Excerpt from

The Child Within Us Lives! A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics

by William Samuel

THE NARROWNESS OF TEXTBOOK THINKING

The way of non-contention with the world was given to me. It doesn't struggle to reform things. Enlightened non-judgmentalism permits one to see the good in the world, perfect as it already is.

But there is something inside that shouts for me to shout. The rebellious boy-cadet—the soldier—would have me beat the drum. But at WHAT?

The Heart knows, yet it isn't likely that a drum roll thundered by Jeremiah himself would be heard by my deaf self-hood—that part of me that worships people and their books. So, to what shall I shout?

To the narrowness of textbook thinking. Yes, yes. I rail about the narrowness of textbook thinking. Mind you, this is not to have the textbooks rewritten nor to have their organizations reformed. It is a plea that my “others” (not outside myself) stop limiting themselves to the boundaries of books—even the holy books, even to this group's or that group's interpretation of the Bible. Oh, books are wonderful and the world is blessed to have them. I ask those who study with me to begin a journal at once—and many of those journals have become more books and papers that circumnavigate the world. Oh no, it isn't books I rail at, but our disposition to give them values they do not have of themselves.

I would roll my drum only to call attention to certain tendencies of the unenlightened nature of us. Our revered scriptures and textbooks already do that, but to little avail! Chief among those tendencies is that deadening inclination to establish the words of our treasured books as immutable, eternal law—especially a law to those areas of the heart that we haven't fully understood yet and wherein we still need an honest guide. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with this tendency to put faith in books! We had better believe the automobile manual until we are familiar with the machine. But that manual isn't immutable law for all eternity. There comes a day when we drive another automobile. There comes a day when we fly a spaceship. To hold tenaciously to original words as though they were eternally sacrosanct, is to be doomed. How so? That action forces us to return to the same ignorance from which those very words assisted our escape. This is what I'm inclined to shout about.

Are the words of the Bible holy? Or, is it the Lord God and His Principle which are more holy than the human words that tell of them? We know the answer to that without thinking. Then, why the great veneration of sacred texts? Again, we know the answer. “But now they are drunk,” said Jesus. “When they have shaken off their wine, then...”

ONGOINGNESS

There is a definite and essential ongoingness within the bedrock stability of spiritual Essence. Movement within non-movement; wheels within wheels, so to speak. There is no way for the human community to view the dynamism of Spirit, of Essence, of Godhead as immobile and stagnant. But the nature of the old ego man is to hang onto comfortable beliefs and familiar traditions. Spirit reveals Itself as eternal newness. The textbooks sometimes speak to that newness, but “textbook thinking” precludes the living of newness because there are no specifics of that newness written about in the textbook. Textbook thinking leads to stagnation, as one can plainly see from the many closed societies of churchdom, all in argumentative disagreement with others over their interpretations of the Bible or Whatever.

Religious metaphysics is a clear case in point. It entered the scene asking mankind to look to a new Idea “whose time had come.” People did. That old/new Idea of subjectivism was off and running. Since those days, the world pace has quickened. In its one hundred years, that new Idea—a restatement of subjectivism in an objective world—has seen more confirming movement on earth than in all the eons preceding. The transcendentalist's push at the door of understanding was surely responsible for much of that movement. Now, that Idea's organizations themselves stand with blinders on and ears closed to the very ongoing spiritual revolution they helped spawn. Present era metaphysicians are afraid to examine the fruits of their own once fertile field—their own progeny. Why? No one wants to be cast as “disloyal.” “They left the field.” “They have not given due credit to So and So” who gave no credit to her sources other than the Bible. And it all happened exactly the same way before when Christian churchdom broke away from the objectivism of Judaism.

In a human way this is sad to see. But, in retrospect I see how absolutely right it all is. From the present calcification of religion worldwide, is soon to come the final blossom for which the Tree of Life was intended. That flower will be the rediscovery of the Child within. A new Community is being readied.

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -