Annie Rix Militz (1904)
The well-balanced mind manifests as evenness in temperament, wherein are no seasons of moodiness or moments of discouragement, down-heartedness, or gloom in any form. Students who have times when they feel melancholy – have a “fit of the blues,” hearts that are heavy when days are gray, bodies that feel themselves cumbersome and weary – all these are the effects of believing oneself subject to ignorance and liable to foolishness.
Such minds must be set free from self-depreciation, which rises from believing in superiority and inferiority. Contentment and self-sufficiency must be manifest through realizing the Lord to be our very Self.
Divine understanding gives strength and independence. He who turns to the secret place in his own nature for all knowledge will walk with God, and not be lame or halt in his mental going. “Stand upright on thy feet!” Learn to stand upon your own power of knowing Truth and interpreting life and Scripture, then your mental feet can walk, run, skip, dance, and go through every other performance, and yet keep their grace and self-mastery, for “the center of gravity will not fall without the base,” the mind become unbalanced, or the feelings grow stolid and glum.
Discontent and the sense of uselessness are overcome by the power of Self-centering and ceasing to look outside for satisfaction and knowledge.
“Be strong and of a good courage,” said Jehovah again and again to the children of Israel as they were preparing to enter into the promised land of Canaan (Deut. 31 :6, 7, 23; Josh. 1 :6, 9, 18). “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
Learn to associate understanding with strength, and conversely, see that discouragement, weakness, and weariness are to be associated with ignorance and foolishness, and realize that the healing of depression and inefficiency lies in spiritual understanding.
Perfect freedom, that comes through knowing, manifests as divine, non-resistant independence of all earthly authority and all earthly forms, ceremonies, dogmas, and creeds. All knowledge must be looked for within oneself, and no matter who or what says a thing, when that authority is outside our own heart and mind, we are only to accept it as the Spirit in us bears witness to it that it is true.
Jesus says, “I receive not testimony from man” (John 5 :34); and he also says, “Follow me.” (Luke 9:59). So, since Jesus receives not the testimony of man, and we would follow him, neither are we to receive the testimony of man, but listen to the Father within, just as he did. “All thy children shall be taught of God.” (Is. 54:13). “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me,” says Jesus (John 6:45).
The day, prophesied by Jeremiah, in which a man may say that he knows of himself that this is true, and does not believe it because of what any good man or any good book says, but because of the Christ in him, is now here. “After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, ‘and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord.” (Jer. 31:33, 34).
Divine understanding gives one power to discern all teachings, and ability to divide the wheat from the chaff and keep only that which is true and spiritually profitable. You must trust to the “inspiration of the Almighty” (Job 32 :8) in you in reading all books and in listening to all men.
Trust in the omnipresent and omnipotent Truth makes us fearless and tolerant towards every claim to knowledge, and we cannot be deceived by sophistry nor misled by strange doctrines, for were we even to drink of most poisonous teaching we would receive only the innocent part of it, thus spiritually fulfilling the Christ-promise, “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” (Mark 16 :18.)
Excerpt from the book “Primary Lessons in Christian Living and Healing”. Annie Rix Militz, 1912.