Creative Mind: Part I
"IN the beginning, God!" Clear and expressive are these words. In the beginning, God only. No manifest universe! No system of planets! Nothing of form or life, of brute or man! God was the Spirit of All that was to be, but He had not yet moved upon the waters. Then this All-Being moved, or began to create. Where did Spirit move, upon what did It move to create; where did It get a pattern; what means or power did It employ; through what agencies did It work? In short, what is the world, ourselves included, made out of, and how did we and all else come into being? These questions correctly answered would solve the problem of being and set men free. Let us consider. The Spirit was all; there was nothing else but Itself. All-Inclusive, Everywhere, Infinite. This All-Spirit could not have had the impulse to move unless It were self-conscious, therefore the Spirit is the Power that knows Itself; It is accordingly All-Knowing as well as All-Present. Being one, undivided, whatever It knows, It knows all over instantly. We find then that the Spirit operates through self knowing. It moves, and that inner movement must be one of Infinite Power, moving upon Itself--since It is all--and with a definite purpose. The Spirit, then, moves From the Word, then, comes forth all that appears. Each life, human or divine, each manifestation is a different kind of word coming into expression. The great fact to dwell upon is that Spirit needs nothing to help It; It is self-conscious and has all power and all ability to do whatever It wishes to accomplish. It operates simply by speaking. It is hard to get a clear concept of this great Ceaseless Cause, this something from which all things come; at times we get into a maze of confusion when we attempt to realize what the Spirit means. It is then that we should think of It as the great reason behind everything. Being all-knowledge It must know Itself, and must know everything It creates; so It knows us and It knows everyone. Since It is All-Presence we can contact anywhere and will never have to go to some particular spot to find It. As It is All-Knowing and operates through the power of the Word, It know everything we think. Just how It creates we cannot know and need not attempt to understand, for whatever this process of creation is, we find it is always an inner KNOWING that Mind is, we have a principle that is absolute; it is exact; it is going to correspond to our thinking about it. The first great necessity is to believe this; without belief we can do nothing. This is the reason Jesus said "It is done unto you even as you have believed." Always it is done unto people as they believe, and there is Something that does it which never fails. We must believe that our word is formed upon and around by this creative Mind; for instance, we wish to create activity in our business; we believe that our word is law about that thing, and there is something that takes our thought and executes it for us. If we have accepted SINCE this is true, everything depends upon our mental concepts. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he''; the Bible reiterates this statement telling us many times of the creative power of thought; Jesus taught nothing else; He said "the words which I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life." The Centurion coming to Jesus recognized the power of the word spoken by the latter. He said, "I also am one in authority"; but his authority was on the physical plane, and he saw that Jesus had authority on a Spiritual plane, for he said, "Speak the word only." The Bible also tells us that the word is not afar off but in our own mouth. It is neither here nor there; it is within every living soul. We must take the responsibility for our own lives. All must awake to the facts that they have absolute control over their lives, and that nothing can happen by chance. Then they will have a broader concept So long as the Word exists the thing will exist, for since the Word is All-Power there is nothing beside It. "I Am that I Am, and beside me there is none other." This "I Am" is Spirit, God, All. There is no physical explanation for anything in the universe; all causation is Spirit and all effect spiritual. We are not living in a physical world but in a spiritual world peopled with spiritual ideas. We are now living in Spirit. God, or Spirit, governs the universe through great mental laws that work out the divine will and purpose, always operating from Intelligence. This Intelligence is so vast, and the power so great that our human minds cannot even grasp it; all that we can hope to do is to learn something of the way in which it works, and by harmonizing ourselves with it, to so align ourselves with Spirit that our lives may be controlled by the great harmony that obtains in all the higher laws of nature, but has been very imperfectly manifested in man. This brings us to the second point of consideration. WE find in the physical universe that automatic laws govern everything; for instance, the tree cannot say "I will not," because of the law that holds it in place; it grows without any volition of its own. So it is with all nature; but when we come to man we find a different manifestation of the Spirit, a being who can say "I choose." In all creation, man alone is an individual; man alone is free; and yet man alone wants, is sick, suffers, and is unhappy. "Man marks the earth with ruin"; why? because he has not found his true nature. The very thing that should free him, and eventually will do so, now limits him. God could not make an individual without making him able to think, and he cannot think without bringing upon himself the results of his thought, good or bad. This does not mean using two powers, but using the One from two standpoints. Nothing in itself is either good or bad; all things exist in mind as a potentiality; mind is eternally acting upon thought, continually producing its own images from mind, and casting them out into manifestation. Man must be the outcome- of the desire of the Spirit to make something which expresses the same life that It feels. Man is made to be a companion of the Infinite; but to arrive at this exalted plane of being, he must have his freedom, and be let alone to discover his own nature; to return love to his Creator only when he chooses to do so. At the doorway, then, of man's mind this wonderful God has to wait. