CONTENTS
What is a Thought?
The Silence
The Dawning of Light
If Thine Eye be Single
Mental Images
Reward
Color in Life
Overcoming
Are You Ready?
Joy, Always Joy
The Dominant Ego
Like Produces Like
Spiritual Knowledge
The Goal
Shakespeare’s Puck Considered Metaphysically
Destiny
Admiration, the Herald of Hope
Hope, a Vibration of the Subconscious
Realization, Hope’s Master Creation
FOREWORD
I shall add nothing here in way of an apology for a new book on lines of practical metaphysics, or in way of suggestions, either as to unfolding powers within the human, or as to methods of bringing them to expression. The purpose of the volume is to help students to self-mastery; and I leave it to these seekers for truth to determine its right to be and endure.
FLOYD B. WILSON
New York, August, 1906
WHAT IS A THOUGHT?
The words idea and thought have often been classed as synonyms, and yet two or more ideas must be grouped or compared in order to fashion a thought. A study of the use of these words, as applied by some of our critical writers, will reveal the fact that thinkers who work out problems in the mental realm have seriously meditated on what must have passed through the mind of that philosopher who crystallized the result of certain mental researches into three words—”thoughts are things.” He must have recognized thoughts as entities that could, through suggestion, be implanted into consciousness, and vitalized there. He saw thought, a thing—a seed, with power to produce its kind.
Professor Elmer Gates promises soon to present to the world his discoveries in the art of mentation, as he has this volume nearly ready. He has explained to me many times his philosophy of the workings of the mind from sensation to thought. I give here only the crudest outline of it, for my purpose now is simply to explain the mental action necessary in order to produce a thought possessing generative power. Professor Gates calls sensation the primary starting point of all mental up-building to thought. The lowest forms of life, even amoebas, distinguish sensations of heat and cold. Now, sensation by touch doubtless gives a child his first idea of form. From two or more sensations a concept, a form, is conceived, and two or more concepts must be brought together to give one an image, and then two or more images are grouped to produce an idea, which is a conception formed by generalization. Attaining to ideas, the human mind, through comparison of at least two (often more) formulates a thought, which Sir William Hamilton defines as the faculty of relations or comparisons. Thought then evolves from sensation through the intellectual sway of human consciousness to a vital factor in mental evolution. Man’s development is shown by his individuality as that is built up by and through the thoughts he has formulated and implanted into consciousness during his life.
Lowell must have grasped the power and evolution of thought when he wrote:
“All thoughts that mould the age begin deep down within the primitive soul.”
And Shelly, in “Prometheus Unbound,” recognized the power of centralized thought in—
“As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth is loosened, And the nations echo round Shaken to their roots.”
In the thought-realm today, teachers everywhere are pressing upon the attention of the student the need of right thinking, for then only can suggestion carry to the fertile field of consciousness those thought seeds which generate and in due time bring forth the harvest of purpose fulfilled. In seeking the cause, after noting the effect, one is finally brought by traveling mentally backward to a suggestion, lodged in the mind often through strange and it may be mystic channels.
In a general way it has been recognized that the motive power of the world is the focused thought of its leaders. Thought is focused differently at different times; but sometimes leaders from several nations go through the same mental process, at the same time bringing their conclusions to the same general focus, and widespread development follows through that combined action. This might be illustrated by England’s act some years ago to wipe out slavery from all its colonies. Russia followed this a little later by the freeing of her serfs. At that time we were at war in this country to determine whether or not, under the constitution of the union formed, a state had the right of secession. With the waves of thought wafted from the old world, a new issue was presented; and then we learned that the bloody war was not being fought solely to determine the power of the union to coerce a state that wished to withdraw from the compact, but for the divine purpose of wiping out slavery from the earth forever.
A few years ago in this country there was a great political battle, the purpose of which was to determine whether or not there should be unlimited coinage of silver on the basis of sixteen to one. Throughout the length and breadth of our land, and throughout the civilized portion of the earth, to some extent, the press was filled with estimates made from the bank gold reserves known, as to whether or not there was gold enough in the world to make it the unit of value. The conflict ended with the party advocating the gold standard triumphant. Within the next year gold was discovered in divers localities throughout Colorado and other states that had been previously noted only as large silver producers. Within two years from that time the production of gold was so greatly increased that many of the advocates of free silver began to feel that an error had been made because the possibilities of the gold supply, even in this country, had been but vaguely known up to that date. In short, I claim that the discussion which arose in that campaign of 1896 awoke thought in the minds of intelligent men throughout the world; and, by the power of that awakening, vibrations from the infinite force were received, leading men to discover goldmines in localities that otherwise might never have been opened to the world.
To be personal in a way, let me say that when a student in college some thirty-five years ago, (it must be remembered going to Europe was then not as universal as it is today), I listened to lectures on history and language from professors who were familiar with Rome and Athens and the great European capitals. I regarded them almost with awe; because, in addition to their scholastic attainments, they had had such wide experience in travel. I read at that time Lord’s “Ancient Rome,” and became very enthusiastic over it. I longed to visit those scenes. I questioned if it might not be possible that I should do so. Today, as I take note of what has occurred in my life, I know I then sowed the thought seeds that took root in my subconscious mind. I entered the profession of law, and amid the duties of my work for several years I thought little of travel. Then, unsought, came a proposition that I visit Honduras in Central America in the interest of a New York syndicate. I closed the arrangement almost greedily, and started on my first foreign trip. Hardly had I returned from there than a proposition was made for me to visit London, Paris and Berlin. Since then I have crossed the Atlantic twenty times; and, with the exception of three of my trips, I have always gone forward in the interest of clients. I shrink sometimes in writing from being as personal as this; but, as I study the power of thought to generate in the subconscious mind and to produce the fruit one would, I can now understand how the seeds I sowed long years before, not recognizing the philosophy then, in good time gave forth their product, which brought me the desire of my heart.
It may seem to many of the readers of this paper that I have gone over-minutely into detail in placing before them the meaning of this simple word, thought. However, I have done this because as I go forward in the series of papers I am asked to write, over and over again I will need to refer to the power of thought, and I wish to give a clear idea of my understanding and particular use of the word. Man may discipline himself to control his own thoughts. These, properly fashioned and planted in his subconsciousness, will generate and grow. From time to time he may change the course of his thinking, and when he does this he will change his personality, ascending or descending according as he wills. How to master the thought machinery to meet one’s desire is not so difficult as it may appear to be to those unacquainted with true mental discipline. First, it is necessary to bring one’s self to a complete recognition of the mighty force which is developed by right thinking; and, second, having learned this, to sow the carefully culled thought seeds which by an inevitable law produce their kind, and the harvest will then always be the ripe, golden fruit of desire.
THE SILENCE
Since man has made a study of his mental powers he has found it necessary when troubled or annoyed to go where he could be alone, and there, as he has termed it, gather himself together again. Long before the metaphysics of today came into prominence, man had learned when exhausted and worried, that his best way to recuperate was to be alone. It was not a question of doing quiet thinking; it perhaps was not a question of thinking at all; and yet from these lonely musings he came forth renewed in strength and courage, ready again to battle with the world. With the Hindu, meditation is the path to power. He has studied unfoldment, as men in the West, with the hurry and rush of business, never thought of doing.
There are today in the various cities of the world, cults or societies which call their members together daily at a certain hour for silence. There each holds in his mind the desire of his heart, or the desire to aid someone in a particular way, or holds himself absolutely passive that he as an instrument may receive or give, as the Universal wills. These societies report the steady and continuous unfoldment of their members, unfoldment to attain happiness, unfoldment to advance mental growth, unfoldment to understand, step by step, more and more of what human life may mean.
As years go by and students in the West are learning of the powers that may be awakened by silence, the possibilities of man are becoming more apparent, until all intelligence is now declaring that limitations to him are inconceivable. Little by little men are learning in the West that silence, which is the hall of learning to the Hindu, is indeed the hall of learning to all mankind. The great question with which, the undisciplined are wrestling is how to find the silence, when and how to come to it, and more than all, how to enter it in faith. I will not attempt in this paper to present any argument as to why the silence can properly be called the hall of learning, or why the greatest unfoldment the human can ever know must be developed in the silence. I assume that this is conceded, and come forward with the broad statement that to silence man must come in order that he may unfold the higher consciousness within him. Assuming this statement to be true, and assuring my readers that I have proved it true over and over again, both in my own investigations, and by comparison with others who have followed similar lines of work, I now come to the real purpose of this paper, which is to suggest how to go into the silence and permit the Universal to act in order that unfoldment which will fill the heart’s desire may follow.
The first thing for the student to learn is the path to the silence. He may think he enters the silence long before he does. He is on the path simply till attainment begins, and attainment does not begin until points of vantage are reached.
It has been a custom for years with some of the Hindus who desire to attain a certain kind of power which belongs to the juggler, rather than to the adept, to take a position, holding the arm directly up, it may be, until it becomes paralyzed and he cannot move it from that position. After accomplishing this, although he has made himself a deformity, he finds he has gained certain mental control, which he uses to astonish or entertain the multitude. From this one may learn, although he may not care to develop in that direction at all, that even by such abnormal practices a mental development is reached, and mind has exercised its power over muscles until certain of them become inactive and inoperative. When this is done a mental growth follows of a character, which from my point of view, I regard very questionable and most undesirable; and yet it is to be observed that power is gained.
Now, in all the work which I have done, or suggested others doing, I claim that the starting point is stillness—physical stillness. In one of my papers in “Paths to Power” I gave specific directions as to sitting, and here it seems fitting to repeat some of them, adding, however, further suggestions. I have been told by many that they could not give an hour a day, or that they found it inconvenient to go in the same room and sit in the same chair, or that they found it impossible to sit still a whole hour, and then asked me what to do. All I can say to these people is this: I did not make the laws which, followed, bring to this higher development. I do not know that any one made them. If I find good ones practiced by the Hindus or by others, I may adopt them, modifying to some extent, it may be; and after using them as so modified, and having others use them and noting their acquisitions thereby, I know that I have found one way. There may be a thousand other ways that I know nothing about; but if I know one way, and place it before the student, and he finds it impossible to follow that way, all I can say is, seek some other if you care to unfold, perhaps you may find it. The path which leads to the silence may be found by devoting a particular time each day to going where one can be alone, sitting in a chair where he can sit erect and feel, in short, that the chair fits him. I request him not to lean back or rest his head at the commencement of the work. In that firm position let him learn to be still physically. Let his thoughts wander as they may; he should pay no attention to them. Later he will train them to do his bidding.
If at the commencement he finds it best to remain only fifteen or twenty minutes in that position, very well. Let him come to it again and again, making the sitting time a little longer each day. Then, after a week or several weeks’ practice, as the case may be, and after he has learned to sit still while erect for a whole hour, the real work will begin. I would then have him go to his sitting, taking the rigid position for about fifteen or twenty minutes, centralizing his thought upon what he desires. By that I mean he should draw a mental image of it and hold it before him. If it is an accomplishment which he has not, let him image himself as having already attained it and standing before people throwing out evidence of this fact. Let him then crystallize the description of that in some- short sentences, as “That is the ideal I seek,” “That is myself,” “I am thus and so,” for by these means he is adding to Hindu meditation the method presented by Jesus of praying as if already the blessing had been received.
When he has succeeded in making this image clear to his mental vision, and has found a few short words capable of being woven into a thought which stands for that image, then rigor should be succeeded by passiveness. Let the head rest on the back of the chair after filling the mind with these affirmations, and then relax. Still hold the mental gaze to the image, lifting the real self toward it till a merger is made. Then let one contemplate passively while in this position, his growth and continuing unfoldment, as he waits in the silence the gifts it may bring. As these are gathered one by one into possession, the student may penetrate, following the path deeper and deeper, till he enters the holy of holies in the halls of silence.
If one wants to master in a limited time a language, or any subject, he must secure a competent teacher and give the proper time to it. If he wishes to develop himself by methods which in the East have been known long, and which in the West are just beginning to be understood, he must find the time and go there in faith with purpose fixed, and work as all must work. The advanced students in modern psychology have learned that the Hindu taught a great metaphysical truth in regard to the development of man when he named the silence the hall of learning. I claim, however, that great advancement will be made while one is traveling on the path leading to the hall of silence. It will take weeks and months, and possibly years, of discipline to reach the inner chambers of the silence; and when one does, he there blends himself with the Universal, and he will then understand clearly his oneness with all life. THE DAWNING OF LIGHT.
All progression is noted to be a series of awakenings to the vastness of powers undeveloped, but yet resident within the unexplored regions of human intelligence. Wishings and longings are realized, one after another becoming actual possessions. From time to time a retrospect is taken as advanced planes of thought are reached, and comments are silently made by one’s objective consciousness as to the causes of advancement. As step by step forward has been taken, one will upon reflection observe that these steps have been made in spite of the doubts and fears and warnings of objective consciousness. The great background of one’s being, where from its vantage height the true selfhood looked out in the future beyond where the dull mental eyes of objective sensibility could pierce, was the station from which were hurled the godlike messages filled with soul longings. These had by thought been crystallized into formidable affirmations which contained within themselves creative spirit-substance. Upon their striking objective consciousness, it receded from its position of apparent conservatism for the moment, and the human became a god, vitalized by the mental shots fired from the subconscious and taking effect in the objective when it was passive or in slumber.
Mentally one notes the advance made, and objective consciousness firmly claims the honor and stoutly maintains, “I did it.” To argue with this timid duality of self would be only to delay progress. It is wiser to encourage that selfhood by compliment, firmly coupling this with the admonition that experience broaden it to delight in the victory won, and thus widen its horizon of view; for only thereby may the barriers of error be broken down between it and the batteries in the background of subconsciousness. From these batteries is sent the god-wisdom in the soul, which it continually and forever is drawing from the eternal supply.
Thus briefly do I analyze the mental process going on within each individual attaining advancement. It is not a question whether he has given the philosophy any thought or not. There is an eternal law to be fulfilled in each, and every act of his life; and if objectively he catches the whispers of heartfelt longings, let him know these can be heard only when the soul reservoir contains within itself the creative substance to make them outwardly manifest. How to draw from that reservoir is the problem which this age has solved. He who without conscious discipline may have attained desire, I argue, has been divinely led by the messengers of Infinity, because he opened the way in moments of passive unconsciousness. These people are called lucky, and they often wonder at their luck. I have talked with scores of them, directed their thought over the paths they have traversed, and in every case I have found the law being worked out through the inspirations given to the objective self by that mighty self which links man to Omnipotence. Happy are we in this age that we know the law. We can discipline thought to obey it, and we therefore can control that bugbear, fate, and work out our true destiny. This fact may be discovered by seriously noting, tabulating and recognizing our longings and desires, knowing they are throbbings from one consciousness to another that tell of the ideals which it is our privilege and duty to attain. How long it may take one to discipline himself to know these truths is a question each must answer for himself. It is as impossible for me to answer this question as it would be for me to tell anyone how long it would take him to commit a single act of any one of Shakespeare’s plays. In that case I could positively tell him that he could commit and memorize a whole act or a whole play of Shakespeare’s if he entered upon the work with a firm determination to accomplish it. As to the time it would take, much would depend upon the tasks he had previously given to memory to perform, and the true discipline he had given that function. .
If the student has followed the mental processes herein outlined, and if my argument has not fully convinced him that this philosophy is true, I ask that he reflect, passing before his mind in review the lives of those with whom he is familiar. Let him study to account for their successes and their failures. Let him compare his deductions with the thoughts presented here, and only if he find these to parallel those do I urge upon him this self-discipline. Primarily, some faith must precede careful investigation— that acquired, one must work indefatigably till faith has evolved itself into the real, the known. Moving forward to attainment, after finding his experiences and those of others prove this mental pathway the true one, it is clear that the discipline pertains largely to objective consciousness. This must be brought into subjection to a higher selfhood which is reaching for more than the logic of objective consciousness could conceive as possible to be attained.
When, upon the intelligence of the student the fact is indelibly impressed, that his longing, his good will come to him, his task is chiefly to convert a future into a NOW. He can do this, because thousands of others have traveled over these same paths and won. The aphorism what man has done man can do again is full of potency.
Having come to this conclusion, and having determined to overcome all wrong thinking with right thinking, his work is simple and easy, providing he can hold that determination ever firm. The wrong thinking of years, the wrong thinking of those about him, the subtle influence of false beliefs not yet fully eradicated, the stumbling blocks of mental creation thrown across his pathway from sources not dreamed of, all combine to thwart effort and to check progress. To say one will not feel the effect of these from time to time would be absurd. He will feel opposition, and at times it will hurt—if true to his nobler self and to the philosophy proven to be true, he will rise above all barriers; because they are fallacies, often created out of errors by reasoning from false premises which were assumed by undeveloped man in his attempt to show the cause of the effect when his intellectual range was exceedingly limited.
Day by day, month by month, new light will dawn upon his consciousness as he seeks to harmonize his selfhoods. The objective becomes receptive to truth through an educational process. Until one starts on this self-discipline the objective consciousness has been storing up what was accepted as truth through impressions from sensations and images experienced and seen in daily life, and by grouping these together through concepts and comparisons, fashioned ideas and thoughts which were called knowledge. Through a train of reasoning from a limited collection of mental treasures, mountains of errors have been piled upon the human understanding, and these must be surmounted. Wrong thoughts are things as well as right thoughts. Right thoughts have the advantage in the battle, but it must not be lost sight of that wrong thoughts are formidable, and that in past years they have reared the fortifications called environments. Right thoughts are yet in the minority; but when man recognizes that he and Infinity are doing the thinking when right thoughts are sent forth, he may be valiant and claim them invincible; because, estimating from the true basis of determinating pluralities, “God and one make a majority.”
