Ralph Waldo Trine's In Tune With The Infinite - 1897 - ラルフ・ウォルドー・トライン - 04 - 2
This is true not only of the physical body, but of all phases and conditions of life. We invite whatever comes, and did we not invite it, either consciously or unconsciously, it could not and it would not come. This may undoubtedly be hard for some to believe, or even to see, at first. But in the degree that one candidly and open-mindedly looks at it, and then studies into the silent, but subtle and, so to speak, omnipotent workings of the thought forces, and as they trace their effects within them and about them, it becomes clearly evident, and easy to understand.
And then whatever does come to one depends for its effects entirely upon their mental attitude toward it. Does this or that occurrence or condition cause you annoyance? Very well, it causes you annoyance, and so disturbs your peace merely because you allow it to. You are born to have absolute control over your own dominion, but if you voluntarily hand over this power, even if for a little while, to some one or to some thing else then you of course become the creature, the one controlled.
To live undisturbed by passing occurrences you must first find your own center. You must then be firm in your own center, and so rule the world from within. He who does not himself condition circumstances allows the process to be reversed, and becomes a conditioned circumstance. Find your center and live in it. Surrender it to no person, to no thing. In the degree that you do this will you find yourself growing stronger and stronger in it. And how can one find their center? By realizing their oneness with the Infinite Power, and by living continually in this realization.
But if you do not rule from your own center, if you invest this or that with the power of bringing you annoyance, or evil, or harm, then take what it brings, but cease your railings against the eternal goodness and beneficence of all things.
I swear the earth shall surely be complete,
To him who shall be complete,
The earth remains jagged and broken
Only to him who remains jagged and broken.
If the windows of your soul are dirty and streaked, covered with matter foreign to them, then the world as you look out of them will be to you dirty and streaked and out of order. Cease your complainings, however, keep your pessimism, your 'poor, unfortunate me' to yourself, lest you betray the fact that your windows are badly in need of something. But know that your friend, who keeps their windows clean that the Eternal Sun may illuminate all within and make visible all without, know that they live in a different world from yours.
Then, go wash your windows, and instead of longing for some other world you will discover the wonderful beauties of this world, and if you don't find transcendent beauties on every hand here, the chances are that you will never find them anywhere.
The poem hangs on the berry-bush
When comes the poet's eye.
And the whole street is a masquerade
When Shakespeare passes by.
This same Shakespeare, whose mere passing causes all this commotion, is the one who put into the mouth of one of his creations the words: 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, and we are underlings ,' And the great work of his own life is right good evidence that he realized full well the truth of the facts we are considering. And again he gave us a great truth in keeping with what we are considering when he said:
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
There is probably no agent that brings us more undesirable conditions than fear. We should live in fear of nothing, nor will we when we come fully to know ourselves. An old French proverb runs:
Some of your griefs you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived,
But what torments of pain you endured
From evils that never arrived.
Fear and lack of faith go hand in hand. The one is born of the other. Tell me how much one is given to fear, and I will tell you how much they lack in faith. Fear is a most expensive guest to entertain, as also is worry; so expensive are they that no one can afford to entertain them. We invite what we fear, just as, by a different attitude of mind, we invite and attract the influences and conditions we desire. The mind dominated by fear opens the door for the entrance of the very things, for the actualization of the very conditions it fears.
'Where are you going?' asked an Eastern pilgrim on meeting the plague one day. 'I am going to Baghdad to kill five thousand people,' was the reply. A few days later the same pilgrim met the plague returning. 'You told me you were going to Baghdad to kill five thousand people,' said he, 'but instead, you killed fifty thousand.' 'No,' said the plague. 'I killed only five thousand, as I told you I would; the others died of fright.'
Fear can paralyze every muscle in the body. Fear affects the flow of the blood, likewise the normal and healthy action of all the life forces. Fear can make the body rigid, motionless, and powerless to move.
Not only do we attract to ourselves the things we fear, but we also aid in attracting to others the conditions we in our own minds hold them in fear of. This we do in proportion to the strength of our own thought, and in the degree that they are sensitively organized and so influenced by our thought, and this although it be unconscious both on their part and on ours.
Children, and especially when very young, are, generally speaking, more sensitive to their surrounding influences than grown people are. Some are veritable little sensitive plates, registering the influences about them, and embodying them as they grow. How careful in their prevailing mental states then should be those who have them in charge, and especially how careful should a mother be during the time she is carrying the child, and when every thought, every mental as well as emotional state has its direct influence upon the life of the unborn child. Let parents be careful how they hold a child, either younger or older, in the thought of fear. This is many times done, unwittingly on their part, through anxiety, and at times through what might well be termed over-care, which is fully as bad as under-care.
I know of a number of cases where a child has been so continually held in the thought of fear lest this or that condition come upon him, that the very things that were feared have been drawn to them, which probably otherwise never would have come at all. Many times there has been no adequate basis for the fear. In case there is a basis, then far wiser it is to take exactly the opposite attitude, so as to neutralize the force at work, and then to hold the child in the thought of wisdom and strength that it may be able to meet the condition and master it, instead of being mastered by it.
