Being and becoming; a book of lessons in the science of mind showing how to find the personal spirit

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BEING AND BECOMING

BOOKS BY

Fenwicke Lindsay Holmes

"The Law of Mind in Action"
"How to Develop Faith That

Heals"
"Songs of the Silence"
"The Unfailing Formula"
and other works.
Associate founder of the South-
ern California Metaphysical
Institute

BOOKS BY

Ernest Shurtleff Holmes

"Creative Mind"

"Creative Mind and Success"

FOREWORD.

THIS book is written to show how we know
that there is a universal intelligence ; how that
intelligence or being becomes manifest, or the
passing of spirit into form; the method by which
we can control the form it shall take for us as in-
dividuals ; the way in which we can harness cosmic
forces ; and above all it is written to make plain the
personal relation of our own self with the Greater
Self whose life we share.

The highest purpose of this science of thinking
is to develop a conscious feeling of our oneness
with Spirit. By Spirit we mean the absolute of
Life, Love and Wisdom. "Thou hast made us for
Thyself; and our hearts are restless 'til they rest
in Thee." This, therefore, is the Book of Love
and explains fully the nature of the feeling-life.

Without detracting from the essential teaching
of the new science, that man is endowed with per-
fect freedom and can make his life what he will by
his conscious choices, I have shown here how we
may still keep the delightful fellowship of the Per-
sonal Spirit and the sense of a Presence that guides
us in all the affairs of life.

Fenwicke Lindsay Holmes.

Los Angeles, Calif.
Feb. 6, ip20.

/

CONTENTS

PART ONE

BEING AS THE IMPERSONAL LIFE

chapter Students* Outline page

I. Being or the Changeless Life .... 3

A study of the universe reveals the fact that back
of every visible thing is the invisible force or en-
ergy that sustains it in form. What this energy is
in itself, we do not know; but as it acts with in-
telligence and betrays the fact that the base of all
things is one, we call it "That-Which-Is," that is,
Being or Mind.

II. Becoming or the Changing Form ... 10

Being is always seeking expression; and as it is
Mind, its mode is thought and feeling and its man-
ifestation idea and form. Creation is therefore the
form which God's thought is taking; and the proc-
ess goes on forever, so that if we once place our-
selves in the current of divine consciousness we can
be prospered and healed without personal struggle.

\

III. Being Is Becoming Through Us ... 14

Being thus acts through us; and the attitude we as-
sume toward it determines the character of its man-
ifestation for us. The best results are therefore se-
cured by relying upon the power within, while at
the same time^ making sure that we choose what
we most want it to become.

IV. The Mental Universe — Why We Call
Things Ideas ' 20

We see from the foregoing that Life or Being is
intelligence; and since I know that I, too, am being
and a self, I can but conclude that all things which
have intelligence may also be selves. Trees, rocks,
etc., may^ be thought of as Being expressing itself
through its idea. Thus all nature is directly re-
lated to us and cannot have its fullest meaning
without the cognizing mind. _ Color, odor, and such
qualities exist not so much in the thing as in our
idea about the thing. This shows the unity of all,
since each thing depends on every other thing and
self for its own complete manifestation,
vii

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V. If "Things Are Ideas," What Is "Real"? . 27

The question naturally arises: If things are ideas,
do they not exist entirely in the mind of the indi-
vidual? Do I ever "see" anything? The answer is
that we each do see things in a different way, yet
there is with each thing a certain fixity of idea
which is common to all and which awakens the at-
tention of all to the presence of the thing. This
common factor is vibration. But vibration is an
idea* for it is thought. Vibration ancTtnoughf areime,
simply Hie functioning of mind. Things can exist
apart from my own thought for they are thoughts
of God. My consciousness is aroused by the pres-
ence of thought or vibration which exists as a .
"real." As God may "see" things clothed in color
even as we see them, the idea may conceivably be
complete without my mind at all. The theory of ,
illusions is necessarily, therefore, a violation of
philosophic as well as common sense. Since things
are thoughts, our own superior understanding en-
ables each of us to control his life through his
thoughts and ideas.

VI. Personal and Impersonal Mind .... 36

As each idea or thing is a definite thought and is
sustained by the presence of Being or Intelligence,
Being is, as we have seen, a self to that extent.
This reveals the great personalness of the universe.
Further study shows the fact that Being acts both
personally and impersonally. This is well illustrated
in the case of man's own mind. It is two-fold:
the objective or personal mind chooses, wills, and
initiates action through the selection and formation
of ideas; the subjective or impersonal mind is the
storehouse of memory, the foundation of the sensa-
tional life and the soil in which all thoughts grow
into form and expression. It is the creative life
within each of us.^ It does not originate ideas, but
takes the model given it by the personal mind and
creates accordingly. The Universal Mind can be
shown to have the same characteristics; in the
larger aspects it is a Self, for it chooses the lines
of its activity; but in the affairs that concern us
as individuals it acts as law or impersonally. Thus,
through our unity with it, we can choose what it
shall do for us; and it becomes manifest as that
thing which we think.

VII. The Part "I" Play in Cosmic Mind . .51

Man individualizes God. There is but One Mind;
and as "I am," I must be related to it and share
its resources and power. Then my choices become
the choices or ideas of the impersonal mind; and it
creates accordingly. This explains evil as well as

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good, since Being becomes manifest either for good
or ill according to the idea or thought which forms
the mold for its expression. This truth does away
with any concept of a dual mind.

VIII. Man's Greater Body and the Feeling-life 57

Being is not only a thinker but also a lover. While
feeling is indeed a fine form of thinking, yet we
may speak of Being as the Feeling-life. Each of
us has a well-developed feeling nature which we
derive from Original Feeling or God. This feeling-
life operates not only within the area of what we
commonly know as the physical body, but also
functions through an area of fine vibration all
about us which is so sensitive that it takes the im-
pression even of thought forces. We are thus con-
stantly directly in contact with others through the
very atmosphere. This is illustrated in the aura
and in the odic fluid. Through both the greater
body and the lesser, there run the finer feeling
forces which lie between man's conscious thought
and his body. The body is profoundly affected by
whatever affects the feeling-life; and as the latter
is impersonal, every thought and feeling we expe-
rience is registered directly on the body and affairs.
Thus our bodies are subject to all mental influences
that come to us; and unless we protect ourselves,
we may even suffer from malicious influences. The
law works in either direction. We are therefore
told in this chapter how to control life through the
control of thoughts and emotions.

IX. The Emotional Self and the Causes of

Disease 68

It has become plain, then, that through the avenue
of thought and feeling man controls his destiny or
is subject to control from without if he allows it.
Disease can be directly traced to unguarded emo-
tional life. The fatal effect of harsh and careless
words is thus revealed especially in the life of
women. Calamity-howlers should be fined or im-
prisoned as awakening the fear-thought which pro-
duces the disease or disaster. Yet we must never
blame our troubles on others, as the power is given
us to control these things by conscious choices.
We must refrain from emotions that poison the
blood, etc. We therefore study what attitude of
mind to assume in the case of psychic disease and
the subtle pains' of abused love nature. Thus man
is shown his power to control life and happiness by
the thoughts he thinks and the emotions he enter-
tains. He can heal himself of every disease through
these laws.

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chapter Students' Outline page

X. Choosing What We Want 80

Instruction is now given as to the direct way in
which choice governs our life and destiny and how
we may use impersonal creative mind in securing
the objects of our desire. Every thought, word and
idea is found to be matched by reality; and life is
a magic mirror which gives to us created what we
present to it in concept and ideal.

XL Picturing Our Good 87

We are therefore taught to give conscious thought
to our ideas and deliberately to brood upon those
things which we wish to have come forth. > One of
the best ways to do this is to picture in imagina-
tion just what we would like to have come forth
into the world of reality. This is the way in which
Cosmic Mind creates; and we cannot improve on
the method. Whatever God thinks, becomes; and,
since man uses the same power he can pass the
substance of spirit out into any form by imaging
that form and then expecting it to appear. This re-
lieves us from all necessity of struggle. It is not
will, but faith. Thus in "ideation," rather than
"will," do we find the secret of life's control. Yet
this throws vast responsibility on the individual,
for he must do the choosing. He may make mis-
takes; but he will learn from their consequences;
and ultimately he will turn to Spirit for guidance
in his choices, by intuition. (See XX.) Whatever
comes, therefore, must be recognized as real,
whether good or bad; and the effect cannot be re-
moved by simply denying that it exists. It must be
removed by changing the cause or choice. "Denials"
do not create; but we are after a new creation, so
we affirm or rather select the things we do want.
Thus the determining factors of life are choice and
idea.

XII. A Definite Method for' Realization ^ . . 98

\ Man cannot change the law of cosmic forces.' He
lives in a world of constant movement; and cata-
clysms are bound to occur in the process of evolu-
tion or unfoldment. But his escape is through that
divine guidance which will free him personally
from peril. To have a well-regulated and happy
life, therefore, we must learn how to turn to
Divine Mind and bring forth the good that we
desire. Thus we realize the law of life; and then,*
without any sense of struggle, we turn to the Law
and ask for what we want. The process is simple:
selection, anticipation. One can get good results
by lying down; and, after centering the thought,!
one simply dwells on the fact that spirit is now,
passing through into expression; being is in us be-
coming. The realization of spirit, myself, as spirits

Contents "xi".

chapter Students' Outline x page'

my body, my conditions, my world, this is the
whole aim of mental science. ^When this is accom-
plished, our "demonstration" is made.

XIII. Using the Law of Impersonal Mind in the
Case of Prosperity 103

As for health and happiness, so for prosperity: we
realize that the work that is to be done is not per-
formed by us, but by cosmic mind and forces; we
are one with the Universal Impersonal Creative
Mind; and It does the work for us. So I must
first establish my sense of union with it; I must
know that I am speaking into the only mind there
is and backed by the only power there is. My men-
tal equivalent is my thought of perfect faith: it
will be matched by the perfect reality from the
Father. Thus to secure a position, to sell a house,
to obtain a home, to secure money, one acts in the
silence of thought, declares his faith and his choice
and BELIEVES.

XIV. Summary of Law of Impersonal Mind . Ill

The law by which spirit passes into form is like the
law of light in a stereopticon. The light is the
spirit; the slide is the thought; the lens is the
will; the screen-picture is the form. Light is there-
fore both energy and substance. Spirit is always
spirit no matter what form It may assume. All we

have to do is to propose to ourselves that Divine^ .

Mind shall work out our problem, and then leave !*"""
the issue^ with God. Nor'must we think that the
moment in the silence is the determining factor:
it is the constant attitude of expectancy that rules
our creations. Nor must we always approach Mind
for things. This deadens the spiritual nature: God
is greater than an impersonal, creative force.
There cannot be an impersonal life without a per-
sonal. The highest instincts of life will never be
satisfied without the discovery of the Personal
Spirit.

PART TWO

BEING AS THE PERSONAL SPIRIT
XV. The God Who Hears Us .119

Every one experiences God as personal. Yet God's
personal nature is not entirely like our own. In
brief, He has personality as we have it, with the
exception that^ no quality should be attributed to
Him that denies His absoluteness. His freedom is
perfect; His knowledge is complete. We often are
entangled in the toils of our mistakes; He never,

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We suffer from pain and hardship through the in-
completeness of our knowledge; He never. g We
have a sense of time and space; these are not ideas
with God. Yet, with us, God shares the power to
think, will, and feel. He is therefore personal in
three ways: first, He is an Absolute self, for He
planned, initiated, and chose the area of all the
worlds in space. These are qualities of personality.
Impersonal mind cannot work without a plan. As
Personal, God makes the plan; He purposes. The
pronoun "He" must be thought of as indicating
person, not gender. Yet so vast is the plan of the
Cosmic Mind that, so far as we are concerned, He
works by law, and never interferes with our
choices. Nothing in the personality of God shotild
ever be construed as denying personal choice to the
individual. Second, in "God are all the personal
qualities, which Troward calls the "personalness,"
from which the individual derives his personal na-
ture. Third, He is personal in us, as each indi-
vidual is God individualized. There is but one sub-
stance and one source of all minds. We are pur-
poses of Being, — His self-expression through love.

XVI. The God Who Loves Us

129

Since God seeks self-expression in love through us,
He becomes the support of the highest efforts and
reaches of our ambition to attain perfection and
happiness. The height of attainment is therefore a
sense of conscious union with Him while we pur-
sue the pathway of self-unfoldment and expression.
To secure this sense of union, we have but to let
or allow spirit to flow through us as love.

XVII. The God Who Heals Us

135

XVIII.

Love thus becomes the great healing power since
it is harmonious life and wholeness, for love is the
union of kindred things. We are therefore shown
cases of healing through the love-consciousness
which is the greatest healing power. Wholeness is
substituted for unwholesomeness. 'Feelings and
emotions are shown directly to affect the health,
because they are the medium through which Love
or Spirit passes into expression. Yet love is not
to be sought in order to obtain things but rather
for its own sake. Disinterested affection is divine;
life is fully realized only as we love. "Love is the
fulfilling of the law.]' The question arises,— How
may we cooperate with God in fulfilling His own
purpose, self-expression in love?

The Mystic Union, or How to Realize the
Presence 141

v Man is born for love, for He is a purpose of God
in self-realization. He must therefore find God in

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chapter Students' Outline page

order to be complete. But he can reach God only
through his own soul. "It is the flight of the
alone to the Alone." Man moves to God, however,
only on his own choice. He effects the union from
within. Various steps mark his progress. First, he
must learn to concentrate on the one purpose of
approaching God. He must center his thought.
Union is obtained only by determined desire. Sec-
ond, through this control of thought he enters the
quiet of the soul. From here, he presses on into
direct contemplation of God as All. This is a vast
experience and worth every effort. Joy and peace
and ecstasy are its reward.

XIX. The Mystic Union — The Soul's Dark

Hour — The Light Eternal 151

Not content with contemplation of the ineffable
sweetness of the All-Love, the spirit yearns for
closer contacts or direct union. In his search, man
often loses his bearings and plunges into a mental
chaos. This is the soul's dark hour; but, with the
determined mind, it presages the dawn. The final
step in the mystic union is the "unified life" or the
"deified life" of which Jesus spoke, "I and the
Father are one." This is the final goal and brings L

to the soul the true consciousness of being. The
great circle is thus complete, when man not only
intellectually accepts the nature of all as being but
perceives or realizes Being Itself. This is, then,
the true basis of all becoming.

XX. Intuition, or the Higher Wisdom of the
Unified Life 157

We have now reached a state of consciousness
where the doors of the Divine Wisdom can be
thrown open to us; and we are able by intuition to
go in and discover the pathways we should take to
secure all good and to avoid all ill. We thus learn
how to escape wrong choices and to be free from
the lash of the law through Karma. The purpose
of living if not that we may learn what not to do,
but rather what to do. Thus experience is not the
best teacher. The intuitions occupy the first place.
Intuition and ideation go together, for by our intui-
tion we know what is the best idea to select. This
is illustrated in the case of the treatment of dis-
ease. Identity with Spirit in consciousness will se-
cure perfect results.

XXI. Does Death End the Process by Which
Being Becomes? 165

Creation is an endless process and therefore the
passing of being into expression will never be com-

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chapter Students' Outline page

pleted. We shall always be on the pathway of be-
coming. Proof of immortality lies here, for we can-
not conceive of an end to the process any more
than we can conceive of an end to numbers. Again,
since impersonal mind creates and manifests ex-
actly as we think, itrnust manifest immortality, for
we never cease to impress the concept of immor-
tality upon it. The first law of t nature is self-
preservation; and, by a common instinct, we im-
press this idea on impersonal mind. Thus we im-
press the idea of life; and it manifests as life; of
immortality and it manifests as immortality. Phys-
ical death must not be confounded with the experi-
ence of the soul. Thus death should be thought of,
not as the end of things, but as the beginning. It is
not a "taking off" but a taking on. Thus is death
swallowed up in victory by the soul that "knows
Him in whom it has believed."

XXII. "I Am He" . . K"*} 173

We have thus discovered the law of life and mind
and our control through knowledge. The one great
need of human thought has been shown to be the
distinct necessity of recognising Spirit as such from
Alpha to Omega. Then being and becoming shall be
found in their true relationship. To know God and
the self is life eternal. Thus being has its perfect
becoming. Our age demands that in our becoming
we reveal the true nature of Being. The marriage
of Being and Becoming is effected when the mes-
sage and the messenger are one. Like Jesus, we
may appear declaring, "I am he." "I am" is being:
"I am he" is becoming. The new Messiah is he
who embodies the truth of being; and thus man
speaks while the Father dwelling in him doeth
the works.

PART I.
BEING AS THE IMPERSONAL LIFE.

CHAPTER I.
BEING OR THE CHANGELESS LIFE.

WE live in the midst of God and yet we do
not know Him. Mysteries press in upon
us on every hand and yet we fail to un-
derstand. A worm goes to sleep and wakes up a
butterfly; an egg is warmed for three weeks in a
drawer and a chicken breaks forth from its marble
cell; a bullet cuts its way through shrieking flesh
and internal agents restore every organ, cell for cell
and nerve for nerve. A nut, an egg or a grain of ^/
sand hides within it the secret of life. To explain
one of them is to explain everything. Yet how
often it is looked upon either as a miracle or a
fraud when a man turns the inspired eye of faith
to an inner power and is lifted from the very bed
of death itself, or in dire financial straits calls upon
God and finds supply, or in peril by sea or land
discovers a guardian angel who points out for him
a star and a way. How rash we are in these days
of mystery, when science has discovered that the
' more we know the less we know, to declare that
with God any thing is impossible! And perhaps
we are still more rash when we dare to pass critical

3

4 Being and Becoming

judgment on the use of any power, whether we call
that power God or mind or consciousness or truth.
No power used to lighten the burdens of life or to
inspire the soul to renewed faith and effort can be
anything but good. Some day all men shall know
this is true and that the first and greatest of all
sayings is this, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God,
the Lord is one and beside me there is none other."
Then force, energy and life shall be found to come
from a common source and whosoever shall lift
the burden of another's woe and pain through the
use of the forces at his command shall do the will
of my Father who is in heaven.

What, then, is the wonder that lies back of a nut,
an eggf or a grain of sand, a healed wound, the
cure of a cancer, the demonstration of success, and
the glory of an uplifted faith? We can at least
get closer to the Causal Mystery even though our
investigations show us more of what we do not
know than what we know. And, even though
ab^Shed by what he discovers, man may still feel
that "haply he knows somewhat more than he
knows ;" and even in the nut, the eggf and the grain
of sand he may find a common factor which relates
them to each other and perhaps to himself.

There is no beauty in a nut. It is simple and
homely; and it would appear that a botanist could
make a much finer one than nature provides. But
he cannot ! He can stir up the chemicals that com-
pose it, and mould them into the shape of a nut —

Being or the Changeless Life

but he cannot make it grow. There is something
in the nut which he cannot imitate; there is some-
thing in it back of which he cannot go with his
analysis. We call it the life-principle. *

Where in an egg shall we find the secret of the
chicken? Not one drop of blood, nor so much as
the daintiest shadow of down would we surprise
within the shell ; and were we to break through the
frail door, we should render it but an open tomb,
for even as we search its -shapeless form we find
that the imprisoned splendor has escaped, carrying
its secret with it. Where was that which might
have been the tiny chick ; what was "it," where is it,
what is it now ? And were we to have allowed it to
grow into a body and then dissected flesh and bone,
we should never have taken unawares the sleeping
yet wakeful mystery. Life cannot be dissected.

The chemist dissolves the grain of sand and de-
clares that he has solved the problem of the mineral
kingdom and discovered its law by calling it "chem-
ical affinity." But what is chemical affinity? *It
is the name of a force. The chemist does not know
what the force is; he knows only that it is. He
has learned something about it, but like the botanist
and the biologist, he has not learned it. The dis-
covery of the supreme fact of its nature or law,
however, has done much for us in solving the rid-
dle, for it has betrayed intelligent activity. Indeed,
something within minerals opens them to the influ-
ence of mind; and vibrations sent out at the will

6 Being and Becoming

of the operator can magnetize them. What is that
principle within, which is thus acted upon by mind
and which acts with the intelligence of mind? It
is something of which again we may say, "It is,
and we know how it is ; but we do not know what
it is." Yet because it betrays intelligence and be-
cause intelligence is a characteristic of mind, we
may give to it a new name — life.

The greatest of scientists to-day are telling us
that we live in a universe alive with intelligence;
and the advanced investigator does not hesitate to
declare that all nature is alive. But if we declare
that our riddle is answered by the word life, what
have we ? We have this — that we have reduced the
universe to one; and we have found that it is re-
lated to us in some way. But what is "life"?

It is a curious thing that we should thus live in a
living universe; and yet not be able to tell what
life is. It is one of Nature's paradoxes.

For life we know, and knowing, do not know,
Yet know we whence we come, and whither go:

For life is all, and plays the master role,
It is its own true witness to its fact:

Illusive, subtle substance of the soul
That ever gives of self, and yet remains intact.

All that we can say is that life is; and the ab-
sence of it is what men call death. But wre can go
on studying how it acts and the law by which it is

Being or the Changeless Life 7

governed or by which it governs, in order that by
our knowledge we may control our body and af-
fairs.

Life is Absolute or All.

Probably the most important discovery of the
new science of life is that it is universally present.
We no longer think of life as being found only in
some entity, here in a lily, there in a dog; but we
find it everywhere, here in the stone and there in
the star. There are plenty of evidences of life mani-
festing itself in inarticulate nature ; of Life of which
when we find It, we can but acknowledge the pres-
ence ; we cannot say what it is. We can only say,
"It Is."

The great seer, Moses, perceived the presence
of this life in the flaming bush. In himself and in
nature, he discovered something more than form
and beauty: he found "that Something" in nature
that replied to a something in himself; and com-
muning with It, he asked, "What is your name?"
He could not define this Presence ; but it seemed to
say, "I AM THAT I AM." "I AM" denotes life
or existence; and "THAT I AM" shows that it
cannot be defined in terms. But that which can-
not be defined in terms must be the Absolute. Life,
then, is Absolute. It is All. "The All" is found,
therefore, not merely in nature and in man, but as
nature and as man, and yet more than nature and

8 Being and Becoming

man. All that we perceive is one and inseparable
with it, for all is life. This Life is what we call
Spirit.

Spirit is, therefore, Life, Mind, Intelligence, All.
So anything or anyone, or all can say, "I am."
"I am" comes from the verb "to be" and denotes
"being." Being, therefore, indicates that which is,
apart from time or space. It is "that which was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be." Nor
is it something outside of us. It is rather something
within us which makes us what we are. It is
Spirit or First Cause in us; it is that "subtle sub-
stance of the soul" coming forth into expression
and manifesting as things. The body accordingly
is spirit. We see it as body from the outside or
objective point of view. But if we view it from
within, it is spirit or being. So all things are one in
essence, for all are being ; and being is all or abso-
lute.

Yet being takes "soul-form" or thought-form, so
that within the lily is the eternal idea of lily which
always gives birth to a lily from a lily bulb ; and a
rose always gives birth to a rose. Each form of
life gives birth after its own kind. This is inter-
estingly illustrated in the example of a tree. At
one time, the botanist supposed that sap is drawn
through the trunk and branches of a tree entirely
by capillary action, that is, mechanical force. Yet
it is now known that a tree will die from a shock
even while its pores are unimpaired, showing that

Being or the Changeless Life 9

more than mechanical action is needed to explain
it. In other words, there must be an organized in-
telligence within the tree which governs and sus-
tains its life. When a shock or injury occurs, this
intelligence withdraws, leaving the shell which it
had built for itself to disintegrate into elemental
substance again.1

We have here, then, sufficient evidence to show
that each "living thing" in nature has a soul. We
will not hesitate to say that the soul exists as the
"being" of the tree, the life-principle, the thought-
form, spirit acting as the idea of tree within, and
taking on its body as a tree. The soul of the tree,
the soul of a lily, the soul of a bird, the soul of a
man, is that within which makes each thing appear
in its chosen form. The soul is the individualiza-
tion of spirit and shares the nature of the All-Soul.
It is the life-principle and is what we call being.
When we speak of it as One or the Whole, we call
it Absolute or Eternal Being. It is eternal in
essence, never changes from age to age. It Is.

1 The elemental substance must in the _ nature of the case be
simply disorganized thought-energy which is produced by Creative
Mind as ready-made material upon which the soul-principle may
draw.

CHAPTER\II. J
BECOMING OR THE CHANGING FORM.