There is inspiration in holding the mind to a contemplation of the formidability of right thinking. One may thus so impress the objective consciousness at times as to amaze it into stillness. It is well if this may be accomplished. I do not teach that we despise objective consciousness, for we live near it always. Let us cultivate it to harmonize with the subjective, for this means the dawn of light. The subjective brings to the objective messages sent from the soul. The soul, through vibrations passing upward from one spirit station to another till they all centralize in Being, pulsates the life received, and thus becomes the link binding and holding all the life of the universe, One.
IF THINE EYE BE SINGLE
When Jesus said ”If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light,” he conveyed a truth which, if fully grasped, would teach man his relationship with being and the secret of success and joy; in life. He who recognizes an evil force and a good force in nature can never have the eye single. He is preparing to guard against evil at one moment, and at another seeking aid from the good for protection. When he embraces a higher philosophy he will know that he need have no fear of anything being withheld, as the infinite energy of the universe is pouring out to man supply. He has only to learn how to put himself mentally into condition to accept, in order that he may receive. To do this he cannot recognize the existence of an evil entity and prepare to erect barriers between that imaginary force and himself; because by letting his mind rest there the eye is not single, and true concentration is impossible.
The promise that the whole body shall be filled with light, or in other words, that the whole being shall rejoice in light and joy is to him whose eye is single. One must free himself from error in order to be able to be receptive so that his good may come to him. No man can ever develop the best that is within him by erecting enclosures to keep evil out. Evil has no such force as to make that necessary. Evil comes to one because he believes in evil. Evil comes to him because his eye is not single. Evil comes to him because he fears. Evil comes to him because he mentally barricades himself against his good. Evil comes to him because he has not recognized his true relationship with Being and the real purpose and delight of Being —the central energy of the universe. And yet Good is the only entity, evil is a relative term merely and represents a lesser good than one seeks, the undesirable.
When, in the evolution of intelligence, man broke from polytheism, because gods many were bringing a confusion to all on the intellectual plane to which he had evolved, he theoretically tried, it appears, to recognize one central force, and that force good. However, the plane reached did not permit him to understand the law of cause and effect without also recognizing an evil force in the universe. As a matter of fact, he turned aside from polytheism to dualism; in reality, the force of the universe was not represented to his intelligence by a single energy, but by two energies—one for good, and the other (if you please) for evil. There is no question but that man made an advance at this time in his conception of his relationship with infinite power. Man, however, can advance no faster than his reasoning from cause to effect will permit. If we study the development of the child mind we can understand this clearly. We cannot discuss the science of government— the benefits of a protective tariff system or that of a free trade system—with a child of ten, having the mental development usual at that age. These questions, also, cannot be discussed intelligently with an ignorant man, or with one who is unacquainted with the industrial development in this country. It is clear, therefore, that in the evolution of man periods were reached when the general masses could understand a truth that their ancestors a few hundred years before could not have grasped.
If the eye of intellect recognize that there is but one central force in the universe, and that that force is good; and, further, that the life principle within himself is connected with it, and that he is part of that great force, then he ought to be able to recognize that that one energy is ever unfolding all who place themselves in condition to receive, and all who are desirous of making the life they are living what it may be, under that supreme guidance of which they themselves are a part.
The infinite force spreads its wealth of supply before those who with eye single have received and accepted the heritage awaiting and tendered to them. It is possible, I presume, for one to enter even as an invited guest to a large feast and half question his right to partake. There he may find tables loaded with what would delight his appetite. Until he approaches the table and accepts the feast offered it only has a suggestive interest to him. If within the Infinite there is all power, and we are one with that Infinite, then we have only to ask and put ourselves into condition to receive, in order that the favors desired may be secured. The Infinite spreads the mental feast that will rejoice the understanding; but, in order that it may be received in completeness one must never conjure up any imaginary gods about the grand table so happily spread that may punish if one partakes.
Primarily, I have undertaken herein to place before the student the necessity of having his eye single, in order that he may receive all that the Infinite can give him. In the mental realm we rear barriers through fear of forces which do not exist. When these barriers are reared the channel is closed, in part, between the infinite energy of the universe and the individual. In all of the teachings of Jesus it is shown that man must put himself in condition to receive, or he cannot receive. The great barrier between man and his God is fear, which by our ancient philosophers was created into an entity, and with that entity man was presumed to battle until he overcame it before his good could come to him. Now, in this advanced age, man may receive a clearer conception of the force or energy that fills the universe and bears him forward to accomplishment.
The Infinite speaks through desire and hope, often picturing their accomplishment in dreams. This is the method of the fatherhood to reach objective consciousness. If the recipient regard these suggestions from the Infinite as passing fancies—as day dreams of which poets have sung—then it is clear that he has not risen to a conception of what man is and what man may be. It is doubtless true that there are infinite faculties within man yet undeveloped, mainly because his mental eye of understanding has not been single to recognize the whispers of divinity, or to receive the messages from the infinite spirit host ever surrounding him.
I, therefore, claim in self-development that man’s chief mental upreaching should be directed to recognize the one energy, the one force, the one power of the universe. As he learns to recognize this and to feel this mighty truth permeating his entire selfhood, he will also recognize that he is of that force a part, himself a fiber of the universal energy. If he does not derive all the benefit he reaches for from that force, it will be because he alone is in fault, and that he has not placed himself in condition to receive. In order to be in condition to receive all one would, the eye must be single, and the eye can only be single when the thoughts of an opposing infinite force between one and his purpose is completely eradicated from the human mind. That one dogma of a crude religion, conceived by primitive man before his evolution to a clear conception of his royal birthright, he has carried forward, it may be from memories of incarnations past, when fear alone was the restraining force in the laws of all kings and rulers. Let one now seek to eradicate from consciousness that memory, and all memories, theories and fantasies that stand between him and his complete recognition of the eternal unity of all that is embraced within the scope of the words, life, power, love, honor, and truth.
MENTAL IMAGES
Among our mental healers in New York, Leander Edmund Whipple, of the American School of Metaphysics, occupies a prominent place. In the third number of the Wise-Man he presented a very exhaustive article on “The Specific Image Treatment in Mental Healing.” In this article, following the broad view taken by mental science healers of there being a mental cause for every disease, he declares it has been demonstrated that this cause produces a mental image which is impressed upon the subconscious mind. He claims,. in submitting cases of all kinds and degrees of sickness and trouble to the image test, every case showed the existence of the action of definite mental images of fear or distress, and that each of these had surprising correspondence to the physical ailment.
The purpose of the healer, therefore, is to eradicate this mental image from the patient’s mind. Then Mr. Whipple claims, “as the picture fades from the subconscious remembrance, this action ceases, and then the reflection of its action in the nerve center disappears, and Nature restores the physical to its normal state.”
Mr. Whipple further states in this paper that although cures may be effected by the mental healer without taking into account the mental image; yet, at the same time, by his method of treatment, that is what he is specifically doing —eradicating an image fixed in subconscious remembrance.
In my work along metaphysical lines I have written little concerning healing. That department seemed to have been happily filled by others; but it was in the study of what was and is being done by them in healing that gave me a broader idea of auto-suggestion, and its power in every department and avenue of life. In fact, among the so-called “advanced thinkers” of today it is generally conceded that all the successes and failures of life find their origin in suggestion.
In my work, studies and experiments, I feel I have proved that the holding of a specific mental image, representing in itself the ideal one was reaching for, is the primary discipline to bring to himself the accomplishment of the end desired. This imaging, however, often takes shape in the mentality through daydreams and longings, without serious thought of attainment. These may be good mental stimuli, but stronger mental doses are needed. The difficulty with day dreams is we put the image to which we would attain too far into the future—in a sort of indefinite time which exists somewhere out in fairyland, and which we rather dream about than seriously think of ever reflecting.
I am glad that Mr. Whipple wrote this article and stated so clearly his convictions, obtained by demonstrations within his own wide experience in healing. I have proved this imaging to be a potent factor to help one to his desires over and over again. Sometimes by the suggestion of an image, and then quietly permitting its form to sink into subconsciousness, it will be found to be faithfully held there, even though it may not be called up in consciousness except at long intervals of time. To bring one realization in whatever line of work he is following, he should draw this mental image perfect, and during his first wakeful moments each morning look at it; and as he gazes upon it, not consider it as something to come to him in an indefinite future, but an ideal that is just waiting his grasp, as he steps outside of a mental enclosure over which he is just breaking by right thinking. Let him draw himself toward the image, recognizing that it is a reflection of his true self. By so doing he is binding his conscious personality to his own spiritual or ideal self. The oftener he does this in his leisure moments, the quicker and more firmly will this ideal be absorbed and be made of his own self a part. By this very act he is appropriating the spiritual treasures that belong to him, and bringing them into outward expression.
The professional grumbler is creating mental images in his subconsciousness which are distasteful to his nobler selfhood; and yet, by drawing them there and frequently referring to them, he is giving these mental images firmness and power to take form in his own consciousness and produce the disagreeable traits that often reach to enormities. These one brings to himself by a subtle law of life, in spite of the fact that he may be always declaring the conditions are his because he is not among the lucky ones of earth.
In the training of children the mature adviser has often been guilty of a great wrong in cautioning them not to be too sanguine, and telling them their wishes and longings may not come to them. By those expressions suggestions are sent to the one addressed that may create images to impede advancement.
We grow to our ideals by first conceiving them. As images they may be somewhat shadowy and indistinct at first. Gradually, as we look at .these mental pictures over and over again, we get them into perfect shape and form, until they reflect the ideal of what we would be, of what we wish to be; and, better than all of what we can be if we will be true to our ideal selves, recognizing the great truth that the mental image could not be drawn so perfectly and could not stand out so clearly if it were not our other self, waiting to be received and given expression to by consciousness.
REWARD
Compensation for the doing of a service is one thing, reward is another. The professional man makes his own estimate of the value of the service performed. If those desiring it are unwilling to pay the price demanded, they must seek that service from others. Both the giver and the receiver have rights in the premises which each must respect. Reward, however, comes in the nature of a gift. It is often given for a service rendered or for an act done, where compensation in the usual acceptance of the word could not be considered for a moment.
Religious teachings have been filled with promises of reward for obeying the law, and of punishment for disobeying it. In brief, reward for doing right and punishment for doing wrong. As to what is right and what is wrong, where one’s freedom or property is concerned, civilized nations generally are agreed. In many other particulars what is right and what is wrong are determined by the statutes and customs of various nations, and therefore are relative terms to be ascertained by geographical locations. Still, for these as well as for others of universal acceptance, it seems that long ago it had been generally conceded that the Infinite had, by his own edict, arranged for rewards and penalties. Evidently, if this be true, the Infinite had in a remote age anticipated the evolution of man and of nations and of moral codes, and formulated these rewards and penalties to meet the needs and contingencies to arise.
Man today has outgrown to a large extent the illogical reasoning of the writers who followed the deductions of that age, now so remote from us that we must designate it as primitive. And yet man today in a vague manner persists in claiming reward from some source simply for doing right. Among those who are now embracing one by one the truths of the philosophy of real thinkers (usually styled advanced thought people) are many doubtless who seek to learn these truths because it is through the gateway they open one must go to the land of betterment beyond—through it is the way to freedom from anxiety, disease, failure and death.
Just here at this gateway let the seeker for truth guard that he carry with him in his consciousness none of the vagaries of reward and punishment which (in order not to offend any, let me say) the ancient religions taught. The land which one enters through this gateway is a mental realm not under the dominion of priests nor kings nor gods. There are no arbitrary rules and dogmas entrenched within vague promises or threats. In this realm law alone is eternal and unchangeable. He who recognizes this must know that if he consciously grasps the law of being and walks within it, his pathway will be one of delight. Through the recognition of this law one will arrive at a true comprehension of his own selfhoods, and through this learn of the mighty reservoir of wisdom back of objective consciousness. When once one has learned by discipline to still his every day consciousness and wait in patience and faith that suggestion or direction certain to come from the background of being, he is then simply permitting, and not opposing, the working out of the law of self-unfoldment To recount, at any time, acts done as entitling him to reward, is but an indication that he has not yet freed himself from the teachings in the ancient dogmas. He receives his good, not because it is a reward, but because by right thinking, right action, he is allowing the law of being to assert itself without opposition.
The great source is not an arbitrary power, but one upon which we all must draw in advancing to our ideals; because the one universal purpose of the source is the unfoldment of the human. One’s noblest aspirations spring from the messages the source sends to consciousness in moments of stillness. They tell him what success, happiness and honor await beyond if only he will fill his mind with the crystallized affirmations of truth. These are the formidable connecting links between conscious self and those aspirations which were made to assume mental form through the creative agency of the source of all. He who works for the truest unfoldment does not work for reward. The attainment of a fond wish does not come to him as a reward. That wish had form in the eternal source (of which source he is a part) and could not have centered in him were it not attainable. Though this be true, there is something for him to do to gain that desire. The eternal source needs his conscious aid to hasten the realization; and unless he place himself within the pathway of progress and open all the mental avenues so that they permit his good to enter therein, that wish may remain a hope and a dream, and he pass from this incarnation with purpose unfulfilled. I am aware that some of our writers and workers in what is termed the new thought, in their enthusiasm to aid others, present the subject somewhat as though those entering the field would find it covered with great mental department stores, with counters loaded with bargains—here fond wishes in forms to be grasped, there ambitious desires crystallized for acceptance, everywhere wealth rolling toward them in golden balls—and all this as a reward for their embracing this philosophy. When one has learned something of the laws of unfolding, and something of his own place in the universe, the revelation is of the character that he may be pardoned for painting the heaven he enjoys in such brilliant hues. It seems often to him that he has never lived before to real purpose. He looks confidently out in the future for greater joys, and at the same time feels his now is filled with every heartfelt wish.
Working, however, because it is right to work —working to make the best of one’s self—working because unfoldment to self means good to all surrounding, are the true incentives to enable man to accomplish purpose and to unfold the godship within. Always there is work for him to do. Reward for doing what one ought do is a fallacy of the past. Do not seek to enter among the workers in lines of advanced thought except from principle. If new truths are grasped (and unfoldment comes only by learning new truths), then, for the complete unfoldment of self, seek to learn the law of being. To seek this is not a selfish desire. To be all one may be to those he knows and meets, it is requisite he attain his noblest desires, for then only will he find himself best prepared and most ready to give and to help onward all surrounding him. They are mightiest to help others who have won through principle. They work intelligently who work not merely because of belief in the teachings of others, but because they have lifted their own consciousness to a clear conception of what is truth, and they work, live and dwell in its vibrations of harmony.
COLOR IN LIFE
Color has almost a sacred meaning among the workers who have embraced the philosophy of India. The student in it finds the harmonious colors that should surround him, and in his room for meditation, or as he would term it his room for work, he hangs in graceful folds the colored draperies of silk which his aura reflects. Entrance in that room means to him entrance to the hall of peace. His thoughts there blend strength and harmony into language which encases those built out of concepts and ideas received by the soul from the Universal. By discipline and demonstration he has proven that by surrounding himself with these harmonious colors he comes en rapport with all the far-reaching powers within himself.
Among women of the Western hemisphere generally, attention to color as to its adaption to them in dress, begins in early youth; but few of them seem to realize that they are following a psychic law in this selection by harmonizing the colors of wearing apparel to their complexions and forms. Some general rules as to adoption of colors in dress have been established among all who follow these European customs, and they have been made on the basis of laws of harmony as to colors suited to particular physical personalities. These rules have back of them, in truth, psychic laws on which they are based. I do not presume to say that these rules are absolutely correct. In a general way, I believe them to be fairly so, but yet I recognize that out of the spiritual self grew this study of harmony in colors, which is designated on the material side of life as taste in dress.
Just here is to be noted that some women (they are more sensitive to color as a rule than men) have entered rooms at times where the wall papering or decorations have made them feel that they could not remain an instant. They receive a sort of nervous shock; and this because the vibrations in the atmosphere created by colors being repellant to them, struck nerve thought centers disturbing their normal equilibrium.
Professor Elmer Gates, who keeps himself down closely to facts demonstrated in his physical laboratory, has proven thoughts have color by congealing the breath of the subject by means of a most delicately prepared mechanism. Grief and guilt and fear and joy and other thought emotions have each given forth its own color, though subjects possessing widely different normal characteristics were selected to prove the theory.
The clairvoyant theosophist who has had Eastern training, always distinguishes about the subject for whom she strives to read, color or colors; and these indicate to him certain characteristics in, as well as certain conditions surrounding the individual. We are, therefore, in this subtle way told of the colors about us, or that emanate from us, which appeals to some even more convincingly than the tests made in the physical laboratory. These differ from the demonstrations of Professor Gates in that they do not merely represent the thought passing through one’s mind at a particular time, but they represent a mental condition created by thinking certain thoughts, and which thereby bring forth the product we name character. I, however, regard Professor Gates’ demonstrations as being most convincing to the skeptic; and yet, in themselves, proving practically the theories long held by the theosophist.
