LIVING IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION I Am Not a Prodigal 15a – herb fitch
You’ll notice that, throughout the Bible, there is either man under the dominion of the forces of the world or one who comes out of the forces of the world and takes dominion over them. To bring it into our contemporary life, we might say that we either will be controlled by our environment, or it will control us. We know, of course, that in the main we are controlled by our environment. And so I was led to a very strange parable in the Bible. The strangeness of it was that it was so familiar to all of us, a parable that we all feel we understand, so much so that we take it for granted and go right by. And so I more or less said, “Father, but I understand that parable, the Prodigal Son. Why, everybody knows about that. We can’t go back to McGuffey’s Reader.” And yet for some reason the Prodigal Son kept popping up, holding me there. And so we took a look at it.
There it was, the same old parable, but there were new eyes looking at it, and I think you’ll agree that we have here, in the Prodigal Son, a story about ourselves, which up to this moment we have not fully seen through the eyes of Christ. Really, it shouldn’t be called the parable of the Prodigal Son, for we learn that it is impossible for the Father to have a prodigal son. And then the word “parable” becomes quite meaningful. To the unlettered in the deeper teaching, this is about a spendthrift. He simply squanders his father’s money, comes home, and asks for forgiveness, gets it, and once more he’s in the household. And then metaphysically we say, “Oh well, that’s for those who don’t see the deeper meaning. I do.” And we say, “Why, the prodigal son is the one who wanders away from the will of the Father, the one who lives in mortality, the human.” And that’s true enough.
And then, going deeper into esotericism, we find that the esoteric Truth of the parable takes us away from the standard clichés. We have two brothers, not one; and even the second brother has a complaint to register. What about him? Who is he? What’s he doing there? What’s his purpose in the parable? And now we look at it very carefully. We see a father has two sons, and something stops you and says, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You’re reading it as a human being: ‘A father has two sons.’” Who is writing this parable? Who is speaking it? And comes the great awakening: Why, these are the words of I. I within me is my Teacher. I is speaking. I is telling me a story. Why? Because I is trying to awaken me. I is trying to tell me that this so-called me has gone through many incarnations as a prodigal, many human embodiments as a prodigal, away from I.
I is telling me that the human race is a prodigal, and then I begin to see the meaning of the two brothers in a very different light. The father has two brothers. The first book of Genesis is the first brother, the perfect spiritual Self; and the younger brother who follows, but not quite, and comes into incarnation, the second book of Genesis. And so we are really being told about the Reality and the unreality. We are being told about the way in which man comes into a second sense of Self. Some call it the lower nature and the higher nature; but as you dwell with it, you’ll find that it’s a story about cause and effect and that none of the Prodigal Son, not one whit of the story, takes place outside of your own self. All of it is your inner experience as a person finds him Self, turns within him Self, and returns to his own Self.
So we find this younger brother turning to the father, and that is the journey of the ego into the flesh. To the father, we say, “Give me my inheritance. I’m leaving home.” And so way back at the beginning of the world, your incarnation, your birth is the beginning of the prodigal experience. The moment of appearing in flesh is the moment when the prodigal begins. Mortality is the inception of the prodigal son. And now mortality wanders away from immortality, and we have the divided consciousness, the sense of self which must struggle to earn its own living, the sense of self which must feed itself, the sense of self which is unaware of the ever available present inner Self.
And so now we find a clearer definition. The older son, who remains at home, is the inner Self; and the outer self is the human sense of self which wanders off into the far country, taking its life substance with it. Now we are told that he squanders his substance, and this, then, takes us into the understanding of separation from Self. Now we are wandering off in the flesh, in the human sense of things, in the human sense of what to do and when to do it. We are the mortal, separated from the immortal Being, which we are, only by the hypnosis of the senses; and now we are divided, separated, unaware of Identity. And we find that, somehow, the world doesn’t satisfy us. More and more we lose our Substance. We get further and further away from the Reality of our Being, and finally the husks of matter, of material living, show us that we have followed a mirage.
