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BREAKING
THE BREAD
Five thousand hungry men, far from food and shelter. Five
thousand men
in the desert-hungry-calling for bread; and only five barley loaves. The
nearest food depot miles away.
Dozen of empty vessels, all crying out to be filled
-great, yawning,
ugly black vacuums of debt and want, and only a few drops of oil in the
cruse.
Great stretches of parched desert scorched by sun and
wind-dry, barren,
ugly, useless. Worthless, helpless, unwanted, crying for expression, and
only a small desert water-hole under a scraggy tree, half-filled with
poisonous water, and a mass of bone-dry seeds buried in the sands.
Any one of these pictures is enough to make the
average strong heart
quail and turn away with a sense of helplessness. "Why does God permit
such
terrible things to exist if He is All-powerful?" "Why do I have to
continue
always under an avalanche of debt and limitations, with never enough to do
anything with?" "Why do I lie on a bed of pain, my body racked with
loathsome disease?"
"I have tried and tried and yet no results
come." "Anyone could see
that five loaves would not feed five thousand men. A loaf to a thousand?
What good to even pause to consider such an absurd idea? What good to
consider the empty jars when only a few drops of oil are visible?"-Thus
man
reasons, and thus he fails. Having drawn his conclusions in accordance with
the best human understanding and wisdom, he abides by the results.
The first and great law of breaking the belief of
limitation is, "Judge
not from appearances." We have heard it often, but we have never really
heard it until we can do it. When you actually hear a word of Truth you can
fulfill it. Taking your attention away from the appearance of things, or
judging not from appearances, is not merely closing the material eyes and
refusing to see that which you know ---in your human thinking---is real.
"Being absent from the body and present with the Lord" is actually
placing
the attention on the Invisible Source of All. This is neither as abstract
nor as difficult as it seems at first glance. It is not a difficult thing
through the process of your imagination to possess those things which are
necessary for your wellbeing. It is not difficult f or you to imagine that
it would be a simple matter to the All-Power to produce all the desires of
your heart-seeing that it has already created infinitely more-right before
your eyes. It is not difficult f or you to place your consciousness in the
realm of Spirit, and there f eel the freedom of the All-Spirit, being lost
in the immensity of light, and finding the hard outlines and forms of things
all melting back into the infinite ONE----out of which all things came into
being.
After all, a moment's thought will cause you to throw
much of the
limiting reasoning of human wisdom away. Just think of the infinite flow of
water into the Universe. From the single drop to the mighty torrents, where
does it come from? We can, by a slow process, trace it from one stage to
another back to Primal Cause. Where did it come from in the first place?
What is the nature of the invisible quantity of substance which constantly
repeats itself in a never-ending stream of expression, and in an infinite
variety of forms? Out of the same invisible realm of substance we see
millions of different manifestations, just as out of the same garden plot we
see a hundred varieties of seeds bringing forth as many different kinds of
flowers and fruits, all drawing on the identical substance for their life.
Why do a poppy and a grain of wheat, drawing on the same elements, bring
forth such radically different manifestations? Who can answer except with
the absurd reply, "It is the nature of the seed"?
Why should it seem strange, then, that man should
make a conscious
contact with this Infinite Power, and see it step up the process of time and
bring out the instant manifestation of whatsoever is needed, instead of
seeing it put through the limiting human thought process? Why should it be
thought so absolutely outside the ken of possibility?
Further, why is it that you, the very reader of this
page, will go into
your garden and scatter a handful of seeds in the ground without so much as
a mental effort as to how they are going to draw their substance out of the
invisible? Pushing this idea back a little farther, you find it is because
you have a perfect confidence that it can be done-not in a way you know, but
in an unseen way. Somehow or other this tiny seed will be able to select the
pigmentation of color and the qualities for its own expression. And you do
not find this strange; it has ceased to be wonderful. It is natural. You
dismiss it. The handful of seed is all that is necessary for you presently
to reap a harvest that many men with many baskets cannot gather in.
Yet if someone said, "There are five loaves to
feed five thousand
hungry men," you would immediately place it under the head of
miraculous-something outside the laws of Nature and life. Why should it be
thought more difficult to increase one substance than another? Well, you
scatter your seed with abandon, and with absolute faith that its increase is
assured; you give it little or no thought after it is sown. But if you were
to attempt to increase the loaves you would be concerned to such an extent
with the manifestation that the law would not operate.
If you have five seeds and want to increase them to
five thousand, you
do not lay the five seeds on the table and pray over them. You do something.
You cast them into the ground. There is no wondering or questioning the
action. After you have abandoned them in this way the work on the outside is
done; the next move must be from the realm of the Invisible.
When will you, you who read this page, open your eyes and
see what is
going on all about you? When will you start the flow of substance by taking
your attention away from the symbol and placing it on the substance back of
the symbol? In other words, when will you cast the seed into the ground of
Spirit and let the Invisible Power of the Lord work upon it? When you drop
the seeds into the ground, you have already given thanks-perhaps not in
words-for the harvest. You have actually accepted your good-your
increase-your fulfillment -and yet you have seen nothing. But you have
obeyed the law, you have not asked for a sign----knowing that the "signs
will follow, they do not precede."
