Elizabeth Towne – You and Your Forces

 

Contents

Introductory
Chapter 1 – Genesis
Chapter 2 – You and the Father Are One
Chapter 3 – In the Stillness
Chapter 4 – Growth
Chapter 5 – What God is Good For
Chapter 6 – Inspiration
Chapter 7 – The Philosophy of Inspiration
Chapter 8 – Desire
Chapter 9 – More Desire
Chapter 10 – A Desirable Text
Chapter 11 – Following Desire
Chapter 12 – Desire, Crucified, Shall Rise Again
Chapter 13 – How to Desire
Chapter 14 – How to Follow Desire
Chapter 15 – Concentration
Chapter 16 – Practice
Chapter 17 – To Use Your Forces
Chapter 18 – To Love

 

 

 

Introductory

Can you “become as a little child”? Can you, for the time being, lay aside all your preconceived opinions? Can you let go all the authorities — theologians, scientists, relatives and friends alike — upon whom you have been, perhaps unconsciously, leaning? Can you leave all these and give these lessons your undivided attention? Only so will you be materially enlightened by what you read, whether it be these lessons or some other book.

You are not asked to repose a “blind faith,” even for the time, in what I write. But you are asked to bring your own reason, and not another’s, to bear upon the propositions stated. You are asked simply to give your best attention to the end that you may understand me. Try to see how I arrive at these conclusions. After you have finished the lessons use your own judgment about accepting them as truth. Practice their teachings and you will be convinced of the scientific side, even though you do not accept all the theory. Evolve your own theories.

There are many names for the First Cause of All Things. There is one objection open to the use of any of the old names — viz., that each bears to some certain class of people a conception of First Cause which does not accord with my conception. “Principle” is a dead nothingness to some, although Webster defines it as “that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy.” “Law,” or “Law of Attraction,” conveys much the same idea. “Divinity” and “Deity” convey an idea of something pure, outside and apart from creation itself. “Spirit” seems intangible; “matter” too gross. If I say “God,” most people imagine a sort of exaggerated and glorified man away off somewhere on a literal great white throne. Many people who deny such a conception show in the course of conversation that they do entertain some such idea, even though it may be unconsciously. For this reason I use no name constantly and all names as I wish, with a view to helping my readers out of the old rut conceptions. So do not be scared if you fail to see your old pet name for The Infinite First Cause.

ELIZABETH TOWNE.

 

Chapter 1 – Genesis

Is there an individual who has developed intelligence enough to be able to read these lessons, who needs to have proved to him by processes of reason that there is a single unitary Cause behind the visible universe? Then let him seek first the scientist and the theologian. The natural scientist, with telescope and microscope, geologist’s hammer and scalpel, has worked his tedious way to the very borders of the realm of causation. The religionist, with the eye of faith, has caught glimpses of it. Neither needs proof that It Is.

But who has sounded or measured it or understood its workings? Here scalpel, microscope and the eye of faith are equally useless. Only reason, with the “things that are seen” for its premises, can find a satisfactory answer.

Reason divests the universe of all form, puts itself in the place of First Cause, and then carefully rebuilds within itself the Whole. After clearing the universe of all forms, Reason proceeds to ” take stock” before rebuilding. When lo! she discovers none but herself to do the work and nothing but herself out of which to build! She finds also that what she thought was her nature, Reason, has disappeared also, for reason is dependent upon experience for its existence. Thus she arrives at the conclusion that, while she is potentially the whole universe, “in the beginning” she was omnipresent mind, without experience from which to reason, therefore conscious only that “I AM.”

We thus arrive at the conclusion that the original energy, or cause, is Mind, in which are all things, of which they all are built and by which they all are held together. All is mind. Matter itself is mind.

Pending further knowledge, I am inclined to believe that the “nebular hypothesis” of creation is correct as far as it goes. It is reasonable. But correct or incorrect, it will serve as a means of illustrating the processes by which mind creates form.

Imagine all “matter” dissolved and diffused equally through space as a “gaseous vapor.” Think of this vast, empty and yet full “space” as inexperienced mind — mind unconscious of anything other than itself — I AM. A gaseous vapor is “matter ” — or mind — at a very high rate of vibration. “Tatter is atomic,” says the scientist, “there is only matter.” Ask him what an atom is and he will tell you it is a sort of little whirlwind in the ether — an infinitesimal cyclone of infinite velocity. What is that which rotates at such infinite and tiny speed? Mind, MIND, MIND. What is mind? Everything and no-thing. Mind is First Cause. If you are not satisfied with that, seek further.

Imagine these little cyclones diffused throughout space, each a tiny point of consciousness in Mind. Nothing more.

Did you ever stand beside a moving train and feel the suction of its motion? Each of these tiny atoms would have a suction — an attraction — for anything that came within the circle of its influence. It is as unlikely that two atoms move at exactly the same rate of speed as that two persons or two leaves are exactly alike. The atom of greatest speed — the livest atom — would have the strongest suction, or attraction. Others would be “negative” to it, that is, influenced by it. For this reason the most active little cyclones would attract the less active ones nearer to them, the less active ones ” catching” the quicker rate of motion at the same time acting as a brake upon the action of the positive atoms, so bringing them to a point of vibration in sympathy with each other. As in answer to attraction they came closely together, each would become conscious of the other.

All consciousness is presumably caused by this friction. Gradually as they become accustomed to this, each would again become unconscious of the other, just as we are unconscious of a motion when it has become a habit — the motion of the earth, for instance. Now, can you see how those two little points of consciousness, of I AM, have merged into one larger I AM? And this larger I AM, or ego, would forever be conscious of nothing else than itself unless it attracted still other atoms to itself, the friction of which causes more sensation — more life — more experience.

By the unconscious action of the law of attraction the little egos keep growing by accretion. They are mind, therefore they reason upon their sensations. Experience teaches them that it is easier to bring into their organization an atom rotating at nearly their own rate of speed than it is to bring one rotating at a much lower rate. There is less inertia to be overcome. So “natural selection” comes into working order. The tiny mind does not, of course, reason upon the whys of its action — that is reserved for a more complex intelligence.

1. All organizations, from the least to the greatest, are mental statements of experience, and grow by – Attracting or drawing to themselves according to their power, from the whole universe. This is Will, or Desire, in the human ego, and in all others as well.
2. Using discrimination according to past experience.
3. Arranging its acquisition in most convenient form.
4. Binding together in one consciousness.
5. By reason projecting an ideal, which is always an improvement upon realization.

This ideal causes dissatisfaction, which divides the attention, thus relaxing cohesion and causing disintegration. This disintegration will be just sufficient to permit a change, if he trusts his ideals. Otherwise the dissatisfaction will be great enough to produce complete disintegration, or “death.”

His ideal, held in consciousness hopefully, transmutes him into a higher statement of being — he reorganizes himself.

These seven steps are repeated eternally, producing growth or evolution.

Chapter 2 – You and the Father Are One

In lesson one I stated that growth progresses in an orderly manner according to certain fixed laws. I know this by studying myself. Every other individual may learn not only these laws, but all other truth as well by a careful study of himself. Victor Hugo has aptly said that “Man is an infinite little copy of God” which is equivalent to saying that man is an epitome of the universe as it is and the potential of all creations to come. Man is a microscopic writing of all history. By carefully deciphering himself he is able to understand all else.

There is one universal mind which fills space and out of which all things are made, in which they all are, and by which all are held in form as long as is best and then dissolved and transmuted into higher statements of truth. The invisible is the cause, the thinker the visible is the effect, the thought. The thinker and his thought are inseparable; — they are “One” as Jesus said. I and the Father are one.” The “Father” then — the invisible thinker or mind — being the Cause of all things, is the actor the form or organization being that which is acted upon. Universal mind thinks the universe into forms, which are mental statements or recognition of itself. Thus the real I of all things is Universal Mind, God the Law — the same I behind, or in, men, animals, plants, or crystals.

Where does the individual come in then? Were you ever so intensely interested in any piece of work that you forgot yourself? That is practically what happened to universal mind when it began to think the universe into form. What was “in the beginning” a nebulous consciousness that I AM was gradually formed into statements or expressed ideas of WHAT I am. The latent began to manifest. Just as you or I might become so intensely interested in one idea that all others and ourself also would be forgotten, so universal mind in an individual, or expressed idea, would lose consciousness of all else than itself, and other forms as they came into relation with it. Did you ever read “Sara Crewe,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett? A poor, forlorn, neglected orphan lives in splendor in imagination. So rapt is she in the beauties of her imaginary surroundings that she is perfectly oblivious of the real and herself. Mrs. Burnett is scientific in her conclusion. A wealthy neighbor becomes cognizant through his East India servant, of the child’s surroundings and makes her dream real. So intense had been her interest in the ideal that she is not even surprised at first when she walks into her little attic room which has been transformed into a bower of splendid beauty. Her idea held steadfastly became the real. The intense absorption of this child of fiction illustrates, in a measure, how universal mind lost consciousness of itself as a whole in following out individual ideas. “Man is God’s idea,” someone has said. Man, the idea, will by reason complete the circle and come again to the consciousness that there is only One and I AM that One. This consciousness is probably what the Buddhist means by “Nirvana.”

Do you realize that the unseen is the source of all the ons is to help awaken man to recognize and calculate from this invisible, all potent part of himself instead of continuing a veritable “worm of the dust,” dependent upon what knowledge he has acquired, more or less unconsciously, up to the present time — dependent upon what has been done instead of drawing upon this unrecognized self and so doing more than has been done.

All progress has been made thus far by a blind dependence upon the invisible, omnipresent self; and intelligent recognition of our source of power will enable us to manifest such wonders as we cannot even conceive of now.

What man has conceived to be a dependence upon “God” is nothing more or less than dependence upon his real and as yet unmanifested Self. In his ignorance he has located “God” outside of himself. The more primitive his knowledge, the farther away has he conceived “God” to be. “As a man thinketh so is he.” As he grows in intelligence “God” becomes nearer and nearer to him in recognition, until, at length he knows that he himself is God. There is no separateness. There is only one.

Man’s idea of his own impotence and separateness from “God” is based upon the belief that his body is himself, instead of being the work, the idea, of himself. He himself includes his thought-built body, but he is vastly more than he realizes. He is all.

Man’s body being what he realizes of himself, it is thought-built and modified by every passing fancy. It is the negative pole of his being.

To be negative is to be attractive, receptive; to be positive is to be active. Man is a complete magnet, having his positive and negative poles in the unseen and the seen. When the connection between these poles is broken, the body, no longer acted upon by the positive, is dissolved. The positive pole in the unseen continues to act. Wiser by experience he recreates on a higher plane — he recognizes more of himself, makes a clearer statement of truth.

