The Sermon on the Mount_ The Key to Success in Life - Emmet Fox [53]
It is our most sacred duty, out of loyalty to God Himself, to refuse to accept anything less than all-round happiness and success, and we shall not be following out the wishes and instructions of Jesus if we do accept less. We are to pray and meditate, and reorganize our lives in accordance with his teaching, continuously and untiringly until our goal is attained. That this attainment, that our victory over every negative condition, is not merely possible but is definitely promised to us, finds its proof in these glorious words, the ensign of freedom for mankind: Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
(Matthew VII)
This is the sublime precept that we call the Golden Rule. Here Jesus reiterates the Great Law in a concise summing up. This repetition follows upon his wonderful statement of the Fatherhood of God. The underlying explanation for the existence of the Great Law is the metaphysical fact that we are all fundamentally one—all parts of the Great Mind. Because we are all ultimately one, to hurt another is really to hurt oneself, and to help another is really to help oneself. The Fatherhood of God compels us to accept the brotherhood of man, and, spiritually, brotherhood is unity.
The understanding of this great truth includes within itself all other religious knowledge, and is, in the old phraseology, law and the prophets.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
(Matthew VII)
There is only one way under the sun by which man can attain harmony, that is to say, health, prosperity, peace of mind—salvation, in the true sense of the word—and that is by bringing about a radical and permanent change for the better in his own consciousness. This is the one and only way; there is no other. For countless generations humanity has been trying in every other conceivable way to compass its own good. Innumerable schemes have been designed to bring about happiness by making changes of some sort in man’s external conditions while leaving the quality of his mentality untouched; and always the result has been the same—failure. We are now in a position to see why this must be so, that it is because the very nature of our being is such that it is only by a change in consciousness that outer conditions can really be altered. This change in consciousness is the strait gate that Jesus speaks of here, and, as he says, the number of those who find it is comparatively small. Today that number is increasing with great rapidity, though indeed it is still comparatively small, but at the time that Jesus spoke it was very much smaller still.
This doctrine that what matters is one’s consciousness, because your own concept is what you see, Jesus calls the Way of Life, and he says that all other doctrines are but a broad road to destruction or disappointment. Now why should man be so reluctant, apparently, to try to change his consciousness? Why is it that he seems to prefer to try almost any other method however arduous or even farfetched it may be? All through history every other conceivable way has been tried to bring about the salvation of humanity, and, of course, all have failed, as we now know that they must; and yet man will seldom try the “strait” way until he is driven to it, individually, by irresistible pressure.
The answer is that, as we have already seen, the changing of one’s consciousness is really very hard work, calling for constant unceasing vigilance and a breaking of mental habits which is sure to be very troublesome for a time. The natural man is lazy, always tends to take the line of least