The Sermon on the Mount_ The Key to Success in Life - Emmet Fox [41]
Physical fasting has occasionally been found helpful in the overcoming of a problem, especially what is called a “chronic” difficulty, when accompanied, of course, by a spiritual treatment. This is chiefly owing to the high degree of concentration that goes with a physical fast.
Note that verse 18 is substantially a repetition of verse 6. When the Bible repeats itself in this manner, it is an indication that a point of prime importance is being dealt with.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, they whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
(Matthew VI)
Having dwelt upon the nature of the Secret Place, and given Prayer, or Divine Realization, as the Key of Life, Jesus goes on to stress certain consequences that follow upon all this, with the object of showing us how we must, as speedily as possible, recast our whole lives in accordance with the new basis. For example, now that we understand that the material plane is only objectified thought, we should realize the folly of collecting or trying to collect large sums of money or goods, or material property of any kind. If your consciousness is right, that is, if you have a good understanding of God as the loving Source of your boundless supply, you will always be able to demonstrate whatever money or goods you may require, wherever you are, or whatever your conditions may be. You cannot want for anything when once you truly realize that in Divine Mind demand and supply are one. And, on the contrary, until you do realize this, you never will be really safe from want. You may, indeed, acquire a very large share of the world’s goods in the way of bank balance, stocks and bonds, real estate, or whatnot; but unless you have attained enough spiritual understanding, these things are more likely than not sooner or later to take unto themselves wings and fly away. In fact, there is no way in which one can have security without spiritual understanding.
The “safest” banks can and do fail; unforeseen catastrophes happen on the stock market; mines and oil wells give out or may be destroyed by some natural cataclysm; a new invention may easily ruin an old one, the opening or closing of a railroad station, or the starting of some new enterprise somewhere else, may ruin the value of your real estate; to say nothing of the unpredictable effect of unexpected political upheavals upon every kind of property. In short, it is waste of time to give too much attention to collecting material possessions which are so vulnerable to changes and chances, to “moth and rust,” and thieves.
If a reasonable part of the time and attention that most people spend in the pursuit of material goods were devoted by them to scientific prayer and meditation, the change in consciousness which would follow would put them beyond any possibility of suffering from any of these hazards.
If you had sufficient spiritual understanding of supply, your investments probably would not go wrong; but if they did, your losses would be immediately replaced in some other way, and before you had time to suffer from them. If, let us say, the bank in which your fortune was deposited should stop payment on Monday, then, probably before the end of the week, an equivalent sum of money, or at least as much as you could possibly need, would come to you from somewhere else—if you had sufficient spiritual understanding. If any case, the