But a day or two ago a friend was telling me of an experience of his own life in this connection. At a period when he was having terrific struggle with a certain habit, he was so continually held in the thought of fear by his mother and the young lady to whom he was engaged, the engagement to be consummated at the end of a certain period, the time depending on his proving his mastery, that he, very sensitively organized, continually felt the depressing and weakening effects of their negative thoughts. He could always tell exactly how they felt toward him, he was continually influenced and weakened by their fear, by their questionings, by their suspicions, all of which had the effect of lessening the sense of his own power, all of which had an endeavor-paralyzing influence upon him. And so instead of their begetting courage and strength in him, they brought him to a still greater realization of his own weakness and the almost worthless use of struggle.
Here were two who loved him dearly, and who would have done anything and everything to help him gain the mastery, but who, ignorant of the silent, subtle, ever-working and all-telling power of the thought forces, instead of imparting to him courage, instead of adding to his strength, disarmed him of this, and then added an additional weakness from without. In this way the battle for him was made harder in a three-fold degree.
Fear and worry and all kindred mental states are too expensive for any person, man, woman, or child, to entertain or indulge in. Fear paralyses healthy action, worry corrodes and pulls down the organism, and will finally tear it to pieces. Nothing is to be gained by it, but everything to be lost. Long-continued grief at any loss will do the same. Each brings its own peculiar type of ailment. An inordinate love of gain, a close-fisted, hoarding disposition will have kindred effects. Anger, jealousy, malice, continual fault-finding, lust, has each its own peculiar corroding, weakening, tearing-down effects.
We shall find that not only are happiness and prosperity concomitants of righteousness, living in harmony with the higher laws, but bodily health as well. The great Hebrew seer enunciated a wonderful chemistry of life when he said, 'As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death.' On the other hand, 'In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.' The time will come when it will be seen that this means far more than most people dare even to think as yet. 'It rests with man to say whether his soul shall be housed in a stately mansion of ever-growing splendour and beauty, or in a hovel of his own building -a hovel at last ruined and abandoned to decay.'
The bodies of almost untold numbers, living their one-sided unbalanced lives, are every year, through these influences, weakening and falling by the wayside long before their time. Poor, poor houses! Intended to be beautiful temples, brought to desolation by their ignorant, reckless, deluded tenants. Poor houses!
A close observer, a careful student of the power of the thought forces, will soon be able to read in the voice, in the movements the features, the effects registered by the prevailing mental states and conditions. Or, if they are told the prevailing mental states and conditions, they can describe the voice, the movements, the features, as well as describe, in a general way, the peculiar physical ailments their possessor is heir to.
We are told by good authority that a study of the human body, its structure, and the length of time it takes to come to maturity, in comparison with the time it takes the bodies of various animals and their corresponding longevity, reveals the fact that its natural age should be nearer a hundred and twenty years than what we commonly find it today. But think of the multitudes all about us whose bodies are aging, weakening, breaking, so that they have to abandon them long before they reach what ought to be a long period of strong, vigorous middle life. Then, the natural length of life being thus shortened, it comes to be what we might term a race belief that this shortened period is the natural period.
And as a consequence many, when they approach a certain age, seeing that as a rule people at this period of life begin to show signs of age, to break and go downhill, as we say, they, thinking it a matter of course and that it must be the same with them, by taking this attitude of mind many times bring upon themselves these very conditions long before it is necessary. Subtle and powerful are the influences of the mind in the building and rebuilding of the body. As we understand them better it may become the custom for people to look forward with pleasure to the teens of their second century.
There comes to mind at this moment a friend, a lady well on to eighty years of age. An old lady, some, most people in fact, would call her, especially those who measure age by the number of the seasons that have come and gone since one's birth. But to call our friend old would be to call black white. She is no older than a girl of twenty-five, and indeed younger, I am glad to say, or I am sorry to say, depending upon the point of view, than many a girl of this age. Seeking for the good in all people and in all things, she has found the good everywhere. The brightness of disposition and of voice that is hers today, that attracts all people to her and that makes her so beautifully attractive to all people, has characterized her all through life. It has in turn carried brightness and hope and courage and strength to hundreds and thousands of people through all these years, and will continue to do so, apparently, for many years yet to come.
No fears, no worryings, no hatreds, no jealousies, no sorrowings, no grievings, no sordid graspings after inordinate gain, have found entrance into her realm of thought As a consequence her mind, free from these abnormal states and conditions, has not externalized in her body the various physical ailments that the great majority of people are carrying about with them, thinking in their ignorance, that they are natural, and that it is all in accordance with the 'eternal order of things' that they should have them. Her life has been one of varied experiences, so that all these things would have found ready entrance into the realm of her mind and so into her life were she ignorant enough to allow them entrance.