WE live not only in a world of being but also
in a world of becoming. Being is unfolding
itself or passing itself into manifestation.
In being is the infinite possibility ; in becoming, this
possibility is expressing. In creation, the Creator
is passing into the created. Since Spirit is All, It
must be the substance of all. There is nothing but
Itself. In making a universe, It must fashion it
out of the only material available — Itself or Being.
As Being is also Mind, Its activity is that of
thought ; and whatever Spirit makes, It must make
by passing its one essence — Mind — out into the
many expressions — form — through the mould or
channel — thought. To be is to think ; to think is to
create. Creation is eternally going on. Spirit is
eternally being transformed or brought across into
visible concrete substance. Or we may say that
Spirit is substance wrhich now passes into form.
The growth of a lily wrell illustrates it. In the
bulb is the potential form of the lily. The life-prin-
ciple or soul is hidden in the bulb. At any point

10

Becoming or the Changing Form 11

in the growth of the lily, two facts are cognizable.
The lily has being or life. We can say of it, "It is."
In its being, it is untroubled, unhurried, unworried,
unshaken. It has potential power and infinite calm.
But in its growth, it is also becoming. It is taking
form and expressing beauty. Life, spirit, or being
is passing into manifestation in the form of a lily.
Being is becoming manifest. "Consider the lily,"
said the Great Teacher, "God clothes it."

As in the lily, so in us and in all things, there is
great potential power, the power of being, while
we press on to the goal of our becoming. Spirit is
expressing or becoming manifest through us. It
is in this way that the universal can individualize
itself. It is through the recognition of the nature
of the individual self that we can grasp the idea of
and contact the universal. Expansion of conscious-
ness must inevitably follow in the wake of truth.

We must rise to the glory of this truth : man is
spirit, individualized into self-consciousness. God
is on a glorious adventure through each of us. We
are like the wave that rises on the bosom of the
ocean. No matter how high or how proudly it
may toss its crest, no matter what shape and form
it may assume, no matter how peaceful or threat-
ening, no matter how it may conceive itself as apart
from the rest: still it lies forever on the breast of
the sea, still it shares the nature and power of its
source, still it is related to every other individual.
There never can be any real separation in spirit.

12 Being and Becoming

In the end, we must recognize in each our other
self. The poet recognized the truth in these words :

"Whether the time be slow or fast,

Enemies hand in hand, m

Must come together at the last

And understand.
No matter how the die is cast

Or who may seem to win,
We know that we must love at last:

Why not begin?"

Thus, if we will but recognize it, we are every
one of us sons of the Most High with the capacity
to do all, be all, and enjoy all that heart could de-
sire.

In practice we have but to recognize that we are
in the cosmic stream of consciousness which is con-
tinuously manifesting in newer and higher forms
of life, and then to allow it to become manifest for
us. It is most important to note that creation is
still going on; we do not live in a world that has
been made ; we live in a world that is being made ;
we live in a universe of "becoming." Nothing in
nature is static ; everything is in movement, change,
and transition. The earth on which we dwell is
forever altering, clothing and reclothing itself in
garments of verdure; pouring its hidden energies
out into form in the woodland violet and the giant
Sequoia; emptying its sweetness in the perfume
of the lily and the fragrance of the orange tree.

Just SO' our bodies and conditions are forever

Becoming or the Changing Form 13

changing; and being is becoming manifest in new-
ways. New life cells are born every hour. Within
a year every organ and bone of the body has been
born anew7. Many parts of the body like the cuticle
of the hand are born daily. It is literally true that

"Every day is a fresh beginning,
Every morn is the world made nelv:

Ye who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you —

A hope for me, and a hope for you —
EVERY DAY IS THE WORLD MADE
NEW!" 0 ,

"Behold I make all things new/' is the claim of
the Supreme Being. "I am forever becoming^mani-
fest."

\

CHAPTERHII. )
BEING IS BECOMING THROUGH US.

THE importance of this fact must not escape
us, "I — Absolute Being or Spirit — make."
Man does not have to make; Spirit makes.
"I will work and who can hinder it!" The inner
principle of all life, plant or planet, animal or man,
is forever producing; and it may be called into ex-
pression in our lives. "Behold I stand at the door
and knock; if any man will open, I will come in."
"Spirit seeks its worshipers." The creative process
is going on in you. "Stand still and behold the
salvation of your God." What a relief from strug-
gle ! You do not need to lie awake at night saying
to the heart, "Beat seventy-two times a minute :" to
the lungs, "Take a breath now ;" to the blood, "Go
'round and 'round." All this is the involuntary
functioning of the life in you, under the direction
of the inner mind. So, too, we do not need to say,
"I must make a new cell where this one is worn
out: I must make a little more gastric juice to di-
gest this food." Man does not have to create; he
merely allows spirit to manifest its innate power,
to permit being to become through him,

14

Being is Becoming Through Us 15

This spirit is in you now ready to do whatever
is necessary for your health and supply. You are
at one with all being, and within you is the All-
Power ready to act.

i

'Then go not thou in search of him,

But to thyself repair;
Wait thou within the silence dim

And thou shalt find him there."

All great healing is done on the basis of this
realization, that the work is being done for us. We
are not forced to "hold thoughts," repeat denials,
or make affirmations until the brain begins to stag-
ger. To do this is to pass the struggle over from
physical to mental gymnastics. If we are to stop
beating the body, cracking the bones, boiling in
mud, taking electric shocks, only to "do" our de-
nials, affirm our affirmations, and count the rosary
of our formulated phrases, with any idea that we
are doing the job, we might as well quit now. Re-
member Moses! "He said unto them, 'Hear, now,
ye rebels; shall we bring you forth water out of
this rock?' And Moses lifted up his hand, and
smote the rock with his rod twice : and water came
forth abundantly; and the congregation drank and
their cattle. And Jehovah said unto Moses and
Aaron, 'Because ye believed not in me, to honor me
in the eyes of the children of Israel; therefore ye
shall not bring this assembly into the land which I
have given them/ "

16 Being and Becoming

We are entered into truth to find peace; and, if
we struggle along on the basis that we must do the
work, we can never enter the promised land. One
woman said, "I have discovered I have seven
bodies; and I am trying to subdue them; but life
is a constant struggle. I subdue them one by one;
but by the time I get the seventh put under, the
first is all up in arms." Another was asked by her
friends to join in some activities; but she said, "I
have no time for such things : I must go and do my
denials and affirmations." I have seen people abso-
lutely bewildered by the effort to heal themselves
by "holding the right thought;" and I have often
heard metaphysicians say, "I will work for you,"
as though there were something they had to do.
As a matter of fact, "we do not have to struggle,
we only have to know." The poet truly said,

"I am not fighting my fight,
I am singing my song."

Said Jesus, "Can a man, by taking thought, add
one cubit to his stature?" Of course not. Neither
denials nor affirmations are creative. We should
carefully distinguish between the terms, creative
thought and creative mind. Strictly speaking,
thought does not create: mind creates. The crea-
tive function is still going on; Creative Mind is
building for us; spirit is passing into manifesta-
tion, being is becoming ; we do not have to struggle,
but rather do we say to the God within,

Being is Becoming Through Us 17

"Build me more stately mansions, O my soul."

What we need to do is to recognize the presence
of the spiritually-perfect being, which we are; and
thus allow it to become, which it will do!

The Faith of a Child.

Thought itself, then, does not create. Creation
goes on without our conscious thought; and con-
scious thought simply acts as a mould to spirit as
it passes through. This is why a child's life is
normally so healthy and serene. It does not put up
any barrier to the flow of pure spirit. It does not
interpose fear or doubt. It takes all on faith ; and
the creative impulse goes on to build its growing
body and fill its heart with joy. A friend of mine,
who was a teacher in one of the grade schools, had
a lame wrist and felt herself unable to get the right
thought about it. So she went to a little five-year-
old boy in her room and said, "John, I hear that
you healed Miss So-and-So's finger ? Do you think
you could heal my wrist ?" "Yes, teacher, let me
hold it." So he took the wrist between his little
hands and sat silent for a moment. "It will be
all right, now," he said. And it was healed imme-
diately. Other cases might be cited in which chil-
dren have demonstrated the power of unreasoning
faith. Among some of our acquaintances, the whole
family depends on the faith of one of the children.
Whenever sickness occurs, they all turn to the boy

18 Being and Becoming

or girl. The faith of a little child is the faith that
sees God at work for us, bearing our burdens, pro-
viding for our necessities, living in His creation, a
Presence in everything, working for our good. To
realize this is the acme of spiritual understanding.
"No evil shall befall thee, neither shall any plague
come nigh thy dwelling. He shall give his angels
charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways." Be-
ing is becoming; that which is unmanifest is becom-
ing manifest ; and, as it is perfect in being, it must
also be perfect in becoming, if we will but recognize
the truth of being and become fit channels for its
expression. For we are individuals; and spirit can
become for us only in the measure of our choice
and channel. Ours it is to open or shut the door
to Spirit.1

How we may assume the attitude of mind that
will assure the most perfect expression of spirit
in our bodies, affairs, and states of consciousness,
we shall study in succeeding chapters. Let us here
open our thought to the influx of spirit as faith.

I do rest in the calm assurance that all that the
Father hath is mine. I know that "beneath me are
the girders of the Almighty and underneath are
the Everlasting Arms." "The Lord is my light
and my salvation, wrhom shall I fear ? The Lord is
the strength of my life, of whom [or what] shall
I be afraid?" "My Father is greater than I." I

1This is not to be construed in any way as opposing the right
use of affirmations.

Being is Becoming Through Us 19

will "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him."
"I will look unto the hills from wrhence cometh our
help ; my help cometh from the Lord which makes
heaven and earth." I do now answer the command
of my soul, "Come unto me all ye that labor and
are heavy-laden ; and I will give you rest." Father,
I rest my case in thy hands and now know that
thou wilt give me fully and freely this thing which
I seek.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MENTAL UNIVERSE— WHY WE CALL
THINGS IDEAS.

THE first principle of life is this, "I am or
being." All human knowledge begins here.
It is not a matter of proof but of intuition.
I know that I am. And if I do not know that I am,
I do not know anything, for there is no one to know
it. And I also know that this "I am" is a self. I
reach this conclusion by the necessary observation
that the "I am" which I know I am is different in
many respects from others around me. So that I
know that I am a self; that is, I have a life which
I myself direct, and of which I myself am con-
scious. At the same time, I realize that, in some
subtle way, this self is related to all selves and all
being because being must be one, as we have already
seen. Again, since being is all, the life that mani-
fests everywhere must be the life of the One. I
cannot get away from the fact, therefore — and I
do not wish to — that each thing that I see about me
is an expression of that Being. A thing is the form
in which Spirit embodies itself as an individual en-

20

The Mental Universe 21

tity, as we saw in the case of the tree in Chapter
One. Nor can we get away from the fact that
Mind, since it is the substance out of which every-
thing is made as well as the intelligence that makes
it, can assume any form of self-expression which
it desires. It is probable, therefore, that I may say
of the tree just as I say of myself, it is a self.
There is doubtless a tree-self, just as there is a
man-self.1

Finally, we may speak in general terms of the
thing as an idea of spirit. Since Spirit is Mind
and since Mind acts by thought, anything that it
brings forth must be a thought creation and there-
fore an idea. It is true that it would be more than
what we ordinarily think of as an idea, for it acts
with a definite intelligence; and it would be far
more perfect language to say that the tree, for
example, is God thinking the thought of "tree" and
then becoming the tree which He thinks. For that
is the way that Being expresses itself, it becomes
the thing which it thinks and therefore makes. And
in the case of all form and life, we find that Being
does not become hurriedly ; but, by some process of
growth from within, it finally unfolds its nature
along the line of the idea which it has conceived
itself to be. So that the term "idea" is very use-
ful in the language of the newer thought because
it expresses two aspects of each thing: first, the
presence of mind within it, for mind acts by ideas

Compare page 456, Calkin's Persistent Problems of Philosophy.

22 Being and Becoming

or concepts, that is, by thinking ; second, definiteness
of thought, for each form must necessarily have a
definite thought back of it, or it would not come
forth in form at all. We may think, then, of each
thing in nature as being embodying itself in a defi-
nite idea as a definite self.

When we learn to look upon the world in this
way, we enter into a new and different life, for
we no longer see inanimate nature and the cold
and colorless forms of matter ; but we see and feel
the vibrant presence of the Spirit of Life Itself.
Each thing is being assuming form and coming
forth for expression. The flower has a voice elo-
quent of God ; the sunset betrays his glory in bril-
liant colors; and the* friendly stars are the lamps
our Father sets to guide our feet aright. Each
thing that we see, be it the reef or rock or the rip-
pling tide, the shrilling cricket or the roaring lion,
is revealed as Spirit embodying Itself as an idea.
We live in a universe of intelligence, a mental
world, wherein everything that we taste, touch,
smell, see or hear is an idea of being.

And all this will show us' how man may control
the affairs of his life, once he shall perceive his
j own relationship to the cosmic order and his own
power as a self to control his ideas and those lesser
intelligences by which he finds himself surrounded.
We must therefore turn our attention next to a
study of the close, relationship between all selves
and ideas.

The Mental Universe 23

The Unity in Nature.

I think that nothing more fully shows the unity
of creation and the Oneness of the Mind that puts
it forth than the fact of the dependence of each
thing on other things for its own self-expression.
Take for example the tree. Being is here indi-
vidualizing itself on the idea of tree. The tree is a
distinct life-form and has an individual selfhood.
It is an entity and maintains a separate existence,
yet see what it shares with the whole? It puts
out a form to fit its environment. If it is in a val-
ley where it has plenty of freedom, see with what
lofty self-confidence it rears its proud head and
spreads its sweeping branches. If, however, it
springs from a seed, carelessly scattered by some
mighty giant in a forest of giants, the young sap-
ling makes its way timorously and unobtrusively
to the light until, in the process of centuries, it
may at last itself become a king. If in the pathway
of the winds, the young oak sets its roots deeply
and defiantly exposes its sturdy branches to the
sweeping gale.

Again, the very color of a tree, it must bor-
row, as it were, from all nature. It has no color
apparently within itself, but catches the rays of
the sun, absorbing some, reflecting others and tak-
ing on just that shade that befits its own particu-
lar idea. Nor is the idea of color entirely within
the tree itself, for it must depend upon the mind

24 Being and Becoming

of the observer for the full effect of its beauty.
That the tree can never be a fully-expressed idea
without other selves outside of it, to appreciate it,
can be shown by a simple illustration. If I "look"
at a tree, what do I "see"? Certain vibrations in
the ether (which is the physical science name for
Mind) passing as light to my eye, impinge upon
the surface, causing another set of vibrations to
pass through the eye and down the optic nerve to
a brain-center. Here they cause a cell-explosion
or vibration. At the same moment and because
of it, I have a mental image or subjective vision of
a tree. And the rose which appears to me to be
upon the tree sends forth a particular vibration
which I detect and I say, "It is red." But it is not
the red in the rose but the idea of red awakened
by the vibration which I myself "see." Again, I
say it has an odor; but as a matter of fact, I get
the vibration; and my mind interprets it as per-
fume. I touch it and say that it is cool because the
vibration that is awakened in me suggests the idea
of coolness.

Our Own Thought Necessary to the Full
Meaning of Things.

So I might go on to show that all nature and
things are united with every other person and thing
and dependent for their full perfection and ex-
pression of the idea upon other things and minds.
They are not appreciable without a mind to appre-

The Mental Universe 25

date them. They do not have heat, cold, sound,
odor, color; nor taste of themselves. These are
names which we give to varying degrees of vibra-
tion which we interpret according to our own
idea.

It has been necessary to speak of this because
all the so-called modern movements, whether Chris-
tian Science, Divine Science, or New Thought, base
their teachings, and rightly, on true scientific prin-
ciples, the fact that we live in a world of ideas.
"The physicists teach us that there is nothing in
the physical world exactly corresponding to the
different colors, sounds, degrees" of heat and cold,
flavors and odors of the natural world as we know
it. Colors and the rest, they teach, are mere ideas ;
and the Veal causes' of these ideas are forms of
vibration."2

Thus, referring back to the tree, we find that the
idea which is there in the form of a tree is Being
become manifest in vibrations of varying degrees
of intensity which radiate in every direction, awak-
ening in the minds of those who behold it the idea
of color, perfume, and beauty. And the tree-self
is related to all other selves and is never complete
apart from those selves. All nature is interrelated
in the same way. The cloud depends upon the mist,
the mist upon the sea, the sea on the brook and the
rain, and the rain on the cloud. So»that life moves
forever round in the circle of the All-Mind.

aCalkin's Persistent Problems of Philosophy, page 121.

26 Being and Becoming

The spring is mated to the brook

In one continuous flow;
The sky is mated to the sea

In one long crimson glow;
The mountains melt into the mist,

And, stretching rise on rise,
They range afar to yonder star

And mix in star-dust skies.

The star is mirrored in the spring,

Its spirit mated there:
And thus the great round circle runs

To link the everywhere.
'Tis love that winds through things and minds

In one long, golden chain;
O'er circles vast, love's loop is cast,

And all is one again.

Each thing is incomplete without every other,
just as a word is incomplete without the sentence
or the letter without the word. And as words have
no meaning without a mind to assemble and cognize
them, so there must be a mind to assemble all these
factors in the expression of any one idea and to
perceive each thing as a whole or entity or self.
This is the wonderful function of the individual
mind, even of the animal, for it doubtless gets im-
pressions similar to, though not so wonderful as,
our own.

CHAPTER V.

IF "THINGS ARE IDEAS," WHAT
IS "REAL"?

IT is plain that as each thing or idea depends
for its full-rounded expression upon the mind
that perceives it, as we have already seen ; then
a question might arise as to whether there is, after
all, anything there for us to cognize. If we all see
colors differently; if coolness, softness, odors, and
even forms and vibrations look different to each of
us (and they do to a certain degree) what factor of
the idea remains permanent ? Is there a "Thing-in-
Itself " ? Is not everything after all an illusion, and
is not all the world in our own minds? I suspect
that this question will sound stupid to the average
person, and well it may; yet so vexing is the prob-
lem of reality that the tallest minds have often lost
their bearings here, and have become space-wan-
derers while the mind that judges everything on
the face of it has by an instinct of nature kept what
must, in the light of present understanding of the
universe, come to be regarded as the truer path.
But let us ask and answer the question, that we
may see why we call things real and not illusions.

27

28 Being and Becoming

i
We have already seen that Being or Mind is the

substance of all and that in creation we find Being
becoming manifest or expressed. Life would not
be at all if it could not act or create. Creation is
the form taken by God's thought. Recognizing God
or the inner principle of all as Mind, co-extensive
with infinity, we perceive that its only method of
action is mental, that is, by thought. So whatever
expression Being has, is by thought. But we al-
ways find the thought or expression in the form of
vibration, so that we know that thought is vibration,
force or energy}

It is also by no means impossible that that which
we call Being, Mind or Cosmic Consciousness is
itself of the same nature as vibration. In other
words, consciousness or vibration is at once the ma-
terial of God and the universe. If this be so, then in
the act of what we call creation, the only thing that
would be necessary would be to lower the rate of
vibration at any chosen point when it would be-
come what we call "matter. " The thought of Crea-
tive Mind would then mould this substance into
form. In that case, we have no problem at all as
to how the transition takes place from mind to
thought or vibration, since both are one. This
would do away with the whole question of illusions
since whatever we "see," etc., would be the ultimate
real itself, or God in individual form.

iRead Chapter VIII, "Matter or Thought in Form," in my book,
The Law of Mind in Action,

If "Things Are Ideas" 29

At any rate, vibration, or thought, is the substance
of the visible universe, since the atom is but a
composite of energy. Matter is therefore thought
in form, which in turn can be recognized only by
mind. Man is aware of that which we call matter
or physical substance only through the activity of
consciousness. In other words, the energy resident
in matter produces in our mind a series of psychic
shocks which we translate into an interpretation of
matter as sound, color, odor, and so on.

It is a fact, then, that the basis of matter is also
the basis of consciousness, for both are Being in
process of expression or vibration. When, there-
fore, I "see" anything I am perceiving the thought
of the Creator and interpreting it through my mind
which is akin to His. In other words, there is
something real outside of my individualized mind;
but I can cognize it only because it is related to my
mind, since it and I are in the One Mind ; and it is
an idea or thought appealing to me.

Let us illustrate the principle in the case of a
rose. Suppose I say, "I see a rose," and then close
my eyes and say, "I do not see the rose." The
rose disappears from my vision. If I open my eyes
again, the rose reappears. What is it that appears
and disappears? Certainly it is the mental image
or subjective vision of the rose which appears and
disappears. Apparently there remains something
which is outside my own conscious thinking, which
does not so quickly appear and disappear, for there

30 Being and Becoming

is the presence there of something which awakened
my attention to itself : and my friends see a rose
in the same place and at various times without my
calling their attention to it.

What Is Real?

The question is, which is real, the objective rose
which stimulates attention, or the subjective vision
or correspondent, or both, or neither ? The answer
is not difficult in the light of what we have already
said. Things are thoughts ; and the source is mind
or consciousness. Mind puts forth its thought
clothed in form. Here the thought has appeared
as a rose: but a thought is vibration and so is a
rose. On the objective side is the vibration and
form which my physical senses caught up and re-
corded ; on the subjective side there is the awaken-
ing in my consciousness of my idea of a rose. That
idea has always been there because it is a part of
the absolute consciousness; but up to the moment
of my seeing the rose, my consciousness was, as it
were, asleep on that point. The vibration from the
objective rose is thought awakening a mental cor-
respondent in my mind, by the association of ideas.
Hence I see the rose. Now the "I" that sees or cog-
nizes the rose perceives it as a thought or idea.
There is no difficulty to be experienced in under-
standing the process by which the outer idea stimu-
lates the inner idea, when we realize that the rose,
and I, and my subjective idea of a rose which is the

If 'Things Are Ideas" 31

symbol that appeared to me, alike exist in the One
Consciousness. Accordingly I recognize the rose
as not my idea alone but as an idea or thought of
the Infinite which is put forth in a form to be seen
by all individual minds, and which has, therefore, an
entity separate from my ozvn mind or thought. It
is recognizable to me because I am a thinker; and
it is a thought. In this way and because there is
about the objective rose a persistency and stability
which awakens in every one who sees it the idea
of a rose, I can tell the difference between my
mere fancies or hallucinations and reality. There
stands forth in the rose a residue of something
apart from my ideas of color, smell, or feeling. It
is the idea of the Infinite Himself.

Illusions.

We have thus seen that the rose — like, of course,
all other sensible objects — exists not only in my
mind but also in the Divine Mind as an idea clothed
in form, and is therefore independent of my idea
of it, to the extent that it would persist if my in-
dividual consciousness were withdrawn from it.
It is true that the full beauty and wonder of crea-
tion would never be realized without an individual
mind to reclothe it in living colors ; yet it does not
depend for its existence upon that mind. It is
even conceivable that the Divine Mind that sets it
forth in space as a vibrant form may perceive it
as we do, not devoid of color, warmth, and sweet-

32 Being and Becoming

ness, but rather with a finer beauty and fragrance
than we can conceive; and there it stands forth
until the Mind withdraws the thought. It is thus
that we must consider the splendor of a sunset, the
majestic volume of the Nile, and the flaming comet:
they would still be, even as they must have been,
before the advent of man.
They would still be

That mystic, magic wonder, mountain and sea,

Made by the thought of Him who sits aloft,
Who joys in flower and tree.

It is, therefore, a mistake to speak of the com-
mon experiences of mankind as illusions and to
say that we live in a world of illusions. It is true
that we do not live in a world of matter, using the
word matter as meaning that which is independent
of consciousness ; but the objects by which we find
ourselves surrounded are real objects since they
are the thoughts and substance of the Ultimate Real,
or God. To call them an illusion is to say that we
suppose ourselves to perceive something, when in
reality that thing does not exist at all. This is ab-
surd, for if there were no real thing then there
would be nothing to call my attention to it and the
mere fancies of my day-dreams would be as real
as my perceptions of that which common experience
declares to be of more value at least ; an imaginary
dollar would be as good as a coined one. Yet you
couldn't buy a pound of sugar with an imaginary

If "Things Are Ideas" 33

dollar. To say that things are illusions is mental sui-
cide, because it makes all experiences unreal, de-
stroys the veracity of the mind, declares that rea-
son is not dependable, and that the conclusions of
the reason cannot be depended upon. Then what-
ever the reason declares would also be not depend-
able ; and the proclamation that we live in a world
of illusion would be itself an illusion. The doc-
trine of illusions leads more quickly along the path-
way of pure idiocy than anything else of which I
happen to know.