Universal mind is the positive pole of the universe; “matter,” or consciousness is the negative pole. The unexpressed is steadily, irresistibly, pressing out into expression. The invisible positive may be confidently trusted to express itself. All the strivings and heartaches of humanity are due to ignorance of this fact. Man has inverted himself in his own imagination and tried desperately to make the negative man, the body, the actor. He could but fail and by his failure be led to doubt. Doubt being the door by which knowledge enters, he is learning that, by simple recognition of the truth that the body is a medium instead of a source of power, he places it in the proper relation to the positive to enable the positive to use it as a medium for doing what he wills. “Knowledge is power.” Recognition is the coupling by which we “hitch our wagon to a star.”

Chapter 3 – In the Stillness

In the Uncreate are all things that ever were, that are, or ever shall be.

The Uncreate is a limitless, pulsing sea of Energy, with currents and cross-currents, waves and ripples and depths of stillness.

What is stillness?

All is motion. Nothing is stationary. Stillness is motion.

But stillness is motion so intense, vibration so high, that ear nor eye nor nose nor tongue nor finger-tips can register it.

Time was when those things which we hear now were all in the stillness — in the silence. Why! How can that be?

Because no ears were yet evolved. There were no mechanisms for registering such fine energies.

The fine vibrations were present then, just as they are now.

But they were in the stillness. No form was conscious of them.

If nobody had listened in the silence, all things that are in the noise now would have remained in the silence.

Listening in the silence caused ears to develop.

It was not the noise that developed the ears. Hands never made them.

The silence made them.

The silence — not the noise, not the visible — made all things that ever were, or are.

The silence does not make ears and toss them out into the noise by the handful.

Silence makes ears where there are places ready for them. Anything will come out of silence when somebody is ready for it.

There are more things in the silence, in the stillness, than ever came out of it.

All these things are eager to get out into the noise-they are pressing for expression.

Everything left in the silence now is much finer and nicer and more enjoyable than anything that has thus far come out into the noise.

Do you want something better than you ever had, or saw, or tasted, or smelled, or felt? Have you tried all these things and yet are not satisfied? Have you run to and fro for satisfaction, for happiness, and failed to find it?

If you are satisfied that you can’t be satisfied with the world as it is, then shut your eyes to the world as it is.

And do not call it an “evil” world because you are not satisfied with it.

It is a good world, a beautiful world. It suits other people. Let them enjoy it. After a while they will get tired of it also, and follow you, perhaps.

There is just one place of refuge when one is tired of the world as it is.

Go into the stillness.

The fine little breezes there are far more gentle and more powerful than the winds and cyclones, floods and earthquakes out in the noise.

Go into the stillness and feel these fine little breezes.

They are always “clean winds.”

They will waft away the malaria of dissatisfaction and the fogs of ignorance from your brain.

They are refreshing little zephyrs. They bring “healing in their wings.”

Stay in the silence a long time.

Let these gentle winds of energy flee past you and eddy about you.

They are wonderful magicians.

They will build you new organs of sense — new eyes, much finer than the ones you have now, with which to see things in the silence; new ears that will hear things never yet told in the noise; “things impossible for man to utter.”

Sit still — don’t come out of the stillness yet — there are more things the holy, still breezes will do for you.

They will give you a new tongue, a silvery tongue; tipped with love; there is lots of love in the Silence — more than there is of noise in the Noise.

This new tongue will enable you to tell in the Noise — to all people — the things before “impossible to utter.”

Thus you will become the medium through which more of the beauties of the Invisible shall become visible.

Postscript

I wrote a nice ” scientific” lesson three; explaining the first step in growth as stated in lesson one:

“All organizations, from the least to the greatest, are mental statements of experience, and grow by —

1. Attracting or drawing to themselves, according to their power, from the whole universe. This is Will or Desire, in the human ego, and in all others as well.”

This “scientific” lesson was too “scientific,” and not plain enough to suit me, so I “went into the stillness” to revise it and “received,” — i. e., attracted or drew — out of the silence the above prose poem illustrative rather than explanatory, of the first step of the Law of Growth.

If the reader will take this lesson with him into that same stillness, and absorb it rather than try to understand it, the still forces will make clear to him this first step in growth.

Chapter 4 – Growth

The Uncreate is a pulsing sea of energy, never still all degrees of motion everywhere present.

The Create is as much of this energy as has become conscious of itself.

Consciousness is produced by the friction of energy upon energy there being only energy, i. e., living substance, in the universe.

This is illustrated by the currents in a river. If the bed were perfectly even the flow would also be even. The stream would be “unconscious” of its motion. The uneven bed causes currents. Where these currents interfere with each other there is “consciousness” an eddy is formed.

“Consciousness is produced by the friction of energy upon form,” says C. C. Post. Imagine the eddy formed in a stream as having the power to remain an eddy even though the currents change and cease to sweep past in the manner by which the eddy was first formed, and you will have a fair idea of the mode of creation of the first primitive forms.

That was the beginning of the individual.

He would have eddied on forever as he was set going had it not been for the further action upon him of this pulsating sea of energy.

This little conscious eddy, enjoying the sensation of consciousness, wills to continue it as he first experienced it. Here discrimination, the second step in growth; order the third, and cohesion the fourth step, are plainly illustrated.

As long as this primitive individual chose to remain as he was he remained. He could have perpetuated himself for all eternity if he had chosen to do so; so great is the power of the individual.

What happens to you and me when we have enjoyed a pleasurable sensation for a length of time, without variation? We become “tired.”

The primitive eddy became tired of his new sensation for the same reason.

All this time the ceaseless energy of the universe played about him without effect. He stood like a solid rock in a stream, enjoying himself, oblivious, unawakened to anything beyond his own sensation or consciousness.

He grew less and less satisfied with himself, his sensation, and began to desire a change. What change he desired he did not know; never having experienced but one kind of sensation.

This indefinite Something of his desires, is to him an ideal.

The more he thinks on it the less he enjoys himself.

His ideal causes him to lose his grip, as it were, on himself. He does not longer choose to remain as he is. Choice being Will, and Will being the only power that holds together the individual, he begins to disintegrate. He softens up. If he were a man (as he will be some day), we would say of him, “He is all broken up.”

Now this living sea of energy gets a chance at him. Energy plays upon him; big waves sweep him from his old resting place; he tumbles around among other dissatisfied individuals and gets the jagged edges worn smooth; gentler and more powerful waves play over him; finer and yet finer forces play through him, changing all the currents of his being.

The friction of all this energy upon the old form of consciousness, causes new consciousness; new sensations which were impossible to him as long as self-satisfaction held him so closely together that finer energies had not opportunity to affect him. By the action of energy upon his old consciousness or form, his vague “ideal” — the “something more” he has craved — assumes form. He becomes conscious of what the more is, which he craves.

His ideal is always an improvement upon the old reality.

Why? Can you not see that his ideal is the result of finer forces playing upon the old form? Hence the old form is refined — made finer; which is equivalent to saying that the old consciousness is refined — made finer.

The finer the force, the more intangible, the more powerful it is. This is proved by all observation. If you doubt it study the “material” sciences.

This fact proves two things:

1. That the primitive individual must have been a result of the action of the coarser forces upon each other, because the coarser forces, from steam on down to dust, are most tangible to man.
2. All change must be from fine to finer, from high to higher, because a form produced by the action of any degree of energy could not possibly be changed by the action upon it of a lower, or less powerful, degree of energy.

Think well upon this statement. It is the scientific reason why all is good.

It is also the explanation of the fact that man cannot righteously judge according to outward appearances.

All acts, as well as all form or consciousness, are produced by the action of invisible forces, always higher, upon visible or realized forces. Only so can growth manifest.

Granting this as the process of growth, retrogression is impossible, unthinkable.

Disintegration is not retrogression, but progression.

Disease, sorrow, anger, fury, despair, death, are the effect of the action of finer forces upon realized forces; and always precede the realization of the higher, until such time as the individual knows the law of his growth when he will recognize his source, and Let The higher forces play upon him Without resistance.

He will turn, as a child from a discarded toy, from the already realized to the ideal thus reducing resistance to a minimum.

Resistance is the cause of all dis-ease sin, sorrow, sickness and dissolution.

The cause of resistance is fear.

The cause of fear is a lack of knowledge of the absolute certainty of progress the absolute certainty that all is Good.

As the individual’s realization of the Law of his growth increases, fear diminishes.

As fear diminishes, resistance to change diminishes. As resistance to change ceases, change produces no disease.

This law works to the hair ‘s breadth and immutably.

The Truth Will set you free from sin and death and nothing else can.

Moral.

Quit trying to put out fear, and seek understanding. Give yourself up to the play of the higher forces whose action upon your present consciousness produces higher understanding.

Chapter 5 – What God is Good For

The Uncreate is not Wisdom it is not understanding.

It is dumb, blind, formless, will-less, ignorant Energy.

It is “God.”

It is the potential of all things just as Niagara is the potential of all the electric lights, street railways and manufactories the United States will ever need.

God and Niagara are, relatively speaking, equally ignorant.

Intelligence is a matter of consciousness. The word means in-told formed in.

Niagara and God, the Uncreate, both “happened,” i. e., unconsciously, swirled and boiled and did a lot of things (and do yet) without knowing what they are doing.

They made little “eddies,” as I showed you in the last lesson.

And where these little “eddies” are formed, in God, or Niagara, God and Niagara are conscious.

As much of God as is in one of these little eddies in Him (or it), wants to keep it eddying.

By the action of the remainder of God, as yet unconsciousness, upon these little eddies, they grow, and grow, into more consciousness with more and more complex motions, producing more and more complex consciousness.

This is the process of forming intelligence.

We might kneel and, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, beseech God, the Uncreate, to do something for us — beseech until we died.

He, or It, would answer us just as Niagara would under similar circumstances — by rushing on blindly, dumbly, ignorantly, as if we had not besought.

The only way to get anything you want is to understand God, the Uncreate, and use him. Just as we are understanding Niagara and using it — and making it answer our prayers.

God is Good, but he is good for no-thing.

It takes God and you, or God and me, to be good for something.

God is asleep. We must waken him to activity. He is Almighty Energy. But he needs direction.

The sons of men are the Board of Directors.

We study the situation. We look over what has been done and, behold, it does not satisfy.

We see room for great improvement. We desire to improve.