There is a place where we lose all satisfaction in what the world can give us. We see through the tinsel. We understand, that even though we may crave a deeper sense of life, that the complete, total human race can evolve no higher than it is. There is a place where human evolution can go no further, and this is it. That is when the prodigal realizes that back home the hired servants are eating better than he. He is so completely at a loss to sustain himself that he now needs external help. He finds a citizen there and asks for help. In the midst of the Garden of Eden, we walk needing help, unaware where we are, who we are, for we are prodigals from our own Self; and then we’re put to feeding the swine. We must live in the outer self with outer selves because we have not yet come to the realization of an inner Self with which we must be One’d. We’re not even half a self, and so we want to come home.
The realization of wanting to come home is the turning. It is the beginning of another process called involution. We evolve out, incarnate. We involve in, back to the home of virgin Spirit, back to that place we had inadvertently left at the moment of incarnation in our very first human birth. The complete and total journey of the flesh has now reached the point where we are ready to find Self; and as we come home, although we are far away, the Father greets us. And this is the story about the Omnipresence of the Father, wherever you are. The inner Self is always present, never absent from the outer self. And the instant there is a realization of turning to the inner Self, there’s no place to go: Here I am. And the son returns, and he is greeted with open arms. He’s given the robe. He’s given the ring. He’s even given a new pair of shoes, and we find these shoes are no longer the shoes of the senses, which he was told to go out without before. The shoes of the senses have been discarded, and now the shoes of the Soul, the senses of the Soul, have replaced the senses of the brain.
Material man, mortal man is home again, but here’s this elder brother, and he’s quite resentful. “But what about me? I didn’t squander my money. I didn’t go out in riotous living.” The father says, “Son, all that I have is thine. Thou art ever with me.” And we find something very interesting in this statement, the blending of the inner and the outer. As the prodigal in the outer, unwedded to the inner, whatever we do is unordained. It is form without content, without Substance. The elder brother is the Substance.
If you look all through the East, you’ll see many who sit cross legged living in the self indulgence of an inner Self. How glorious to be lost in the caves. Then they can get up and walk away with rheumatism, arthritis, all kinds of physical ailments because they are the elder brother, resentful of the younger brother. They don’t want any part of the outer world, any more than the outer brother, the younger brother, wanted any part of the inner world.
And so the father says, “You must be content, not only with your level of Self as Spirit, you must manifest.” Just as the outer brother was a prodigal, so is the inner, for you must spiritually manifest the Divine Image. The Content, the Substance of the inner brother, must be wedded to the form of the outer brother: The outer and the inner must become One, so that the form on the outer receives Substance from the inner, so that the Substance on the inner takes form in the outer. And then we have the wedding of Substance and form. We have the anointing. We have the mystical marriage, which in the book of Revelation is the marriage of the bride and the lamb.
And we look at ourselves again, and we find that we have not wedded the inner; and therefore, the outer forms of our lives are without Substance. And at times we have wanted to retire within the inner, never letting our deeds shine forth, but hiding our Light, self-indulgent to the point of saying, “Look how spiritual I am,” but not going forth to show the fruitage of it.
So now, the inner is the cause, the outer is the effect. But as a prodigal, as one living only in the consciousness of matter, the outer effects, has no Substance. They are not sustained; and we find we must go to other citizens for help, and we find ourselves feeding the swine. When, through the acceptance of the inner, we let the inner Self give Substance to the forms, then Divinity within us is manifested in our lives. There can be no Substance without manifestation. There can be no cause without effect. Our function is to combine Divine cause with Divine effect so that cause and effect are truly the marriage of the two brothers as One and so that the Father no longer has two sons in us, but One. Cause and effect are One’d, and that One you accept as your name. I am that One.
We can measure our progress along the straight path of initiation by whether or not we are still a prodigal, whether or not we have surrendered this outer material consciousness to the elder brother within, for the marriage of these two is the preparation for Christ-ing. Until the outer turns and says, “Let me serve the inner,” as the prodigal does in this parable, the inner cannot function as the living will of God expressing in us. And so we say, “How do I know if I am still a prodigal? By their fruits you shall know if you’re still a prodigal or not.
