The Philosophy of Denial
KANSAS CITY:
UNITY BOOK COMPANY. 1894
In the second lesson of this course you were given a theoretical basis for denying the race errors by the power of the word. This lesson corresponds to the second in that it is the practical application of what was there theoretically postulated, and proven from the standpoint of pure reason.
In the second lesson you were told that a great number of things that you look upon as realities are simply transient shadows that can be dissipated into their native nothingness by telling them the truth.
This lesson is the corollary of that in that it instructs you how to go about the practical work of driving away deceptive appearances.
In the second lesson you were given a mental feast — in this lesson you are expected to go through the mental drill of which that laid the fountain.
The second lesson is ideal — the eighth is the realization of that ideal.
In this particular Divine Science differs from other religions. They nearly all deal with the ideal exclusively — seeming not to have discovered that their high ideal conceptions are capable of demonstration in the affairs of daily life.
It is part of the belief of all people that somewhere, at sometime, they will go to a place where there is peace, plenty and perfection. The Christian says it is heaven — point away off in space; and the Brahmin says it is nirvana — universal negation.
These represent The two poles of idealization. One wants his heaven with streets of gold, something substantial like the mammon which he worships, and the other, following the subtle metaphysical bent of his mind, wants his heaven like unto it — as it were "the baseless fabric of a dream."
Now comes a religion which sinks deep down into Causeless Cause and sounds for its foundations.
It sweeps aside the ponderous tomes that have blocked the way of intelligence; through inherited reverence, race opinion and traditional authority. It pierces right through the doctrines of the revered and awe-inspiring religious teachers of the past. It even probes behind the ear of sense, and listens for a voice back of the natural ear — the "still small voice," which tells it the truth about Life, Being, God, and man's relation thereto.
This religion is specifically practical. It is pure indvidualism and recognizes no principle of Being outside of man.
"I think, therefore, I am" is its Alpha and Omega. When possessed of its spirit man says:
"I am intelligence. I can reason from cause to effect and draw conclusions. I know that like produces like. Intelligence can come only from intelligence. There can be but one Supreme Intelligence common to all. Intelligence can not be cut up into parts nor separated in any way, therefore, it must be a principle. If a principle and I express it in any degree whatsoever, it follows that all the privileges and powers potential in that principle must be potential in me; therefore, my capacity for expressing my ideals is unlimited. I seem to be hemmed in by time and space — cumbered about with prison walls of a dense appearing substance called matter. Yet by a quite simple course of reasoning I can prove that time and space are only relative conditions of mind-consciousness, dependent upon standards of measurement, and my acquiescence in their stability."
"For instance, I know that if the movements of the sun, moon and stars were accelerated a thousand fold, and everything in the visible universe increased in size in like proportion, my senses would not be cognizant of any change. Therefore, I know time and space to be states of consciousness produced by mind outpicturing its ideals through concentrated thought."
"Therefore, if time and space with all the external phenomena to which they give appearance, are dependent upon mind and that mind can see only the pictures manifested which it has painted in the ideal thought, it is clear that my surroundings must be according to my thinking."
"I can see only the things which my state of consciousness has externalized, and I know that if it were possible for heaven to be a geographical location, and I were to be instantly transported there, I could not behold any of its beauties."
"But I am convinced that the externalization of that state of consciousness called heaven must be possible right here, and that it can not be anywhere else, nor perceived by me in any way except through the spiritual realization from within my own soul."
"Being assured by reason and practical demonstration that this is the correct and only law of manifestation, I shall now proceed to externalize my ideals."
In the first lesson was established the foundation for all future work. The inherent potentialities of Being were postulated. You were told that the Causeless Cause, the Un-manifest Mind from which springs all manifestation, is a principle whose inherencies are potentially perfect. That like the principle of mathematics or music it enters not into error or discord. "God is too pure to behold inquity." That is, it is Supreme Good, Absolute Substance, Mind, Life, Love, Intelligence. That its ideals are like it — perfect. That the Christ-Man, or True Man, is its perfect ideal — humanity that ideal on the road to realization.
The supreme Mind or God is in essence Love, and its nature is to incessantly give or manifest the bliss of Pure Being. Its ideal is Perfect Man, and from God flows the substance, life and intelligence necessary to the full externalization of that ideal.
