How I Thank God For You!
from Shekinah Magic
Uranda June 18, 1953 Class
We have so many blessings, and the spirit of thanksgiving to God in a genuine sense is so vitally important to the development of the Shekinah Pattern in our lives. Many of you know that if you check back in my writings beginning in the early thirties, extending on through the intervening years, this has been a constantly recurring theme: the importance of thanksgiving, the attitude which permits the human being to begin to see and appreciate the things of God, with a consequent engendering of response to Center. There has been a very inadequate comprehension of the significance of thanksgiving, and I have sought in various ways through the years to engender, step by step, a deeper consciousness of that significance but it has not yet reached necessary proportions. But when one really begins to let go in the trinity of the Shekinah manifestation with the whole trinity of one's own being, with open heart, we find some wonderful changes taking place, and the development of those changes in our lives is something which cannot be arbitrarily outlined or particularly prognosticated. But you have gradually been letting go to a deeper sense of the working of the Fire, to the reality of the Light that glows, and the Cloud that enfolds, and you begin to realize that this of which I speak is not limited by time or place or distance.
I might illustrate a little in this connection. Back through the years, as I have received letters of response from many places in the world, there have been those few who have by reason of response touched the hem of the garment. Now what is the garment? You used to think of it as a linen robe, and think that the woman who had the issue of blood just touched the linen robe which the Master wore. That may, insofar as the physical factors are concerned, be the case. It perhaps could be, insofar as her consciousness was concerned, the key that opened the door. But the touching of the physical robe would accomplish nothing. She touched the hem of the garment, the garment of the Shekinah Cloud: “clothed with a garment down to the foot”—and it is this garment that was touched so long ago in relationship to our Master, and she was not the only one. But there have been those letters of response which brought the focalization of qualities necessary to the process of touching the hem of the garment. And in those instances there have been many times when it was such that my whole body would feel as if it were vibrating in the magnificent current flowing forth to such openhearted response. There have been those men and those women who have occasionally shared in that. It is not something which I can impose; it is something which must be received. Once there is a realization that the blessings of the Shekinah Pattern cannot be imposed, that they must be received, we begin to be in position to consider the conditions essential in that receiving.
In this pattern of illustration which I have used, the letters I have received over the years, there has not been a consistent pattern with individuals or in the School as a whole. Sometimes we have gone for perhaps even weeks without a single letter reaching me which had the peculiar qualities necessary to the true release of this current in power. Other times I have received in one mail several. I have received such a letter perhaps from some individuals once and they write other letters following and no touching of the garment. Once we realize that while there may be some specific radiation in each letter, there may be something that will give a pattern of response which allows some blessing to manifest, but that it has been so haphazard, we can begin to see why I say that innumerable blessings from God have been passed by and ignored, never received, simply because human beings did not allow them to manifest.
The reality of Shekinah manifests according to response, but human beings trying to respond cannot receive it. We recognize the basic factors, the fulfilment of the Law, the patterns of response, of centering; we recognize the importance of a spirit of thanksgiving, an attitude of praise, a willingness to acknowledge the blessings of God. But all of these things, looked at by the human mind and established in a pattern to which the human being attempts to conform, will not permit the actual experience of that of which I speak. I have touched the point of the channeling of the patterns of response. Any blessing from God appears through some specific individual. This phase of the matter we were considering yesterday, the recognition that the needs of the individual must be filled by God through others. There must always be a complementing factor; there must always be a “joining” in the vibrational pattern somehow. The essence of that which is to manifest and fill a need in your life, or the life of another, may be present in you but it has to come to a point of joining, a point of the cycle, a movement, if it is to appear.
Now some of the things that are in essence, or in part, in you may need to be expressed on a positive vibratory factor in relationship to a negative point of focalization in someone else. This works without regard to sex, male or female, in the physical sense. In other words it is not a pattern of determining whether you are a man or a woman particularly—you will be a man or a woman in the divine sense if you let it function correctly—but there may be that in you which needs to find expression because the positive pole is in you, the positive point which is to find expression. But that positive point cannot be just arbitrarily pushed out of yourself and injected somewhere. Somewhere there must be an individual who has the negative vibratory factor there. It may be a man or a woman—it does not make any difference, a child; it may be a group; it may be any combination. But somewhere, sooner or later, if the Divine Plan is allowed to work out, someone will appear who provides the negative point of polarity for the expression of this positive factor within you; and when they join and the cycle begins to move, something will take form, it will appear.