On the contrary she has been wise enough to recognize the fact that in one kingdom at least she is ruler, the kingdom of her mind, and that it is hers to dictate as to what shall and what shall not enter there. She knows, moreover, that in determining this she is determining all the conditions of her life. It is indeed a pleasure as well as an inspiration to see her as she goes here and there, to see her sunny disposition, her youthful step, to hear her joyous laughter. Indeed and in truth, Shakespeare knew whereof he spoke when he said, It 's the mind that makes the body rich.'
With great pleasure I watched her but recently as she was walking along the street, stopping to have a word and so a part in the lives of a group of children at play by the wayside, hastening her step a little to have a word with a washerwoman carrying her bundle of clothes, stopping for a word with a laboring man returning with dinner-can in hand from his work, returning the recognition from the lady in her car, and so imparting some of her own rich life to all with whom she came into contact.
And as good fortune would have it, while still watching her, an old lady passed her, really old, this one, though at least ten or fifteen years younger, so far as the count by the seasons is concerned. Nevertheless, she was bent in form and apparently stiff in joint muscle. Silent in mood, she wore a countenance of long-faced sadness, which was intensified surely several fold by a black, somber headgear with an immense heavy veil, still more somber-looking if possible. Her entire dress was of this description. By this relic-of-barbarism garb, combined with her own mood and expression, she continually proclaimed to the world two things, her own personal sorrows and woes, which by this very method she kept continually fresh in her mind, and also her lack of faith in the eternal goodness of things, her lack of faith in the love and eternal goodness of the Infinite Father.
Wrapped only in the thoughts of her own ailments, and sorrows, and woes, she received and she gave nothing of joy, nothing of hope, nothing of courage, nothing of value to those whom she passed or with whom she came in contact. But on the contrary she suggested to all and helped to intensify in many those mental states all too prevalent in our common human life. And as she passed our friend one could notice a slight turn of the head which, coupled with the expression in her face, seemed to indicate this as her thought -your dress and your conduct are not wholly in keeping with a lady of your years. Thank God, then, thank God they are not. And may He in His great goodness and love send us an innumerable company of the same rare type; and may they live a thousand years to bless mankind, to impart the life-giving influences of their own royal lives to the numerous ones all about us who stand so much in need of them.
Would you remain always young, and would you carry all the loyousness and buoyancy of youth into your mature years? Then have care concerning but one thing, how you live in your thought world. This will determine all. It was the inspired one, Gautama, the Buddha, who said, 'The mind is everything, what you think you become.' And the same thing had Ruskin in mind when he said, 'Make yourself nests of pleasant thoughts. None of us as yet know, for none of us have been taught in early youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought, proof against all adversity.' And would you have in your body all the elasticity, all the strength, all the beauty of your younger years? Then live these in your mind, making no room for unclean thought, and you will externalize them in your body. In the degree that you keep young in thought will you remain young in body. And you will find that your body will in turn aid your mind, for body helps mind just as mind builds body,
You are continually building, and so externalizing in your body, conditions most akin to the thoughts and emotions you entertain. And not only are you so building from within, but you are also continually drawing from without forces of a kindred nature. Your particular kind of thought connects you with a similar order of thought from without. If it is bright, hopeful, cheerful, you connect yourself with a current of thought of this nature. If it is sad, fearing, despondent, then this is the order of thought you connect yourself with.
If the latter is the order of your thought, then perhaps unconsciously and by degrees you have been connecting yourself with it. You need to go back and pick up again a part of your child nature, with its careless and cheerful type of thought. The minds of the group of children at play are unconsciously concentrated in drawing to their bodies a current of playful thought. Place a child by itself, deprive it of its companions, and soon it will mope and become slow of movement. It is cut off from that peculiar thought current and is literally "out of its element."
'You need to bring again this current of playful thought to you which has gradually been turned off. You are too serious or sad, or absorbed in the serious affairs of life. You can be playful and cheerful without being puerile or silly. You can carry on business all the better for being in the playful mood when your mind is off your business. There is nothing but ill resulting from the permanent mood of sadness and seriousness - the mood which by many so long maintained makes it actually difficult for them to smile at all.
'At eighteen or twenty you commenced growing out of the more playful tendency of early youth. You took hold of the more serious side of life. You went into some business. You became more or less involved in its cares, perplexities and responsibilities. Or, as man, you entered on some phase of life involving care or trouble. Or you became absorbed in some game of business which, as you followed it, left no time for play. Then as you associated with older people you absorbed their old ideas, their mechanical methods of thinking, their acceptance of errors without question or thought of question.
In all this you opened your mind to a heavy, care-laden current of thought. Into this you glided unconsciously. That thought is materialized in your blood and flesh. The seen of your body is a deposit or crystallization of the unseen element ever "lowing to your body from your mind. Years pass on and you find that your movements are stiff and cumbrous, that you can with difficulty climb a tree, as at fourteen. Your mind has all this time been sending to your body these heavy, inelastic elements, making your body what now it is.....
'Your change for the better must be gradual, and can only be accomplished by bringing the thought current of an all-round symmetrical strength to bear on it, by demanding of the Supreme Power to be led in the best way, by diverting your mind from the many unhealthy thoughts which habitually have been flowing into it without your knowing it, to healthier ones.....
