CONTENTS
THE NATURE OF CONCENTRATION
POWER OF REPOSE
SELF-CONTROL
CONCENTRATION IN THE DAILY LIFE
CONCENTRATION THROUGH DEVOTION
PEACE AND BLISS
FOREWORD
THE following lessons were first given in Los Angeles at the Home of Truth in the summer of 1907. Since then they have been presented to large audiences in various cities of the world with most happy and practical results. Although spoken without notes, stenographic reports have made it possible to publish the lectures almost literally.
They were brought out in the magazine, The Master Mind, in 1914 and, though the style of the familiar talk has been retained, yet for this book they have been revised, added to and re-arranged with sub-heads so as to make them easy to study, or to be taught to others, and in many ways convenient for the practical student of spiritual mind to attain the power of concentration he desires.
May all your needs and desires in this direction be met quickly, O Reader, and may this little volume be a privileged instrument in setting your feet in the Straight Way forever is the earnest prayer of the author,
Annie Rix Militz
The NATURE of CONCENTRATION
The Common Center
HE simplest definition of concentration is that found in the dictionary, namely, “to gather to one common center,” for it defines that which is spiritual as well as that which is material. We need only to consider what is the common center in order to put concentration into its right place. That common center is within you and its name is One, whether we call it the name of the Lord, as we read in the book of the prophet Malachi, as to the great Manifestation that finally shall be in this world, that “there shall be one Lord and His name One,” or whether we call it the mathematical one. It is sufficient that we see the common center of our spiritual thoughts and of our material thoughts as one thought, one manifestation.
The Way of Creation
Concentration is the formative way of creation. Creation is manifested by the power of divine mind working upon thoughts, ordering them and being obeyed, so that they gather around one common center; thus we have that expression, called the Solar System, or a world.
If we turn to the scientific theories of the formation of this universe, we have that nebulous mass which finds its center in some nucleus about which all is gathered. This formative power of divinity within you is that which brings everything to its essence. The common center of your being is the essence of God, your divine self. To begin to make your eye single to that central self, that divine I, is to feel your mastery.
The reason why people are so disturbed, upset, mixed and lacking in concentration, is because they have forgotten. They have ceased to look to that One, and they must return, and remember the One that is the source of our life; the power that holds us together; the great means by which we can order our lives and manifest the works of God—works of healing, of mastery, of self-control and the restoration of memory. Thus can you be a power like the sun, radiating power to transform your whole world, according to your own idea, to the light that dwells within you, bringing forth all that which is right and that which is a blessing.
A Gauge of Intelligence
The power of concentration has always been a gauge of intelligence. It is an indicator of intelligence, whether it be expressed in the animal realm, or in the human, in the babe or in a Socrates.
When a trainer wishes to select animals of intelligence, he will note their power of concentration. A famous trainer of dogs would gather together a number of these animals from everywhere; sometimes they would be very common dogs, for he found that it was not always dogs of the best breed that showed the most intelligence; sometimes it would be but a yellow cur that would make the best trick dog. After association with their master long enough to become familiar with his voice, it was the practice of this trainer to test their powers of concentration. He would gather them together and holding up some object, would demand the attention of all the dogs to that thing. One by one, the dogs dropped their eyes, turned away their heads and sought some other interest, only a few remained alert and waiting and these were the dogs that the trainer chose to become performers on his stage.
And so we can take the babe. The babe that “takes notice” very quickly and very steadily, we count of much intelligence. This is also true of ourselves, we find that the times, when we can hold our mind to certain things, are the times of greatest accomplishment—when we manifest the greatest intelligence—and finally, we shall see this a power so supreme that one might, like another Socrates, stand in the midst of the market place absorbed in a revelation, and even stand for hours. It is said this great philosopher once stood a whole day and night, while the people surged around about him. Were you or I able so to stand, we also might present to the world such a philosophy as he gave. Socrates represents intelligence of the highest degree, and it expresses itself in this power of concentration. There is no greater pursuit than that of the knowledge and understanding by which you can express your intelligence in concentration.
Natural Concentration
It has been found that those who follow the spiritual life, devoting all their time and attention to it, have no difficulty in concentrating. Healers easily center their thought; can easily be at peace, be self-possessed, poised and fearless in some of the hardest problems and the most distracting situations. Therefore if you simply pursue this truth, putting it into practice in your daily living, seeking ever to help people and lighten their burdens by your power of thought, you will manifest concentration without an effort. You are even now exercising that power in centering your minds upon what I am saying. I have had speakers, who have been on the platform with me, express themselves with wonderment at the attention that is given me—the silence, the peace, the freedom from restlessness. It is all a marvelous expression of concentration, because the subject that I present is so vital and of such power that it naturally unites our thoughts, and you concentrate naturally— without an effort.
Special Concentration
We know the advantages of the ordinary concentration, how it gives you peace and self-control, and the masterly, orderly expression that invites confidence. But there is a special advantage in the concentration that is based upon principle. Have you discovered that what you concentrate upon, you become one with ? That it is possible for you to enter into the heart—into the very essence of a thing and get its secret and make it reveal its nature and its meaning? Some of you have had this experience that when you wanted to know a thing, you simply centered your mind steadily on it, and presently it was opened up to you and you found yourself knowing without the ordinary efforts of getting information. One man told me this, as a common experience with himself in school. He was a boy of fine intelligence, but he was lazy, and oftentimes did not have his lesson, but when his turn came to answer the question put to him, he would think toward the Professor, and say (mentally) to him: “You know the answer; it is right in your mind this moment,” and while he would think that, the answer came to him. He did this so often that he knew that he had fulfilled some law.
Again, let me remind you of the little newsboy that I saw guessing the dates on the coins, which another boy held in his hand. Steadily his eye rested upon each copper cent, and three times he gave the correct date, imprinted on the underside, which none of us knew until after each coin was examined.
It is a good illustration of power that is in us which we exercise, even when we do not know the nature of it nor how we have it. You think it is by coincidence or chance. You think that something called your attention to the fact, and you dismiss the experience in a materialistic way, even with doubt. But it is a power called “psychometry,” now acknowledged by scientists. Maeterlinck says, “The existence of this faculty is no longer seriously denied.” It is orderly; it is right; we have this power, we need only to exercise it. But to do so, we must take care of our thoughts, dismiss certain kinds of thinking and hold to certain other kinds of thinking.
Thoughts of Evil, Rubbish
In the first place, we cannot afford to “clutter” our mentalities with thoughts of evil. It is a homely word but it is literally so. You clutter your mind, filling your brain cells with what the physicians call “dirt,” and this is all because of erroneous thinking— thinking upon wrongs and upon evils, revenge, fear and worriment. Everything that has its root in the belief of evil must utterly pass from our mentality and pass forever, and we become like a little child, with pure, clean brain-cells, because we have no false thoughts or ill feelings, but are filled with love and purity and goodness. So the very organ of your mentality, the brain, can be orderly and free, without congestion of blood, without any piling up of that foreign material which the physician calls “dirt,” and when you wish to think upon a thing, you will not have to use your human will power but just wait and rest, and naturally it will spring to the front and you will have wasted no effort, but have concentrated easily and with power.
Memory Restored
This is the way for the restoration of your memory. The reason why people lose their memories and find their mental faculties getting out of order, is because they try to hold thoughts in their minds that do not belong there; they will be so disconcerted if they forget dates, or events that should be counted nothing at all. Why should you remember the old past, and why should you dwell on the things of yesterday? Now is the only time. Live in the present. Dismiss thoughts of yesterday; those thoughts of the past. Be as though you were born this morning. Begin every day anew.
Some may say: “I have been so wronged by everybody; people impose upon me and it will not do for me to forget or I’ll be wronged again.” There is “a more excellent way,” by which these experiences shall not be repeated, than remembering the wrongs of the past. This excellent way is to begin to fill your mind with meditations upon God, the Good. Even though it be so simple as this reasoning—that there is the One that is the source of all and that One is God the good; that One is omnipresent; therefore good is everywhere. Then insist upon seeing it everywhere, upon believing it, dwelling upon it continually—Good is the only real presence. Do this in place of the evil thinking; do it persistently. How do you put out darkness? Not by dealing with darkness I So you cannot put out evil memories by dealing with them, themselves. You put out darkness by bringing in the light, and you put out evil memories by bringing in good ones.
Faithful Practice
This means an exercise as faithfully practiced as the beginning of the study of music. When you began to learn music, you pursued practices that were tiresome, but your teacher said it was necessary. When you began to learn a physical exercise, like rowing a boat, you went through simple actions and pursuits, and some were very wearisome, but these simple things were most essential. Begin your practice of concentration by centering your mind upon the thought that the good is all there really is, and learn to crowd out the opposite thoughts with that one thought. It will prove itself true, presently.
Such was the case of a young boy who had run away from his home in Portland, Ore., and became stranded in San Francisco. Through a lady, who learned his story, he began coming to the Home of Truth. There he learned to hold the thought: Good is all there really is.
He desired to get back home, and a purser on an Oregon steamer told him to be at the dock on the Sunday morning that the steamer would sail, and he, the purser, would come ashore and get him, and he could work his passage home again.
The boy was there but the purser never appeared. The steamer sailed, leaving the boy in rage and despair.
Then he remembered that he was to say, “Good is all.” In bitterness, almost sarcasm, he began to repeat the words. Soon he calmed down and found himself walking toward the Home of Truth. There, on the steps, he met a lady who began to inquire why he had not gone. He reluctantly told her his bad luck, with the result that she handed him the fare to go on the train to Portland, and he arrived there before the steamer reached that city. He proved quickly “the power of the word.”
Worldly Success
Worldly success is one of the out-picturings of the power of concentration. Those who have made material success will tell you that it has come by concentration upon their business, and devoting all their strength and time to it. The secret of Paderewski’s skill with the piano was this, that he gave himself to eighteen hours’ practice at a time. A certain rich man, who was very successful with railway stocks, gave it as his secret, that he studied the manual of railways, night and day; would read it before he would go to sleep, then the first thing in the morning, before meals, after meals—all the time. And when someone asked him the secret of his success, he said it was concentration—studying night and day upon that in which he was successful.
