All things are lessons God would have me learn.

These are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects them all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes, appar­ent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

How to Obtain Our Own

What is "Our Own"? "Our Own" is just what we create for ourselves. There is nothing higher for us than the things we know, but there are always increasing grades of knowing. —Julia Seton Sears, M.D.

What you condemn you continue.

God is a frequency.

He wrote facts, which he had proven by practice.

James Allen ( 1864 – 1912) was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of the self-help movement. His best known work, As a Man Thinketh, has been mass produced since its publication in 1903. It has been a source of inspiration to motivational and self-help authors.

Born in Leicester, England, into a working-class family, Allen was the elder of three brothers. His mother, Martha (whose surname was Whalton or Whotton), could neither read nor write while his father, William, was a factory Framework Knitter. In 1879, following a downturn in the textile trade of central England, Allen's father traveled alone to America to find work and establish a new home for the family. Within two days of arriving his father was pronounced dead at New York City Hospital, believed to be a case of robbery and murder. At age 15, with the family now facing economic disaster, Allen was forced to leave school and find work.

The murder of his father caused Allen to leave school and begin work. James worked as framework knitter as his father did. At this time they lived at 75 Charnwood Street in Leicester.

Although working many hours, Allen continued to read and study. It was around this time that he began reading Shakespeare and at about age 24 he read The Light of Asia. The Light of Asia.acted as spiritual awakener for Allen and started him on his path toward “perfect peace”. Allen’s parents are thought to be Methodists. It is clear that Allen strayed from his parent’s religion, drawing inspiration from many religions and committing to no denomination.  

Lily Louisa Oram was born on December 30^th, 1867 at Burrishoole, Eire to John and Jane Oram (nee Talbot). Allen met Lily in 1893 when he was 29. They married on May 22^nd, 1895 at the Holy Cross Church in Bampfylde, Somerset, England, witnessed by Lily’s parents. They were both devout vegetarians.

Allen began to work for Sidney H. Beard as a private secretary during this time. Allen’s daughter Nora was born on September 10^th 1896 at 21 Littlefield Villas, Weymouth, Dorset. Around this time, Allen was living in Bath, England with his wife Lily and daughter Nora.
In 1901, when Allen was 37, he wrote his first book, From Poverty to Power. In 1902 he wrote his second book, As a Man Thinketh. Although this would be Allen’s most successful book, it is said that he felt it to be unsatisfactory and not worthy of print. It was his wife Lily who convinced him to publish it. Allen wrote 19 books in all.

Allen learned about publishing and running a magazine from his time working for Sidney Beard[1] on Beard’s magazine The Herald of the Golden Age and in 1902, Allen started his own magazine titled The Light of Reason. Each issue of Allen’s magazine contained announcements, an editorial written by Allen on a different subject each month, and many articles, poems, and quotes written by popular authors of the day and even local, unheard of authors. In 1905, Allen organized his magazine subscribers into groups (called “The Brotherhood”) that would meet regularly and reported on their meetings each month in his magazine under the heading “Our Groups and Their Work”. Allen and his wife would often travel to the group meetings to give speeches and read articles. The name of the magazine was later changed to “The Epoch”. Authors such as Ralph Waldo Trine, Charles Brodie Patterson, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Orison Swett Marden were included.
[1] The Order of the Golden Age was conceptualised in 1881 by Rev. H.J. Williams (1838 -1919) and constituted a year later. However, a lack of funds precluded the development of a society until 1895. Sidney H. Beard (1862 - 1938) was one of several campaigners to meet with Rev. Williams in order to actualise the concept of a religious food reform organisation. Over a thirty year period, Beard was to become the chief toiler and an inspirational force within The Order whilst editing The Herald of the Golden Age almost entirely, throughout its period of publication between January 1896 and October 1918.

Allen moved his family to 33 Broad Park Avenue, Ilfracombe, England to a house they called “Bryngoleu”, or “Hill of Light.” Allen eventually took over full editorial control of his magazine and moved its operation to his house. It was also here where Allen penned most of his works. They also ran their home as a bed and breakfast and often invited subscribers to their magazine to stay at their home.
Some of Allen's favorite writings, and those he quoted often, include the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Emerson, the Bible, Buddha, Whitman, Trine, and Lao-Tze.

Each morning Allen would climb The Cairn in Ilfracombe where he would go to reflect and meditate. He would then return home and write and until midday. In the afternoons, he enjoyed gardening and playing croquet. The James Allen Library

"He never wrote theories, or for the sake of writing; but he wrote when he had a message, and it became a message only when he had lived it out in his own life, and knew that it was good. Thus he wrote facts, which he had proven by practice."

About James Allen

Mental Healing (II) : Metaphysical Healing

The present decade has experienced an intense interest in mental healing. This has come as a culmination of the development along these lines during the past half century. It has shown itself in the beginning of new religious sects with this as a, or the, fundamental tenet, in more wide-spread general movements, and in the scientific study and application of the principles underlying this form of therapeutics.

Many have been led astray because, being ignorant of the mental healing movements and vagaries of the past, the late applications, veiled in metaphysical or religious verbiage, have seemed to them to be new in origin and principle. No one could consider an historical survey of the subject and reasonably hold this opinion. It is on account of the ignorance of similar movements, millenniums old, that so much, if any, originality can be credited to the founders.

. . .

What we may designate "Metaphysical Healing" originated with Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866). The movement was important, not so much on account of what Quimby himself was able to accomplish by it, as because of the work that has been carried on since by at least three of his pupils. He was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and in early life was a watch and clock maker. In 1840 he began experimenting with mesmerism, and accounts of these experiments were published in the Maine papers of that time. After this he developed a system of mental healing of his own, practising it in different towns in Maine for some years. About 1858 he settled as a practitioner in Portland and remained there until his death. I shall quote brief extracts in his own words, which portray his system.

