If, at times, you feel that you grope in darkness, not knowing where to go and what to do in search for answers that you need, I encourage you to use these affirmations: "The Truth is close. The Truth is easy to be found. The Truth is within me. It is being revealed to me, even here and now".

Perhaps, the greatest temptation for all Truth seekers at times of seeming "darkness of the soul", as people call this experience, is to start looking for the Truth outside of themselves. There are thousands upon thousands of "teachers" that urge us to look outside. They often insist on following their light, their truth, their experience, their revelations, or their ancient traditions, but Jesus plainly warned us against them.

"Therefore if they shall say to you, Behold, He (Christ, the fullness of spiritual understanding) is in the desert! Do not go out. Behold, He is in secret rooms! Do not believe it" (Matthew 24:26). "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither will they say, Lo here! Or lo there! For the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20,21, Webster).

In the gospel of Thomas, Jesus confirms it by saying:

"If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you".
(v. 3)

It would be fair for God to place the Truth (of, the Father's kingdom) within each individual. If, in order to find the Truth people would need to go to a particular geographic location, or to attend a specific temple, or to meet a certain "enlightened" person, or to read a special holy book, or to become members of a particular religious organization, then most of the world's population would have tremendous disadvantage, because they would not be able to meet those criteria. But the good fact is, they are not necessary. The kingdom of God is within us and outside of us. We don't have to go anywhere from where we are now.

Search for the Truth is not a way of thousand miles that begins with a single step. It is a single step, which opens before us a way of thousand miles. The Truth is right here, easy to be known and understood. But since we get in touch with it, we will have a lifetime of deeper realization and fuller expression of it.

Teachers, books, and religious institutions are good at their own place. They serve us well as long as we remember that they never bring us something which we don't already have - no matter what is their intention. They may awake us to greater awareness of our own truth, and to inspire us in our progressive unfoldment. They may give us more clarity regarding spiritual principles that we already know. But they were never meant to become for us sources of authority and wisdom - because God is our only Source. "And call no one your father on the earth, for One is your Father" (Matthew 23:9).

"When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."
(Thomas, v. 3)

Our highest knowledge is the knowledge of ourselves as children of the living God. This is the starting point for further discoveries, the foundation on which we can safely build our lives. If we are not aware of "Christ within, the hope of glory", our lives would definitely lack divine glory, beauty, and power. As Jesus said, people with poverty consciousness (spiritually, those who believe that they are somehow separated form God), manifest poverty.

Divine wealth belongs to those who know who they are in God, and who boldly claim riches of their inner realm.