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Finding the Missing Third
Saint John saw how the effect of believing a lie disoriented one-third of the stars of heaven with a trail of fear, separating them from their heaven-conscious home and reducing them to believers of sensuous matter. The source of the lie, known as the great red dragon, immediately succumbed to its own scheme, proving that whatever ill one wishes upon another returns to oneself in full measure. "Mortal mind alone sentences itself" (SH 391:26). Where do we think we live - on earth? Have we ever felt as if we were drawn out of place, disoriented, afraid, pressured by circumstances, wishing we could just go home? Think of it: one-third of heaven's stars are supposedly right here on earth! If this were so, earth would be the most brilliant spot in the universe, a light above the sun. Yet, if physical laws were to be observed and one third of the stars were literally here on earth, we would be compressed inside a supermassive black hole where no light could escape. We would be reduced to infinitesimal significance, in a place that we know not of, have little discernable substance, be unidentifiable and indistinguishable from one another, and lack our natural expansive state. We would be surrounded by innumerable nuclei with star potential but would not be able to see even one of them. Figuratively, are we those stars, seemingly drawn here without our consent, who appear to have lost our heavenly home? Of course, the illustration in Revelation is a metaphor designed to stir our thought toward the truth that lies dormant within us. We must give up our magnetic hold on material objects and a personal body in order to see ourselves as bearers of light in the inexhaustible universe of Mind. The great red dragon has no power to divide or persuade what belongs to omnipotence. John uses the term one third to identify the dragon's divisive nature and to designate where Truth is nullifying the effect of the dragon. Mind identifies and expresses all that is real and good, but we do not know this because we think we have been stripped of our identity - our ideal form, color, and presence of mind - like an atom stripped of its electrons or an Adam stripped of ignorant bliss. After disobeying God's command, Adam said, "I was afraid [dragon's tail], because I was naked [dragon's head]; and I hid myself" in matter (a brain inside a dark scull bone), attempting to have a mind of my own (Gen 3:10). The Lord God called unto Adam and asked, "Where art thou," meaning, 'Mentality, where are you?' Mind sees its own ideas from the infinitesimal to the infinite, but mortal man recognizes neither the detail nor the grandeur of divine intelligence. The so-called laws of physics do not affect Spirit and its idea. Truth and Love have no gravitational attraction, repulsion, or relationship of time. However, to one who has been disoriented by physical sense, the things of Spirit do not seem sufficient or reasonable. How, then, does this disorientation get rectified? The simple fact is that Truth images truth, and error images error. Every idea is an image of its originator. Good always gives and is expansive without time or limit, so the image of Truth is always correct - conscience and intuition always present right activity. In contrast, error stops things from occurring, prevents success, has nothing to give, and encourages guesswork that leads to drama, confusion, contraction, and failure. Ultimately, we turn away from error - physical pleasure and pain - because it dies. From the moment of the slightest disappointment, we begin to distrust our physical sense of beauty, intelligence, circumstance, place, substance, and life. To the degree that we distrust the knowledge of this world, we begin to search elsewhere. Disappointment is the precursor of hope. When we have tried and given up everything, the inner voice is then given permission to be heard. It is in the absence of so-called physical laws that the separation of good from error occurs, where erroneous evidence is recognized as such and dismissed. This mental state, seeming at first to be wretched and impoverished, becomes a place of rich blessing as we discover with surprise, that there is a way out of misery. The Science of Truth, Mind, Spirit has not been invented and presented to mankind as merely an improved state of consciousness; it is the eternal law of being which has been discovered, demonstrated, and explained in a way that the blind can see. Truth vanquishes the great red dragon - the belief in a power opposed to God. Mind (intelligence) nullifies all evidence of a separate mind in a so-called brain. Spirit presents man without matter - unflawed, healthy, and radiant. If we desire to radiate the light that patiently burns within us, we must become proactive. Jesus counseled his students, saying, "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give" (Matt 10:8). All the imperfections that we see in our neighbor must be cleared from our consciousness, for imperfection is not of God. As we begin to truly love our neighbor as Jesus did, we discover that we have not been "cast out into the earth" but are upheld in a spiritually defined sphere, "a type of eternity and immortality, which are likewise without beginning or end" (SH 585:5). Finally, we confirm our freedom in the stellar consciousness of Mind. "Ye are the light of the world"
- unfallen, whole, and free (Matt 5:14). Welcome home! George Denninger © |
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