Oh, but Paderewski can be thrown off with the injury of a finger; the railway man can receive a little blow on the head, and it all counts for nothing. Those who concentrate upon material things have but a temporal success, for if they try to concentrate upon anything else, they find they have not power in that direction, and it sometimes seems like beginning life over again. This was illustrated in the experience of a man who had been a most successful business man, as a commercial traveler, commanding a high salary and finally becoming a partner in the company, though still pursuing his own efficient line.
Finally, he had accumulated such a snug little fortune, owning a pretty home and ten acres in one of California’s loveliest towns, that his wife and daughter persuaded him to retire from business.
What they meant to be freedom and a joy to him proved to be the greatest mistake. He tried to lead a quiet life and, for activity, to become interested in the pursuits of his society-neighbors. But his mind was ever off on the familiar routes that he had followed for over fifty years. He could not center his thoughts on the new life and the result soon was “softening of the brain,” the beginning of dissolution.
Fortunately, his wife and daughter understanding Truth, brought his case under spiritual treatment and his mind was saved, and he was able to hew out a new way of concentration, by utterly abandoning the material for the spiritual.
The Oriental Yoga
The Hindus call the practice of spiritual concentration, “Yoga,” which means “union,” and comes from the same root as our word “yoke.” The Aryan language is at the root of all civilized languages, and our word yoke and their word yoga have a common root, and it means to unite—to join. “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” This is the Christ teaching of yoga, that we shall have such a power of concentration that there shall be no burdens at all, but all life shall be full of ease and freedom. The Christian Yoga is “taking on Christ,” being one with him, which is the easy way of concentration. Hindu devotees spend whole lives in the study and practice of Yoga, because, by means of right concentration, they look for all power, all knowledge and all bliss here in this life. The text-book of Hindu practice is “The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali,” in which is displayed most subtle and wonderful understanding of the human mind and its workings, and the way of deliverance from its errors by right knowledge and practice of concentration.
Knowledge and Love
There are two forms of thinking which make the way easy for concentration. One is knowing; keep on knowing; never rest content with ignorance; get knowledge and get understanding. The other is love. Begin with the love of truth; love truth for its own sake. My friends, if you will only “fall in love with truth,” you need not have another lesson; you will concentrate and no one can stop you.
There are people who think truth night and day, in their dreams, and in the ordinary things of life, and the consequence is that they are joyously and powerfully in the consciousness of concentration. Of course they are in love with truth. If anybody is in love with another you do not need to tell them to think about the other one; if you are in love with another, you simply cannot help thinking of that one. It would sound ridiculous to say to a real lover, “If you expect to win her, you must think of her night and day.” “How can I help it!” says the lover. The advice is not needed. A lover has a wonderful power of concentration, and if there is no mixture of resentment, of hatred or jealousy, there is a perfect feeling of peace and power. Pure love is a power for concentration in itself, and so to be in love with truth is to be able to concentrate without a thought. Love is faithful.
Express your love by obediently practicing this first rule of concentration, the use of the silent word. Often practice saying, “Good is all there really is.”
THE POWER OF REPOSE
Let us unite in silence, taking the words found in Psalms: “Be still and know that I am God.”
Be still in every way, relaxing yourself and letting the I AM be your stilling power. Rest in the Divine Mind that knows itself (which is yourself), the great I AM that dwells in the midst of you.
We remember that “God” is the name of our good, and whatever your desire may be—for peace, for health, for happiness, for freedom, it is the very desire of your heart that speaks and says, “Be still and know that I am God”—be still and know that I am. This is our silence.
The Effortless Way
WO great principles are at the root of the power of concentration. One of them is Knowing and the other is Loving. Knowing might be considered the active principle and loving the passive, or still principle, in this that knowing is associated with activity, pursuing, seeking, grasping, and so on, while loving is associated with being. Love comes without effort. It is the effortless way to love, and if you are in love with truth, you concentrate without effort. And this effortless way is the happy way of concentration.
By loving truth, you enter true wisdom’s ways, which are pleasantness, and you find the path which is peace. So you must love truth with your whole being, seeking it, not for what it will bring you, not for its reward, its healing, its peace, even for its power of concentration, but for it, itself—loving truth for its own self.
This is the orderly, masterful, efficient way of attaining concentration. Learn to concentrate upon truth, and having acquired that power in the realm of reality, you will have no difficulty in centering your mind upon whatever you will in the realm of appearances. For always you will stand upon the Rock of right reasoning; and if you turn aside from concentrating upon exact truth, you can look at symbols, as symbols, and let them hold your attention, so long as you will, because you see the connection between them and truth. Whereas, the things that distract, that break up the mentality and spoil concentration will not invite your attention. You can refuse to center your mind upon evil, fear, worry, foolishness, for these are the things that distract and they are spoilers of concentration.
No Suppression by Human Will The worldly methods of thought-control by strenuous effort of the human will are to be put completely aside. Use no will power to concentrate. This mistake has been made by certain young metaphysicians, and even old ones. Those who have been long in this life have practiced and pursued ways that are strenuous and congesting; have inflamed and disturbed even their brain cells by dwelling upon some word which has little or no meaning in itself, repeating it over and over again, thinking that to hold a thought, one must exercise human will. No, the real holding of thought is as a cup holds water; through being still and letting the thought rest in your mind, and the power by which you do that is the power of repose.
Repose is not something you do not already have. It is within you, and it needs only meditation and acknowledgment of it, to bring it forth. The way to uncover it is by, first of all, knowing yourself.
Know Thyself
You cannot know yourself perfectly without knowing God. For this personal self, which has been called yourself, is but a reflection, a shadow of your Real Self which is one with God. Knowing the Real Self, you will understand this shadow, this reflection, just as one, knowing about a material thing will also understand its shadow. Recognizing the power that is in you to cast a shadow, you know how to manage the shadow—that of your hand on the wall, for instance; you can control the shadow because you know how to manage the hand. Thus, if you know your Real Mind and its processes, you will understand its shadow, and, doing what you will with your Real Mind, you can reflect or shadow it forth in appearance, just as you wish it to appear.
The Real Mind is God Mind. It moves upon itself in .all manifestations. It is the actor and the one acted upon. It is God, the actor, and God, that which is acted upon—it being all God. The mind that shadows it, which has been called by various names,—the carnal mind, mortal mind, mentality, mind-stuff and so on—also acts upon itself, imaging, reflecting the laws of the divine Mind.
Mentality and Mind-Stuff
Let us call the actor of this mortal mind “mentality,” and that which is acted upon, “the mind stuff.” To know how to conform your mentality to the great Actor, the divine One, and to act upon the mind-stuff according to the Divine Law, is to have a power that will heal, and thoughts with which nothing can interfere, so that you need never be confused nor disturbed, nor lose your poise or your peace, no matter what you face or are passing through.
Sometimes the mind-stuff, which is the great mass of thoughts that are going hither and thither within us and round about us, has been compared to a lake, and the mentality to the breeze that blows upon the lake. When this mind-stuff is still and the mentality is quite at peace, then we have a lake all clear and free to reflect perfectly. Whatever is then held over that lake will be imaged forth as it should be, not distorted nor false, but true. Although inverted, it will be clear and its form correct, a perfect image of that which is held over it.
Upon a still lake, the ship that floats on its surface will show forth all its beauty, form and graceful movements, giving a perfect image of itself. But when the lake of your thoughts is disturbed and agitated, then your mentality is like the wind that blows and lashes the waves. Then the mind-stuff is thrown into foam and becomes roiled and disturbed and it is not strange that you cannot reflect what you wish. You must become still again. The lake must subside and the wind must calm, that perfect repose may be manifest, that you may reflect what you wish and show forth the concentration which you desire.
Christ in the Ship
The One in you which can still your mentality is the Christ-self. To try to still the wind and waves without the Christ-self is a long process with more or less sense of failure. The Christ may appear to be asleep in the ship, as we read in that story about the disciples, who were crossing the Sea of Galilee and a great storm came upon them and the ship was in danger of sinking; of how they went to the Christ, asleep in the hold of the ship—not Christ really, but the form, Jesus, for the Christ is “the Lord that slumbers not, nor sleeps.” It is but the form of that Christ-presence which seems to be hidden and nonactive for a time. Your Lord-self never sleeps nor loses consciousness, but if it seems to you that you have no Lord-self, that you cannot think of yourself as divine or spiritual, then you need to arouse and awaken yourself, even with a cry of prayer, “Awake thou that sleepest!” or as the Psalmist calls, “Why sleepest thou, O Lord?” The disciples went and called Jesus from his sleep and he came forward and rebuked the wind and waves and all was still. So, no matter how agitated you seem to be—no matter how roiled the waters are or contrary the wind, in an instant, by remembering your God-self, the whole lake will quiet and you will quickly find yourself at peace.
This Christ-self is your power of repose. It is that part that abides in peace. It is the great immobility by which all things are moved. If you can find that Holy of Holies, that still place within, you will take hold upon a power of concentration which will remain with you forever.
Purity, Essential to Clear Thinking
The lake—the mind-stuff that fills your personality and surrounds it—must not only be still, but clear. Our living true to principle and fulfilling the moral law tends to purify this mind-stuff; sincerity, purity of life, freedom from deceit—freedom from doubleness in action, thought, word and deed— clarify this lake and make it pure. This means a life of freedom from “the three qualities” that the Hindu describes as: Tamas, Rajas and Sattvas. The Three Bonds
The Tamas quality is described thus: it is that state of lethargy and inertia, deadness, dullness and laziness which lies back of stagnation. If you feel spiritually lazy at times, or physically lazy, you can rise above that appearance by remembering the divine life, which is always alert, active, sparkling, even in its stillness. You are God’s active self, full of life, full of alertness, full of power and God. State these things for yourself and put away that stagnation which will make the waters of the mentality grow dark and thick with scum and not able to reflect what is held over them.
The second quality, the Rajas, is that of passion. It is the opposite to the Tamas quality for it stirs and muddies our thought-realm. Greed, jealousy, envy, anger, lust are things that move one to excess and upset one, so as to muddy the water of the mind-stuff, that it cannot reflect. Watch yourself. The moment you begin to find yourself wandering off into this state, being moved by anger and other forms of passion—the power of concentration is needed, the power of self-control, which is the next lesson we will take up especially.
