The Greatest Works of Joseph Benner. Joseph Benner
your fellow men. And then will you understand why only "One is your Master, even Christ."
For I as the Christ dwell in all men and AM their One and Only Self. Through all men I AM ever calling to you and trying to reach and impress your human consciousness. As I AM continually teaching you, not only through all men but through every avenue needed at the time, I have many ways of reaching your consciousness and utilize all to bring you to a realization of My Meaning.
I speak with many voices, with the voice of all human emotions, passions and desires. I speak with Nature's voice, with the voice of Experience, even with the voice of human knowledge. Yes, these are all My Voice, which I use Impersonally to express to you the one fact, that I AM in All and that I AM All. What this Voice says, in Its thousand ways, is that you, too, are part of this All, and that I AM in you, waiting for your recognition of Me and your conscious cooperation in the expression of Me Idea of Impersonal Perfection on earth, even as It is expressing in Heaven.
When this recognition comes, and then only, are you ready to meet and know a real Master. Then and then only will you realize why I, your own Impersonal Self can be and AM the only possible Master of your human personality.
Then also will you understand why in your personal, separate consciousness you could never recognize or know a real Master should you meet Him in a physical body, that not until you are able to enter into your Christ Consciousness, My Consciousness within you and within Him, He would not exist to you other than perhaps as a kind and helpful friend or teacher.
When you have attained to that Consciousness, then only will you be worthy and qualified to know and commune with your fellows in the Great Brotherhood of the Spirit, Those who have mastered self and Who live only to help Their younger brothers also to find the Divine One within.
If a being should come into your life who seemed to you Divine and who let you think or call him a Master, he is not yet wholly Impersonal. Such a one might be a master-man, but he would not be the Divine One your Soul yearns to serve.
Perhaps you would be satisfied to have such a one for a Master, even if he were not wholly Impersonal. If so, then I would hereafter bring you to a realization of his personal imperfections by a constant comparison with My Impersonal Perfection; until you would finally turn and come to Me in complete abandon, acknowledging Me and My Impersonality as the only Model and Ideal, and as the true Cause which inspired your long search without for My Perfection, that could be found only within, hidden deep within your own Soul.
Since the earliest days of expression on earth I have prepared My Priests and My Prophets and My Messiahs to vision forth to the world My Idea Messiah, or through a little child, or through your worst enemy, all words that appeal vitally to you are the words the I AM of You speaks through the organism of such medium to your Soul consciousness.
Should a number be gathered together to hear My Word spoken through one of My Priests, it is not the Priest of himself but I, in the heart of each hearer, Who draw from the Priest the vital words that sink deep into the consciousness of each. The Priest knows not what he says that so affects you, and may not even comprehend My Meaning of the words he speaks to you.
I within him do draw from the combined devotion to and belief in Me, consciously and unconsciously expressed by all those gathered around him, the Spiritual Force which serves as a channel or a connecting line through or over which I reach the consciousness of those minds I have prepared to comprehend My Meaning. For although I speak the same words to all, yet these words contain a distinct and separate message for each, and no one knows any but the message I speak to him; for I within you choose from the words the meaning I intend for you, and I within your brother and your sister likewise choose the meaning I intend for each of them.
When two or three are gathered together in My Name, there will I always be; for the Idea which draws them together I, within each, inspire for it is My Idea. From the union of their aspirations towards Me do I create a medium or channel through which I enable the Soul consciousness to gain such glimpses of Me as each is capable of comprehending.
Every Priest, every Teacher, every Medium, I cause instinctively to know this, for they are My chosen Ministers; and I likewise cause to awaken in them a desire to surround themselves with followers, that I may quicken, in the hearts of those who are ready a consciousness of My Presence within. The Priest, the Teacher, or the Medium, themselves, may never have recognized Me within, and may be deeming Me as entitized or personalized in some master or guide or saviour without themselves; but nevertheless, there are those whom I lead to these, My Ministers, in whom, through certain words I cause My Ministers to speak, together with the Spiritual Force furnished by the various aspirants, I am enabled to awaken their Soul consciousness to a real comprehension of Me, the Impersonal One, seated within - in the very midst of All, in the heart of each.
For the I AM of My Minister, and the I AM of each follower are One, one in consciousness, one in understanding, one in love, and one in purpose, which purpose is the fulfillment of My Will.
This I AM, which is wholly Impersonal, and knows neither time, space nor different identities, merely utilizes the personalities of both Minister and followers, and the circumstance of personal contact, as a means of giving voice to My Idea, ever struggling within for outer expression.
Those Ministers who take the confidence and trust of My followers, and use it to further their own private purposes, I cause to awaken to a recognition of My Will and My Idea all in proper season. This awakening, however, is not pleasant to their personalities, and almost always causes much suffering and humiliation; but their souls rejoice and sing grateful praises to Me when I bring it to pass.
Therefore, wonder not at the sometimes wonderful words of Truth that come from mouths apparently unfit to speak them and comprehending not their meaning; nor at the fact that simple followers often times awaken faster than and grow beyond their teachers. I Who dwell within both teacher and follower choose different conditions and provide different ways for the expression of My Attributes in each different Soul, fitting each into just the time and place where they can complement and help each other the best; thus uniting all into the most harmonious expression of My Idea possible under the circumstances.
Chapter 16
The Christ and Love
To you who fear that My Words may destroy your belief in and love for the Lord Jesus Christ, I say: Two thousand years ago, when the process of the expression of My Idea had reached the stage where I could show forth some of My Divine Reality, in order to do this and to recall to My human Attributes their mission on earth, it became necessary to express through a human personality and to manifest in a human form My Divine Attributes, so their human minds and intellects could see and remember and be inspired by Me within to let My Idea similarly express through and manifest in their human personalities.
This I did through the personality of Jesus, the man of Galilee, picturing to the human understanding by My Teachings given through Him, and by My Life manifested by Him, what was necessary in order to express fully My Divine Idea.
I showed, by the experiences of a symbolic nature through which I caused His human personality I created for such purpose to pass, what all personalities must pass through before you, My human Attributes, who created these personalities, can again become Impersonal enough to be conscious expressors with Me of My Divine Idea.
All of you, My human Attributes, before the I AM within can awaken your human minds to a realization of Me, your Divine Self must be born of a Virgin Love in a humble manger the place where the cattle come to feed (the humble and contrite heart filled with faith and trust in God, to which state the human or animal nature must come). You must then be taken into Egypt, the land of darkness (or intellectual activity), there to grow and thrive in body and understanding until you become strong with the feeling of Me within.
Then, when you are sufficiently conscious of My Power and My Love, will I begin to speak through you words of Wisdom and Truth, which will confound the learned of the world, even the Doctors of the Law. Then