Theosophists recognize the astral body permeating the physical and extending around it in every direction like a colored cloud. These colors they find to vary with the nature and disposition of men. When one loses his temper flashes of scarlet appear in his aura, while if he feels love, rose red lines are observed passing through it. The astral body of a man with low and gross thoughts is marked with aura dark in color, while that of a progressive man seeking truth and advancement is bright and luminous. Here again it is to be noted that if one wishes to reform his life, the reformation must begin by substituting for low and animal, high and noble thoughts. The astral body is purified by this, and the brighter colors quickly take the place of the darker ones. I The scientific and psychical illustrations I have cited, together with the more simple ones felt by people generally in moving about where color predominates, whether it be found in the papering and draping of rooms, or in garments worn by those in large assemblages, prove that color, in life has taken a serious hold on us all, and again suggest thought for reflection as to whether or not we, in the West, have given it proper consideration. In our efforts for advancement, coupled with our desire to so live that we shall feel joy that the new day has come upon waking each morning, I earnestly recommend all students in this progressive age to give the subject of color careful attention. It is a force in helping us to keep a perfect equilibrium. The Gypsies wear red upon entering a new locality as they regard it an ally of success. In brief, the vibrations from color reach nerve centers of our being, and from these nerve centers may be sent shocks that disturb the entire thought mechanism; and through other color combinations, subtle throbs of harmony are felt which give men strength, aiding them to control and sway and awe the masses looking for leaders.
The student seeking unfoldment will find that by surrounding himself with his planetary or harmonious colors he will bring forth a reserve power which might have remained dormant except for his introducing this color training in his life. I have found in my tests that the influence of color on thought is to produce harmony rather than to give incentive to ambitious aspirations. In harmonizing, however, it gives poise, and develops that quiet confidence which serves to centralize forces within one so that they may act as a unit under the direction of will. One may learn of his planetary colors by turning to almost any elementary work on Astrology. Leadbeater, Colville and Grumbine have written extensively on classification of colors as applied to human aura, and as to their radiation. The student will find much of value in these volumes which I most heartily commend to his attention; but let him remember that he has a problem to solve on this subject, and that he alone must work it out through repeated personal experiments.
He who enters upon the study of color and learns how to harmonize his color surroundings will be delighted with the deep feeling of rest this blending will bring to him. A rest that will help to produce the stillness he seeks where thought stops its activity and waits direction from spirit.
OVERCOMING
“Feablessness is the only religion that wants to be taught” is one of the Oriental aphorisms which the student in human possibilities should often call to mind in his hours of meditation. Though the aphorism may seem somewhat ambiguous, let one rest his mind upon it until it shape itself into, “Fearlessness is the only religion I need to learn,” and let his entire being rise in majesty to overcome any opposition that might suggest cause for fear, and then he will make this maxim personal and full of meaning. Fear of punishment may drive some into saying, I believe, in order that they may escape danger; but such an assertion of belief cannot be steadfast, for it is only an outcry for shelter from a storm. The religion which binds one to omnipotence through love, and which lifts one to power to overcome is not in any way entwined with fear.
To learn fearlessness, one should first quietly note that his aspirations being good and noble cannot be met with opposition from any antagonistic or mystic force possessing mightier power than he himself. The whole universe moves forward to advancement—to good—it is with him, and he is working in harmony with this tremendous energy. What reason for fear? Its force has been called upon for ages by those temporarily in power to awe the ignorant. Laws were promulgated to restrain, coupled with penalties to make them respected through fear. The so-called Divine laws were interpreted as prescribing penalties for disobedience, and human laws were fashioned upon the conclusions reached by almost primitive man to explain universal laws which he did not know, and which he could not understand with the unfoldment at that early age.
Man was ushered into existence within this environment, and fear has been for ages the restraining force in the discipline of children. One starts to learn of life in the household, in the streets, in public places, with the laws printed on placards it may be, telling him what he must not do; or if he persists, do at his peril. He finds this mandate in the church dogmas, in the statute books—everywhere. Growing up within such environment, it is evident why he half-feared to assert the individuality represented by his own consciousness. Gradually it dawned on him that all progress was the overcoming of opposition, J(yet not till the last quarter of the century just passed did man generally recognize that the mightiest factor opposing his onward course was auto-opposition—an imaginary force of his own creation. This mental environment still holds many, because they have not yet learned that within themselves alone is the opposing force to the attainment of desire, as well as the incentive that created it. The wisdom of the aphorism and its far reaching meaning are clearly manifest.”He who strives to win, to overcome, and who feels he has much to fear in so doing, is powerless to concentrate, because he recognizes two forces acting in the universe.
To possess fearlessness is to know but one great force, and that force, Good. This is a truth as old as progressive man, and it ought to be most simple to comprehend. Is it not strange, almost incomprehensibly strange, that we all are obliged, over and over again, to lift ourselves up to it in meditation when the overcoming in life’s perplexities seem arduous? It seems in moments to the student that he has overcome all fear, and that it will never loom up in opposition to him again. Then, surroundings, thoughts that others express, and incidents in life appear, which waken him to question. I attribute this partly to the early religious training which one has passed through. It can also be attributed partly to the general bent of thought among one’s associates, as the force of this often reaches him in a combative way.
With the mastering of the demon fear, with the learning of the great lesson of fearlessness, one will find that the overcoming from that time on is not a battle with an opposing force. In fact, it never was a battle with an opposing force. It was the overthrowing of auto-opposition. To overcome then, one must fill his mind with right thoughts, right purposes, right resolves. If a thing is right, the opposer, if there be any, is wrong.
He who has wisely learned this simple lesson of overcoming is lifting his ideal self to mastery over a conventional, doubting, fearing self, made up of the patched and tattered garments of worn-out thoughts and conclusions, derived from a worn-out and discarded philosophy of an ignorant past. Such overcoming has a glory and a fascination, and causes the heart to beat with joy for there can be no pity for the conquered foe. The true self has triumphed, and the foe crushed is Error.
Each one to grow must overcome in the field of endeavor. His overcoming is the overcoming of wrong thoughts, which gave rise to wrong acts. He and he alone must reshape or refurnish, if you will, the mental mansion in which he lives. That is the home of his aspirations, and in that home is the chamber where his errors slumber, wakening only at the call of fear; and where also, in the most richly furnished and brightly illuminated apartment, ideals live and grow.
The daring of overcoming begins then, as all human progress, in right thinking, and the outcome of right thinking is right action. To dare to invest thought and action thus is to dare to start forward to mastery. A few stanzas from one of J. A. Edgerton’s poems seems most fitting here:
“There are lives that we may brighten;
There are burdens we may lighten;
There are joys that we may heighten;
There are wounded hearts to bind;
There are fetters to be broken;
There are blessings to be spoken;
Let us give them as a token
Of the love we bear mankind.
“See, a golden bow is bending
Over us, its glory lending
Unto us, a message sending
That the world is moving on.
From its ancient moorings drifting,
While the tides of thought are shifting,
And the broken mists are lifting
From the gateways of the dawn.
“O, my brother, cease complaining;
See, the night of wrong is waning,
And the king of right is reigning,
And the flag of hope’s unfurled.
There are evils left for righting;
There are battles left for fighting;
There are beacons left for lighting,
To illuminate the world.
“As, when all her hues combining
In a golden-tinted lining,
Through the clouds the morn is shining,
So the Future’s upturned face,
With a glow of promise burning,
My rapt spirit is discerning,
While humanity is turning
To the morning of the race.
“Better days are breaking o’er us,
From the nearing goal before us,
We can hear a joyous chorus
Wafted o’er the years to be.
Through the portals, open swinging,
Notes of sweet and rapturous singing
Down the Future’s aisles are ringing
From the anthems of the free.”
ARE YOU READY?
Desire is always in advance of complete preparation; and, even when one couples now with it, he should often enter into a critical self-examination to discover if he be truly ready to give full recognition to all its possession may demand. Man frequently is careless, almost wanton, in asserting his wishes and desires. To encompass the desire may call for the performance of certain elementary tasks in order that he may be openly receptive. In brief, he must be mentally prepared in advance, in order that he may give form and expression to the ideal conceived.
Shakespeare knew the path to attainment was over a road built on invisible lines and traversed by right thinking. To attain to this was a mental process which he had learned, and his characters over and over again were made to reflect his philosophy. In the play of King Henry V., just before the commencement of the battle of Agincourt, after King Henry had been advised that the French army outnumbered his five to one, and that it was magnificently equipped in every way, he maintained a perfect composure, evidently having decided in his mind that his army was going forth to victory. When Westmoreland wished for ten thousand more men, he rebuked this wish with,
“The fewer men, the greater share of honor, God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man
And later, when Salisbury announced that the enemy were drawn up in line of battle and about to charge, Henry V.’s sole reply was,
“All things are ready if our minds be so.”
To the herald who at this moment again entered, asking if the English king would compound for his own ransom and save himself from certain death and his army from annihilation, his reply was his former answer, coupled with, “Come thou no more.” Then, after the battle was fought and his victory found to be overwhelming and the French army crushed, he, like a true genius, disclaims all honor—
“O God! thy arm was here.
And not to us, but to thy arm alone,
Ascribe we all.”
In this illustration it is apparent how faith firmly established becomes absolute in power; and also how the real hero merges his own identity into that of the Universal.
Let one search as he may for truth, here in this illustration he will find the epitome of the teachings of the so-called advanced philosophy of this age. The mighty question which each must answer unflinchingly, and with such candor as to meet the soul’s acceptance is, is his mind ready to receive the unfoldment the attainment of the desire will bring? Until that time comes, no arbitrary power is withholding anything from one, no Saturn in the heavens is delaying the coming of his good to him, but he is not yet mentally developed to the point necessary in order that he can fulfill the requirements demanded. In one’s own mind he must know and foal possession of the claims he has made before realization can be made manifest on the sense plane.
If there must be some waiting, he, first of all in the world, will know the cause of the delay— he is not yet ready. This does not mean he may not win his purpose—it simply means that more time is required in order that the preparation be complete, and “God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.” Above all, remember that in silence each will learn of himself what no other can know. There he learns what may be his, and also of the work to be done before he may reach that ideal. He must learn to labor and to wait. He may turn to Emerson and again read: “Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine Providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their hearts, working through their hands, predominating in all their being.”
When Lincoln startled the citizens of this country by publishing his emancipation proclamation, he gave the South an opportunity to end the war and take its place in the Union as before, retaining slavery; but that proposition was not accepted, and the war went on. Our nation, and in a sense the whole world, was not ready for peace. In the evolution of man and nations, the upward trend demanded that the day of slave and master should then end. Labor itself was being given a new meaning—it had ceased to be mean and degrading; it became dignified and noble and free:
“For many barren ages
Earth hid her treasures deep,
And all her giant forces
Seemed lost as in a sleep.
Then Labor’s anvil chorus
Broke on the startled air,
And all the Earth in rapture
Laid all her treasures bare.”
The minds of all who then caught the spirit of progress were not ready for peace obtained by such a compromise, and so it could not be made. Wars in times past have been fought for spoils, conquest or aggrandizement; now they seem to represent methods men and nations pass through in their evolution to higher and grander ideals. Upward, onward, man must go, and even evolution crushes out life that a nobler and more abundant life may appear and expand. That mighty Energy behind which man may not go is, to some extent at least, made up of the polarization of the progressive thought of those in both material and spirit life. Its silent speech is felt, not heard; and then man recognizes how he is one with it, as he voices this sense of upliftment in “I am ready.”
Often in our lives have we felt almost crushed because of the failure to realize a hope or project planned, and in a few months or years later we have rejoiced because of that failure. The path to the end we would is not always clear to the view of consciousness. Again, with growth come grander conceptions of life and new and nobler ideals are conceived; and this should help one to realize life’s complexity and the mystic order of unfoldment. There are new lessons to be learned as wider scope is included in the horizon of intellect, and objective consciousness will often be made aware from humanity’s silent monitor that the time is not yet ripe.
The law of unfoldment in life places no bar Tiers before one—it does not stand forth to fetter or dictate; and yet its demands must be met, for therein is the order of the evolution of consciousness. Know that the ego can understand clearly the mental upbuilding, and when it in no uncertain tones says now, then are you ready, and the purpose will be quickly, often instantaneously, achieved.
JOY, ALWAYS JOY
If we were to ask those who compose the great army of progressive men and women who work and plan for higher degrees of unfoldment, which they seek through study, thought, travel, experience, the real purpose of it all, the various replies could be condensed substantially into that of the joy of knowing. When ambition is fired by that desire, sacrifice becomes a meaningless word, and work is converted into pleasure. If one wishes to surround himself with an atmosphere which would reflect the colors portraying a joyous life, he must live in the creative thought which will give that expression to the human aura. To control consciousness, in order that right thinking toward the end desired may continually emanate is a problem that even the adepts of India recognize as one to again and again present itself, after they have passed through the four stages of student, householder, yogi and gnani. This fact should prove very helpful to every student in progressive mental unfoldment. They in India who have gone to the highest plane yet attained by man in spiritual consciousness wrap themselves into contemplation the greater part of the day, seeking little exercise or change.
Edward Carpenter, in his description of a Gnani whom he met, tells us: “Finally, his face, while showing the attributes of the seer, the extremely penetrating, quick eye, and the expression of illumination—the deep mystic light within—showed also the prevailing sentiment of happiness behind it. ‘Sandosham, Sandosham eppotham’—’joy, always joy’—was his own expression oft repeated.”
Again and again in my study of the Hindu philosophy have I found the teachings of Jesus reflected so completely that at times it seems impossible to escape from the conclusions of the Masters of India, who regard him an adept in gnanam, but one who confined his teachings to the wants of the crude unfoldment of the rude mass of people that surrounded him. In India today we find a Master repeating, “Joy, always Joy” in his language (Tamil), “Sandosham, Sandosham eppotham”; and is not this the “praying without ceasing,” the “praying as if ye had already received the blessing” % And what must be its effect? How evident the answer, as shown by study of human growth! The subconscious is thought-soil, pregnant with creative substance to bring forth the plants from suggestion’s seeds which have been scattered there. Suggestions do not proceed only from objective to subjective consciousness; they are also carried there by telepathic waves, and these suggestions may have been fashioned out of other people’s thoughts, as well as out of the thoughts wafted from Spirit bands. Some of these, even from foreign sources, we would like to give an abiding place there, and others we would uproot. The way to uproot, and the way to add to the sturdy growth of those we would encourage, is to remember to pray without ceasing, and to pray the prayer recognizing that the desire is already won, and that the mental image of our vision is but a reflection of the real. When a few words can be grouped together so that they, without embodying the completeness of a desire, reflect to the mental vision the result the attainment of the desire would produce, then we have in them the prayer we would. Repeated often will make the single phrase shine with light, because its accepted meaning, permeating the great centers of consciousness, will bring illumination, which is the crowning halo of the attainment of desire.
Charles Fillmore, as I recall my early reading of his papers in Unity, often laid great stress on the use of the right word or words in one’s hours of meditation. It seemed he thought that the seeking and finding of the right words to fashion a phrase or express a thought to lodge into subconsciousness were matters of no small moment. I fully agree with him in this, and have found them often in silence—often in my reading, where others might read and not see them. Each may seek the path to unfoldment in his own way, following some suggestions here and there of others, and then making modifications as seem to him best. There are, however, general outlines for work which all must follow, and the “prayer without ceasing” must be breathed by all who would learn the lesson of growth. At this time I bring you one I did not coin, but which has meant much to me. It is broad enough in its reflection, combined with its mystic meaning, to hold a world of desires, and to awaken soul throbbings to consciousness.
In a lecture on “Science and Culture,” Prof. T. H. Huxley wrote: “It is very certain that the earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the world is not subordinated to man’s use. It is even more certain that nature is the expression of a definite order with which nothing interferes, and that the chief business of mankind is to learn that order and govern themselves accordingly.” If we may learn the method nature or energy uses in our own unfoldment, and harmonize ourselves to it, then the work will go forward grandly. These papers purpose to present to the reader some of the laws of that definite order of nature, which directly apply to mental growth and to the lifting of the human to understand and use the wondrous powers within himself. Often the methods suggested may seem almost absurd, because of their simplicity; but if one declares them illogical, it will be because he has not tested them. The proofs of mental growth and grasp may be found in the human halls of experience. Logic argues only from facts, known or accepted, and its conclusions, drawn within its own range, have often been found to be more than ridiculous, as science later brought forth truth after truth from the boundless fields where the adventurous guesser went with hypotheses which they who go by the record (formerly known as Scribes and Pharisees) deemed wild and senseless.
Even the distinguished poet and physician, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, acknowledged that medical science had not discovered the secret of man’s unfoldment, and said: “The more we examine the mechanism of thought, the more we shall see that the automatic, unconscious action of the mind enters largely into all its processes. Our definite ideas are stepping stones; how we get from one to the other we do not know; something carries us; we do not take the step. A creating and informing spirit is with us, and not of us, is recognized everywhere in real and in storied life.”
Year by year we are all advancing and learning more and more of the possibilities of man
We speak of this now as subconscious action, recognizing all mental action as either conscious or subconscious and of the law of his growth. As we grasp what we may of this law it gradually is being shown us that all the tasks it imposes can be performed joyously, and that, as the adepts have proved it, life’s utterance is in truth a song. I present you here a refrain which, if made one of your prayers, will fill your being with light and help you to discern more than that almost unknown poet ever recognized in his own verses when he wrote:
“Oh, Life is joy! Its pulses play
So buoyantly and warm.