"And God said let us make man in our image and likeness." That is, Divine Mind said to its perfect ideal, "Let us express ourselves."
Divine Substance does not at once externalize the whole of the possibilities potential in the principle and it never can.
The ideals of Divine Mind, such as Love and Wisdom, appear in manifestation as individual entities which have at their command all the powers and possibilities ideal in the Divine Principle. Intelligence is a necessitous outflow from a principle of Intelligence. To know — to be conscious of life and power and freedom, are necessitious accompaniments of intelligence. The Ideal Man, the perfect man of Divine Mind, thus appears in the process of manifestation, as subject to the conditions produced by conscious thought.
Although potentially perfect and incapable of producing a single condition of permanent consciousness out of harmony with the Divine Principle which always enfolds him, by and through the imaging power of thought he can produce illusions in which he does in consciousness become entangled. This can only occur, however, when he fails to look to Cause or Divine Mind for the source and nature of his ideals.
Thus having had in the first lesson outlined the perfect proportions of the Christ or True Man as he emerged in his perfectness from the God-head; he who said, "Before Abraham was I am," and in the second, a description of the errors of consciousness as evidenced by the physical senses, and the manner of erasing these errors from the tablets of mentality, it devolves upon you in this lesson to "Let there he light."
Our foundation is sure and certain. That God or First Cause is Spirit, all good, all wise, all powerful and all present is the premise laid down by everyone who thinks logically. No one who believes in a Supreme Intelligence ever presumes to invest it with any lesser attributes. This is the universal intuitive conception of humanity and is beyond the pale of argument from a standpoint of pure reason. This One Supreme Cause of all that is, must, therefore, be our polar star in drawing every conclusion.
If sense says "Hereditary has made me subject to the diseases of my ancestors" your duty is to square the claim by the rule of perfection — Unconditioned Cause."
The only man that God ever created was in his image and likeness," a perfect being having dominion over every living creature; that is, having conscious control over the thoughts he externalized. If this is true to you, and it certainly is, how can the thoughts of your ancestors effect you?
It is quite evident that many are deceived into thinking that they are so bound, and the diseases promised do show forth in them, but it is only consciousness entangled in its own effects.
We know that pure mind cannot possibly be subject to disease, and we also know that there is no other source of manifestation but Pure Mind, hence it must follow as a logical sequence, that there cannot be any condition of disease and that that which so appears must in some way be a departure from Creative Mind.
It is an axiom in physics that action and re-action are equal. Thought is the working power of Mind, or Mind in action. Your ancestors thought that which was not in harmony with the All Good and it showed forth in fleshly discord or disease. You affirmed the error and you must deny it in order that your consciousness may be restored to its clear, spiritual perception.
If your consciousness is resting in spirit and your domnion sure and certain, you need not come under the law of denial. You can simply "Be still and know that I am God" and the work is done. But many who enter the path are encompassed about with the belief of limitation and need the dissolving power of denial to set them free.
Denials may be made in many ways. It is not always necessary to specifically say "I deny so and so." The conscious acknowledgement that you have been mistaken in your conclusion is denial. Refusing to longer enterain thoughts of a sensual nature is denial. Withdrawing mental sustenance from low ideals is denial. The admission of sin and the prayer for forgiveness is denial. There is but one Mind and we can deny for each other. For instance, you have a patient who is in the consciousness of fever, the effect of some burst of temper in the past. You acknowledge to the Mind of Perfect Serenity that there has been a departure therefrom, and that peace is now restored.
It sometimes happens with a practitioner not yet awakened to clear light of spirit, that the patient's condition shows forth in him for a time. He comes so closely into the consciousness of his patient that even its effects appear in his body. That is what the Theosophist would call a result of the law of Karma. Again it has another significance in the Christian's scheme of vicarious atonement. Jesus Christ thought himself so clear and strong in his consciousness of good, or at-one-ment with the Father, Perfect Principle, that he could thus cleanse the consciousness of all the people. "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."
The acknowledgement by you that there is but one Mind universal and that you take upon yourself other's sins and cleanse through your pure consciousness their shortcomings, caused by their ignorance of this great truth, will free you from any belief you may have reflected. Jesus Christ said, "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do."