It can be in any level. It may be in relationship to material things or it may be primarily mental or primarily emotional. It will have an overall pattern of course. There are likewise factors in you, male or female, which are fundamentally negative poles of something, a half of something shall we say, and until the right person comes along with the right factor of positive expression which will allow that to come forth out of you, allow that vibratory current to join and move in a cycle, you cannot arbitrarily project it out of yourself and make it mean something. These vibratory factors which connect up are in all people, positive and negative in vibratory factor, and the living of life, the actual process of living, depends upon this connecting-up process. You can no more make any positive or negative factor in yourself complete itself for yourself or someone else than you can hop over the moon on one foot, and yet human beings are forever trying to do something like that. They assume that they can produce for themselves the things that they need for themselves, and they make forms, imitations, idols, and become idolaters, and may worship with great devotion, but they never know the reality of living.
Now here at this point I must of necessity inject a parenthetical consideration, because as soon as these patterns actually begin to move in relationship to association one with another, as soon as some vibratory factor in you, be it positive or negative, tends to connect up with some vibratory factor in another person, the human mind and the impure human heart tend to start discoloring it, and if it be between male and female, one way or the other—the female may provide the positive factor in a multitude of cases, remember, in this vibratory sense, and the male the negative factor—and if it happens between male and female there is all too often a tendency to jump to a conclusion which causes that to be interpreted or translated on a basis which is not a part of the Divine Design. Human beings aren't used to feeling vibratory attunement with others without attempting to make it into something.
I remember—this is perhaps extreme, but it does illustrate the point—there was a certain lady living in one of the Southern states who was a very fine person and who was very much interested in this service, and she gave financial assistance and helped out in various ways. And on a certain occasion it happened that I was in Florida and she came down there, needing some help physically. She was a maiden lady, somewhere in her fifties, and she had a health problem and an emotional problem. But I gave her an attunement, and apparently, being of that old Southern pattern and a maiden lady and so on, she wouldn't say very much but she had a terrific reaction toward me. I could pretty well tell what had happened. She began to feel the life force work in her body, and the life force had some relationship to the sex organs, because the sex organs are a part of the body. She began to feel things—whether she had ever felt them before or not I could not say, but at least it had been quite a while. And bless her precious heart, she began to come alive, and she decided forthwith that what I was doing was horrible, it was evil, it was of the devil, it was unspeakable, and she could not stand it. She wanted to get away as fast as she could, and in actual fact she withdrew from the service, because she would not let her mind open, her heart open, she would not give herself a chance to begin to find out what was happening inside of her. But evidently she began to feel the life force at work and she translated it as something that was evil; and she must have assumed—I cannot make a positive statement; she didn't say so—but she must have assumed that I had some kind of designs on her, which was a far cry from the fact. Well now, could she begin to live without living?
What do people want for their nickel?
They want to begin to live but they do not want to live. It's a peculiar thing. And the minute something begins to move, in the sense of the creative forces of the physical body, it is immediately translated into some kind of a personal pattern. Somebody decides, “Well I guess I'm falling in love with so-and-so,” and immediately, the very minute something beautiful and lovely and glorious begins to work out because of the vibratory factors that take form, it starts getting put into all kinds of human patterns of reaction and concept and belief and futility, and it gets spoiled.
One of the things that you will have to watch is the tendency for human beings to begin to feel the currents of life and then—well there are really three types of people in regard to this, if they begin to feel life. There will be those who react and assume, as this lady did, that you have some kind of designs or that you are working in some kind of an evil current because the life starts to flow, and they will react and withdraw and say all manner of evil against you falsely—and oh how I have had people say it about me! And then there are those who have a reasonable semblance of balance, and do not jump to conclusions one way or another, and just thank God that something is working, and if they do not understand it all they do not get all bothered about it. And then there is the class of those who, male or female, will feel it—in other words if you are a lady server, it probably will be with a male; if you are a male server some female will probably reveal this pattern—and there will be a tendency to try to make it into something, to establish some kind of a personal vibratory pattern that has no place and is not in the Divine Design, something that ought not to be.