Once the prodigal is returned, something in you is manifesting His Will. Something in you is manifesting the Divine Image. Returned out of the mortal consciousness, we no longer accept ourselves to be mortal being. Returned, we no longer accept ourselves to be living in a human sense of self or in a human sense of body. Returned, we no longer have a human sense of love or a human sense of life. Returned, we have no beginning. We have no ending. We have no opposites. We have no pros and cons. We have no shadows of thought. We are willing to abide in total trust without a concept to guide us. Returned, we find that we are the center of a spiritual Universe.
It’s as if you were in a plane as a pilot, and all around you is this big body of metal, and it’s either going to go up or not, depending on you. The equipment is there. The instrument panel is there. There are switches and knobs and buttons and lights, but they’re not going move themselves. There’s a relationship between them and you, and it’s up to you to move that plane up. Everyone on board depends on you.
Now, we’re in the same position as that pilot. Our plane is a little different. It’s invisible, and it’s not finite. The plane around you is your Universe, and you’re in the center of it, and you’ve got to pilot that Universe. And you say, “I can’t do it.” And the Father says, “I will do it.” If you’re going to try to do it, you’re the prodigal. You’re not wedded to your inner Self. I in the midst of you, I’m the pilot. And so you learn to reach back deep inside. You reach beyond your mind. You reach back into your Universe, way, way back until you have no concept about your Self.
You reach back into infinity, and until you have found that you are not aware of your self, you are not back where you belong. Your invisible plane is not going to take off because there is no human mind that can work the panel of instruments for this plane, only I, the Father within. If you want your universe to be a spiritual Experience in God, you must be wedded to the elder brother within. And so we’re not in this form at the moment. We’re reaching back until we are out of it, we’re not in this human sense of mind. We’re reaching back until we’re out of it. Until there’s a feeling that there’s no person present, there’s no human thinker present, I reach back.
All that is present is a spiritual Universe. That spiritual Universe is your Identity. That is your infinite Self. That’s when you’ll know you’re not a prodigal. And now in your infinite Self, you are living only by Divine Revelation. You are fed completely by the Infinite, sustained, maintained; and every quality of the Infinite is right where you are. This is how you know whether or not you’re still in a parable or you are come out into Self. And then, by your fruits, by the inner expression becoming manifest in the outer, you can see how far the ego has progressed out of the sense of flesh into the realization that I, Spirit stand before the world.
I, Spirit, have never indwelled a mortal being. I, Spirit, do not need a human being as an instrument for my work. I, Spirit, do not function through human beings. I, Spirit, do not function in a prodigal. The prodigal is that sense of self which has never existed. Only I am present, only the Father. If you stay out there as a human trying to come back home, you’re still under a state of hypnosis. The Spirit of God has never left God. The Son of God has never left home. There never was a prodigal. There was a self that we accepted, which never was there, and as long as that Self has a trace, or even a lingering memory, you’re still under the hypnosis of a second sense of self and living in separation. I never was a prodigal. I and the Father have always been One, and we stand there, letting the living Spirit of our own Being clear our vision, clear away all the cobwebs until there’s no prodigal or human or mortal trying to be. There is simply Being Itself.
You become aware of the radiant Invisible all around as your Being. I am the radiant Invisible. I am Self. I am One. There never were two in my Father’s household. The illusion of division is removed. You have really subtracted that which is not; and in doing so, you have multiplied the Lord. You multiply by subtraction. As you remove the veil of illusion, you multiply. And now the moment you lose this Identity, you go back into prodigality. You return to the illusion of mortality and separation and open yourself to the good and the evil.
The outer sense of self, which lives in the world, is divorced from the inner sense of Self, which lives in the Father. And in this inner divorce, we find the cause of much of the outer divorce which takes place in this world. An individual, separated within, will discover that outside separation occurs. One day he gets up and leaves or she gets up and leaves, and they wonder why. And if you look inside, you’ll find that inside themselves they are separated; and the inner separation externalizes as the outer separation. Always, when there is a One inside, you find that Oneness is forever.