'Like the beast, the bodies of those of our race have in the past weakened and decayed. This will not always be. Increase of spiritual knowledge will show the cause of such decay, and will show, also, how to take advantage of a Law of Force to build us up, renew ever the body and give it greater and greater strength, instead of blindly using that Law of Force, as has been done in the past, to weaken our bodies and finally destroy them.'
Full, rich and abounding health is the normal and the natural condition of life. Anything else is an abnormal condition, and abnormal conditions as a rule come through perversions. God never created sickness, suffering, and disease, they are man's own creations. They come through his violating the laws under which he lives. So used are we to seeing them that we come gradually, if not to think of them as natural, then to look upon them as a matter of course.
The time will come when the work of the physician will not be to treat and attempt to heal the body, but to heal the mind, which in turn will heal the body. In other words, the true physician will be a teacher, his work will be to keep people well, instead of attempting to make them well after sickness and disease comes or and still beyond this there will come a time when each will be their own physician. In the degree that we live in harmony with the higher laws of our being, and so, in the degree that we become better acquainted with the powers of the mind and spirit, will we give less attention to the body, no less care, but less attention.
The bodies of thousands today would be much better cared for if their owners gave them less thought and attention. As a rule, those who think least of their bodies enjoy the best health. Many are kept in continual ill health by the abnormal thought and attention they give them.
Give the body the nourishment, the exercise, the fresh air, the sunlight it requires, keep it clean, and then think of it as little as possible. In your thoughts and in your conversation never dwell upon the negative side. Don't talk of sickness and disease. By talking of these you do yourself harm and you do harm to those who listen to you. Talk of those things that will make people the better for listening to you. Thus you will infect them with health and strength and not with weakness and disease.
To dwell upon the negative side is always destructive. This is true for the body just as it is true of all other things. The following from one whose thorough training as a physician has been supplemented by extensive study and observations along the lines of the powers of the interior forces, are of special significance and value in this connection:
'We can never gain health by contemplating disease, any more than we can reach perfection by dwelling upon imperfection, or harmony through discord. We should keep a high ideal of health and harmony constantly before the mind....
'Never affirm or repeat about your health what you do not wish to be true. Do not dwell upon your ailments, nor study your symptoms. Never allow yourself to be convinced that you are not complete master of yourself. Stoutly affirm your superiority over bodily ills, and do not acknowledge yourself the slave of any inferior power..... I would teach children early to build a strong barrier between themselves and disease by healthy habits of thought, high thinking, and purity of life. I would teach them to expel all thoughts of death, all images of disease, all discordant emotions, like hatred, malice, revenge, envy, and sensuality, as they would banish a temptation to do evil.
I would teach them that bad food, bad drink, or bad air makes bad blood, that bad blood makes bad tissue, and bad flesh bad morals. I would teach them that healthy thoughts are as essential to healthy bodies as pure thoughts to a clean life. I would teach them to cultivate a strong will power, and to brace themselves against life's enemies in every possible way. I would teach the sick to have hope, confidence cheer. Our thoughts and imaginations are the only real limits to our possibilities. No man's success or health will ever reach beyond his own confidence, as a rule, we erect our own barriers.
'Like produces like the universe through. Hatred, envy, malice jealousy, and revenge all have children. Every bad thought breeds others, and each of these goes on and on, ever reproducing itself, until our world is peopled with their offspring. The true physician and parent of the future will not mediate the body with drugs so much as the mind with principles. The coming mother will teach her child to assuage the fever of anger, hatred, malice, with the great panacea of the world, Love. The coming physician will teach the people to cultivate cheerfulness, goodwill, and noble deeds for a health tonic as well as a heart tonic, and that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.'
The health of your body, like the health and strength of your mind, depends upon what you relate yourself with. This Infinite spirit of Life, this Source of all Life, can from its very nature, we have found, admit of no weakness, no disease. Come then into the full, conscious, vital realization of your oneness with this Infinite Life, open yourself to its more abundant entrance, and full and ever-renewing bodily health and strength will be yours.
And good may ever conquer ill,
Health walk where pain has trod,
As a man thinketh, so is he,
Rise, then, and think with God.
The whole matter may then be summed up in one sentence, 'God is well and so are you. 'You must awaken to the knowledge of your real being. When this awakening comes, you will have, and you will see that you have, the power to determine what conditions are externalized in your body. You must recognize, you must realize yourself as one with Infinite Spirit. God's will is then your will; your will is God's will, and with God all things are possible.' When we are able to do away with all sense of separateness by living continually in the realization of this oneness, not only will our bodily ills and weaknesses vanish, but all limitations along all lines.
Then delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Then will you feel like crying all the day long, 'The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage.' Drop out of mind your belief in good things and good events coming to you in the future. Come now into the real life, and coming, appropriate and actualize them now. Remember that only the best is good enough for one with a heritage so royal as yours.
We buy ashes for bread,
We buy diluted wine,
Give me the true –
Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled
Among the silver bills of heaven,
Draw everlasting dew.
