Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/171

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
167

Knowledge, as I have said, is not wisdom, but it may be harmony and it may seem like wisdom. Yet there is a discord. So discord is harmony not understood. To know how to correct this harmony or knowledge that it may be wisdom is the question to consider. The first part of your question where you say “I can understand that” is contradictory to the last sentence, showing that you do not understand. Here is the discord. You say you have been perfectly sure of a thing and yet found you have been mistaken. Now if your wisdom had been perfect, in the thing you thought you knew, it would have revealed the discord or error. So to purify yourself from error so that you may know the truth or Wisdom, is a process of reasoning outside of matter, for there is no wisdom in matter. So that when you have arrived at a truth, if you find it attached to a belief, you may know it is not a truth, for it may change; but this is a truth, that a belief may be changed. God is Truth and there is no other truth, and if we know God the same is known to us. I will now try to attach your senses to God, not the God of this world or Christian's God; but the God of the living, and not of the dead. My God is my standard of truth, and as I know God the same is known to me. I know I am writing this if I know anything, but to know that I shall finish it admits a doubt and to know that you will understand it admits more doubt. This doubt is not wisdom but belongs to that class of man's inventions called reason, knowledge, etc. God is not seen in this question, perfect, except as far as I see, but He is seen in the clouds of my knowledge. When you read this if you understand it, then you will see God face to face but not as Moses did. I await your answer, to know whether He does appear to your understanding; if so then here is your proof that you are born of God in this one thing: then you cannot know anything more so far as this question goes. Man's God is all the time listening to his prayers and setting all sorts of trouble. My God does not act at all, He has finished His work and leaves man to work out his happiness according to his own wisdom. I will give you the attributes of my God. The Wisdom or God is in this letter, and if you understand, you will hear His voice saying I understand this. So the understanding is God, for in that there is no matter, and to understand is Wisdom, not matter, and to know wisdom is to know God, for that is Wisdom. I