Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Behold What Manner of Love
To gently behold one’s already-perfect spiritual nature as a present fact, rather than striving to create or improve it.
Stop trying to make, fix, or improve the self.
- Settle into soft, receptive quiet — no straining.
- Behold the already-given: what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed.
- Perceive the perfect where you habitually saw the imperfect.
- Rest in recognition; carry it as a way of seeing self and others.
What it is
This is Walter C. Lanyon‘s practice of beholding: gently recognizing one’s already-perfect spiritual nature as a present fact, instead of straining to build, fix, or improve it.
The verb is deliberate. Where most self-work tries to change the self, Lanyon insists the spiritual reality is already complete and needs only to be seen. His chapter “Behold! — What Manner of Love” opens with “Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us,” and he states the non-striving plainly: “ There is no element of trying to change or make, or shape things into a new pattern“ (Out of the Clouds).
The same move appears as “Assuming the Divine nature. man perceives the perfect where he formerly saw the imperfect“ (It Is Wonderful) and as the call to “move up to the place of recognition of the All-Presence.” Beholding is recognition, not construction.
It rests on identity preceding circumstance (The Inner Creates the Outer), on the seeker already being what they seek (All Is One), and on the deeper Self already present to be beheld (All Is One).
The Method
A faithful rendering of Lanyon’s practice:
- Stop trying to make it. Set down the project of improving, correcting, or “manifesting” a better self. Lanyon is emphatic: there is “no element of trying to change or make.” This is the hardest and most essential step.
- Settle into quiet recognition. Come to a still, receptive attention — not concentration that strains, but a soft looking. Beholding is gentle; effort re-installs the very sense of lack it would cure.
- Behold the already-given. Turn the inner gaze to the spiritual fact already present: Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed. Regard yourself as the “New Creature” Lanyon describes — not the old self “patched up,” but the already-complete reality.
- Perceive the perfect where you saw the imperfect. Where the eye habitually reports lack, illness, or limitation, let recognition reveal the underlying wholeness. You are not pretending the perfect into being; you are seeing what Lanyon holds is already true beneath appearances.
- Don’t swing between something and nothing. Lanyon warns that even the “healed” mind keeps “swinging between something and nothing”; the practice is to “move up to the place of recognition of the All-Presence” and rest there, past the oscillation of better/worse.
- Carry beholding as a way of seeing. Let it become how you regard yourself and others through the day — a steady recognition of the already-whole rather than a verdict of deficiency to be fixed.
Source & Lineage
Beholding is concentrated in Out of the Clouds — especially “Behold! — What Manner of Love” — and recurs across It Is Wonderful and the I Came trilogy. It belongs to the mystical, Christ-consciousness wing of New Thought and is close kin to Julian of Norwich’s “beholding prayer” and to contemplative recognition practices broadly.
Lanyon’s distinctive stress is the explicit refusal of effort: not affirming a desired state into existence, but beholding a divine reality he holds is already finished, with the personal will’s striving named as the obstacle.
Common refinements
Turning it back into effort. “Trying hard to behold” reinstates striving. The posture is soft recognition, not a new performance.
- Denial / bypassing. Beholding wholeness at the level of being is not pretending a broken leg is fine or that real problems do not need action. Recognize the perfect and tend the practical.
- Affirming instead of beholding. This is not asserting “I am perfect” against contrary evidence (that is affirmation); it is looking until the already-true is recognized. Different gesture.
- Refinement — pair with wonder. Beholding the already-perfect naturally overflows into Lanyon’s wonder; let be the felt response that confirms you are recognizing, not straining.