If you are not constantly conscious that God is the source of your being, and that he is universal Justice, Purity, Peace, Wisdom and Love, you wander from your polar star, and ere you are aware you are dashed upon the rock of selfish personality. You give way to a fit of anger or jealousy, you lust after the flesh, or envy your neighbor his possessions. "We have sinned (gone into error, fallen short), because we have forsaken God."
In every such thought you are galvanizing ito phenomenal life vampires that will prey upon your consciousness in disease and trouble, unless you unformulate their personality by denial, which is an acknowledgement that there is only God; that "Universal Perfection reigns as supremacy; that all intelligence and life manifested in form and claiming to be something independent of the whole, is but a self deceived nothing.
This lesson depends for its efficacy upon the understanding that all forms are the effects of thought. Mind moves upon itself and projects the matrix or Universal Substance in which its ideals take form. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void."
You cannot have consciousness without thinking — it is the nature of mind to think; and your every thought, no matter how trivial, causes vibrations in the universal akasa or "world without form and void" that ultimate in the forms of visibility.
Each individual is a miniature sun from which thoughts incessantly flow forth like rays of light, that give life and visibility to a planetary system. Each sun and each planet has its atmosphere, but all float in and are subject to the laws of the universal cosmos. So every individual surrounds himself by personal limitation with an atmosphere which he peoples with his thoughts. If he recognizes the Universal Principle of good and "thinks the thoughts of God after Him," as did Kepler, he swings out into space, carried onward and upward by a boundless power — conscious of no opposing force, no friction, ever-floating in the etherial arms of Love.
"Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. There's not the smallest orb which then behold'st but in his motion like an angel sings." (The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Scene 1)
If, however, man loses sight of his relation to the One Cause and imagines himself a personality occupying a separate and distinct body, subject to no law or government except that formulated by men, he has sinned or departed from righteousness — right relation to the whole.
He now becomes a wandering star in consciousness, liable to slow disintegration or to clash with or to be dashed against some other erotic body.
Consciousness includes life and life is force. Force must be used intelligently or it becomes destructive. Thus wisdom is a necessary factor in the perfect life of man, and wisdom can only be manifested by constantly looking to its source — God. You are never safe when you look anywhere, else for wisdom outside the God within yourself.
If your consciousness is in a state of coma you may be aroused by the word of Truth from a teacher, or books may suggest to you a higher law, but you must in the end get your illumination from the depths of your own soul. "Be still and know that I am God" should be written on the heart and engraved on the soul of every man and woman. It is a text for all sermons and a title for all books.
"Whereso, any doeth all his deeds, renouncing self in me, full of me, fixed to serve only the Highest, night and day musing on me — him I will swiftly lift forth from life's ocean of distress and death." (The Bhagavad-Gita)
Said Emerson:
"Let man then learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart; this namely: that the Highest dwells with him; that the sources of nature are in his own mind if the sentiment of duty is there. But if he would know what the great God speaketh, he must 'go into his closet and shut the door,' as Jesus said. God will not make himself manifest to cowards. He must greatly listen to himself, withdrawing himself from all the accents of other men's devotion. Their prayers even are hurtful until he has made his own. Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is made — no matter how indirectly — to numbers, proclamation is there made that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet, enveloping thought to him never counts his company. When I sit in that presence who shall dare to come in? When I rest in perfect humility, when I burn with pure love, what can Calvin or Swedenborg say?
It makes no difference whether the appeal is to numbers or to one. The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. The position men have given to Jesus, now for many centuries, of history, is a position of authority. It characterizes themselves. It cannot alter the eternal facts. Great is the soul and plain. It is no flatterer; it is no follower; it never appeals from itself. It always believes in itself. Before the immense possibilities of man all mere experience, all past biography, however spotless and stainless shrinks away." (The Oversoul)
But it does not follow that you must sit in a state of silent apathy waiting for God to drop manna at your feet. On the contrary you will find that after communing with the Oversoul of yourself you will be inspired to new activity. Fresh ideas will come to you in your daily work. New and better ways of doing simple duties. You will begin to see that God is omnipresent intelligence and life. That He is in all and the all knowing. You will see his shining face where before to your sleepy consciousness seemed only dead matter.