On the contrary, to say that the thing is thought
in form, and as such has reality, is to live in a
world peopled with commonsense entities, and liv-
ing, vital, real ideas. Things are thoughts or ideas,
and are real, because in essence and nature they are
a part of consciousness.

Control of Life Through Thoughts and Ideas.

The value of this study must not be overlooked.
Its purpose is to lead us to realize more perfectly
our relationship to the universe and the power which
we may exercise over things because they are ideas.
Back of everything we see is the thought or mind
that brought it into expression. On the subjective
side of life, I am one with the Eternal Thinker,
and share to a certain extent His consciousness of
everything. That is why I can understand what I
see, because I am related to Him who made them,

34 Being and Becoming

and deep seated in my mystic frame is the mind
that can know and interpret all. Moreover through
this relationship, I may bring to pass the things /
desire to be changed or done. For I can set up
ideas of my own in the One Mind ; and the Creative
Principle will act upon them. I control, then,
through my subjective relationship to the All. I
choose what I shall do through my objective facul-
ties which give me my individuality. Therefore let
us declare for ourselves this truth:

I live in a world wherein everything is thought
in form ; it is the idea of Mind ; and in everything
breathes the presence of God. I live and have my
being in this All-Conscious One and share His na-
ture and life. I understand Him; and He under-
stands me. I accept His gifts and dare to call upon
Him for all that my heart can crave. I feel the
vastness of His nature and the reality of His Self-
hood, for were He less than person He could not
put forth the ideas which thrill me with the mys-
tery and wonder of life. I worship before the
Beauty of His nature expressed in the colorful
tintings of the things I see: His majesty in the
mountains: His Harmonious Soul in the song of
the brooks and the birds: His tenderness in the
love of every mating and mothering thing. All
these things are His ideas ; and great indeed is the
marvel of that Nature that puts them forth. Like
to me He is, for we can understand each other's
ideas. I therefore rest in quiet confidence in His

If "Things Are Ideas" 35

power to act; and the Love that moves Him both
to provide for my necessities and to carry me over
the rough places of life.

Be still, for I thy Father dwell

Within thine inmost soul:
Be still and let my Voice command

Thy heart, my Word control
Thine act : oh, rest in quiet 'til

My thought shall rule thy will.

CHAPTER VI.
PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL MIND.

ALL nature is vibrant with the presence of
Being bursting into expression in the flower-
ing bush, the flitting butterfly, the flaming
sunrise and the raging torrent. Each thing is Be-
ing clothing itself in its own ideas. It is God's
thought expressed in the language of form and
beauty and sustained by the presence of the spirit
embodied in it. Each thing that we see may be
regarded as a self in the truest meaning of the
word: not, it is true, with a developed self-con-
sciousness as in human life, but having, neverthe-
less, some kind of sensational and emotional ex-
perience, a true entity carrying out some definite
purpose for which it came into manifestation as
an entity.

We cannot, if we would, get away from the fact
that Being acts as a self in each individual thing
and person, for all is one; and therefore this one
must be in each individual thing. The distinction
between persons and things largely disappears in
the light of the allness of Being, and becomes merely
a difference in the type, purpose, or self-conscious-

36

Personal and Impersonal Mind 37

ness of the varied forms, whether plant, animal or
man. Such an understanding must make the uni-
verse very personal to us and take from us the fear
we once entertained of the so-called impersonal
forces of nature. With some truth, we may exclaim
with the star-gazer,

For I am part of Him

That made thee shine;
And through the spaces dim

And ether fine,
I claim thee on the rim

Of heav'n as mine:
My star, my light, my beam,

You shine for me;
And, in your radiant beam,

The light I see
Of Him that made thee shine —

'Tis God and thee.1

We therefore see Being everywhere acting as
the personal spirit with emotional life and powers
of self -direction. At the same time, we should
clearly discriminate between the personal and the
impersonal activity of Mind, else we shall be fall-
ing into all the old errors of thought wherein we
shall ever be at cross purposes with a Will and
Mind opposed to our own. For this reason it is
well for us to study the other aspect of Mind, the
impersonal. And we can find no better illustra-
tion than in the study of the individual himself.

xSongs of the Silence, by the author.

38 Being and Becoming

The Personal Mind of the Individual.

Each of us has a mind which acts in two ways,
personal and impersonal. The personal mind each
of us is familiar with. This is the mind that
chooses, intellectualizes, and wills. It selects the
objects of its desire and plans and purposes what
it will do. It conceives ideas and insists on their
fulfilment. In the individual, this aspect of mind
is often spoken of as objective, while the imper-
sonal side of mind is often spoken of as subjec-
tive. The objective mind, as we know it in the in-
dividual, is largely the aspect of mind which he
develops to contact an objective environment. The
babe is born into the world practically subjective,
that is, acting without conscious thought or choice.
But so soon as the child begins to react to environ-
ment, it needs an individualization of mind to meet
life's emergencies. This it develops. When it
learns that a cry will give it nourishment, a yell
will give it a rattle, and the word "papa" will give
it anything, it has begun the development of an
objective mind. This is the mind with which we
are all familiar in the sprightly intercourses of
life, wherein man plans, works and struggles. But
while it seems to be the outgrowth of man's objec-
tive necessities, we must never think of it as at all
separate from the one mind which the individual
has, for all objective faculties lie latent in subjec-
tive mind; and it is only because it is potentially

Personal and Impersonal Mind 39

there that man can develop it at all. The personal
self, then, is simply the emergence into formal ex-
pression of the personal spirit which each one of us
is. It is the consciousness of a self as apart from
other selves and persons, to the extent that each
knows he is an individual who chooses and wills
as a distinct self.

The Impersonal Mind of the Individual.

On the other hand, there is an activity of mind
in each of us which may be classed as impersonal.
It is to be discovered in the unconscious process
by which we govern the breathing, the circulation
of the blood, the birth of new life cells and the
rejection of old ones which we pass automatically
through the pores of the body, the kidneys, and
so on. It is the phase of mind that acts while we
sleep, standing guard at the ear to open it to the
incoming of some sounds and to close it to others.
The peaceful ticking of the clock, the rattle of the
window-pane, or the familiar snore of our com-
panion, it gracefully turns away from our con-
scious attention; but should a burglar pry at the
window or one of the children cry for water, at
once the subjective mind opens the doorway of
the conscious attention; and we are aroused from
our slumbers.

This is the mind that can hear without ears and
see without eyes, as has been abundantly proven in
recent years by experiments of various kinds, Mes-

40 Being and Becoming

sages can be conveyed to it and from it to other
minds without the aid of mechanical agencies by
the process of what is known as thought-transfer-
ence or mental telepathy. Apparently everything
that ever enters the storehouse of its memory is
kept there without loss, although it may never again
step out onto the threshold of objective conscious-
ness. It is the phase of mind through which our
intuitions are brought to us and registered upon our
attention. Here we scatter the seeds of our ambi-
tions and ideas; and, in the rich soil of the mind,
these ideas take root and grow into purposes and
plans. Thus genius, seeking expression in beauti-
ful forms, dreams the dream in the stillness of the
mind within; and at length the perfected idea
springs forth in the glory of the chiseled form.

Whatever falls upon the rich soil of this mind
is bound to bear fruit of some kind, for with tire-
less activity it goes to work to "think out" for us
the things we are puzzling over, to show us the
best way to go, to> act both as teacher and servant
for us. It is significant that this is the mind that
has charge of all growth, whether it be in the bud-
ding and bloom of genius, in the development of
the full-rounded purpose, or in the reconstruction
of the body through the creation of new cells.

There is surely enough here to betoken the infinite
and eternal heritage of the mind within us. What
mind is this that never forgets, that creates out of
the raw material of the unseen the noblest that has

Personal and Impersonal Mind 41

sprung into form through human genius, that loves
to the edge of the grave and beyond, that builds
and molds and fashions the human frame in con-
tinuous growth? These are attributes of a vaster
intelligence, not earth- but heaven-born. For, as
noted in previous chapters, we have perceived in
nature herself the same creative intelligence in ac-
tive operation. This is the impersonal activity of
the Universal Mind.

Impersonal Mind Acts Only on Ideas
"Given" to It.

But just why do we call it impersonal? We call
it impersonal because it is not the phase of mind
that chooses what shall come to pass. The per-
sonal mind chooses what it shall have and then
passes its orders over to the impersonal mind to
execute. In the individual, this is well illustrated
in the case of a hypnotized person. In this state,
the subject loses his consciousness of personality
and takes on the personality of the operator. In-
stead of making selections of ideas for himself, he
takes whatever idea is given to him and begins to
act upon that. If he is told that he is a great singer,
he tries to sing. If told that he is a great sculptor,
he tries to mold and chisel. If told that on the
following day at 12:01, he will pull out his watch
and wind it, he takes that idea and the next day,
to his own personal astonishment, the impersonal
mind carries out the idea that was impressed upon

42 Being and Becoming

it; and he winds his watch in the public market,
or wherever he may chance to be.

The Universal Impersonal.

However, we must not make the mistake of con-
ceiving of a personal mind apart from the imper-
sonal, for the personal can rise into individuality
only out of the impersonal; and to conceive of a
personal separate from the impersonal would lead
us to attempt to accomplish things by human will
and force alone. And this again would lead to a
universe of many minds, God's mind and each of
ours, and thus to eternal conflicts of purpose and
consequent turmoil. Nor should we ever conceive
of an impersonal mind apart from a personal. This
would lead to the assumption that the universe is
one merely of mechanical force, and thus to ma-
terialism, atheism, and ignorance. Back of all per-
sonal expressions of life must be that from which
they spring. And, as Being, from its very nature
of being "That-which-Is," must be One, the im-
personal life of the individual must share in that
Being or Life ; and the personal life of each of us
must rest eternally back on the one source of all.

Personalizing the Universal Impersonal.

The Famous "Talking Horses"
We C^n find illustrations of the direct relation-

Personal and Impersonal Mind 43

ship of the individual forms of life and the uni-
versal in plants, animals, and man. I think how-
ever that science has never had so startling a proof
of what metaphysics has long taught as can be
found in the trained horses of Elberfeld. I con-
fess that I cannot write of them without such a
thrill as one experiences only in presence of a great
mystery, for though science has admitted that these
horses actually do perform the wonders which I
relate, still we must recall that the back of every-
thing we know is as great a mystery as the face of
everything we do not know.

The horses in question were trained by a man
named Krall; and the genuineness of their per-
formances is attested by an imposing list of lead-
ing scientists of several countries. Various theories
have been advanced as to the source of the intelli-
gence of these animals; but no reputable scientist
now questions the fact of the intelligence itself.
The facts are these: A system of numbers is ar-
ranged in such a way that the horses will know
that a certain number of blows with the foot will
represent each figure. For instance, following the
English method of numbers, twenty-four would be
represented first by two blows, and then four. A
certain number of blows also represents each letter
of the alphabet so that the horse can spell out any
word that he may desire. With this simple ma-
chinery of language and without the aid of a voice,
the horses perform prodigies of intelligence that

44 Being and Becoming

are more than marvelous. Asked to multiply 24
by 7 for example, the horse will strike out the re-
ply with instantaneous quickness and apparently
without any conscious calculation. The horses have
been taught how to extract the square root of num-
bers and can extract it instantly from any number
that gives an exact root. Not only this, but also
without having been taught to solve any number
beyond the square root of 144, the horses can ex-
tract the cube root of any number and even the
fourth root.

When Maeterlinck visited the stables at Elber-
feld, he was introduced by Krall to Muhamed, one
of the horses; and the horse was asked to spell
Maeterlinck's name, which he accomplished with
little difficulty. To prove that there was no collu-
sion on account of a previous knowledge of his
visit, Maeterlinck remained with Muhamed alone
and asked him to spell the name of his hotel "Wei-
denhof." This the animal did.

One day Zarif (another of the horses) suddenly
stopped in the midst of his lessons. They asked
him the reason.

"Because I am tired."

Another time he answered : "Pain in my leg."

One day Krall and his collaborator, Dr. Scheller,
thought that they would try to teach Muhamed to
express himself in speech. The horse, a docile and
eager pupil, made touching and fruitless efforts to

Personal and Impersonal Mind 45

reproduce human sounds. Suddenly he stopped;
and, in his strange phonetic spelling, declared, by
striking his foot on the spring board :

"I have not a good voice."

Observing that he did not open his mouth, they
strove to make him understand, by the example of
a dog, with pictures, and so on, that, in order to
speak, it is necessary to separate the jaws. They
next asked him :

"What must you do to speak?"

He replied by striking with his foot:

"Open the mouth."

"Why don't you open yours?"

"Because I can't."

I thus quote directly from Maeterlinck's Un-
known Guest because he personally examined the
case of the horses and because, after a study of all
theories designed to account for such astonishing
intelligence, he comes to the conclusion that the
horses are the instrument through which a vaster
intelligence articulates. The theory of signs im-
perceptible to the onlooker had to be abandoned
because one of the horses, Berto, is blind and could
not detect such signs. Nor is it what we call mental
telepathy, for, as Maeterlinck amusingly relates, he
himself did not know the answer to some of the
problems he proposed, while examining the horse
alone in the stable, and more than that he never had
known, and did not even know where nor how to

46 Being and Becoming

get it. How then could the horse read it from his
mind? Other experiments also have been made
to show that it is not telepathy.

By a series of experiments and deductions into
which we cannot go here, since space does not per-
mit, and which the student or skeptic can examine
for himself to better advantage in the book above
mentioned, Maeterlinck comes to the conclusion
that we can attribute the almost superhuman intelli-
gence of the horses only to a subliminal conscious-
ness, which is in touch with the immediate answer
to every problem. Like the mathematical prodigies
of history who have been able to calculate numbers
without the aid of rules and by some immediate
process, the horses seem to read the answer from
some cosmic page. Such an explanation seems also
necessary to explain the quickness which they ex-
hibit in learning words and their meanings, for in
a few weeks they learn what a child must take a
long time to acquire in the use of language. Maet-
erlinck concludes that either we must attribute to
the horse an intelligence which challenges belief
as beyond that of ordinary human powers or else,
"we should have to admit that there is in the horse
— and hence most probably in everything that lives
on this earth — a psychic power similar to that which
is hidden beneath' the veil of our reason and which,
as we learn to know it, astonishes, surpasses and
dominates our reason more and more. This psychic
power, in which no doubt we shall one day be forced

Personal and Impersonal Mind 47

to recognize the genius of the universe itself, ap-
pears, as we have often observed, to be all-wise, all-
seeing, and all-powerful. It has, when it is pleased
to communicate with us or when we are allowed
to penetrate into it, an answer for every question
and perhaps a remedy for every ilL" 2

I have not quoted here in order to establish
Maeterlinck's opinion as an authority; but I have
presented the facts as he found them; and the
reader can judge for himself. For my part, I see
here but another evidence of the truth that there is
but one Mind functioning through many individuals,
expressing in many things, embodying in many
ideas. This is simply another of those scientific
evidences of the principles of mental science which
are daily coming to hand.

We see then that the individualized conscious- )
ness, at the deeper points of its current, mingles y
freely with the subterranean stream from which it
instinctively draws and by which it is fed and sus-
tained either wittingly or unwittingly. The indi-
vidualized mind, forgetful of its origin, engrossed
in the affairs and complications of an objective
world, loses its consciousness of the all-embracing
wisdom, and seldom floats to the surface the pure
ideas from the profound and placid depths. Yet
there come moments in life when some storm smites
the surface; and we quiver to the depth of our
being. It is then that pure intuitions come to us;

aThe italics are mine.

48 Being and Becoming

and we see with startling vision; we know with
supernatural clearness; we understand without the
processes of reason. Something rises up within us
to take possession, leading us out of peril, giving
us "the strength of madness," inspiring us to the
necessary action, acting as the creative genius and
the ruling ^spirit that masters every power that
threatens. And woe to that man or society that
stands in the path of the God-inspired soul, for he
announces divinity; and in him God Himself is
marching onward to his triumph !

Individual Choice Within the Impersonal
Mind.

We are thus brought face to face with the great
mystery, God in man, or as a great seer once said,
"Christ in you the hope of glory." Thus, by plung-
ing beneath the surface of his ordinary conscious-
ness, man finds that he does not enter another sea,
for he finds no break between the surface and the
profoundest depths.^fHe is related to the All, not
by proximity nor contact, but in actual nature and
being. Man does not leave off where God begins.
If he will but realize this and seek to establish
relationship in conscious thought, where alone sepa-
ration of any kind is possible, he cannot but feel
and know that back of him is the power and the
life of the All, and that he is entitled to act as the
personal factor within that Life. In other words
as it stands back of us as the impersonal basis of

Personal and Impersonal Mind 49

our own life, it is our right and privilege to im-
press upon it the ideas and desires which our own
personal life demands. And since it takes each
idea and goes to work to produce in visible form
the invisible thought which has been given it, we
may be sure that it cannot fail to bring forth for
us whatever we may desire.

Thus do we have outlined for ourselves the prin-
ciple of mind. There is one universal, all-compre-
hensive Mind having the power to choose what it
shall create, and to initiate its own ideas, and thus to
act as a Person or Self: while at the same time it
is an impersonal force or creative energy building
for us "whatsoever things we ask in faith believ-
ing." For as we are in this One Mind and our
own individuality arises from it, we may make per-
sonal choices of what we shall have; and it will
body them forth for us. ^

One may well rest back in a sense of quiet secur-
ity upon the assurance that these truths afford.
Let us say : I am one with the infinite intelligence ;
and the infinite energy is back of every word I
speak and every desire that I voice. I may ask
what I will in the name of my inner and real self ;
and it shall be done unto me of my Father. Father,
I will that thou shalt open to me the storehouses
of a diviner wisdom that I may wralk in the path-
way of truth and learn more to enjoy the compan-
ionstiip of the Ever-Present One whom Thou
art.

SO Being and Becoming

I am thy life within thee,

I am thy health;
I am thy choicest treasure;

I am thy wealth.
I am thy deepest wisdom;

I am thy light ;
I am thy power within thee;

I am thy might:
I am thy warm emotion;

I am thy truth;
I am thy ageless heritage;

I am thy youth ;
I am thy hope of heaven;

I am the way;
I am the light eternal;

I am the day:
I am thy will-to-conquer ;

I am thy sword;
I am the peace thou cravest ;

I am thy word.

I am the Inner Presence,

Forever nigh: —
Whenever thou dost say, "I am,"

/ Am That I.3

3Frora Songs of the Silence, by the author.

\

CHAPTER VII.
THE PART "I" PLAY IN COSMIC MIND.

THE farthest advance of God into self-expres-
sion is in each one of us. We must learn
to realize the wonderful part we play in the
great plan. You and I are purposes of God, for
through us He is coming constantly into great ad-
ventures and new experiences. It would not be
like being a God at all, unless every possible ex-
perience could be enjoyed by Him. As the Abso-
lute Being without individuality, God could not
have the delightful experiences we have as indi-
viduals. For He could not know what it is to love
without a lover; He could not know what it is to
enjoy the suspense of the future, since in the Abso-
lute there is no sense of time; He could not know
what it is to enjoy a journey, since in the Absolute
there is no space; He could not carry out the joy
of logical or inductive thinking, since with the Ab-
solute everything is known at once. But God would
not be God unless He had the ability to do all of
these things and have every kind of experience.
Thus He ventures forth as an individual, and be-
comes a self.

51

52 Being and Becoming

You and I are this self. Remember we are not
all of God though all that we are is God. The
Absolute could not be confined in the individual ;
but the individual may go on expanding endlessly
toward the Absolute. If, then, we will but realize
our relationship to God, we may go on in the sense
of a wonderful purpose and a marvelous nature.
Through us, God is writing the story of life;
through us, He is the poet who dreams the dream
of beauty; through us, He sculptures the marble;
through us, He plans the building ; through us hews
the stone; through us, He does the commonplace
work of the world; through us, He cheers another
soul ; through us loves with love surpassing human
understanding. If mothers are not God on earth,
then God is neither in heaven nor earth. Says
Kipling :

"If I were damned of body and soul,

I know whose prayers would make me whole,

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!"

So God becomes conscious of Himself in various
moods of thinking, feeling, and willing in a way in
which He could not be conscious but for the in-
dividual. And we are therefore no longer to toler-
ate any philosophy which teaches us to lose any
part of the glorious experience of objective con-
sciousness. The objective consciousness is the de-
velopment of personality and the ability to unfold
>more finely. Up to the time of the development

The Part "I" Play in Cosmic Mind 53

of the self-conscious individual God has been ex-
pressed only on the plane of mechanical law, with
all the marvels it reveals, in planetary systems, and
growing grass and living things. But these, while
conscious and alive with intelligence, have never had
the ability to plan and choose for themselves. They
have accepted things as they have found them. We
do not have to do that. We can take things as they
are and then make them what we want them to be. j
We can make plans and start enterprises. We can i
distribute the finest emotions of God. We can be
not only conscious of ourselves, but of all other
selves, and finally of that Greater Self which God
is. We can have personal relationships with that
Divine Wonder. To believe, then, that it is desir-
able to push back into the undifferentiated flow of
life from which we have emerged is to do violence
to the great purpose of Being which is to become
manifest in higher and differentiated forms.

Our Unity With the All-Self.

At the same time, the self could not be at all un-
less it rested back on a common unit, the underly-
ing absolute self; nor could we have any sense of
relationship to these other selves, unless we were
within an all-comprehensive self that relates us.
We must never lose sense of this unity for it is this
that gives our love an all-embracing charity so that
we can look into the faces of the vilest, and below
all the scum or the veneer of life may find our

54 Being and Becoming

brother and our sister. Even the wild creatures of
the plain will become objects of respect and care
for us, because they are included in the one mind
and in their several ways are expressing a purpose
of God. Thus love and attention to the needs of
animals is- a part of every noble man's duty. |

Nor shall we, through the use of terms, ever ob-
scure the wholeness of life and the unity of all.
The objective and subjective sides of mind will
then be found to be one ; and the former is simply
the outpush of the latter into expression. Nor
again shall we essay to live by the use of the will,
the rationalizing powers, the inductions of the ob-
jective mind alone, but rather learn to lean on the
source and strength of the inner life to which we
are eternally related.

There is, then, no "mortal mind and divine mind."
There is but one mind. The intellectualizing mind
may have chosen wrongly; but it is not another
alien mind. So to consider is to introduce another
form of dualism. Sin and evil and sickness are
due to a sense of separation, not to "mortal mind."
They are due to a failure to recognize or employ
the whole power that lies back of us or to partial
knowledge. In other words, we find that all we
call ill, is due to some form of partialness ; and,
when we once more restore the consciousness of
wholeness, we shall do away with the so-called
evil.

Being is always perfect: it is only in becoming

The Part "I" Play in Cosmic Mind 55

that the apparent imperfection is manifest. Im-
perfection has its beginning, not in Being or First
Cause, but in the mould of thought. As the indi-
vidual rises into the consciousness of self, with
the powers of conscious selection, he may think in
either direction, forward or back. Just because he
is to enjoy the fun of assembling the parts into the
unity, he has within himself the power to combine
the factors in the wrong way or to leave some out.
When he does that trouble results. Then he will
have pain to set him back on the track and push
him on again.

Let us therefore constantly keep in mind the
essential nature of the One Being and our own
relationship to- it and have no fear of any issue or
problem. We are founded on the Rock of Ages.

Related as we are to the Eternal, All-Powerful,
Creative Mind, we must realize that for us to choose
is for it to choose, since it has become us for that
purpose. Yet because it has given us individuality
to choose what we will, it must also make for us
or create for us the thing that we choose; or else
we would not have any true choice. Then because
we choose unwisely or without knowledge of all
the factors in the case, let us not despair nor blame
God. The only evil is incompleteness. And that
is not an evil. For the evil entirely disappears
when we learn the whole truth and then employ it.

And this ought to explain to» us how there can
be the experience of evil and yet no moral fault

56 Being and Becoming

in God. As Absolute Self, He does not experience
evil, because He never has any sense of partialness.
His is always a sense of wholeness. All the fac-
tors are known to Him ; and He never thinks in
terms of the relative. And so, since God could
not be all without sharing every human experience,
still the suffering is only in the individual; it is
not in God as a consuming experience, for in the
Absolute Self there is never any partial choice.
God chooses with every factor known. Pain, then,
might lie in the order of the eternally possible, or
else we could not experience it; yet it never gets
hold of God for in Him it is ever transcended by
complete knowledge and perfect choice.

CHAPTER VIII.

MAN'S GREATER BODY AND THE
FEELING-LIFE.

