15
STEPPING STONES TO MASTERY
By D. T. Marches
FAITH
It was Paul who said, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things unseen."
Faith is a quality to be cultivated. For the past two thousand years people have
rode into health, supply, harmony, peace, etc., on Jesus' Faith, but if we are
to gain our own mastery over adverse circumstances and conditions, we must begin
to draw forth our own quality of Faith through practice.
It has often been said by advanced students on the Path that the people of the
outer world thinking seem to be more content and have more of this world's goods
than do students on the Path and also seem to get more "answers" to their
"prayers." This is because a certain percentage of all the God-qualities are
indiscriminately and impersonally bestowed upon life in general by the
Representatives of these Virtues and any lifestream exercising the quality of
Faith can draw that good toward them, for Life is no respecter of persons.
The student on the Path, however, comes under another phase of the Great Law. By
his action in voluntarily stepping out from the mass consciousness, he is
expected now to consciously draw forth the quality of Faith from within his own
Christ Self and actually create through the medium of his consciousness the
circumstances and conditions he requires. He is under the direct tutelage now of
a member of the Great White Brotherhood and apparently, without his own seeking,
is placed in a condition where it is essential that he exercise this quality of
Faith if he is to succeed in whatever project he is engaged. To some, this would
seem like rough treatment, but anything worthwhile was never gained except
through individual endeavor.
Jesus said: "Of my own self I can do nothing, the Father within me, he doeth the
works." Men must know that he and the Father are one in Christ; he must learn to
identify himself with that Inner Self. The outer intelligence simply conveys
through the medium of thought and feeling his desires to this waiting and
listening Christ Self, and, through an action of the great Cosmic Law, the
Christ Self draws the required conditions and circumstances toward him and makes
them manifest in his world.
The man on the Path must learn that the only Way to the Father is through the
Indwelling Christ. I AM the Open Door to the Father's Kingdom. Cultivate the
acquaintance and enjoy the companionship of your own Beautiful Christ Identity
and draw the Gifts of God through that "Open Door," just as the Beings of Nature
draw the fruit and the flowers and all the other gifts that bless mankind
through the same Open Door from the unseen realm of God.
Conscious cooperation with, and complete Faith in the power of your own Higher
Self is mastery. Jesus' power lay in his Faith in his own Christ Self. He said:
"The works that I do, ye shall do also."