R U Tuned In

 “They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world:
someone to love,
something to do, and
something to hope for.” ― Tom Bodett

“Expect your every need to be met, expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level, expect to grow spiritually.” ~ Eileen Caddy

“Find ecstasy in life;
 the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
 ― Emily Dickinson

When you are sad, anxious, feeling guilty
or otherwise tempted
know this need not be.

Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can,
remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully
 to your slightest invitation:

When American religion, dualistic, came to a fork in the road.

In 1930, Dr. Wendell Marshall Thomas's influential and objective study Hinduism Invades America was published by Beacon Press.


He chose to close the book with the following, a statement of praise he reserves for A.K. Mozumdar:

"The most rapid movement of all, however, is found in the clean-cut work of A. K. Mozumdar, an independent Christian of Hindu race and tradition, who has preached here and there in America for about twenty years. While Mozumdar's teaching is popular, it has unusual historic significance, for it shows us what happens when a thinker immersed in Hindu lore completely accepts a world-affirming position. What happens is an identification of the Hindu conception of a divine universal Self with the Hebrew conception of a divine creative Power. To Mozumdar the ultimate God is not uncreative Bliss, as in the view of Sankara, but creative Power, as in the Hebrew tradition. Yet this creative Power, he declares, is the same as the universal Self. Here the universal Self, we should note, is not a finite Ideal, as in Greek philosophy, but the infinite Substance of the world.

"Mozumdar makes this synthesis on the basis of his faith in Jesus Christ. Whether Jesus was historically influenced by Hinduism, as many Hindus contend, we cannot at present determine, but what makes him more than an ordinary Hebrew prophet in his life and teaching is precisely the Hindu-like conviction, expressed as well as possible within the limits of Jewish conceptions, that God is the universal Self, or the personal Substance of man. Elaborating the same conviction, Spinoza declares that the God of creative Power is also the thinking Substance of man and the universe. While the synthesis of Jesus is implicit and popular, the synthesis of Spinoza is explicit and technical.

"Like Spinoza, Mozumdar worships Jesus as the supreme religious genius. Like Spinoza again, he feels both Hindu and Hebrew influence. And like Spinoza in the third place, he accepts the monistic philosophy of modern science instead of the dualistic philosophy of ancient Greece. Unlike Jesus, both Spinoza and Mozumdar are explicit in their Hebrew-Hindu synthesis, but like Jesus and unlike Spinoza, Mozumdar uses a popular instead of a technical method, for he preaches, teaches and performs faith-healing. While his lectures, classes, lessons and correspondence courses subordinate the Hebrew interest in social justice to the Hindu interest in meditation and concentration, his philosophical position – as revealed in his numerous pamphlets and books on "The Messianic World Message" – is definitely Christian and opposed to many. traditional Hindu conceptions, such as the equal value of all great religious geniuses, the illusory nature of the world, and the postponement of final salvation till the end of the cosmic process.

Says he:

Jesus's teaching is the greatest and simplest revelation of God, and is different from other teachings of Truth.... He came to teach us that the human expression is not an illusion... but... a vital reality.... Instead of following a specific path to realize God, you let God direct your life.... It need not take you millions of years to dispel millions of years' accumulated darkness. It will take but a flash of light from God to light your entire mental life. [From The Conquering Man (1929) p. 58, 84, 85, 22]

"Yet his Christian teaching is unusual because it rejects the traditional Greek dualism in favor of Hindu monism.

If man thinks and acts, is not the thinker... and actor... God?... If God is All-Life... then all lives are God... The Creative-power is the very nature of the Being of the Creator; hence the Creative-power is God.... Life is the Creator, and It will never be reduced to the level of Its own creation. The creature will forever be ensouled with the Creative-activity, and move and act according to the inner impulse of the Creator.... By thinking with the mind of the one Life, you become conscious of being the Thinker.... At the back of your every action you should find Yourself.... You are spirit and therefore spiritual.... The Permanent Substance is underneath all forms. The forms are made of the Everlasting Substance. This knowledge sets a man free.... [From The Life of Man, p. 1, 3, 7, 27, and The Conquering Man, p. 41]

"American religion, with its dualistic Greek notion of an ideal God up in heaven – and an actual man down on earth, has come to a fork in the road. To the left lies a path trod by atheists, secularists, humanists and others, who seek to exalt man by getting rid of this sort of God. To the right lies a path trod by Hindus, Theosophists, Christian Scientists and others, who seek to exalt man by supporting him with a belief in his divine nature. The modern age has little use for the traditional dualism between the natural and the supernatural, and is moving towards pluralism on the one hand and monism on the other, towards the path of less religion and the path of more religion. Hinduism comes to America to point out the path of more religion."

Hinduism invades America, Wendell Marshall Thomas (1930)

It is simply a study of the amazing adventure of an Eastern faith in a Western land. An account of the serious impact on American life of Hindu philosophy & culture especially in the form of organized religion.

