Chapter - 9

Land Beyond The Darkness

Neither tears nor fears shall remain . . . the stairs always lead up.

I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. ST. JOHN 8:12

When one of my former students who had done an outstanding job of changing her life heard that I was writing this book on overcoming fear she came to see me. She came, she said, for the express purpose of persuading me to include the little fictional story that had helped her so much.

"Please tell them about the 'Land Beyond the Darkness.' That little story you wrote did more to help me overcome my fears than all the solemn and profound fact teaching you handed out to me. It is easier for me to think in pictures than in rules. When I was trying to break the habit, your story helped me to put the drink down instead of taking it. All I had to do was to think about those people on the bridge. It kept me dry a month. After that I was able to stay sober. But I still use the story. Please put it in your book." I promised. It has helped a good many others. So here it is, with the hope that it will help the reader to overcome any fear he might have left.

Land Beyond The Darkness

Once there was a man whose name was J. J. Smith. He was sixty-four years old, had a beautiful wife, two married sons, four grandchildren and two lovely unmarried daughters still at home. He loved them all dearly. He lived in a beautiful house, owned three expensive automobiles, his own airplane, and a great deal of money. Mr. Smith had been a good man, a church member all his life and thought of himself as blameless. He had started in life as a poor boy and was a self-made man. But now he had reached a state of problems that was beyond him.

First, Mr. Smith began to lose money. In a few years he had lost a great part of his fortune in bad investments. Friends had turned against him. He was threatened with fines, imprisonment and disgrace growing out of a business mistake and tax problems. All this had brought on a serious heart ailment and Mr. Smith's doctor told him he had not long to live. His desire was to put all his affairs in order for his loved ones.
On a late summer afternoon Mr. Smith sat alone on the porch of his summer cabin looking out over the great blue lake below and raising his gaze to the gray-blue mountains beyond. But they gave him no help. He had gone up there alone to think things through so he started to look inside for his answers.

"It must be my own fault, somehow,'* he said aloud. He thought of the problems of his children. "They have picked up my fears," he decided, going over his long list of worries, anxieties and fears. For two days Mr. Smith had been reading his Bible and praying for guidance. "I am somehow wrong," he cried. His faith in God remained. Like Job of old he declared, "Though He slay me, yet will I believe in Him."

Mr. Smith went to bed at dark and fell asleep at once.

About midnight, Smith felt a presence in the room. At first he thought it was a servant or a member of his family. Then he remembered he was in the mountain cabin, alone.

"Who is here?" he called out.

"I am a friend, a Guide," a voice near him replied. "You cannot see me, Mr. Smith, but I came to help you."

"Thank you, sir," said Smith. "I could use some help."

"Come along then," said the Guide.

Smith felt a hand on his arm. He arose and started to walk from the room, the unseen Guide leading him.

Suddenly they were standing on what appeared to Smith to be a wide bridge. In the darkness, Smith could see the cement flooring on which he stood, and a ceiling high above his head, made of narrow wooden boards, painted sky blue. The bridge was about a hundred feet wide. There was a low iron railing on either side. Beyond and below the railings there was water, dark and fearsome to Smith. It stretched away and beyond, farther than his eyes could follow.

"Where are we?" Smith asked, considerably alarmed.

"We are on the Bridge of Life," the Guide replied. "Look ahead. Can you see the end in the distance?"

Smith peered anxiously and shook his head. "No, the horizon closes in with the fog. I can see only about ten feet or so."
"Look back of us," said the Guide.

Smith turned around. Fog shrouded the view beyond a few feet.

"Let us take up our stand here, and watch," the Guide directed.

They moved over to the railing at their right which Smith noticed was made of iron and painted green. As soon as they were settled and still, Smith saw moving forms going past them headed in both directions along the bridge. As his vision cleared he said, "They are people! Men, women, children!" He noticed they all seemed stooped over, some slightly, some bent almost double. Even the young children walked with their heads down on their chest. Some stumbled, some moved slowly, some hurried, but all moved.

"Look closely," said the Guide. "Did you ever see people like these before?"

"No," Smith exclaimed in fear and astonishment. The people were now passing close by him. In all ways they resembled normal human beings except that their faces, hands, their clothing—down to their shoes and up to their hair or hats on their heads—bore splotches of color. Smith quickly saw that there were three colors: red, blue and yellow.

"What do the splotches of color remind you of, Mr. Smith?"

"Camouflage—during the war," Smith replied. His memory was sharp. He had seen service in the armed forces and had never quite recovered from the horrors he had witnessed and participated in. "But not the same colors. Just the idea."

"Yes," said the Guide. "They are camouflaged with their fears. We cannot see the real persons beneath those coverings of fear."