You can tell when you have been One’d within. Then you are complete, and you understand the meaning of the Master’s words to the disciples, “We shall make my mother male.” We find that the elder son is the male. The younger son is the female. These are the two aspects of an individual, the masculine and the feminine. As you come into matter, you’re in the feminine, the negative; and always, there is this urge of the negative to find the positive, of the feminine to find the masculine. There is this great driving urge, like gravity, of the two to become One. But the unawareness of what that is makes us two become one in many different ways than the purpose behind the outer activity of physical oneness.
It is the urge to unite within your Self the male and the female, the positive and the negative, the cause and the effect. The two that must become one are within our own Being, and when this is done we are fulfilled. You can never do it in two human beings. Each must unite the masculine and the feminine within that one individual. The positive and the negative must become One. The elder brother and the younger brother must become One within you, within me, within her, within him. Then we are whole Being. Then we can see that One, like Jesus who has become One, no longer seeks outside of his person for another One.
We find Eve coming out of Adam’s rib. This is the symbolic way of telling us that the One has now, in the human sense of things, become two. This is the division of the elder brother and the younger brother. And Eve must go back into Adam’s rib and become One within each of us. You find that in a passage which I didn’t explain in the Revelations. When Jesus returns as the Christ, meeting his disciples in the heavens, it is said that he is girded about the loins and the paps with a golden girdle. And this is the statement that he has become both male and female, One’d.
It is this necessity for wholeness of the male and female element of each individual, which causes many of the unusual circumstances we see in our outer world. The unawareness of it makes us condemn. The unawareness of it makes us not even know that it must happen within our Self, that the two, the inner and the outer, the positive and the negative, the cause and the effect, the higher and the lower, the invisible and the visible, the infinite and the finite ultimately in us become One, and we are married to the lamb. Then I am, and yet before all this occurred I am. Before Abraham was I am, but finally the acceptance, the realization, the dissolution of the false personality, which does not know that I am; and Mary is made male, meaning whole, complete, One within Oneself, not depending on an outer, second self.
When two outer selves become complete within themselves, you do not find divorce for the simple reason that they are already united in the Spirit. Always in our outer self, which is never complete, mingling with other outer selves which are not complete, we find everything out of focus. Our environment then controls us. We have no weapons against it except human ones. We’re meeting everything on the level of effect. We’re not living in the cause. And so we’re in the forms that have no content, shell among shell. This is the level of exoteric religion. The complete human experience is the unawareness of this mystical marriage. These are fragments of ourselves trying to find fulfillment where it cannot be discovered.
Now then, your dependence ceases to be on someone else, because no other person can unite the fullness of your Being for you. It may seem so, but that is when we discover what the prodigal discovered, that he had followed a mirage. He had wasted his substance by turning away from it unknowingly. Living, then, in cause is the mystical Way. Now, united to the inner, wedded to the inner Self, we find that is the method whereby the will of the Father functions in us, and then the Father, through our inner Self, manifests in what we call the outer self, showing forth not the human image, as others see it, but showing forth that Divine Image as exemplified by he who was called Christ Jesus.
The Divine Image shows forth, and though it may be wheat, and though others may appear the same, they are the tares. You cannot tell the difference between the wheat and the tares. One is shining forth the Divine Image, the other the human image, and they look alike until the judgment, until harvest time, until you discover the Divine Image never stops at the grave.
We are learning how to be that Divine Image by the inner wedding, the Oneness which identifies as Spirit; and instead of a prodigal trying to find the inner Self, we have probably come now to the place where we are the inner Self calling in the prodigal. And I would like you to make that turning today, so that we are not the human trying to become immortal. We are the Immortal convincing the mortal he has no real existence. You’ll discover this method is the way you are true to Self. The other method is the mirage. The mortal can never become immortal. The mortal can never find Reality.
Reality is a now. Immortality is a now. We do not stand in the unreal trying to find the Real. We stand in the Real rejecting the unreality. And so your work is I, Spirit; and now how do I live that way? How do I function, think, work, show forth my complete experience as the Divine Spirit? How do I walk in Him? To say that I’m going to walk in this world and find heaven is ridiculous. It cannot be done. You cannot identify as Spirit and walk in the world. Spirit lives in heaven, and until you’re willing to live in heaven, you cannot identify as Spirit. If you are Spirit, heaven is your home, and heaven is where you are; and, therefore, you must accept that all that is in heaven is perfect. All that is in heaven is under spiritual law. All that is in heaven is the actual God Life living Itself.