This material universe is not at all what the eye and ear of sense tells us it is. Even physical science says that these organs are comparatively limited in their capacity for receiving vibrations of light and sound, and that there are undoubtedly manifestations of both far beyond their range of comprehension.
A recent observer says: "It has long been known that invisible rays exist beyond the apparent spectrum into which all white light can be resolved. They made themselves known by their chemical or their heating effects, but were not seen until it. entered into the mind of an ingenious chemist to pass the ultra-violet rays through an infusion which would lower their rate of vibration, and to pass the ultra-red rays through something which would break up the long slow waves and adapt them to our vision. They were there, but we were not in a condition to see them."
But physical science deals with effects. while we seek cause. It looks at matter and says "this is real," while we probe behind matter into that realm where lies its reality. Yet that prince of modern material scientists, Tyndall, says:
"The mind of man has the power of penetrating far beyond the boundaries of his five senses. The things which are seen in the material world depend for their action upon things unseen."
The power of the Word of Truth is mighty and will prevail. That word is now manifest here. Your consciousness is now centered in Pure Mind, the Mind of First Cause. You now know that all states and conditions come from Mind; that they are merely effects. That they are in themselves without causing power and can bring you neither good nor ill. You know this absolutely and in that knowledge are henceforth the arbiters of your own destiny. "You are no longer under the law (of race limitation) but under grace." You are henceforth your own law makers.
You know that the working power of Mind is thought — that is, Mind in its activity is known as thought, and that through thought was formed all the conditions which seem to encompass you.
Now if consciousness departed from Principle and formed images that manifest in disease, discord or any limitation of the Perfect, is it not possible for that same consciousness to undo its faulty work and build anew according to Wisdom's plans? It certainly is and we know by experience that when guided by the Spirit of Truth or Christ within, it rebuilds the weak and tottering structures of materiality and vivifies them with an undying energy and life.
You have been deceived into believing that you were born of fleshly parents and are subject to the peculiar mental and moral trials and physical ills of your ancestors. The Spirit of Truth, which is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, pure perfection, and which is now present, sets you free from this delusion.
You have been deceived into believing that you are subject to climatic changes, food, water and the thousand and one ills that medical science has conjured up and named. You have been deceived into believing that mind is subject to matter; that is, that a whole lot of diseases are contagious, that they can be cured with drugs, or medical springs or change of climate. You have been told that the brain produces thought and that mind is evolved from matter. You doubtless believed these fallacies because some worldly authority in a personality or book so stated. You have not heretofore taken these beliefs right home to your own innermost intelligence and thought about them logically. Now, however, that your identity as Mind, as invisible unconditioned Spiritual Substance, is made clear to you, these surrounding delusions are cleared away. You now say daily and hourly, "all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."
You have been deceived into believing that there are those among your associates who are your mental, moral or social superiors. That they have by acquired or conferred authority the right to dictate to and influence you in matters religious, social or moral. But that meek and lowly, yet dignified and allwise spirit within you, now burns with its own clear light, and you henceforth know that you are one with the Supreme Mind, that knows only original thought and is influenced by nothing outside of itself. This is Truth, and the Spirit of Truth in you now flames forth in acknowledgement.
You have been deceived into believing that you have certain traits of character to which you are bound by nature, and that through them you are confined or hampered in life. That you are, for instance, naturally timid and fearful, therefore, nervous and unfitted to buffet the world. Or that you are not intellectually powerful; or that you are ignorant; or that you are cold and unsympathetic; or that you lack language or expression for your ideas or that your memory is poor, or that you lack perfection in any direction.
Now these illusions crumble into their native nothingness and your own clear consciousness recognizes its own. Your Divine Within flames higher and higher and its pure white light suffuses with a delightful spirit of wisdom, dignity and peace all your surroundings. You now know the law of righteousness thinking that will bring you into a consciousness of your perfect dominion. You know that life is worth living because you can surround yourself with your highest ideals. You have, however, in your ignorance or forgetfulness of the law, formed in consciousness walls that must be removed before the symmetrical structures appear.
