When we realize that man is like God (and he could not be otherwise, being made out of God), we will realize that his word also has power. If there is but One Mind then it follows that our word, our thought is the activity of that One Mind in our consciousness; the power that holds the planets in their place is the same power that flows through man. We must place the Word where it belongs, whether it is the word of God in the Universe or the word of man in the individual; it is always first, before all else, in the beginning. The real sequence is this: Cause, Spirit, Intelligence, God; the Word, the activity of Intelligence; the effect, or the visible thing, whether it is a planet or a peanut. All are made out of the same thing.
What we need to do is to learn how to use the word so that all will come to see that they are creative centers within themselves.

A PRINCIPLE THAT CAN BE PROVEN.

THE WORD GOING FORTH.

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 of God, a greater tolerance for their neighbor, and a greater realization of their own divine nature. What a relief from strenuous labor; no more struggle or strife. “Be still and know that I am God, and beside me there is none other.” The Spirit being all there is, we cannot conceive of anything that can hinder its working. When the Spirit has spoken, the Word becomes Law, for before the Law is the Word; It precedes all else. First is Absolute Intelligence, All-Power, All-Presence, All-Causation; then the movement upon itself through the power of the Word; then the Word becoming Law; the Law producing the thing and holding it in place.

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

WHY, AND WHAT IS MAN?

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.

Man lives in a mind that presses in upon him from all sides with infinite possibilities, with infinite creative power. The divine urge of infinite love crowds itself upon him, and awaits his recognition. Being the image of this Power, his thought also must be the Word or cause in the life. At the center of his being is all the power that he will need on the path of his unfoldment; all the mind that man has is as much of this Infinite Mind as he allows to flow through him. We have often thought of God as far off, and of man as a being separate from the All Good; now we are coming to see that God and man are one, and that that One is simply awaiting man’s recognition, that he may spring into being and become to man all that he could wish or want. “As the father has inherent life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life within himself.” It could not be otherwise; we are all in Mind and Mind is always creating for us as we think; and as we are thinking creatures, always thinking, our happiness depends upon our thought. Let us consider the law of our life.

THE LAW OF OUR LIVES.

We are surrounded by an All Seeing, All Knowing Mind, which is One and runs through all. The belief in the dual mind has destroyed practically all philosophies and religions of the ages, and will continue to do so until the world comes to see that there is but One. Whatever name is given it there is but One. It is this One that creates for us, whatever we believe. Our thought operative through this One produces all our affairs. We are all centers in this Mind, centers of creative thought activity. There is nothing which appears in the manifest Universe other than an objectified thought, whether it be a bump on your head, a growth on your foot or a planet. It could not be there were it not made out of Mind, for mind is all there is to make anything out of. Whatever is made is made out of it. Nothing exists or can exist without a source from which it springs.

To the thinking person this will mean much; he will see that he is no longer living in a limited universe, a world of powers, but that he is immersed in an Infinite Creative Medium which, because of Its Nature, has to create for him whatever he believes. Jesus understood this, and in a few simple words, laid down the law of life: “It is done unto all people as they believe.” This is a great thing to keep in mind. It is done unto us; we do not have to do it, for it is done unto us of a power that knows itself to be all there is. Could we even believe that some material mountain would be moved, the power is there to do it. Without this belief there is no real impulse for the Creative Mind, and we do not get an affirmative answer. We must realize more clearly that this Great Power has to operate through us.

MAN’S PART.

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.

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.

That is all there ever was or ever will be. This mind is acted upon by our thought, and so our thought becomes the law of our lives. It is just as much a law in our individual lives as God’s thought is in the larger life of the Universe.

For the sake of clearness, think of yourself as in this Mind, think of yourself as a center in it. That is your principle. You think, and Mind produces the thing. One of the big points to remember is that we do not have to create; all that we have to do is to think. Mind, the only Mind that there is, creates.

Few people seem to understand the nature of the law and so think that they have got to do something, even if it is only holding a thought; thinking or knowing is what does the thing. It will make it much easier for us when we realize that we do not have to make anything, just to know; that there is something back of the knowing which does the work for us.

That person gets the best results who realizes that he can use this divine principle; he who can get the clearest concept of his idea, and who can rely on mind to do for him, keeping everything out of his thought that would contradict the supremacy of Spirit or Mind.

By simply holding a thought we could not make anything but by knowing in mind what cannot we do?

BONDAGE AND FREEDOM.

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.

So when you say, “I am poor, sick or weak; I am not one with the Creative Mind," you are using that creative power to keep yourself away from the Infinite; and just as soon as you declare that you are one with God, there is a rushing out to meet you, as the Father rushed out to meet the prodigal son. “The Spirit seeketh,” but as long as your mind thinks in the terms of conditions you cannot overcome. The difficulty comes from our inability to see our own Divine nature, and its relation to the Universe. Until we awake to the fact that we are one in nature with God, we will not find the way of life; until we realize that our own word has the power of life we will not see the way of life; and this brings us to the consideration of the use of the Word in our lives.

THE WORD.

How necessary, then, to “keep the independence of the solitude”; how seldom we do this!

“God sent an angel to speak to me —
A word He was faint I hear;
And the angel brought the message
And whispered it in my ear.

“God knew I needed the word He sent —
I had lost the zest of fight;
And the right was all but beaten;
The wrong it was all but right.

“Simple the word that He sent me —
But it soothed a spirit raw
With the pain of too much striving —
‘Twas ‘Love fulfills the law.’”

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.

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.

THE POWER WE HAVE WITHIN US.

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.

INDIVIDUAL IDEAS.

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.

THE REASON FOR THE UNIVERSE.

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.

MIND IN ACTION.

We should realize that we are dealing with the principle that is scientifically correct. It will never fail us at any time but is eternally present. We can approach the Infinite Mind with a depth of thought and understanding, knowing that it will respond, knowing that we are dealing with reality.

Jesus, who saw this very clearly, laid down the whole law of life in a few simple words: “It is done unto you as you believe.” We do not have to do it, it is done unto us, it is done by a power that is all. Could we believe that a material mountain would be moved, it would be done unto us. But unless we do believe there is no impulse for the creative power and we do not receive. Life externalizes at the level of our thought.

ACTION AND REACTION.

ARRIVING AT A HIGH CONSCIOUSNESS.

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.