Having besought loudly and long, without result, we at last have wakened to the Truth that if anything is improved we shall have to improve it.

We have also besought each other to improve present evils. And, behold, each has failed us.

We are constrained, each for himself, to see what he can do to better conditions.

So each for himself has rushed wildly up and down trying to reform everybody else — and failed.

There is just one thing left to try; each for himself must tap the source of power for that wherewith to improve himself — the only thing over which he may hope to have power.

Why, as each seeks to perfect himself, the Whole will be perfected. Of course! How stupid not to think of that before! But we are learning.

So each man for himself studies the Create, sees the shortcomings, projects an Ideal goes into the Silence where the exhaustless Energy free to all flows unceasingly, and there appropriates as much of God as he desires, with which to manifest his Idea.

Man and God are ONE. Without man, the Son, God would be blind, formless, ignorant always. Without God, the soundless reservoir of Energy, man would have no source of power, and be unable to grow.

But man is, and God is, and Man and God are all right!

Chapter 6 – Inspiration

“There is a Spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding.” Elihu in the Book of Job.

“There is a Spirit in man which in-spires the Uncreate Spirit just as the lungs in-spire oxygen and just as the oxygen received causes chemical changes in the body, so the Uncreate Spirit received causes change in the thought.” That is my version of what Elihu said. I like Elihu’s version better than my own, but mine is more scientific and easily understood while his is poetic and no less true.

Where do you suppose that Spirit is located? Why, in the highest, of course — in the top of the head.

There are lots of spirits in man. Good spirits and bad spirits — which are Good spirits too. Every little cell in the body incarnates a spirit. Every group of cells is the incarnation of a larger spirit — an ego — composed of an aggregation of harmonious spirits just as every society has a “spirit,” even though each separate individual has a “spirit” — is a spirit.

The whole body is an organization of spirits.

The body is spirit.

Spirit is mind.

Mind is spirit.

There is only one,

The upper brain, the ideal brain, is a pair of lungs for breathing into the body more of Uncreate Spirit.

Each portion of the brain beginning with the Solar Plexus, has in its turn been the Ideal brain, the Highest.

The consciousness has lived in each one of these brains in its turn.

The consciousness is ever aspiring — reaching up.

This aspiration is a drawing in of finer forces than have before been realized.

These finer forces, drawn out of the Uncreate into the Create, cause actual chemical changes in all the tissues of the body; disorganizing; and re-organizing upon a higher plane.

Do you remember what happens on the window pane on a cold morning, when a fire is kindled? The pane acts as a condenser, changing the form of the moisture in the air; it becomes tangible. Wherever heat and cold, positive and negative, come into contact there is a precipitation.

The surface of the brain is this point of contact between positive and negative, Uncreate and Create, Spirit and Matter.

The positive ever acts upon the negative; the higher and finer forces upon the lower or coarser. The natural attitude of man is one of aspiration toward the Uncreate and command toward the Create; negative to the Highest, positive to all beneath.

Through all the lower orders of life this natural attitude is maintained. Growth is consequently healthy and rapid.

As intelligence developed, man gradually turned almost his entire attention to the Create, thus shutting himself off from the source of his power. He denied his

Highest and centered his attention in the already-manifest.

Thus he became negative to the seen and positive to the unseen reversing the natural order.

Mankind in general has done this. Here and there a wise one has arisen and warned them of their mistake. Few heeded.

But experience is a thorough teacher. “Famine and plague, tribulation and anguish” have resulted, until man is compelled in sheer desperation to again lift up his attention to The Highest.

Man has denied his Highest, his Ideal, his Uncreate, until experience has taught him that nowhere else can he find satisfaction.

So he arises again to The Highest, the top of the head, and in-spires the Life which has awaited him all this time and from which he has turned.

The action of the Uncreate Spirit upon the highest brain so far evolved in the individual, produces in consciousness — in the brain — the individual’s Ideals.

These Ideals are the most potent forces of his being.

Attention is the door by which the Ideal enters the reality.

He who looks with steadfastness to his Highest Ideal, will with the utmost certainty realize it.

And as he approaches its realization he will find still higher Ideals forming within him.

The free and constant inspiration of the Almighty giveth him higher and yet higher understanding.

Chapter 7 – The Philosophy of Inspiration

Every disease possible to mankind, from “biliousness” to a cork leg or impecuniosity, is the result of temperament.

There is no way to heal permanently any unpleasant condition, but by understanding and correcting temperament.

A healer of any kind, M. D., D. D., or M. S. D., may succeed in alleviating the condition, just as one might an unsightly sore by removing the scab which has formed.

But as long as the cause remains unchanged the forces are steadily at work which in due time will produce again the dis-easeful condition.

And over and over the process is repeated, more and more emphatically each time, until the first cause is at last found and eliminated.

Every phrenologist, astrologist and palmist knows that each temperament has its peculiar diseases and experiences. But it remained for the student of mind to discover that these diseases and experiences are the result of temperament, and can be entirely corrected.

A man’s temperament is simply the sum of his fixed habits of thought.

The most of his habits of thought are received from his parents and attendants while he is too young to consciously discriminate.

The habits of thought of his parents are to the child, before and after birth, just what the earth and air and water are to the seed the parents are the environment of the child.

Just as the seed selects from its environment what it feels is best adapted to its uses, so the unborn ego absorbs from the parents that which harmonizes with it.

That this is true is amply proved by the thousands of cases of twins who, given the selfsame environment, yet are, even in infancy, so unlike each other. Each has assimilated from the parents’ temperament (habits of thought) that which is related to itself.

To me this fact is the strongest proof of the truth of reincarnation. Why should children of one conception choose different elements from the parents unless each is governed in his selection by knowledge gained previously? Desire in some previous state of existence has carried the ego to the particular persons whose thought elements will gratify its desires, true or untrue.

As each individual embodies both truth and error, it is plain to be seen how two children may assimilate such different temperaments from the same parents.

The parents are a magnet. The disembodied souls having in them that which relates them to the magnet, thus find, by the working of the omnipresent Law of Attraction, their own particular place in the universe; the one environment which affords them the opportunities they need for further development.

Each individual temperament has its habits of true thought and its habits of untrue thought; each particular habit attracting experiences, environment, after its kind. The correspondence of not only bodily diseases, but outward experiences, to the temperament, is absolutely fixed. It is governed by unalterable law — the Law of Attraction.

You can no more change that law than you can change the orbit of the earth. “What you have sown, that shall you reap.” All the worrying and fretting and planning and striving to evade the law is worse than useless for that very striving is developing another untrue habit of thought whose attracted experience will be unpleasant, and absolutely certain to find you.

There is just one way to successfully evade unpleasant conditions, be they of body or environment and that is to correct the temperament. Every thought which passes the mind’s eye has its place in the temperamental structure.

The changing of habits of thought is a matter of forming new habits.

The forming of all habits of thought is done by constant effort of the objective, every-day, surface mind.

As a mode of thought becomes habitual it sinks gradually into the sub-mind where it acts unconsciously to us. It is said that ninety-five per cent of our thinking is done in this sub-self the habit mind. And all this thinking has been set up there by the conscious five per cent of our thought, in our past lives both in this and in previous incarnations or states of being.

The objective five per cent thought — the creative and directive thought — is done by the use of the upper brain. The sub-thinking is done in all other parts of the body. This is no figure of speech. Every organ and ganglion and cell of the body thinks. And it thinks just as it has been taught by its teacher, that mighty five per cent, objective, every-day mind — the one which is taking in the ideas here written.

The whole body will continue to think and feel just as it is taught to think and feel.

If any change is made in the body it is the result of a changed objective mind.

Whatever shows forth in the body was sent there by objective mind.

Every conscious thought is making bodily conditions. The body is the obedient servant of the higher brain. It is never master, except as the upper brain allows it to usurp authority; which still places the responsibility in the upper brain.

The conscious, objective mind in the cerebrum is the positive or active pole of the magnet man; all beneath that is negative; that is, acted upon.

The upper brain is and always has been Lord and Master of the body.

Does that impress you as too “materialistic?” But in reality there is nothing materialistic — “Man does not live in a physical world, but in a physical conception of the world.”

Listen now: While the upper brain is Lord of the body there is yet a higher, which is Lord of All. The I AM THAT I AM is positive to the brain as the brain is to the body.

The highest brain is the present consciousness of the I AM. This is just as true in the lower order of life as in man himself; as true in primitive man as in Christ. The I AM THAT I AM is constantly working upon the highest in the individual, to unfold, to make conscious more of itself, the One, to that individual.

The I AM neither slumbers nor sleeps. It acts with omnipresent power, inexorable power, loving power, upon the brain — pressing for recognition. This it is to which Jesus referred when he declared, “Behold I (the I AM) stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open unto me I will come unto him and sup with him and he with me.”

We are told that the atmosphere presses upon us at the rate of fifteen pounds to the square inch. Who can measure the mighty force of the I AM THAT I AM? It will not be denied. Sooner or later each individual recognizes its insistent knocking and opens the door that it may come in. And “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man,” the glories awaiting him who opens himself to receive from his I AM.

The door through which I AM enters is in the upper brain. He does not enter as a person, or even as an idea, but rather as a stream of finest energy — most positive energy.

The action of this stream of finest energy upon the already organized brain, refines it, dissolving and resolving its actual tissues into new Ideas. Ideas are organizations of thought force, and “thoughts are things”; that is, they are substantial just as the body is, only more so! — namely, finer and more powerful.

What is conceived in the brain by the action of the I AM is sent out from the brain, through the nerve highways, into all the body. Being finer, and so positive, it acts upon the negative body tissues just as the I AM acts upon the brain; dissolving and re-solving the tissues after its own pattern — the “pattern given to thee in the mount”; the mountain, or head.

The highest intelligence in each individual is his most potent force; the thought conceived by the action of his I AM. It is the truth which the I AM has revealed to him. He has gained it through the “soul sense.” It is the direct result of inspiration the same kind of inspiration that we read about.

The I AM has always been speaking to us in this way to every being on earth or in the heavens.

But, because of our limited intelligence, we have denied our highest thoughts as visionary and impractical. Thus we have ignorantly forbidden them to incarnate in the body. We have refused to receive the inspiration given us, not knowing its divine values.

We have so made for ourselves a prison of the actual. The actual has held us in its mighty womb, until we have grown to such proportions that we must be “born again” “born from above.”

“The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until the manifestation of the sons of God.”

“Oh, thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the Gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, couldst thou only see! ” — Thomas Carlyle.