So you may as well recognize that if you are going to be an instrument through which people are brought into attunement with God, and they begin to feel the fire of life in them, they are going to interpret it in all kinds of ways. And if some of these vibratory factors begin to get connected up, instead of waiting to see what it really is or how it really should be, the human being starts deciding, “Well I guess I'm in love with so-and-so,” or, “I would like to have so-and-so in some fashion or other,” instead of just letting it unfold and remembering that here we have the beginning of the basis of friendship, which most human beings thwart and destroy before it ever begins to really manifest. So there is always, the moment you begin to blossom, the moment any person begins to blossom, someone who will show up out of the world morass, someone who will show up to try to desecrate that blossom, try to destroy it, try to spoil it. Instead of seeing something beautiful and rejoicing in giving thanks to God that there is something beautiful and holy and sacred and sweet and wholesome in the world, they are going to spoil it forthwith, turn it into channels of self-centeredness and selfishness, supposed self-satisfaction.
We need to remember that these various types of reaction are bound to appear, and we need to remember our high calling in Christ and not let the lovely things of life be sullied by those who would love to pick the flower, hold it for a few moments, let it wilt and toss it to the side of the road. So let us keep the pattern in the Divine Design, and let us let our lives and our ministry glorify God and be a true blessing unto others. But you never know how anyone is going to interpret or translate the beginning of the movement of life on the increase.
Human beings very often try to take it to themselves in some fashion that is not right. On the other hand there are those who begin to feel something of that and they hold back. I have seen it so many times in relationship to myself. There are some factors here that may not manifest in quite the same way in relationship to you, but I have seen it so many times, that because someone does begin to feel the current of life working, the cycles moving, the individual is afraid of something or other, particularly afraid of himself or herself, and there is a holding back. The individual does not trust himself and consequently he does not trust me, and the thing is always kept on an off-key pattern. Oh there is response, yes! There is response. And they try to work it out, but it is always held in an off-key pattern; they never let it come out as an honest thing.
Trust. True trust. If you have any cause to be afraid of me you are in the wrong place. You should not be here, because if I had any designs on you, or if I were intending to use you in some evil fashion, do you think if I chose to do it that your holding back or your doing this and that and the other thing, presumably to try to protect yourself, would protect you? It would not at all. I am not interested in any such thing, but if I were going to function on that basis I know enough of the tricks of the workings of the human mind so that you would never have a chance. Do you not know that? It is a fact. So if you are going to trust me enough to be here you might as well trust. And if you have not learned how to trust yourself, learn how to trust me. This leads back to the point we were making before I interjected the parenthetical consideration, in relationship to this matter of thanksgiving and in relationship to the vibratory cycles.
You have found that certain blessings appear from God through me to you; and later on, as you move into larger fields of service, the blessings of God will be appearing through you to others and you will run into the same thing because, while people are willing to receive the blessing through you, they are not going to let their spirit of thanksgiving to God go back through you. They are going to hand that to God personally. They cannot receive the blessing from God personally, they cannot reach out and say, “Thank you, Father. I'll take it in my hand now and bring it down here and use it.” They have to receive it through you, but they are going to give the thanks to God personally; they are not going to give it back through you. And what happens?
The blessing that should have taken form and had meaning begins to evaporate and melt and disappear, and when it is gone the human being says, “Well I guess I was just deluding myself. I thought I was getting hold of a blessing and here it has just evaporated. It's gone!” Of course it is gone! You spoiled the cycles by which it was made manifest. You violated the principles of its manifestation because you were going to change the cycle. You let the cycle work until it begins to take form, and then instead of holding true to the principles of that design, you are going to short-circuit it, you are going to send it back, your spirit of thanksgiving and response, back from you right direct to God personally. And the cycle is broken; it is gone. Oh, you can have a spirit of thanksgiving to God in a direct sense if you want to—you should have—but I am talking about the actual working of the vibratory factors. Unless the response goes back through the channel through which you received, you are going to ruin it.
And when you are serving it will be the same thing. Someone says, “Well now, I received this blessing from God through so-and-so, through you, but I'll give my thanks back to God personally. I don't have to express any particular appreciation to so-and-so. After all, he or she is just a server. They are supposed to let the blessings manifest. Let them get along the best they can, any way they can. I'll do this, I'll do the other thing, and I'll expect to keep receiving over here, and I'll send it back to God this way and that way, and I'll work out all the designs.” I have had people say, “Well I've received a blessing from you. I know that. But I have to consider my church, you know. I belong to a church and I think they do very good work. I give my money there, you know. I'm happy to receive the blessings through you but I'll give my money over here.” Do they get the blessings very long? They do not! Why? Because I take it away from them? No. Because they throw it away!