These undesirable appearances about you were formed by the ignorant thoughts of yourself, your ancestors or the race, but as it was done in ignorance of the law, you are not responsible to the extent of regrets and should spend no energy in lamentations over "what might have been." Never regret anything. "Conscience makes cowards of us all." And we should never for a moment allow its terrors to paralyze our efforts in making full amends for every shortcoming. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back. Never look back under any circumstances, but keep your eye steadily to the front where is blazoned in letters of light, I am the Way, I am the truth, I am the Life.
Henceforth you are to keep steadily in mind the consciousness of your spiritual origin. Your physical birth was but a symbol or outpicturing of a certain state of Mind, and as an effect carried with it no power whatever to hamper the full unfoldment of all your ideals. You may have reflected the mental angularities of your ancestors and the race; these are transient conditions, however, and now that you know your real being in Pure Transparent Mind, you have only to deny any undesirable trait and center your consciousness upon the perfect spirit within. By so doing you will free yourself from all the effects of heredity.
This belief in the power of heredity results in mental apathy, decay and death. Like the Chinese, who hold that it is unfilial to know more than one's father, we have a belief that it is the proper thing to be stupid, witty or wise, or to die of consumption, just because our fathers so conducted themselves. Lord Bacon said that people who pride themselves much on their noble ancestry are like potatoes: the best part of them under ground. Those who limit their capacity to express health, intelligence or any other desirable quality, to that which their ancestors expressed, place themselves in the same ridiculous light.
Do these constantly changing shadows of materiality perpetuate themselves and bind to their will-o'-the-wisp vagaries the Mind that is conscious of its own inherent powers? If they do, Shakespeare would have remained bound to the loom of his father and Grant to his tannery. No, these are the narrow concepts of the race which always limits the powers of man to the record of his achievements in the past; forgetting that progress is the law and not stagnation. There is but one Mind common to all. Your identity as John Jones or John Smith occupying a body of flesh, is but your personal limitation and contracted conception of the possibilities of a universal principle whose power and wisdom is unlimited. If you saddle onto your own limitations those of your most remote ancestors, where will you finally end?
We have been burdened too long with this rubbish of antiquity. Cast it out of your consciousness and assume the mental dominion which was yours before the worlds were formed, when you were one with the consciousness of the Father.
The same Holy Spirit that glorified Jesus Christ, and through which he overcame the world, is now right here present with us. It is here awaiting our recognition. It will cleanse our minds of all beliefs of heredity if we will acknowledge its presence and power. Let us bathe ourselves in this boundless ocean of Wisdom, Love and Light by holding for a few moments in the silence the thought
Thy Spirit sets me free:
Thou only healeth me.
The most prolific sources of discord, disease and death are the deceptions produced by the mental acquiescence of many people in some popular fallacy. Not being in constant touch with the Divine Mind and stayed on its everlasting truths, humanity drifts with the popular wave which some dominate will has set in motion. Looking to matter as a reality and the body and brain as sources of intelligence, men have become personality or hero worshipers. One who has made a reputation in any of the world's affairs is recognized as authority, and his conclusions, whether they be mere opinions or of more substantial nature, are taken as final. In this way have been established in the consciousness of men a thousand and one so-called laws that rest on the shifting sands of physical science.
When you allow others to do your thinking for you, or when you get your authority for holding certain opinions from the books you read or the daily papers, or the bible, or what the minister or doctor says, or from any external source whatsoever, you are subject to the race deceptions. It is not presumed that you cannot find statements of Truth in any or all of these sources, but you can never separate the Truth from the error until you learn to turn upon it the illuminating power of your own Divine Innermost. The God-Mind is your light and your only light. All else is darkness; and when you live in that external world where mere opinion passes current for Truth, you are drifting about in plutonian night.
There is no knowledge but that of the Spirit; there is no knowledge but the knowledge of God. "All is vanity and vexation of spirit" until your consciousness sinks down into your own being and there communes with Supreme Wisdom.