Chapter 7 - The Secret, Power And Effects Of Love
This is true not only of the physical body, but of all phases and conditions of life. We invite whatever comes, and did we not invite it, either consciously or unconsciously, it could not and it would not come. This may undoubtedly be hard for some to believe, or even to see, at first. But in the degree that one candidly and open-mindedly looks at it, and then studies into the silent, but subtle and, so to speak, omnipotent workings of the thought forces, and as they trace their effects within them and about them, it becomes clearly evident, and easy to understand.
And then whatever does come to one depends for its effects entirely upon their mental attitude toward it. Does this or that occurrence or condition cause you annoyance? Very well, it causes you annoyance, and so disturbs your peace merely because you allow it to. You are born to have absolute control over your own dominion, but if you voluntarily hand over this power, even if for a little while, to some one or to some thing else then you of course become the creature, the one controlled.
To live undisturbed by passing occurrences you must first find your own center. You must then be firm in your own center, and so rule the world from within. He who does not himself condition circumstances allows the process to be reversed, and becomes a conditioned circumstance. Find your center and live in it. Surrender it to no person, to no thing. In the degree that you do this will you find yourself growing stronger and stronger in it. And how can one find their center? By realizing their oneness with the Infinite Power, and by living continually in this realization.
But if you do not rule from your own center, if you invest this or that with the power of bringing you annoyance, or evil, or harm, then take what it brings, but cease your railings against the eternal goodness and beneficence of all things.
I swear the earth shall surely be complete,
To him who shall be complete,
The earth remains jagged and broken
Only to him who remains jagged and broken.
If the windows of your soul are dirty and streaked, covered with matter foreign to them, then the world as you look out of them will be to you dirty and streaked and out of order. Cease your complainings, however, keep your pessimism, your 'poor, unfortunate me' to yourself, lest you betray the fact that your windows are badly in need of something. But know that your friend, who keeps their windows clean that the Eternal Sun may illuminate all within and make visible all without, know that they live in a different world from yours.
Then, go wash your windows, and instead of longing for some other world you will discover the wonderful beauties of this world, and if you don't find transcendent beauties on every hand here, the chances are that you will never find them anywhere.
The poem hangs on the berry-bush
When comes the poet's eye.
And the whole street is a masquerade
When Shakespeare passes by.
This same Shakespeare, whose mere passing causes all this commotion, is the one who put into the mouth of one of his creations the words: 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, and we are underlings ,' And the great work of his own life is right good evidence that he realized full well the truth of the facts we are considering. And again he gave us a great truth in keeping with what we are considering when he said:
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
There is probably no agent that brings us more undesirable conditions than fear. We should live in fear of nothing, nor will we when we come fully to know ourselves. An old French proverb runs:
Some of your griefs you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived,
But what torments of pain you endured
From evils that never arrived.
Fear and lack of faith go hand in hand. The one is born of the other. Tell me how much one is given to fear, and I will tell you how much they lack in faith. Fear is a most expensive guest to entertain, as also is worry; so expensive are they that no one can afford to entertain them. We invite what we fear, just as, by a different attitude of mind, we invite and attract the influences and conditions we desire. The mind dominated by fear opens the door for the entrance of the very things, for the actualization of the very conditions it fears.
'Where are you going?' asked an Eastern pilgrim on meeting the plague one day. 'I am going to Baghdad to kill five thousand people,' was the reply. A few days later the same pilgrim met the plague returning. 'You told me you were going to Baghdad to kill five thousand people,' said he, 'but instead, you killed fifty thousand.' 'No,' said the plague. 'I killed only five thousand, as I told you I would; the others died of fright.'
Fear can paralyze every muscle in the body. Fear affects the flow of the blood, likewise the normal and healthy action of all the life forces. Fear can make the body rigid, motionless, and powerless to move.
Not only do we attract to ourselves the things we fear, but we also aid in attracting to others the conditions we in our own minds hold them in fear of. This we do in proportion to the strength of our own thought, and in the degree that they are sensitively organized and so influenced by our thought, and this although it be unconscious both on their part and on ours.
Children, and especially when very young, are, generally speaking, more sensitive to their surrounding influences than grown people are. Some are veritable little sensitive plates, registering the influences about them, and embodying them as they grow. How careful in their prevailing mental states then should be those who have them in charge, and especially how careful should a mother be during the time she is carrying the child, and when every thought, every mental as well as emotional state has its direct influence upon the life of the unborn child. Let parents be careful how they hold a child, either younger or older, in the thought of fear. This is many times done, unwittingly on their part, through anxiety, and at times through what might well be termed over-care, which is fully as bad as under-care.
I know of a number of cases where a child has been so continually held in the thought of fear lest this or that condition come upon him, that the very things that were feared have been drawn to them, which probably otherwise never would have come at all. Many times there has been no adequate basis for the fear. In case there is a basis, then far wiser it is to take exactly the opposite attitude, so as to neutralize the force at work, and then to hold the child in the thought of wisdom and strength that it may be able to meet the condition and master it, instead of being mastered by it.