The third quality is Sattvas, a sense of goodness often so personal as to be self-righteousness. The human ego says, “I am good, why should I not have perfect health? I have always done right, why should I suffer?” It feels that certain things are owing to it. This ego longs for praise and approval. It says, “I must be regarded,” and again “I have been insulted,” or “I have been neglected.” Such thoughts are very disturbing. You may be leading a very pure life, may be fulfilling the laws so that you are counted very good and very lovable. Yet, if your face is full of fine wrinkles, or you have nerves unstrung, and there is a trembling or an agitation in your body, you lack in concentration.
The human ego can dwell upon its “rights,” its “superiority” and its ambitions and achievements until unbalanced. “Insanity is egotism gone to seed.” Insanity is simply the lack of concentration, reaching its ultimate.
It is the Christ that brings you to yourself, out of the three qualities, giving you perfect peace and repose, as you are in the divine Mind. Repose a State of Mind
Repose is a state of mind. We commonly associate it with our surroundings, and our relations. We think, “Oh, when I can get into a place where there is no more noise; when I can relax in body; when I can get off on my vacation; when I can have a change, then I shall rest and find repose.” These things are but symbols of that which is the real cause of repose, the restful state of mind. All the time it is your mind that gives you the repose, even though it seems to be the bed, or a vacation, or something else external.
If the mind is not at peace, you can have weeks of vacation and be as upset and disturbed at the end as you were in the beginning. If your mind is not at peace, you can lie down upon your bed hour after hour and even go to sleep, and at the end of it you will feel as though you had had no rest. Why? Because the mind did not take hold of the idea. Yet, on the contrary, there are people who have no vacations, but who are just as fresh at the end of the day as in the morning, full of energy, resolution, full of power for work, and they never grow tired. Why? Because their minds are at peace. They love the activity, and there is nothing at cross purposes with them.
The man who has been working hard all day will dance all night, but have no sense of weariness at all. His dancing was according to his mind. There was peace in it, there was a poise, there was a sense of refreshment and rest.
The Art of Decomposing
The philosopher, Delsarte, taught a way of acting and living, which he associated with thinking—so much so, that those who are the best students of this philosopher never separate the mind from an exercise, but always associate the mentality with whatever one is doing. Thus, he gives practices for what he called “decomposing”; to relax the muscles; to decompose the strained, fixed expressions, inward or outward. But the decomposing begins in your thought—in your mind—you may shake your hands, like tassels on the end of a whip-cord, but you will not decompose your wrists until your mind relaxes itself.
Practice relaxing every hour of the day, realizing that to be still is just as important as to act; that these two are to be rightly married through all your expressions—stillness and activity, rest and motion. These are to meet and associate perpetually in your life.
There are certain ways of relaxing yourself which you can practice, no matter where you are. Let out the muscles of your face. Have you ever thought of the muscles around your mouth? your lips pressed together, oftentimes strained with thought of precision or rectitude. Relax the muscles around your eyes. Perhaps you are contracting them with the thought that the light is too strong. Realize the power of the spirit to temper the light and to take care of all your affairs.
Whenever you have opportunity, let out the muscles in your body. Perhaps you are sitting in a car, clutching your bundles, when you can just as well lay them down and loosen the muscles of your arms. Perhaps your whole body is tense, and, thinking of the end of your journey, you are pushing the car mentally. If you find yourself growing tense in any of your muscles, loosen them by relaxing your mind and taking the words: “Be still and know that I am God.”
Have the same consciousness that the motorman has, as he sits, turns his levers and applies the power, or takes it off. He is not pushing the car, or pulling it, but he is knowing that the greater power is established and fully centralized, and he is in perfect connection with it, and all that he has to do is to turn the lever, on or off, without an effort. This is our true consciousness of ease. It brings us peace and rest and satisfaction in and about our affairs. Go on, you need have no concern about anything. The Power of Silence
The great philosophy of this silence is, that there is in you a mighty nothing, a quietness that has been from the great forever and always will be. It is the master of goodness, that still place, that Holy of Holies. It is your power of abandonment, your child-likeness, and in that, it rests, waiting for you to move. It is a mighty vacuum, that causes all motion but in itself does not move. O, that being nothing—nothing of yourself! When that feeling of having so much to do, of being so important, and you must do things or they will not be done, rises up, about that time let go and enter into your own sweet nothingness. Stop thinking. You can do it. Just remember there is a power to stop thinking, and if, suddenly, you should find your mind a blank, know then, you are practicing the perfect concentration of repose.
Practice not thinking, non-thinking. Practice being nothing—especially when you feel like asserting yourself. Be like the mirror, as to your human mentality. The mirror is nothing of itself, but it can take in all things. The mirror is a marvelous symbol. In the religion of Japan, the Shinto religion, they have only two symbols in their temples; one is a mirror, the other, a bell. The mirror is the nothing, the wonderful nothing, by which God is reflected.
To be a perfect reflector, a mirror must be still. If you wish to see yourself in a mirror and it is moving back and forth all the time, you have to take hold of it and steady it, in order to get a good reflection. So with your mentality. In order to reflect your Godhead you must be still. True, the mirror must also be clean, it must be true. There are other things besides stillness; nevertheless, even the mentality, to be true and clean, must be well controlled and well trained—you must hold it still and steady.
The Christ-Door, the Nothing
“I am the door,” said the Master. A door is useful as an entrance, through being nothing. We commonly call that which closes up, “the door,” but the door is the empty space; and a door, to be perfect, must be unobstructed—an unobstructed entrance. So, when the Christ says, “I am the door,” he is referring to that power of being nothing.
When you are perfectly still, you feel the nothingness; you are not thinking; you cannot even feel your body. There are certain of you that have experienced this lightness, when there was a loss of the sense of being a body, of being a personality, and then came the great cosmic consciousness. You entered the universal. You did not lose consciousness. You gained the great consciousness, beside which the other seems trivial. If you could be perfectly still as to your human thinking, then the great divine consciousness would be your thinking and your life forever.
It was so with Tennyson. He could enter into cosmic consciousness by centering himself upon his own name and losing all thought of the little self. He entered into the great Idea for which his name stands. He saw only the great immortal self, and he describes it as losing all consciousness of being a body or a personality, a little man among things. It was an entering into the universal mind, feeling himself the whole mind; knowing all things without beginning of time and without limitation of space.
“BE STILL BEFORE GOD AND LET HIM MOULD THEE”
SELF-CONTROL
Let us unite in silence with these words: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me.”
These are the words of Jesus Christ spoken from the central I. For this I to be lifted up from the earthy thoughts, the earthy associations, is to lift up all the thoughts so that they work for peace and not pain, for harmony and not discord. So we take the statement as our very own: “/, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me.”
The Three Bonds Broken
THE Hindu philosophers are among the deepest students of psychology, understanding the subjective nature so well, that we can take their description of the bonds , .that hold and rule unregenerate humanity, as sufficiently reliable, for our inquiry into concentration.
Let us briefly review the three great causes of the mortal manifestation. The first of the three bonds that hold humanity is the quality of dullness, deadness, torpor, drifting, blankness, ignorance. It is the lack of knowledge—inertia, laziness. It is that which causes us to drift along the old lines and take no step progressively, the Tamas quality. It is back of laziness—whether physical, mental or spiritual.
The second quality is just the opposite—passion, that which causes great action, hurrying, struggling, striving, worrying, agitation and disturbance in general, the passionate quality, Rajas.
And the third quality, Sattvas, is that which is counted the best in us, that of which we may be proud, that which is self-assertive, self-righteousness, that in which we feel that we are good. It is called the goodness of the race and by other good names, such as virtue, enlightenment, knowledge, etc. Nevertheless, it acts as a bond with people who claim reward; that think they have earned a right to good things. They may be bound by that feeling, and perhaps filled with self-righteous pity or self-excuses from the basis of their righteousness. They may feel themselves wronged and misunderstood, and suffer from sensitiveness and, worst of all, from egotism, for there is where the ego stands, the I of us, which, seeing from a personal standpoint, believes itself to be the good.
Now, according to the psychology of the Hindus, these three bonds must be broken. The sages among them have learned that they are not broken by violence, but by knowledge. First of all, knowing the nature of them, that they are delusion, that they are not real but are shadows and reflections. They have no real strength and no real place, and by the mind keeping single to the Real back of each, their substance and strength in the Spirit, they can be surmounted and used for the Highest.
Repose not Inertia nor Laziness
The Real of the Tamas quality is the power of repose, of being still and poised and quiet, that of resting in the Lord. Sometimes people condemn that passivity and quietness, and call it by unregenerate names through not understanding it. Let us learn that persons may sit with folded hands, apparently having nothing to engage their action, and yet not be lazy, but be bringing forth a great and wonderful stillness which is back of all the moving of activity. It is the power behind the throne, what the mystic Eckart calls, “that immobility by which all things are moved,” and we must learn to cultivate that righteous stillness.
Certain active things may carry out the Tamas quality, such as a being busy doing nothing or foolishness; much talking that is only chatter; a dullness and conventionality that is simply a drifting along with the rest of the race. A number of our activities arise from the thought that we must be doing something all of the time, because of this belief that if we are not doing something we are lazy. Yet in this we are wrong, for there is a virtue in not doing, which we must take hold upon for repose. If you find your fingers twitching, that you are chattering and talking too much—about that time, relax and be still.
If we come under the accusation of laziness from ourselves or from others, let us enter into the repose of our spirit and realize that we are not lazy, that in truth, we are not lacking in energy. Our sweet stillness is more powerful and a greater cause of manifestation, than much of the activity round about us that has no principle in it.
The Great Self in Control
Who is the self that controls and what is that which is controlled? Again, the Hindus teach us:
“Upraise the self by the self; do not sink the self. For the self is the friend of the self, and even the self is the enemy of the self.”—Bhagavad Gita.
Raise, uplift, or “upraise” the self by the self, that is, self-control is control of the self by the Self. Divinity says, “I control myself.” The Self that controls is God in the Highest, and the self that is being controlled is that appearance which is called ourselves, but which is only the shadow or the reflection of the Great Self.
There is no one that should control you but yourself, and, in truth, there has never been anyone controlling you but yourself. If you think that others have controlled you, there is something that has consented to it within you; that is, blindly and weakly consented because there was, to your ignorance, no way out of it, or else you have knowingly consented at the time, even though you afterwards desired to recall your consent.
Therefore, begin with yourself and speak the truth: “I am the one that controls myself. I am the only one that controls myself.”