WE have now shown that the whole round
circle of being and its manifestation from
star to farthest star and beyond is Mind.
Everything originates in Mind; all things are
thoughts ; all form is idea ; all substance is mental.
Even what we call spiritual things can be but
thought in finer form ; and spiritual men and women
are those whose thoughts are purest, finest, and
most godlike. Love itself is the unified conscious-
ness; and its emotions are the distilled essence of
higher thinking. Herein is God made manifest as
one, for we cannot conceive of anything apart from
Mind; and there is no place outside of that Mind.
Yet for the purposes of clearness, we may have
other names for God and other words for that
which goes on in Mind. Original Feeling is a name
which we may give to First Cause because God be-
comes manifest through the impulses of feeling-
life. This term indicates the depth of thought;
it is not merely the idle floating of imagination out
into space but the rich conviction of a purpose.

57

58 Being and Becoming

Thus, feeling may be called in general the creative
quality in God and so in man. Again, we may note
that certain types of thought tend to group them-
selves to form a particular attribute of mind. Low
vibrations of thought become inorganic matter and
take form as such. Higher vibrations become cell
life and tissues and act harmoniously together as
organic laws of physiology and biology.

Finer thought forces assemble themselves around
a common center and form what we may call the
feeling-body. This is that expression of the self
which is distinctly personal but not obvious as is
the physical body. As the substance is still thought,
the expression is vibration; and as there must be
form wherever there is vibration, the "feeling-
body" must have form and occupy space in some
way. Can we really find the presence of such a
feeling-body of each of us; and, if so, what is its
extent, nature, and purpose?

Because we are so accustomed to judge our uni-
verse from the standpoint of what we can see,
touch, and measure with physical instruments, it
is hard for us to realize how much of the objec-
tive world itself is invisible to us. Yet we are sur-
rounded by innumerable forms of life and "mat-
ter" which we cannot cognize by the ordinary
senses. Says Flammarion, "Between the last acous-
tic sensation perceived by our ears and due to 36,850
vibrations per second and the first optical sensa-
tion perceived by our eye which is due to four hun-

Man's Greater Body 59

dred trillion vibrations per second, we perceive
nothing. There is an enormous interval to which
no one of our senses brings us into relation." 1

We see, then, that forms can and do undoubt-
edly exist around us of which we are not at all
conscious. And, as there are those whose powers
of sight transcend the physical instrument of the
eye, we might expect that such forms would be fre-
quently detected. Such indeed is the case; and
throughout the ages, people who have often been
called clairvoyant, that is, able to see without the
eye, have declared that they could see a more subtle
body surrounding other individuals. This body has
sometimes been called the aura, and has been rep-
resented in art by the halo which surrounds the
heads of saints. In the case of Spanish art, it is
usually triangular. In other art, it is oval or repre-
sented by the halo about the head. In recent times,
science has made it possible for any one who wishes
to investigate these phenomena to do- so, especially
by the use of photographic plates. For it is quite
possible now to photograph the fine vibration or
odic fluid that radiates from all of us. Says Maeter-
linck, "Reichenbach was first to discover that
'sensitive' persons could see the effluvia in the dark.
After experiments, he proved that its power varied
with the emotions and status of mind of the sub-
jects. He found that it was of bluish color on
the right side, and yellowish on the left."

xThe Unknown, page 11.

60 Being and Becoming

The power of this fluid, then, "varies with the
emotions and status of mind of the subject." This
we would know from the fact that everything has
its origin in mind; and that this feeling-body is
simply the form in which the higher consciousness
of the individual clothes itself. And we may add to
this the fact that this feeling-body is also affected
profoundly by the thoughts and acts of other peo-
ple. For example, a very sensitive person was
asked by the experimenter to put his hand in a
glass of water. He did so and was then removed
to another part of the room. A pin was thrust into
the water; and he not only was conscious of it but
winced with the pain as much as though the pin
had been thrust into his physical body.

In another case, a photographic plate was placed
within the radiations of the odic fluid emanating
from a subject, and scratches were made on the
hands in the photograph. The subject at once burst
into tears ; and the scratches were plainly to be seen
on his own hands.2

That the feeling-life is not confined to the phy-
sical body as we ordinarily see it can be demon-
strated in a simpler experiment. Many sensitive
persons will show pain if a pin be thrust into the
confluence of wave vibrations from the body, at

2It is not my purpose here to discuss the question as to how
many bodies an individual might have, that is, the different types
of vibration; but only to show the extent to which the feeling-life
manifests in our experience. Therefore no distinction is attempted
between aura, odic fluid, etc.

Man's Greater Body 61

one-half an inch or an inch-and-a-half beyond the
surface.

My purpose, in these illustrations which might
easily be extended, is to show a primary fact of
mental science, that intelligence, mind, thought, and
therefore feeling are not confined to physical or-
gans in the ordinary sense. It is quite possible, in-
deed, that our future investigations will persuade
us that the ego-self functions through still finer
instruments than any we have as yet detected and
is not at all confined to immediate environment;
but for the present this will lead us far enough.
We are housed in a wonderful body, very sensi-
tively adjusted to our environment. This body,
both within the "physical frame" and in the more
subtle exterior, is charged with an emotional or
feeling consciousness. This consciousness is in gen-
eral independent of the physical structure and nerve-
centers. It uses them; it acts upon them and re-
acts to them; but still it is independent of them.
It is possible to see without eyes and hear without
ears, and feel without physical contacts.

Two other characteristics of this feeling-con-
sciousness should be mentioned. First, it is the
medium through which the conscious mind acts
upon the physical structure. It lies, as it were, be-
tween the conscious or objective mind and the phys-
ical body and environment. Whatever we desire
to accomplish on the physical plane must be accom-

/

62 Being and Becoming

plished through it. We give our instructions to it ;
and it carries them out.

Second, the feeling-consciousness is impersonal.
It does not initiate any movement in the body or
in the thought. It takes any impression given it
and reports it or causes the body to react to it.
If the hand of the subject is scratched on the photo-
graphic plate, this consciousness feels it and records
it in the body and in the mind. It varies, as
Maeterlinck has told us, with the emotions and
status of the individual concerned. We thus have
confirmed again that it is simply a form of the
creative activity of mind and is really the mind
functioning impersonally.

The Feeling-Life Affected by Thought.

We are now ready to see how this intermediary
agent operates in regard to the affairs of our lives
and the very destiny of our souls. We have found
that the feeling-body or consciousness is very sus-
ceptible to mental influence of any kind. It is open
to thought coming from any direction, from either
without or within. These thoughts fall as seed
upon fertile soil; and, as this consciousness has no
will of its own but only an instinct to create, it be-
gins to take any thought and work upon it.
Throughout our lives, seed continues to fall; and
the person who is unconscious of these laws is
always open to unseen and unknown influences from
without. How quickly we catch the contagion of

Man's Greater Body 63

fear around us! How strangely we react to an-
other's mood. How open we are to impressions;
and how often we are swept off the feet of our
better judgment by some strong mind! How fre-
quently we become downcast without apparent
cause and then rise to an unexpected buoyancy of
spirit! Some one says, "You do not look well;"
and at once we begin to feel our pulse. Another
says, "Times are going to be hard;" and we begin
to feel the pinch of those times. Worst of all, we
are all open to vagrant thoughts and ideas which
are always flying about, for a thought is a vibration
and goes on its f rictionless way through the ethers.
These thoughts, as though they were angels, come
to the heart that is like them; or, like devils, they
flock to the place where they feel most at home.
Thus the sins of our fathers are visited upon us,
if we let them visit — and most of us keep a spare
chamber. Especially are we open to the invasion
of thoughts directed purposely at us. There are
those who envy and those who oppose our plans
and purposes. Often they do not consciously wish
us harm ; but they are thinking such thoughts about
us as are not for our best good. If we are un-
guarded, these thoughts come to us, find entrance
through the impersonal, neutral consciousness and
make their impression upon it. Being impersonal
and creative, this consciousness registers on our
bodies as disease; on our conditions, as failure;
on our minds, as depression. So if one were really

64 Being and Becoming

hostile to us, he might deliberately practice "black
magic/' which is by no means out of fashion. In
that case, his thought would gather up all the forces
of negative thought which were not consciously
directed at us; and one hostile mind could then
lead an army of inimical forces against us.

Protection Against Malicious Suggestion by
Conscious Thought.

On the other hand, our protection is quite ade-
quate. We must remember that no physical or^
mental reaction is possible except through the con-
sciousness. If, then, we allow hostile impressions/
or suggestions to be made upon it, then disaster^
will follow. If, on the other hand, we insist that"
no influence shall affect us except by our own con^
scious choice, then the consciousness will not pick/
up the flying thought. We are like the wireless^
telegraph instrument, we record only those mes-^
sages to which our instrument is attuned. A fulK
protection is thus assured against the most mali-
cious influence by the simple expedient of declar-
ing that you will not receive such thoughts from
any direction. It is even a good plan in sojne cases
to ridicule the power of such thoughts in cases
where you feel that mental pressure is being brought
to bear upon you. Judge Troward says, "Look it
mentally in the face and say, 'Cock-a-doodle-doo !' "
And that is not bad advice. Every one should
occasionally think of himself as surrounded by an

Man's Greater Body 65

impenetrable barrier which no negative thought can
enter. We are moving through a world more subtle
than we have supposed; and we may as well cog-
nize the unseen forces of evil long enough — and no
longer — to declare our protection against them. "No
evil shall befall me, because I have made the Most
High my habitation."

We are frequently in the presence of strong- i
minded people who without meaning to use bad
mental influences, still desire us to do their will
or accept their dictum. They not only cause their
thought to impinge on our sensitive consciousness
to act as suggestion ; but a real force goes out from
them. The odic fluid of which we have previously
spoken is a subtle form of force which probably
emanates from large numbers of individuals and
strikes directly upon the organism unless we pro-
tect ourselves. This force can be photographed.
It is strong enough to cause a lever to tip, a copper
needle to vibrate, or to set a clock in motion within
a sealed glass vessel. It is powerful enough to
move a table weighing two hundred pounds, and
to magnetize minerals. Many healers send it forth
in the treatment of patients, usually draining their
own forces in using it. I have treated healers who
felt this influence go forth from them in waves. I
have known of others who in healing send off this
current in an encircling motion, going out to the
patient and returning again.

One can imagine with what energy such a force

66 Being and Becoming

impinges directly upon the organism of those to-
ward whom it is directed. This probably explains
those cases of remarkable personal magnetism with
which history deals, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Wash-
ington, and many of our great pioneers. Whole
atmospheres are charged with this psychic energy;
and places are affected by the presence of one
powerful individual.

It seems to me, therefore, that one should occa-
sionally examine his own consciousness to see how
much it is affected by the opinions, prejudices, will,
and oppositions of others, and counteract any such
influences by the quiet direction of his own forces.
In the case of cancer and some other diseases, ad-
vanced physicians to-day are using powerful electric
waves to drive back the vibrations which stream
in vivid colors from the affected organ. Shall we
do- less in protecting ourselves against those at-
tacks of personal magnetism which, either con-
sciously or unconsciously, are directed against us?
And if we can do it in no other way, we should
certainly avoid contact with those whose dominat-
ing mind overpowers our own will and causes us
to move about as puppets at the bid and call of their
desires. This is particularly true in the case of
those who claim to be the directors of our religious
destiny and to know the only way by which our
souls can climb into heaven. The religious say-so,
the "only-my-way-to-heaven" doctrine is but an-
other way to beat down and imprison the splendid

Man's Greater Body 67

freedom of the soul. So anywhere and everywhere
that men would enslave us we must rise up and
declare the immortal heritage of our birth, our will
to zvill our own good. "Sir," we may say, "I pre-
fer my hell to your heaven, if the choice is not to
be my own." Let no man enslave your soul ! Thus
does each one of us choose the pathway of his
destiny.

CHAPTER IX.

THE EMOTIONAL SELF AND THE CAUSES
OF DISEASE.

WE have seen that the body which we call
physical is only a part of man's organism.
There is around and within each one of
us an area of vibration which is definitely asso-
ciated with the body, which transmits and receives
influences, not by physical contacts alone but also
by the more subtle agency of thought and feeling.
This greater body has form because it is definite
enough to occupy space ; and yet the form is doubt-
less continuously changing and altering. The whole
organism, which includes this, is conscious, that is,
it has intelligence, is open to the impressions which
are constantly being made upon it, and faithfully
reports them to the self. At the same time, we must
remember that this consciousness is the impersonal
activity of mind ; it does not think as "I," the ego,
think; it does not have ideas. // takes them. It
takes them from me; or it takes them from with-
out, unless I tell it not to. It is thus a great bless-
ing or a great curse to man that he has this neutral
field of consciousness. If he controls the images

68

The Emotional Self 69

that it receives, if he consciously directs his life,
if he prohibits the invasion of false thoughts and
suggestions he has reason to be grateful for the neu-
tral activity of mind, for it is his silent partner, his
willing worker who takes his orders and continues
to build the body and to care for the whole organ-
ism without any great amount of thought on the
part of the conscious self. If, on the other hand,
you and I are ignorant or careless of the influences
which surround and affect us, we are continuously
open to the invasion of disease, unhappiness, pov-
erty and all the brood of negative thought-devils.
For the neutral consciousness takes the impression
that is given to it and passes it on as the working
model of the cell-life; and each cell takes the archi-
tect's plans and begins to build accordingly. This
is the way in which contagious diseases get their
innings. The individual is not always consciously
thinking of or fearing the disease; but his con-
sciousness is open to the inroads of any thought
that may come blowing along on the winds of fate.
For him who lives by conscious choices, life is
therefore destiny; for him who lives by chance,
life is fate.

All persons vary in the degree with which the
creative or feeling consciousness is affected by
ideas and influences. Some people are very sensi-
tive and are open to the slightest impression. To
be sensitive is simply to leave the field of the feel-
ing-consciousness unguarded and to allow others to

70 Being and Becoming

sow the fatal seeds of their thoughts and opinions
upon the rich soil within. Then we experience it
as pain; or, as we often say, "My feelings are
hurt." And as each emotion seeks an outlet at
the weakest point, these feelings make their im-
press upon the flesh in all forms of disorder.

Diseases in women can be largely traced to the
reactions of the emotional life. From the fact that
their love nature is more tender and gentle than
that of men, and that they do not have the excite-
ment of continuous change in the work of the day
which falls to the lot of the average workingman,
women allow the inharmony of things to make a
deeper impression upon them. Any thought brooded
upon holds it in consciousness ; and, as creative
mind and its physical agent continue to act upon
each thought so long as it is held, the result is
often fatal to happiness and health. Thus even
words that are not meant to contain a sting are
held to the bosom like the poisonous asp until peace
and love are stung to death. The husband goes to
his work and forgets his hasty words before night-
fall calls him again to his home; but the wife does
not forget. The thought goes on rankling in her
breast until its inevitable end in some form of nerv-
ous or physical disorder. Says Edward Rowland Sill :

"These clumsy feet still in the mire
Go crushing blossoms without end :

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

The Emotional Self 71

The ill-timed truth we might have kept —
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!

The word we had not sense to say,
Who knows how grandly it had rung!"

Sometimes I think that unintentional hurts are
more cruel than those that are given in some burst
of anger because to be thoughtless along some lines
is an indication that we have not cared enough to
think how it will affect the other. Then the other
cannot but feel that we have not been true to love ;
and nothing hurts like neglect. Without love there
is nothing; and love languishes on neglect and
thoughtlessness. A white-hot iron across the
breast will not so mar the body as the word and act
that burns its way into the soul of those who had
reason to expect better.

Few men or women would think of plunging a
dagger into another's flesh; and yet they use the
tongue which is a two-edged sword and turn it
within the wound. It pierces the vital atmosphere
of the emotional life and makes its mark upon the
creative consciousness within. Thus both soul and
body are plunged into hell.

The day will come when we shall put a heavy
fine upon the man or woman who predicts disaster
and disease, and utters croaking forecasts of com-
ing evil, for he is cursing the race. Yet to-day we
turn the pages of our newspapers and read of those
who prognosticate the return of some dreadful
scourge, or some great cataclysm of nature, and

72 Being and Becoming

then lay out the tools of their industry ready to
reap the harvest which their foul seed has caused
to spring up. Direful forecasts, pratings of so-
called evil times, fault-finding, pessimistic utter-
ances, slander, gossip of a malicious character — all
these are the spawn and the incubus of disease, want
and misery, for they fall on the fertile and produc-
tive soil of the race-consciousness and, entering any
door that swings upon unsuspecting hinges, they
make their abode within the body. Here, like a
serpent, they coil for the spring, like its bite, they
fester in the flesh. Whole peoples have been ex-
tinguished by the false gods of the national ideals
and ideas, for "thought is father to the act;" and
ideas, making their impress upon the creative mind
of the individual, the race, and the cosmic con-
sciousness alike bring forth the dread cancer that
burns out the life of the nation.

Our Tendency to Yield to Suggestions of
Disaster.

How invidious are the temptations of our life
when the very individual who reads this may ex-
claim, "Yes, that is so. See what I have suffered
from the tongue and acts of others. They have
brought it upon me!" This is perhaps a natural
thought but a very dangerous one, for if it be true
that we must accept these things we are bound to
the chariot wheel of the most vulgar thinker among
us. This is incredible. We are children of choice.

The Emotional Self 73

We are rulers of this organism by right of that
divine freedom within us which determines what
thoughts and impressions shall be admitted to con-
sciousness. The conscious self is the gatekeeper
in the house of the lord of our life and can chal-
lenge all comers. "Who are you? What is your
purpose ? Do you bode ill or good ? Do you seek
to enslave me or to serve me?"

For we must realize that the feeling-life is not
objective but subjective. It is that which we dis-
cern as the greater body of the individual and
is primarily controlled by his mind. While, there-
fore, we are to guard against unconscious control
of our lives and fate from without, we are not to
lose sight of the fact that we of ourselves are con-
stantly initiating the causes which bring disease and
unhappiness upon us.

Emotions That Poison.

That intense emotions do create physical reac-
tions with startling suddenness is shown in the case
of those investigations which have been made in
examining the blood of people under the stress of
excitement of one kind or another. It is found
that the normal secretions of the body do not take
place but in their stead frequently some kind of
poison is distilled by the overwrought cells and
glands. Fear, anger, jealousy, hate, and so on,
each produce some form of substance poisonous
to the system.. A mother in fear or hate has been

74 Being and Becoming

known to poison the milk of her babe. Under
stress of worry, the stomach will often turn the
gastric juice to acid. An extreme of the reaction
of feeling upon the physical organs came to my
attention in the case of a woman who lost her sight
because she vehemently declared that she wished
she might never see her husband's face again. She
was afterwards healed through the science of
mind.

Cases of quite frequent occurrence have been
recorded during the centuries wherein religious
zealots through strong feeling have re-lived the life
and suffering of Jesus to the extent that they have
caused the mars and scars of his hands, feet and
side, to be reproduced on their own.

The Pains of Love.

Love that is unrequited or that is constantly vio-
lated in its finer instincts has a power of reacting
on the system with terrible force. A sort of stifling
takes place throughout the whole body. Shrinking
of the nerve cells, and a kind of congestion is felt ;
and a "soul-sickness" lays hold of one. When love
is hurt, feeling itself seems ready to die; and the
whole body and mind is plunged into a distraught
condition. The heart cries out against it, and
against the fate which love, more cruel than hate,
has prepared for the tortured soul. Here is where
the ministry of truth alone can soothe the broken
heart and restore lost confidence and hope. It is

The Emotional Self 75

a vast issue, for life is pitted against death, and
faith against bitter loss.

At first one should seek some change of interest.
Anything that will alter the thought life should be
sought. Service to others in hard straits of life
will often beguile a mind fastened on sorrow. Sym-
pathy for those who need our help will do much.
But for those who know the law more vigorous
measures are also desirable. One may as well face
the fact at once. There is nothing comes to us but
something in us brings it. We may not have con-
sciously brought it ; but here it is. Is the one from
whom we have received the all but mortal hurt
really our mate? If not, then it is best that things
should end between us. If so, then time or tide
cannot keep us forever apart. The boundless
reaches of time are vast enough to work out every
plan and purpose ; and no heart but sometime will
find its life complete. Firmly recognize that only
ourselves keep our good from us and only ourselves
draw our good to us ; and we are ready to act. Then
boldly lay claim on the law for the best that life
can give. When the perfect concept is formulated,
hold to it throughout every vicissitude of changing
times and at last the power of creative thought
through conscious choice will draw to us love's best
though now it seems to lie beyond the grave.1

Some day the clouds shall lift

And I shall see God's face there in the rift

*Jor the healing power of love, see Chapter XVII,

76 Being and Becoming

Psychic Disease.

We have thus seen that what we frequently call
the psychic nature opens us to the invasion of health
or disease, foi" the same feeling-life that takes the
imprint and contagion of disease is also open to
the contagion of good health and well-being. In
our practice as healers, too, we shall frequently
discover that the patient is not suffering from the
actual presence of physical disorders as in the case
of cancer, tuberculosis, anemia, and so on, but is
suffering from what is as yet only the psychic coun-
terpart. In other words, the feeling-life is dis-
tressed ; and the organ that is affected is only vibrat-
ing to the inharmony of the consciousness resident
within it. In such cases, we can often effect an
immediate cure through the removal of the thought
cause. This would be an instantaneous cure.
Where the physical organ has become diseased or
deformed, a slower reaction often occurs. This,
however, is not so much due to the difficulty of
changing the physical tissues as in changing the
thought or consciousness of the sufferer. The cell-
life is stamped with the image of disease, and we
must restore the perfect concept before the physical
change takes place. I have known of instantaneous
cures taking place so rapidly that growths have
slipped away bodily, or swellings have been reduced
so quickly as to cause a great itching and momen-
tary heat. In such case, the emotional life or con-

The Emotional Self 77

sciousness was immediately affected. This fre-
quently happens with children especially, because
they take the word of the healer on perfect trust,
and as faith is everything, verily it has its own
reward.

We are having some remarkable instances of the
physical effect of emotional experiences in these
days, on account of the abnormal psychology of
the battle-field. The close relation between mind
and body is continually being illustrated. Take
the case of men who through shell-shock or fear
have lost sight and hearing. In some instances,
these same men have had sight and hearing re-
stored by a counter fear. For example when the
hospital-ship which was bringing them home was
sunk, the need for sight or hearing in order to pro-
tect them from the new peril was so great as to
stimulate the creative activity so that they were
able once more to use their eyes and ears. Fear
acts in such cases as a strong image of desire, the
impact of thought is insistent; and the needed
power of the organ is instantaneously restored.

Mental science has not found it necessary to
make any wide discrimination between what is called
functional and organic disease because the same
power controls both and heals both. Disease is
simply the image of wrong-thinking sustained in
'consciousness until the deformed creation takes
place. Health is the right image acted upon in the
same way. It is probable, however, that a correct

78 Being and Becoming

diagnosis will help materially in case patient and
healer do not have a high state of consciousness or
faith. In that case the error of thought is success-
fully combated by higher knowledge; fear is re-
moved by a better understanding; and the true
concept of health is restored to the mind and the
afflicted organ. This is certainly true in psycho-
analytic practice. At the same time, we need never
stand abashed in the presence of any disease, be
it purely psychic or not. Spirit is all from one
end of the scale to the other; and faith and per-
sistency will heal. All disease is mental since all
is mind ; and organic troubles are simply the deeper-
seated habit of wrong concepts. Disease and health
are alike mental habits.

The Emotions of Health and Happiness.

It thus becomes clear to us that the emotional
or creative life is profoundly affected by our
thought and, being entirely neutral, goes on func-
tioning in the flesh according to the dominant idea.
It is just as true for health and happiness as it is
for the reverse. And as the majority of men think
healthful and hopeful thoughts, we find more well
people than sick ones, although almost every one
at some time or another opens himself to the in-
vasion of wrong thinking. Pride of achievement,
ambition, love, hope, faith, a general desire for
decency — these and many other qualities keep the
mind of the race largely occupied and are guaran-

The Emotional Self 79

tees against the false ideas and ideals of a lower
order of living. Whatever most fills the mind will
most govern the destiny whether it be high or low,
good or bad. We make our way through the world,
we build our hell or heaven, we crawl or soar, we
sink or swim by the choice of the thoughts that
daily swarm in the throne-room of the mind. There
within sits the Christ-self, master of life and hap-
piness. He alone passes final decree. His word is
law. The feeling-life, the creative intelligence
within, is his servant doing whatsoever his will
shall desire. Infinite in resources because heir of
the ages and one with the Eternal; possessing
powers transcendent and able to choose what he
wrill have, man passes through the world, selecting
what pathway of destiny he shall follow, what
mountains he shall climb, to what stars his soul
shall soar, through the selection of those things
that fill his mind and thus direct his creative con-
sciousness.