Without the consciousness of God's-Mind-with-us or Christ Jesus, humanity will always be storm tossed and subject to the chaos produced by its own ignorant thoughts. When the race Mind allowed itself to become entangled in effects it lost its bearings in a maze of illusions. It looked upon the forms which symbolize Mind, but are no part of it, and said, "Here is a realm opposed to God. We shall beware; it must be evil." Thus was born the devil; a state of self-induced consciousness of separation from Divine Mind. Then came fear, that paralyzer of function and destroyer of peace.
You are not afraid when your consciousness is centered in the principle of Good. You know that God is all; that there can no opposing principle. The plague and pestilence do not then reach you, for you have nothing in common with the cause that brings them about. You are like the insulator to which the telegraph wire is attached, you have no element or thought that answers to the current of fear and it passes you by.
Man ought never to show forth sickness, poverty, discord nor death, and he never would had his consciousness remained in its primitive relation with Cause. But when his desire listened to the Serpent-sensation, his next step was to imagine two opposing principles, good and evil. When he ate of this tree, the law of action and reaction in the world of effects ground him between its upper and nether stone, and he earns his bread by the sweat of his brow.
The manner in which humanity was and is deceived is fully set forth in symbols in the second and third chapters of Genesis. This first chapter gives the ideal outline or plan of God or Mind for the externalization of man; just as an architect mentally creates that which he proposes to build. That it was not a finished creation is explained in the fourth and fifth verses of the second chapter, as follows:
"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground."
Notice the distinction here between the generations of the "heavens and the earth when they were created," and the day that the Lord God made the "earth and the heavens."
Yet there was "no herb of the field growing and not a man to till the ground. Then there went up a mist from the earth." That is, consciousness began to manifest its inherent potentialities in sentient life, and the Lord God, Law of Mind in manifestation, "formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul."
That is, the ideal man of God-Mind manifests itself in a harmonious externalization, for he was put in "a garden eastward in Eden;" his environments corresponded to his God directed thoughts and were perfect.
He was then bidden to eat of every tree of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Then the Lord God or Law of Mind caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and woman was formed from one of his ribs. That is, through a necessitous law of manifestation he unconsciously developed desire, or Eve.
But both Adam and Eve, or man and his desires, were pure, innocent and unselfish and knew neither good nor evil — "they were naked and not ashamed."
To this point the Law of Mind outworked in accordance with the six days ideal creation described in the first chapter, and man had so far correctly solved the problem of externalization. But through a necessitious law involved in the manifestation of the ideals potential in Mind, consciousness may in belief become entangled in its own creations by virtue of its freedom.
The Lord God or Law of Mind is carried forward through thought, and thinking gives rise to sensations of pleasure in consciousness. This sensation is described as the "serpent, more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God (or Law of Mind) had made." Thus "the woman" or desire of Adam, listened to or was deceived into thinking that the voice of sensation was truth, and that by looking to it she should increase pleasure, her eyes be opened and wisdom follow. The result was a taste of good and evil, or the action and reaction which always accompany indulgence in sensation, when selfish pleasure or gain is the one object sought. Then Adam, or consciousness, followed his desire, or wife, and became bewildered in the labyrinths of sensation where action and reaction, good and evil, hold sway.
Thus by looking to sensation for a source of wisdom or good, and following the suggestions to which it gives rise, man has centered his consciousness in the realm of effects, and chaos and physical death result.
When Conscience or the voice of God calls he hides himself in the trees, or the shadows with which his erroneous thoughts have surrounded him, and is afraid.
He is naked because he knows that he has allowed desire to wean him from the One Cause or Source of all that is; that he has looked to sensation and effect as source of life and wisdom, and thereby ignored the pure and innocent consciousness that was implanted in him by Divine Mind.
It is not to be inferred that sensation is essentially evil — the incarnation of a personal devil or principle opposed to the good — on the contrary, it is always the manifested witness of the power of Mind. The error or shortcoming lies in thinking it of itself a source of pleasure or wisdom.
It is "a beast of the field" or a result of thought, and, as the record says, the most subtle or misleading one that the Lord God or Mind at work manifested.
When man fails to look constantly to Cause or God in his daily walk, he loses his bearings in the world of sensation and effect. Not being consciously in touch with God at all times as he should be, he is subject to all the errors which chaotic belief and opinion may reflect from the standpoint of ignorant assumption.