Soon you will prove that you can no longer ascribe things in your life to anything or anybody outside yourself. Declare, “I am my own Master and I rule myself,” and be delivered from the apparent influence of circumstances and people and other outside things. World Mastery
You begin with your own feelings and thoughts, and see them as your little selves to be ruled by your dominant Self, and, controlling this microcosm or little world, you will exercise your true control upon the outer world, as yourself enlarged, realizing the macrocosm to be yours as well as the microcosm.
But this ruling yourself is by love not by force, with knowledge not in ignorance. It is the second quality that we meet with this power of self-control, the Rajas quality, or the passions that seem so active and disturbing. These are to be put into their right place and become subject to ourselves. So we guard against our feelings running away with us; against being confused by the desires and passions of others. Because we have found control over ourselves and our own feelings and thoughts, we cannot be interfered with by the feelings and thoughts of others. Ruling the Passions
The passions, that are counted the most influential in disturbing one’s peace, are anger, lust and hatred. If one will take up these three and put them into their right place by finding the reality of them, and see to it that everything which springs from evil, or the belief in evil, is put under foot, then we shall have broken the bond of that Rajas quality which was interfering with our perfect concentration. You know that when you are agitated, disturbed, or begin to feel the passions of others stealing over you—you are not in the peace and poise of perfect concentration. And it is for you, in the midst of the storm, when things seem to be going against you and there is a rising in you of passion from the uncontrolled nature, to prove yourself master and keep your peace. The way to do this is to begin to understand and control these primitive passions.
First of all, we must take the right stand or viewpoint of these passions. We must not condemn ourselves when we have repented of our false ways, no matter what we have done. It matters not where you find yourself, or what perverted passions are controlling you, the moment you discover the condition, it can be brought under control if you will not condemn yourself. Condemning yourself is confusing and weakening.
No Self-Condemnation
Never condemn in yourself what you do not condemn in any one else. You will have the same fruit for yourself that you deal out to others. “With what measure you mete” to others, you will measure to yourself. And whatever attitude you wish others to take toward you, practice it toward others. So, when you find criticism rising within you and you are losing your repose—your feelings are being disturbed on account of the actions and words of others—take warning. Bring yourself quickly to yourself. “Come to yourself” and remember that “there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus”— neither condemnation of self nor condemnation of others. So long as we condemn others there is an entering wedge of self-condemnation, and sometimes there is nothing so powerfully bitter and withering as one’s own criticism of oneself. Better can you bear the sting of the tongues of others than you can the hateful criticism of yourself. Saints have been spoiled by it in their realization of the kingdom of heaven here. They have thought it right to put the stripes upon their own backs, torment themselves, turn the screws tighter, so long as it was their own bodies that suffered, and they have spent a whole life-time keeping themselves out of the kingdom of heaven, which was for them and into which they could have entered, if they had not justified this false position.
One way for you to cease from condemnation is to remember that it is not your real self which you condemn, but your shadow or representation, that personality which you call yourself, upon which you have been willing to put your divine I AM. It is to be cared for as tenderly as your little babes; with the same mercy and kindness with which you look after your beast of burden, for it is the vehicle of your life, and it cannot do well if you are at enmity with it. If you are finding fault with it, forgetting it, hating it and mistreating it, all because it is your own, from the feeling “I can do with my own as I choose,” what better are you than one who mistreats his wife, or the mother who misuses her child from that same standpoint?
Be Merciful to Yourself
Bless yourself and do not curse it; uplift, do not degrade it; do not make it your slave, but your good servant. Servants cannot do their best when one is finding fault with them all the time. So, see to it that you look at this which has been called the carnal nature, the mortal mind, with kindly eyes, tolerant and generous, and, best of all, with knowledge. If an animal is natural, you don’t condemn it. You simply say it is an animal, and animals will always act that way. So you should see your carnal nature. As long as it is not open to the spiritual overshadowing, it will act its own natural self from its own natural basis, and should not be whipped nor condemned on account of it. But, you may say, it ought to know the law, and be obedient. Paul says, “The carnal mind or natural man receiveth not the things of God and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” (I Cor. 2 :14 and Rom. 8 :7). Well, if it cannot, why punish it? Why find fault with it? Why condemn it? Be wise. See that nature as it is, and instead of finding fault with it, help it. For truly your carnal nature wants your happiness; wants to be abiding in the peace of your higher nature, and it is your privilege to instruct it on its own plane continually and to exact obedience. And when you see that it repents, that it wishes it had not done that, then let it not accuse itself nor condemn itself, but be at peace.
Not Destruction Nor Suppression Do not think to have control over your passions by destroying them. You cannot destroy the life of your passions. “Kill out desire” are words, which spring from the belief that the kingdom of heaven can be seized by violence, but the truth is, you never can kill anything, not even “desire.” If you think you can kill you are deceived and you will have to do your work over again. So, we do not think of destroying our passions, neither, on the other hand, of suppressing them. For there are people who have a certain amount of self-control through suppressing themselves. Sometimes they suffer great distress through crowding back their desires until they are like a mighty dynamo of power. Sometimes there follows a bursting, an explosion—a lawless act through a mighty desire for freedom, and a crashing fall of a nature overborne with ascetic restraint.
Transmutation
No; transmute your desires. Lift them up to the spirit and have the spirit take hold of them. Transmute them through the renewing of your mind. The anger that you have held back and crowded down, suppressing your words, pressing your lips together, and yet justifying the cause of your anger, will one day burst out in words most painful, if you do not take it in charge and give it to the spirit. Give no place to righteous indignation—not even as the wrath of God, for there is no such thing. That is a figment of the imagination, making God in the image of the mortal—an idol which men have bowed down to, content in their own lack of peace and power through justifying the wrath of God. There is no place for anger in love, and so, if you find this rising even in the slightest, give it over to the Spirit. Say some little words, like “Thou only” or pray a prayer. Realizing that fear of anger within you, you begin to give it over to divine love. Love takes it. Love uses it. Do not try to think anything else until that old form of “righteous indignation” begins to pass away.
And so with lust. When thoughts that you have counted impure, and desires which you have felt to be unregenerate and unclean rise within you, instead of being filled with self-condemnation, or the false thought that those desires must be gratified because of the ignorant teaching of the world, take hold of the passion and lift it up to God. Whenever you feel the accusation of being impure, immediately hold, “I am pure! I am pure!” Thus will you use this mighty passion for rising to spiritual heights; for getting joy in the life of regeneration; for the mastery over yourself.
In the same way, if you have a revengeful and hateful feeling and a memory of wrongs, and if malice tries to impose itself upon you, remember to pray the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Say, “I let all my feelings be used by the Spirit of Love, by the Almighty God, and no revengeful, hard or bitter thought of hatred can work through me.” This is the stand to take, instead of crowding things back and suppressing them, as though they were realities, and ready to burst forth at any moment.
Counter-Thoughts
We remember that the transforming is all done from the mind, from the inner nature, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Some have used certain external practices, such as holding the breath. Controlling the breath reacts upon the thought, for the breath moves with the thought, and acts by reflection or “reflex action” upon the mentality. Some of these practices have been good up to a certain point, but eventually it is the mind that does the work, even when you control your breath.
These are aids, but they have their limitations. There are other aids—ways of counteracting these thoughts, feelings, words and deeds by setting up counteracting thoughts. Thus, when one is being stirred by some passion which naturally would burst forth in violent words or rough actions, one can say, sing or do something gentle and harmonious. There are some people who, when angered easily, slam doors and throw things. If you feel like stamping your foot (and probably you justify it, it seems so harmless), put that foot down gently.
You who would have perfect control over yourself and always be poised and full of power and peace, manage your mortal nature as a man manages a horse or an engine, or whatever he wills. Use all the devices that come into your mind to get the upper hand of your passionate nature. Remember that passion is not evil in itself.
Texts and Mantrams
The committing of verses and mantrams and reciting them is one of the outward ways to aid in concentration. The Hindu calls them mantrams; we call them texts. There are some that have a pacifying effect and bring a realization very quickly of the control exercised by your divine self. Take a single thought and raise it above your other thoughts, like a Moses in the wilderness raised up to lead the children of Israel out of the old slavery into the land of eternal freedom and happiness. I know one who took, Thou only as her statement, and every time she found herself having thoughts and feelings that were not desirable, she would say, “Thou only.”
There are those who have taken “Thy Will is done in me,” with the result of giving up the human will and knowing there is but one will working in and through them. Some take the twenty-third Psalm, others the Lord’s Prayer. Whatever appeals to you, in verses or single words, use them as Leaders about which to gather your wayward and scattered thoughts.
If you love this life and are pursuing it all the time, some Truth is always presenting itself and you can have a variety in your spiritual diet. As I have said before, whoever is living this life, uplifting others and talking truth, is concentrating without an effort, and I must continually call your attention to this way—this effortless way of loving truth for its own sake, for when you are in love with truth, you cannot help but think of it night and day, and thus the power of concentration becomes as natural to you as your breath.
CONCENTRATION IN THE
DAILY LIFE
Let us unite in silence, taking with us the words of power found in Zachariah 4:6.
“Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.”
We understand that the “might” spoken of here and the “power” refer to the human will and mere external power. This statement is one of the very best to bring you to the consciousness of effortless concentration, that you do all things, not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts or Forces.
Leader Thoughts
BY way of review, I will remind you that in entering into concentration, whether for a few moments or a regular half hour or more, it is well to have a leading thought, just as in the gathering together of people, a leader is most essential—not that the leader is superior, necessarily, but is simply good as a leader.
There are spiritual thoughts that appeal to you and certain thoughts do not; again, there are times when the same thought will appeal to you much more than at other times. Select your leading thought by that divine sense within. You will know when you have found the right word, or the right statement, by the same sense of satisfaction that you have when you taste anything and it tastes just right.
It is the same with the Scriptures, that the mind “trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat.” Thus we try sentences—words of truth—and accept certain statements at the time as the very best to hold. That which we have just held in the silence, “Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts,” is an excellent leader almost any time.
Illustration: Overcoming Worriment And this is what I mean by taking a leading thought. You may sit down full of worriment, of belief that there is so much to do and so little time to do it in and that much effort is necessary. Then that thought of not by effort “but by my spirit, saith the Lord,” dropped among the other thoughts about the necessity of effort and rush and confusion, will pacify and quiet, and give you rest by its cool, calming realization, so essential to do the things necessary to be done in the time that you have.