CHAPTER X.
CHOOSING WHAT WE WANT.

WE have now see*i that we live in the One
Mind which thinks what it wants and puts
forth into expression what it thinks. The
substance of the universe is intelligence or life on
the invisible side and the various forms are ideas.
On the visible side of nature, substance and form
are vibration or energy. But ideas are expressed
in the form of thought ; and thought is also energy,
so that the visible universe is God's thought. We
found, too, that Being thinks definite thoughts or
chooses what it wants. In this way, it acts in a
personal capacity. Then its Creative Activity
comes into play and makes what it chooses come
forth into form. In this way, it acts impersonally.
Being cannot be impersonal, but it can act imper-
sonally. By the courtesy of words, we may often
speak of Being or Mind as impersonal, as refer-
ring to its impersonal activity. Yet we shall lose
the very sweetness of life if we do not recognize
this fact : as Personal Spirit, God loves, feels, wills,
using the terms in the philosophical sense. God
does not love, feel, or will always exactly in the

80

Choosing What We Want 81

human way, except through the individual. As
the Absolute Person, He cannot love, feel, or will
in any way that would deny His absoluteness or
wholeness of vision. As impersonal law, He
creates whatever idea is selected either by Him or
another for creation.

If, now, we^will liken the ©ivine Creative Mind
in its impersonal capacity to the soil, we shall have
a good picture of the way the impersonal mind
works for us. In fact, the soil is the Universal
Creative Mind in one of its aspects, for it is the
impersonal mind functioning in vibration. Now
we all know that the soil has no personal will, or
purpose of its own. It is entirely impersonal or
neutral. It does not care whether God scatters the
seed as He may have done at the beginning of
the visible creation, or whether the tree scatters
it, or you or I. It will take your seed as quickly
as it will take mine. Again, it does not care
whether the seed given to it is one kind or another.
It does not, as impersonal mind, care what seed is
given it. It takes all seeds into its bosom with
equal love and care, and begins to- grow each thing
after its kind.

That which we call our subjective mind is one
with the universal impersonal mind, so that what-
ever seed of thought or idea we scatter in our mind
will take root there and grow impersonally. What-
ever thought is most strongly impressed upon this
mind will take the deepest root. That is why some

82 Being and Becoming

people are never sick. No thought of sickness has
ever deeply impressed itself upon their mind and
so the creative activity within has gone on normally,
continuously building a healthy body. There is
only a sense of well-being; and spirit accordingly
passes through into manifestation in perfect ex-
pression. It is a hard saying but true that we only
have to feel well to be well. Accordingly every
effort must be made to bring the feeling-life to the
point of quietness and ease, that the perfect work
of healing may go on, since the feeling-life and the
creative are one.

Using the Universal Impersonal Mind.

Now whatever is true of the individual imper-
sonal mind in the way of choice is also true of the
universal. For as there is in reality no point of
demarcation between the being which man is and
the Being which spirit is, so there is no point at
which the inner mind fails to contact the mind of
the infinite. Both minds act alike; they produce ac-
cording to the kind and strength of the thought or
idea impressed upon them.

On one point, however, we should exercise care.
We should never suppose that Being will act in
any way contrary to the law of its own nature.
For example, no amount of suggestion from us will
ever cause it to make water run uphill, or repeal
the law of the attraction of gravitation, or set the
sun back half an hour. Having once chosen a way

Choosing What We Want 83

of acting, this way is its law and Being goes on to
create in accordance with it. (See Chapter XIV,
page 115.) Yet this need never interfere with our
hopes and plans, for there is room for everything
we can desire within the scope of the law ; and each
one of these laws can be made our servant. Con-
forming ourselves to the law, we can harness the
water; we can depend upon the stability of things
that come through the attraction of the earth; and
we can employ the rays of the sun to grow our
gardens and to light our path. And each law is
thus transcended by adapting ourselves to it, as
in the case of flying, for example. Nor is it in-
conceivable that man shall learn how to avoid the
pull of attraction through higher knowledge; we
may yet fly without anything more than a good pair
of closet wings ; and a new Ford may rise to speed
us over the pathway of the skies.

But with this warning and encouragement, let
us see how we may legitimately hope to employ
the impersonal forces of the one and only mind in
which we find ourselves. Through recognition of
this unity, we may not only demonstrate over phys-
ical conditions of the body; but also, recognizing
that things are alive with intelligence, we may learn
how to govern them by the higher activity of our
own. Thus we may demonstrate or realize pros-
perity, or the reverse, for poverty comes in the
same way. The Greater Mind, being impersonal
and creative, and acting upon the image or impress

84 Being and Becoming

of prosperity or poverty, of joy or sorrow, as the
case may be, produces "according to our faith."

Impersonal Mind a Magic Mirror.

The great creative mind is like a mirror. It will
reflect back to us created just what we face it with.
Some of us would be very glad if the glass would
reflect back a more flattering face than the one
we give it. With an ordinary mirror, this is im-
possible. With the Cosmic it is the same; but, in
the case of the Cosmic, we may give it a fairer idea
of what we want. In other words, we can con-
ceive the perfect plan; and it will body it forth in
living flesh and tissue. This would be literally
true even of our faces. I have known of people
using this law to beautify the countenance. I said
so to a class at one time and declared that while
this was not a beauty parlor, yet it could do the
work of one. I said, "Any one can use the law and
become beautiful." One woman raised her hand.
"How long would it take?" she asked. I looked
at her — and did not answer! I did not know.
Nevertheless this should not be considered merely
a joke. Whatever concept of the beautiful you
may have will ultimately be bodied forth in the
face and form if you so decree. Every face is a
reflex of the thought-life behind it; and a good
psychologist can get a very straight idea of the
thought-life by even a casual glance at the features
in which it is registered. Our bodies are the aggre-

Choosing What We Want 85

gate of our thinking passed into form. "Whatso-
ever a man soweth that shall he also reap/' You
cannot sow onion seeds and reap a bouquet of sweet
peas. "Neither do men gather figs of thorns, nor
grapes of thistles," said Jesus, who knew. "Ac-
cording to your faith, be it unto you," he said.
Faith is an attitude of mind; it is the image of
expectancy you assume toward the law. Accord-
ing to its kind, the law gives back to you. If you
expect to be cheated, you will be cheated. If you
expect honesty, you will find it. The man who
runs around with a chip on his shoulder will meet
an Irishman on every corner. We get in this
world a return in kind. Says Lytton,

1 "Let any man once show the world that he feels
Afraid of its bark, and 'twill fly at his heels;
JLet him fearlessly face it, 'twill leave him alone
But 'twill fawn at his feet if he flings it a bone."

It is on this basis that our destiny is determined
by our attitudes of mind. He who faces the world
with good cheer and a smile, will see the world
smile back ; but he who faces it with a grouch will
hear its growl. The law is inexorable. Sooner or
later, it pays us back in kind — "an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth." Of it Jesus said, "Not
one jot or one tittle shall pass away until all be
fulfilled." In even the smallest matters, it works
with precision. What seeds of discord some are
now sowing. "Sowing to the wind they reap the
whirlwind !" How many are cursing themselves and

86 Being and Becoming

others. We hear some say on rising, "I suppose I
will lose money to-day." "I fear ruin for my busi-
ness." "Probably the rheumatism will bother me
to-day again. It's damp." "I expect people won't
understand me if I do this, even if it is right." And
the "thing we greatly fear comes upon us." Why?
Because we attract it! We have already damned
ourselves by expecting it. That was our "word" to
the law ; and it becomes flesh and dwells among us.
Our "word" is our image or the seed we sow.
If we sow words and thoughts of inharmony, we
must reap discord. As Jesus said in explaining the
parable, "The seed is the word." It falls into the
soil — or divine creative mind — and it "grows we
know not how." How choice then must we be of
our words! The Master Metaphysician said, "By
thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words
thou shalt be condemned." We must choose wisely
our words or attitudes of mind. We are told by
the poet:

Give love and love to your life will flow*
A strength in your utmost need;
Have faith, and a thousand hearts will show
Their faith in your word and deed.

For life is the mirror of king and slave,
Tis just what you are and do;
Then give to the world the best you have
And the best will come back to you.

The Law is a mirror. Choose wisely the image
of thought you give to it!

CHAPTER XL
PICTURING OUR GOOD.

IT is because of the infinite and accurate re-
sponsiveness of law that we are told by all
metaphysicians the value of forming our con-
cept or image of reality. Many teachers tell us
to visualize or mentally picture the thing we desire. 1/
But it is not so much a necessity to form the image
as it is to have the expectancy. The inner mind
of us will often mold the pattern, for "there is a
Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty
gives him understanding." The major necessity
is really not so much to picture the thing; as it is
to present the idea to the creative mind. "Before
they call, I will answer them. — For the Father
knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye
ask them." On many occasions I have made dem-
onstrations in prosperity where the result seemed
quite different from the anticipation — but better.
Why was this? It was because in all honesty we
were seeking the best. We did not know the abso-
lute best; but creative mind did. We presented to
creative mind the idea we wanted worked out ac-
cording to the best pattern we could make. And

87

88 Being and Becoming

as the artist sketches the idea which he wishes to
embody in a picture, and then paints it with a skill
beyond his first vision, so the Master Architect, the
Law, paints for us, or brings into objective mani-
festation for us the idea which we held up as the
"image" or "word" to it. This explains many
cases where the spirit of healer and patient is right,
even though their concept or image is apparently
faulty. The great creative mind reflects back to
us our coveted good — with its universal plus added
to it. Just as Jesus said of those who give gen-
erously, "Give and it shall be given unto you, good
measure pressed down and running over shall men
give into your bosom."

How to Use the Imagination for Creation.

It now becomes necessary to make even clearer
the principle of ideation of which we have been
speaking. We must learn to distinguish the activ-
ity of creative law through ideation as opposed to
concentration. We must learn the infinite superi-
ority of the one over the other, if we are to become
successful in the work of healing and helping hu-
manity. It is through the principle of ideation or
image formation that the Spirit creates or passes
itself into, manifestation. Being is becoming mani-
fest through the creative faculty acting on the pure
image which Spirit projects. When Spirit begins
to create a universe, it has at first no pattern by
which to guide its creation. It has no rose utter-

Picturing Our Good 89

ing its sweetness on the air; no bird a-twitter in
its leafy nest ; no star gleaming in the crystal blue.
It cannot have these as a pattern for they do not
exist as yet. It must therefore use its imagination ;
it must imagine a rose ; it must picture a star. And
so it does. In the vast chamber of Originating
Spirit, the divine canvas is unrolled; and the Great
Artist dreams forth the beau\y of the spheres.
Celestial visionings ! Glorified concepts ! Spirit
sketching-in a world! But whatever God Thinks
must become. Being at once begins its becoming;
and the great Law of Mind, which is its method
of activity, takes up the image and bodies forth
a world. This is the meaning of Genesis, "The
Spirit of God moved upon the waters." "Wa-
ters" is the esoteric term for the Law, or Creative
Mind. The divine idea impresses itself on the
Creative Mind; and a world passes out of spirit
into manifestation.

Man repeats the creative process. As spirit acts,
so he. He dreams a dream, and the creative forces
body it forth. He says, "Let this thing be;" and
it becomes. He does not make it; he accepts it.
See how it is all lifted out of the region of strug-
gle ! He does not have to say his beads, nor "do"
his affirmations, nor concentrate desperately upon
it. We have had people enter our office, with their
will "all screwed up to the sticking point," muscles
tense, teeth set, determined to see the thing through.
— If will can work, it surely will ! They have got

90 Being and Becoming

hold of a thought and are clinging to it like grim
death.

Not Will But Faith.

This form of concentration is to say the least,
unwise, whether practiced on oneself or another.
It acts on the supposition that the mind or will of
the individual is creating something rather than
controlling its creation. Indeed the will does have
some power ; but the minute the thought is diverted,
everything flies apart. Many become discouraged
after practicing this method for a time. Their
thoughts fly away from them; and they despair of
ever catching them again. They find a "good
thought," corner it, grab it by a wing — and it slips
out of their hands ! Away it goes ; and they after
it over the fence and through a hundred back-
yards! Finally it is again captured but only to
escape, until the wearied mind gives up the pursuit
and says, "I haven't will enough to do it." Yet
healing on this basis, that of the human will rather
than the Divine Mind, has been the only kind gen-
erally accepted by organized religion. This fact is
easily proven by reference to literature on the sub-
ject. The world has been slow to learn the lesson
the Master taught: "Take my yoke — the yoke of
the Spirit — upon you, and learn of me; — for my
yoke is easy and my burden is light." The way of
the Spirit is a better way. Concentration is not
your curative agent! "Of mine own self, I can

Picturing Our Good gl

do nothing." The creative mind within you, and
the creative mind in which you live, move and have
your being, does your work for you. Your part is
to formulate your idea and let the Law do the
rest. Suppose your mind does wander. If you
have formed a clear image of your desire and
turned it over to the law, and really believe the
law is working on it, and that you will get results,
your work is done.. "Commit thy ways unto the
Lord (or Law), trust also in Him; and He shall
bring it to pass." I have healed ^patients while they
were telling me their troubles ovfef the telephone
or passing out of a crowded room ITter a lecture.
How? Simply by believing the words* of the Mas-
ter. "Ye shall know the Truth ; and the Truth shall
set you free. And as the Father hath inherent
life in himself, so hath he given it to the son to
have inherent life in himself." "The Truth" is
the law of spirit's activity. Know that the creative
mind is on your job ; and "it shall be done unto you,
even as ye will." # #

Concentration vs. Ideation.

The difference between the method of "concentra-
tion" as an effort of will and "ideation" is that in
the former you feel you have something to do; in •
the latter you have something to be. For, the
moment you realize a thing to be true already in
Spirit, that moment it is. "Before they call, I
will answer them." This, too, is the meaning of •

92 Being and Becoming

the Great Teacher, "When ye pray, believe ye have
received; and ye shall receive." Believe that the
creative mind has taken up your case, believe that
in the absolute of being your desire is already real-
ized, believe that the perfect image or immaculate
conception of your mind has registered on the
Divine Mind, believe that the spiritual reality or
prototype now is, believe that if your vision were
keen enough you could now see the health of the
body or wealth of estate you crave. If it is a
house, that house now is, either on an objective
plane or in the finer ether, soon to manifest. "Hast
thou faith: only believe," these are the words of
the Teacher. Then because ye believe that your
good is yours, and that spirit has set it aside for
you already, "ye shall receive." Your good is on
the way! Being is becoming! Spirit is passing
through !

And now some one could object, I suppose, to
all this on the ground that it thrusts too much re-
sponsibility upon the individual. Are we not in
danger of making wrong choices and thus causing
the law to operate continuously upon our misshapen
images? Will we not constantly be setting forces
in motion which we cannot control and thus bring
upon ourselves the very evils which we would
avoid? And one must answer, "Yes," though I
would not admit it as a flaw in the divine order.
It is the very token of the sublimity of my own
soul that I can choose even hell if I want to. If

Picturing Our Good 93

heaven is to be thrust upon me, who is to thrust
it? Your kind of heaven might be hell for me.
A certain minister said that it would be heaven for
him to recline on a couch through all eternity and
have his wife ruffle his hair. "But," he added, "it
would be hell for her." And so it might. No, I
must be able to choose; and it is no choice at all
unless I can choose that which may not be at all
for my best good but rather for my worst.

It must be remembered that choice consists in
selecting for ourselves those combinations of things
and ideas which fit our own particular interest.
If we were without choice, we would also be with-
out individuality. Your individuality is different
from mine in just this respect, that you select a
different set of interests from mine. You prefer
a different type of friend; you enjoy games that
I do not enjoy ; you read different books ; you select
cake instead of cookies; and you would not per-
haps think it fun to bathe in the ocean in winter.
The things that interest each of us constitute a set
of ideas that are individual. Even were we to eat
the same food, breathe the same air, and drink from
the same well, we wrould not be alike. If Jack
Spratt and his wife had both eaten fat and both
eaten lean, Jack might have been fat while Mrs.
Spratt remained lean all of her life, because he
thought big jolly thoughts while she worried about
everything. She might have been a very thin
thinker.

94 Being and Becoming

So, of course, we may make mistakes in the se-
lection of our interests and the combination of
our ideas. In which case we would get into trou-
ble, for fear and faith amount to the same thing
in the end, in that each is an attitude of mind, an
idea which will bring to us manifest, just what we
have uttered into Creative Mind. The one we call
evil, because we do not like it; the other we call
good because we do.

But if we bring upon ourselves some deplorable
evil, what then? Why it comes; and we do not
like it; and we change our way of thinking. Ex-
pectancy and wrong choice brought it. Expectancy
and changed choice will remove it.

Theory of Denials.

Just here we may well consider the theory of
denials which play so much a part in the teaching
of some systems of thought. The theory is builded
upon the obvious fact that there is something in
experience which we do not like, which we call
evil. But as God is the All-Good, and there can-
not be anything outside of Him, then there cannot
be any real evil. It is only apparent. It is an
illusion of the mortal mind.

What is wrong in this argument? We have al-
ready seen that there can be only one mind and to
admit of any other mind that can experience any-
thing at all, is to admit a dual universe, even if we
go way round the bush and call it "mortal" or

Picturing Our Good 95

"human," "carnal," erroneous thought, cinema pic-
ture, illusion, lie, and all those other synonyms for
a second mind. And to say that the evil itself is
an illusion, is to say that we can experience an
illusion. In fact, to deny a thing is to Confess it,
for if we did not experience it, we would not know
anything about it. But if we can experience an
illusion of pain and evil, is that not just the same
thing as saying that we experience the pain and
evil? "A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet;" and evil by the name of illusion feels as
bad.

We have already seen, however, that whatever
we experience is the physical expression erf a super-
physical idea; that is, we bring forth in form just
what we conceive in thought. Our partial view of
things, our mistaken choices, have brought forth
the monstrosity at which we shudder. Clothed in
flesh, we perceive how wrong or vile was our
thought. But here it is in flesh or in circumstance !
What are we to do ? Forget what we do not want
and declare what we da want.

In cases where the thought cannot conceive the
perfectly rounded idea of health or prosperity on
account of the immediate circumstances of pain
or lack, it may sometimes help to state, "I do no
longer allow it. It shall not be." In this you do
not deny the (experience ; but you refuse any longer
to recognize it. I have a great friend, a powerful
healer, who tells me how she acted in her own case.

96 Being and Becoming

Being resolved to be free of her sickness, she felt
impelled to a vocal declaration, but lived in an
apartment where she could not make all the noise
she wanted to. So she cast herself on the bed,
buried her face in the pillow, drew another over
her to stifle the sound and yelled at the top of her
lungs, somewhat like this, "I won't be sick. I
won't be sick. I will not have it." These may not
have been her exact words ; but it was her thought ;
and it healed her.

The purpose is to get rid of the feeling one has
of suffering and sorrow and unhappiness and want,
and make way for the influx of health and all
other forms of good. This enables us to hold up
the clear image or feeling of the thing we desire,
and Creative Mind then has a clear pattern to work
upon to bring forth our idea into physical ex-
pression.

Thus we see that in this system of teaching there
is no room for denials at. all.1

For to state that we will not be sick or unhappy
is really an affirmation. To say that we will not
yield to the fear or danger in which we find our-
selves is not to deny that what is so# plainly evi-
dent to us is an experience, but to affirm that it
cannot "get us." So the Ninety-First Psalm does
not state that no one ever falls or suffers from
plague, but it does say, "It shall not come nigh

1See also pages 66-68, How to Develop Faith That Heals, by the
author.

Picturing Our Good 97

thee. Only with thine eyes [not in your own per-
sonal experience] shalt thou behold and see the
reward of the wicked. Because he hath set his
love upon me, therefore will I deliver him." De-
liver him from what ? Certainly not from an illu-
sion, but a real peril. "I will set him on high be-
cause he hath known my name."

It thus becomes clear that the determining factor
of our lives, whether for good or ill, is the con-
cept or idea which we hold. If our thought is
ever upward in expectancy, we shall ever draw to
us the finest and the best. If we picture the lovely
and true, and expect it, verily our faith shall have
its reward.

Note what we have said: "If we select our good,
and paint it in living colors of faith, it will come to
us!y Many there are who think good thoughts and
wish for the best to happen. Once in a while there
rises a man who commands it to appear; and it
does appear because he believes that it will come.

CHAPTER XII.
A DEFINITE METHOD FOR REALIZATION.

WE now see clearly enough that we live in
the midst of an All-Embracing Mind
which presses in upon us at every point
in the unseen nature of intelligence, and every-
where manifests in the forms of loveliness and
beauty, in the stupendous and awe-inspiring forces
of the earthquake and the storm. For God is God
of all and nothing can go on in the great cosmic
unfoldments apart from His will. He it was who
set the universes afloat in the vast sea of space ; and
He it is who drives three hundred thousand suns
through the measureless race-courses of the uni-
verse. There could not be an objective world of
stupendous and changing forces without the great
cataclysms of nature.

Yet man is to fear nothing in the midst of them,
for he can mount on the wings oi spiritual under-
standing; he can walk upon the waves of a chang-
ing world; he can pass unscathed through the tor-
rent and the flame ; he can escape from every peril,
through the mastership of his spirit. He can if he
zvill but choose. He must choose to depend upon

A Definite Method for Realization 99

the higher intuitions of his soul to guide his steps,
and the genius of his own mind to select that good
which he desires to manifest for him.

We see, therefore, that it is of tKe~~utmost im-
portance for us to understand that we live in a
world of law ; that substance is mind, and that the
determining factor is choice. God's choices are the
great cosmic ones; He does not interfere with
ours. In other words, God sets in motion great
laws by which the world and man is evolved. He
makes selection of definite lines of activity and
then goes on unfolding along those lines to the ulti-
mate conclusion. So regular is the operation of
his mind in these great operations that we may well
call it law, and depend upon it that it cannot be
broken. Jesus, the Master Teacher of the Law of
Mind, said, "Not one jot nor one tittle shall be
taken away from the law, until all be fulfilled." In
other words, the law is absolutely exact, and can
be depended upon to produce each thing after its
kind of thought.

The first step for us to take is to put the mind
in an attitude of expectant faith.1

We can make statements of our attitude, for
they inspire our confidence. They hold the mind
steady. They keep the image or idea clear. They
assert our faith. As a man whistles to inspire his
own cheer, so we say to ourselves, "Cheer up, it's

1See Lesson III, "How to Use the Law— the Silence," in The
Law of Mind in Action, by the author.

100 Being and Becoming

all coming out all right." "Cheer up," said Jesus,
"thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace." State-
ments of truth are always helpful in inspiring our
confidence and expectancy, unless we turn them
into magic formulas and phrases, when they lose
most of their power. Words are designed to pro-
duce a corresponding feeling on the inner plane;
if they fail to do this, they have no value. In so
far as they succeed in doing this, however, they
have creative value. It is because words almost
invariably engender feeling that we are to guard
against their idle use. The purpose of statements
is to lead us into realization of the truth that is
to make us free.

We must rid the mind of any sense of struggle,
for if we plant the seed the soil will do all the
work for us. "The seed is the word ;" and the soil
is Creative Mind. We cannot grow the flower.
God blooms the rose. "Paul plants; Apollos wa-
ters ; but God giveth the increase."

We must then realize that all conscious mental
effort is not so much to be turned to the acquire-
ment of things as to establish in ourselves a con-
sciousness or mental attitude of expectancy. And
no matter what process may be essential to reach
this consciousness, still, in the end, this is some-
thing that we cannot do without. For conscious-
ness is the deep-seated perception of reality! In
the end, there is but one thing to do : — to believe
that what we want will become manifest for us;

A Definite Method for Realization 101

and then to state definitely and positively what we
want.

Good exists in two forms, the good that lies
within the bosom of the Father as an eternal pos-
sibility, but unmanifest and undifferentiated; and
the good that we choose. Before we choose, it is
a universal concept. After we choose, it is an
individual concept and becomes an individual pos-
session.

Being in the Process of Becoming.