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock"; the opening must be on the part of the individual. SPIRIT creates through law. The law is always mind in action. Mind cannot act unless intelligence sets it in motion. In the great universal mind man is a center of intelligence, and every time he 'thinks he sets mind into action. 'What is the activity of this mind in relation to man's thought? It has to be one of mental correspondence; that is, mind has to reflect whatever thought it casts into it. Wonderful as Universal Mind is, it has no choice but to create whatever thought is given it; if it could contradict CREATIVE MIND cannot force itself upon us because we have the power of self-choice. It recognizes us when we recognize it. When we think that we are limited or have not been heard, it must take that thought and bring it into manifestation for us. When we look about us and see nature so beautiful, God has already done for us--in a mechanical way--all that He can do; and having been given the ability, we will have to do for ourselves the rest. Yet the Great Power is always near, ready at any time to help, but we must use it according to its own nature in harmony with its laws. Man should learn that he himself is the center of this Divine activity. Realizing this, he must seek more and more to utilize his own Divine nature, and by so doing he will come more fully under the protection of the great laws that govern all life, manifest and unmanifest. Whatever man is, he must find that because he is made out of God, he must be of the same nature. This Infinite One cannot know anything outside of itself; anything that would be a contradiction of its Divine nature; man's ignorance of his real nature binds him with his own freedom, until he comes to see things as they really are, and not as they appear to be. In the Infinity of mind, which is the principle of all metaphysics and of all life, there is nothing but mind, and that which mind does. That is all there is in the Universe. NEVER get away from the fact that you are surrounded by such a power; it is the principle of demonstration. It knows every thought. As we send forth our thought into it, it does unto us. The person who is ignorant of this law must by that ignorance be bound by his thought, by his human beliefs. One who understands will begin to break these ties that bind him; one by one he will destroy every negative thought until at last he is able to think what he wants to think; and so he frees himself by the use of the same power that at one time bound him. We must destroy all thought that we would not see manifest and hold to that which we would see, until we receive the affirmative answer. Never struggle, Mind makes things out of Itself, there is no effort made. Don't think that there is so much to be overcome. Have only a calm sense of perfect peace as you realize that God is all, and that you are using the perfect law and that nothing can hinder it from working for you. Many people are learning to do this, and no one has yet failed to demonstrate who has been steadfast, using the law in a consistent and persistent trust. All that we have to do is to provide the right mental and spiritual attitude of mind and then believe that we already have, and the reward will be with us. We shall see it. The time will come when we will not have to demonstrate at all because we will be always living so near to the law that it will do all for us without much conscious thought on our part. "THE Word was with God and the Word was God." "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy own mouth that thou shouldst know it and do it." What does this mean? It clearly states that whatever power there is in the Word (and it says it is All Power) is also in our own mouths. There is no avoiding the fact that the Bible claims for man the same power in his own life and his own world that it claims for God. In the lives of the majority, men do not realize that the Word is in their own mouths. What Word? Little do we realize that this Word which they are so earnestly seeking is every word they hear, think or speak. Do we who are endeavoring to realize the greater truths of life always govern our words? If any word has power, it follows that all words have power. It is not in the few "God knew I needed the word He sent-- Few people indeed in the day in which we live are well poised. Where do we find the man who can live above his surroundings, who in his own thought can dominate all conditions, and in the midst of the crowd keep his own even way, and his own counsel? When we do meet with such a person we will know him; for we shall find on his face the image of perfect peace. We shall detect in his bearing the ease and independence that comes only to the man who has found himself and who is centered not in the outer but in the inner world. Such a character as this has the power to attract to himself all of the best in the world; he is a center toward which all else must gravitate. The atmosphere which he creates and with which he surrounds himself is one of absolute calm and peace. The world at once sees in this man a master, and gladly sits at his feet. And yet this man who has risen above the thought of the world cares not that other people should sit at his feet. He knows that what he has done all may do, and he well knows that all the teaching in the world will not produce another such as he. He knows that it is not from the teaching but from the being that true greatness springs. So this man does not go around teaching or preaching; he simply IS. THE man who has arrived will realize that he has done so in the midst of an outer confusion; he will be the one who has gone into the silence for strength, and has come out into the world equipped with power from on high; but that light which he has received must be kept burning. Not alone in the silence but in the busy throng must all of us find the way of life. Our every thought creates. For the majority of us these thoughts come in every-day affairs, some of which are very