What is true of worriment in its character of distraction and confusion, might be said of fear and other perverted passions, like jealousy and hatred. But we will not dwell upon these as positive things— no evil thought is positive. Sometimes one gets an idea about evils, that they are so real and have so much power, that they so interfere and spoil things, that that very thought is followed by panic. A person is almost afraid to be afraid and worries about worrying. Put away that suggestion this moment by realizing that all these evil thoughts are mere negations, mere emptiness. They have no real power in themselves, only as they are emphasized. Some metaphysicians have so enlarged upon the power of evil thinking that they have made a new devil. I have heard many people say that they would rather believe in the old-fashioned kind of a devil than this kind, known as “m. a. m.”—or “malicious animal magnetism.” It is for us to prove that such influence has no real power, no real place.
Emptiness of Error-Thoughts
Let us take up these things in the right way as nothingness; worriment is negation, fear is a kind of emptiness. Fill in the place of these negatives (worriment or fear) the opposite thoughts which are positive. Here you will need to use discretion and discernment to select your opposite thought, but the mere act of feeling after God, the seeking of the Word, is itself beneficial. The very attempt to find the opposite sometimes will do the work—just the attempt.
Perhaps, whenever you have, thought of a certain person you have had a sweep of hatred go over you, and you have justified it. You felt you had done right to hate that person for he had been the embodiment of wickedness and vice; there was no good in him. You had made up your mind that he didn’t even have a soul and there was nothing to save about him, and he might as well be out of the world as in it. I am describing something that may not apply to any of you, but there are a great many people who think that way. They dwell upon the thing so long that they justify murder, and then someone is killing somebody else.
You have come into the Truth, and if you have had an old hatred for some people, now you have learned to dismiss them from your mind, for they were so uncomfortable to think about. You have learned that you cannot hold them altogether evil, but then you sometimes justify hating the sin because you think that God hates sin, and that wrath against sin is legitimate. But in love, there is no hatred at all. God is love, and love knows no wrath, knows no hatred, not for one second. Therefore there is nothing in hating sin; sin is nothing; what is there to hate?
You reason with yourself and this reasoning is good. It takes you from that distracting thought, that dividing, breaking, insane thought of hatred. For hatred leads to insanity. So when that person comes into mind, you should know a thought that neutralizes the old one of hatred—something just opposite to hatred.
Exercise by the Audience
By way of exercise let all this audience think upon an opposite thought to hatred.
Audience—”Love.”
Speaker—Perhaps you start with love: “I love you. Love is the only presence and the only power.”
It sounds, perhaps, like a lot of words; you don’t want to spoil your thought about love, so you drop it.
“It is a little too much,” perhaps you are thinking; “I don’t see how I ever can love that one.”
Then some other thought had better be introduced.
Audience—”Tolerance.”
Speaker—”I will be tolerant.” Perhaps you take a little pride in it. Perhaps charity would be better. You are beginning to climb. Charity. Yes, perhaps I can find some excuse. There is a kind of mildness about that charity. It works. Perhaps you begin to find your word empty. Then you think peace, and you grow a little less agitated. Every time that image rises and the thought of hatred and the old sense of justifying it, you say, “Tolerance, Charity, Peace,” and you lead up to “Love.” Soon you find yourself saying, “God is Love. Love in me forgives,” and you go on in power, and presently you can speak the whole truth, for you are large enough to understand the old mortal mind, its nature and why it acted that way, and you have come to your peace.
Let us continue this exercise. Supposing that you find yourself full of fear and you are agitated. Now fear is a negation. Give me some opposite word.
Audience—“Faith!” “Confidence!” “Assurance!” “Courage!” “Trust!”
Trust is a very good word. Now give me something the opposite to jealousy.
Audience—”Confidence !” “Understanding!”
You understand what I mean. Every one of these evil things are like emptiness; that is all. And you need only to take the opposite—the opposite which appeals to you at the time—to begin and fill in that emptiness.
Concern About Tomorrow
Sometimes you are under a pressure to fill in with the substance of faith for a demonstration that is coming. You find yourself worrying tonight about tomorrow. You don’t know what you are going to do tomorrow, and in the old days, you would lie upon your pillow and keep awake, thinking:
“What can I do? Where shall I go? What is the next step?” and perhaps remain awake all night or, if you fell asleep, you would awake exhausted, still with that awful sense of fear and worriment, feeling you had not slept at all.
What is the meaning of it? You need more faith. You are going to have a special demand for the manifestation of your prosperity or protection. Therefore begin to radiate this substance, faith, and meet that thought of worriment with,
“I trust in the great principle of my life. I trust in the All-Good, working in and through my life. My Good is coming to me. I know what to do. I always do the right thing. I speak the right words. I am inspired.” Words like that, until you fall asleep. You will wake in the morning without a sense of burden, with a wonderful calm and peace. Why? Because last night you laid up treasures in heaven.
The landlady comes in for her rent—suppose this was the coming demonstration which was to be made. You are able to face her with, “Will you wait a little while?” There is such a confidence in your voice that she says, “Very well!” Then in some unlocked for way, as surely as you laid up substance the night before for a manifestation of it at the right time, the money comes. This is the way it works. We have seen it again and again.
Concentrating Where You Are
In this talk I am taking up concentration in the daily life, right where you are—not in some other place or among other people, or by yourself. Where you find yourself, there you are to know concentration, self-control, poise, self-possession, peace and power. The old idea that we must go to a nunnery or to some secluded spot in a mountain, or be by ourselves before we can get control and be at peace, we must dismiss.
It is true, you will have moments when you can go to “The Secret Place,” and you must recognize such; even though it be only five minutes, you must thank God for that, when you can get off by yourself and hush everything. It may not come until you are at the point of retiring at night, but take advantage of it and thank God that you can be still and forget everything for two minutes. It is enough. Such a minute is “like unto the grain of mustard seed.” If you can have the Sabbath-consciousness for one minute in the day, it can solve the whole problem of concentration. “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” Remind yourself that you have that minute. Don’t say, “I have no time for concentration, for meditation.” You might as well say, “I have no time to be useful.” You have all the time there is and you can do with it what you will.
In the busy life we learn to concentrate by using the things that we are passing through, which we are contacting, as suggestions of concentration. Whatever you are employed in must be a means of suggestion to you of some spiritual thought of power and goodness which you desire to realize.
The Practice of the Presence of God
There is a little book that I would recommend to you, called “The Practice of the Presence of God.” It is one of the very best treatments for concentration that has passed down to us. It is over two hundred years old, but it is just as meaty, just as full of substance as it ever was.
It is about a man, who was a lay brother in the Catholic Church, who had not become a monk because he felt too humble even to apply for such advancement, but was content to act as servant. He entered a monastery to do the cooking, the common work. But he had had a touch of the cosmic consciousness, insight of heaven, and he never forgot it. He learned that he could commune with God at other times besides the stated hours when he entered into the form of prayer. He became very familiar with the Divine Presence and it instructed him so that he learned to do everything he did for the Lord. He said if he picked up a straw off the ground, he did it for the Lord. He tells us that “the best rule of a holy life is to practice the presence of God.” This means that there is nothing to recognize but the Divine One in everybody; that there is nothing but peace; nothing but purity; nothing but blessings.
Practice the presence of your Good. Thus learning to see divinity in and through all things, nothing is impure or unclean to you. Like the poet Herbert, you can pray:
“Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see.
And what I do in anything
To do it as for thee.”
George Herbert was inspired, and it is such things as that that make him dear to us. Truth that he saw over one hundred years ago is just as true today.
Practice the presence of God—in that poor, old woman that you are waiting upon; that miserable man, fault-finding, and unkind, that you are serving. These can become divine in your sight and you can realize that you serve the Lord in them—the spirit in them. That very thought will transform her, and she will grow sweet and patient; and he will begin to be kind and considerate, such is the power of right thought. And when this takes place, you will have known a richness and sweetness in your life that cannot be described in words; you concentrate without any trouble; nothing can distract you. Nothing can move you from your peace when you do everything for the Spirit, and let the Spirit in you do it.
Spiritual Housekeeping
In the little book which I have written on Spiritual Housekeeping,* I give the spiritual meaning of the daily life of the housekeeper and show how each day can be a suggestion of some manifestation of the spirit. I take you through the seven days, and many of the points that I have given you in this course on concentration will be found in this book.
Monday is for water—Freedom; Tuesday for fire —Love; Wednesday for sewing—Creation; Thursday for a general individual work—Grace; Friday for sweeping—Purity, and Saturday for baking and finishing work—Perfection; and Sunday has its own sweet Peace, the word of satisfaction and rest. Each day can bring forward these divine qualities in yourselves. It will mean, perhaps, overcoming that impatience ; putting away that temper that upsets things so easily; that besetting sin put under foot, as you know yourself and know what it is that distracts you. You will work with that until you walk at peace with yourself.
Your Special Business
While a person might take that little book upon concentration and see one’s self a housekeeper, inasmuch as you are keeping this house—your body, and you are a housekeeper, no matter what you appear to be,—yet some of us would like to be specific as to the business we are in; to know the thought to hold in order to let that business, which perhaps is disliked by you, be a suggestion as to how you can think and feel while, perhaps, this one is calling you to do this, and another that, and another is giving you another piece of work, and you feel you must push and pull and give all your strength and knowledge to things material and foreign to the spirit.
Therefore, let us consider some of the business pursuits that men are in. I know one man that was a carpenter, who was well advanced in the power of concentration, because every time he built a house, he thought, “Every nail I drive home, I drive a spiritual thought home, such as ‘now the truth sets you free,’ ” etc. He was talking silently to somebody all during his work or sending out his word in a general way, and he was full of activity and spiritual thoughts, quick to see and full of business alertness and efficiency.
Thus the man in the shop or the real estate dealer, or the promoter can find that each one of these things has a correspondence in the spirit, which he can learn by saying often, in his heart, “I am about my Father’s business. I am here to do the work of the spirit, and to do divine work.”
If he is a promoter, for instance, what is he really promoting? He is promoting the good of humanity; promoting opportunities for individuality to express itself; for the spirit to work through these bodies; to manifest to the greatest advantage to everybody with whom he comes in contact, not merely promoting his own purse.