Thinking sensation in itself a source of pleasure leads to passion, the reaction of which is physical death. Looking to mere eating and drinking as enjoyment leads to animalism and degradation, and looking to form as a source of beauty leads to lust.
All of these may be good when they are known in their true relation as "beasts of the field," or effects of thought, over which man has dominion, but they should never be looked upon as a source of any desirable thing.
There is but one source of happiness and pleasure and that is Cause — God. Thus all things must be done "to the glory of God" by those who would know the sweets of existence.
Life is a grand symphony in which all the hosts of heaven, or harmonious thoughts, join when man's consciousness is centered in God.
Identifying consciousness with the world of form and effect has plunged the race into a universal belief of death. So deep is it in this hypnotic sleep that Paul says death is the last enemy to be overcome.
It is, however, dawning upon the consciousness of those who in these latter days listen attentively to the Spirit, that when understood in its right relation, even the form symbol or body will take on the appearance of immortality. That is, consciousness will become so intensely alive and so thoroughly at-one with the Supreme Life that the form idea, which is potential in Mind, will reflect bodies whose atomic vibrations will correspond to electricity or light. Many are now coming into an understanding of the law that will ultimate in their physical translation like Elijah, in chariots of fire, or electrial bodies. This does not come under the head of the miraculous, either, for if history is to be credited many in the past went through this change; and as God, or Mind, is a universal principle and "no respecter of persons," we should expect at any time a reoccurrence of that which has been. Progressive men in the ranks of even physical science are being led by analogy to the conclusion that this is a possibility. Edison recently said that from his investigations he is satisfied that atoms are centers of intelligence and that the human body being made up of atoms, each of which is an intelligent entity, a man could by gettiug control of these atoms through the will, live forever.
This is the legitimate outworking of Perfect Principle — the steady onward march of Mind from stage to stage in the unfoldment of its infinite possibilities. In the harmonious working of life's problem according to Divine Principle there are no backward steps; no wide gaps of suspended consciousness, no headlong plunges into graves where mystery and terror reign. No matter what the Christian, the Theosophist or Spiritualist tell you; if you are awake to the symmetrical harmony of the God-Mind you know that the chaotic states into which humanity plunges itself at the change called death, are not of God. They are the conditions with which the race mind has encumbered itself through wandering in consciousness away from Cause.
God is Life, Life — the principle of life. Can you conceive the principle of life picturing forth any condition that would result in suspended consciousness ever for a moment?
"He is not the God of the dead but of the living," said the illuminated Jesus. This God of the living is always right present with you waiting your conscious recognition. Let this divine Life substance flow into your mind and it will cleanse you of all the false race beliefs about death. You will become new in thought and action; your faces will again show forth the freshness of youth, and immortal life be written on your brows.
You are now free from the race deception of sin and death. You know that good is all and that there can, therefore, be no active principle of evil. You know that evil is but an appearance whose foundation rests upon man's belief of separation from God. That in and of itself it has no power to harm you, because your consciousness is now at the center of your being — the abode of the Holy Spirit Of Love and Wisdom. You now acknowledge God as Life; perpetual life, without a break in its perfect chain. The glory and dominion which was yours in the beginning is now restored unto you.
Mind is dynamic power and its action is known as thought. Relatively it is classed as conscious and unconscious. When awake to its inherent potentialities and right relation to the Whole, it is properly known as conscious. When in that comatose state, in which is a large portion of the human family to-day, it should be classed as unconscious, and put under the same general head as the animal and vegetable world, according to the degree in which it is awakened.
Conscious mind knows its source in Being and claims its dominion and Divine Rights.
Unconscious mind acquiesces in its environments; thinks itself an offspring of nature, subject to laws of birth, sin, sickness, poverty and finally death. Conscious mind knows these to be terrors of the night in which the spiritually asleep dream.
Mind thinks and its thoughts move to action and vibrate emotions both in itself and its surroundings. You are influenced by the silent thinking of your nearest and dearest friend or bitterest enemy. It depends entirely upon the mental wires you have established. If you have thought or said that which has made an enemy, you have established a center from which dynamite will flow to you in the silence and you will receive it because you left the way open when you allowed a thought or word to go from you other than love. You find yourself depressed or irritable or in a fit of the blues, or restless and disturbed, you know not why. It is the thought of your enemy finding its affinity in you. Make friends with your enemies at once if you want health, serenity and peace; "agree with thine adversary quickly." Acknowledge your error and ask the Divine Within for guidance.