Look up, Sweetheart, and see. Look up to the Ideals which are the source of all power look out upon the Actual which is plastic to receive the impress of the Ideal. Behold the Omnipotent power which is at thy disposal, the realm in which thou mayest create!

Caleb went into the promised land because he ” wholly followed the Lord his God.” Upon the same principle, and only so, will we come into our promised land of immunity from disease of every form.

We must consciously rise to the Ideal realm, the highest, nd live there. For what we think upon, we embody. We are what we have recognized we shall be what we are recognizing today. We are choosing each moment either our highest or something less.

Our highest thought, persisted in will change any defect of temperament, and thus free us from disease and death. “Let patience have her perfect work.”

Chapter 8 – Desire

I wonder if you have realized yet that Reason is a very poor guide? The very highest intelligence is inadequate as director of even the everyday affairs of life. The man who depends most absolutely upon his reason is the very one who makes the most mistakes. And then he wails, “Why is it that when I always try so hard to do right everything turns out wrong?”

Reason is a blind guide and through allowing reason to usurp the throne as director, all the disease and unhappiness that is, has come into the world.

And yet reason is altogether good, and infallible — as far as it goes. It does not go far enough to be a safe guide to any man.

Reason’s after-sight is better than its foresight; because experience is the teacher of reason. Experience furnishes the premises from which reason draws its conclusions.

Every hour man is passing through new and hitherto untried experiences. Not until he has passed them has he sufficient data for correct conclusions.

Therefore man must have a better guide than reason, if he would avoid mistakes.

Man has instinctively recognized this and evolved a God to do his leading for him.

As each new experience is added to his stock of knowledge man has re-arranged his concept of God. His God is the product of his reason, and is small or great according to the premises he has to reason from.

In this way man at last has evolved the conception that God is the law inherent in each atom of the universe; the Law of Attraction by which we are held in form, or dissolved at the bidding of a stronger attraction, only to be again organized.

The Law must be our guide, and the enlightener of reason.

But how are we to know the mind of the Law, and recognize its leadings?

The Law is inherent in each atom of the universe, and in each organization of atoms. The Law manifest is the simple sensation we call Desire.

Desire is the voice of God. Desire is the Law of Attraction recognized.

Desire is the unreasoning and unerring cry of the ego — every ego, from the original atom to the Christ man — for that which is related to itself; for that which is a necessity in the process of unfoldment. The blade of grass desires the sap, without which it must die. The animal desires its prey. And each of these gratifies its desires, and unfolds normally and quickly.

But man refuses to gratify his desires, and consequently gets into all kinds of troubles — i. e., new experiences.

The more he denies his desires, the more experience he gets — new premises from which to reason.

Desire, whether gratified or not, is the enlightener of reason.

Desire denied, is perverted and brings bitter experience. Desire gratified brings healthy experience. All experience teaches.

Reason has for ages denied desire its right to rule. The result is a multiplication and complication of ills, physical and environmental.

From this bitterness reason is learning her mistake, and in due time will again enthrone Desire as ruler — then shall the individual experience “Paradise Regained.”

Every organism has a conscious and a sub-conscious mind. The conscious mind is employed in gaining new experience.

As the new is gained it gradually descends into the sub-mind, the habit mind, and there functions as instinct, desire. Instinct is the knowing quality of Desire. Desire is the active quality of Instinct. The two are one.

Nothing ever descends into the sub-mind, the habit mind, until it has been first completely demonstrated and accepted by conscious mind.

The conscious mind therefore, while it is ever engaged with highest knowledge yet attained, is of necessity less reliable than the sub-mind, for the reason that its deductions are not yet demonstrated, or proved. The moment they are proved they become a part of the instinct mind, the sub-mind.

Through all past ages the individual has acquired knowledge by this process.

In the sub-mind is stored all the wisdom of these ages of experience.

This sub-mind is the human body. Every atom in the body, and organization of atoms, every organ, is the storehouse of its own peculiar kind of knowledge, all gained and tried and accepted in past ages, by the conscious mind, the reasoning mind.

It is said by psychologists that ninety-five per cent of our thinking is done sub-consciously. All this sub-conscious thought is tried and proved. Therefore it is more reliable as far as it goes, than the conscious reasoning.

All subconscious knowledge is connected with the conscious mind, and can be recalled, remembered at the bidding of conscious mind.

The only reason that this is not a demonstrated fact with every individual, is that reason has denied a hearing to this previously acquired knowledge. It has more or less completely divorced itself from its own previous conclusions, by simple denial. Here is the little Garden of Eden story enacted — woman (instinct, intuition, desire, tried wisdom) taken from the side of man (reason) afterward subservient to him reason wills to be self-sufficient, but is tried by desire falls is cast out of Eden (innocent self-gratification) wanders, an outcast, dragging Desire captive but finally redeemed again by Desire Atonement Paradise regained.

How shall we open up this knowledge stored in the sub-mind, that we may have its premises, as well as our daily newly acquired premises, to reason from?

By understanding and desiring, instead of denying, the voice of instinctive wisdom.

Every atom of knowledge stored in the body, the sub-mind, has its little cry for more! More! This little cry is desire. All these atoms of tried knowledge, wisdom, unite in one great desire for something as yet unattained. This something is to the individual what the sap is to the tree — its life; that whereby it grows.

To deny this desire its gratification is to refuse life to the organization. Man grows only by desire gratified.

Desire is the Law recognized and is unerring ever.

Desire gratified brings new experience, affording new material for reason to consider. To deny desire is to shut off from reason its only means of orderly development.

Desire will not be denied. It is omnipotent. Through all these ages when man has tried to deny Desire, it has tempted him and made him “fall” in spite of himself. And every fall has been upward.

Man has grown by gratifying his desires — never by repressing them.

Repression but makes Desire the greater, and sooner or later it will break the bonds imposed by reason, and have its will. This is the process by which most of the growth of the ages has been; and all the terrible experiences of humanity come from the bursting forth of Desire after periods of repression; days, or years, or generations of repression, as the case may be. Calamities have multiplied until the world is filled with bondage and force, and fear, explosions and death.

But in the midst of all this, as the tiny germ in the kernel of corn, is growing the self-knowledge which shall burst the last band and set us free.

“The truth shall set us free from the law of sin and death.”

Conscious mind and sub-conscious mind are One.

There is no dividing line between them. Except as conscious reason places a division and says to the sub-mind, “Thus far and no farther shalt thou come.”

Conscious mind is reasoning will; sub-conscious mind is instinctive desire, the result of past reasoning will.

Reasoning will and instinctive desire are one, both in nature and in the character of their functioning. The recognition of that fact is the at-one-ment which all the ages of growth have been leading up to.

There is no war between right and wrong, no good and evil, except to the mind which denies its own at-one-ment — at-one-mind.

The at-one-mind knows that all is good and leads to greater good.

It has found its good (God) in itself; and has learned that Desire is the voice of God.

“And there shall be no more war; But each in his separate star Shall draw the thing as he sees it, For the God of things as they are.”

Chapter 9 – More Desire

Why do you think it a weakness on your part that makes you apply to a healer for help? That idea is based upon a misconception of your own nature. Desire for anything is an indication of strength, not weakness, and the gratification of desire adds to your strength.

Suppose you were hungry and refused to eat. Would you gain or lose strength? Every desire is a hunger, the voice of a need in you and points always in the right direction. When you desire bread and butter you need it to feed strength. When you desire help from a teacher you need the particular mental pabulum which the teacher can supply you.

Your strength lies in your ability to assimilate what is given you, not in your ability to get along without it.

If you refuse to follow your desire in this matter, or in any other, you compel yourself to draw the mental elements you need and must have, from a meager source of supply instead of a rich one. It is as if you refused a rich loam to your growing plants and provided instead only clay.

You are, in the truest sense, the product of your environment, seen and unseen, Create and Uncreate. Desire, the Law, has drawn to you each and every particular of that environment, and Desire, conscious and unconscious, is every moment modifying environment. Environment is each moment re-acting upon you, producing changes in consciousness, i. e., new intelligence. The manner in which you respond to the stimuli of your surroundings, seen and unseen, determines the quality of the change in you. If you respond unwillingly, protestingly, to the demands of environment, the changes in you are slow and painful. If, on the other hand, you respond freely, willingly to your environment, your growth is rapid and delightful.

It is natural to respond readily to all the stimuli of environment, and such response is a “lost art” only with mankind. Like all other lost arts, this one of ready response to our surroundings is being rediscovered and put to intelligent use for the blessing of man.

The idea of evil is the root of all trouble, every disease. Man protests against environment simply because to him it is evil.

Man responds readily to all stimuli which he recognizes to be good. All environment is good, and the recognition of this fact restores the lost art of quick response to its stimulus; which is the secret of rapid and happy growth.

The key to all that the most radical idealist can desire is the recognition of the positive goodness of all things — the recognition of the positive goodness of all things.

He who, shutting his eyes to “evil,” most persistently and patiently lives in the affirmation of all good, will most quickly find Paradise Regained.

But let me tell you right here that the Christian Science (or, to be more specific, Eddy Science), the Christian Science manner of saying “All is Good,” will avail you nothing permanent in the way of growth. To think that “whatever really is, is good,” and all the sin, sickness and death in the world is “only imaginary,” is simply another way of saying good and evil, God and Devil. Your terms are changed but your mind (all there is of you), still holds the warring elements “good and evil.” “As a man thinketh so is he.”

In order to purge your mind of all evil (this purges you of all evil), you must take sin, sickness and death into the all-good. Affirm them as positively good, until the Good Spirit, the Word in you, teaches your reason to understand how good is All-Mighty, and by the time you have let it teach you to understand how sin, sickness, and death in general and in particular, are good, you will find yourself above sin, sickness and death forever.

You will never find yourself in that heaven where the ” without is as the within” where your desires are all good and all gratified where the inner man is glorious and his environment all beautiful until you can transmute each particular “evil,” within and without, by recognizing its goodness and responding to its stimulus.

This is another way of saying “we grow by the gratification of our desires.” But we cannot consent to gratify our desires until we know they are good. Our desires are many times so strong that they gratify themselves in spite of our lack of consent. And we grow by that gratification, even though because we responded unwillingly to the desire, we reap from its gratification more pain than pleasure.

I am much impressed with a beautiful little poem written by my friend, M. Virginia Rust Humphrey, which illustrates or rather suggests the effect of resisting desire.

She calls her poem —

Resistance.

I met temptation standing by my way,
Oh, my own life how beautiful she was!
She held her fair hands out to me and cried,
“Taste of life’s sweets and pleasures while you may.”
0, how my soul was tried, oh, how I yearned
To fold her to my heart in one impassioned clasp.
The temptress, pleading still, “Come on,
Let not this joy elude your eager grasp.”