"I do not know of any spiritual teacher that I consider so close to the spirit of Christ as Mr. Mozumdar," wrote the late Glenn Clark, famous author, lecturer and college professor. "He has that perfect transparency that is a combination of what they say are the outstanding qualities of Gandhi, humility and confidence – humility in the outer and perfect confidence in the inner. I feel that any one who perfectly comprehends his teachings and puts them into expression in his life will possess the secret of the ages."

"To pray the prayer of healing, we must visualize a change for which we can give thanks."

Rebecca Beard (1885 - 1952) was widely known in the 1950/60's as a gifted speaker and teacher in the field of spiritual therapy. Her first book, Everyman's Search, went through many editions because it offered practical suggestions to those seeking a deeper awareness of the power of God in their lives.

“The past is finished. There is nothing to b gained by going over it. Whatever it gave us in the experiences it brought us was something we had to know.” ~ Rebecca Beard

Stretching the Mind to Take in All of God

I find the frame for my method in the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm. I say "frame" because either one of these can be recited in less than half a minute, and a prayer such as we materialistically-minded moderns need is one which will demand at least fifteen minutes of our time.


In this day of the coliseum, the gymnasium, and the daily dozen, I know it may sound impractical and visionary to suggest that the spirit deserves as much care as the body. You will find yourself in a new world where your God no longer dwells in churches and meeting-places and forms and days, but where He governs every minute of every day of every year. You will find yourself in a new world where immortality will no longer be sought as something far away, to be found at some far distant time, for you will know that you are immortal now, and that the entire universe with all its good and with all its beauty belongs to you now and forever.


The following may open your eyes a wee bit to the possibilities you yourself might work out in prayer.


Stretching the Mind to Take in All of God
1. Our Heavenly Father, we know that Thy Love is as infinite as the sky is infinite, and Thy Ways of manifesting that Love are as uncountable as the stars of the heavens.
2. Thy Power is greater than man's horizon, and Thy Ways of manifesting that Power are more numerous than the sands of the sea.
3. Thy Wisdom is greater than all hidden treasures, and yet as instantly available for our needs as the very ground beneath our feet.
4. Thy Joy is brighter than the sun at noonday and Thy Ways of expressing that Joy as countless as the sunbeams that shine upon our path.
5. Thy Peace is closer than the atmosphere that wraps us around, and as inescapable as the very air we breathe.
6. Thy Spirit is as pure as the morning dew, and yet as impervious to all that is unlike itself as the diamond which the dew represents.
7. As Thou keepest the stars in their courses, so shalt Thou guide our steps in perfect harmony, without clash or discord of any kind, if we but keep our trust in Thee. For we know Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee. We know that, if we acknowledge Thee in all our ways, Thou wilt direct our paths. For Thou art the God of Love, Giver of every good and perfect gift, and there is none beside Thee. Thou art omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, in all, through all, and over all, the only God. And Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, forever. Amen.

When a visitor comes, accept him as a messenger from God, and before long a divine message actually will come to you. Accept every disappointment as a signpost to show you to another path which is better, and you will always find the other path is there. Gradually this practising the presence of God, or living in the Kingdom of Heaven, will become a habit. Then you will wonder why for so many years you had not been living there before. The Soul's Sincere Desire by Glenn Clark [1925]

Camp Farthest Out

Glenn Clark (1882-1956)
Founder of "The Camps Farthest Out"
A Presbyterian, reared in the church, teaching in a Presbyterian college, and Sunday School teacher. For thirty years he was a professor of literature and athletic coach at Macalester College, A Presbyterian liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was highly influential in introducing New Thought ideas and techniques into the churches.
He was deeply religious and something of a mystic, a great believer in prayer. He first came into prominence through an article in the Atlantic Monthly, "The Soul's Sincere Desire"
In 1930 he organized a summer camp of his own in Koronis, Mn., to which he gave the name "Camp Farthest Out." By 1961 there were forty-one of them, meeting in almost every section of the country. He sometimes called the camps "laboratories for experimentation in the art of praying," as prayer and the disciplines of silence and meditation played such an important role.
In “A Man's Reach”, he wrote of being brought to an unusual interest in prayer, and it became his major concern and emphasis. It set him to reading especially the works of the mystics and about them and their approach to God. Among the books he read was “Life Understood” by F.L. Rawson, a onetime Christian Scientist, departed from that church, who had become an influential leader of New Thought in England. The thing that attracted Clark to Rawson, he says, was that "he believed one's prayers could be just as scientifically infallible as the laws of physics and chemistry."During a study group of Rawson’s book, the group would go into the silence, trying to feel the presence of God. The leader would then read a list of names of people to be prayed for, and the members of the group would use the technique of denials and affirmations. Clark discovered "that all Mankind was One, and if we cleared our own mind, the trouble of the one we prayed for would disappear. One strong denial and a number of positive affirmations seemed to be the most effective way to clear our minds."
This was (and is), of course, good metaphysical practice, employed by both Christian Science and New Thought, and Glenn Clark unhesitatingly adopted it and carried it into his own ministry and teaching.