But a day or two ago a friend was telling me of an experience of his own life in this connection. At a period when he was having terrific struggle with a certain habit, he was so continually held in the thought of fear by his mother and the young lady to whom he was engaged, the engagement to be consummated at the end of a certain period, the time depending on his proving his mastery, that he, very sensitively organized, continually felt the depressing and weakening effects of their negative thoughts. He could always tell exactly how they felt toward him, he was continually influenced and weakened by their fear, by their questionings, by their suspicions, all of which had the effect of lessening the sense of his own power, all of which had an endeavor-paralyzing influence upon him. And so instead of their begetting courage and strength in him, they brought him to a still greater realization of his own weakness and the almost worthless use of struggle.
Here were two who loved him dearly, and who would have done anything and everything to help him gain the mastery, but who, ignorant of the silent, subtle, ever-working and all-telling power of the thought forces, instead of imparting to him courage, instead of adding to his strength, disarmed him of this, and then added an additional weakness from without. In this way the battle for him was made harder in a three-fold degree.
Fear and worry and all kindred mental states are too expensive for any person, man, woman, or child, to entertain or indulge in. Fear paralyses healthy action, worry corrodes and pulls down the organism, and will finally tear it to pieces. Nothing is to be gained by it, but everything to be lost. Long-continued grief at any loss will do the same. Each brings its own peculiar type of ailment. An inordinate love of gain, a close-fisted, hoarding disposition will have kindred effects. Anger, jealousy, malice, continual fault-finding, lust, has each its own peculiar corroding, weakening, tearing-down effects.
We shall find that not only are happiness and prosperity concomitants of righteousness, living in harmony with the higher laws, but bodily health as well. The great Hebrew seer enunciated a wonderful chemistry of life when he said, 'As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death.' On the other hand, 'In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.' The time will come when it will be seen that this means far more than most people dare even to think as yet. 'It rests with man to say whether his soul shall be housed in a stately mansion of ever-growing splendour and beauty, or in a hovel of his own building -a hovel at last ruined and abandoned to decay.'
The bodies of almost untold numbers, living their one-sided unbalanced lives, are every year, through these influences, weakening and falling by the wayside long before their time. Poor, poor houses! Intended to be beautiful temples, brought to desolation by their ignorant, reckless, deluded tenants. Poor houses!
A close observer, a careful student of the power of the thought forces, will soon be able to read in the voice, in the movements the features, the effects registered by the prevailing mental states and conditions. Or, if they are told the prevailing mental states and conditions, they can describe the voice, the movements, the features, as well as describe, in a general way, the peculiar physical ailments their possessor is heir to.
We are told by good authority that a study of the human body, its structure, and the length of time it takes to come to maturity, in comparison with the time it takes the bodies of various animals and their corresponding longevity, reveals the fact that its natural age should be nearer a hundred and twenty years than what we commonly find it today. But think of the multitudes all about us whose bodies are aging, weakening, breaking, so that they have to abandon them long before they reach what ought to be a long period of strong, vigorous middle life. Then, the natural length of life being thus shortened, it comes to be what we might term a race belief that this shortened period is the natural period.
And as a consequence many, when they approach a certain age, seeing that as a rule people at this period of life begin to show signs of age, to break and go downhill, as we say, they, thinking it a matter of course and that it must be the same with them, by taking this attitude of mind many times bring upon themselves these very conditions long before it is necessary. Subtle and powerful are the influences of the mind in the building and rebuilding of the body. As we understand them better it may become the custom for people to look forward with pleasure to the teens of their second century.
There comes to mind at this moment a friend, a lady well on to eighty years of age. An old lady, some, most people in fact, would call her, especially those who measure age by the number of the seasons that have come and gone since one's birth. But to call our friend old would be to call black white. She is no older than a girl of twenty-five, and indeed younger, I am glad to say, or I am sorry to say, depending upon the point of view, than many a girl of this age. Seeking for the good in all people and in all things, she has found the good everywhere. The brightness of disposition and of voice that is hers today, that attracts all people to her and that makes her so beautifully attractive to all people, has characterized her all through life. It has in turn carried brightness and hope and courage and strength to hundreds and thousands of people through all these years, and will continue to do so, apparently, for many years yet to come.
No fears, no worryings, no hatreds, no jealousies, no sorrowings, no grievings, no sordid graspings after inordinate gain, have found entrance into her realm of thought As a consequence her mind, free from these abnormal states and conditions, has not externalized in her body the various physical ailments that the great majority of people are carrying about with them, thinking in their ignorance, that they are natural, and that it is all in accordance with the 'eternal order of things' that they should have them. Her life has been one of varied experiences, so that all these things would have found ready entrance into the realm of her mind and so into her life were she ignorant enough to allow them entrance.
On the contrary she has been wise enough to recognize the fact that in one kingdom at least she is ruler, the kingdom of her mind, and that it is hers to dictate as to what shall and what shall not enter there. She knows, moreover, that in determining this she is determining all the conditions of her life. It is indeed a pleasure as well as an inspiration to see her as she goes here and there, to see her sunny disposition, her youthful step, to hear her joyous laughter. Indeed and in truth, Shakespeare knew whereof he spoke when he said, It 's the mind that makes the body rich.'
