; also to cleanse our old nature from its false accretions of pride, selfishness and greed.

Let us learn to apply all Jesus' Words to ourselves, to one and all of these three: (1) the unregenerate or false part, (2) to the one in us that aspires to spirituality, (3) or to the One who is, and always has been, perfect, pure and holy.