Attracting Your Own
Taking this spiritual position, a man draws to him the very people that should be opened up interiorly. They are ready and waiting, and as truly as those, who have come to this lecture today, have come by the spiritual law, so every man who puts his business under the spiritual law will draw to himself men that mean business, that will not trifle, men that are able, that have substance, that are prosperous and desire what he has to give.
He will draw men that will not try to exploit him, for he is not trying to exploit men. The very best people will be his customers, for they will be like what he thinks about. It may seem at first a slow movement and somewhat mixed, but he will know why. Because he, himself is going on slowly in this spiritual life, and more or less mixed in his thoughts.
This is the way the business life will teach the gospel, will carry it everywhere, and the man who fills himself with spiritual thoughts, no matter what he is engaged in, radiates prosperity and helpfulness, has poise and power and “prospers in whatsoever he puts his hands to.” He is inspired and inspires others, being a living Word of God to unite earth with heaven, and usher in the millennial age.
CONCENTRATION THROUGH DEVOTION
Now let us join in silence, taking the first words of the Psalm 103:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”
Most excellent words to remember, whenever you have occasion to drop into the Silence. When, perhaps, no other words can come to your mind, these will center you quickly, not by merely wording them, but through realizing their meaning.
We know that the Lord of all needs no blessing from us. Nothing can be added to, nor taken from, the great divine One. But it is everything to your soul to express itself towards this One in the form of blessing, for when you begin to praise the divine One you center yourself and get into the poise, the peace and the power that belong to right concentration. We are remembering that the Lord is the Good in all and working through all, and to remind yourself of this Good and to be devoted to it is the way of the happiest concentration.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me”—the demand is not only upon the soul, but upon every faculty that is within you, your mentality, your feeling nature, as well as your soul consciousness. All that is within me, bless his holy name— his holy nature—his whole, pure, true being.
With this understanding let us repeat these words in the silence and rest in the spirit of them.
The Power of Blessing
ONE of the easiest ways to concentrate in your daily life is mentally to bless everything and everybody. And it is not merely a matter of the lips, for when you speak these words, especially from the heart, silently radiating them, you are transforming people. You are transforming things. You are removing the curse and giving everybody and everything opportunity to express themselves in the best way.
If there is anything that is especially cursing you, bless that until you find its meaning, what it is prompting you, or pressing you, to manifest, and thus discover the divinity in everything; that all things are working together for good to them that love the Lord. There is nothing that seems to worry and irritate you, and to cross and oppose you, but what is an instrument in the divine hands to bring forward something right and beautiful, fine and noble that lies in your nature waiting to be expressed. Instead of being irritated and feeling at cross-purposes and upset, thus losing your power of concentration, let nothing defeat or overcome you, but make everything an opportunity for rising and expressing more of your divine self, more the conqueror and captain of your soul.
“Bless them that curse you” was the divine direction, “that ye may be the child of your Father which is in heaven, for He is kind unto the unthankful and the evil.” This is the divine character and whoever takes upon himself the divine method and nature is in a masterly control, the power of concentration that is back of the universe.
Healing and Being Healed
Everybody and everything that comes into your life is there for one of two reasons and generally both —either to be healed or to heal you—and I am not speaking of disease alone, except in the broadest sense of the word. Disease from “dis” and “ease,” means lack of ease, lack of comfort, uncomfortable, and whatever brings discomfort to you could be called disease, whether it is poverty or sorrow, vice or chronic sickness. Whatever is of discomfort comes under the category of disease and can be healed, and your healing is your whole-ing—being made whole, holy, hearty, healthy. Everything and everybody is in your life either to press you into more of holiness, or for you to draw out of them more of this holiness or wholeness.
Therefore we learn not to run away from things, not to resist people, not to grow impatient and fret, but to transform, redeem, wholly save and uplift and bless. Just as soon as you have done that, the thing or person changes or passes out of your daily life; they cannot irritate you; they cannot trouble you. Although they may still appear in your life, they only feel harmony toward you and have nothing but blessing for you, when you have fulfilled your part towards them. But if you run away or in other ways try to escape, because they seem so evil, you simply put off the day of salvation, that is all. You must take it up in some future form because of your wrong belief about it.
As long as you believe a thing to be evil, that very belief draws that experience into your life until your belief is healed, and you know there is no reality to the evil, that the good is all there really is.
The Way of Devotion
All this is part of the devotion which is one with concentration, because it comes from the love of truth, because you love the true Life, the Source of all good. You love the All Good, you love to express good and are devoted to it, and the first thing you know, you are quite self-possessed, poised and peaceful, and you have never thought about concentration.
The Hindus call concentration “Yoga,” and concentration by devotion, Bhakti Yoga. According to their teaching there are four paths which the devotee of right concentration, or “union with God,” can take: The path called Bhakti Yoga or the heart way, through loving without reasoning about it, only devoting your whole heart to God; the second way, Raja Yoga, wherein the soul and its psychic powers are given over to devotion, the aspirations and all that is spiritual in us being devoted to the one God; the third, Gnana Yoga, or giving the whole mind, making the union with God through giving all the reasoning or intellect; and the fourth, the way of our strength, our works, called Karma Yoga, wherein one gives one’s self to serving the Spirit in our works, doing everything for the Lord, giving all our strength to this Divine One.
The Way of Jesus Christ
“But behold, I show you a more excellent way” than these four, and that is a combination of the four, as described in Jesus’ presentation of the first of all the Commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength.” You take the four: heart, soul, mind and strength and devote every one of them to the Spirit of the Lord. Obeying and fulfilling this commandment, you concentrate wherever you are. You are at peace. You are poised. You are free. It matters not what comes to you. This is the power of devotion.
The Convent of Perpetual Adoration Those who go to nunneries and monasteries have certain practices of devotion which continually recall them from distraction. We read in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables about the nuns of the Convent of the Perpetual Adoration, that they were reminded of the Holy Life every half hour by the ringing of a bell. Then k mattered not what they were doing, or how much they were engaged at that moment, every nun ceased and repeated over an Ave Maria or other prayer. Oftentimes the ring came in the midst of a conversation which was causing a nun to be disturbed, distracted and resisting within herself, but they all dropped their eyes as the bell sounded and repeated over the words, that reminded them of the One of whom they were to think perpetually. You can imagine that sometimes, when a nun was losing her temper, she turned within to the quiet place and was immediately poised; that one, perhaps, was beginning to engage in some foolish occupation or conversation, then she was reminded and quickly came to herself. The description is very beautiful of the Convent of Perpetual Adoration, and there is something very high, and strong and noble in this method which commends itself to us, though we do not need to go to convents or monasteries in order to get control of ourselves.
Our Convent-Bell
Certain things in your experience can remind you of your deep Self just as that bell reminded those nuns. Is there something in your life that annoys you ? Somebody is continually drumming on the table; or when that one is practicing you begin to get worked up? Let that state be the bell and repeat these words:
“Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name.”
Perhaps you have been thinking you have no control over yourself as you listen to that practicing, and you will have to complain to the landlord; yet you want to give that person liberty to live in his or her way. Let that practicing be the bell to remind you, that now is the moment of your peace and nothing can move you, as you repeat these words, “Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name.”
The Value of Prayer
It was that man might have this control and self-mastery, to be ready and alert for any emergency in his earthly experiences, that Jesus gave the teaching: “Pray without ceasing, pray always.” When we consider prayer in its highest meaning, we see that we can be praying continually by reminding ourselves of the All-Good in everything and in everybody. Learn to enter into your closet, retire within yourself and shut the door of the senses. Learn to speak to your Father in secret and your Father in secret will answer you openly. Thus the Master describes the way of prayer.
Meditate upon Emerson’s description of prayer, for it also covers the whole ground and is as inspiring as those words of Jesus Christ. Here is Emerson’s definition:
“Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view; it is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul; it is the spirit of God pronouncing his work good.”
It is a beautiful exposition of prayer, and it takes you from the mere externals into, and up through, your own soul to your Godhood—body, soul and spirit. If you contemplate the facts of life perpetually from the highest point of view, you are ever in prayer according to Emerson. If you lift up your joys into the high places of the soul, then anything that you do, whether you dance or sing, whether you play cards or you run and leap in the sports of the field—your soul can be jubilant, can be talking with God, and there is nothing but what can become a holy action, and a pure and true pastime, as you let your soul uplift it. Prayer is the finishing power and benediction upon the creation of God. It is God in you pronouncing His work good.
Our Desires One With Prayer
Through devotion, all your desires can be turned into declarative power, blessing God that it is so, declaring your desire to be fulfilled now. Sometimes our desires distract us, we are wishing so hard for something and fearing disappointment lest it will not come out just as we want it, and then there is agitation and disturbance. Give all your desires to the Spirit. See that everything—every single desire—is a prayer, and learn to bless God that it is now come to pass. “I thank thee, Father, that thou hast heard me,” said Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, before the work of raising him from the dead was accomplished. Learn to say, “It is so, it is so, it is so,” for every wish of your heart, and then do not trouble yourself about it but when you see it come to pass, acknowledge it and be glad. So shall you pray the prayer of the righteous man—the right-thinking man—and your devotion, your “prayer without ceasing” be a perpetual accomplishment.
Those who will remember to declare their wishes already come to pass are placing themselves as the instruments of God to benefit this whole world. There comes a wishing that is so righteous and good, that is such a blessing for everybody, that, when you are wishing for anything, you are simply voicing God’s desire. Then you must take the next step for its accomplishment. Declare it is so. It is done now. It is finished. It is, already.
Character, the Garden of the Lord
We are returning to Eden through this devotion, that Eden described in the first chapters of Genesis— the plenty of the Lord. Every time you “contemplate the facts of life from the highest point of view,” you are cultivating that garden of the Lord within you, your blissful state, your union with God. You can bring forward that Eden-consciousness by simply remembering it, putting fresh plants into it and cultivating it. If there be weeds in it, fears, doubts or unspirituality, or a serpent still among the trees of subtle suggestion of something else beside God’s good, it is in your power to lift that serpent up and to redeem the weeds. As Emerson says, “A weed is only a flower whose use has not been found.” When you have unworthy thoughts or suggestions that do not belong to the Eden peace, instead of finding fault with yourselves, by saying, “How can I have such thoughts?” rise up and give them to the Spirit, and declare the truth, “I am pure, I am true, I am divine,” and your weeds will come under the hand of a spiritual Burbank, who knows how to find use for weeds and to cultivate the best in all.