If you are not in that God Life experiencing Self, then you are the prodigal. If you are in that God Life experiencing Self, then everything pertaining to the prodigal cannot be true and cannot be accepted. I, Spirit, must now move and have my Being in the Spirit of Being everywhere. You cannot have a mortal neighbor and call your Self Spirit. You cannot have any problems in your Life and call your Self Spirit. You cannot have a physical form and call your Self Spirit, nor can you have a physical form and be free of the karma of physical form. Either the ego has finally left the concept of flesh and has journeyed through incarnations to the point where you see the illusion of that ego, or you still live in it. And for you, the parable of the prodigal is not McGuffey’s Reader. It’s still a fact of mortal existence. You’re either out of it or in it.
This world opens up at a place and makes you visible as a physical self. The world calls it your birth. It isn’t. It’s the invisible world made visible where you stand. Around you is the garment of a universe, and that is your self, but that is your mortal self. The mortal universe around your mortal flesh is your mortal self; and as you come out of that belief, accepting your spiritual Self, then around you is the spiritual Universe, and that is your Self, all of it. No part of It is not You. In your fidelity to that spiritual Universe is the opposite of being a prodigal. And that’s how you finally take your plane up into the air. All those instrument panels of thought are no more. Spirit lives Itself where there is no prodigal. Spirit lives Itself where there is no second self. You are reaching so far back into Self that all there is is Self to live Itself, and you are learning to trust the Infinite Invisible to be Its own perfect Self everywhere that you are concerned.
The plane goes up in the air without you touching any of the material instruments around you. Spirit has dominion over air, over land, over sea. Why? Spirit is the cause, and the cause is the only power. And you learn to live in spiritual Identity, which is cause, and you never have to be concerned about effect. You never have to feed the swine. You never have to go to an external being to give you sustenance. Spirit lives Itself in your spiritual Identification. Your plane is your Universe. It is always flying well. It is always moving through Itself. You’re always letting It control Itself. You are no longer in and under the dominion of your environment, for your environment is God’s Self.
The parable of The Prodigal has another meaning. It is not only a parable to teach the literal mind of man, as well as those who are ready to go higher. There are sides of the parable that teach the outer of you and the inner of you; and the side that teaches the inner of you is teaching the elder son within you, teaching the elder son within you that it must show forth the deeds of Spirit in order to be a worthy Son. It is teaching the elder son within you fidelity, sincerity, trusting the omnipresent perfection of the Father, in spite of what may appear out there.
There are not two prodigals, one within and one without. There is only One realized Son, and the male and the female of you are now combined in this, into one Being. The form no longer fools you by its appearance. We now have God the Father, and God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Joel gives us a perfect way to understand that. He says take the figure one, the number one, and see that, first, behind the visible number one there is the Invisible, and that is God the Father. And now see the visible number one, and that’s God the Son; and now see that that visible number One, God the Son, is maintained by the Father’s invisible activity, which is the Holy Ghost.
Between the Son and the Father is the Holy Ghost maintaining the Son, and we who accept I am Spirit, we learn that the Holy Ghost is maintaining my appearance as Spirit. I seek no outer. I and the Father are One through the Holy Ghost. And, therefore, I am the Holy Ghost; I am the Father. Thou seest Me, thou seest the Father. I am no longer a prodigal wandering in the far country of mortality wasting my Divine Substance by ignorance of It, by infidelity to It, by depending on outer circumstances, by letting the environment control me. I am my environment. And the dominion given in Genesis is realized, accepted, and lived in, only because I, Spirit, is accepted with total fidelity. This is the preparation for transition.
Our complete experience on the earth in this earth period is to attain this Oneness of Consciousness. We are really here to establish what may be called the fifth Kingdom, to move into the sixth, where only the will of the Father is done, as a preliminary to the total Christ-ing and the living in eternal Life. When the Master said this is a straight path, he meant that straight: God the Father, the Holy Ghost, and the Son, One. And wherever you are seen visibly, you must be all three in One appearing.