The blessings that appear through me must be appreciated back through me if they are to have any real meaning. And the same thing applies to you. That blessing which appears through you cannot remain real and in form and alive in the life of the one who receives unless the pattern of appreciation and response comes back through you to God. If you are a sufficiently good servant to let the blessing appear, you are a sufficiently good servant to convey the spirit of appreciation and response back to God. And you do not have to judge it. People will judge themselves and say, “I think I'll get this blessing all right. I'll receive it. I know if I take some attunements I'll start feeling better, and then I can go out and do what I want to. I can do this, I can do that.” How few there are as yet who have reached a point where they are willing to sacrifice a little bit, to express and acknowledge appreciation.
I have seen how many hundreds of people get well under the ministrations of my hands and my heart and my mind, the fact that I was living and serving, and those people could have done something. I am not talking about amount, but the person could have done something. He could have sold something, or gone without something and given until it hurt, if they are going to feel hurt about it, until it really amounted to something. But how few have done it. A few have, but very few. And so very few kept their blessings. They thought they were going to get something for nothing, and they could do what they pleased with the blessings that accrued. You cannot, you know. They will evaporate and be gone. What is it people say about blessings that come through spiritual healing? “They don't last.” Sometimes they do not, but it is not because they were not real; it is because the people threw them away. They can last and they can be real, but there must be a cycle of response.
You will find as you are serving that some people take the attitude, “Well after I've had all I want, after I've met all my expenses, and after I've had my fishing trip, and after I've had my shows, and after I've had my smokes, and after I've had my cokes, and after I've had this, and after I've had that, if I have a few pennies left I'll give them to you.” I have seen it over and over again. Do you think their blessings remain? They do not. Because they could not remain? Oh, they could have, but they did not respond, they did not accept really, and they did not maintain the pattern by reason of which that blessing had form to begin with. They killed it. It was not taken away from them. They destroyed it by violating the Law. You will find that as you serve humanity they tend to give you a dribble of what is left, all the time. That is all right. Just a dribble of what is left and they expect that to be enough.
Blessed ones, you have to permit that condition to be, and to move forward in service without reaction, without any resentment. Why? Because sooner or later you will find someone who will let it be real, who will let it last, who will let it take form, and who will not be ashamed to take your hand and look you in the eye and say, “How I thank God for you! How I appreciate your ministry! How I thank God for the blessings I am receiving through you!” And then something will begin to take form, something of the kingdom will begin to shape, something real and lasting will begin to appear, and you will begin to know the real joys of ministry. These other things, the fleeting things that people throw away, no, those do not bring the joys of ministry. But somewhere, perhaps one in a thousand whom you serve will appreciate it and will respond, and will be honest enough to admit it and to express it to you, and then your ministry will begin to take form, then it will begin to have life, then you will begin to have a control point, then you will begin to have a creative field, then the power will begin to appear because there is someone to receive it.
Does the power appear because the power can appear through you? Oh no. No. Set me down in a circumstance where there is no response and you will not see any more power appearing than from any man who lives in any pattern of life down the street. I don't just make the power appear. It has to appear because there is someone ready to receive it. It can appear. It could appear so rapidly through you that we could achieve a great deal more in the remaining period of this Class than we probably will. That is up to you. It could be. You are making progress. You are reaching a point where it could be a great deal more than it has been, than it is. The door is being opened, and what will you do with it? What others before you have done? Throw it away? Or will you let it increase?
Peter and the others back on the day of Pentecost just went out to throw it away as fast as they could, and it was not long until the power of God was not known on earth and they were throwing so-called Christians to the lions. Do you think, if Peter and the others had not violated the beginning of the manifestation of power on the day of Pentecost, they could have thrown real Christians to the lions? No! Nero or anyone else—they would not have had a chance. No. People talk as if the martyrdom back along the way was something really significant. It is a pitiful indictment, because human beings did not let the power manifest, they did not stay true to the pattern.