Seed Thoughts
One way to practice concentration is to see thoughts as seeds and, if you desire certain thoughts, take them and deliberately plant them in your mind. Some seed you have to watch over very carefully, very tenderly, that they may root and start growing. A strong stream of water must not play upon them, because it will uproot the new plant. It will not do for the sun to come too directly upon some of these tender little plants. There is a wisdom, a marvelous good judgment in planting seeds of truth.
When you want to be healed of certain tendencies, or to develop certain traits, give the work over to the Spirit to cultivate. You will find yourself growing wise and tender and kind to yourself; not finding fault and lashing yourself, feeling that you are so far wrong; such is letting the sun beat down upon your tender plants and pouring the water upon them, when there should be a gentle spray and tender sunlight to those young thoughts, those budding trees that are just coming to their manifestation.
The Practice of Mental Planting One way to plant these seed thoughts is described in Primary Lessons in Christian Living and Healing*, sixth chapter, where a method of concentration is described thus: You take a thought that you wish to cultivate. Say that you desire to manifest Faith— more Faith. Suppose you are feeling shaky about something, some position you desire; you don’t know how things are going to turn out, keeping you on tender-hooks, as it were; you are not as self-possessed as you ought to be when going out to take a position, or to undertake a piece of work; you feel nervous and you see you must have more faith and more trust.
Therefore you begin to meditate upon Faith, letting that be your seed thought. It appears nothing but a word to you at first, just a dry seed and you wonder if it will amount to anything, but you proceed to plant that thought of Faith and this is the way you do it:
You mentally repeat the word seven times (I take seven because that is the perfect number). To avoid counting, you repeat it three times, and three times and then once. Then going within yourself you shut the door of the senses and repeat it in your heart:
Faith, faith, faith—faith, faith, faith—faith. Thoughts will begin to rise, you may remember certain texts of scripture; you may begin to feel stronger because it is the law that what you meditate upon you gravitate to. You begin to draw all the mentalities that are filled with faith. You are launched upon a stream of faith. You are contacting the mentalities that have confidence, strength and trust and your faith in yourself grows stronger. Some doubt falls down, some unbelief takes to itself wings. There rises up in you a new consciousness.
This may not take place at first, for sometimes your mind begins to go off into lines that have little or no connection with faith. But so long as your mind is upon a spiritual thought, you are in right meditation. The stems, leaves, branches and fruit may not look like the seed, but eventually there is a seed at the end that is just like the first. It comes as the divine promise. First the seed of the vine, then the root, stem, branch, flower and fruit, and within the grape is the seed again, complete and perfect.
If you find your mind going off into other channels, not altogether good, bring yourself back to that first thought, just as though you were beginning again. After a while you will be able to cut off those branches that do not bear fruit, with the Word. Keep your vine growing in an orderly way and by the time you have finished your meditation, you will enter into a new consciousness of your seed-thought, whatever it was. If it was Faith, you will be the stronger and the truer and clearer in your consciousness, as to confidence and trust, and ready to express a greater faith than you have ever yet experienced.
Soul Culture
This is soul culture. It is fulfilling the work that Adam was created for. “And there was not a man to till the ground,” so the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed inspiration into him and he became an immortal soul. And he was there to till the ground. This Bible story is a description of the work of the Spirit in you every day. Every day there is something in you moulded by the Divine Hands; a character coming forth from you that is spiritual, strong, intelligent, loving; and that character is there to cultivate this ground, the earth consciousness, to till this soil and make the most of it and show it to be an Eden of God.
In your flesh you shall see God; with that body that you have now, you can see all that belongs to heaven, peace, health, freedom and every good. This is what you are called to do. It is not merely a privilege, it is a commandment: “Let them have dominion over all the earth.”
You are here to do the work which the spirit has given you to do, and that is to be happy, healthy, true, an angel on earth, drawing into the kingdom of heaven just as many as you possibly can. That is the glorious work that you are appointed to do.
Here, to Prove God, the Only Self In devoting yourself to the Great Self, I would have you remember that it is not a Lord far away, nor a God in opposition to you, but the Great Heart that dwells within you. You are to love your Self, as God. This is the true interpretation of that first commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength.” But you cannot love yourself when you think it is this personality. For that is not your true Self. It sometimes seems that in this earthly ego you had taken up your enemy and were working with your enemy. That is why people hate themselves. But you must make friends with yourself, make friends with your enemies, learning to love your enemy-self in the Christ-way and you will heal it and redeem it.
This one Self is the same God that they are bowing to in India, in China and in the isles of the sea, in the temples of our City. It is You that they worship, and it is the Self of us all, and we are to prove that we are that Self; that there is nothing to us but our great Godhood and we are to prove it in the midst of the flesh, while yet we walk humbly, meekly and in lowly spirit upon this planet.
It is not an occasion for pride, for self-glorification, nor conceit, not that state where they feel their / Am is the little personality; that is gross egotism, a form of insanity. No, your Great Self is the Self of the meanest as well as the highest, it is the Self of us all, whom you worship in that other personality just as well as in this, your own, and you are to face it in your neighbor. The second commandment, “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself,” is the same as the first. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God in thy neighbor as well as in thyself.
Devote yourself to the All-Good in all. Take the idea of Eden and fulfill it in yourself; learn to contemplate the common facts of life from the highest point of view; let your soul talk to itself, a beholding and jubilant soliloquy; see that the one that we are praising in you is God, and ours is the prayer of affirmation, not beseeching but pronouncing all things good and very good.
PEACE AND BLISS
Let our meditation be the closing words of Psalm 19.
There is no better book of the Bible, wherein to find leading, spiritual thoughts that are good for meditation, than the Book of Psalms. These words were studied by the old Hebrews with the understanding that they had spiritual powers which would ward off trouble and deliver from any predicament in which they might find themselves.
The words Jesus Christ spoke on the cross were almost everyone to be found in the Psalms. His closing words, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit” are in the 31st Psalm; “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” the first verse of the 22nd Psalm was the word that loosened up his interior from his exterior body. Death is always the ultimate expression of the sense of separation, and Jesus expressed a sense of separation from his Source and the result was death, but he entered into death only to conquer it by repudiating that thought of separation in his heart, and he rose triumphant over death.
The words which we will take today are affirmations, three-fold. “Thou wilt shew me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures forever more.” The spirit within us is showing us the path of life; that in this great omnipresence is the fullness of joy; on the right hand or power of the Spirit are pleasures, eternal and unlimited. This was the inspiration of the Psalmist. Let us take it for ourselves.
We Make Our World
WE live in a great world of our own creating, for what we meditate upon determines first of all our mental world, and this determines our outer world. Therefore it is exceedingly important what we meditate upon, since meditations upon peace and bliss determine whether we shall walk in peace and bliss; and, on the other hand, meditations upon evil may fill our whole world with evil images.
Wise are we to cease utterly and forever from meditating upon injuries; from meditating upon this little self; from meditating upon poverty. These three are important subjects to eliminate utterly from our consciousness—injuries, the little, false self, and poverty. For if we meditate upon these long enough it means insanity. Meditation upon evil is disintegrating. Not only distracting, but disintegrating. And if we meditate upon this little self, its injuries, its rights and so on, we develop a false ego, and as someone has said, “Insanity is egotism gone to seed.” And that third meditation upon poverty lies back of many of the cases in the insane asylums. People thinking that thieves are after them, that their property has been taken from them, although they may be wealthy; that losses are crowding upon them, and that every man’s hand is against them—this is unhealthy meditation, distracting and spoiling.
Therefore we take our stand to repudiate utterly all meditation upon evil or injuries or upon this little, mortal, conceited self or our poverty-ills or lack. We learn to put in their place the good, the beautiful, and the true. This Platonic trinity of the good and the beautiful and the true can counteract all the false meditations that have been set up. Memory Restored
Your memory is purified by the truth as you learn to dismiss from your mentality all memories of injury, mistakes, sins and sorrows. You deliberately forget these, that your memory may be clean and free and strong and true. It is written, “Thou shalt forget thy misery and remember it as waters that pass away.” This is the divine promise and it is fulfilled in the man of right meditation.
Instead of being disturbed because you cannot remember certain dates, names, faces or other temporal, passing things, count them all nothing and you will soon find that you will easily remember just what you should. That list, that date, those evil memories are absolutely non-essential and must be forgotten sometime. Why not now? And as you cease to be agitated and do not congest your brain cells over things, they can slip into your mentality just when they should; and if you are to remember a date, you will remember it quickly; if a number, it will come in good time, and names will come quickly by not worrying over your memory.
The suggestions that you are weak or old or losing some of your faculties, dismiss immediately. They are not fit companions to entertain. You did not invite them and they have intruded themselves upon you. Learn to shut the door to such thoughts and say, “I never knew you. I know you not nor whence you came.” This is the power of the Christ—the Master of the House (Luke 13:25) who shuts the door upon all these things that would claim place and power in the name of your good.
No suggestion that you are losing your memory should be entertained for a moment, for it is not true. That which is to be remembered by you is there forever and you can call it up at will. This is the truth, and if you will not be deceived into believing that you are losing your memory, you will co-operate with your own Spirit so as to have the inspired memory —always thinking the right thing at the right time. Conscientiously dismiss all the false thoughts, the tramps, beggars and impostors that would clutter your mentality. By refusing such thinking you give room for the operation of the true thoughts. This is one of the secrets of peace, that quiet joy that belongs to one who is in the true life.
Serenity by Right Memory
Serenity is yours by right, and for you to demonstrate while yet you walk in the flesh, so that no one can take your peace from you. No one can do that if you will not do it yourself. Therefore never concern yourself about remembering injuries or wrongs. Sometimes people make the mistake of taxing themselves with such thoughts as, “Now I must remember that I made a mistake that time and so not repeat it.” What you are to remember is that which is not the mistake but the truth, and declare to yourself, “I must remember to walk true here, to speak right there, to act wisely always,” etc. Put it into the right affirmation, not the false negative, for what you keep your eye single to, you manifest.
