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Lesson from a Turkey

My neighbor owned a truck with a flat chrome bumper. One day a male turkey strutted through his yard and saw another turkey in the bumper that he thought was a threat to him, his flock, and his territory; so he began violently attacking that threat, pecking at the bumper with all his might. The enemy did not retreat, so he kept fighting until he was weary. When my neighbor saw what was happening, he put some cardboard in front of the bumper. The turkey, having lost view of his enemy, went on his way.

The next day this tom must have remembered his opponent in the truck bumper because he came back looking for him. From his vantage point, the only solution was to fight his enemy even unto the death! The turkey was unwittingly committing suicide.

It is easy for us to see that the turkey was ignorant of what was really going on. He used his eyes and memory of past experiences as judge and jury, and when he found a picture of an enemy in the chrome bumper, that evidence was all the proof he needed. Logic told this turkey that there was a real enemy outside of himself.

We may laugh at a turkey attacking his own reflection, but mortal man makes the same unwitting mistake. Jesus defined the nature of mortal man this way: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).

All that we will ever know of this world is our own mental conception of it. What we are ignorant of, or choose to ignore, is the fact that mortal mind has formed the so-called senses to confirm its own thoughts. As we open our eyes, we think we see external objects that we have nothing to do with, and then we record the evidence with a brain that mortal mind has also produced to validate and justify its own existence. The sensory view of our universe is but an image of the thought that created it. Just like the duped turkey, we confirm and justify our own conceptions of reality. To add to the folly, mortal mind suggests that memory and reason have the power to make us wise. The problem is that while we are busy accessing the past, we are missing the present, and now is the only time when we can do anything. We have been deceived into living in the past and believing our own evidence. What does it take to stop the charade of a man who makes his own illusion, thinks he sees an event outside of himself, and then tries to interact with that scene without changing the thought that confirmed it? What is it that wakes us up to truth? It is Christ!

Conscience directs the present and loving one another is the lesson of the day. The voice of Christ within each one of us will surely remove the veil of ignorance and despair that plagues mankind. When we begin to respond to spiritual inclinations and our thoughts are filled with its goodness, we naturally think less about the flawed evidence of the physical senses. In humility and meekness, we forgive everyone and everything we see because we know that correcting our thought clarifies our view. Did not Jesus assure us that the pure in heart see God? If we want to see perfectly, we must know perfection, and knowing perfection is how God defines man - "Let them have dominion." Jesus promised us that, as we follow in his footsteps, the true meaning of his words will begin to come alive in our hearts. Then, the Comforter elevates consciousness above faith to the halo of divine knowing, where our original likeness to God comes into view. "Life gives immortality to all it creates; what is not Life, Wisdom, Truth or Love, and their idea, is but a fading error, and empty dream" (SH first edition 217:11).

Surely, we have the Mind of God and are living as intelligent presence!

George Denninger ©

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