The earth, the air, the ocean spray,
The quiet hills, the crowded way,
With animation swarm.
The insects in the sunset beam,
The fairy tenant of the stream,
The cattle grazing on the hill,
And man who moulds them to his will,
In sun and sky, in earth and air,
A common lot rejoice to share—
A common race—its goal is nigh,
They flourish, falter, fade and die.
“Of Life is Love! Before the light
Diffused its cheerful bloom,
It brooded in creative might
Upon the boundless mists of night,
And warmed the murky gloom.
The life that paints this herb of earth,
Gave Seraphim celestial birth.
All Life is One! He fans the whole,
Who lighted up thy torch, my soul!”
THE DOMINANT EGO
In my introduction to the series of papers I have been presenting I gave the subject Thought —its rise through sensation, form, images, ideas and comparison—careful analysis, in order that its entity as a mental seed, susceptible of being planted in subconscious soil, as and when the ego pleased, would be patent to all. The certainty of its growth and development has, to some extent, been considered; and now, it may be well to pause and delve within to discover or more intimately acquaint our conscious selves with the dominant self—the suggester to, or the most potent planter of thought-seed in the subconscious mind.
In the Yogi philosophy of the Hindus seven principles of or elements in Man are recognized. The three which concern directly his upliftment and growth are Instinctive Mind, Intellect and Spiritual Mind.
The instinctive mind, which we designate as the subconscious, they name as the first plane of mentation, and one on which, in its lowest phases, self-consciousness is scarcely discernible. It, however, is the seat of the appetites, passions, desires, instincts, sensations, feelings. If this mind were allowed to have full sway, without intellect to control, only the instincts of the brute would develop, and these would be used to satisfy the desires of the moment for physical enjoyment, gain, protection, ease or prowess. And yet this mind in man is the silent worker or controller of the physical body. Through its action is the blood carried from the heart throughout the system, food converted into chyle and blood, and a myriad of vital duties (erroneously attributed to an unconscious mental action) to physical life continually being performed. In the highest phases of the instinctive mind it lifts suggestion to individual expression, and then blends itself with the intellect. Widely they differ, for intellect is the mental principle distinguishing man from the brute; and yet definite dividing lines are not fixed, as these mental planes blend into each other as day into night. The higher order of the brute creation often shows a degree of intelligence that we are forced to dignify as evidencing the possessing of the lower phases of self-consciousness.
The intellect which Western students speak of as the conscious plane of mental action receives practically the same classification from the Hindu, and yet the Hindu in the unfoldment of the human recognizes two planes beyond to be attained by man before he can hope to grasp the Absolute. The first of these is spiritual mind; and the last, seldom attained by the most advanced, but still attainable, Spirit .
As instinctive mind blends into intellect, so intellect blends into spiritual-mind, though there is more abruptness in taking this step higher. In our Western use of the ego, its lowest expression finds its place or classification in the intellect, while its highest is that of the spiritual. In no sense do the Eastern philosophers regard spiritual-mind necessarily working contrary to intellect—rather, it goes beyond intellect and becomes a suggester to it. When we speak of the higher self, the real self, the true ego, we rise to the topmost height of the intellectual plane and meet the plane of spiritual-mind, which has for ages been recognized by the Yogis as the next higher plane of consciousness. A greater unfoldment, which is due man and now approaching, will lift him in due time to comprehend more fully the godship within him; and then he will start to explore the boundless plane of spirit consciousness.
This superficial glance into the teachings of Hindu philosophy may serve to give to those of my readers who have devoted but little study to the subject of human unfoldment a better comprehension of the meaning of the term, the dominant self, or the true or masterful Ego. It may or it may not be the I AM, or Spiritual Self; but if it fall a plane below that it is most certainly the self-consciousness which rises from the pinnacle of the conscious-mind plane. It represents to the possessor the ideal self—it is the creator or discoverer of his best and noblest thoughts—it is masterful in power—it is authority.
In our study of the growth and development of the human it is well to turn again and again to child-life and follow step by step its unfoldment to self-consciousness. During the first two years of its life the instinctive mind dominates, then next self-consciousness begins to dawn. Little by little, one observes that ideas are being
compared, and that, following this, the meaning of thought is grasped. Here we note the dawning of self-consciousness, and henceforth cease from designating the infant as a thing. We refrain from using the neuter in addressing the child, and begin to speak of what he or she thinks. From simple mentation, which is found in the lowest plane of the subconscious, this little bunch of humanity has built up from sensation to thought, which proves that a higher plane, the conscious, has been discovered and entered. As the child thinks out things for himself he passes this knowledge, coined into thought-seeds, to the subconscious. He himself becomes a factor, storing or planting thoughts (filled with desire and purpose) in the subconscious, where they take lodgment, and later will give expression to his life, constituting what we call character.
From the intellectual plane the ego is constantly, although advancing step by step, passing thoughts and conclusions, fashioned into hopes, purposes and beliefs, to the subconscious. The subconscious accepts its task, for it is powerless to do otherwise, and converts these, if not opposed, into realizations. With childhood and boyhood past, and the man with purpose dawning, what do we discover? Many early beliefs have been eradicated. Boy hopes and purposes half forgotten, and new hopes and purposes born as advanced points were attained on the broad plane of intellectual consciousness. The instinctive or subconscious mind, therefore, may be struggling to give expression to some of those desires not yet fully overcome by the new ones more recently sent to that great receptacle of human longings where ideals are moulded into reals. Man is merely a product of his thoughts, and the young man at his entrance into active life is therefore a product of his thoughts from childhood up. He has passed through many experiences, and perhaps on several occasions changed plans and purposes regarding what was to be his business or profession in life. Is it strange that he, arriving at this point, hesitates and questions? Is it strange that he feels within himself a mental battle is raging? A new ego (rather a higher ego has appeared in the course of evolution), and this ego brings new desires and new purposes, conceived because of a broader view of life, and because of a higher plane of development.
.When one makes a pause, questions as to his former purposes and plans, and starts into new fields of work, he is likely to be more or less confused, because of the effort of the subconscious laboring to give expression to the half-grown plants (half developed purposes) from thought-seeds planted long before, and not yet uprooted by the suggestions of the more mature or more advanced ego now ruling the selfhood.
It must be patent to all that whether one is trained in this philosophy or not, the dominant ego is in every period of life sending suggestions to the subconscious selfhood. The suggestions made early in life are often antagonistic to those made later, and hence arises the complexity of human nature. Many not given to psychological study and not comprehending the course of their own unfoldment have created an arbitrary god and an arbitrary devil to account for what they alone are responsible. Out of these mythical creations, to which they give almost equal power (Ingersoll wittingly remarked, in substance, that the devil is not as powerful as God, but that he made that up by being quicker), grew their fear of both God and the devil.
The psychology of today, being both new and old, explains this mental condition, and tells one how to create a new selfhood that will express the purpose and desire of the nobler ego struggling for supremacy. No god or devil —no unseen force—is the cause of the disturbed mental atmosphere around one. It is a condition often due to the past suggestions of the conscious ego to the subconscious; but a riper, more fully unfolded ego can, with new and more powerful suggestions which it is now capable of making, overcome the effect of the early ones of a ruder and more elementary personality. If one recognizes mental growth to be brought about as herein outlined, he is in harmony with this philosophy and knows that he alone is responsible for the character he has built up, and that he alone has the power to improve, tear down, or rebuild. He may have accomplished all he would in this or that line of action. Through thought-evolution a mightier ego has been developed, and from its high vantage ground it has discovered new purposes, new possibilities, new hopes, new attainments, which may be won. That ego not only influences, but dominates, the subconscious. It is from the border-land of the spiritual plane of consciousness that those new purposes and hopes arise, uplifting and directing self to these grander aims.
If the student feel this, and if he has freed himself from all the dogmas of those fanatical religions which belittle man, because of their failing to recognize the divinity, the Christ, within, then does he know that this ego represents the true, unerring, prescient selfhood which discipline aided by intuition has unfolded, and let him know further its promptings are always right. His progressive ego, presiding over objective consciousness, has by well-directed thought created a selfhood grander than his youthful logic formulated, and beautifully cultured and developed by the repeated imaging of ideals, which hope conceived and imagination clothed with forms. This progressive and now masterful ego hurls forward to the subconscious the new thought-seeds, like balls shot from the gun to the target by the experienced marksman, and their growth uproots the weaker plants which have, even if they have done nothing else, at least fitted this mental soil for nobler products.
In following the development of man to this thought-plane, and from it to ideals or to a series of ideals, and noting this development to stand forth as the expression of his individualism brought about by auto-suggestion, it may be asked if the power of auto-suggestion may not be greatly aided or hindered by suggestions from friends and the outside world generally. Replying to such question, it must be conceded that many have been both hindered and helped by suggestions received from others, and also by those obtained when still or reading, and again by those received through telepathic communication. If one has, through discipline, become acquainted with his own progressive selfhood and learned the power of his own ego, he will permit only those suggestions from the outside world to take lodgment that are in complete harmony with its hopes and purposes. Receiving these often from sources he may not know, he appropriates and increases their vitality, thereby uplifting his own selfhood. This is the law of progress, the law of being, the law of life, and Law is universal:
“It throws its spirit chain
Through boundless space where shining systems roll,
And governing no less the smallest grain,
Breathes music o’er the whole.
“It is a spirit sway,
But all material agents hear its voice
And haste to do its bidding. To obey
Is their instinctive choice.
“What binds the human soul?
Has God, who moves and governs all beside,
In his swift progress to his final goal
Left man without a guide?
“Law claims dominion there
By awful sanctions sent in tones that thrill,
But not by force. It never can impair
The freedom of the Will.
“And even gloomy guilt
Relaxed into repentance, when it saw
How on a spotless throne by Justice built,
Love lifted up the Law.”
In following, as I have, the mental unfoldment of humanity, and then barely hinting at its future possibilities, the soundness of these deductions will be made manifest, I believe, to all by the study of human development not only from childhood to manhood, but from primitive man to the highest intellectual giants of modern times. In fact, it is a study of the evolution of life from the planes below self-consciousness also that has taught man many lessons in the law of unfolding.
Going back to a period prior to the time when records were kept, I present four short quotations from John Fiske’s “A Century of Science”:
“If at the end of a long series of evolution comes man, if this whole secular process has been going on to produce this supreme object, it does not matter in what kind of a cosmical body he lives on.
“We are enabled to say that while there is no doubt of the evolutionary process going on through countless ages which we know nothing about, yet in the one case where it is brought home to us we spell out an intelligible story, and we do find things working along up to man as a terminal fact in the whole process. This is indeed a consistent conclusion from Wallace’s suggestion that natural selection, in working toward the genesis of man, began to follow a new path and make psychical changes instead of physical changes.
“It then began to appear that not only is man the terminal factor in a long process of evolution, but in the origination of man there began the development of the higher psychical attributes, and these attributes are coming to play a greater and greater part in the development of the human race.
“To those things which minister to the requirements of the spiritual side of a man there is almost no limit. The demand one can conceive is well-nigh infinite.”
Primitive man doubtless stood erect, and in a crude way began to assert his powers at the first faint recognition of self-consciousness. He had commenced to think and draw conclusions. He expressed thoughts, and out of these built hopes and planted them in the subconscious or instinctive mind. He grew. Faintly, at first, as he gained in knowledge, came this upreaching for greater things, for comprehension of a force around and beyond him which his dawning intelligence felt to exist, and to be mightier than all he knew. Intellect or consciousness was expanding, and it told of visions beyond— out of these came his first dim dream of God. Later, those following invested that God with terrible avenging attributes, and seemed to have concluded that humanity had reached its limits.
I do not mean here to condemn any particular form of religion as it exists today. All religions, as far as I have examined them, seem to have had a semi-mythical origin, and all of them doubtless possess some kernels of truth, and therefore live. Man, however, to know his possibilities can learn of them through the study of his own evolution and that of the history of achievement, far better than by the study of any revelation religion gives.
In the order of evolution man appeared when a primitive being became aware of and asserted self-consciousness. This first recognized ego gave then expression to itself from the lowest plane of consciousness or intellect; but its assertion of individualism gave man supremacy over the animal life surrounding. The growth which followed may have been slow for ages— is that to be wondered at when we remember that not until the closing years of the nineteenth century did the truths of evolution become established, and that even now the fact that man’s advancement to the intellectual heights desired can be won, and won only through suggestion and auto-suggestion, has yet received only partial recognition by psychologists generally? There are three sources of proof to me, therefore, of the order and method of human development, each bringing cumulative evidence; and these are found, first, in the evolution of man as established by science; second, in the mental unfoldment of the child; and, third, in the analysis of individual achievement as shown in our own growth and in that of those whose lives we may study.
Many, working in accord with the philosophy herein presented, have satisfied themselves of its truth, and are enjoying the upliftment it brings. They feel convinced that a higher ego is being developed; or, as the Hindu would say, that the period has come where thoughtful, intelligent man is passing from the unconscious state of spiritual development into the conscious. They feel within themselves a consciousness of power and an awareness that they are linked with the real source of strength and power and have full access to it, as it is around them, behind them and in them. They know if they err they are not punished for their errors, but by them. They know they are masters of their own destiny, their own judge, their own rewarder and their own punisher; and that on and on does the form of life go and grow, till mind cannot encompass all they feel, though flitting visions of life’s great oneness and of the Absolute appear.
LIKE PRODUCES LIKE
It has been questioned by some who have criticized the conclusion of the foremost metaphysicians of the present age as to whether or not their philosophy is built upon really a scientific basis—a basis demonstrable as that of natural science in the physical world. It is a fixed conclusion of science that like produces like. From the seed of oats sown only oats can be produced; the same as to any other vegetable product of nature, be it what it may. It is, however, a demonstrated truth of natural science that if the seed does not fall on good ground it may not bring forth any fruit at all. It also has been demonstrated in natural science that if the soil is not adapted to the seed placed upon it, little or no harvest may be obtained. Likewise it has been proved that the sun and the rains have much to do with the bringing in of the crops. All these things we observe in the natural world and accept as matters of course; but we never hesitate for one moment to affirm in that sphere that like produces like, even though under some conditions, or during some seasons, no product appears.
The teachings of the metaphysician of the present age are founded on precisely this basis, which has been demonstrated to be true in the natural world; and sometimes, when the result that is expected is not attained, the more material scientist questions if the premises are not wrong. It seems to me that he does not recall some of the simplest facts stated above in regard to the failure of like to produce like in the material world under adverse circumstances.
To those who have embraced the metaphysics which form the optimism of the present age, this truth that like produces like in the mental realm is universally accepted, and it is claimed that demonstrations forbid any other conclusion. In fact, if we look around us and note the men of achievement, wherever they may be, we will discover that first in their own mentalities was conceived that within themselves were the qualities necessary under proper development to fit them for the positions they sought. No matter today how little respect or confidence we may have in him who is always boasting of his powers and what he can do, we are aware that only he can win who has a firm conviction within himself that he is capable of doing the work he undertakes. Sometimes some seem to regard such a man as an egotist, and possibly in some particulars he may be. Whether he is or not, it is the egotism which belongs and is associated with the successful man. It is the egotism or egoism that men of strength possess. I do not argue as to the real meaning of the word—I leave that for the lexicographer. When one wins success in any line there are always others about who would detract, if it were in their power, from the successful one by criticism. The strong man is not embarrassed by these criticisms, though sometimes they may annoy him a little. It is this quiet self-confidence which can only be attained by him who represents the qualities it implies that produces like confidence in those who seek the service or aid of its possessor. He who employs or retains another does so because of the qualities he finds in that other. The confidence which one has in himself produces like confidence in others. The boaster, or the one with abilty assumed which he does not possess, may deceive some for the moment, but his triumph is short. This very law of natural science holds absolutely true in the mental realm. Like produces like, but an assumed like cannot produce the real.
In auto-suggestion, or suggestion from teacher to pupil, for the purpose of planting thought in the gray matter of the brain, so that it shall be a seed to grow, both the seed and the soil must have the qualities necessary to produce the plant desired. In the mental realm the teacher must have disciplined himself so well that he can fashion thought into a perfect seed, and plant that seed in the subconsciousness of another. The soil and the seed are so subtle in the mental field that long years of experience are required that one may positively know how to plant the seed that it may take root and bring forth its kind. The experience necessary to fashion the thought is one less complex than the experience necessary in order to know how to plant it into subconsciousness. Like will produce like; but in the mental realm, as in the natural realm, the necessary conditions for growth must be found.
Returning for a moment to the atmosphere which one brings about himself by auto-suggestion, I would if I could impress upon all who read what I write the danger of giving silent or vocal expression to a fear or doubt which might stand between them and desire. We were taught years ago that to do this was modesty. I would have every student who reads anything I write know that such modesty is the creative protoplasm of fear, and that its repeated exercise will in due time bring forth a product which will rob one of worthy individuality, and give in its place that uncertain nondescript, the average man. Possibly this classification of the average man may seem in standard rather low, yet when this type is pointed out I have always found it below, rather than above, the medium.