trivial, but these too will be demonstrated. We have missed the whole point, unless we have learned so to control our thought that time and place make no difference. WE have within us a power that is greater than anything that we shall ever contact in the outer, a power that can overcome every obstacle in our life and set us safe, satisfied and at peace, healed and prosperous, in a new light, and in a new life. Mind, all Mind is right here. It is God's Mind, God's creative Power, God's creative Life. We have as much of this Power to use in our daily life as we can believe in and embody. The store house of nature is filled with infinite good awaiting the touch of our awakened thought to spring forth WE find that in the Universe every separate idea has a word, a mental concept behind it, and as long as that word remains the thing is held in place in the visible world; when the concept is withdrawn the idea in the visible melts away, disappears; it ceases to vibrate to the word, which is the law behind it, for when the word is withdrawn the condensation of the ether that forms the word melts again into the formless. There was a time when the world was without form, and from the word alone all things were made that are made. When our word says that there is no longer life in our bodies, the life principle withdraws and our bodies return to the substance from which they came. Here is the great mystery of life, that we are able to use this creative word for whatever purpose we may desire, and that word becomes the Law unto the thing for which it was spoken. And so in our lives we might say that without our word THIS Universe is the reason, first of an Infinite Intelligence which speaks or thinks, and as this thought becomes active within itself, it creates from itself, at the power of its own word, the visible Universe. We are living in a Universal activity of mental law, we are surrounded by a Mind which receives every impression of our thought and returns to us just what we think. Every man, then, is living in a world made for him from the activity of his thought. It is a self-evident proposition that Mind must create out of Itself; and this Self being Limitless, it follows that its creative power is without limit. EVERYTHING that we see is the result of mind in action. We all have a body and we have what is called a physical environment; we could have neither if it were not for mind. The law implanted within us is, that we need nothing except ourselves and this All-Wise Creative Mind to make anything; and that just so far as we depend upon any condition, past, present or future, or THERE is something that casts back at us every thought that we think. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," is a statement of eternal truth and correspondences against which nothing can stand, and whatever THE best way to arrive at the highest consciousness is to have a great faith in the willingness and the ability of Life to do all for us, by working through us. We must believe in the inherent goodness and all-powerfulness of the Spirit of Truth. And so every path leads us back to the one point and we must learn to realize the near presence, the great reality. There, through the door of our own thought, we enter into the Universal Consciousness, into a complete realization of life and truth, of love and beauty; and as we sit in the silence of our own souls and listen, it will be the greatest thing that we will ever do. In that completeness we are lost and yet we are found. This is what is meant that a man must lose his life in order to find it. We are lost to the human and found in the divine. We realize that we are One with Cause. NEARLY all people are controlled by outer suggestions, and not by inner realizations. Ordinarily man thinks only what he sees others do, and hears others say. We must all learn so to control the inner life that outside things do not make an impression upon our mentalities. As we are thinking beings, and cannot help thinking, we cannot avoid making things happen to us, and what we need to do is so to control our thought processes that our thinking will not depart from the realization of that which is perfect. Man is governed by a mind which casts back to him every thought he thinks; he cannot escape from this and need not try; it would be useless. The laws of mind are simple and easy to understand. The trouble with us has been that we have laid down great obstructions, and then have tried to overcome them. Stop trying, stop struggling, begin to be calm, to trust in the higher laws of life, even though you do not see them; they are still there. Did you ever see the law that causes a plant to grow? Of course you did not, and yet you believe in this hidden law of growth. Why do you believe? Simply because every year, out of the seed time comes a harvest. Shall we not have as great faith in the higher laws of being? To those souls who have dared to believe has come as definite an answer as came to those who believed in receiving a harvest from the planted seed. This law is, and if we would see results we must use it; that is, we must provide the mental receptivity that will prepare us to accept the gift when the Spirit makes it. This receiving is a mental process, a process in which we lose all sense of limitation. The law obtains through all nature that as a man sows, so must he reap. Now the Father has brought us to where we can understand life, and we must go as we choose. If we are in harmony with the great forward movement of the Spirit, there is nothing that can hinder our advancement; if we oppose it, somewhere along our pathway it will crush us. As with individuals so with nations; in so IN practice the emancipated soul must always realize that he is in union with the Father; what the Father does, he can do in his own life; what God is, he can become. His word must be spoken with absolute authority; he must know; there should be no uncertainty. The word is the only power; everything must come from it, and nothing can stand against it; it is the great weapon which he is to use against all evil and for all good. It is his shield against all adversity and his sure defense against all seeming limitation. The secret place of the