Him. Let me give you an example of true love as I personally knew it in a wonderful woman, one of many cases that I know.
PUPIL: Yes, do give us an example. They always help to clarify things, and show us how others have done what we wish to do.
MASTER: Very well. This divine soul was reared in a home of great wealth and culture. But as a very young woman she made up her mind to go out into the world, "on the firing-line" itself, as she called it, to serve actively lovingly, there. She became a nun, and as such was assigned to a hospital as a trained nurse. As she entered upon her lifework she was filled with love for mankind, with enthusiasm for serving God by serving his suffering ones. And she did serve lovingly, happily, faithfully, tenderly eight hours a day, or even twelve hours daily. But the hospital was woefully understaffed; and Marie, as we shall call her here, was soon subject to call sixteen hours daily; and even during the eight hours when she was supposed to have her rest she was often summoned and asked to serve more. Her quarters were right on the same floor with many of the patients, and this ward was her charge day and night. Often at two or three o'clock in the morning the bell beside her bed would ring with an urgent summons. She would arise at once, go to the patient and minister to his or her wants. But in due time she became physically tired, and of course she began to resent the calls that broke into her rest, especially when it seemed to her, as it often did at these times, that the patient merely wished a drink of water, or wanted a pillow adjusted a certain way, or was merely lonely, all of which were irritating trifles to a weary nurse.
For a month or more these trials went on, seemingly from bad to worse. Marie resolved almost desperately to do something about it, and immediately. So she cast about for a way to best remedy the situation. For days she thought about the matter, asking the Spirit for guidance. At length the flash came, directly from the Infinite! She took up a little card, wrote down the new motto that had been given her, and fastened it on the wall above her bed, right by the service bell, so that she might see it and be again reminded every time the buzzer rang. On the card she had written: "The master calls!" Of course her system worked from the beginning. Quite soon she was saying in immediate answer to the bell, even while sleepily fumbling for her light: "The master calls!" And she would arise and go and serve, without impatience, without resentment, yes, rejoicing in the opportunity to again serve in love.
As a consequence her energy was untiring; she easily and joyfully did the work of three nurses, always rested, always fresh, always efficient, always smiling, whenever called. Her patients loved her greatly. She was always cheerful, always encouraging, always aglow, as it were, with a holy Love. And to those who did not know her secret, as very few did, the patients she attended seemed to be "miraculously healed." Let your motto also be: "The master calls!" And remember that the humblest service that you can render to the lowliest of your fellowmen, if rendered in LOVE, is a direct service to Him!
PUPIL: This is a profoundly beautiful and powerful illustration. Is that the motto, or the principle, that you use in helping the many who come to you? If not, what is your own personal secret of serving?
MASTER: My own method, in a way, is very similar to that of Marie. Like her I wished to serve lovingly, to serve as many as possible, to help to the limit of my powers in alleviating any and all kinds of suffering, physical, mental, spiritual or other form of unhappiness . Not only do I strive always to help those who seek me out. Every person whose hand I take into mine in greeting, every person into whose eyes I look, in all places at all times, yes even the shop girl who sells me my hose, the milkman who comes to my door, the beggar on the street, everyone to whom I speak at any and all times receives the same strong spiritual impulse from me! I INTENTIONALLY SEE THE RADIANT CHRIST IN ALL!
PUPIL: But I thought that you told me once you never mentally treat people unless they ask for help.
MASTER: I don't, not specifically, not specifically under any other circumstances. My secret is this: I have deliberately formed the habit of beholding the Christ in every soul that my eyes fall upon! I do not ever see anyone as being poor, or old, or ill, or bereaved, or lonely, or homely, or evil or imperfect in any way. I behold each and all as only perfect! I see only the Radiant Christ in every one of them because the christ is in each of them!
Chapter 3
THE ART OF RECIPROCITY
MASTER: The Bible, the sages of all time, all sources of real truth, unite in absolute agreement concerning one great thing, namely: That God and Man are one and not two, that the "two" are not separated but indissolubly joined in perfect and harmonious union.
The Invisible (Spirit) and the visible (form, or matter) actually ARE inseverably connected. Each is a complement of the other.
And the whole of Truth is to be found only in the combination of the "two," which really are not "two" but one through eternal union!
PUPIL: I am particularly happy about this conclusion because I used to think that a person could not have both spiritual and physical blessings at one and the same time. I thought that the physical world had nothing of God in it. Yes, I thought that Spirit was utterly separated from form, or matter. Now I feel sure that the reason I did not make any real progress then was that I was trying to have an inside for Life without an outside, and an outside without any inside. In other words I was simply living in the physical world without being conscious of the fact that forever I have a direct connection with the Spiritual Realm. I am right, am I not, in believing and feeling that I must have the realization that each is vitally necessary to the other for the formation of a Substantial Entity.
MASTER: Yes, you are exactly right! No one can go very far on the great highway of Truth until he realizes that there never was, and never will be, an inside to anything without an outside also. While one is visible and the other invisible (to the human eye) the only reality is in the combination of the two. A constant awareness of this fact on our part brings us that radiant realization of one-ness, of union, that we must have if we hope to make any progress in Truth.
PUPIL: After this one basic realization what other truths must we have?
MASTER: We must know that underlying the totality of all things is the source of all things, the Great Cosmic Intelligence. We must know that no physical thing of itself only can ever create anything. The physical form is the instrument that Life (God) fashioned of His own Essence in order to have something through which He could work His wonders, and give them form also. But He always lives in that instrument! Do not ever lose sight of this fact: The power is always greater than the form through which it manifests, just as electricity is infinitely greater than the bulb through which it manifests as light. It is through union of forms, positive with negative, or masculine with feminine, or Spirit with Soul, that the creation of all forms, or channels, or physical things, results. This eternal principle runs all through the Bible, is the warp and woof of it, the whole substance of it. Seek ye the answer in that Great Book!
PUPIL: But many people say that the Bible is "antiquated," that it is a "book of fables," and of "old wives' tales," etc.
MASTER: How does this concern YOU? Which is the more reliable guide, do you think, the spiritually darkened ones who criticised the Bible or thine own soul which knows light when it sees it? Are you going to do your own thinking or shall you be content to let others do it for you, and wrongly? If we must go to other people in our quest of Truth, let us resolve to go to ones who have the light of the Spirit.
For instance, what does Troward say of the Bible? Let his Wisdom be our guide here. He tells us that "the Bible is the Book of the emancipation of man!" He adds that this means man's complete "deliverance from sorrow, sickness, poverty, struggle, uncertainty, from ignorance and limitation, and finally from death itself." This noble conception of Troward's is exactly what the Bible IS. With such a wonderful Book in print one should not be surprised to learn that it has the widest circulation of any book ever published, that it is still the world's best seller. If the Bible were not Truth, it would not live through so many generations and still hold its pre-eminent position. So let us proceed on the assumption that Troward is right, that the Bible DOES