The word is made flesh and dwells among us,
only after we speak the word. So the second step
will be for us to declare what we want. This is
our choice. For practical purposes, I have found
it especially desirable in severe cases to establish
the practice of lying down immediately after lunch-
eon or dinner or both, and then to realize the truth.
At this time, spirit in the form of food, drink,
and air begins to pass into physical form and en-
ergy. If one will be quiet and realize that spirit
is thus passing into another manifestation, that
being is becoming, and will thus impress this idea
firmly upon his own consciousness, the physical
body will respond to his mental equivalent and
health will be the result. In cases of so-called in-
digestion and dyspepsia and those ailments which
most readily reflect mental states, this method has
secured especially quick results, for the stomach
is a perfect mirror of the mind. Indigestion and

102 Being and Becoming

colds, being due to chaotic thought and worry, are
easily healed by the calm and poise 6f one who
rests for a moment in the infinite realities of Spirit.
"In quietness and confidence shall be my strength/'
"My health cometh from the Lord, which made
heaven and earth." "Thou wilt keep him in per-
fect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee." The
realization of Spirit — myself as Spirit, my body,
my conditions and my world — is the whole aim of
metaphysical treatment. Let this once be accom-
plished and man stands forth, an immortal, glori-
fied and glorious, god to his own world, at one
with the infinite harmony. Life swells to its banks
with, the tides of a divine joy; and .man rises to sit
on the throne of his being. Being has in him be-
come.

CHAPTER XIII.

USING THE LAW OF IMPERSONAL MIND
IN THE CASE OF PROSPERITY.

MANY believe in the power to demonstrate
over the body without being able to un-
derstand the control of circumstances, en-
vironment and prosperity. Of course, this rises
out of a limited understanding of the law with
which we deal. Many books have been written
which have become acceptable to large numbers
of ultra-orthodox people because they teach the
"power of -mind over the body" without admit-
ting too wide a divinity to that mind, as if indeed
it were a reflection upon God that He had endowed
man with such vast power as the metaphysician
claims for him. Such books assume that the crea-
tive mind in men is quite apart from the creative
mind of the Infinite. This creative, subjective mind
can be understood to control the physical organs
which are under its immediate direction, through
nerve and neurone, through cell and tissue, "by
suggestion," and by the "new method" of which
we have already spoken. According to this theory
there are many minds, — not only many objective

103

104 Being and Becoming

expressions of mind, but many subjective or imper-
sonal minds. What, then, will these say when we
affirm that there is only one such mind, and that it
is not I — the individual that speaks — "it is my
Father dwelling in me ; He doeth the works."

This is the teaching of the Great Healer; and
it is a great and glorious concept. There are not
two minds ; there is only one. The mistake of sup-
posing that there are two minds has been the error
of the ages. But we have seen that Spirit or Mind
is one ; and "beside Me there is none other." This
being true, the mind which I call mine and which
directs the physical activities of my body is the
same Mind that rules the stars — not all of that
Mind, nor yet a part of that Mind but that Mind
acting in me as individual. We may get a figure of
how this is, in the weather. I speak of the weather
here in Los Angeles, as I look out upon nature's
beauties, with the sun bursting through clouds, only
to be covered again by the. drifting fogs. Nature
is in many moods to-day and shows her infinite vari-
eties ; but the weather in Los Angeles is not a part
of the weather, nor yet is it the whole of the
weather. It is just weather. My mind with its
infinite capacities and varied moods is just Mind
— "one with the Infinite Mind." This being true,
I, as an individual, am in contact with universal
Mind. We must not forget that Universal Mind
or Spirit is not only present as Intelligence in all
and a Life in All, but also literally is the All ; and

Using the Law of Impersonal Mind 105

all nature is alive. Whatever activity, therefore,
is displayed in mind, whether it be myself or the
universal that thinks, must be felt all over, must
register all over. Just as a word spoken into the
air goes out and out in ever-widening vibrations,
so my word or thought in mind goes out and out
through all mind. And what is true or felt to be
true in my mind must be true in* every individual-
ized consciousness^ at all times, and everywhere.

Accordingly if I wish to make a demonstration
for prosperity, I must realize that "my word shall
not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that
which I please and it shall prosper in that whereto
I sent it." My word is my thought, my desire,
spoken into Creative Mind, and "according to my
faith it shall be done unto me."

The Law of Spirit.

In making a demonstration for prosperity, there-
fore, I must realize that I am speaking into the
only mind there is, and backed by the only power
there is. The Law of Spirit is back of me. What
is this law? It is the creative mind acting with-
out reservation to create upon the image or idea
which it has presented to itself. For in me, Spirit
or Mind has 9tarted a new center of activity around
which its creative forces are to work. To be sure,
I, the individual conceive it, but who am I? I am
an individualized center of Spirit's own conscious-
ness. In me, seeking Its fulfillment, Spirit has be"

106 Being and Becoming

gun Its work from a new level. As I think, Spirit
thinks; indeed Spirit is thinking through me; and
when there comes to me some lofty thought which
sets me all aglow with creative feeling — and there
is no higher joy than that of creative thought — I
know that Spirit has found an outlet for itself
through me. This is why one's greatest endeavor
must be to harmonize himself with God, for when
divine accord has been secured and we are in tune,
Spirit can most easily make us the instruments of
its advanced thinking. Who is an advanced thinker ?
Who is an illumined soul ? The man who, by thor-
ough preparation of his soul, has made himself an
instrument through which God can easiest and
oftenest manifest to the world.

Mental Equivalents.

Are we then to say that the best way to obtain
prosperity is without business method? Certainly
not. What we do say is that we can have only
those things to which we can bring a mental equiva-
lent. Have I a mind that corresponds to this posi-
tion? If so, I may expect to hold it. Do I feel a
capacity for this work? Then I may have it.
What gives me what I want, then, is my mental
equivalent, so that what I must seek, at whatever
cost, is a mental correspondent, a mind that matches
my desired good.

If I can get this mental equivalent, if I have the
f^ith to gee myself in possession of what I want

Using the Law of Impersonal Mind 109

lent to those for whom we work, or are giving a
mental equivalent to Spirit, and are fulfilling its
desire of acting through us, we shall find It "more
ready to give than we are to receive!" For many
of my patients I have tal^en liberties with Bur-
rough's poem, and given them this :

"Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The good I seek, is seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray
Or change the tide of destiny."

Spirit is seeking to manifest itself as our good.

One who has had much practice in acquiring a
mental correspondent does not need much time to
make a demonstration. He "knows ;" and that fin-
ishes it. But we all find it necessary to go through
the period when "just to know," is not so easy.
We need argument. We need to see, reason, feel
and understand. For this reason I often treat pa-
tients orally before holding the silent realization.
This helps them to a mental attitude and often heals
the sick. Indeed, many are cured by simply being
told the why of things. Ignorance begets unwhole-
someness ; understanding restores the wholeness.
Any one can get results by securing a realization in
some such a manner as this :

Centering the Thought for the Realization of
Prosperity.

Sit in the silence and meditate upon the fact that

110 Being and Becoming

all is Spirit. Even the things I see are spirit in
Form. So-called "matter" is only a form of spirit.
Spirit is intelligence so these things are full of in-
telligence. I am spirit; and one phase of spirit can
have contact with another. The highest center of
spirit can rule the lower. So I am ruler over these
things or thought-forms. Difficulties, get out of
the way! You have no real power. I take all
your power away fr6m me. (Go on in this way if
you feel the need, pulling out all the roots of your
wrong thinking and fear.) Now I know that all
is spirit. I am glad that all is spirit and mind is
everything. So now I open up my mind to receive
this good (mention the desired object) that I want.
I have a place for it. I have a right to it. Father,
I accept it from Thy hand. Spirit of love, you can
express this to< me now. I am ready to receive it.
I am glad for it. I give thanks for it. It is good
to know that Thou, O Divine Giver, carest for me
enough to give it. Yes, for me "every good and
perfect gift cometh from the Father, with whom
there is no variableness, neither shadow of turn-
ing." It is so good to know that Thou dost not
change, that Thy law is perfect and dependable,
that I can have this good (mention it) because
Thou givest according to my faith. And now I
know Thou hearest me always ; and my faith does
not waver. Out of Thy hand, my good now comes,
I receive it now, I thank Thee now,

CHAPTER XIV.

SUMMARY OF LAW OF IMPERSONAL
MIND.

WE can well illustrate the whole process of
being as it is becoming manifest, or the
passing of Spirit into form, in the prin-
ciple of the stereopticon. The light represents
Spirit or the Originating Source, or First Cause or
Being. The slide or plate with the picture on it
represents the point of transition in which the
undifferentiated light begins to differentiate itself.
It must be remembered that the light is the same
whether it be at the source, the center, or the end
of the series. It is light always. Spirit is spirit
always; no matter what form it may assume. But
just as the prism will refract the rays of the sun
into the cardinal colors and cast the rainbow on
our desk so the slide in the lantern will mold and
form the light into the very form it will manifest
on the screen. The slide represents our thought,
idea, or image. What we choose, what we desire,
what we expect, what we fear, what we believe in
— these are the thoughts which mold and fashion
being as it passes into manifestation in our lives.

Ill

112 Being and Becoming

The Will.

The lens by which the rays of light from the pic-
ture are concentrated represent the will. Using
the word will as meaning choice, we find that we
have the ability to choose what we shall hold as an
image of thought. Using it as meaning concentra-
tion, we find that we have the gift of will or de-
termination which keeps the mind "one-pointed"
until all be fulfilled. The light, then, which is Crea-
tive Mind, will keep working upon the model of our
thought only so long as we hold the model before
it. Being infinitely creative and impersonal, it will
take any idea and begin to construct accordingly;
and every word we speak and every thought we
think is backed up by that power. It is the purpose
of the will to insist that the mind shall hold on to
its desire and its purpose until spirit has passed
into the desired form.

The Manifestation.

The picture on the screen corresponds to matter,
body, conditions, form. It is being become mani-
fest. It is spirit occupying space and time. "Mat-
ter is spirit at its lowest level." So while we dis-
tinctly see a real picture on the screen, still the
substance of it is light or spirit. How absurd to
call it illusion since it partakes of the eternal sub-
stance and will persist so long as the thought per-
sists. And if thought is not real, then nothing is

Summary of Law of Impersonal Mind 113

real ; and God is not real. I cannot conceive of God
without thought. What I conceive is also His con-
ception, since we are one ; and as impersonal mind
He acts for me as my creative power. So what-
ever I conceive will be registered on the screen,
that is, in my body and in my affairs.

Where Faults and ErrcJrs Lie.

Now if the picture is faulty, what do we do?
Do we say it is not there, merely because, we do not
like it ? No. Do we try to rub it out ? No. We
know that it is an effect produced by an antecedent
cause. So when bodies are sick, and poverty shows
its gaunt face, if we are wise we do not seek the
remedy in the effect, by beating the poor body,
pounding, or drugging it, or by rushing more madly
into the world of competition and financial struggle
to right our affairs. We are looking to- the light and
"if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full
of light." So we center our whole thought upon
the idea with singleness of purpose.

Where, then, do we find the cause of the inhar-
monious picture? Not at the beginning of all do
we find the error. The light is all right; spirit
is one hundred per cent perfect. It is perfect as
substance all the way through. There is only one
other place to look and that is at the slide or
thought, where light or spirit begins its transition
into form. Here we find the error. We have a
faulty image. Our conceptual faculty has been too

114 Being and Becoming

low. Our pattern was imperfect. The light had
to take the medium we provided; Spirit or Crea-
tive Mind, "shining on the just and the unjust"
with equal impartiality, has passed through into
manifestation. Spirit cannot do otherwise. To re-
fuse its light to any one is to deny to such an one
his individuality or power of self-choice, and thus
to defeat its own ends. For man is a purpose of
God; he is the object of Divine love; and in him
Love seeks its own fulfillment. So it must have the
love we choose to give it ; or it cannot have love at
all.

Conclusion of Study of Impersonal Mind.

We have thus studied the process of a demon-
stration when it is made from the standpoint of
Law acting under the impulse of our own thought.
In this method, Mind acts as the receptive and
creative agent; but our own thought gives it its
initial movement in our affairs. Our choice is all
the will it has as impersonal mind. Thus the en-
lightened soul performs a godlike act when he sim-
ply proposes to himself that his soul shall realize
the divine mind at work upon his problem, and
then chooses the pattern which it shall follow for
his health, his supply, and his happiness. When
the inspired mind of the individual reaches this
point, he has learned how to pass over to spirit all
the weight of labor. He foregoes all struggle for
he calmly voices his idea and knows that spirit not

Summary of Law of Impersonal Mind 115

only will work things out for him to the definite
conclusion, but is now working them out. Being is
becoming manifest for him. #

What We Think All Day, Counts.

While we may seek moments for quiet realiza-
tion of the deep things of life and for concentrated
thought upon any idea, yet we are not to suppose
that the attitude of mind for merely half an hour
will determine the issue. It is what we think all
day that counts ; and we can carry on all the mental
activity while we are about our other affairs, if we
wish. Our thought must be continuously right if
our manifestations are to be so. We cannot ex-
pect Being to continue to pass through our thought
into expression if we choke up the channel. To
choke the channel is to make another choice; and
spirit will begin to work on the new idea, whether
it is for our good or not. w ^i

Finally we would caution those who are always
turning to the creative mind for things only always
impressing it for something. There is nothing
wrong in the act itself, for the law is our servant;
but its reckless use may lead to a sort of callousness
to higher emotions and then degenerate into fakir-
ism or worse. It may finally lead to black magic,
which is the destructive use of the law., Or, with
even honest minds, it may create the habit of think-
ing of mind as merely a delightful grab-bag from
which something is to be extracted all of the time.

116 Being and Becoming

This is fatal to the finer instincts ; and it is in order
to avoid this that we are told by no less a teacher
than the Great Master, "Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness; and all these things
shall be added unto you." In other words he recog-
nized, as we must, that creative mind is personal
as well as impersonal; and we must seek to align
ourselves with its onward movement and higher
purposes if we are to realize the perfect joy of
being. We have already considered the impersonal
nature of mind; let us in the succeeding chapters
consider it as personal.

PART II.

BEING AS THE PERSONAL SPIRIT.

CHAPTER XV.
THE GOD WHO HEARS US.

WE have all had experience of God as the
Personal Spirit. There is no one of us
who has not at one time or another turned
his face away from everything that earth can prom-
ise or threaten, and looking up, has declared, "O
God, all this is nothing if there is not something
bigger than this and beyond it." Or like David,
we can say in the midst of trouble, "I cried unto
the Lord ; and he heard me and delivered me out of
all my distress." And even he who "cries out
against God and dies" has a sense of God as per-
sonal, but entirely unjust, responsible for the pains
he bears.

It is not so difficult to appreciate the personal na-
ture of God as it is to prevent the mistaken idea
that God acts within the limits of human person-
ality as it is ordinarily conceived. You or I, for
example, often feel ourselves impelled by circum-
stances to do something that we would have pre-
ferred not to do. Necessity seemed laid upon us
though this really comes as the consequence of pre-
vious choices. But God acts with perfect freedom

119

120 Being and Becoming

though always within the law of His being — that
is, His choices never embarrass Him afterwards
though He Himself cannot violate His own law
or even be conceived of as desiring to do so. Again
we have only a limited knowledge of things so
that we often make mistakes through the partial-
ness of our knowledge. This brings unhappiness,
sickness, and poverty. But God must know all in-
tuitively and at once. Beginning and end are one
with Him. Then we think of our self as distinctly
different from other selves and in a sense apart
from them so we hate some and love others. But
God, as the Absolute Self, must include us within
Himself and could not think of Himself as apart
from us but only a part with us. We, as selves,
have a sense of time and space. In Absolute Be-
ing, there can be no time nor space, because space
denotes that which is limited, and time denotes that
which is incomplete; and God is fully conscious
of freedom and completeness.

What we have just said refers to God, of course,
as an unique self. And by this I mean a self that is
conscious of itself as a unit. If God can think of
Himself as a unit, then He can think of Himself
as a person. So we cannot get away from the fact
if we would, and we would not if we could, that
God is He who has a heart of tenderness, a mind
of love, a nature of wisdom, a power that can
execute His commands. He knows and loves us.

It Ts apparent, therefore, that while God shares

»»- ' ■-•■•

The God Who Hears Us 121

in our experience of thinking, feeling and willing,
still He is never limited as we are. He knows all
that is necessary to be known to answer our every
problem. He loves us enough to want to answer
it. He has sufficient direct contact with us to make
His will effective. "He is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all we ask or think," said the
Great Apostle.

We must therefore insist on thinking of God in
a complete way, not in a partial, for otherwise we
should return to the old way of attributing to Him
likes and dislikes, sometimes willing us good and
at others sending us evil. Note these two .facts
and we shall avoid further trouble : First, Give to
God every attribute of personality that will not in-
terfere with His absoluteness; purpose, thinking,
willing and feeling are His : second, nothing in the
personality of God should ever be construed as de-
nying personal choice to the individual; He be-
comes even more impersonal to our will and choice
than our friends do; and His purposes are so vast
as to constitute law which we can depend upon as
never opposing a will to our ozvn. Let us therefore
mention the three ways in which God is personal
and how His personal nature differs from our own.

God as the Personal or Absolute Self.

The essential qualities of personality are purpose,
the power to think, and the power to choose. Per-
sonality is often used to mean individuality in its

122 Being and Becoming

narrower sense and to convey the idea of charm
of manner or its reverse. But its true meaning
must be primarily to indicate that by which one is
constituted as a self, the persistent I, the ego that
lies back of everything I do and think. An ego is
a thinking self. God is such. He is personal in
that He can and does choose what He shall do, and
when and where and how He shall do it. He
conceived the whole scheme of the visible crea-
tion. He planned the vast system of interrelated
worlds, and the entrance of man onto the stage of
human life; He chose definite areas within the
reaches of space wherein He should set universes
to evolving, and suns to light the farthest reaches
of time. He started these suns on their ageless
journey, and fed the universe with energy to sus-
tain them in their courses.

It is quite impossible to have an effective im-
personal mind without the personal, whether it be
in the case of God or of man, as we have already
seen. For we saw that it is of the nature of the
impersonal mind to act only on the ideas given to
it. Once give the idea or thought to this mind;
and it will take the suggestion and go on creating
indefinitely. So persistent is its activity that we
may count on it from age to age and call it law.
Such a law we perceive in the very movement of
the planetary bodies of which we have just spoken.
There is the law of the attraction of gravitation,
of centrifugal and centripetal force. These and

The God Who Hears Us 123

other laws seem to be in the eternal order or pur-
pose; but they sprang out of the personal choice
of Being, at the beginning of time, since Creative
or Impersonal Mind can act only on the idea first
presented to it. In order to set its impersonal crea-
tive forces to work, therefore, Spirit had first to
choose the ideas and things It wanted made. In so
choosing, It was personal. Thus It is the Personal
Choosing Self that presents these ideas and to that
extent God is personal.

It is for this reason that we speak of the Abso-
lute Being as He. Of course, the term is not de-
signed to indicate gender but only Person. We
simply put into words an idea through the best
medium we have and speak of God as He. Our
inner concept of father is not that of gender, but
only of protecting love, and so we speak of God
as our Father. "Our Father which art in heaven."
"Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things ye
have need of before ye ask them." "It is my
Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
He is "the Father of mercies and the God of all
comfort." These are the words of inspired seers
who felt this personal nature of God and were
conscious of the Divine Presence.

Yet right here we must 'ware the mistake of the
ages in endowing God with those impossible per-
sonal attributes which have made of Him a human
idol. So much vaster is His personal self and
nature than our own that to us all His acts are by

124 Being and Becoming

the law of His being. He has set forces into opera-
tion which are as impersonal as the forces of our
own subliminal self. These are under our control
so far as we have the understanding to use them.
These forces of life, love, wisdom, truth, beauty,
supply, and so on, are God acting as impersonal
mind; and our self, acting as personal, can use
them even as God's self, acting as personal, can
use them. Moreover, God will never interfere with
our use of them. We may choose wrongly, and be
hurt; we may indeed destroy ourselves physically
with our choice.

In this, God will not interfere. We need never
fear that His will is opposed to our own. In our
personal affairs, God does not will at all. He places
the law at our disposal and becomes our wisdom if
we ask it. He will not force His wisdom upon us.
If a man ask bread, he will get bread; if he ask
fish he will get fish ; if he ask for a stone, he will
get a stone. In other words, the personal nature
of God cannot be construed into any concept of
God which interferes with our personal freedom
and choice. And this the student should carefully
note. Otherwise he will have a fickle deity, not
because God is fickle but because He becomes to
us a response to our thought. If we think that
things come by the chance good-luck of His favor ;
then that is our law; if on the other hand we be-
lieve that He is not personal at all, then the uni-
verse presents to us a hard and pitiless mechanical

The God Who Hears Us 125

machine. Let us recognize in God, then, the power
of self -direction and initiation in the larger affairs
of His splendid plan without thinking of Him as
having, with respect to ourselves, purposes con-
trary to our own. In the matter of choice and love
even God must not interfere, otherwise we are His
puppets and unworthy of His love, and our love
for Him is a hollow dream. He might as well love
a stone.

The Personalness of God.

We shall find, in the second place, that in God
are the diffused qualities of personality from which
our own individual ones are drawn. We could not
derive them if they were not inherently in Him,
just as one could not draw salt from the sea unless
it were there in solution. There is no thought that
has ever come to man that did not once lie within
the undifferentiated substance of the eternally pos-
sible. Every word we utter, every invention we
make, every statue we carve, must lie as potential
thought or idea within the Infinite Mind. So you
and I could not have the personal qualities which
we have unless they first lie latent in the Divine
and Perfect Life. Whatever qualities we may
have of personality, must have welled up from the
Infinite Personal Life. Hearing, seeing, smelling,
tasting, sense of touch, thinking, feeling, willing,
loving, imagining, are possessions of the personal
life; but they emerge from Him since He is all.

126 Being and Becoming

So what Troward calls the "personalness of Spirit"
constitutes the personal nature of Him from whom
all things proceed.

God Individualized as Person.

But it is through us that God becomes most dis-
tinctly personal. He puts these qualities of His
"personalness" into each of us, or rather He be-
comes each of us, while at the same time retaining
His powers and attributes. God rises to the high-
est self-expression in us. It is for this reason that
any one of us might rather wish to be what we are
— God in the individual — rather than to be God in
the universal sense. For in our objective, personal
self, God has ventured on His greatest quest. He
is having the fun of choice in the individual un-
foldment of life with all its unknown factors and
its possible allurements.

We are therefore distinctly purposes of Being.
For it is of the very essence of personality to pur-
pose, to initiate and to select ; and one does not start
anything nor choose it without relation to a plan.
Spirit, therefore, has purposes which it designs to
work out both for and in the individual. This re-
veals Spirit as acting in just the opposite character
of the Impersonal Mind of which we have said
so much. In that, we found Being acting as the
receptive and creative agent. In this, we find it as
the active agent.

,

The God Who Hears Us 127

The Purpose of Spirit.

To deny that Spirit has purpose and intention of
its own is to lose contact with It at Its highest and
most delightful level, for to deny this is to remove
all sense of relationship to that purpose and thus
to cut ourselves off from receiving its benefit. The
purpose of Spirit is to express — from ex and primo,
to press out — the Life, Love and Wisdom which It
feels within Itself. The whole end and aim of
creation is manifestation. This is the ultimate.
And the individual personality, you and I, play
our part in Spirit's self-expression. We are not
apart from, but a part of, Its unfoldment. This
beautiful truth reveals man as playing a high role
in Love's fulfillment. Ancient is the saying, "God
made the world for his own enjoyment." If so,
man is not so much designed to use Spirit as to
be used of Spirit. Spirit would enjoy Itself in us ;
and we must learn our part in this great scheme.

The Motive, Love.

We must first of all, then, perceive Spirit's pur-
pose, if we are to work with It. It can have but
one, self-expression; but it may take many modes
of activity. And back of it all must be one su-
preme impulse, love. The bosom friend of the
Master says, "Every one that loveth is begotten
of God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God,

128 Being and Becoming

for God is love. . . . No man hath beheld God at
any time: if we love one another, God abideth in
us ; and His love is perfected in us : hereby we
know that we abide in Him and He in us because
He hath given us of His Spirit." The presence of
love then is a token of the indwelling of the Spirit;
and in the expression of this Spirit, we link our-
selves into the great creative purpose, and become
one with the Infinite Life. We lose all sense of
separation, and merging ourselves in the ocean of
the perfect Life, Love and Supply, we pass from
death to life, from the cottage to the palace of
the King. It is infinitely worth while then to
study Spirit from the standpoint of Its purpose
and motive.

CHAPTER XVL
THE GOD WHO LOVES US.