You will find yourself the plaything of dominant wills on every side unless you assert your unity with God, and live the life which the co-operation involves.
You are surrounded in the earth consciousness with erroneous opinions that claim to be truth. You read in the paper that la grippe is again prevalent, that some prominent physician says it will soon make its appearance in our midst; a trill of fear runs over you at the reading and you are not surprised to wake up some morning sneezing and coughing. You received the newspaper as authority and at the proper time the hypnotic suggestion bore its fruit.
So you are daily hypnotized by those with whom you associate. The thoughts of the people you meet in the street will influence you if you are in a negative or fearful condition. The minister who preaches hell-fire or wails over the sins of the world, will poison your mind with fear which will bear fruit in its time as nervousness. If you gossip and lie you attract that kind of mental company, and the thoughts take possession of you and suggest new and ingenious ways of deception, until some terrible disease, like cancer, is outpictured. If you allow yourself to conjure up in mind the pleasures and lusts of the flesh, you get soggy and sleepy, and the lurking gleam of the serpent is seen in your eye. By giving rein to any vicious thought you attract about you elements of like nature until they actually take possession of and make you their bond slave.
"And he said unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatsoever thing from without entereth into man, it cannot defile him; because it entereth not into his heart. * * * For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness; all these evil things come from within, and defile the man."
Can any more definite, explicit teaching of the power of thought be found anywhere. Does not Jesus clearly say that it is not what you eat that pollutes your body, but what you think.
"The pure in heart shall see God," that is, those pure at the fount of life, or consciousness, shall behold that purity as all good.
When you know this beautiful law and apply it you are fast freed from the dominion of other wills. When God is acknowledged as the only mind, and man makes a full surrender and submits all his opinions and beliefs to be sifted by the Divine Good, he is no longer subject to any other influence.
We are surrounded by powers of mentality that we know not of. We may be under the sway of a dominant will while in the full belief of perfect freedom. The unseen as the source of action and life, is not confined alone to the visible.
But these are all passing dreams to the I am of you, and when you recognize it as the only source of power, the only source of knowledge, the only source of supply, you free yourself from the deceptions of pesonal influence.
If your friend would influence you to act according to his wishes, do not acquiesce quickly, but allow your consciousness to rest for a moment within. Say to yourself mentally, "I am not influenced by anyone. I know just what to do under all circumstances because I am the principle of knowledge."
If you are fearful of accidents or that you will not be provided with the necessities of life next week, next year, or in your old age, or that your children may be left in want; deny that you can for a moment be conscious of that which you know to be outside the realm of an all caring and all providing Power. You absolutely know from external sense that the universe is self-sustaining; equilibrium being an established law. Claim your identity with the law, and that you rest in the arms of a cause that knows no lack. If you are in poverty this attitude of mind will bring to you opportunities for bettering your condition. No matter if the whole country is laboring under the belief of hard times and your associates constantly reflecting upon you thoughts of financial stringency. Insulate yourself from all these in the Divine Consciousness and faithfully and persistently affirm your dependence for supplies upon the abundance of God. By doing this you come under a law of demand and supply which is not influenced by the fluctuating opinions of men. Everytime you send out a thought of whole-hearted dependence upon the I am of yourself for all your needs, you set in motion a chain of causes that are bound to bring to you that which you need. "Ask what you will in my name and it shall be done unto you." That is, ask in the name of the Christ, the I am, the Divine Within, and your demands shall be fulfilled.
If you ask for money do not expect to have it brought on a salver, but be on the alert for some fresh opportunity which will surely come to you whereby you can earn it.
Do not look for miracles to be performed for you, but expect the law with which you have identified yourself to work out the problem through and by means of the latent possibilities all about you.
But above all be yourself. Let the God within you shine through to the without. Then will dawn upon you the millenium. You are everyone a genius — a diamond which the Spirit will polish into gems of rare beauty. "Ye are Gods and Sons of the Most High."
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