Inner Deaconship and Household Mastery

Neville's Inner Vision

Remember, this text speaks not of a clerical rank as such but of inner states. When it says the wives must be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things, it is pointing to the discipline of thought and speech—the reverent, steady mind that does not indulge in rumor or petty fault-finding. And when it says the deacons must be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well, see it as a single-minded devotion to the I AM, the one Life within you. The 'children' and the 'house' are your inner faculties and feelings; you govern them not by force but by a settled imagination, by choosing the order you desire and dwelling there until it becomes your experience. The outer scene reflects your inner state; if you feel scattered, assume a new center of gravity and align every part of your mind with that center. The key is to feel the authority of your own consciousness and to live as the master of your inner household, until your world naturally conforms to that disciplined, faithful state.