I am aware that, living as we do, not enough care and deliberation are taken on the part of the young man or woman of today to determine wisely the business or profession he or she may desire to enter upon. Often it is wise, if a college course is in view, not to fix with positiveness on this until after at least two years have been passed in college. By that time a choice is wise in order to make the selection of studies more in harmony with the purpose in view. Allowing one has given this careful thought and reflection, and listened to the promptings of the soul in making the choice; then from that moment there should be no wavering, but a settled conviction, that the decision that has been made is right . With this resolve formed, one centers about it love for the business or profession, or work (if it may not be classed as a business or profession) which he has decided shall become his vocation for life. Around that purpose should be brought, above all things, love for that particular business, or that particular profession, or that particular work. If this be done, new interest will be found, because like produces like, and the love one invests in his work is reflected, and by that reflection, through an unfailing mystic law, his work is made light and joyous. Again, having firmly decided the question, his whole mentality will open his being to the vibrative force of the universe, which will be a mighty help to increase that love and strengthen that purpose. What he should avoid is complaining, or in any way talking down the business or profession he has decided to be his work in life. Such acts produce thought-seeds, and like the seeds of weeds sown with grain, they also may choke the soil so that there will be little, if any, harvest.
If the world generally would recognize that this simple proposition in natural science, that like produces like, has as complete proof in mental science as in it, then the way would be opened for all to learn the secret of keeping good health. One cannot afford to complain and talk of aches and pains. This he must overcome, for consideration of them only establishes them more firmly. If he can overcome this habit in no other way than by reading interesting books or seeking interesting company, I commend either of these ways. Some are stronger when alone to rise above their ills with strong mental assertions which they may make. Others never speak of their illnesses when they are in company of friends, and so receive really a splendid treatment through association.
In the discipline of self the truth contained in the three words that I have taken for the subject of this article, should be ever held in mind. If we send out wrong or bitter thoughts to others, they must return to us. We must reap what we. sow. A very interesting case of this came before me a few years ago. A remarkably intelligent lady who had spent much time in Eastern countries and studied Eastern philosophy, was giving a course of lectures that I was attending. One night she came suffering seriously with neuralgia, and said she had taken almost everything during the day to put her in condition that she might speak that night. I told her I would assist her mentally all I could, and she got through the lecture passably well. Then she wanted to have a talk with me, and I questioned her first, “Why have you neuralgia? I think I know the mental cause of neuralgia, and I cannot think you could be guilty of thinking thoughts that would produce neuralgia.” Then she asked me what those thoughts were, and I said neuralgia usually had as its mental cause bitterness of feeling. It could come to her through bitter feelings of others being sent out to her, but I felt in this case that it was some bitter thoughts that she had sent out to others or to another, and I wondered how it was possible that one so sensitive and refined as she could think bitter thoughts. She looked at me a moment and could hardly maintain her voice when she said: “You are right. A man ruined my husband financially and hurt us more than I can tell, and this morning certain letters came calling this up vividly and showing another wrong he had done. I sent out to him the most bitter thoughts I could. They seemed to come up without any effort or desire on my part, and now I remember that then my neuralgia began thumping most severely.”
I cite this incident to explain that although like produces like in the mental world, it sometimes comes back to us in quite a different form. Bitter thoughts sent out to another may not return to us in bitter thoughts from the one we sent them to, or from some other person; they may return to us in a physical way. I have found this often true. From all this I argue we cannot afford to carry bitter feelings even towards others who injure us. It is possible and probable, of course, that we may harm them somewhat by so doing; yet at the same time, under the universal law, the thoughts sent out of this character must come back to us in one form or another to our injury. Sometimes the greatest punishment we can give another who has wronged us is to give him an absent treatment by sending forcible thoughts of truth to teach him his error. If these find lodgment in his subconscious mind, in due time they would doubtless reach his consciousness, and then he might suffer mentally for the unjust work he had done, or, better still, hasten to repair by doing worthy deeds. There are many simple teachings handed down from the masters which have seemed difficult to understand and to follow, living as so many do under the old teachings of orthodox philosophy. The philosophy of undeveloped man, which represented truth to him with his unfoldment ages ago, cannot be accepted in the twentieth century. I recall a very happy poem, which is clear in my memory, touching these lines. I feel very certain that Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote it, and yet I am not positive. Be it as it may, with apologies to the author, if the author be not Mrs. Wilcox, I present it here, as I know that many readers of this paper will be pleased to read these verses, and not a few will probably be glad to commit and fix them in memory:
“Our thoughts are moulding unmade spheres,
And like a blessing or a curse,
They thunder down the formless years,
And ring throughout the universe.
We build our futures by the shape
Of our desires, and not by acts.
There is no pathway of escape;
No man-made creeds can alter facts.
“Salvation is not begged or bought;
Too long this selfish hope sufficed;
Too long man reeked with lawless thought,
And leaned upon a tortured Christ.
Like shriveled leaves, these worn-out creeds
Are drooping from Religion’s tree;
The world begins to know its needs
And souls are crying to be free.
“Free from the load of fear and grief
Man fashioned in an ignorant age;
Free from the ache of unbelief
He fled to in rebellious rage.
No church can bind him to the things
That fed the first crude souls evolved;
For, mounting upon daring wings,
He questions mysteries all unsolved.
“Above the drone of creeds, above
The blatant voice of braying doubt,
He hears the still, small voice of Love,
Which sends its simple message out .
And clearer, sweeter, day by day,
Its mandate echoes from the skies,
‘Go roll the stone of self away,
And let the Christ within thee rise.’ ”
I have not crowded this paper with inferences, as I might, from the lives of those well known in history to prove the universality of this law in the mental realm. Neither have X taken examples, as I might, from my own experiences among those whose lives I have studied. The reason why I have not done so is because I want each one of my readers to do a little thinking himself on these lines, and find for himself in the lives about him the proofs of this great law which works ever for the evolution and upliftment of man.
Let the student in his reflection remember that the whole universe of thought is in one sense a great field or garden. The thoughts of those who live in this world create the seeds that take root and grow therein. Why one nation differs from another is largely because in the thought field of that nation the seeds that are sown differ from the seeds that are sown in the thought-field of another nation. These thoughts grow and produce like thoughts, with here and there some improvement, just as we find it in the material world.
If the worker who has embraced the optimism of the present day would remember that every thought clearly defined is a seed, and that when sent out it will find lodgment somewhere and grow and return a product . If he would remember that even those thoughts that go out from him lightly or not seriously meditated upon are seeds seeking mental soil just as well as other thoughts, then he would recognize the importance to himself of only sending out right thoughts lifting mankind to health, to progress, to advancement and to joy.
I boldly assert that only reflection is required on these lines to convince the most skeptical that the law in the material world of like producing like is also an unfailing law in the mental world. Thousands have proved it true, and the world is feeling the force of this truth more and more every day. If honest with ourselves, and true to our highest purposes, remembering that this law is absolute, we know that the path to success and honor and happiness can be discovered and opened by our own thoughts, and that these are our guides and chariots carrying us to the promised land seen in our dreams. Our thoughts act as guides at first, and when their power is fully understood and trusted, become chariots, moved by the universal force with which they are linked, and they bear us onward and upward to the realization of hopes. Our responsibility is to lift objective consciousness to recognize the power of thoughts, and to often force it to wait direction from the subjective before sending them forward on their mighty errands to all mankind.
SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE
In the papers which have preceded in this series, I have tried to illustrate in an elementary and simple way the growth or evolution of man from lower to higher consciousness. In the evolution of life generally, geologists have shown in plant and animal a life succeeding that which preceded it of a higher type than that which passed into nothingness, and this particularly in animal life. Their teachings also show that a type is found in mollusks, fishes and various fowls of the air and beasts, where upon reaching a certain point of development, no progress is made thereafter; because the purpose of all representing that life seems to be to meet man’s requirements in some way, in carrying forward his work of dominion over all the earth.
It is not the scope of this paper to analyze the accepted law of evolution or to seek to explain the point of division that arose in the development from the protoplasm of life to a life where self-consciousness began to assert itself, and man came into being as the highest type of the animal kingdom. Neither is it its purpose to go back to primitive man and trace through the eons when adding little by little to self-consciousness he grew to an intellectual and continually progressive stature, which marks his course from that time to the present day. It will be noted, by going back to the first paper in this series, that I made the subject of thought a special theme and showed its influence in the development of the human to higher consciousness, and to a higher intellectual grasp. Other papers preceding this have followed a line showing human growth as evidenced by man from early history to the type we have today, similar to some extent at least, to the gradual mental development of the child from youth to manhood.
It is to be noted that sensation is the lowest state or plane of consciousness, and from it grew concepts, then images, next ideas, then comparisons, and finally that through these comparisons ideas were grouped together forming thought, which has been and is the creative element in the human to bring about its own upliftment. And yet beyond the plane of intellect we must recognize another plane of consciousness in order to understand the limitless possibilities of human growth. The logic of intellect, to a wonderful extent on account of the reasoning powers, gave man his sovereignty over the brute creation and over his less advanced associates; but through the exercise of this intellectual power he felt instinctively that beyond cold logic there was a realm which seemed to it to be the undiscoverable, a realm of dreams and fancies and mysteries.
From a plane of consciousness that appeared to be separate from the plane of intellect came what is called the intuitive suggestions to consciousness. Often these intuitive suggestions had a practical bearing which intellect recognized and to which intellect gave consideration. Years ago man called these awakenings strange coincidences. Often they directed action in paths the intellect had not discerned, and led to results most satisfactory even on material lines. Again, through this undiscovered plane of consciousness gradually he became aware that back of intuition and so-called coincidences or happenings there must be an intelligence which in some way was part of himself. As man developed and reached higher stages of unfoldment where he began reaching out to be a factor for and in the world, he by degrees learned that life was far more complex than it had appeared to his ancestors, and that besides the physical plane and the intellectual or reasoning plane there must be at least another plane of consciousness and possibly many more of them. This other plane of consciousness from which springs the best impulses that lift humanity to forgetfulness of self and to noble work in life was little by little ascertained to be an unexplored land filled with treasures, and that by the gathering up of these, new powers would appear in the human. The Hindus long ago recognized this plane of consciousness and the path to it; and they also knew that here were to be discovered those mental treasures gathered from past experiences which only would be obtained by those whose mental unfoldment had bid them to seek and find. Among the richest treasures to be found there was an unfoldment to enable humanity to grasp the meaning of infinity, and the knowledge which teaches that the real self is independent of the body—that the real ego is a soul that always existed—an entity that cannot know death.
We have limited this word spiritual, and have confined its meaning too largely to something that was beyond and disassociated with life on the earth plane. The spiritual mind is an advanced plane of consciousness that only they traverse and reside within who have grasped the oneness of all life. Spiritual knowledge therefore comes only to the seekers for truth who travel over various avenues or climb certain heights on this plane. To know all the secrets, to possess all the treasures that are to be found there, would be to pierce the holy of holies and lay bare before the mental vision the wealth gathered through thousands of experiences and held secure within the compartments of the soul, and these can be revealed to those alone on that plane whose mental unfoldment proves that they are ready.
In a preceding paper entitled “The Dominant Ego,” I referred to the path from one plane of consciousness to another until the spiritual was reached, and had something to say of this plane. If one observed the mental development in the life of a child, he would find that for the first few years attention is only paid to the requirements of the physical, and the thoughts and wishes of consciousness hardly go beyond desires for warmth, food, comfort, rest and sleep. As progress is made and new desires begin to interest the child, there is a self-consciousness reached which advances him mentally from simply noting sensations, images and forms, to the formulating of ideas and the grouping of them together and by the making of comparisons, thereby producing thought. This next or intellectual plane is a broad one, and gradually is traversed more or less extensively by the youth as he develops into manhood, by his work in student life, and then later by his work in the world whatever it may be. There is a continued series of questions, comparisons, conclusions and experiments all through life on this great intellectual plane. As one traverses it he feels ambitions that can never be fully satisfied there, but makes progress which may be very great mentally and yet be wholly upon the plane of intellect—the plane that gives delight to one because of accomplishments, and because he learns upon it a broader method of reasoning, and a breadth of logic that could only be attained by experiences and experiments in active life.
Now the spiritual plane of consciousness is distinct and separate from the intellectual plane. Here we find the seat of the emotions, and here are soul aspirations translated into language and projected to the world. Again, sometimes those soul aspirations are of an order that language is not found to translate them so that they can be expressed intelligently to any, except to those who have gone through the same development, and even then by tones rather than by words. People are often found declaring that they cannot understand each other. If both spoke from the intellectual plane there would be no difficulty even if one had traveled over it further than the other; because it could quickly be made apparent to the other that ignorance might be a reason why he could not understand. If, however, one speaks of desire to do philanthropic work, to endow universities, to help man know himself that he may spread his influence for good, then that one is moved by impulses springing from his soul and reaching intelligence through spiritual consciousness; and, if his listener has his ear and life symphonies attuned only to the intellectual plane of being, he could not understand why his friend would want to employ his wealth, his time, his force, in avenues where he did not receive material return for the same, fairly adequate for payment for the money and service given.
All the best impulses of life arise from the aspirations of the soul and reach man through the spiritual plane of consciousness. It will be seen, therefore, by all readers of this paper, that all know something about the plane of spiritual consciousness, and that many in doing acts and deeds conceived thereon have often found joy and happiness by giving joy and happiness to others, through what appeared to the superficial observer to be personal sacrifices. I do not mean to say that from the intellect some acts of kindness may not spring that would hardly be classed as those from the spiritual plane of consciousness. I do, however, mean to say that it is because one has passed to that higher plane of consciousness that he is stirred from the depths of his heart by some grand heroic act of which he may be told, by some poem he may read, by some oration he may hear, and by the doing of kindnesses to help others progress that might seem to some sacrifices; but the thrill that any of these acts gives his whole being tells him they who call the price paid sacrifice might argue correctly from the plane of intellect but never from that higher plane of consciousness.
My subject is spiritual knowledge on this plane, and one must travel on many of its paths, and study in many of its fields in order to obtain this knowledge. It is first essential that one learns what the spiritual plane is and I think I have illustrated that so that it may be understood even by those reasoning from the intellectual. If so, remember that the knowledge to be found upon it is not merely of a character to give thrills of joy to one’s being or pleasure and happiness to others; but, within its own confines also is the supreme self, and when it rules the entire being it is masterful and knows no limitations.
Spiritual knowledge is obtained in the silence and by being still. Even in arguing from the intellectual plane, people have been accustomed for ages to go alone and sit down quietly, and as they say, think. Speaking from that plane, this would be a correct statement; but, as a matter of fact, little or no thinking is done. One has been in the habit of placing himself in that position of rest and quietness, not that he might think, but that thoughts or impressions would come to him from a portion of his being which he had not explored, or from that net work of vibrations encompassing all.
In human development, even on the higher planes of intellect, much has to be learned through experiments. Different students have different ways of mastering their lessons. They learn by experience. It is a mental law, or rather I would prefer to say a law of soul action, that if we come to a task at the same hour each day and sit in the same chair and same room, that task can be mastered more thoroughly and certainly more delightfully than if one works in a haphazard way and studies as he finds opportunity, without regard to this law which may not improperly be termed a psychological law of mental growth. In writing and urging upon the student to seek the silence, I have been flooded with letters from many whom I believe were in earnest in their work and desirous of advancement, saying either that they could not find the hour each day and asking what to do under such circumstances. In a general way, though recognizing I am repeating in substance instructions previously given, I will say, if one cannot find an hour for silent meditation except upon one day out of the week take that, it is better than nothing; and, if he could take it at the same time only once a week, it would be better than to take it at irregular intervals.
Again, if it could be taken every other day or three times a week, that is better than to take it once a week. Better than all, if striving for a particular thing, is to come to the sitting at the same hour and same time each day for a series of days until the end is accomplished. The importance of the task, and the greatness of it must determine much. If one took a month of sittings in the silence for a particular purpose and found that he was forced to limit them somewhat as to time occasionally, that would not retard him seriously, even though he might give but a half hour to a sitting on some days instead of an hour, provided always he came to them at the same time each day. I have learned and know that the faithful following of this course will bring results and wonderful results. In short, each one must work out his own salvation; and if any question if there may not be other ways than those I may suggest let me say doubtless there are. I am telling only of ways and paths which I have proven lead to the goal.
Were I to speculate upon what constitutes the fundamental ground work of spiritual knowledge, I would say that I have no doubt but that when we raise ourselves to the spiritual plane and begin to traverse its paths, that we then come into vibrative connection with human thought, human upreaching, and human longing which combined make up to a large extent that which we define as infinite force; and, therefore, from the great center to which all are bound we receive the knowledge we would. This is also why it comes to us only when we are still, because we do not place our objective selves into position to receive and to connect with this infinite force except by mental upreaching to this spiritual plane, and this can only be done in the hall of silence. When one has disciplined his mental vibrations to obey will, he can find the silence when in crowded halls or crowded trains. With the multitude he can be alone, oblivious to all with the exception of the Infinite and himself.
It has been clearly demonstrated that one passes through a mental evolution onward to the attainment of spiritual knowledge before he rises to complete nobility, true religion, godlike aspirations, absolute justice, unselfish love and sympathy for all mankind. Still, even beyond all this, it is through spiritual knowledge one attains to a clear comprehension of the oneness of life and the universal source from which all knowledge and power come to man. With knowledge gained on this plane come about one the protective forces warding off the lodgment of thoughts that are exceptional or depressing, and the attracting of the uplifting and upbuilding thoughts which are both masterful and creative.
