By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

You can only distinguish truth from error in one way: namely, by the fruits that follow in your own life and the lives of those who proclaim what they call truth.  That is, if the new illumination gives you the power to love and trust God more than you did before; to love all your fellow men in the One Body of Mankind; and to long to treat them only as you wish to be treated yourself; this is how you may discern the truth.  If you are able to love even those who wound your feelings and misconstrue your intentions; to accept it all with no resentment, bitterness, or self-pity, but with praise and thanksgiving, just as Jesus would; if this new belief raises you to a still higher level of love than you had reached before, then you may be sure that what you have seen is not false, but a part of a higher truth that you have not yet seen fully. . . .

It is possible, however, that in the future you may believe that you have been shown a yet higher facet of truth and find yourself reacting to reproaches and misunderstanding with resentment or anger.  You may begin to feel superior to others and to forget that even those who attack you are members of the One Body of Mankind in whom the Lord of Love is also conscious.  You may begin to belittle or to denounce them and to exalt yourself in your own thoughts.  Then you may well doubt whether the new supposed truth is true after all.  For only what is true itself can deliver you and set you free from everything which is not of the truth, and which is unlike the Ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven.  So, remember, you can only discern between truth and falsity, the good and the evil, by the attitudes, reactions, and way of life which they awaken in you as you accept them.

— Hannah Hurnaud, Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places, p. 52-53

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