But e’en while yielding to the call so sweet, so strong, I heard another voice; ’twas low and sad — I paused to listen and I heard it say — “Yield not, yield not, or thou art lost.” It was my guardian angel, mindful of my fate. I looked into her sweet face, and gained the victory. Thank God, thank God, that she was not one moment late, Or I was lost and gone beyond recall. Oh, yes; I do thank God — And yet, and yet, the joy I lost Would have been worth it all.

“I” have two departments in my consciousness, at war with each other. In one department, “Life’s sweets and pleasures” all belong and in the other “my guardian angel” dwells. My desires called for “sweets and pleasures,” and yet other desires called for the good represented by my “guardian angel mindful of my fate” (the consequences). If “I” only had known what I do know now — that there is really no fence between these departments of my nature that all is good — I would have “tasted life’s sweets and pleasures” my “guardian angel” (conscience and caution, both the result of education) would have smiled approval “I” having responded naturally to all my desires, to the stimuli of both objective and subjective environment, would have been richer and happier for the experience, and ready for yet further experience; higher experience; for we soon tire of one kind and reach out for the new. Thus we grow.

But what did “I” do? “I” weighed “good and evil” ( being then too ignorant to know that all is good), and chose to grant the desire of the “guardian angel” side of me, the subjective, and it was content because its desire was gratified. So it was ready for yet higher experience.

Not so with the objective side, which was hungry, its desire ungratified still.

Now these two departments of my nature are interdependent, and neither can be at ease, happy, unless the other is; any more than my head can be happy if I have a pain in my chest, or if my stomach cries for food.

Therefore, through ignorance of the fact that “I” am all good, all my desires (hungers) legitimate, and their gratification a necessity to further growth; “I” fed one-half my desires and denied the other half, which never ceased to cry out, “The joy I lost would have been worth” all the subjective suffering it cost.

So “I” am still unhappy, unsatisfied, not ready to go on. This regret will rankle in me.

This desire for “life’s sweets and pleasures” may be deadened in me for a time, but sooner or later it will be gratified, for it is the call of the indestructible I for what I must have in order to grow.

If “I” starve this objective side of me too long, I shall die. But death is only a gateway into another state of being, and I shall take the result of all my experiences, with all my ungratified longings, into this new state.

Perhaps the new state will be (as I am inclined to believe) a new incarnation here. In which case “I” shall come into the world again with a set of instincts or desires which are the result of the response I have made to all my past environment.

And that old, ungratified longing for “life’s sweets and pleasures” will wake up and take on the fresh vigor of childhood.

Now the probability is that this desire will control me in this new state of being, and “I” shall “drink my fill” “I” shall be “bad.” I shall take all I want of “life’s sweets and pleasures” until I am more than satisfied, and ready to give the subjective side of me another hearing. So “I” may swing from one extreme to the other, and back again, numberless times perhaps always gaining experience and reason, until at last “I” shall recognize my own quality and the unity of that dual nature — the real goodness of all of me.

Thenceforth “I” am free to follow all desire, for “I” know that all desire is good and leads to more good.”I” am a god, “knowing good and evil.” “I” am “wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove.” “I” create by my word, “in my own image and likeness.” Every good and perfect gift cometh from ME. I AM GOD.

Chapter 10 – A Desirable Text

“The opening article on ‘Desire’ comes home to me the more strongly because all my life, from boyhood up, (and I am now forty-eight), I have been a martyr to a full, large New England conscience — my inheritance from my father in particular. My life has been a struggle to be guided and governed by moral law rather than by desire. * * * Don’t, under the impulse of a woman’s love nature reaching out to help others, teach the being led by desire rather than the moral law of God or Good. The race is largely so attuned to the moral law now that it is `written on their hearts,’ as the Bible puts it, or has become a fixture in their ‘instinctive minds,’ as you express it — their involuntary, unconscious, subliminal self. Don’t write to unsettle this by appealing to their reason along contrary lines.”

This extract from a letter written by a New York correspondent affords me a good text for the next chapter upon Desire.

Let me sum up my teaching regarding Desire:

1. Desire is the Law of Attraction, become conscious through recognition.
2. Desire is the will of the sub-self, the conscious attraction of realized truth for more, more. It is the appetite, the hunger of the sub-self for what it needs.
3. Every realized truth made its entrance to the sub-mind by way of the reason, the objective, surface mind.

Not until reason proves, does the instinct mind, the sub-mind accept.

4. Once accepted by the sub-self a truth is there for eternity. It is “written on the heart,” and is therefore instinctive, i. e., functions sub-consciously. It is “habit.”
5. Reason, dealing ever with new experiences, cannot have all the premises from which to draw a conclusion until the experiences are past. Hence reason is a fallible guide, an uncertain prophet.
6. Desire is the voice of that ninety-five per cent sub-self of demonstrated truth. Hence it calls for the right thing always; i. e., it attracts the experiences, “good” or ” bad,” from which reason shall prove and accept new truth; to find, in turn, its place in the sub-mind.

It was written centuries ago, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me.”

The sub-self, the instinctive mind, is the “inward part,” the “heart,” upon which the law of good is being written. Experience is to us exactly what pictures, bits of cardboard, toothpicks, etc., are to the kindergartners. As with them, reason, objective mind, proves some things as good, some as “bad,” i. e., unserviceable, useless. Reason accepts only the good finally; and that good becomes instinctive.

This statement is corroborated by Thomson Jay Hudson’s conclusions, based upon his very extensive psychic research, and announced in his thoughtful work, “Law of Psychic Phenomena.”

By the way, that book is a liberal education in itself. Every thinker on these new lines should read it.

Hudson is supported by many other scientists in his assertions that no man can be compelled or wheedled into doing, even when hypnotized, what is against his principles e., his “nature,” as expressed in “subjective mind,” the sub-mind. Hudson’s conclusion is that a man’s principles are instinctive. I do not know that he understands how they become instinctive.

* * * * * *

“As a man thinketh so is he.” Caution and conscience are near akin, and next door neighbors in the cranium. Both are born of a belief in good and evil, God and devil. Both result entirely from ignorance of the fact that there is only one energy, one quality of experience, one law, the Law of Attraction, whose consciousness is Desire, in all the Universe. To be a “martyr to a full, large, New England conscience,” or a conscience of any other nativity, is a confession of ignorance.

Nevertheless, conscience and caution are both good. They prod us up and stick pins in us to keep us from going sound asleep in our ignorance. They keep us thinking and working until we finally prove to ourselves that all is really good. I have a large number six conscience myself, and I’ve been a martyr to it. I paid it so much attention for years that it repaid me as a child repays the parent who fears it and pampers its every whim. My conscience, and my caution, were a spoiled pair. They kicked at nothing and would not be satisfied. By and by I rebelled at such tyranny and literally “gave them a piece of my mind” — the all-good piece. They are now as docile as Mary’s little lamb. They have learned that I am God and could not be bad if I tried, for the law of love, God, is “written on my heart.”

* * * * * *

There is no danger of “unsettling” people by teaching the goodness of Desire, because nobody can follow desire until he realizes that it is good until reason is convinced.

If he accepts this teaching simply as an excuse to gratify evil desire he will gain experience, it is true, but it will be a kind that he will not care to repeat. Only “he who hath ears” can “hear” or receive any teaching. The Law of Attraction governs in all knowledge. Just remember the hard times you have had trying to hammer mental science, or any other new idea, into people’s heads, and you will realize that only those who “have ears” can “hear.” Everybody is just as well-intentioned as you or I. They simply have not yet grown ears for our particular kind of truth. Speak the truth as you see it, and let them hear or not as they can. Speak the truth when it is asked of you — “cast not your pearls before swine.” You are not required to prevail upon people to see truth. Truth, which is mighty, shall prevail.

* * * * * *

What IS moral law? A matter of education, pure and simple. Moral law in India requires the drowning of the very “spiritual” mother’s girl baby in the sacred Ganges, and her number six Indian conscience lashes her to despair if she obeys not the moral law.

Moses promulgated a more complex “moral law,” to whose vibrations the Jewish world is gradually responding.

Jesus of Nazareth announced the height of “moral law, ” the only immutable law of the Universe, the Law of Love, or Attraction, or Desire. “Do unto others as ye would — desire — they should do unto you.”

The Universe is attuned (not is being attuned), to the vibrations of Love. Its tones are swelling in divine harmonies now. The “music of the spheres” is reality — not simply poetic fancy.

Whatever belief man may hold, not in accord with the Law of Love or Desire, is doomed to the bottomless pit of oblivion. Experience is teaching him that happiness, the one end and aim of creation, cannot be attained except by living, i. e., thinking, according to the law of his being, the Law of Love or Desire. Recognition of Love is Joy, Life. Recognition of Not Love is pain, death. “As a man thinketh, so is he.” To Think love is to Be love, and to Be love is Joy.

The moral law is variable, the result of man’s reason and depends for its nature upon how much love its promulgator has realized. Jesus realized perfect love — “perfect as your Father in heaven,” the Law itself, is perfect. Therefore, his “moral law” will never be improved upon, though the perfect application of that Law will occupy eternity and infinity.

* * * * * *

“A woman’s love nature,” says my correspondent. If God is Love, what truer impulse could any human being have than his love nature? Love never errs. It is Not-love impulse that sins — fails to hit the mark of truth.

My correspondent has patches of the truth which in the fulness of time will by love, or God, be pieced together into one harmonious whole — a sort of love-quilt which “covereth all things.”

“Appealing to reason along contrary lines.” Sweetheart, there are no “contrary lines.” All things fit; everything works for good; and each thing is needed, and in its place. We have not yet pieced them together in our own minds. That is all. But we are learning.

Chapter 11 – Following Desire

When a man first begins to believe that he is all good and his desires the expression of the law, he finds himself in the peculiar state of mind described by Paul: “When I would do good behold evil is present with me.” He can not rid himself of the belief that some of his desires are “evil.” Many of his desires seem to point so evidently in the wrong direction. His desires appear to be divided against themselves. And they are.

The beliefs in good and evil, God and Devil, have all been built into his being, and each set of beliefs has its own peculiar attractions or desires. “As a man thinks so is he,” and his desires are the attraction of his thoughts for more thoughts which will complement them.

Man, by thinking there are two powers in the universe, opposites of each other, has built two opposites within himself; has made himself a dual being, a good and evil being, with two kinds of desires to match. The man with the most thoughts of evil has the most evil desires — “as he thinks.”