"What is the matter with them?" Smith asked, still amazed and now alarmed.

"They are just normal people," the Guide explained, "but here, in this place and light, the fears that ruin their lives show through. The people on this level are all suffering from three-phase fears. They suffer from threats to life, love and liberty. Look at yourself, Mr. Smith."

Smith glanced at his hands; pushed his arms out in front of him. He was speechless at what he saw. He too, had splotches of red, blue and yellow. Between these ugly splotches—as on the other fellow travelers on the bridge —were the normal flesh and clothing colors of life.
"Now look closely, Mr. Smith, at this man who is approaching us. You will see what he is thinking about," said the Guide.

A large man, so overweight that he was following his stomach, wearing a summer tan suit and a white straw hat with a black hatband, was approaching them. He came quite near. Smith studied his face which was drawn in worry. He was splotched all over with red, blue and yellow. In many places, Smith now noticed, the colors overlapped so that there were green, purple and various shades of the combinations of the three primary colors. He wanted to ask the Guide about this but just then the big man leaned over the low railing, and appeared to be trying to make up his mind whether or not to jump over into the dark and threatening water below. Smith felt such concern for this anguished man that he momentarily forgot his own fears and said, "What troubles you, sir? Can I be of help to you?"

The big man did not answer.

"He cannot hear," said the invisible Guide. "You do not see the real man here, Mr. Smith. You see only his consciousness. His ability to hear is back with his human body wherever it is. He is here in consciousness on this level because he has three-phase fears. Now, look again. You will see what he fears—what he is thinking about."

Smith concentrated on the big man in the straw hat, still leaning over the rail. Presently he became aware of forms all around the unhappy man. The forms became sharper in the dark and fog. Smith could now see many objects around the still hesitating man, apparently trying to¿ make up his mind.

"It looks like a house is falling on him," Smith said excitedly, as the forms became sharp and clear in outline.

"Yes, his home is on his mind. He is about to lose it. Note the color of the house, Mr. Smith. It is made up of blue and yellow which shows green. His fears threaten both his status and his liberty. He has money problems. Do you see anything more?"

"Yes—there are some women around him. Beautiful, but they are threatening him. And there are papers—they look like legal documents, and oh, my goodness, there is a policeman hovering over him!"

"Yes," said the Guide, "our fat friend here has many problems on his mind and many fears in his heart. But he is not aware that he has brought them all on himself."
Just then a large dark object became clear enough to be seen. It looked like a tall thin man in a dark robe, a man with something in his hand. It was a scythe, such as farmers once used to cut down grain.

"The grim reaper," Smith gasped.

"Yes, our companion here is afraid of death. He will not jump over. Do you see yet another object around him?"

"Now I do! Chains! What large links they have. They are hanging above him, and some hanging from his hands. Some encircle his feet."

"The chains mean that the man has entangled himself by his thoughts, by the wrong methods he used to satisfy his good desires, and by his wrong desires."

By this time Smith could see not only the load of fears each person carried as he passed near him; he could hear the sounds of their fears, thoughts and feelings. At first it came to him as a low hum. It increased into louder mumbling. It went on to shrill noises. It then rose in pitch to cries, and shrieks. Some words of the people were very distinct: "I am afraid ..." followed by naming their fears. Some were of hatred, resentment, remorse. Others were mouthings of plans for revenge that would stop the fears which tormented them. The voices of the children seemed to reach Smith over the others. He could hear their tears and fears. He began to feel tired and sick. "I can't bear these cries much longer," he said. "Oh, if only I could help them. Especially the children."

"Let us go up higher to the next level," said the Guide. As he spoke he put an invisible hand on Smith's arm and they began to move away from the railing, to walk forward on the bridge.

Presently they came to a great double door that was painted in the three colors Smith saw all around him. Each door was twenty-four feet high and six feet wide. As they approached, the doors parted at the center and silently slid open. Smith felt himself propelled through the open way across a foyer and onto the lowest steps of stairs made of hard gray cement.

"We must climb the stairs to the next level," the Guide explained.

Smith looked up. The stairs stretched up and up before him. He could not see the end of the flight. He felt he just couldn't make it.

"You have to take only one step at a time," the Guide encouraged.
Smith put his right foot upon the step in front of him. He at once felt better. He lifted his left foot. He saw peopie on the stairs beside and above him. As they climbed higher and higher Smith noticed that some of the colors of the splotches were fading.

"Yes," said the Guide, "we are going up to a higher level of consciousness. We are approaching the level of two-phase fears."

Smith noticed the people nearest the top of the stairs now had only two colors. As they approached an open door which led onto another bridge like the one they had left below, Smith paused to examine his hands and looked down at his feet. He had only two colors now: splotches of red and blue. He asked the Guide what this meant.