With great pleasure I watched her but recently as she was walking along the street, stopping to have a word and so a part in the lives of a group of children at play by the wayside, hastening her step a little to have a word with a washerwoman carrying her bundle of clothes, stopping for a word with a laboring man returning with dinner-can in hand from his work, returning the recognition from the lady in her car, and so imparting some of her own rich life to all with whom she came into contact.
And as good fortune would have it, while still watching her, an old lady passed her, really old, this one, though at least ten or fifteen years younger, so far as the count by the seasons is concerned. Nevertheless, she was bent in form and apparently stiff in joint muscle. Silent in mood, she wore a countenance of long-faced sadness, which was intensified surely several fold by a black, somber headgear with an immense heavy veil, still more somber-looking if possible. Her entire dress was of this description. By this relic-of-barbarism garb, combined with her own mood and expression, she continually proclaimed to the world two things, her own personal sorrows and woes, which by this very method she kept continually fresh in her mind, and also her lack of faith in the eternal goodness of things, her lack of faith in the love and eternal goodness of the Infinite Father.
Wrapped only in the thoughts of her own ailments, and sorrows, and woes, she received and she gave nothing of joy, nothing of hope, nothing of courage, nothing of value to those whom she passed or with whom she came in contact. But on the contrary she suggested to all and helped to intensify in many those mental states all too prevalent in our common human life. And as she passed our friend one could notice a slight turn of the head which, coupled with the expression in her face, seemed to indicate this as her thought -your dress and your conduct are not wholly in keeping with a lady of your years. Thank God, then, thank God they are not. And may He in His great goodness and love send us an innumerable company of the same rare type; and may they live a thousand years to bless mankind, to impart the life-giving influences of their own royal lives to the numerous ones all about us who stand so much in need of them.
Would you remain always young, and would you carry all the loyousness and buoyancy of youth into your mature years? Then have care concerning but one thing, how you live in your thought world. This will determine all. It was the inspired one, Gautama, the Buddha, who said, 'The mind is everything, what you think you become.' And the same thing had Ruskin in mind when he said, 'Make yourself nests of pleasant thoughts. None of us as yet know, for none of us have been taught in early youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought, proof against all adversity.' And would you have in your body all the elasticity, all the strength, all the beauty of your younger years? Then live these in your mind, making no room for unclean thought, and you will externalize them in your body. In the degree that you keep young in thought will you remain young in body. And you will find that your body will in turn aid your mind, for body helps mind just as mind builds body,
You are continually building, and so externalizing in your body, conditions most akin to the thoughts and emotions you entertain. And not only are you so building from within, but you are also continually drawing from without forces of a kindred nature. Your particular kind of thought connects you with a similar order of thought from without. If it is bright, hopeful, cheerful, you connect yourself with a current of thought of this nature. If it is sad, fearing, despondent, then this is the order of thought you connect yourself with.
If the latter is the order of your thought, then perhaps unconsciously and by degrees you have been connecting yourself with it. You need to go back and pick up again a part of your child nature, with its careless and cheerful type of thought. The minds of the group of children at play are unconsciously concentrated in drawing to their bodies a current of playful thought. Place a child by itself, deprive it of its companions, and soon it will mope and become slow of movement. It is cut off from that peculiar thought current and is literally "out of its element."
'You need to bring again this current of playful thought to you which has gradually been turned off. You are too serious or sad, or absorbed in the serious affairs of life. You can be playful and cheerful without being puerile or silly. You can carry on business all the better for being in the playful mood when your mind is off your business. There is nothing but ill resulting from the permanent mood of sadness and seriousness - the mood which by many so long maintained makes it actually difficult for them to smile at all.
'At eighteen or twenty you commenced growing out of the more playful tendency of early youth. You took hold of the more serious side of life. You went into some business. You became more or less involved in its cares, perplexities and responsibilities. Or, as man, you entered on some phase of life involving care or trouble. Or you became absorbed in some game of business which, as you followed it, left no time for play. Then as you associated with older people you absorbed their old ideas, their mechanical methods of thinking, their acceptance of errors without question or thought of question.
In all this you opened your mind to a heavy, care-laden current of thought. Into this you glided unconsciously. That thought is materialized in your blood and flesh. The seen of your body is a deposit or crystallization of the unseen element ever "lowing to your body from your mind. Years pass on and you find that your movements are stiff and cumbrous, that you can with difficulty climb a tree, as at fourteen. Your mind has all this time been sending to your body these heavy, inelastic elements, making your body what now it is.....
'Your change for the better must be gradual, and can only be accomplished by bringing the thought current of an all-round symmetrical strength to bear on it, by demanding of the Supreme Power to be led in the best way, by diverting your mind from the many unhealthy thoughts which habitually have been flowing into it without your knowing it, to healthier ones.....