But the man’s thoughts only are dual; man himself is a unit, one with “the Father”; one altogether good being. In proportion as he recognizes this fact will be built good only into his mental mansion, his “house not made with hands,” his body; and in that same proportion will his desires be good.

Recognition of good is the only possible means of salvation from evil.

ALL IS GOOD is the Idea which will transform man by renewing his mind, which is the builder and ruler of his body. The ALL IS GOOD idea is the real savior of mankind; the Christ of this age. And truly this second coming of Christ is universal — “from the east even unto the west.”

It is not a man’s efforts at “overcoming the lower self,” that will save him from one iota of “sin.” He may develop will power enough to prevent his “evil desires” from gratifying, or “expressing” themselves for a time, but they are there, deep down in his consciousness like caged beasts only waiting opportunity, which, sooner or later, comes. They were born and bred in him, and grew up within him, by simple recognition — “as a man thinks.”

And the only way he can ever entirely dislodge them from himself is by displacing them with recognition of their opposite.

It is a man’s IDEAS that form him and transform him; his faith that saves him, not his works. Fight till doomsday the “evil” demons that are in you, and they will but fight back, and, like all hunted creations, grow more fierce and destructive. Your recognition of them keeps them alive, — “as a man thinks.”

A starved animal is more dangerous than a well fed one so a starved evil desire is more dangerous, more active, than a gratified propensity. A caged animal, sleek and fat, gives little trouble and finally dies comfortably of old age. An evil propensity gratified at the time and then ignored till next time it calls, will sleep just as a gorged animal will, between times, giving little trouble. And in due time it will die out entirely leaving no progeny, IF you do not keep life in it by recognition, by continually thinking about it. And let me tell you that every thought of regret and self-censure keeps it alive just so much longer. Every moment you spend “groping among the shadows of old sins,” postpones the hour of your freedom. Learn to gratify your “evil” desires; forgive yourself; forget; and set your mind on things above.

It is the setting your mind on things above that will eventually redeem you from all evil consciousness, within and without. Recognition of good will transform you, and nothing else can. There is only one important thing in life — to think good. The IDEA of good is the Savior, the Christ, the Redeemer.

“We grow like that which we think upon.” When the idea of good comes to us we grow to “be like him,” (the Idea of Good) for we see Him as He is.

To gratify desire, good or ill, is the quickest way to leave the thought force free for the projection of higher desires.

Keep in mind the saving truth that desire is good and free yourself as fast as you can to follow desire.

Chapter 12 – Desire, Crucified, Shall Rise Again

“Please explain the meaning of your words, ‘The crucifixion of desire is good.’ Now I am being taught by mental scientists that our desires are all good, but that they may possibly require modification.”

Our desires are all good just as the human race is all good; and just as some of the human race suppress, oppress, crucify others of the human race, so some of our desires suppress and crucify others.

In either case the conservative crucifies the radical. The radical is always an expansionist; the conservative an anti.

The radical, unrestrained, would expand so fast that all semblance to the original would disappear and chaos result.

The conservative would hold things forever as they are.

All growth, in plant, animal, man or social organization, is by one process; by the radical or active life pushing through the weak places in the conservative or negative life.

Buds do not push out from the solid bark of a tree — the resistance is too great. But that same life force, pent inside the bark, pushes on and ever upward until it finds an outlet, a place where it can express itself.

Imagine, if you can, that same tree without bark or fiber. The life force would spread out in all directions, growing but an unsightly, disorderly excrescence instead of a beautiful and orderly tree.

All through the autumn and winter the tree is peacefully possessed by the Conservative Element; in the spring the Radical Element rises, rises, seething with New Ideas.

The Conservative Element strains and strives to hold its time-honored Forms. All the new life forced into it by the rising Radical is used only to enlarge and add to the old form.

The Radical is not satisfied with the old and pushes, expands, forces, INCREASES, until, between the growth from within and the pressure from without, it rises to the top, finds the weak points in the Conservative armor and pushes through into new expression.

There is not only room at the top, but all freedom is at the top.

Anywhere short of the top all is striving and straining.

The Conservative Element in all life, the restraining, repressing, crucifying element forces life into higher channels ever nearer to freedom.

Do you catch a glimpse of why the crucifixion of desire is good? Desire is to man what sap is to a tree. Given free run near the earth it would never express beyond the “worm-of-the-dust” stage. Environment forces desire into higher channels. Self-repression forces it still higher. But at last all this forcing, repression, crucifixion, results in freedom of expression.

Today is the day of freedom — now are the new buds bursting forth from every weak place in the old conservative shell. The day of repression and force is past. We are free.

Therefore we say, “Desire is good; trust desire.” And we also say, “The crucifixion of desire is good,” for by it desire rises. And again we exclaim: “ALL is good!”

* * * * * *

DESIRE is the only infallible guide. Let him who desires to crucify desire, crucify it.

Gradually desire will rise above the crucifixion point and express in freedom.

Chapter 13 – How to Desire

“How can a person find out what he really desires?

It may be that I am what somebody calls a ‘wooden woman,’ or have crushed desire till it is too weak to express itself; but I know this; I am not satisfied with what I am doing, never have cared for the work, but had to do it as I could do best with it. I want something else. I have that feeling of longing and looking, expecting something all the time, but do not know what it is I want, and when I look over the field of woman’s work, and man’s, too, I do not see any work which I really desire to engage in. When I was quite a little girl and went to Sunday school I used to think that to be a missionary was the finest thing on earth. It may be that it was the stories of the wonderful things in the tropical countries that I desired to see, but it might have been something else. Then as I grew older it was my great desire to be a physician and I started to study, but the opposition was so great that I got disgusted, not with the work, but with the people, and so I went as far away from them as I could get. Once or twice since I have made an effort to take up the study, but never did. That is the only thing that I have ever really desired to do. Everything else has been sort of haphazard, according as it would be the means of taking me to some new place, as I do not like to stay in one place very long.”

S. E.

Desire is a real, an all-powerful force. A force to be effectual must be concentrated, focused. In childhood desire is concentrated “this one thing, with all my soul,” is the child’s attitude of mind and desire. A child follows its desire until it is satisfied; then turns all its desire, its force, in a new direction.

Not so with grown up folks. They allow all sorts of things, within and without, to turn their desire aside, just as S. E. allowed opposition to turn her. Part of her force, thought, desire, still flowed in the old course and part was turned in a new direction. Soon her force, desire, was again turned and divided. Again and again this operation is repeated until she is like a great stream which is turned into a thousand small channels, running in all directions over a dead level, instead of being One mighty and resistless current.

Now this is the state of nine-tenths of the race. Desire in each is turned aside in thousands of small impotent wishes. Life meanders aimlessly upon a great dead level.

But all the original force is there. All it needs is direction to concentrate it again and make it a mighty power, the current of which bears the individual easily, delightfully, in the desired direction.

When a soul wakes up on a dead level like this; when he finds himself minus an object in life, or a desire worthy the name; the first thing to do is to do nothing. Be still. Let yourself meander. Be comfortable. Sleep a lot. Sit in the sun and relax, as a hen does in the dust. Let life live you.

By and by you will grow conscious of a wish that seems to be just a little stronger and bigger than any other wish — as if two or three of those tiny rivulets of desire had run in together. That is just what happened.

Now lay for that wish, that desire. Make tracks to gratify it. Run along with it as far as you can. But don’t worry if it soon seems dead level again. Keep quiet again. Go to sleep some more. Sun yourself. After a little you will feel another wish (wishes are tiny rivulets of desire), and this time it will be a little stronger than before. Hop up quickly and run along with it. A few more little rivulets have run in together. Repeat this little alternate rest-and-run act just as wish, feeling, prompts.

Take it easy, dearie — all eternity ‘s before you. Be aisy wid ye, and one of these fine mornings you will wake up with a real, live DESIRE. While you rested and slept, a lot of these little wish-rivulets all ran in together and made a nice respectable desire.

But see you don’t change your tactics. See you don ‘t expend too much energy — just go with desire. Go slowly when it goes slowly. Keep cool and keep sweet. DESIRE does the work. Just let it. Keep in the middle of the stream and it will carry you safely. Every little while you will find yourself taking a little extra spurt in the desired direction. That is caused by another wish-rivulet running into the desire stream. One at a time all the little rivulets will run in and you will find yourself being borne swiftly, happily and without straining, in the desired directon. DESIRE did it all. One little rivulet, larger than the others, wanted an object in life, so it flowed in that direction and attracted all the other little rivulets.

It did not command the other little rivulets, as so many people try to force desire and thought. This little desire ran quietly along humming its own little song and minding strictly its own business and gradually, one by one, all the other little rivulets fell in love with its song and came closer and closer, and finally they all ran in one bed, all in one direction, all for one purpose. That is the way to concentrate, and its ‘s as easy as rolling off a log.

* * * * * *

When I was a very small girl I used to play on a river beach where a small stream ran into the river, and I made little channels and scattered that stream away out. And then I’d run my finger, or a stick, along from one little rivulet to another and coax them all together again. It was great fun, but not as much fun as it is now to coax the little thought-streams, desire-streams, into new brain channels, bringing them closer and closer together every day. Concentration is lots of fun when you know how. And the way to learn how is to practice, practice, concentrating at the points of least resistance. Be aisy wid ye, but keep at it.

* * * * * *

And never get scared for a moment about the outcome. The force is all there, and you have the whole of eternity to do it in; and you don ‘t have to do it anyway if you don’t want to. You do just as you please, Sweetheart.

Chapter 14 – How to Follow Desire

“I should like very much to have an interpretation of your ‘desire philosophy,’ as applied to the case of a girl in love with one whom it is not lawful that she should love, i. e., a man already married. The man contends that there is nothing wrong in such a relation so long as no harm is done to anybody else — that their mutual love is only the working out of the law of affinity, and no more sinful than the operation of the law of gravitation. At first she tried to point out the great sin both were committing against all human and divine laws, but she says her love was so great as to carry her beyond all reason, which nevertheless she will admit to be sound and logical. Do you believe they are committing an actual sin by their mutual declarations of affection? Or do you believe in any actual sin? Sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I do. I am mixed. Please tell me what you think right away.” — Jane.

No matter how much one may be enamored of another person, if he has real love for truth and honesty, and respect for himself, he will enter no illicit relations. Supposing he has little love for truth and honesty he ought to love the woman too well to rob her of her own honesty and reputation.