"You are entering a level where you have colors of only two fears—those having to do with life and with love," the Guide explained. "You have overcome your fears of threats to your liberty. Different people have different fears. But only two basic fears on this level."

Smith felt lighter in spirit and body as they neared the top step. People were crowding through the open doors before them, and turning to the right. Smith and his Guide followed. Smith noticed there was more light and much less noise here than on the former level.

"This is a big improvement," he said, gratefully.

Here again were crowds of people, going in both directions, all of them splotched with two colors, either red and blue or blue and yellow or red and yellow. Again, there were overlapping splotches of these primary colors so that there were many shades and degrees of shades of fears. Smith watched with great interest and began to recognize persons he had seen on the lower level. A certain man and woman who walked along hand in hand, seemed less stooped and bowed down than they had been on the lower level. Each had two color splotches, but their colors were different. Smith asked why it was.

"They each have only two fears," the Guide explained, "but their fears are different. The man has a life and liberty fear. His wife has a life and love fear. Study these people more closely," the Guide advised. "Listen. Can you hear anything different from what the three-phase-fear people were saying on the lower level?"

Smith concentrated as they walked along. "Yes, I seem to hear a note of hope in their voices."

"You do hear it," the Guide assured him. "Look down the bridge ahead of us. Can you see the end of it?"

Smith squeezed his mind in thinking and squinted hard but he could not see the end of the road. "It ends in a blur of fog," he said.

Just then an odd assortment of people came hurriedly toward them and passed on.

"That looks like a family group," said Smith. "Old men and women, younger men and women and five children. We saw them all before. They seem cheerful on the outside, but they all have those splotches of fear. How is it that they pass us by again?"

"Because they are traveling in a circle. That is why you cannot see the end of the bridge in the distance. It curves just beyond your sight. Come, I will show you. The bridge is only a space of time in circumference. Until people learn how to overcome their fears they may spend all their lives on one level of consciousness, traveling around and around. That is why you see them moving in both directions. Some entertain fears from morning till night while others entertain them from night until morn-ing."

"Oh, how dreary," said Smith. "I will take your word for it. I'd rather go up higher than to travel any farther on this level. Why move in a circle?"

"Good," said the Guide sounding happy. "All right, there is the door ahead of us."

They moved toward the big double door which was like the one on the lower level. It, too, parted in the center and slid silently open as they approached it. Again the stairs rose up and up before them. This time Smith was eager to start climbing. There were fellow travelers beside and above them. The nearer they came toward the top the more Smith noticed the colors of the splotches were fading. "Look," he cried happily, holding out his hands, "only red splotches left!"

"Yes," said the Guide, "as you ascend in consciousness you know more and more truth. Truth makes you free. More and more of your chains of fear around your feet— ideas that keep you from walking toward success—will fall away the higher you go."

As they neared the top step Smith received an idea that nearly swept him off his feet. "My friend," he said, speaking so rapidly that he stuttered a little, "would it be possible just to skip this level entirely, and go up to the next one? I mean, do we have to look on the level of the one-fear people? Can't I understand it now, without experiencing it? Still, I will do as you say," he added respectfully.

"If you get your lessons well learned now," said the Guide, "you will have them for the rest of your life. It will not take long to stay a little while on the third level, where you will see people with splotches of only one color. It will be educational."

"Whatever you say," Smith agreed politely, but he sighed a little.

They were then turning to the right on the new, or third level. What the Guide had said proved true. All the people—walking in both directions, some fast, some slowly—were normal-looking beings except for the splotches of color. Some had red splotches, others had blue and still others had yellow splotches. But everyone had only one color.

Smith was so eager to go up to the next level that he began at once to look for the stairs. "Do the stairs always lead up?"

"Yes, indeed," the Guide replied.

"You mean that if a man works out of one level he never descends to it again?" Smith asked, hopefully.

"If he really works out of it," the Guide replied. "For a new and higher level of consciousness once attained never is lost. Yes, indeed," he repeated warmly, "the stairs always lead up."

Just then they approached the high double doors. "Oh, I am so glad they will open," said Smith. "We don't have to open them ourselves. We just have to walk up to them."

The doors did open and they walked through and started up the stairs leading to the fourth level.

Smith's first reaction, when the doors at the top of the stairs opened before them, was one of joy. Everything here was light. He could easily see over the railing on either side of the bridge, down to the water below. Now it was sparkling in the sunlight. It appeared friendly, no longer dangerous. Then he saw the people. They were all dressed in white. He could see the faces of only a few of them because they were all going in one direction. But those he did see were happy. The people seemed to be glowing from a light within themselves.