Most High is in his own soul, where God dwells in eternal peace and infinite calm. Here he walks the waters of life undisturbed by the waves and the storm. Divine companionship is his for all eternity. Peace which transcends all human confusion comes, and MAN is surrounded by a great universal thought power which returns to him always just as he thinks. So plastic, so receptive is this mind, that it takes the slightest impression and moulds it into conditions. There are two things in man which his thought affects, his body and his environment. At all times he is given absolute control over these two things, and from the effect of his thought upon them he cannot hope to escape. At first, being ignorant of this fact, he binds himself by a misuse of the laws of his being; but as he begins to see that he himself is responsible for all that comes to him on the path of life, he begins to control his thought, which in its turn acts on the universal substance to create for him a new world. The great soul is learning more and more to dare to fling out into mind a divine idea of himself, and to see himself perfect and whole. If he has a divine thought he will get a divine thing, if he has a human thought he will get a human thing; he will receive whatever his innermost thought embodies. And so we find in the Bible twice repeated these words: "To the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure and to the froward Thou wilt show Thyself froward." It is done unto all as they believe. We often wonder why it is that we are not making better demonstrations. We look about and observe that some are getting wonderful results, they are speaking the word and people are being healed. We see others struggling along with the word, and nothing seems to happen; and when we People will often ask, "What is the best method for demonstration?" There is but one answer to that question; the Word is the only possible method of demonstrating anything; the word really felt and embodied in our thought. Then the word becomes flesh and dwells among us and we behold and experience it. We will ask for no other way when we understand this. The person who does not understand these laws will be likely to say that this is presumptuous; that it is even sacrilegious; but this comes only from a lack of understanding of the fact that all is governed by law, and that all law is impersonal and universal. We have just as much right to use spiritual law as to use so-called physical laws. Strictly speaking there is no such a thing as a physical law, as all things are spiritual and all law is a law of the activity of the Spirit. The greatest use of these laws will always come to that soul who is the most deeply spiritual, as such an one comes the nearest to using law as God uses it. So to the really great soul there must come a very close relationship with the Invisible God; this relationship cannot be expressed in words but only in inner feeling which transcends the If you believe absolutely that you can do a certain thing, the way will always be opened for you to do it; if also you believe that time will have to elapse, then you are making that a law, and time will have to elapse. If on the other hand you believe that mind knows just how and THE one who desires to heal must stop seeing, reading about, discussing, or listening to conversation about sickness. There is no other way under the sun except as we let go of that which we do not desire, and take that which we wish to have. There is too much of this deceiving ourselves into thinking that we can do two ways THERE is too much struggle coming into the metaphysical thought. Often we hear some seeker after truth say, "I have a big fight ahead." O foolish and untaught, how can you hope to enter in! The kingdom comes not from without, but from within, always. Stop all struggle and wait upon the sure principle that creates whatever it wills because there is nothing to oppose it. As long as we think that opposition exists we are blocking the way for the clearer vision. Those that take up the sword must perish by it; not because God is a jealous God, but because that is the way the law must work. Cause and effect must obtain everywhere. Do not even fuss about your Karma; too often we hear people say, "This is my Karma." This may be true enough, but how many people know what they mean when they use the word Karma? Do you realize that your Karma is nothing but your false thinking, and that the only way to escape it is to think the truth, and that brings in the higher law? When the greater comes in the lesser leaves because there is no longer anything to give life to it. The past is gone when we learn to forgive and to forget. This erases from mind all that is held against us, and The great law of life is thinking and becoming; and when we think from the lofty heights of the Spirit we will become great, and not until then. Do not try to convince any one of the truth; that will bring confusion. Truth is, just as much as God is; and the whole world is coming gradually into the realization of it. Keep the truth within your own soul, lift your own self above the confusion of life, and then people will believe. So all our thought is to be created in the realization of the One becoming the many, without struggle, without fear; stripped of all that denies the truth. How limited we are, how little our thought! How the human race rises in the morning, plods off to the day's work, plods home at night, sore and tired, eats and sleeps, works and dies. As has been said of man, "Man works hard to get money to buy food to get strength to work hard to get money to buy food to get strength to work hard to get money, etc." This was never intended; it is the curse imposed on the man who believed in two powers, one of good and one of evil. To us there has come a greater vision, and to those who believe and act as though it were true it is proving itself.PART I.
IN THE BEGINNING.
THE LAW OF OUR LIVES.
MAN'S PART.
THE WORD.
I had lost the zest of fight;
And the right was all but beaten;
The wrong it was all but right.
With the pain of too much striving--
’Twas 'Love fulfills the law.'"THE POWER WE HAVE WITHIN US.
INDIVIDUAL IDEAS.
MIND IN ACTION.
ACTION AND REACTION.
