When uttered by Jesus Christ the simplest words of everyday usage take on a profound meaning. We can, indeed, perceive something of their deep significance only to the degree that the state of our consciousness begins to approximate a little more closely to His.

This seems to be especially true of the words and From the time of the First Temptation when He quoted the verse from Deuteronomy until His final teaching in the Last Discourses it is clear that His conception of what constitutes differs widely from ours.

How should it be otherwise? For a consciousness that not be holden of death must necessarily speak with knowledge which is hidden from us in the state in which we are habitually content to exist.

The spiritual power released into the world by the Resurrection is being realised very slowly, because (on the whole) man still finds it so difficult not to conceive of life in the as merely a prolongation after death of existence here. The platitudinous religiosity of books purporting to be inspired from , and the numerous accounts of trifling chit-chat at seances would surely not be so popular otherwise. Just as we bedeck the tremendous Love of the Incarnation with the pretty-pretty verses and illustrations of Christmas cards, so do we dim the tremendous Light of the Resurrection with our explanations and personal cravings.

If the Resurrection is indeed it yet will not enforce the acceptance of its magnitude; for no spiritual revelation compels belief; it only makes belief possible, and demands a willing movement of response on man's part.

The practice of meditation will enable us to make such response, and by degrees to receive then Life of the Eternal Order into our feelings and thought. We can begin to form some estimate of the strength of the spiritual force liberated into the world by the Resurrection if we expose to the Power of Infinite Life all those habits which we readily see to be tending towards death, habits which both wear out the body and also externalise such conditions as can only result in destruction.

Abiding in His Word, as we may learn to do in meditation, will save us from every state which is the negation of Life, and will enable us to receive that Knowledge of God which is Life Eternal.

The second meditation is based on the belief that Christ is ready and able to impart to those who seek Him Life of the same quality as He possessed through union with the Father. However shadowy our conception of such Life may be as compared with that which was held by Jesus Christ and manifest in all He did, we do at least admit that life, even as experienced at present by us, is far more than physical animation. We are always more or less aware that our is the sum of what the whole self feels and does and .

Hence, when, as in this second meditation, we ask Christ to quicken us into the possession of the Life that is His it should not be difficult for us to expect the self to be affected throughout. We may confidently hope that, as the result of constant receptivity to the Spirit of Truth, we may have the Mind of Christ, understand what the Will of the Lord is, let the Peace of God rule in our hearts and abide in the Love of Christ.

The words of this meditation form a very good preparation for a Healing silence on behalf of others. When we become aware that God is quickening us, when we feel dynamically that His Life encompasses us and is in us, then is the moment to bring the name of a sufferer into the silence. As we who are meditating on behalf of another are healed ourselves of any negative state by the reception of Divine Feeling, our cleansed and enlightened consciousness becomes the means by which the sufferer is made aware of the Healing Life which is within him even as it is within us.

Our part in the process of bringing about this awareness is a very lowly one: we have simply to put self aside and do nothing to hinder the flow of the Life of the Vine, of which we are all branches.

This abnegation of self is far from easy. Even our very urge to help, good though it was as an incentive to meditate, may become a hindrance if it remains central in the actual time of meditation. Everything of self must be laid aside, or we shall find the obtruding - That is, I remain conscious of myself being active and importantly doing something; whereas I should so have that I am only conscious of God.

It is when I reach the stage of doing nothing of myself that the work of the I Am is accomplished through me.

In conclusion, perhaps it may be possible for man to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of the Resurrection only if he practises what (I think) terms . Such resurrection may and should begin now in daily life in our present personality; we shall rise from the death-state of egoism and selfishness into newness of Life whenever we open ourselves to the Power of the indwelling Christ.

By steadfast practice we may come to recognise that it should really be possible to experience in the midst of flux and change a timeless inward Peace and an immutable Love independent of conditions. Seeing this, we should train ourselves to obey the summons now, at this present time, to arise from the dead and let the Light of Christ shine upon us so that we may walk in His Light.

Let us say with :

So healed and quickened we shall indeed begin to be alive with the Life of Christ, and in consequence, manifest spontaneously something of His Love.