Watching Point 144

144 — WATCH lest you pray to God as false theology teaches, asking Him to destroy the unpleasant side of matter and of material existence, and to preserve the side that seems good. Such inconsistency precludes a prayer like that from having much spiritual efficacy.

When Jesus cursed the fig tree, he relegated that which the human mind would call good, to the side of the worthless, because he perceived the error lurking behind it. When he sent the devils into the swine, he marked as evil a product of mortal mind which seemed good, in order to teach the lesson, that whatever has mortal mind back of it, is doomed for selfdestruction. He wanted his followers to learn the final destiny of all that mortals cling to, because it seems good.

It is the old story of the child whose hand was caught in a sugar bowl, because it was clutching a handful of sugar. So mortals cling to that which seems good, and thus find themselves bound by the entire claim of matter.

A housekeeper might refrain from igniting a pile of rubbish, because she had lost a valuable paper. The whole pile would remain undestroyed, through the belief that there might be one good thing in it. When the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was approaching, the Bible indicates that they could not be burned as long as there were righteous men in them.

Man is not bound to falsity. He clings to it and perpetuates it, through the belief that there is something good in it. In Jesus’ parable of the tares and wheat, the tares may stand for evil that so resembles good, that mortals cannot tell the difference, and must wait for the harvest, or for that growth which brings the spiritual perception that can detect the difference between human and divine good. Then the tares can be destroyed without harm to the wheat.

Once a refined and cultured lady kept house for her brother, who was a type opposite to her. She was constantly offended by his crude ways and uncouth talk; but she endured it all because she fancied that he loved her. One day she made the discovery that this affection was tares and not wheat, that it was his creature love for the nice food and comfort that she provided him, as well as for the fact that he saved money, since she asked for no wages. She learned that she had been held in the whole miserable situation, because there was one thing in it that she considered good. When she sent the devil into the swine, or marked this seeming affection as being wholly animal in nature, she was released.