Spiritual knowledge leads one primarily to an acquaintance with unfoldment on the spiritual plane. That acquaintance is followed by intimacy with it, and the taking of possession of treasures within the soul which were projected because of the repeated images held in consciousness representing the complete attainment of longings. At times, one will find himself wondering if he has not mistaken some hallucination or some desire for his belief that he had advanced to the spiritual plane. This should give him no anxiety because the intellectual self is assertive and will often argue that its dominion is complete. It may call him from the spiritual plane to sterner duties from time to time that are around him, and even this may be right and best for complete symmetrical development . Let him, however, return to the hall of silence, and place himself again and again upon that spiritual plane until he can go there when he would and wait, knowing from the Universal the knowledge he seeks will come to him, even though it cannot be found in any book or paper that may have been written. From this plane alone is projected the force which makes ideals real; and from it he will learn the divine is within his own selfhood, and that from the silence he may bring in the fullness of time to consciousness all the secrets surrounding the mystery of life.
THE GOAL
The goal sought for by all mankind is freedom. Freedom from thralldom, whether contained within the shackles of ancient or modern religious creeds, or within prejudices which are the outgrowth of environment and false teachings. Truth leads to freedom, for truth is freedom while error is slavery. Truth is progress, light and heaven. Error is defeat, darkness and hell.
Until one has unfolded so that he is willing to accept truth, no matter what belief or idol is destroyed thereby, he is not ready to stand with the progressive ones ushering in the dawn of the new era with its glad song of joy. Some give up error little by little, because they love it as they do their bad habits; and yet error and bad habits alike are evils that drop away from one when he ceases to love them. If one questions this statement, I ask he reflect a little and it will be clear to him. Desire for anything quickened into love may be made an irresistible attracting force. Self-criticism indulged in till it becomes self-condemnation is a weakness, a remnant of a morbid inward affection for what one in his full intellectual manhood detests.
The path to freedom is only entered through the gateway of self-control. At that gateway one should take a mental inventory and drop there his load of false theories, false beliefs, worn-out dogmas and narrow prejudices. If he in his self-examination at that time passes over all questions as to where, how and when he loaded his mentality up with all these burdens, and simply takes cognizance of the fact that he finds himself weighed down with an unworthy load which he desires to drop; then without a sigh turns his back upon them, it will be proof that his love has now mounted higher and that he has grasped the true and rejected the false. Few have so critically studied their combined emotions, feelings, reasonings, as to discover that their own faults, whims and vices could only secure firm hold upon them, because of the fact of this perverse love which had a natural growth from seeds sown in the subconscious through wanton and exceptional desires harbored in the past. Habits to be discarded must be uprooted like weeds in the gardens that choke the growth of the plants which it is one’s desire to cultivate and improve. One’s habit of thinking brings forth the seeds called thoughts, and these seeds are passed to subconsciousness by a natural law. Thoughts are serious things, and they find their origin either in love or fear. If found in fear the images created are repellant rather than attractive; and yet the mental eye is turned to them again and again, bearing the suggestions they emanate to subconsciousness precisely as if they were sent there by true desire and love. The continued mental drawing of them could not be because of hate for them— it must be because of a sort of infatuation which can exist only through perverse love. This is why a multitude in this world are going forward feeling life a tread-mill, and the world at large a mental realm filled with unsatisfied longings, blasted hopes, and dismal failures. The key to happiness is right thinking, and it can never be held secure until one has buried forever the phantom will-o-the-wisp named fear. One thing the student should always remember and that is that he must work out his own way to freedom. Others may suggest, but he must do the work. If the path to freedom start from the mental plane called self-control, no little calm reflection is necessary that he may know he has passed that point, for then only can he enter the right path.
The goal is somewhat shifting, because one seldom wraps his whole being about a single ideal; and also he quickly reaches out to other ideals as one after another of those sought is won. As new ones are seen or are created by thought, through man’s mental sense of hearing is being wafted to him continually the refrain of the joyous song of progress, “onward, onward.” Progression to higher things is an eternal law of the soul, and even the passing of it from the physical cannot limit its unfolding. It is not a wish or desire as to the future that determined this—it is a universal law of human life that the soul must expand and grow. Death or separation of the soul from the physical body does not bar its development. It is the unseeable ego of being and that only is real, and its unfoldment is now known to be as limitless as thought. One presses forward to a particular goal; and upon arrival there, new ideals have been presented to consciousness so that he may not always recognize when a desire is attained, for there in the distance he sees what has now become his goal and it is still beyond. Swinbourne with his brilliant imagery caught this truth and in full harmony with the philosophy I am presenting wrote:
“The waves are a joy to the sea-mew, the meads to the herd,
And a joy to the heart is a goal that it may not reach.
No sense that forever the limits of sense engird,
No hearing or sight, that is vassal to form or speech,
Learns ever the secret that shadow and silence teach,
Hears ever the note that or ever they swell, subside,
Sees ever the light that lights not the loud world’s tide,
Clasps ever the cause of the lifelong scheme’s control
Where though we pursue, till the waters of life be dried,
The goal that is not, and ever again the goal.
Friend, what have we sought or seek we, whate’er betide,
Though the seaboard shift its mark from afar descried.
But aims whence ever anew shall arise to the soul,
Love, thought, song, life, but show for a glimpse and hide
The goal that is not, and ever again the goal.”
This receding goal so poetically described by Swinbourne is but another proof of the boundlessness of human growth. The thought breathed by the poet in these lines, recognizing the secret of progress beyond the limits of sense, and revealed only in “shadow and silence” is a truth, that only they may learn who have worked and wrought in the deep valley of silence.
The goal sought can be won, and yet when won another and another appear. Life can know no stagnation. With each unfoldment a broader and broader vista arises. The goal has not receded, but in the mental evolution attained by upreaching and work a grander and a nobler desire has been born, lifting thought to higher aims and holier purposes.
This upliftment points to the absolute; and is in one sense the striving of the human to blend itself with the universal—to lose itself by finding God. As each advance is made, more of the infinite is compassed and is given expression to in one’s daily life. Man adds to his power as the divine unfolds within his selfhood. Each new awakening gives keenness to desire which gradually becomes so broadened and intensified that it loses all selfish purpose. To uplift man, to do good in the world, become then both a purpose and an ambition. When this height is reached one may know that he is blending himself with and into the Universal, that the Christ within is unfolding, that he has here in earth life entered into the Kingdom of Heaven, and therefore he cannot fail to realize that the highest of goals may be won, and his only limitations are represented by his desires, efforts and purposes.
SHAKESPEARE’S PUCK CONSIDERED METAPHYSICALLY
One turns to Shakespeare and other of the great poets and finds myriads of prophetic utterances which almost startle him; because, though mystical, when written, the wonderful inventions of a later day have revealed their meanings. The thoughtful ones question if these poets could then have given an intelligent interpretation of their own affirmations which embodied the prophecies. The metaphysical student of today recognizes these utterances as flashes of soul knowledge to consciousness that vibrate when the objective mind is still and receptive. They represent triumphs of the soul in asserting itself—the full meaning of this being clear from the intuitional plane, but mystical from the intellectual.
The dramatist who creates characters drops from or writes outside of himself. Then objective consciousness by a natural law retires from active operation, and the characters he creates speak a language of their own quite independent of his lines of thought and reasoning perhaps, and often surprising to himself. This is my deduction from a careful study of dramatists and novelists generally, and many of them have personally confirmed this conclusion. One prominent novelist in this country once told me that he often labored to direct creations of his in this or that path and failed. They seem, he said, after coming into existence to have a mental force of their own, and were often decidedly headstrong.
Shakespeare was very young when he wrote “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and a youthful tone pervades the entire play. Puck in a certain way embodies the fancies of youth, but yet in another way represents a mentality merging the subconscious into the conscious and being completely in control of both. Primarily, therefore, he represents in one sense the ideal of what man today is seeking to be. He was Oberon’s will combined with a personality of his own that reveled in fun. He waited to receive the command of a master mind. Then with full confidence of his
ability to accomplish what is asked of him he turns quick to his work. If he made a blunder and was told of it he was ready to correct; but for all he was one of those happy-go-lucky fellows that, whether right or wrong, he enjoyed to the full all there was in life.
The teachings of the practical metaphysics of today is that the soul is the receptacle of wisdom, and the subconscious which has its home in the soul and is of it, is passing vibrations of soul wisdom to objective consciousness as and when connections are made. The soul itself is ready to throw its wealth out to the sense-plane; but, in order to do that it must make connection with it, that is, with objective consciousness. The lines between the subconscious and the objective are always strung and they cannot be broken by any force while the soul finds its dwelling place within the physical body. The difficulty is that the receiver (if I may use that term) of objective consciousness is not always properly adjusted. In the experimental work which has been done by man in order to understand his whole mental nature, he has found more or less difficulty in adjusting this receiver. By passiveness in the silence, or by merging his thought as noted above into a personality, a creature of his own imagination, he has helped to make this connection over and over again. In years past and at times now, one may regard these messages sent from subconsciousness as day-dreams growing out of the imagination. In a sense they partake of that nature, but much of what has been termed imagination has later been found to be soul images of conditions to be, bringing man to know the possibilities opening before him. There are, of course, wanton dreams which imagination may take up from time to time that are not clear and true vibrations of the subconscious; yet, in a certain sense they are in part of these vibrations, and back of them will always be found a kernel of truth. Puck in his mental make-up is absolutely ideal. If he questions at all, he asks, what would you have me do, I can do it and I will.
Oberon’s first request of or command to Puck was that he find and fetch a certain flower upon which “the bolt of cupid fell,” giving to it strange magic if its juice were dropped into eyes while one is asleep. Here may be a hint of suggestion either with or without hypnotism, but that did not concern Puck. The task was great and speed as swift as thought bidden; and then, in full confidence of his ability to perform the errand, Puck prophetically replies,
“I’ll put a girdle round about the earth .In forty minutes.”
Limitations were unknown in Puck’s vocabulary, for his home was in the mystic realm of fairyland:—
“There every laddie becomes a knight,
And a fairy queen each lass;
And lips learn laughter, and eyes grow bright
As the dew drops in the grass.”
In this bright picture of fairy dell there is a reflection of a vision of a world of happy homes which the philosopher may see in reverie when man shall know himself, and live true to the teachings of the soul throbbings to consciousness.
In all the work entrusted to Puck there was combined with it something of the old teachings of Grecian mythology, Egyptian religion, or East Indian jugglery. History with all its question marks pertaining to earlier civilization, yet authentically records what have been called unexplainable incidents in the growth or upward trend of man. Today, they who have embraced what may be called the philosophy of practical metaphysics, translate the herb, the flower, the potion, the prayer, by the single word, suggestion.
It will be noted that Puck, acting unrestrained was ‘that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow,” a “merry wanderer of the night,” bent on fairy tricks; but, under the direction of Oberon, the king of the fairies, he worked to overcome vexations and perplexities in human life and so indirectly helped one to find happiness and to know himself.
As one looks over the wonderful achievements of man in inventions, he will see in the great textile and other manufactories of the world more startling things done by machinery, working with an exactness human hands could never attain to, than the imagination of writers ever presented to the child mind as the mystic doings of fairies in fairy land. How many of the great inventive geniuses of modern times received the first suggestions that started them forward in their work of discovery through impressions from mental images which imagination drew? Who shall answer? These inventors are today, each in his own particular department, the Pucks to do the bidding of the demand not of one man, but of humanity, to furnish what it needs in its upward reaching to unite itself with infinite force of which it is a part . More and more as one studies into man’s growth must he feel that imagination in drawing its bright pictures never did and never can go beyond the possible attainments of man. In detail the accomplishment may differ somewhat from the vision, and he who conceived it may be the suggester rather than the doer—each has his place in the economy of upliftment .
Place one who represented the average mental standard of man fifty years ago in the midst of the hustling life surrounding those now in our crowded cities; and, as he passed from one manufactory to another, as he noted the adaptation of steam and electricity to man’s ends and purposes, as he noted the automatic work of material hands to produce what human hands had done before, truly he would declare no fairy land was ever imagined in his day more wonderful than the real one before him, and the end is not yet . Many of the great inventors were the butt of ridicule once. They were called, as many who are laboring on unfinished work are today, visionary, dreamers, dwellers in fairy land.
And yet with all this wealth of history before man, some question if onward movement may be made in the coming fifty years to compare with that of those just passed. There is no halting place where a dead level begins between man and his approach to infinite force is the firm affirmation of the advanced metaphysician of this age. All that man has dreamed or imagined of things to be will be wrought out by someone in a day to come. Thought cannot conceive of anything that may not be brought to expression. He who first uttered it may be only the suggester, but the doer will appear.
Puck stands forth today as a crude conception of man with ripened power, but he will be possessed of judgment which Puck lacked; while fairy land is the world about us with its hives of industry where machinery toils, with its galleries of art, with its homes of luxury, with its schools of learning and their songs of joy, and above all with its future promise of man’s emancipation from fear. That future promise beggars description, for the unfoldment of today cannot image in its fullness the man to be. Wireless telegraphy seems to be the line reaching out to the dim, dark corridors of occultism to aid in lifting telepathy from mysticism to the intellectual plane. Man is growing more conservative now, and waits to investigate before pronouncing phenomena he does not understand fraud. The day of the uniting of the spiritual, or the mystical, with the objective plane by a vibrative law to be clearly denned is year by year approaching. When that day dawns, fairy land and occult haunts will be blended into the real world where man evolved to a being with infinite power will stand forth clothed with majesty, and assert and manifest his dominion in the universe over all thought, life and power.
DESTINY
The earliest teachings that come to childhood are coupled with calamities which will befall if they are not followed. To the child is continually being presented a series of warnings. Do this if you will, and the result may be serious in one way or another. Do that, and there will be the opposite result. In short, the child is trained to follow a line consistent with the mental advancement of the parent or teacher, as the case may be. Through early youth a similar instruction follows. From it as years go by one may and doubtless will depart in no small degree; and later, with an unfoldment greater perhaps than those who taught him, he himself in turn teaches youth the limitations he has learned.
It is evident, therefore, that youth starts out in life with theories or principles formed or based upon an earlier mental development than that which greets him as he enters into the world; and soon he is filled with a feeling of unrest by questions he asks of himself—”Do my parents—do these teachers know whereof they speak?” With some natures rebellion comes quick and respect for one’s own opinion is formed early. With others the effect of this training has been to restrain and make them question if they are not wrong, providing their ideas are diametrically opposed to those of parents and teachers who have taught them. This simple illustration I bring forward to show in part why life was long claimed to be a battle with opposing forces. Today a child is given more liberty than he was twenty-five or thirty years ago, and has a better chance to develop his own qualities of discernment than he had at that time; yet still, in every household, community, village, city, a large amount of restraint is still exercised and a philosophy is being taught from which one must later break in order that he may grow.
One’s conception of truth—of a code of living—is based upon his environment and his mental equipment. Some have grown very slowly with time and reflect in a large part the early teachings they received, having retained much of the superstition not merely of those who taught them, but of generations back of that; because, many who taught reflected their own rudimentary teachings, not permitting their experiences to modify these, although their truest thinking was modified thereby. This age is one to be marked by a wonderful development in mankind generally, and old theories of life are not only being discarded silently but openly to all the world. I am presenting here no argument against any religion that may have been taught and passed away or any religious belief of the present day; but rather, simply calling attention to the fact that the early training in childhood has been such as to make one believe that life is a kind of battle, rather than a harmonious blending of himself with the universal force of the universe. Youth has been and is being taught a code of ethics based on crude and ancient teachings. He finds they are not practical as he delves into life’s real problems. Naturally, bewilderment and questionings follow. He finds himself not in harmony with his early instructors and so often turns to self-censure; because he feels, on account of the impressions then fixed on his mentality, that something must be wrong in him, or that he is in rebellion against what the great mass of people older and more experienced than he think is right.
Precept is one thing; action is another. As one quietly looks over his record in life, he will find that precept, which he held for a time as something almost sacred, came to him through a religion he now does not believe, and he finds in life his action is not attuned to that precept. This brings forth self-criticism, because his life does not conform to it. Even after discovering all this he seems to be inclined to repeat to his child or his pupil, as the case may be, the precepts which he does not follow, believing perhaps that in youth it is well they be followed for a time at least . It is true undoubtedly that different laws of life have to be established for different ages of children and youth, and also different methods of discipline. However, none of us are too certain yet that we know how to train a child. As the world grows older and more intelligent, the child is being made a companion at an earlier age than ever before. He is talked and reasoned with, rather than told of the rules and laws he must follow. This gives him more poise and strength. Is it not true that it gives him this added power because he is being taught in this way to think and reason, and therefore to draw conclusions from experience and from the broader teachings of history in general? Does not this lead gradually to a blending with the Universal? Does it not teach self-reliance, the forerunner of intellectual advancement?