As you reach back further in the loss of human selfhood, you find the everlasting arms. You find a new level of Truth, a new order of Life. You find a Life that is little suspected by the human mind. You find how small human life really is. You find how magnificent is the Infinite Invisible awaiting our experience. God ceases to be a noun. The words “love” and “life” cease to be nouns. We move into the new order of experience. We are no longer metaphysicians.
We live the God experience. We live Life. We find the meaning of a living God, and the word “God” exchanges Itself into something else. It is no longer a word. It is no longer a mental concept, a mortal idea. God begins to be Life living Itself fully, joyously, rejoicingly, exultantly, because It is without opposite. It is the realm of pure perfection in all things. Eternity becomes Reality. Infinity becomes the playground. We move into a different place, a different time, a different space. We’re out of the illusion life. We’re into Reality.
Now that experience tasted, lived in, opens us up to the meaning of the real bread of Life. We see why we have come so far. The new Heaven and the new Earth is an experience that you enter long before you make your transition. It becomes a now Reality. The Soul of you yearns to move only in It, and the more you are able to live out of this inner elder brother, instead of the outer self, the more you know your eternal Life has passed the stage of words and hopes, and plans, that you’re really living It. It is your Being now. It is your living experience day by day. You find that Reality has a new ring to it. You find the meaning of “Put up thy sword.” You find there’s nothing to defend against, except an illusion. These are some of the things that tell you the prodigal is dead and crucified.
[Silence]
We set, then, a goal to live in the cause of things, rather than in the effects; and this becomes quite a discipline, quite a challenge to live in because it’s the only way to control environment. Cause is invisible, spiritual Substance, so whatever comes to you must be seen through to its original Substance. There must be a conscious awareness that the Substance is always present, functioning, being Itself, maintaining its perfect Substance right there as invisible, perfect manifestation. And though the appearance may be different and is, the Cause is there, and the Cause, being perfect, its form must be perfect; and by living in this knowledge of the presence of Cause, you’re living in the knowledge of the presence of perfect manifestation. You’re weaving your garment of one piece, your wedding garment.
The moment you move out of Cause, you’re in karmic law—spiritual Cause; and this keeps you right on your toes, spiritually alert, watching. Your lamps are always trimmed this way. You’ll find that you’re taking control of your environment. It externalizes to the level of your awareness of spiritual Cause. Scripture has reached us to the point that we are put in the understanding that when we are defending ourselves against anything, we are living in the effect, whereas when we are living int the cause, that effect needs no defense any more. You can do it with your eyes shut or open.
Living in Spirit means living in Cause and beholding the added things which follow. You move into a room, aware of spiritual Cause being present. Everything you see outside, you approach from the level of spiritual Cause. Everything that you take into yourself, you take in from the level of spiritual Cause, so that the traffic going out of you is Spirit, the traffic coming into you is Spirit. You’re living in the conscious awareness of Spirit as the only Presence. Only God is there, and only God is here; and so there’s nothing to be improved or corrected, except to be revealed. You do not tame the tempest. You reveal I present.
Now the reason we’re getting to the point of living in I am, that Spirit, is It’s the only way that you’re not in duality. It’s the only way you’re not in effect. It’s the only way you’re not in karma, the only way you’re not a second self. You’re going to have to practice that in this coming half, until, instead of healing anybody, instead of improving anybody, instead of improving any situation that you have, you are standing in the high ground of spiritual Identity knowing that is Cause, infinite Cause, which can only cause infinite, perfect effect.
And there’s nothing more for you to do, but trustingly, patiently abide in that knowledge; and then you’re in the one without opposite, and you will not experience the opposite. What is not in your consciousness will not externalize, and if opposites are in your outer world, they will be dissolved when your consciousness has risen above the consciousness of the opposites to I, Spirit. It gets narrower and narrower and narrower to the point of nothing before it widens out and becomes the mustard tree with branches in which the birds, the divine thoughts, the divine impulses come to bring you Divine Bread. The little seed grows.
Let’s pause a moment before we proceed.
Mystical Principles 
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