When Jesus, the Master, saw the five thousand and the
five loaves He
said to his disciples: "Give them to eat." The disciples-even as you
and
(immediately looked at the problem before them and in the most intelligent
manner asked: "Where can we get the bread?" Over and over the word
is spoken
to us-yet the deaf ears hear nothing. When the Voice commands, it should be
sufficient to cause you to move into action; for it will never say
"do,"
"go," "be," "have," or any of the commands,
unless wrapped up in that very
word is the means of expressing the command in its fullness.
Strange as it may seem to the human sense, man is
always in possession
of enough to start the increase which will unfold or unroll until it has
filled every empty thing. Hence, in the desert, five loaves were
"seed"
sufficient to increase the manifestation unto the need.
Jesus took the five loaves and blessed them. His
blessing was one of
pure recognition of the infinite increase, or the infinite abundance of
substance----"he blessed and brake, and gave. . . ."
He disregarded absolutely all appearances-"he
blessed and brake, and
gave"-and he kept on breaking the bread until everything was filled and
there was enough and to spare. His attention being away from the appearance
of things all the while and placed on the invisible. The very invisible out
of which the tremendous increase of your seed planting took place last
spring. Only his attention was so conscious of the Presence that the time
lag was wiped out and it became the glowing, vibrating Now of Spirit.
"Borrow vessels, not a few"-the same power
blessing, recognizing-the
infinite source of substance, looked away from the few drops of oil and
began to pour it out just as it had broken the bread. And presently out of
the invisible source of all things the flow of oil came in such abundance
that everything was full to overflowing.
The only benefit of these parables is the
direct application to your
present manifestation. Many people stand in the place, symbolically
speaking, of the Master with five thousand hungry men and five loaves, or
with hundreds of empty vessels and only a few drops of oil wondering why
they do not demonstrate abundance, not heeding the urge of Spirit to
"Bless
and break, and give"-to recognize the presence of the Spirit and begin
the
process of breaking and giving. Wherever you are, and whatever your problems
may be, you have the five loaves necessary, or the few drops of oil, and you
can "Bless and break, and give."
All three steps are necessary. You are doing the same
thing constantly
in your garden, whether consciously or unconsciously. Your garden is brought
forth in just this way. You realize that half the joy of your garden is the
giving of its rich harvest to others, yet many people in the Truth imagine
that the giving is something entirely apart from the getting. It is only by
making a constant outlet for the expression of good that more can flow into
your life. It is reasonable to believe that the increase of anything would
stop if it had no outlet. We notice in the five loaves and five thousand men
demonstration that bread was given as fast as they came for it. It was not
all manifested at once and then passed out. Your substance does not have to
be mountain-high before you can give it out-in fact, if the flow is not kept
open, the increase stops.
It is a glorious revelation that you, just where you
are, can begin the
process of breaking and giving the bread of life and see the endless flow of
substance making itself manifest to you and your Universe.
You can begin to see why the command of
"Silence" is so essential. Why,
the great prayer is "Be still and know that I AM GOD"-not the human
limited
power, but that which can step up the time lag and make the NOW of the
manifestation appear. The power which is back of this potent statement
"You
say it is f our months until the harvest, but `I' say look again." Only
those that have eyes that have been opened to the reality of being can see
the harvest where the human sense says planting has not yet even taken
place. "Having eyes, ye see not; having ears, ye hear not."
"Awake, thou
that sleepest." The new dimension is edging into your picture.
Do you begin to see the futility of keeping the attention
fixed on the
few drops of oil, or the five loaves and the hungry masses? Bring this right
down to your problems and a door will open to you. A new joy will fill you,
for you will discover that you have all that is necessary to bring out the
fullness of the invisible substance.
Beloved, do not let it be said of you any more
"Ye seek ME, not because
ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were
filled."
Don't you see how perishable is the symbol but how unlimited is that which
is back of it? "Labor not for meat that perisheth, but for the meat which
endureth unto everlasting life."
Why should you worry about the symbols-take your
attention away from
them or the lack of them and keep breaking and giving of the precious
substance. Do not invert the process and reason thus in your hearts, "If
I
give I shall get," that is a losing game-give because the overflowing
substance within you seeks its level-that is, its complete
fulfilment-automatically. You cannot help pouring out the gift of the Father
when you begin to see that the infinite flow of joy is coursing through you,
and through your Universe. Rejoice and be exceeding glad and let fall the
drenching rain of recognition of the presence of God; let it f all on the
barren desert of your life and the desert will blossom as a rose, for it has
the seeds of infinite possibilities hidden away in its burning sands,
awaiting recognition. It is well------"Break your bread and give it to
the
hungry multitude of desires in your life."
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