As youth develops into manhood, the word Destiny rises strong before him. He is filled with longings and desires and hopes. His elders are telling him of the dangers beyond that lie in the great swift currents of life. His path to success is depicted to him as a battle even with nature’s elements as well as with foes surrounding him. In a certain way this teaching would imply that each man was fighting his way to success against the world on the other side. The whole world would be too formidable a foe to combat. In this psychological age another teaching is growing into prominence and one proven by scientific research and that is, that man is not in rebellion against the infinite force of the universe, nor are his desires and wishes and loves contrary to the purpose of Infinite Energy. And more than that, he can harmonize himself with that Energy and so form a mighty battalion were there need of it, because “God and one make a majority.” The’ optimists of today who come with their brighter philosophy declare that life is not a struggle, but that it is a song. They declare that the infinite force of the universe has no purpose save that of helping and aiding all that live. Instead of the Infinite being a force whose special attributes are to determine whether its laws are kept or not and punish those who do not keep them, one’s own individuality in this age has passed with thinking man into a great energy which permeates all life, being its source, and holds within itself the potentiality for the advancement and upliftment of all. To grow to one’s desires and wishes and longings is to learn the blending between him and this source of all life, and to call from It, the Universal, that power which makes desire, realization, and hope a living truth and joy.
As long as man regarded the Infinite as one that had made laws and attached penalties thereto, and also one who might under certain conditions of repentance give absolution to those who had broken them, so long would man who held those views continue to be merely one who must entreat and beg for opportunities of advancement as the source of power was claimed to be entirely without himself.
When philosophers began to study man from the Eastern point of view they came to new conclusions in regard to him. They studied his growth as history reflected it . They noted what he had done, and they found that the world’s great ones always possessed within themselves an unfaltering faith in their own powers. They compared this to the Hindu view—that all the wisdom of man is coiled up within his soul; and then they saw that this teaching was in harmony with the conclusions of men of achievement, even though it may have been that these conclusions were only vaguely drawn. Within themselves these men recognized qualities and powers to be developed by discipline, ample to accomplish the purpose and desire which was felt to be the wish of the soul. Primarily, the early Christian teaching was that man’s chief work was to fit himself while in this life for a life to come, paying little regard to the ambitions that arose in consciousness from his soul regarding material and intellectual advancement here. Gradually, of course, the Christian church modified in many particulars these teachings; but there is a refrain still which comes from it, telling us that above all the salvation of one’s soul is greater than all mundane honors, advancement and reward. To work out one’s own salvation, as I understand the Christian religion as interpreted from the books and sermons I have read, it is essentially necessary to conform one’s life to teachings regarding sanctification by prayer, fasting, acts of generosity, and above all thoughtlessness of self and self-aggrandizement. In the economy of life, there is no doubt but that certain good may result from the practice of any of these so-called requisites to salvation. It seems to me that intelligence is now reaching the point where it understands that the salvation of the soul originally spoken of really means acquaintance with the soul and its possibilities. When man generally arrives at this conclusion (and he is fast reaching it, as I understand the history of mental development today) there will be a mighty human advance and such a rapid one as history has never chronicled before, because all life will pulsate the great truth that man at last has come to know himself.
This primitive teaching that man’s thought and individuality were separate and distinct from the soul and usually in controversy with it, is fast passing into oblivion. Man has not a soul to save because man does not possess a soul; but man is a soul and he has that soul (or himself) to discipline and lift to higher stages of discernment, use and influence in the world. There is a mighty difference between possessing a soul, and being a soul. This is man’s destiny —this is what is meant by “know thyself,” even if the writer of that Greek maxim did not fully comprehend all that was expressed in those two words, which were flashed to consciousness from his soul. It is from Hindu philosophy that man first learned of the powers within himself to be brought forth by discipline. It is from the Hindu philosophy first, as I understand it, that man learned that by the blending of himself with the universal he established harmony in life, and brought selfhood up to its true position in the world of thought. Back of all evolution was thought. Back of all human evolution is the soul struggling for greater expression. All life itself gravitates to the soul, and it must be for the sake of the soul alone that solar systems swing in space, and that the universe exists.
Without using the Hindu terms as to planes of consciousness, we have been making serious experiments on what we call the subliminal plane of human consciousness. This word is derived from two Latin words and may be defined as that plane below or back of the threshold of sensation. In short, we have carried our discipline so far on the plane of intellectual consciousness that in ascending a new vista opened before us; and, in recognizing man in his entirety, we found this higher plane of consciousness and from it caught glimpses of the Universal, and then first learned, acceptably to objective consciousness, the blending of the human with the Source.
Following this line of thought and thereby recognizing the greatness of man in his entirety, the word destiny is invested with a new meaning. The wisdom coiled up within the soul determines that destiny provided one learns to enter into conscious possession of it, and this he may learn through discipline. He need not seek favor from an unknown in the skies—he need not beg of a God he does not understand— he must do his part in unfoldment by reaching up, figuratively speaking, and taking God or the Universal by the hand, tuning his vibrations with those of his desire, and thus establishing the connection and making himself One with the Infinite. If by auto-suggestion he may learn to speak from the spiritual plane of consciousness, he can make this connection, and the work of advancement will begin. He must hold the connection after making it however, and as thought is the wire on which the lines are strung, he must keep his thought true— true to his wishes, his desires, his aspirations, his ambitions. Thought is kept true when one holds firm the image of himself with purpose gained before his mental eye. It seems in looking backward from the higher plane of consciousness that this is simple, but many have found it difficult. Were I to try to discover the cause of the difficulty in holding and keeping the connection with the Universal, I would say primarily it was doubtless the effect of our early religious teaching which told us of two forces in nature, God and the devil, one good and the other evil. From consciousness we must wipe out all thoughts of an opposing force, situate in some unknown heaven. There is no opposing force between us and our desires for advancement except self-created. That force of which so much has been written is an imaginary one which was presented by a crude theology; because, in reasoning from cause to effect, our early philosophers, it appears, could not understand the failures in life without there being the influence of an outside evil force, of almost indomitable power. Then, they did not comprehend the powers within man; and they did not know that thought itself had the power not merely to create ideals, but to achieve them. In the primitive theories also, ambition to advance was regarded as a questionable good, and so it was believed the Infinite himself might thwart one in this attempt. Now we have learned that within the human is the freedom of choice; and therefore, the full power in his own consciousness to determine what is right and what is wrong.
If one accepts these conclusions, drawn in part from the philosophy of the East, in part from personal experiences, and set forth herein as conclusions of the most advanced students in practical psychology, let him note first that I use the word psychology not merely in its technical sense, but as presenting the philosophy of life learned from human experiences, whether gathered in the East or gathered in the West. Man has reached that point now that he is not troubling himself about the desires of an infinite force called God. That force he now knows aids and glories in man’s unfolding. Man recognizes in that force also the life principle throwing out its vibrations to assist in broadening every consciousness within the human, whether it be physical, mental or spiritual. He recognizes growth as a stepping from one plane of consciousness to another. He now speaks often from the real center which the Hindus would call the plane of spiritual consciousness, and philosophers in the West the subliminal, as it is the plane beyond the limits of the objective. The power of suggestion is one today that is being used wisely in therapeutics all over the world. Physicians have been brought into the presence of one in delirium and dissolution near, and by calling the name of the sick one and following it with strong language embodying the thought that he or she shall not go, that there is work for him or her to do here, have thus arrested what has been called death, but which is rather the parting of the spirit from the physical body. Instances are now on record showing that such suggestions have been used hundreds and hundreds of times with success; and now man is beginning to understand better than ever before the meaning of the phrase which long ago seemed to be poetry and which he now knows to be fact: “There is no death.”
If the power of suggestion is so great as to often prevent dissolution, does it not argue, as is claimed by the optimists of today, that it is great enough to create fulfillment of desire if only the seed is planted firmly into subconsciousness, either by suggestions from another or from one’s own self. I recognize the fact that when we ask for scientific proof we must not take isolated cases—we must have the necessary cumulative evidence to convince all who are open to conviction. There are some who are so deeply imbued with false theology and the superstition of the past that they are not open to receive truth, because they have satisfied themselves as to what they want to believe is true and they do not want to believe anything else is true.
To those who question as to whether their hopes and desires may be fulfilled, I have repeatedly said: “Put the question in the negative.” “None of you,” I have said, “can believe your desires will not come to you.” If you cannot believe the opposite look at the mental growth of those who represent the advanced toilers in the world and you will find that they always recognized themselves in reality to be simply a product of thought. They will tell you that they can trace all along the lines of their lives victory coming to them through fulfillment of desire, after they had fixed firmly in consciousness the image of themselves reflecting the attainment embodied in the suggestion.
All this goes to show, I claim, that our noblest thoughts and desires are flashes of truth to objective consciousness from the subliminal. They are truths—pictures of what we should be—soul language sent forth to impress the work-a-day consciousness of its duty and responsibility in the unfoldment striving for expression.
For ages western religious teachers have taught that there were two voices within ourselves, one impelling to good and the other to evil. Out of this, the old-fashioned theology discovered a God who whispered to man prompting him to the best, and a devil who was even more active in prompting him to evil. Under the light of modern psychology, we recognize that these early philosophers in reasoning with the mental equipment they had at that time, could not interpret man’s questioning with self except by accounting for it in this way.
One is always confronted with problems, and yet there is a choice offered him as to doing this, or doing that. He reasons as to what is best, and makes his decision. At times, he may feel that he acts against his better judgment yet feels impelled to do so. To act in this way is called following the dictates of intuition, and not the logic of reasoning. It is quite difficult to explain this mental process to some; and yet to those who may be called advanced students in modern psychology it is a very simple self-evident fact. Wild dreams of honor, luxury and happiness are one thing; but real desires, which are intuitional breathings of the soul are something quite different, though often there may be a blending in part between the two. He who claims that he desires any advancement the world may give can only be certain he desires that advancement from his soul when he is willing to pay the price it may demand in work, in time, in money, in sacrifice as the case may be. To illustrate this somewhat, let a young boy or girl without means feel a desire for education, and, as the foundation for that, a complete college course. If that is desired, one must be willing to do the study required and devote the years to study that the curriculum may demand. If he or she or others feeling a like impulse do not hesitate to pay the price, then I claim that goal is for them to win. I also claim that when they fully determine to carry out that purpose, ways will open to them; but, as long as they hesitate and question as to where to obtain the means to do this, so long will difficulties arise and the path be obstructed.
Anxiety scatters force, while affirmations planted into the subconscious are creative. Let one desire foreign travel, but see no way to its accomplishment. In the silence he should consider the hardships, the dangers, the expenses attending it; and if, after doing this, he feels he would be glad to endure all, or pay all of these demands and more if required in order that he may travel, then he may be certain that no contrary force is working against him, and centralize his energy, calling forth from his soul all its powers to help him in gaining the end longed for. In short, all opposition may thus be wiped out, for opposition is self created; and of all that have life, it is only man, possessing self-consciousness, who has the power to impede the coming to him of his own good. To become a magnet to draw his own good to him, one must learn and know that this new or advanced psychology of optimism is a philosophy founded and built upon wide experience, and represents the logical conclusions of scientific investigation. Its foundation pillars rest on no theories of speculation as to the hopes or guesses of philosophers of a distant past. Its truths are drawn from the experiences of those who have wrought and toiled and accomplished; as well as from those who are now working and winning and rejoicing. The law of achievement is written in the records of the lives of those who yearn and work and dare and do.
“The future works out great men’s destinies:
The present is enough for common souls,
Who, never looking forward, are indeed
Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age
Are petrified forever.”
The day of stern, inexorable foreordination is past. Destiny whose echo in one’s boyhood chilled the soul now peals forth a joyful sound telling of grander melodies which are within the province of the human to control. The gathered wealth which is coiled up within the soul must be delved for, as man delves for earth’s precious minerals and gems that lie deep below its surface. Mining geologists in studying the upheavals on the earth’s surface find what may be called the ear-marks of a mine—of gold or copper or silver or lead, as the case may be. Sometimes, of course, the ledge appears on the surface and has some rich values even there; sometimes it does not so appear. The miner sinks a shaft or drives a tunnel to learn the formation and what he may find below. Sometimes even with wide experience, what appeared to be a valuable fissure vein on top pinches out as depth is obtained. The most experienced mining engineer cannot be positively certain of finding a great mine until exploitation takes place.
Man, on the other hand, however, can be absolutely certain of finding the wealth he is looking for by delving into the soul. In the silence he learns what are really his desires. In the silence he learns how deeply he desires their fulfillment and the glory of making what is called sacrifice in order that they may be attained. When he reaches this point, of one thing he may be certain, and that is the wealth within the soul is ample to fulfill and more than fulfill all these longings and desires. He must seek to find—he must wait and work.
When we note what physicians have done repeatedly in arresting the soul as it was about to leave the body, calling one back to earth life, it surely ought to be simple to understand how one in his full strength and vigor can by strong auto-suggestion, or by receiving strong suggestion from another awaken dormant powers within himself and pave the way to success on the lines of desire. It may be that he should sit in the silence over and over again and repeat the words embodying the suggestion. It may be at such times that he should draw an image of himself as he would be and gaze upon it and. lift himself toward it as though he were already there. I knew one young man who was struggling in the preparatory school to fit himself for college, and to help himself over the rough places was doing some teaching in the same institution. When the day was done he told me he often went when alone to the blackboard and wrote his name and placed after it A.B., indicating Bachelor of Arts, and A.M., Master of Arts; and, as he was looking forward to taking a law course, he frequently would add LL.B. to the others, and then would look at what he had written, imagining a day to come when he would be entitled to these degrees. This is one way of holding the image in one’s mind of what he wants to be. His purpose was to attain those degrees. He therefore coupled his name with them, writing them before his vision. Although this young man may have known nothing of the philosophy of advanced thought, he was doing the right thing to impress upon the subconscious the desire of his heart; and when that is done, the subconscious by an inevitable law of its own arouses dormant faculties within one’s being to active work and through this action the desired end is attained. In due time, let me add just here, this young man attained all these degrees and won honors in his profession.
Over and over again in life one will find himself face to face with what is termed an emergency. Immediate words must be spoken or immediate action taken. At such times those who have worked in the silence are always strong, and flashes from that soul reservoir of wisdom are sent to consciousness with a potency irresistible, and right action follows. This is why often in modern psychology it is said that right action follows right thinking. Right thinking is holding thought continuously true to the purpose desired. One holds thought true when at divers times through the day he images himself what he would be and sees himself working among men in that particular avenue or sphere, just as if the end desired has been attained, never disturbing the vibrations so created with a single doubt.
Destiny, then, is a word glorious in its meaning to those who work in this higher thought. It brings to them at last the fulfillment of desire, and the complete happiness which can only follow the consciousness that they have done the work they were to do, and that they have done it well.
ADMIRATION, THE HERALD OF HOPE
In the study of the development of the men who have made history, one has been attracted rather to the strength and completeness which marked the hero’s character than to that of its method of growth. The man who had wrought and accomplished interested the average reader because of what he had done. The study of his growth—the metaphysical or psychic cause of the building up of that character has until within the last quarter of a century interested only the few. Today, it is asked on almost every hand not what one has done, but rather why did he do that work—why did he launch out in this or that direction? What mental action was the motive cause back of it all? In short, the reader now asks what inspired hope within one that he dared undertake these mighty tasks, loaded with all the responsibilities directly and indirectly associated with them. The historian has vaguely hinted at a divine leadership as the primary cause; but, coupled with that leadership, there must have been a constant incentive or stimulus to lure or impel him on.
Back of hope must be its creator, from which it derives life, and in accordance with the strength and power of that creative force, does its offspring hope limit or expand its range. Hope, it is true, may spring up unbidden, because it is of the soul—a throbbing to objective consciousness from the great reservoir within. Longings may give roseate glows to hope, but they could not create it . Back of longings must be a subtle force, for within them is the spirit of daring suggesting purposeful action.
Man awakens to longings and hopes through suggestions of latent powers within his selfhood, and these suggestions usually spring from outside sources. Within the soul are longings and hopes, and these are awakened to seek expression, I claim, chiefly by the thrills which come to objective consciousness through what is commonly called flattery or praise. To produce the thrill which starts hope to send out vibrations, it is essential the praise possess the sterling ring of truth. It must also be a praise which reaches to the height of admiration in order to lift consciousness to these new conceptions of powers lying dormant within the soul.
Self-consciousness which marks the evolution of life from the brute to the human has been and is, in its primitive sense, timid, weak and vacillating. It opened a new mental pathway where fleeting visions of wondrous possibilities were shown. For a time the human must have questioned—must have doubted long. This is plainly evident today; because, as new mental attainments are won by man—new powers revealed within his selfhood—he is found asking in the midst of his self-congratulations, are these, indeed, for me? Man, it seems, must grow step by step to recognize the godship within him. Mental, like physical strength, must be gained by degrees. He grows to the highest who works and dares for principle, and who thinks and loves what is right and best. Genius, in its truest sense, is the conscious appropriation of powers within the soul. Self-consciousness reaches the maximum height when it is attuned to receive the vibrations from the soul and to focus them so as to mould life to reflect those aspirations. In its elementary or critical scope self-consciousness is conservative in the extreme. It is a guardian and preserver, rather than an exhorter to do and dare. When it prompts to reaching upward to ideals, then it is stimulated by the throbbings of longings and hopes sent forth from the soul reservoir. It has then come into communication with the true self, for one must ever remember that man himself is a soul. In some way is that soul attached to his physical self, as through it life vibrates; and yet it is detachable when objective consciousness slumbers, and more, it can never know death, for it is himself.