If, when Peter started to walk the waves (Matt. 14:29, 30) he had kept his eye on the Christ and had not begun to observe the wind and the waves, he could have walked all the way. It was because he looked down at the seething water and thought of the storm that he began to sink. That was the manifestation of his limited faith, so the Master said, “Why did you doubt—O ye of little faith?”
“They who observe lying vanities, forsake their own mercies.” Let us not observe lying vanities, but keep our eye single to our God at all times and under all circumstances. And so it is when we speak to warn others, little ones and people coming to ask counsel of us. Learn to draw their attention to the way of safety, not the way of liability. If you were to cross a muddy street, would you look out for the mud? No, you would keep your eyes away from it, looking for the dry places where you could put your foot safely and avoid the mud. Keep your eye single to the good, and the beautiful and the true, and you will avoid their opposites without care.
Freedom From Personality
The second false meditation to be avoided is thinking upon personality. Oh, to have your mind taken off from this little personality! Why, that is the key of self-possession. It is the secret of the little child.
It means that you shall not think of this little personality as yourself, but look at your great Spirit and remember it; to be able to hear anything about one’s personality and not be moved—whether it be praise or blame. There are some people, who are immune to blame, and can harden themselves and feel quite at peace when fault is found with them, but who become quite elated and fairly unbalanced when they are praised. And sometimes they get so puffed up, that there comes the pride that goes before a fall, because they are so out of balance. On the other hand, there are people who can stand praise, it seems so natural, but when one little fault in them is pointed out, one little condemnation, they “go all to pieces.” They are so sensitive, they grow weak as water before criticism.
Neither praise nor blame should move us. The praise you receive, you can ascribe to your divine Self and silently say, “I give all glory to the universal Life —the Holy Spirit. I am nothing of myself. I am nothing except by this power.” Thus you will keep your modesty and your peace, and praise will not be able to move you. And when, on the other hand, you are condemned or blamed, you will not be moved either, because you remember this, that the carnal self can never be anything of itself. Only as the power of the universal Spirit fills it, can it be anything. Why blame it? Why find fault with it?
Simply take every one of these things as a help to further expression of your divinity—as a means of correction, just as artists love to have the master give them “a criticism.” They know they advance by it and it does not hurt them, even when he speaks quite sharply and is very sweeping in his condemnation and his general view of their work. It only means that they will correct this and go on further.
Sense of Limitation Lost
As you meditate upon your divine I Am-—the Great Self that you are—you may find yourself growing so impersonal that you lose all feeling of this body. If you should have the sense at any time when in meditation, as though you had no body at all and you were very large and very universal, be not concerned. At that time you are entering into your greater consciousness and it is good; and, instead of hurrying back to the small consciousness, sit still and grow accustomed to it, for you will observe that you do not lose consciousness but have a more acute sense of being real.
I know one lady who once felt that her material beliefs were standing in her way as a healer, and she determined to have a less material mind. So one day she lay down on her couch and began to hold,
“All is Mind! All is Mind! There is no matter. All is Mind!” And as things would come up before her mentality she would say,
“Mind—not matter! That is Mind! Nothing is matter.”
As she went on with this, she suddenly found herself to be pure mentality. She could not feel her body; the room had no walls about it; she was one with the whole earth; there was no time—neither past nor future. She knew things to come; she could see the people that she was going to meet as right in the present; she knew the things of the future that would take place in her life.
About that time, somebody knocked at the door suddenly, and she was back in the old consciousness. She had learned the secrets of the prophet, that it was because he had entered into the universal consciousness that he knew no time nor space, and could know what things would take place.
The Cosmic Consciousness
There is nothing that seems to break the limits of the carnal senses so quickly as the denial of matter. For matter is a limited view. That is all. It is nothing per se, only a view. Even the material scientists have come to that conclusion, that there is no matter of itself, it is a mode of thinking. Both matter and motion are modes of thinking. And the way to recover from those methods of thinking is to break down the material limitations which one has put upon oneself and upon others. Abiding in this peace and giving yourself to spiritual pursuits and living the life; you find yourself rising to a greater consciousness and a more pleasing realization until suddenly there comes to you the Lord—the Glory of the Lord, called the Cosmic Consciousness.
The Cosmic Consciousness is an actual experience, a realization, a joy. It is a taste of your universal knowing, feeling, being. Anyone who has ever tasted of this can never doubt that there is more than the physical sense can testify. Everything in our spiritual experience is preparing us for this baptism, so that when it shall come upon us we shall be able to contain it and be normal. If you are instructed about it, when it comes upon you, you will walk in peace, knowing yourself and the realm of appearances and able to handle things, at the same time abiding in this peace and bliss, the Way of Jesus Christ. The Heavenly Anaesthetic
In the closing days of Jesus’ earthly career, He walked through the sorrows and the strife, the ignominy and the crucifixion, calm and serene as one who has taken an anaesthetic. The earthly anaesthetic is a symbol of this super-conscious state, in which you can pass through anything and everything and be absolutely unmoved and unhurt. But it has none of the deadening effects associated with the material anaesthetic, for you have perfect and conscious control over yourself. You are poised, peaceful and blissful—in the world, but not of it—healing, teaching, uplifting and delivering your fellow-beings and yet not implicated in any of these things.
Those who have never heard of Cosmic Consciousness, and yet arrive there may, either through fear or ignorance, do that against which the Buddhists, in these words warn us: “Drive not back the ecstasy of contemplation.” Through being instructed about this state, you will not drive back this blissful consciousness by thinking that something is going wrong, but rather will see that you are only just entering into heaven, while yet you walk upon the earth. The Escape From Insanity
Anyone who meditates upon the beautiful, the good and the true need never fear insanity, for he keeps the mind single to the All-Good, to the Divine Self. When people have seemed to go insane on account of religion, it is because they have had some belief in evil, which they did not eliminate from their consciousness as they went on in the spiritual life, and therefore that little grain of dust spoiled their vision.
I saw this illustrated in the case of a woman who had been unbalanced twice before I saw her in this third attack. Religious mania they called it.
A friend of hers, a student of Truth who came to my classes, asked her to come and stay with her, and one day, this student was very much concerned, because it seemed as though her friend were on the verge of being unbalanced, so she brought her to my Bible Lesson.
She sat and listened to this lesson, and at the close she rose up in the midst of the students, her face very white, and began to speak words of Scripture.
I had not been told anything about her case, but I saw what the trouble was, and the whole class began to hold her in the One Mind, the Divine Mind.
She said, in a soft, plaintive voice:
“They are all lost, they are all lost, and only I am saved! O my friends! Where are they gone?”
Her friend tried to reassure her with the words, “We are all here!” but she did not hear.
Then I spoke up and said, “I am here!”
And she turned to me, “Yes, but where are the rest?”
I said, “They are eternally safe.” “No,” she said, “they are lost forever.” I saw the mania in a moment—that old dogma that some are elected to salvation, but the greater part arc to be lost forever. I was able to keep myself in her sight as one who was saved, until she came to herself, standing by my side and began to receive the assurances that everybody was absolutely safe in life.
The outcome of understanding her was, that instead of antagonizing her brothers, who wished her to be placed in a private sanitarium for a while, she agreed with them. It had always been her antagonism that would throw her off her balance. She agreed with them and in perfect co-operation did as they wished, and was afterward dismissed by the physicians of the sanitarium as perfectly sane and of sound mind. I received a letter from her not very long ago, in which she told me that she has always been poised and peaceful from that day, and she now knows she is absolutely safe through the power of the Truth.
We need never fear that we shall be unbalanced so long as we keep the good before us and our eye single to the good. It is the same with our friends that seem to be going aside from the balanced state. Remind them there is but one presence and power working in and through them and everything, and you will make yourself a vehicle—a bridge over which they may pass out of the false, disintegrating concentration into the true.
Openness to the Holy Spirit
It is for each one of us to know the bliss of heaven while we walk upon the earth, and the way i:, to be instructed by the Holy Spirit within us and learn to hear the little Voice—”the still, small Voice”—and receive its guidance. The object of Jesus’ teaching was this very end, that you might be open to your own heavenly Voice and always be able to know just the step to take, when to move, when to be still, how to walk the straightway in peace and poise and power, the Path of Life—”Thou wilt show me the path of life” is what we can declare of the Spirit within us. For there is where the prophets found the Spirit—within—the Lord in themselves, telling them these great truths: “Thou wilt shew me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures forever more.”
If there has been any earthly sense of ecstasy, whether of seeing or hearing or any other sense, be sure it is as a toy to the real thing, only a taste of the perfect and supreme satisfaction compared to the fullness of the joys that await you. It is written that it has not entered into the heart of man (into our meditation) to know the joys that are prepared for them that love God. But we must dismiss the old satisfactions that we are clinging to, in order to receive the new feelings, as a mother is not a perfect mother, who still clings to her dolls after the little babe has come to her. Many of our pleasures are only toys compared to the real bliss which is ours forever and ever.
Living by Inspiration
You rise above all fear concerning your circumstances, and enter into the inspired life, wherein every step is shown you and you cannot make a mistake. You do not need to plan your life, it is already planned and you slip into the divine way which has been arranged for you, as a car goes on the track smoothly and does not need to lay its own track, because everything is already prepared.
This means that you live, putting away all objects —not living even with a purpose or a mission, but like a child. A child has no mission. It is not living for something. It is just living. And so the highest consciousness is planless, objectless, without purpose, and without a mission. And yet it will seem to be fulfilling the greatest mission and the greatest purpose and the most divine plan that could be devised by human beings. This is the highest consciousness of the daily life that is without anxiety.
Be not anxious for anything; not about tomorrow; not anxious to live, to get well, to demonstrate anything. To be without anxiety is the way to get all these. Then your hearing can come easily; that healing comes along without an effort; prosperity and other manifestations of good are as natural as your breath. Whenever you have to make an effort to breathe, you are not very healthy, and when you are breathing with an object in view, you may find yourself in a very weary state. The highest expression is where you have no object. You simply are yourself —the great Divine Self, without an effort. This is the way of bliss, of peace. Walk in this, day by day, for walking with God is abiding in this joy, this fullness of joy forever.
In closing, let us take that meditation which came to Isaiah in a cosmic moment, when he rose to the High Consciousness and heard the angels sing, “Holy! Holy! Holy!” We will enter into the silence and hold these words, finishing with
“The whole earth is full of His Glory!”
“Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God Almighty!
The whole earth is full of His Glory.”
The End.