SPIRIT'S motive, we say, is love. What is
love? Love is the union of two kindred
things. It is that completeness which comes
from this union. I care not where you look, you
will find life incomplete without such a union. The
whole visible universe is but the outer manifestation
of this inner principle. It is shown in the chemical
affinity of the atoms. Without this drawing to-
gether of kindred things, all material substances
would fly apart and pass into chaos and incomplete-
ness. In the vegetable world, we perceive the pres-
ence of this principle. The seed-bearing plant can-
not give birth to another plant until the female
flower is fecundated by the male. Long before sex
organs were discovered in the plants, the ancients,
as in Egypt, recognized the separate sexes of the
plant. Heroditus says the Babylonians knew it
and suspended male clusters of dates taken from
the deserts over the female dates to fecundate
them.

One does not need to illustrate further. All na-
ture proves the presence of the principle of love,

129

130 Being and Becoming

or the union of two kindred things to form a real
completeness. We must see then that Originating
Spirit shares the nature of Its Creation. It, too,
must be Love, for there cannot be an expression
without an expresser, no love without a lover. God
is love.

Spirit therefore seeks Its own completeness by
passing Itself out into individual expression in man
whose first nature is love and then finding Its own
completeness in enjoying that love. The motive
of creation is Spirit's self-realization in love.

Spirit has, consequently, a further purpose, — to
continuously evolve a higher and still higher in-
dividual upon which it can pour out fuller and
ever fuller measures of Its love and life. For
Spirit is infinite in its potential; and, having once
started, it carries on to the nth degree. To learn
how to swing into harmony with this divine pur-
pose is the end and aim of all true teaching. For
once we are in the current, It of Itself will bear us
on Its bosom to those islands of the blest where
Love and Life await us and where we may spend
our days in the never-ending joy of the complete
life and the divine companionship. "And I saw a
new heaven and a new earth : for the first heaven
and the first earth are passed away ; and the sea is
no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, made ready
as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard
a great voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the

The God Who Loves Us 131

tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell
with them, and be their God; and He shall wipe
away every tear from their eyes: and death shall
be no more: neither shall there be mourning, nor
crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are
passed away."

This is a perfect picture of that state in which
man finds himself when he is identified with the
purpose of Spirit. Love has found in him its ful-
fillment; and life has found its completeness. We
can escape unhappiness, pain, and poverty, in no
way so easily as this — the identification of our pur-
pose with that of the divine. We do not have to
struggle nor to make anything. We only have to
be something — at one with the Infinite Spirit.

Wouldst thou find pardon for all thy transgression —

Peace from thy battles and strife?

Make thou the Peace of the Lord thy possession,

Make thy self one with His life.

More life, more life,

Ye who shall seek it shall find

More love, more love,

One with the Infinite Mind.

Making Our Unity.

The question then arises, "If all our good comes
from this unity with life, how is the union to be
accomplished ?" And the answer is, you do not
have to accomplish it; you only have to recognize
it. It already Is. Separation is only apparent. It

132 Being and Becoming

never really was anyway. You have nowhere to
go outside of the Infinite Mind. There is no out-
side. You only thought you were outside.

At the same time, the Divine Life and Love has
no reality for you until you recognize it. "Behold
I stand at the door and knock. If any man will
open, I will come in." You are the gate-keeper;
and your door will never be forced. The Father
comes out to meet the returning prodigal; but He
does not drive him in. In reality, the Son never
got out of the Father's love. He only thought him-
self out; and all he had to do was to think him-
self in. He thus came to himself.

Our object then is to find our own completeness
in love, and to give Spirit its completeness in our
love. We are to recognize Spirit as love, and turn
our love-side to it, not merely our mind-side.

When this has been done, we shall also find the
great secret of healing power. For if Love, Life,
and Beauty are the symbols of completeness, then
their opposite is incompleteness or the lack of these
qualities, or fear, death, ignorance, want, and pain.
Then to heal disease it is not necessary to tinker
with the effect which is due to a lack of something,
but to supply the deficiency. Disease is due to a
negative factor; and we heal it by supplying the
positive factor — love. This is the principle a man
would act upon if he had an empty reservoir. He
would not talk about its emptiness, complain about
its stagnant odor, nor bewail its unsightliness. He

The God Who Loves Us 133

would simply open up the channel to the heights
and let the water flow in. How simple the process
— "Let" or allow the water to flow in ! The empty-
pool is filled without effort. The effect is changed
by the cause. How well the Great Teacher under-
stood this! "On the last day, the great day of
the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, 'If any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He
that believeth in me, as the scripture hath said,
from within him shall flow rivers of living water/
But this spake he of the Spirit which they that
believed in him were to receive." He is speaking
of the great inner self when he says "me," for we
are expressly told that he spoke of it in relation to
the Spirit. So we have a further picture of the
glory of man's nature and the healing process. If
any man will open the pipes at the bottom of the
pool, the water or the Spirit will fill it like a spring.
The word "Spirit" as it occurs in the Greek text
is "psyche" which also means "life." If, then, we
are to be rid of death and disease and "lack," we
have only to let Life flow in from the inner springs
of our being. And the touchstone to Divine Life
is Love.

I breathe the life and love of God,

The spirit-raptured air,
And feel the thrilling, vibrant force

Of Him whose ardent care
Enfills the whole :
I breathe His life as one who quaffs

134 Being and Becoming

From out the sacred cup,
Who drinks the wine of God, the Vine;
For, as he turns it up,
God fills the bowl.

I thrill anew with health and peace,

While through my vejns asurge
There flow the full-breathed tides of health

That cleanse, inspire, and purge
From pain and strife:
I breathe more deep the pranic air,

Drink deeper still the bowl;
For as I drink, from Life's full brink,

God fills my thirsty soul
With His own life.1

lSongs of the Silence, by the author.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE GOD WHO HEALS US.

LOVE therefore is the great healing power. It
is its absence that causes incompleteness or
disease. It is its presence that causes health
or wholeness. Love is completeness or wholeness.
And such completeness or wholeness is necessary
for both the soul and the body. He who can ad-
minister the great palliative of love to the broken-
spirited serves mankind whether he succeeds in
restoring the body or not. A friend of mine, a
trained nurse, tells me of a case to which she was
called. The physician stated that there was no
possibility of recovery and the nurse was therefore
to make the last days as comfortable as possible.
The woman was in the prime of life; and in her
bitterness at pain and death, she had turned even
against her own family with a sort of hate. The
nurse, being thoroughly acquainted with the prin-
ciples of mental science, said nothing at first ex-
cept in a nurse's capacity, but began at once to
declare the presence of love. She stated silently,
"You are full of love ; and only love is around you."
This continued for several days at the end of which

135

136 Being and Becoming

time the woman said, "Nurse, you are good to me.
I love you." Shortly after she said, "I am so full
of love. It seems that I love everybody." Then
she and the nurse had talks together ; and she said,
"I know I am not going to get well. But I feel
that I am healed. Do you think that anybody could
feel that way if they were going to die?" "Yes, I
know you are all right," was the reply. The wo-
man died declaring her faith and love.

Now some one may think that this is not a good
example of the healing power of love; and yet what
was it that the woman needed first of all? She
needed the restoration of a sense of wholeness, of
unity. That is love. And she needed that for
whatever plane of existence upon which she might
live. Her very self seemed restored to her^ There
is no question that she would have been healed if
the case had been taken before the idea of incom-
pleteness had taken such a hold on the impersonal
mind that the contrary idea of health did not suc-
ceed in supplanting it.

Cases have come to my attention or experience
in which the thought of love has caught up those
who otherwise would have passed on, and restored
them to the love and service of their families. One
of our healers was called to such a case in which
the woman had been given up by the physician to
die of tuberculosis. "She has only four days to
live," said he. With a divine compassion of self-
giving which I have seldom seen equaled, the healer

The God Who Heals Us 137

called her back from the edge of the grave; and
at least two years later than the time of which I
speak, I knew of her as carrying on the housework
in her own home.

Feeling and Emotions.

Let us consider the reason why love plays such
a divine role in the cure of souls and bodies. *S

We all understand that love is "feeling." The
first nature of Spirit is feeling; and Its motive is
to express this feeling so that we often speak of
First Cause as Original Feeling. The creative
power is therefore emotional. We find the same
thing true in the individual. The subjective facul-
ties govern all the unconscious activities of the body,
causing the heart to beat, the lungs to expand, tak-
ing, in the life-giving air, building the new cells of
the various organs and expelling impurities. These
subjective faculties are emotional. The seat of
the emotions is not objective; our objective facul-
ties have only memories of emotional experiences.
Feeling and emotion are subjective and creative.
It is a well-known fact that it is not the* "holding
of a thought" that heals; it is the feeling that ac-
companies the thought. How often we have noted
the physical change accompanying strong feeling.
An angry man grows red in the face. A fright-
ened one turns white. His hair stands on end, his
flesh creeps. Brave men tell us that this happens
even in the case of those whose will still drives

138 Being and Becoming

them bravely forward. One of Napoleon's staff
said to him of a certain officer, "Did you see how-
pale he turned when you gave .him his orders?"
"Yes," replied Napoleon, "but he will nevertheless
do his duty."

Colossal hidden energies reveal themselves under i^V*
the stress of strong emotion. Many cases have
been cited in which some crippled person has risen
from his bed and accomplished prodigious deeds,
as in cases of fire where the need was imperatives^"

On the constructive plane, the same process oc-
curs both in the individual and universal creation.
An idea is taken into the mind. The strong emo-
tional creative forces play upon it and build on
the model; and our greatest ideal passes out of
thought into real expression. , It is thus through
feeling that the ideal becomes the real. It is through
love that the word becomes flesh and dwells among
us. This was the understanding of the poet who
wrote :

"One thing shines clear in our heart's sweet reason, - — "•
One light that over the chasm runs, — »

That to turn from love is the world's one treason, - — -
And treads down all the suns/^

The Creative Faculty, Love.

Right here is where so many fail of results. They
get the right thought but not the feeling. They
have an intellectual persuasion but not an emo-
tional. They do not feel its truth. No song sings

The God Who Heals Us 139

itself in the heart. No pulse beats warmer. NoN
surge of joy breaks on the shore. Not that one
must lose intellectual balance, for there is nothing
unnatural about feeling; feeling is normal and
divine.

But we do not need to "work up" love from
somewhere. The heart that goes out in natural
expression to find completeness in another or in
the Originating Feeling Itself, goes because it re-
joices to go, gives because it is glad to give. It
does not calculate on return. It is not seeking
something; it is simply being its true self. The
great loving, compassionate heart of the Master
Healer drew men unto him, and made him the
great healer that he was. He did not love men in
order to heal them: he healed them because he
loved them. Healing was not an aim but an inevit-
able result. Healing is a by-product of conscious-
ness. The illumined mind heals because in ex-
pressing love it also acts creatively. The creative
faculty, therefore, is love or feeling. The great-
est healers to-day are those who, out of a great
love for folks, are willing and eager to help them
untangle all the snarls of life, and say to the trou-
bled waters of their souls, "Peace, be still." Disin-
terested affection is divine. Self-giving is godlike.

"I built a chimney for a- comrade old,
I did the service without hope of hire,
And wandered on through winters cold
Yet all the day / rest before the fire."

140 Being and Becoming

We thus see that love finds its own completeness
in self-giving. The Master Teacher further illus-
trated this principle by saying, "He who would save
his life shall lose it; but he who will lose his life
for my sake [for the sake of love] the same shall
find it." Love is complete only in expression, never
in holding it back. Life is fully realized only as
we love. One can see this so often illustrated in
great-hearted men and women who have applied
this truth. Love being the finest and most harmo-
nious of all vibrations has worked a very miracle
of change in the fine molecular structure of the
flesh. Radiant health flushes to the overflowing
banks of life. The smile of such a person is a
blessing; and his laugh a delightful contagion.

This then is the result of true feeling; it is an
end, not an. aim. Love has its own rewards in
love. Love is worth while for its own sake.
"Love is the fulfillment of the law." It is fulfill-
ment or completeness without which life falls into
elemental chaos. So Spirit seeks Its own complete-
ness in making its union with that other self within
it. The question, therefore, is the one already
asked — how can we cooperate in the work of Spirit?
The answer we shall find in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MYSTIC UNION, OR HOW TO
REALIZE THE PRESENCE.

LIFE finds its completeness only when the full
purpose of Spirit is accomplished through
us. It seeks an object worthy of its affec-
tions. Being passes out of the Absolute into the
individual and becomes you and me that it may
find such an object. For outside itself, it would
be impossible to find it, since God is all. Man is
therefore born for love. Human life can never be
complete without the union of the individual con-
sciousness with the universal. The final search of
the soul must therefore be for this wholeness of
being. It is this wholeness that we are all after,
whether we express it in one term or another.
Even he who seeks for things, instinctively recog-
nizes that they follow after the consciousness of
unity ; they never precede it. We must harmonize
with Spirit before It can work effectively through
us. But in addition to the general consciousness of
the Divine Unity, there is the craving of every
natural man for a personal sense of relationship
with God, The quest is a personal one. As the

141

142 Being and Becoming

mystics have said, "It is the flight of the alone
to the Alone."

To cooperate with Spirit in fulfilling its design
of ever higher self-expression, it becomes necessary
for us to move toward It as well as It to move to-
ward us. Love on our part can mean nothing un-
less it is spontaneous. Spirit cannot force us to
love. It cannot force us to cooperate. In the
mechanical creation, everything can be made to be
obedient to law. To man alone is given the power
to disobey. To him alone belongs this high power
of deliberate choice. He can give or withhold.
To be sure he himself is incomplete so long as he
withholds, with an incompleteness or unwholesome-
ness that results in limitation, sickness and death.

Man holds therefore a glorious freedom, to
choose his own pathway. And it is when he volun-
tarily surrenders his heart in loving union with the
Spirit that he gives It a unique pleasure. In this
sense, man himself becomes necessary to Spirit's
own enjoyment. So while man may stand aloof ;
yet if he does so, he must suffer from incomplete-
ness, which, being the reverse of completeness or
good, is evil. On the contrary, if he chooses to
find unity with Spirit, he will find with it that
peace, poise, and contentment which rises out of
his wholesomeness. And this which comes to him
comes not as the end to be sought but as universal
plus which is added by creative mind to our re-

How to Realize the Presence 143

ward — "seek ye first the kingdom — and, all these
things shall be added."

It must be, therefore, the spontaneous activity
of the heart seeking its own completeness in self-
giving — in the loss of self to find it in the Greater
Self.

Through the Silence to the Center.

We must realize, first of all, that we are in the
quest of wholeness. Everything that we see and
most that we experience is related to something else.
Everything is an exhibit of parts. We are to strive
to enter into a feeling of the essence from which
all this multiplicity proceeds. We are after an at-
one-ment with the Absolute. This can never be
secured objectively, but only within where the rela-
tionships of things find their relator. We must pass
by the portals of sense, beyond thought into feeling.
The mystic consciousness "may be gotten by love,
but by thought, never." It is in the realm of the
intuitions that we find the More-than-Self, the
Proofless Proof of life. Here is the Light Eter-
nal. Once a skeptic friend came to the great spir-
itual leader, Debendranath Tagore, the father of
the poet, and said, "You talk of God, ever and
again of God! What proof is there that there is a
God at all?" Tagore pointed to a light and asked
his friend, "Do you know what that is?" "Light,
of course." "How do you know that there is a

144 Being and Becoming

light there?" "I see it; it needs no proof; it is
self-evident." "So is the existence of God. I see
Him within and without me, in everything and
through everything; and it needs no proof: it is
self-evident."

In the silence, one is not after proofs, but only
after that which to the soul will be self-evident, a
vision of the All, and, finally, union with the AIL
And, as the very climax of life is reached when we
can on the one hand express in the world of the
relative, and on the other, be conscious of the
wholeness of the self, let us not be disturbed if it
takes time fully to realize ourselves in either direc-
tion. We must find our place in both worlds, the
outer and the inner. At the same time, most of us
get so tangled up in the world of effects that it.
takes effort to move into the world of cause.

Concentration and Meditation.

The first step,1 therefore, to the mystic conscious-
ness, is concentration. We must bring the mind to
one point of interest and keep it there. Our pur-
pose is to center the mind exclusively on the de-
sired object, the recognition and realization of the
Divine Presence. To this end, we may, if we wish,
make statements leading in this direction. "I affirm
the oneness of Being and my unity with the All."
"The Father and I are one." "I am entering into

^he five steps mentioned here are similar to Miss Underwood's
analysis of the mystic's consciousness. See Mysticism.

How to Realize the Presence 145

the secret place of the Most High where I may
abide under the shadow of the Almighty." "I
know and believe in the love which God hath in
me. God is love; and he that abideth in love,
abideth in God and God abideth in him." "There
is no fear in love : but perfect love casteth out fear,
because fear hath punishment ; and he that f eareth
is not made perfect in love." "We love because
He first loved us." "I am not alone, but I and
the Father that sent me." "If I know myself, I
know the Father also. From henceforth, I know
him and have seen him." "The Father loves me."
"Father, I have glorified thy name and will glorify
it." "Thou, the Spirit of Truth art now come, and
dost guide me into all truth ; and Thou dost declare
Thyself unto me." "O righteous Father, I know
thee, because thou art my Greater Self revealed"

One-Pointedness.

Let me say here that these and similar statements
which we all will make as expressing our deter-
mination to know God and to realize Him are not
to be made merely at some stated time; nor are
we to seek this realization for the moment only-
We must continuously practice the idea of a Real
and Vital Presence. We find this wonderfully ac-
complished in the life of Brother Lawrence, the
Medieval Saint. He claimed that "the practice of
the presence of God is the greatest rule for a holy
life." His wandering thoughts were again and

146 Being and Becoming

again brought back to the one-pointed desire to
realize the presence.

It is this fixity of purpose or mono-ideaism that
strongly impresses itself upon the field of the inner
consciousness where there is complete realization of
the connection between the self and God. Unity
with the Absolute can be had only by determined
desire and the continuous subjection of the mind
to this one idea, "that I may know Him." Gradu-
ally we shall be enabled to withdraw from conscious-
ness of the relative, more and more into the quiet
state of mind in which the Voice can speak to us.
By maintaining this attitude of expectancy, the
mind is at length brought to a certain poised calm
which the mystic has called the "quiet of the soul."

The Quiet of the Soul.

By a proper efifort of will, the mind can be
brought into a quiescent state wherein the busy
call of earth is stilled; and the noise and clatter
of sense is forgotten.

The wild throbbing pulse of my spirit
So troubled with earth's din and strife
Is stilled in the presence of stillness;
Serene in this temple-like place,
A peace seems to press all around me
And hold me in loving embrace.

Having reached this delightful solitude of the
soul, many mistake it for the ultimate, and there
rest in the untroubled sea of silence. They are

How to Realize the Presence 147

however still only in a mental state. Yet some be-
lieve themselves to be already "in the silence,"
and seek to do the work of healing on this plane.
But the great healing power is not found here.
Nor is the true mystic after quiescence ; he is after
realization. So he passes through the antechamber
into the temple.

Actual Perception of Being.

The stillness is but the atmosphere in which Spirit
speaks to us, for it is impossible to "hear the voice
of gentle stillness," when the sense-life is making
its call upon our attention. The heart can now be-
come entirely absorbed in the joyful perception of
God and real communion with the Absolute. We
feel Him not as a part but as a Whole, The
Psalms reflect this feeling. Take for example the
Sixty-third Psalm of David.

"O God, thou art my God, earnestly will I seek thee :

My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee

In a dry and weary land where no water is.

So have I looked upon thee in the sanctuary,

To see thy power and thy glory,

Because thy loving kindness is better than life;

My life shall praise thee.

So will I bless thee while I live:

I will lift up my hands in thy name.

My soul shall be blessed as with rich living;

And my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips,

When I remember thee upon my couch

And meditate on thee in the night watches."

148 Being and Becoming

"When I meditate on thee in the night watches,"
— this is contemplation. How expressive this senj
tence ! The music is stilled ; the harpist has dozed
away into f orgetfulness ; and all the palace lies
asleep, save the king who "meditates in the night
watches." What are his meditations? To each is
given his vision. But each in his own way per-
ceives the Presence, beholds the Infinite Whole.
Emotion runs scale after scale on the chords of
being. Some pass into ecstasies, some have visions,
some like Saint Theresa and Saint Katharine of
Siena swoon into ecstatic sleep, to wake to won-
der and to power of service.

But we are not to suppose that the phenomenal
experience is necessary to the full enjoyment of
God. It is indeed a delight to feel the full joy of
the Divine Companionship sweep over us ; and this
experience can become the possession of all. Every-
where is God ; and we may abide in Him. One can-
not be lonely, for there is no place apart from Him.
We do not carry the burden alone for He will help
us to bear it. Sorrow can be but for the moment,
for within is the everlasting joy seeking to burst
out and flood the soul. Fear must step from the
pathway, for in God is our divine protection; and
no evil can come to the heart that trusts in Him.
"Fear not, for I have redeemed thee ; I have called
thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou
passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; and
through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee:

How to Realize the Presence 149

when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not
be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am Jehovah, thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
Thy Saviour." On every hand is the All-Good ; and
He is there holding limitless resources in His hand.
"His arm is not shortened that it cannot save."
All else may fail; but God cannot fail. The sky
may darken, but within the shadow still we may
feel the guiding hand. Friends may desert us ; but
"when my father and mother forsake me, then
the Lord will take me up." Plans may go wrong,
but the Divine and perfect pattern still remains.
The thread may tangle for a moment in the warp
or woof of life; but the final fabric will still be
woven ; and we shall receive each his wage for the
work he has done. Life is endless; and what fails
in one place must yet succeed in another. For
my part, I am sure that there can be no ultimate
failure, for whatever the heart may crave exists
perfect somewhere; and we shall succeed in every
venture. We dare to trust to the long vision and
believe in the final outcome of all, because we are
in union with the Perfect Life and move on to per-
fect ends. In our becoming, in our self-expression,
-we may at times work with faulty hands ; but the
Master Architect will find a place for each man's
► work ; and the Ultimate of Being in us will at length
express its perfection.

And for us the reward is sure for it is the reward
of love.

ISO Being and Becoming

"And only the Master shall praise them,

And only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money,

And no one shall work for fame :
But each for the joy of the working,

And each in his separate star,
Shall draw the thing as he sees it

For the God of things as they are."

Thus all labor is a labor of love, and receives
the due recognition — the immaculate approval of
one's own soul, and the blessing1 of him whose
eye notes every sparrow that glides through the
silent blue.

But in the mystic contemplation of God, the
mind is not filled either with the thought of evil or
of good, of fear or of faith. It is filled only with
the exquisite consciousness of the Presence. The
consciousness represented by this experience which
we call perception or contemplation usually remains
with one as the satisfying ultimate, the goal of the
soul, for a long period of time. It seems joy
enough to know and feel the Presence of the All.
Yet this is not the ultimate of the possible experi-
ence; and in time there is a craving for a more
vital one. We desire not only to know All or see
All ; we desire unity with the All.

CHAPTER XIX

THE MYSTIC UNION— THE SOUL'S DARK
HOUR— THE LIGHT ETERNAL.

IT is usually at this point in our experience that
we have the dark hours; for in letting go of
that which has heretofore filled our lives in
order to grasp a greater reality, we seem often to
lose our grip on all and to go flying far in endless
space. I think this is quite a common experience
of those of nobler sort who are passing out of
the old order of religious thought into the new.
They have had a real and vital experience with
God. They have "known Him in whom they have
believed ;" they have through intensity of interest
reached the stage of a true contemplation of God;
and it is for that very reason that they have launched
out into the deep. It is at this point that they come
into the fellowship of the New Order seeking
higher experience. But whether they are in the
old order or the new, the period of transition is
often very painful. Of necessity, the concept of
God must be entirely changed, often enlarged ; and
we become space- wanderers. Some I have seen
who have apparently lost themselves in the very

151

152 Being and Becoming

vastness of Truth. The concept of a manlike God
has been discarded. The new understanding of
the personal nature of God is not yet made clear.
One is lost on a psychic sea. One is dazed by the
effort to take bearings in the wide vistas of the im-
personal mind. Prayer is frequently given up, be-
cause one does not pray to Law: one orders it,
one does not entreat it. In former days, we begged
favors of God and hoped that He would grant
them. Now we see that we get what we want by
expecting it enough! We choose what we want;
we believe in it ; we take it. Where does God come
in? He seems rather a supernumerary in this new
order until we suddenly discover that it is not things
we want, but God, Or if it is God that we have
wanted right along, we at length find that He can
be had for the asking.

"Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking,
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God can be had for the asking."