'Like the beast, the bodies of those of our race have in the past weakened and decayed. This will not always be. Increase of spiritual knowledge will show the cause of such decay, and will show, also, how to take advantage of a Law of Force to build us up, renew ever the body and give it greater and greater strength, instead of blindly using that Law of Force, as has been done in the past, to weaken our bodies and finally destroy them.'
Full, rich and abounding health is the normal and the natural condition of life. Anything else is an abnormal condition, and abnormal conditions as a rule come through perversions. God never created sickness, suffering, and disease, they are man's own creations. They come through his violating the laws under which he lives. So used are we to seeing them that we come gradually, if not to think of them as natural, then to look upon them as a matter of course.
The time will come when the work of the physician will not be to treat and attempt to heal the body, but to heal the mind, which in turn will heal the body. In other words, the true physician will be a teacher, his work will be to keep people well, instead of attempting to make them well after sickness and disease comes or and still beyond this there will come a time when each will be their own physician. In the degree that we live in harmony with the higher laws of our being, and so, in the degree that we become better acquainted with the powers of the mind and spirit, will we give less attention to the body, no less care, but less attention.
The bodies of thousands today would be much better cared for if their owners gave them less thought and attention. As a rule, those who think least of their bodies enjoy the best health. Many are kept in continual ill health by the abnormal thought and attention they give them.
Give the body the nourishment, the exercise, the fresh air, the sunlight it requires, keep it clean, and then think of it as little as possible. In your thoughts and in your conversation never dwell upon the negative side. Don't talk of sickness and disease. By talking of these you do yourself harm and you do harm to those who listen to you. Talk of those things that will make people the better for listening to you. Thus you will infect them with health and strength and not with weakness and disease.
To dwell upon the negative side is always destructive. This is true for the body just as it is true of all other things. The following from one whose thorough training as a physician has been supplemented by extensive study and observations along the lines of the powers of the interior forces, are of special significance and value in this connection:
'We can never gain health by contemplating disease, any more than we can reach perfection by dwelling upon imperfection, or harmony through discord. We should keep a high ideal of health and harmony constantly before the mind....
'Never affirm or repeat about your health what you do not wish to be true. Do not dwell upon your ailments, nor study your symptoms. Never allow yourself to be convinced that you are not complete master of yourself. Stoutly affirm your superiority over bodily ills, and do not acknowledge yourself the slave of any inferior power..... I would teach children early to build a strong barrier between themselves and disease by healthy habits of thought, high thinking, and purity of life. I would teach them to expel all thoughts of death, all images of disease, all discordant emotions, like hatred, malice, revenge, envy, and sensuality, as they would banish a temptation to do evil.
I would teach them that bad food, bad drink, or bad air makes bad blood, that bad blood makes bad tissue, and bad flesh bad morals. I would teach them that healthy thoughts are as essential to healthy bodies as pure thoughts to a clean life. I would teach them to cultivate a strong will power, and to brace themselves against life's enemies in every possible way. I would teach the sick to have hope, confidence cheer. Our thoughts and imaginations are the only real limits to our possibilities. No man's success or health will ever reach beyond his own confidence, as a rule, we erect our own barriers.
'Like produces like the universe through. Hatred, envy, malice jealousy, and revenge all have children. Every bad thought breeds others, and each of these goes on and on, ever reproducing itself, until our world is peopled with their offspring. The true physician and parent of the future will not mediate the body with drugs so much as the mind with principles. The coming mother will teach her child to assuage the fever of anger, hatred, malice, with the great panacea of the world, Love. The coming physician will teach the people to cultivate cheerfulness, goodwill, and noble deeds for a health tonic as well as a heart tonic, and that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.'
The health of your body, like the health and strength of your mind, depends upon what you relate yourself with. This Infinite spirit of Life, this Source of all Life, can from its very nature, we have found, admit of no weakness, no disease. Come then into the full, conscious, vital realization of your oneness with this Infinite Life, open yourself to its more abundant entrance, and full and ever-renewing bodily health and strength will be yours.
And good may ever conquer ill,
Health walk where pain has trod,
As a man thinketh, so is he,
Rise, then, and think with God.
The whole matter may then be summed up in one sentence, 'God is well and so are you. 'You must awaken to the knowledge of your real being. When this awakening comes, you will have, and you will see that you have, the power to determine what conditions are externalized in your body. You must recognize, you must realize yourself as one with Infinite Spirit. God's will is then your will; your will is God's will, and with God all things are possible.' When we are able to do away with all sense of separateness by living continually in the realization of this oneness, not only will our bodily ills and weaknesses vanish, but all limitations along all lines.
Then delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Then will you feel like crying all the day long, 'The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage.' Drop out of mind your belief in good things and good events coming to you in the future. Come now into the real life, and coming, appropriate and actualize them now. Remember that only the best is good enough for one with a heritage so royal as yours.
We buy ashes for bread,
We buy diluted wine,
Give me the true –
Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled
Among the silver bills of heaven,
Draw everlasting dew.
Chapter 7 - The Secret, Power And Effects Of Love