In this paper I am attempting to show the mental pathway which leads from the outer world to the compartments (if I may so name them) where longings and hopes reside within the soul. This pathway over which thought may travel and start into action the vibrations from this monitor revealing the godship in man is known particularly to admiration. Here I class admiration as a vital thing, because it finds expression only through thought, and thought long ago was found to possess creative power.
For illustrations as to the proofs on which this conclusion is based, I refer one first to the history of his own mental development . I venture he will find as he recalls his own progress that over and over again words of admiration from another, as to powers possessed by himself, was the direct cause of his own introspection and discovery of them. It appeared when first he heard it a half-truth. He questioned with objective consciousness, but did not argue in opposition. He reflected. He recalled it up again and again into consciousness. Deeper and deeper into the sub-soil of the subconscious was entering the seed planted there by a friend in friendship and love. With its rooting it roused dormant longings; and hope recognized the time was ripe for consciousness to receive its vibrations and give manhood a broader expression, thus adding to life a grander meaning.
Carlyle in “Heroes and Hero Worship” recognized the power of admiration to start in movement these wonderful vibrations:—
“No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours the vivifying influence in man’s life.”
If I am correct in my conclusions from the study of mental development in man as above set forth, then one may see the absolute necessity of his being in an atmosphere of full appreciation in order that the highest powers within his soul may be brought into expression. Longings and hopes are of the selfhood within the soul, which is the great background of being where they are entrenched; but, unless vibrations from these reach objective consciousness, one does not rise to the full stature of human expression. Man’s early method of training was wrong. It taught, or attempted to teach, rectitude through fear. It did not recognize the godlike powers within the human to be brought forth through discipline. It did not recognize the Christ in man.
As one begins to understand the possibilities of the human, then he is almost overpowered with the subtle meaning which surrounds the mandate, seek and ye shall find. Where and how to seek become then his burning questions. When he awakens to know that he being a soul is in full command of it, that it is ever growing and ever longing to express its powers, and that these powers are limitless, then he may declare, “I am It”; and, through the vibrations this single affirmation starts, almost feel his oneness with God.
To reach this exalted plane may require discipline of a most exacting nature. To start on the pathway it is requisite at least to know where it is. If he finds himself in an environment of carping and criticism, growth will be retarded. He should be in an atmosphere of harmony where appreciation dwells in order to attain the most symmetrical growth; and that he must seek and find.
It may be there is here suggested a lesson to both parents and teachers. Will they please take it in the spirit I give it? I have found it to be true by the tests of experiments, and I believe it is so simple that it will be self-evident to all. Indeed, in its fullest sense admiration is more than the herald of hope. It is almost a sentinel as well, for it rouses hope to know the hour has come for it to rise to expression, uplifting its possessor to loftier ideals.
HOPE, A VIBRATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS
Hope is human, and primarily marks progression to a point where self-consciousness awoke, and where evolution paused in the ascending order of life, because it had brought forth its crowning work by producing an entity, possessing limitless powers of growth within itself. This living being could anticipate, could reach for attainments beyond the scope of sense. Its self-consciousness formed an exchange through which connection could be made over the bridge of silence from the sense-plain to the supply, held in the great soul receptacle where the real dwells.
The soul is the great treasure-house that contains all the virtues which vibrate their powers from the real self to the objective. Hope resides there; and in its fullest expression reflects the God in man. It is also that one attribute of the soul, the possession of which evidences the human. Tennyson recognized that when he wrote “The mighty hopes that make us men.”
Poets have sung of hope in grand strains, and Dante’s “All hope abandon, ye who enter here” has had a refrain as if a knell had been sounded to human aspirations. Hopes have risen in consciousness and perished there. Hopes have again risen in human consciousness and been cherished and afterward made real. Logicians have often referred to poets as creators of children of the imagination—children with short lives that came into being for a span and perished, leaving only darkness behind the gleam of light they had brought. In serious moods, poets, writing through inspiration, have repeatedly declared life only worth living while hopes were cherished and ambition directed to their fulfillment.
If hope is one of soul’s treasures, and enlarged as one’s life gives expression to it, then it is part of the real man, and one of the duties of objective consciousness is to learn to reflect its truth. If one recognizes himself a soul, and the wisdom of the ages incased therein, then he can understand the difference between a wanton dream of the imagination, and a vibration from the subconsciousness to the objective carrying conviction of something glorious to come. Hope, awakened usually by outside forces, though springing from the treasure-house of the soul, sends out its vibrations over those subtle lines and plants in objective consciousness a purpose unfolding to expression.
It will be noted by following my line of argument, that though man is a soul he is not in conscious possession of the wealth within his soul; that is to be obtained by discipline. Hope is a treasure of the soul, ready to spring forth to consciousness at bidding. Sometimes it may appear that this bidding is in no way directly aroused by objective consciousness. Over and over again suggestions from one’s friends, or suggestions from those that form in consciousness through reading or experience, seem to be the cause of awakening hope to express itself through such powerful vibrations that one consciously feels the possibility of attainment. There is no doubt but that through meditation one also prepares consciousness to take note of the desires of the soul striving for fulfillment.
It seems to me that man’s failure to know himself has been due largely to the fact that he has failed to comprehend that the soul is himself; that no fond longing, no bright hope, no worthy desire can rise in consciousness except it is itself of the soul, and therefore a heritage which he may take conscious possession pi, if he will. The subconscious and all it may imply is in one sense a compartment of the soul, in another it is both a storehouse of treasure, and a garden where grow to fruition the seeds of purpose planted by thought. From the subconscious come the vibrations to the sense plane which tell of the majesty of man—of the godship within the selfhood waiting appropriation.
Masters in thought philosophy are accustomed to speak of advanced students in psychology as those who keep watch on the growth of the subconscious. Not only must they do this, but they must also learn how to force objective consciousness to receive the vibrations from that mighty monitor. Indeed, this is the problem of life—when fully mastered, man becomes a God.
To attain complete self-mastery, and to bring to expression all the mental wealth the soul is ready to bestow upon man, he must be prepared to receive or it cannot be given. This is a psychic law and is inviolable. This being true the real student can, upon reflection, clearly understand why the half-expressed wish, why the half-formed purpose often was not realized. The time was not yet ripe. Had he fully comprehended this psychic law, he should not have felt the least discouragement. Instead, however, of the Omnipotent withholding the sought for prize, he himself has not yet expanded mentally so that he can receive. If within himself he recognizes this craving as a real wish or hope which is encased or enthroned in his soul, he may know it will come to him in good time, and in all its fullness.
In material growth everywhere one recognizes the factor time is to be considered and respected. The youth develops strength as years increase. True it is, that he may by proper exercise help to produce strength; but still he must give due consideration to the laws of physical growth to obtain the best results. Time, methods of exercise, eating and drinking, all are to be considered as possible aids to the attainment of physical prowess. With the fields there is a time for sowing and a time for reaping. Proper cultivation may improve crops, seldom is it a factor in hastening them.
Though man has such facts as these continually before him, still, in mental progress, on these subtle lines which mark the real growth of the human, he is ever showing impatience at delay. Over and over again in his experience he has been taught by time, when fulfillment came to him of greater desires than his consciousness had reached for, that life was made richer by the waiting. If he only would grasp the truth of this modern psychology, he would know that no infinite force prevents the coming of his own good to him; but that, if he ever holds the image of his ideal true, it must come to him as soon as his own unfoldment will permit.
In this paper I have dared to venture into a rather subtle line of thought showing the home of hope, and its path to objective consciousness. Vibration is life, and it is ever active even as to the atoms which compose solids. Over that line of vibrations between the objective man, or man on the sense-plane, and his true self, travel the thought-inspirations telling of what the future holds. This wakens one to action and gives him courage to battle. When man generally understands whence spring, and why these longings are impressed upon his active mentality, he will know delays in realization are often necessary in order that he may more perfectly give expression to the ideal sent to consciousness.
To learn the boundlessness of the soul’s wealth, one must first free himself from any and every dogma which may teach that there is a God in the heavens to determine what shall be given, and what shall be withheld. That fallacy of an early age should be buried in an unmarked grave which ought cover forever the awful errors of a false philosophy of the past. This act, however, is a negative one, and though negation may free from error, it can never build up character to worthy manhood. If this mental advance has been arrived at, then the upbuilding may begin. Hopes and longings and desires are vibrated to the objective self from the center of being. These tell of joys to come, of higher pleasures to be enjoyed, of brilliant achievements awaiting, if one in faith will do his part. In the evolution of man to ideals, it has been found essential to systematic growth that his thought be kept true. These vibrations to consciousness being from the soul are messages from the real self, telling of the wonderful intellectual treasures within, struggling to reach outward and become one with individuality.
Hope in its completeness is indeed the richest treasure in the possession of the soul. It lifts the finite to the infinite; and, through its pulsations and awakenings, man becomes a God. Shelley knew hope was of the soul where “love abides in fullness”:—
“But hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth
Are children of one mother, even Love.”
To learn the mighty factor hope is to human progress, objective consciousness must, as the great mental exchange, be disciplined to receive these vibrations. This work is life’s greatest and grandest problem; and, when fully and successfully solved, one will have attained the highest goal. No matter if none may ever reach it, though when the perfect man is heralded by time there he must stand; and then the zenith of unfoldment upon this planet will have been reached. All approaches to this plane mean advancement and higher ideals, and that ought to be a sufficient incentive to all who delve and work for the truest, noblest and best in life.
“Eternal Truth! Beyond our hopes and fears
Sweep the vast orbit of thy myriad spheres!
From age to age while History carves sublime
On her waste rock the flaming curves of time,
How the wild swayings of our planet show
That worlds unseen surround the world we
know!”
REALIZATION, HOPE’S MASTER CREATION
All humanity is working, reaching outward and upward to something in the distance, which, if gained, will more than compensate for all the toil and anxiety along the path from desire to possession. The steady upward striving for mental or material treasures beyond is man’s eternal destiny, fixed by the unalterable laws of human evolution. Succeed or fail, survive or perish, work man must, be the end gain or loss. Evolution on this planet can bring forth no greater than man, and now he knows the tremendous work of unfolding is within himself. At last, at the beginning of the twentieth century, man is commencing true introspection. He is learning that the talents securely held within the soul are at his command, to be used for upliftment. The mystic vibrations in, of and through his being forbid any halting by the wayside. Everywhere there is a network of invisible lines over which vibrations are passing in their mysterious work of preserving, sustaining and unfolding life. Hopes are crystallized into language by thought, and then vibrated over certain invisible lines to consciousness. In the realm of thought-land are first outlined the purposes and plans to be made real on the objective plane of life. As the architect sees with the mental eye the building complete before he begins the crudest sketch of it on paper, so on the immaterial planes of being rise buildings and temples, mastery in letters or art, before any of these can be brought to the faintest expression on the material plane of life.
Through the medium of language, hopes, carried it may be for ages in the soul on its ever expanding upward trend, are thrown out to the objective—the active, toiling, thinking man. Like day-dreams he may revel in them for a time; but if cherished, stronger and stronger come the vibrations from the subconscious blending the soul with the work-a-day man, till in exultation he cries, and this is indeed for me. He pauses, reflects—life has a new meaning as he realizes ambitions not only may be; but, better and more glorious than that, shall be won.
As he merges his understanding (now comprising more than his objective self) into the practical psychology marking the new century, whose “first sun stepped from the skies” so short a time ago, he will know that they vilify manhood who speak of humanity as “a worm of the dust,” for these vibrations have now told him of his oneness to infinite force, and that hope is a silent, truthful messenger of joy from his real self.
Thought carries Hope’s vibrations to consciousness, and with its creative power, though a substance unseen, brings into formidable view the longed-for ideal. Here is life’s greatest mystery and life’s grandest truth. He whose unfoldment will permit can grasp this truth— until then, all this philosophy must seem to him vague, a transcendentalism of those idlers who only dream. Let him who has taken pains to follow my argument seek the silence, and there review his own intellectual growth from plane to plane. Let him note how suggestions of something better have come to him from within over and over again. Let him note how almost foreign many of these seemed to be, and gradually how he grew to them until they became part of himself.
Let him note others which came to him from friends declaring he possessed abilities he never dared to claim. Let him recall the strange thrill such compliments sent through his being. Let him recall how he mentally rehearsed when alone these incidents which he met in his pathway, feeling an upliftment every time he brought them again to thought. Let him note how gradually there dawned on his consciousness new possibilities for him in life’s great arena, and how all this grew primarily out of suggestion; and that later, by repeated meditations, creative thought unfolded him till “I will” and “I am” broke forth, scattering all doubts and lifting him to a higher plane of consciousness. This is the order of human growth. One may not take note of it from month to month or year to year in life’s busy round of duties, hence the need of daily going into the silence, for a short time at least, to receive the lessons that can only come when objective consciousness has been temporarily stilled. The active self often best wait in silence to learn upon what centers to direct action. It has a great duty to perform in the economy of human life, but through the subconscious come instructions directing as to the lines on which it ought work, and as to the vantage points where activities should spend their force. Only in silence may one learn where to direct energy so that no force be diverted to unproductive toils.
The wasted force expended by man in wrong directions is the real cause of much of his anxiety, which brings with its worry and perplexities the so-called burden of age. Thought vibrations from the soul, though golden in hope’s brightness, are, therefore, constructive as well as creative. They sweeten toil, because progress rapid and certain follows, proving effort is rightly directed, and glimpses of the goal more distinct and clear rise before him. Hope’s promises and the working out of their realization are bright with joys. To pine over failures would be to cloud that brightness with disturbing shadows. Let the dead past bury its dead is still progressive life’s refrain. If the waiting appear long at times, then passively in the silence sing or repeat some of the uplifting poems of our poets who write from the inspirational plane where dwell Soul and Hope. What grander one can I place here than one from Ella Wheeler Wilcox, entitled “The Structure”?
“Upon the wreckage of thy yesterday
Design thy structure of tomorrow. Lay
Strong corner-stones of purpose, and prepare
Great blocks of wisdom cut from past despair.
Shape mighty pillars of resolve, to set
Deep in the tear-wet mortar of regret.
Work on with patience. Though thy toil be slow,
Yet day by day the edifice shall grow.
Believe in God—in thine own self believe.
All that thou hast desired thou shalt achieve.”
The purpose of being is to unfold all its latent energies. He who approaches most nearly to this has solved the great problem of life. Not that his real work stops there—only then can it truly begin. With the strength thus developed he enters life’s eternal school to teach others and to work for others, that they too may learn the majesty of man.
Hope is then no idle flatterer in the highway of life. It is an entity of being which has learned and drawn from the soul’s past experiences in other existences the real purpose to be attained in this. Admiration has over and over again increased its pulsations at the seat of the subconscious. This new activity started vibrations outward till the objective self waited to receive and joy in those messages of delight. Then followed the arguments between objective man on the sense plane, and ideal man on the spiritual. From the sense plane came the logic represented by the material experiences in life; from the spiritual or intuitional came, without argument, the affirmations or soul responses forcing conviction. The cunning logic of intellect, fortified with its material proofs, halted, hesitated, and then retreated for more research before spiritual truth. Over and over again must this conflict be waged, until progressive man learns that Hope’s vibrations are from the soul, and represent his real selfhood. Then, too, he must learn the power of thought to bring into visible existence these bright visions of hope. When he reaches this point, he will understand that realization is but a natural product growing out of and through the mystic or psychic law of being. It is a creation of Hope, assisted by objective faculties along; lines. to be traversed there, as man in the highest, truest sense must Mend the material with the spiritual, till lost in each other, over him will bend the brilliant bow of happiness, peace and love.
No matter how far advanced in life one may be before he grasps the truth of the new metaphysics, it is waiting for him. It is never too late to learn the full truth about man’s destiny. It is never too late to learn anything we would. In Longfellow’s poem on “Old Age” he epitomizes there how late many of our great ones undertook new tasks, and I cannot emphasize the thought just expressed better than by quoting from it:
“It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Epidus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers
When each had numbered more than four-score years.
And Theophrastus at fourscore and ten
Had but begun his ‘Characters of Men.’
Chaucer, at Woodstock, with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the ‘Canterbury Tales.’
Goethe, at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed ‘Faust’ when eighty years were past.
“What, then? Shall we sit idly down and say
The night hath come; it is no longer day?
The night hath not yet come; we are not quite
Cut off from labor by the falling light;
Something remains for us to do or dare,
Even the oldest trees some fruit may bear,
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress;
And as the evening twilight fades away,
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”
Since Longfellow wrote that poem it may be well for all to note that life has lengthened. Age, like disease, poverty, success or happiness, is a product of thought. One may travel down the long avenue of time with every faculty retaining the full vigor of manhood’s prime, or he may call to him the infirmities usually associated with advanced years. As he wills in thought, the result will be.
As my philosophy on this theme has already been fully presented, I pass over all argument. There is always time to do what we would. There is always time to grow mentally; but there is never time to grow old. True living and joy in living may take note of advances made and victories won; but, after full manhood has been reached, never of the flight of years. The years should be appealed to only with the question, what of knowledge have they brought each one of us?
If the years that have gone have taught one to cherish Hope, and to know what a part of his reality it is, then he may know he has mentally advanced to a higher plane of consciousness, and with a wider acquaintance upon it, he may attain to the dominion which is his heritage to possess and to enjoy here on earth. This is the realization he sought, and Hope created it, giving life a brighter glow, and uplifting it to truer purposes.
The End