Most of us have had this experience in one form
or another. We have lost our one-time joy, and
have passed into the shadow. "Why," we ask, "do
I pass into this depression? I have seen the
heavens open. I have been on the sunlit sum-
mits. Now I move in darkness ; and I cannot see."
Sometimes the worse appears the better reason :
"The things I would, I do not ; the things I would
not, those I do; and there is no health in me." Life

The Soul's Dark Hour 153

runs to counter currents ; and one moves out of
error into mistakes.

Well, this is the dark hour of the soul, indeed;
but it must pass. And in the darkness we hear a
voice, "Lo, I am with you alway even unto the
end of the earth." And again, "Heaven and earth
shall pass away; but my word shall never pass
away." "I will send the Comforter unto you. He
shall teach you all things and guide you in the way
of truth." These dark experiences of the soul may
be short-cut by the use of the Law for it gives back
to us in form what we give to it in idea, and mani-
fests according to our demand. Boldly declare
therefore, "The Law of Life and Mind makes for
me just what I demand. Let the true understand-
ing of God be revealed to me. Let life put me on
the path of truth." And the last great surge of
the sea shall cast your frail bark on the golden
sands of God!

A Treatment in the "Dark Hour."

To help you to realize this vision and this union,
I have prepared the following statement of Truth :
I abide in the conscious Presence of Spirit. I am
enclosed in the life of the Infinite. I am encircled
by the Ever-loving, Ever-living Joy of Being. I
draw upon the limitless resources of God. I am
sustained and strengthened by eternal forces. The
love of my Father presses in on me on every hand.
I stand on the Rock of Ages. The strength of the

154 Being and Becoming

hills is His also ; and it is mine. Thou Ever-Pres-
ent One, Thou art my life and my supply. I re-
joice in Thee for there is fullness of joy where
Thou art. I cannot for one moment be outside Thy
presence and Thy care. Thou art always every-
where; and there is no place where Thou art not.
I cannot be forgotten in Thy^nmd; I cannot be
lost from Thy consciousness, for Thou art the One
and only Mind in which all things and thoughts
exist. I cannot be separated from Thee for Thou
art the Whole and there are no parts without nor
within. I will no longer think of myself as lost nor
estranged from Thee. I will not believe that Thou
art angry with me, or condemning me. Thou art
loving me. Even though my father and mother
forsake me, Thou wilt take me up.

For Thou art love. I abide in thy love. I rest
in it. I breathe its air ; I feel its warmth. I know
its joy.

"From love to light, O wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day:

From darkness and from sorrow of the night
To morning that comes singing o'er the sea.

From love to light. From light, O God, to Thee,
Who art the Love of loves, the eternal Light of light!"

Then fear not the darkness, for if thine eye be
single, thy whole body shall at length be full of
light. Thou shalt find the Rock of Ages arid stand
on it.

The Soul's Dark Hour 155

The Union Completed, or the "Unified Life."

The onrush of the soul at last brings it into the
final harbor— "the unified life," the "deified life,"
where we can say, "I and the Father are One."
Here the experience is quite different from that
in "meditation." There we only meditated upon
God as All ; here we find ourselves, not as one with-
out, looking on, beholding some one apart from us,
but as one within, merged in the Divine Life. Nor
is it a sentiment, a pretty figure of speech. It is
not a philosophic statement of being; it is spiritual
realization or feeling of Ultimate Reality.

This, then, is the very goal toward which we
have been struggling — the feeling of Ultimate Real-
ity. We have been trying to make our union with
It. Returning thus to our query, "How can we co-
operate in the work of Spirit," we reply, "By mak-
ing our union with it in divine self-giving." It
seeks completeness in love, for love is the union of
two kindred things; but It cannot find this com-
pleteness without our cooperation. "God is Spirit ;
and they that worship him, must worship him in
spirit and in truth, for such the Father seeketh, to
be his worshipers." He does not force. Here God
must stand and wait. We must unbar our own
door.

Being.

To come into this consciousness of at-one-ment

156 Being and Becoming

with Spirit is to come into the realization of being.
Life cannot be complete until we realize ourselves
as being and enjoy it. This is not the Being of
God — the "Greater I Am;" nor my being — the
"lesser I Am ;" but it is the realization of myself in
God. The Greater I Am is Absolute or Undif-
ferentiated Being without individual realization.
The lesser I Am is the individual without recogni-
tion of its absolute relationship. The developed
consciousness is the realization of the self in Spirit
so that we can say as the Great Teacher said, "All
power is given unto me."

Becoming.

We thus reproduce in ourselves a new center of
intensified consciousness, really a new starting point
for spirit in its own- self-expression. We must
never lose sight of the fact that Spirit through us
is seeking self-expression, and has high purposes if
we will cooperate. We have no higher purposes
for ourselves than It has for us and through us.
Cooperating with It, we have Its infinite power,
wisdom, and love to work with.

We must remember, too, that Spirit is seeking
self-expression through manifestation. Spirit is
always passing out of being into becoming. If we
are its highest point of departure for new manifes-
tations, then being will become or manifest through
us into its highest form, if we will allow it.

CHAPTER XX.

INTUITION, OR THE HIGHER WISDOM
OF THE UNIFIED LIFE.

SPIRIT is seeking through us its own self-
expression. To be in harmony with Its pur-
poses, is to assure the success of our own;
for what we want It wants for us. I suppose that
the full significance of this cannot be fully appre-
ciated by any of us at first. But it means no less
than that Spirit will pass through us into health of
body, wisdom in affairs, plenty in possessions, hap-
piness, and a true greatness.

How then are we to keep in harmony with Its
purposes? Retaining firm grasp on the fact that
Its purposes are general while ours are specific, we
must realize that what we are after is some way
by which we keep from making the mistaken
choices which lead inevitably to disaster and inhar-
mony. And this way is provided in the very fabric
of the law which we have been studying. If we
do not know the right choice to make, Spirit, as
the infinite Wisdom, will help us to make it. If we
do not know the form which it should assume,
Spirit does know. "The Father knoweth what
things ye have need of before ye ask them."

157

158 Being and Becoming

Here we pass into direct consideration of Spirit
from the opposite standpoint of the use of the law,
from that in which we made choices and presented
them to impersonal mind to create for us. In that
phase of Spirit, It is receptive, passive and creative ;
and we direct its forces. In this, we find Spirit as
the active, formative, sending agent. The former
we have illustrated by the use of the stereopticon.
This we can best illustrate on the principle of the
camera.

Illustration of Use of Intuitive.

The mind of the individual who is seeking guid-
ance or impression of idea from the Guiding Wis-
dom is represented by the film, which is free as
possible from all impressions and is seeking such.
The lens represents the concentration of the mind
upon this one idea or purpose, — to receive guidance.
The shutter represents an act or choice by which we
open up the mind to receive definite suggestions,
and which is open only to such points of the land-
scape as we wish to have impressed upon the film.
For even here we exercise choice, that is, we choose
along what line we shall have guidance. The land-
scape represents the formation of the idea into def-
inite form in the idea plane, that is, the Divine Mind.
The light is Spirit, Wisdom, Power. Through it
alone direction comes. It is the substance and the
source of all. Light is Being passing into form or
becoming manifest ' *

Intuition, or the Higher Wisdom 159

This is the use of the intuitional faculties. We
are quiet that we may be instructed. To be sure,
we establish the image of desire; but it is simply
that Spirit shall give us wisdom and direction along
a given line. We do not wish to dictate ; we wish
merely to know.

So if you see no way out of your present diffi-
culties, know that there is a way, and that Spirit
as Wisdom knows that way. Or if you do not
know how a thing should be done, nor how it should
appear, yet Spirit as the Creative Mind or Forma-
tive Wisdom does know. All form emerges from
it.

Escaping the Lash of Experience.

It is the work of the intuitions to find out for us
just what is the best thing to be done, or to be
chosen. It is thus that we are kept from the griev-
ous errors and pains of wrong thinking, and bad
choices.1

We do not desire to be always in the chains of
our mistakes, or to be ever learning through bitter
experience. If we must learn all there is to know
only by blindly stumbling forward, and through bit-
ter hardship and suffering acquire life's lessons, we
are doomed to a life of hell, for the possible com-
binations of experiences are endless. To say, then,
that life is merely a quest of experiences and that

1See pages 172-178 in "Intuition and Ideation" in The Law of
Mind in Action, by the author.

160 Being and Becoming

we are here to learn through them, is to say that the
purpose of living is to learn what not to do. This
is as false as the Devil. Life is eternal; and, if
we are to know only by the experience of broken
law how to avoid error, then the goblins will get us
in the form of Karma.

But we must realize that all knowledge already is.
What we are to do is to learn how to use it and to
bring it out into objective manifestation. Thus do
we find help in the knowledge of the personal na-
ture of Spirit, for as It already contains within
Itself all possible and potential form, It will select
for us the form most desirable, if we will advise
with it.

Intuitive Knowledge in Healing.

In the case of healing, all we have to do, then,
is to give Spirit an opportunity and to realize that it
is now passing through into manifestation along a
given line. Let us take, for example, the treatment
for tuberculosis. The lung has been manifesting
partialness of idea or unwholesomeness. What we
wish to do is to make it manifest wholesomeness.
Having taken an easy position so that you are at
perfect rest, place your hand on the body just over
the lung and say, "Spirit is now passing through
into expression as a perfect lung. The word is
made flesh and dwells among us.' I know that
there is within me the spirit of wisdom that knows
just how to form you into the perfect organ, and

Intuition, or the Higher Wisdom 161

it is so forming you now. The mind in me that
formed you in the first place, reforms and restores
you now according to its own perfect pattern."
One will naturally go on in a similar vein until a
great consciousness of healing rises up within
him.

This method is not dissimilar to the so-called
"new method" of the psychologist who talks to the
cell-life and encourages it. That is, however, direct
"suggestion," conveying the impression that we
must "do" something, while this seeks merely to
awaken the consciousness to the fact that some-
thing is being done for us, but which would not
be done unless we called the healing agent into
activity. We are simply to realize the active pres-
ence of spirit. We do not know how a lung looks,
but it, as the formative power, does know.

What we must seek is a definite feeling of whole-
ness, and after some practice we shall find that
we do feel the life forces at work for us. This
feeling will in turn react upon the thought to give
more faith and courage.

Now what has really happened? In the first
place, we must recognize that we are dealing with
Mind and that as there is no element of time or
space in Mind, as such, it manifests with all Its
Power and presence wherever it is recognized.
Neither psychology nor physiology will teach us
differently. We know where the brain is located,
but not the mind. Again, even though thought oc-
7

162 Being and Becoming

casions movement in the brain cell, not all of
"mind" is there. We therefore center mind as ac-
tive by realizing it as present in any part of the body.
Then, as active, it must work on its own creative
life model. As Professor James has told us, "All
mental states are followed by bodily activity of
some sort." This is what we are after, to feel the
presence of Mind. Thus our mental attitude will
be followed by corresponding activity first on the
emotional plane and then on the physical. We do
not get out of the body to heal it, but rather per-
ceive Spirit as directly active in it. There is no
need to deny the body. On the other hand, we are
not dealing with the body apart from Spirit — "apart
from me, the spiritual self, ye can do nothing" —
but rather with the body as spirit.

Identity with Spirit.

What really occurs is that we recognize spirit as
such. We identify our body, our conditions, and
ourselves with Spirit. THIS IS THE MAR-
RIAGE OF BEING AND BECOMING. This,
then, is the important thing, to get a realization of
Spirit, whatever method you may follow. I have
secured good results with patients who have used
this method ; but I would not recommend touching
any part of the body that is sore or swollen. In
that case, I would recommend only the thought of
Spirit as active there — Spirit as the Perfect Life
working out its own pattern of lofty perfection.

Intuition, or the Higher Wisdom 163

I have thus illustrated the principle of the use
of the intuitive powers in the way of image- forma-
tion. From the standpoint of guidance in affairs,
and such things, I have dealt with intuition in The
Law of Mind in Action; and the reader who is inter-
ested can turn to those pages for help. Here our
object is rather to see how completely our mind is
at one with the Cosmic on every plane, and how
readily we may identify our life with the great im-
personal mind, and our purpose with the forward
movement of Spirit. It is in this perfect harmony
and understanding that our future peace and happi-
ness rest.

There are a thousand ways to speak but only
one language — thought; there are a thousand cen-
ters of individual consciousness — but only one
Source — Divine Mind ; there are a thousand forms
but only one Power — Spirit! "Ask, and ye shall
receive ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall
be opened ur.o you." And for him who would
rise in the scale of being, who would intensify
Spirit's center of consciousness in him, what exer-
cise more replete with meaning and delight than
simply to count over the sweet promises and the
loving certainties of life, to dwell on the joy of
real living, to dream over the wonders of a world
all spirit, to see God in stars and sunsets, to listen
to wee wild things; and then in the silence of the
soul to "be still and know that I am God."

The proof of God lies not in nature or authority,

164 Being and Becoming

or revelation; it lies in the quiet of man's soul,
when in infinite peace and calm he rests upon sur-
passing love and is satisfied. "Thou wilt keep
him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed in Thee."

CHAPTER XXL

DOES DEATH END THE PROCESS BY
WHICH BEING BECOMES?

BECOMING is the process by which either
God or man expresses being. With God,
there are evidences of eternal unfoldment
and self-manifestation. Is it so with man? For
him, is death inevitable? Is immortality assured?
Our answer to these questions must be based on
the law of personal and impersonal mind. While
it is possible that revelations have come to us from
those who have passed through the portals of what
we call death, nevertheless if we are to depend upon
these for proof of immortality, the majority of
mankind would have to rest without conviction, be-
cause in the nature of the case, only a few could
come into such vital touch with the spirit world as
to get the proof. Such at least is the present status
in the study of psychic phenomena. It is probable
that it will be many years at least before the aver-
age person can have these proofs presented to him
personally, if at all, and even then he must struggle
with the problem as to whether the voice he hears

165

166 Being and Becoming

comes from "Beyond," or only out of his own sub-
jective mind or by the creation of his odic forces.
Yet, within this science, lie all the proofs that
are necessary for the highest conviction and faith.
Let us review the facts. If I can know anything
at all, I can know I am. If I can know I am, I
can know that I think. If I can know I think, I
can depend upon the sanity or reasonableness of my
thinking. My observation and reason show me that
I live in a living universe, visible and invisible, and
that this universe is made of Mind and by Mind.
I can also perceive evidences both of a personal and
an impersonal activity. The personal activity is
the choice of what shall be made. The impersonal
activity is the creation of the thing that has been
chosen. These facts I find true not only of the
universal mind but also of my own. I also find
that since the universal mind is by its nature one,
whatever thinking / do is done within the one mind.
Then, since the impersonal mind must create in
form and substance whatever is given to it as a pat-
tern, it must create on the pattern / give to it.

The Idea of Immortality Impresses Its
Necessity on Creative Mind.

What pattern do I inevitably give it regarding
my own immortality? Is there any idea of which
I am more certain than my determination to live
forever? Is not the first law of life, the preserva-
tion of the self? How often we have heard it:

Does Death End the Process? 167

"Self-preservation is the first law of nature." Do
I not continuously think of myself as an individual
entity in the Cosmic Mind ? There are, to be sure,
those who are like the New York schoolman who
said, "I do not want to live forever ; but I believe
I shall." But this is after all because the burden
of life has become so intolerable that some would
escape from it altogether. But after all the cry
of such souls is for freedom. They dread life be-
cause they are bound. Even the suicide is not so
much trying to escape life as he is making his pro-
test against being limited. He believes that he will
secure more life by leaving this one. That he must
pay the penalty of his rash act goes without say-
ing; but that he illustrates the primal instinct of
human life, is also clear. All, all demand life, free-
dom, ^//-expression. The survival of the self is
imperative. I have never known any one who
would be willing to exchange his self with any
other. He may have a desire for another's cul-
ture, education, wealth, opportunity, and so on, but
never that other's self. He feels instinctively that
his self is all right ; but it must have an opportunity.
The idea of immortality is found in every race,
every age, every individual who has risen to any
height of moral attainment. And that idea is thus
persistently held in the cosmic, creative, impersonal
mind, which must construct according to the idea
given to it. Life is a creative fluid and makes any-
thing and everything given it to make. It throws

168 Being and Becoming

all its resources around every idea and will con-
tinue to create around it so long as we hold the
idea within the depth of the sea. If, then, the idea
of individual identity is forever instinctively held
in mind, it will forever hold us as individual within
the bosom of its greater self. We are immortals.
No Greek or Roman god ever topped the earth with
such colossal, inherent, and glorious power as moves
and beats within the mind and heart of each of us.
To what glorious immortality we are destined by
the very faith within us, which no hardship, no
limitation of ignorance or despair can ever down,
the immortal faith in the immortality of the self.
Said that great Master Teacher who understood
these principles so well, speaking to Martha of the
physical death of her brother, Lazarus, "I [the ego-
self] am the resurrection and the life; he that be-
lieveth on me, though he die, yet shall he live ; and
whosoever liveth and believeth on me, shall never
die."

All of us instinctively believe in the ego-self,
and therefore all shall live forever in individual
freedom of the self. Said Jesus again of those
who are reputed dead, "But as touching the resur-
rection of the dead, have ye not read that which
was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the
God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead
bni oi the living." Thus unto God all are alive ;

Does Death End the Process? 169

and the instinct of immortality is the instinct of
God Himself in our own soul.

What that further life holds for us we shall not
inquire in detail here. One or two things we may
note from the law. It is foolish to suppose that
through death we change the entire thought-content
of the mind, that bad men are made perfect, and
the pious at once enter into the felicities of eternal
indolence. The margin between the best of us and
a perfect life would be so great as to constitute a
total loss of identity if the chasm were to be crossed
at a leap. The continuity of experience demands
that we go on in even development "over there."
Thus there will be all grades of society and of in-
terest. Again, as we draw around us those who
most fit the thoughts and ideas of our own mind,
we shall have society over there that is most like
ourselves. We shall have our friends and prob-
ably our enemies. We shall each have his own
work to perform. But the beautiful thing about
it is that we shall all go on in unfoldment and
that there can be no doubt that the very desires of
our heart will draw to us those whom we love and
who love us.

Death.

Is death inevitable? Must all die in order to
live again? Turning once again to the law of im-
personal mind we see that it manifests to us just

170 Being and Becoming

what we give to it in idea. What then do all of
us give as an idea of life and death? We give the
race-idea, of course. It is the experience of the
ages that we repeat. Man has said, "Whatever is
mortal dies. Man is mortal. Therefore man dies."
This was the logic which the sense-experience gave
and to which the sense-experience has assented.
And so death has visited the race from the begin-
ning of time to the present. Moreover we live in
a world wherein form is in constant change and
transition, and is a part of the .order of the visible
creation. Man is therefore impregnated with this
idea from birth. Can it be changed?

Whether the idea of physical death can be
changed, depends upon what we mean by it. If
we mean the idea of pain and wracked physical
senses in the transition of life from one plane to
another, I can say that the idea is changing. Death
is no longer looked upon with horror, nor is the
struggle severe with advanced souls.

If, however, we mean that man will eventually
live forever on this plane, I do not believe it. I
think it absurd to debate it. We are changeless be-
ings in a world of change. This plane can never
hold for us all the possibilities of self-expression
which is the purpose of life. We must go on. But
perhaps we shall learn how to transmute the body
without allowing it to pass through the ordinary
stages of dissolution. The body itself is uncon-
scious life or mind, that is, thought which is vibra-

Does Death End the Process? 171

tion and has been organized as a form in which
to house the soul. Some of the lofty ones of earth
like Elijah, Enoch, and Jesus seem to have known
how to pass the unconscious life-substance back
into elemental form and to have taken on a spiritual
body without leaving the physical one in form.
Whether we shall all reach that point of power, I
do not know. One thing is certain, that in either
case the body is entirely changed ; and I cannot see
that it matters much whether we leave it in the
air as oxygen, hydrogen, and various elements, or
whether we leave it in the ground. In either case,
it is the death of the form and not of the soul.

The change in form is therefore inevitable and
desirable for the on-pushing soul in the quest of
great adventures. Nevertheless it should not be
painful; and, in the majority of cases, death itself
is easy ; and the pains that attend it, whether men-
tal or physical, are as nothing compared to those
experienced by the same persons in the course of
the disease which takes them away. Death, then,
may come to the human frame, but only with great
peace and sweetness ; and in days to come we shall
see preparations made accordingly, and instead of
the palpitating fear and agonized desire to- keep
the reluctant soul one day more on earth at no mat-
ter what cost of painful medications, we shall see
the beautiful passing of the spirit into other fields
of love and self-expression. Thus the death-bed
will become the scene not of a taking-off but a tak-

172 Being and Becoming

ing-on; and, in place of thinking of our beloved
as passing into the final act of dissolution, we shall
think of them as now taking the primal step in the
re-birth of the soul. Before our very eyes, the
beautiful beginnings of life are being effected. Says
Paul, "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God : . . . then shall
come to pass the saying that is written, Death is
swallowed up in victory. O grave, where is thy
victory? O death, where is thy sting ?"

"I Am He" 175

hope and the eternal peace of man, for love can
. never deny itself, and as the object of an eternal
and supreme affection, man stands at the apex of
the spheres, king not by power nor by might but
crowned by the chaplet of Divine Love.

Spirit as All.

Thus, in the ultimate, we come to the one great
need of human thought, the distinct necessity of
recognizing Spirit as All, from Alpha to Omega.
It is being passing into expression in becoming, just
as the light of the stereopticon is the same from
one end to the other. And our age demands a real-
ization of this one fact above all else — that Spirit
is all, in all, and through all.

God is Spirit or Life, and in Him we live, move,
and have our being. And we must learn to make
our identity with Him. Not to lose identity in
Him, which is Nirvana, not to be less ourself but
more ourself, this is what we seek. We are points
of intensified consciousness and expression in Spirit.
We are Being manifested in becoming; but being
and becoming in the ultimate are one. The need
of this age therefore is not merely a message but
also a messenger ; let the messenger be the message.
We need not so much the teaching of truth as its
manifestation in human form. We must see the
Word bodied forth in flesh. This is the secret of
Jesus, "Glorify thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify
Thee: even as Thou gavest him authority over all

176 Being and Becoming

flesh . . . And this is life eternal that they should
Know Thee, the only true God, and him whom thou
didst send, even Jesus Christ. I glorified thee on
the earth, having accomplished the work thou hast
given me to do. And now, Father, glorify Thou me
with the glory I had with Thee before the world
was. I manifested thy name." Jesus thus iden-
tified his being with that of the Eternal Creative
Spirit ; and he rightfully claimed that in his person
this Spirit was manifested. In him being had its
perfect becoming.

"I Am He."

Our age demands the same glorious manifesta-
tion of the sons of God. Of us, Jesus himself tes-
tified, "I say ye are gods." The only God that
men shall ever see is the God in and through men
and a manifested creation. "This is the secret hid-
den from the foundation of the world, Christ in
you, the hope of glory." Each of us in greater or
lesser degree is a manifestation of Spirit; and I
do not wonder Peter could exclaim in the presence
of Jesus, "My Lord and my God." I, too, looking
into the face of a godlike man or woman and see-
ing in such an one God manifest, could exclaim
without shame, to .the God within and manifest,
"My Lord and my God."

We hear many voices to-day declaring the way to
truth and life. Let us follow our teaching by em-
bodying it.

"I Am He"

177

"For none of the singers ever yet
Has wholly lived his minstrelsy,

Or lived and sung that life and song.
Might each express the other's all,
Careless if art or life were long,
Since both were one to stand or fall.

So that the wonder struck the crowd,
Who shouted it about the land,
His song was only living aloud,
His work a singing with his hand.

Let or allow the new Messianic figure to appear
in you. "Some great cause, God's new Messiah!"
The cause is that of God's own divine self-expres-
sion in humanity; let us be the expression. When
we speak, let men say of us, "I believe that man,
for he is one hundred per cent expression on every
plane — spirit, mind, and body. He Is what he talks
about." Jesus was, and exclaimed, "I am he."
Let the new Messiah also appear exclaiming, "I
am he." "I am" is the absolute of being. "I am
he" is the process of becoming. Then when being
and becoming have found perfect union, the mystic
marriage has taken place; and God has accom-
plished Himself in us. Already there are men and
women on the planet who have found the divine
union; and the day dawns when they shall step
forth saying, "I am he that should come." And
the way for this to be universally realized is to

Gi

178 Being and Becoming

recognize that "it is not I that speak, but the Father
dwelling in me, He doeth the works." Thus to
recognize that which already Is, is to cause it to
be so manifested. Being and becoming are then
one.

The End.

L6A.

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