Sin is hitting wide of the mark of rightness with the law of one’s own being. Of course I believe in “sin,” in missing the mark, and I believe that we gain wisdom by experience, even if we do miss the mark many times.

The greatest sin in such cases as this is the sin against self. The law of being is love, and in order to live, love must express itself honestly.

How is love to express itself honestly under dishonest conditions of mind? When it has to sneak into dark corners to express itself, love soon dies and contempt festers in its place. This is proved by the stories of all illicit love affairs which are permitted to run their course.

Love grows only in an atmosphere of honesty; cramped in a corner it soon dies.

Love grows by what it feeds upon. How then can it continue to live when fed upon the poison of deceit and treachery to others and to one’s own conscience?

Only yesterday I had a letter from a heart broken actress whose lover ‘s love has cooled and died. How can such things end any other way?

Honesty is natural. Dishonesty is unnatural. The illicit lover must hug dark corners and dodge in and out. He must lie and crouch and hide and pretend, in order to gratify his love. He must live in a strained, unnatural mental and even physical attitude. He grows crooked and misshapen, mentally and physically. And the strain tells on him exactly as any physical strain tells on anybody. Eventually he wakes up to the truth that the game is not worth the candle. His ardor cools, he grows critical.

About the time he wakes up the woman wakes up too. He wakes up to the fact that it is better to be square with the world and himself than to skulk and crouch for the sake of a love. He discovers that the world offers other loves, and he has another, or can marry one, whom he can love in the daylight.

She wakes up to the fact that the world is giving her the cold shake. She has nothing left but this love — she has thrown all the other loves away for this one — thrown away the world’s love for her, thrown away her family’s love for her. She has hidden herself away from all other loves to cultivate this one and this one is slipping from her. She too is mentally a stunted, distorted thing from living the dishonest, crouching, lying, little-self life of underhanded love.

He followed his desire for a woman, and to do it he crushed back his desire to be a free, manly man. By experience he has learned that he followed the lesser love. He concludes that if he had it to do over again he would express himself honestly, he would gratify the loves to which he need not stoop. He concludes that he could have loved better had he loved honor more.

He has learned his lesson. He is ready to cast the woman off and turn to his wife, whom he now feels that he might have loved more if he hadn’t been so taken up with the clandestine love. He begins to see his wife with new eyes. The relief of not having to lie and sneak is great. His wife wins him again.

Or, his may be the story attributed by some to Nan Patterson and “Caesar” Young. He may have decided to go home to an honest love, or friendship at least, and at the last moment find himself the victim of a desperate woman whose character he has helped to dwarf and distort and whose reputation he has helped her lose. She may be desperate enough to kill him, and perhaps herself.

He has followed his desire for a woman until he waked up to his deeper desire for honest living. Just at the hour when he is ready to shed the lesser desire for the greater he dies. He was badly tangled by the illicit love, tangled by circumstances and by his own distorted character; perhaps if he had lived he would have found the tangle too much for him — he would have “fallen” frequently, to his own self-disgust.

But he dies; with the desire for truth and honest living strong upon him. Where does he go? I wonder if he does not reincarnate somewhere. I wonder if he does not become again a little child, freed of the old set habits of mind and circumstance, plastic to be moulded by that strong new desire for honest living.

And the poor girl too has learned her lesson; or she will learn it by repetition of the same sort of experience. She too has grown a desire for honest living; she longs for her own self-respect and that of the world of which she is a member, to which she finds herself bound by invisible nerves and arteries which she has been trying to ignore.

Perhaps her lesson is learned before it is too late; before her character is too set in its distortion; before hope and faith in the future are dead within her. If so she “reforms” — literally begins to re-form her character by honest desiring and thinking and living — and makes for herself a new and honorable place in the world. It is never too late to do this so long as faith and patience are still alive.

But if she has no patience and little faith, with courage enough, she follows “Caesar” by her own hand. Then she too may reincarnate somewhere, impelled by her newborn desire to live aright.

If reincarnation is true the power of attraction, which is desire, will carry the newly reincarnating being to the parents who can afford it conditions for developing according to its dominant desire. This would carry the dead “Caesars” and Nan Pattersons to new states of right parentage and training.

Do you see how desire works?

Listen: If you stoop to follow a desire you gain wisdom by hard and bitter experience which wakes you up to the high desire for true living which is the principle of every human soul.

If you follow your high desire for honest living before God and man, you miss the bitter experiences of life.

Ponder well those two statements, dear heart.

Years of separation from the one you love? Ah, but that is sweet pain, not bitter. Haven’t you yet learned the difference between the bitter hardships of the transgressor against self, whose desired things are torn from him and the sweet sorrow of him who voluntarily resigns a joy that he may satisfy his high conscience? To walk in freedom, upright before your God-self, adds sweetness to any fate. And what is a life time of separation from your mate, with that sweet love within and the sunshine over you, when there is eternity ahead.

The law of affinity, like the law of gravitation with which it is one, is sinless. But man may use or abuse both. How did “Caesar” and Nan use it?

Because by the law of gravitation a falling body is drawn to earth is a man excused for pushing his rival off a cliff? Neither is a man excused for pushing himself or a girl off the solid rock of conscience into the stream of affinity. Neither is a woman excused for courting the edge of the precipice until a misstep, or her own gazing downward, or a little push, carries her over. The goodness of gravitation or affinity will not keep her from hitting the rocks at the bottom. And about the time she strikes she will wish to goodness she had not taken moonlight strolls on the edge of a precipice — with a man only too willing to push her off.

Follow desire; but observe this rule: Follow only the desire which can be courted in the broad light of conscience. Walk upright, as a god may.

Use reason; but don’t use it to bluster conscience into silence that you may follow a desire which must be gratified on the sly.

“Blessed is the man that doubteth not in that thing which he alloweth,” and verily there shall be no bitterness in his heart. Life is a complexity of desires. Follow the one conscience calls the highest.

Thus shall you lead the “simple life” of truth, and grow in wisdom whose ways are pleasantness and all her paths peace.

Children, free love is a beautiful theory which angels may practice with impunity. But as yet we are angels in the grub state only. Don’t let’s be in too great a hurry to imitate our elders, lest we do it clumsily and reap broken hearts and the bitterness of regret. We are growing up; let’s make haste slowly.

But a whole life time separated from your affinity? Such things occurred in the time of Abelard, when people were wedded for life to the church; or in the time of George Eliot when divorce was unknown because everybody was set against such separations. There may have been some excuse for George Eliot and Lewes to defy the world’s respect for them; but even George Eliot was not big enough, great enough, strong enough to do it without paying a bitter price. And in this day it is different. An unhappy marriage will in time disintegrate naturally. Then death or divorce will free the party whose “affinity” is elsewhere — free him to honest expression of love.

The man or woman who wants to perpetuate a daylight marriage and a sub rosa love is crooked. Don’t trust him. His crookedness and corruptness will crop out in other ways too. A recent big scandal and criminal prosecution in political circles concerns a man who for years and years has been crooked in his loves.

To live the complex, deceitful life in any direction will eventually distort the straightest character but crooked love affairs will melt a character out of shape more quickly and surely than anything else I know of while love controlled in honor beautifies and glorifies mind and body.

Blessed is the love of one man for one woman yet more blessed is the resignation of such a love for truth’s sake.

“All things are lawful;” but blessed is the man who willingly resigns that which is not expedient according to the highest love of his own being, the love of truth and freedom.

Great is he who, “caught in the gulf stream of some great desire,” breasts the stream and reaches his goal.

Chapter 15 – Concentration

Without concentration ye can do nothing. Without concentration was not anything made that was made. Without concentration will nothing ever be made. All the force in the universe amounts to nothing if not concentrated.

Every object in the universe from an atom to a blazing sun, from amoeba to man, is in existence as a result of concentration.

Diffusion is disintegration, death. Concentration IS LIFE. The greater the concentration, the more abundant is life. Think of the sun a moment. That is a fine illustration of concentration. Shall I tell you how the sun is made? I saw it made in the silence. I don’t ask you to believe that I know what I am talking about. Believe or not as you can. Some day when you get into the silence yourself you will know whether I am right or not. Right or not, I’ll tell you how the sun was formed, just as a matter of illustration.

Let us wipe out the stars, our solar system included, from the heavens as from a great blackboard. Now look closely, Sweetheart, and see what we have left. Space — nothing more. See? That looks easy — doesn’t it? But what is space? Space is full — yes, full; of diffused energy; full of motion without mode, or at least without the mode that’s in fashion now. Watch a skyrocket come down and you will get some idea of the primitive mode of motion. Remember that there was no up nor down in those days — thousand year days — that these infinitely tiny spiral, vibratory movements came from all directions, in a space where there were no directions, and collided with each other in a most disorderly manner, and you will get a fair idea of the chaos that reigned before there was any sun.

Now imagine a lot of these spiral, vibratory waves of energy, in their hilarious gambols running bang up against each other — at a center! Is it any wonder that the sparks flew? That the collision makes light?

All those little, mighty little spirals, coming with the velocity of thought, from all directions meet in the center of the sun. They become concentered, or “concentrated” there. They flow steadily in to that center in one mode of motion they strike against each other there, are changed by the contact and rush out again in other modes of motion we know as “sun rays.”

In turn these sun rays rush into other centers — are concentrated in crystal, plant, animal or human being, and again thrown off in other modes of motion.

Think of how sound waves are created and you will get an idea how this mighty in-rushing concentration of energy produces light and heat by contact with itself. Clap your two hands together and you create a motion which is registered by the tympanum as sound. So the meeting of these streams of energy sets in motion the energy we recognize as light and heat.

Now that is the way the sun is made. I am not alarmed about the fuel giving out. Neither am I afraid it will be too warm for me to live there if I take a notion some day to emigrate.

Have I made too large a demand upon your imagination, Sweetheart? You will never realize the mysteries of creation if you cannot imagine a lot. Imagination is the creative faculty and the only faculty that can glimpse the mysteries of life.

* * * * * *

Man is the most powerful concentrator of energy in this world. He does not have to learn to concentrate. He is the result of ages of concentration of energy. His growth is the result of greater concentration. He couldn’t be anything else than a concentrator if he tried, and he couldn’t quit concentrating to save his life. Or, rather, as soon as he quits concentrating he loses his life.

It is natural for man to concentrate his mind it is unnatural for his mind to “wander.” This is proved by the fact that a little child evidences perfect concentration, while old people are most afflicted with a wandering mind.

Did you ever notice how absorbed a child is in whatever interests it? “This one thing I do,” is its attitude of mind. That is concentration.