"They are all lighted up," said Smith, wondering.

"Yes. They have the Light that is born in every man. The problem is, to get fears out of the way so that the light can show through and show a man the way to go, and what to do. For the Light gives information as well as reflects on things so that they are seen. Turn now and look back at the oncoming people. Notice that they are all going in one direction, straight ahead."

Smith turned and faced the approaching people. Every face was aglow with an inner light. All were dressed in such radiant white that the garments seemed to have a life of their own. The people were orderly, as if marching to music, and toward some great event that was more important to them than anything they ever had experienced in life before. Some came so near him that he could see the happiness in their eyes—the excitement, yet the serenity in their faces. Each person wore a golden chain about his neck. From the chain hung a heart made of gold which glinted in the light.

"They are happy," said Smith in a whisper of awe. "They are happier than any person I ever have known. Are they the dead?"

"Oh, my, no," said the Guide. "Like all the others, they are just normal people. But these have risen so high in consciousness, have learned so much truth that they are absolutely free from fear. If you could see well enough you would see the ideas they carry with them, like those on the other levels. But their ideas are not of fear. They carry mental and spiritual patterns of the things they want to do, to be, to know and to have. They have learned how to create in thought form first in order to control what will come into their lives in heavier form, or reality, later. You notice the heart of gold which they are wearing? This is a symbol to remind them to keep their heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Whatever they think about will become manifest in their lives. This is the lesson they have learned. If you could see the ideas around them you would see that they are all good, all made out of love. If you could see clearly you'd see their plans of good for others. Why shouldn't they be happy? They are busy building more stately mansions for their Souls."

"Where are they going?" Smith asked. For, again, he noticed they were all headed in one direction, marching eagerly. Too, he saw that the great wide path stretched before them, out and out, and that it was crowded with the white-robed figures, but the path did not curve.

"They are not traveling in a circle," Smith observed. "Where are they going?"

"They are headed for the Land Beyond the Darkness," said the Guide. "In that Land they live from a high consciousness, a life completely without fear. Remember that what you see here, John Jacob Smith, is not living people at all. It is the consciousness, or spirit level of people who are still on earth. As people rise in consciousness they tune in or walk on that level. On that level they meet others in the same tune or consciousness height."

"Are they Christ persons in the making?" Smith asked eagerly.

"All people probably are Christ persons in the making, if they so choose," the Guide replied. "The difference is, these people you see here have already reached a high state of consciousness. They do not fear anything on earth or anything yet to come. They know something for sure. What they know is that they were made to last forever, that God loves them, now and ever shall, and finally that liberty—or complete freedom—is their destiny if they so choose. They are walking toward that time and place where they will experience the glorious liberty of the Sons of God. They will dwell in the Land Beyond the Darkness, which is the land of everlasting light."

"Do I hear music?" Smith asked.

"Yes. Their combined thoughts are so harmonious they make music," said the Guide.

"Oh," said Smith, happily, tears choking his voice, "Oh, what must I do, what can I do to be like them?"

"You must learn the truth," the Guide replied, "and you will find that you are one of them, John Jacob Smith. Remember to fear no evil. Believe only in good. You will find that you are one of them."

"How did you know my name?" Smith asked, still gazing at the bright and happy throng of journeying people.

"John means brotherly love. Jacob is one who wrestles with ideas. Smith is one who works at his given task. All your names fit you so well that all may read them," said the Guide.

Just then Smith caught sight of yet another door. "Where does it lead to?" he asked anxiously.

"It leads up," the Guide replied. "Up and up forever." His voice seemed to Smith to be trailing off into the distance. "The stairs always lead . . ." The voice of the Guide trailed off into silence.

The light grew brighter and brighter. John Jacob Smith suddenly realized he was lying in his own bed, in his mountain-cabin room. The bright sun was streaming in at his eastern window. Smith arose and walked to the open window, looked out and welcomed the morning. "Thank you, Father," he said aloud. "Thank you for the abundance of good you have given me."

The fears and worries of the day before came flooding back to him. He put a hand to his throat as if to ward them off. His fingers closed on a metal chain. Trembling, he lifted the chain from around his neck and held it out before him. From it hung a heart of gold. Smith stared at it dumfounded. He read the engraving on the heart:

There is nothing to fear.

The chain and the heart glinted with the light of the sun. It began to dissolve and mix with the sun's rays. When the last particle had gone Smith turned from the window, his mind made up.

"I will seek the truth and live it," he said. "I will come free from all my fears and help my family and others to do likewise," he promised himself and God.

Now, John Jacob Smith was a man faithful to a promise. And so, like Job of old, God gave that man more than he had in the beginning.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...