The first seeds of a wandering mind are sown in the child by compelling it to work against its will. A parent or teacher who has the knack of rousing interest in a child is working with the law of its being. The child will concentrate knowledge readily because its attention is held steadily in one direction. Whereas the child who works without interest, attention, concentration, is dividing its interest between its task and something it wants to do. In time this habit becomes fixed, the mind wanders always, and finally nothing fully interests.

When the mind scatters, the body follows, for the two are one. You so often hear people say, “Nothing seems to interest me.” All because, unknowingly, the habit of dividing the attention has become second nature. Such a one is never happy or healthy, for health and happiness are the result of concentration.

Every adult person has contracted more or less of this unnatural habit of dividing the attention, and just in proportion as he indulges the habit will he manifest disease.

It is in every man’s power to again “become as a little child.” And to do this he does not have to cultivate a new habit. He simply recalls the natural conditions.

Whatever a man turns his attention upon is concentrated within him. The process is not unlike that of photography. If his attention wanders he receives only “under time” impressions. If his attention is undivided, his full attention turned upon any object, thought, or train of thought, he receives a distinct impression; the object or train of thought is concentrated within him.

To recall this natural attitude of attention, of interest, is the one thing necessary to recall all the other conditions of childhood — health, happiness, beauty and youthful appearance. Eternal youth is a result of eternal interest in living; the result of continued concentration.

The secret of concentration is interest, attention. If we will forget the very word “concentration” and practice being interested, we will find concentration naturally follow.

* * * * * *

All sorts of practices for concentration are good just as long as they are interesting. The moment you lose your desire for any particular practice that practice becomes a detriment, in the same way that compulsory work is a detriment to a child, by conducing to the dividing of attention, a “wandering mind.”

The idea that there is something wrong with you because you cannot fix your attention — concentrate — for several minutes upon one single word, or because you cannot make your mind a blank, is a most erroneous one. Such mental gymnastics are of no earthly or heavenly value. The attention is for receiving impressions, and should not be held staring for five minutes at an idea that ought to be received in the tenth part of a second. The moment that the full attention has been turned upon an idea the impression is clearly received.

Every thought and act of your daily living affords opportunity for practice of concentration. Every time you can remember to do it put your whole attention into the thing you are doing or thinking. Stop and make a little address to yourself. Say, “There is just this one thing for me to do; I want to do it; I am interested in it; I do it with all my mind so that it will be perfectly done with the least outlay of energy.” Thus you put your mind, your attention, into it. And you gain time, instead of losing, as you may imagine. Try it thoroughly and you will be convinced. By daily practice of this kind you will soon cultivate control of your attention so that you can turn it wherever your intelligence bids it turn. Then you will find you can fix your attention at will upon a train of thought. The wandering mind habit will leave you. You will enjoy whatever you choose to do. You will find yourself free to follow desire.

Chapter 16 – Practice

“If ye know these things, happy are ye if you do them.” I get letters from all directions written by people who say they have studied the new science of life anywhere from one to almost a score of years, and yet have not reached a point where they are not dependent upon healers for assistance in demonstrating over disease and dissatisfaction.

Beloved, it does us no good simply to know that mind governs matter.

We must take charge of our thoughts and rule our bodies.

Very little is gained by knowing that the law of our being is Love.

We must think love, act love, in order to be free from dis-ease.

It is all very pretty to theorize about the Ideal becoming manifest in the Real, but theorizing never saved and never will save a man from unpleasant conditions unless he puts his theories into practical, everyday living.

An ideal is omnipotent. I’m going to re-write that sentence. It is worthy to be perpetuated in stone. We will perpetuate it in material more lasting than marble — the human consciousness.

AN IDEAL IS OMNIPOTENT.

An Ideal is the only power in your life.

But your ideal will not do a thing for you if you don’t keep your eye on him. He is like some employees — he won ‘t work when he isn’t watched. But watch your ideal and trust your ideal, and there is nothing he will not do for you.

Beloved, that is why you have not “demonstrated” any better. You have watched your conditions rather than your Ideal. You have kept your eye on the thing you did not want instead of upon the thing you do want.

And the thing you do not want is also a faithful workman when he is watched. Quit looking at him and he will go to sleep and tumble over into the bottomless pit of nonrecognition.

Practice, practice, practice! You can no more learn to think ideally without practice than you can learn to play the piano without practice. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty from bad habits of all kinds.

Not eternal fear of forming bad habits; nothing will bring them upon you more quickly. But eternal vigilance in practicing good habits of thought.

The great secret of healing is to shut your eyes determinedly to the manifest and gaze steadfastly upon the unmanifest Ideal. Just in proportion as one is able to do this will his success be.

Practice makes perfect in this as in other things. Set your mind on the ideal. Set it and reset it a thousand times a day if necessary. The habit will be formed at last.

Your mind will be renewed; your body transformed. Your body being a magnet, your environment will be changed as your body changes.

“Whatsoever ye WILL, it shall be done unto you.”

Chapter 17 – To Use Your Forces

“I continually treat myself. Can I treat myself too much?” M. G.

You can overdo anything, especially self-treatment. If you keep repeating affirmations to yourself your mental chattering interferes with the real healing.

It is not the conscious mind which heals you it is the subconscious or soul-mind and the super-conscious or Over-Soul-mind.

Your soul’s expression is guided and directed by your conscious mind. A mental affirmation is simply a word of direction to your soul mind. The soul hears your statements and then builds accordingly.

But what would happen if you called up your house maids and told them over and over, just what you wanted done and just how to do it? If you spent all your time repeating your directions to them when would they get the work done? And wouldn’t they get your directions mixed? Of course.

You don’t do it that way, of course not not if you are a wise housekeeper. You call up your maids and tell them quietly and kindly, and in as few words as possible, just what you want done. Then they go cheerfully away out of your presence and do their best to please you. If you later come across something which was not done right you call in a maid and repeat your directions, with perhaps a little further explanation. Then you go away again and trust her to do it aright this time.

What would happen if you tagged around after your maids and tried to watch and criticize and direct every little movement? Why, they would grow nervous and make foolish mistakes and you would all give up in despair.

And what would happen if you directed them to do a certain difficult piece of work and then came back five minutes later expecting to find it all done? Oh, you can’t imagine yourself doing such foolish things!

Perhaps you don’t with your maids, but evidently you do with your own self. Your objective, every-day consciousness is the mistress or master of your being. Psychologists say the objective mental activities are not more than one-twentieth of all your mental activities. That means that the mistress mind has the equivalent of at least twenty maids under its direction. These “maids” belong to the subjective mind, or soul of you.

Then there is the great Over-Soul, of which your individual soul is but an atom but an atom whose every demand is heard. That means that your little mistress mind not only has at her bidding the equivalent of at least twenty maids of the subconscious, but she has also at her call the equivalent of ten million billion other helpers of the infinite Over-Soul.

And all the mistress mind has to do is say the word. All these helpers fly to do her bidding. Perhaps you think all these helpers don ‘t fly to do your bidding. But they do. The only trouble with you is that you don’t give your helpers time and chance to work out your desires. You keep repeating your directions over and over, and you keep trying to tag around after all your twenty or more house maids to see if they are doing the things you want done. You watch them in your stomach and your liver and your lungs, always fretting for fear they are going wrong.

No wonder you get nervous and fidgety and strained all over; no wonder your “feelings” are no better than they are!

Make your statements of health, happiness and success at certain regular intervals, say two or three times a day. Or make them at times when you can ‘t get your mind off your conditions. Make the statements plainly and positively. Then call your mind entirely away from the subject and give your soul and the Over-Soul a chance to work. Make light of your feelings and go get well interested in some good work.

Take it for granted that all your being and all creation besides, is working out for you the things you desire. Rest easy and trust yourself.

Don’t let your mind tag your feelings and symptoms; give it plenty of useful work and plenty of play and plenty of rest while your soul works things out for you as fast as it can. Just be as interested and happy as you can while the soul is working. Jolly yourself into having a good time.

Say the Word, and then be happy and do not allow yourself to doubt that the soul will do the work. This is the secret of quick healing. The nearer you can come to keeping your mind pleasantly occupied between the times when you give yourself special affirmations and treatments,

the more quickly you will realize health of mind, body and environment as well as soul.

Thy faith in thy soul and the Over-Soul, will have made thee whole.

The faithless mind is a terrible meddler and creator of discords and the idle mind, the mind not directed to useful purposes is always a faithless meddler. Moral: Get interested in some good work.

Chapter 18 – To Love

Man’s law of being is Love.

To love is joy.

To love always, under all conditions is eternal life.

To refuse to love is to turn the current of life back upon one’s self. Result, stagnation, fermentation, death. We call the unloving one “selfish,” and we don’t feel like loving him.

But we must if we would have eternal life, eternal joy.

How to love the unlovable is a conundrum. But even a conundrum has a solution.

Would you like to know how I solved it? When I discovered that the law of life is love I tried mightily to feel love for all people and things. I succeeded beautifully with the heathen over in China. But I couldn’t apply it to the vegetable Chinaman and the junk man. I could feel an ocean of love for sinners I never saw, but when Mrs. Blank told Mrs. Talker, (and she told me) that she did wish I would select my hats in better taste, I found it impossible to feel any love for Mrs. Blank.

I could walk along the street and feel a real thrill of loving pity for every little homeless cur, but when one trotted with four muddy paws up my newly scrubbed front steps I felt a lot more like clubbing him than loving him. And I couldn’t fool myself into thinking I wanted to club him because I loved him — as I have heard of parents doing with their children.

I could go about some kinds of housework in a perfect transfiguration of love but when I had to clean lamps or the cook stove after the jelly boiled over, I dropped from the seventh heaven with a thud.

Oh, dear, what was I to do?

I gave up trying to feel love and went to thinking love. I said, “I CHOOSE to love, whether I feel like it or not. I WILL send out love to everything and everybody, no matter how I feel. I WILL to love.” In this way I “treated” myself for love every time I was reminded of it. I thought it silently. I said it aloud in the privacy of my own room. I went up into the attic and stamped my foot and clenched my fist and hollered it!

And I succeeded.

Let me whisper something to you: That is the only way to succeed in anything. Of course the virtue is not in the room or the attic or the “hollering.” but in the activity of will induced by it.

Try it.

I succeeded in making love a habit of thought.

When anything becomes a habit of thought it is registered in the ninety-five per cent sub-mind and then we say of it, “I feel.” Affirm, affirm, AFFIRM — whisper — louder — HOLLER! Stamp your foot and hit out from the shoulder! Success must be conquered — not implored.

 

The End