"My practice is unlike all medical practice. I give no medicine, and make no outward applications. I tell the patient his troubles, and what he thinks is his disease; and my explanation is the cure. If I succeed in correcting his errors, I change the fluids of the system and establish the truth, or health. The truth is the cure. This mode of practice applies to all cases."

"The greatest evil that follows taking an opinion for a truth is disease."

"Man is made up of truth and belief; and, if he is deceived into a belief that he has, or is liable to have, a disease, the belief is catching, and the effect follows it."

"Disease being made by our belief, or by our parents' belief, or by public opinion, there is no formula to be adopted, but every one must be reached in his particular case. Therefore it requires great shrewdness or wisdom to get the better of the error. Disease is our error and the work of the devil."

Quimby made many wonderful and mostly speedy cures, and although he wrote out his system, it has never been published. Among his patients was Mrs. Patterson from Hill, New Hampshire, who went to Portland in 1862. She had been a confirmed invalid for six years. To quote her own words, published in the Portland Evening Courier in 1862, she made a rapid recovery. "Three weeks since I quitted my nurse and sick room en route for Portland. The belief of my recovery had died out of the hearts of those who were most anxious for it. With this mental and physical depression I first visited P. P. Quimby, and in less than one week from that time I ascended by a stairway of one hundred and eighty-two steps to the dome of the City Hall, and am improving ad infinitum. To the most subtle reasoning, such a proof, coupled, too, as it is with numberless similar ones, demonstrates his power to heal." Mrs. Patterson, afterward Mrs. Eddy, proclaimed after his death a doctrine very similar to Quimby's. She called it "Christian Science," a name Quimby applied to his teaching, although usually he called it "Science of Health."
Another patient of Quimby's was Julius A. Dresser, who visited him first in 1860. Of him Mr. Dresser says: "The first person in this age who penetrated the depths of truth so far as to discover and bring forth a true science of life, and publicly apply it to the healing of the sick, was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby of Belfast, Me."
Rev. W. F. Evans was still another patient and disciple of Quimby's. His testimony is as follows: "Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure the disease.... The late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the nature of disease, and by a long succession of most remarkable cures ... proved the truth of the theory.... Had he lived in a remote age or country, the wonderful facts which occurred in his practice would have now been deemed either mythical or miraculous."
These three, Messrs. Evans and Dresser and Mrs. Eddy, proved to be Quimby's most famous patients and disciples. Evans became a noted and voluminous writer on mental healing, Mr. Dresser has been identified with the New Thought movement of which his son H. W. Dresser is probably the best exponent, and Mrs. Eddy ruled the Christian Scientists with a rod of iron.
Warren F. Evans visited Quimby twice in the year 1863, and at these times obtained his knowledge of Quimby's methods. Up to this time he had been a Swedenborgian clergyman, and his beliefs enabled him the better to grasp the new doctrines. On the occasion of the second visit he told his healer that he thought he could cure the sick in this way, and Quimby agreed with him. On returning home he tried it, and his first attempts were so successful that he became a practitioner, using only mental means, and continued in this work. He wrote several books on the subject of mental healing, the first one, The Mental Cure, appearing in 1869, six years before Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health.
Perhaps, strictly speaking, the New Thought movement does not come within the scope of our subject, except as we see in it an outgrowth and application of the Quimby doctrine, for two reasons. In the first place, its purpose is mental hygiene rather than cure, and it is all the more valuable for that. Of course, in establishing hygienic practices many disorders are cured, but prevention is the main feature. The second reason why we might perhaps not include it in a résumé of the healers is that it is intended to be for the use of the individual to prevent his employing a healer of any kind. The same objection, however, would do away to some extent with a discussion of Christian Science. The principles of New Thought are that the mind has an influence on the body, and that good, sweet, pure thoughts have a salutary effect, but the opposite ones injure the body. Don't worry, don't think of disease, don't look for trouble, but fill the mind with the opposite positive thoughts and life will be happy and the body will be well. The doctrines are expounded differently by the various leaders, and emphasis is laid on different points, some emphasizing more fully the religious aspects of the movement, for example. The principal writers on the subject are H. W. Dresser, R. W. Trine, H. Wood, and H. Fletcher.
Mrs. Mary A. Morse Baker Glover Patterson Eddy (1821-1910) was born at Bow, New Hampshire. After a precocious and neurotic childhood, she united with the Congregational Church when seventeen years of age. At the age of twenty-two she married George Washington Glover, probably the best of her husbands. His death, six months later, was followed by the birth of her only child and a ten years' widowhood. During this time she stayed with her relatives and had long periods of illness, principally of an hysterical character. She then experimented to some extent with mesmerism and clairvoyance. In 1853 she married Dr. Daniel Patterson, an itinerant dentist, from whom she got a divorce, and as Mrs. Patterson she went first to "Dr." Quimby in 1862. She visited Quimby again in 1864, at which time, with some others, she studied with him. After Quimby's death she began teaching what she then called his science. For the next few years she wandered from town to town about Boston in straitened circumstances, healing, teaching, and endeavoring to found an organized society. It was not, however, until 1875 that the organization was formed in Lynn, and later in the same year appeared her Science and Health. The years since then have been filled with controversies in the law courts and newspapers, caresses and blows from the ruling hand of Mother Eddy, and numerous developments from small beginnings, until now over one hundred thousand are identified with the organization. These are almost without exception proselytes from other churches.

From THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF MENTAL HEALING

BY

GEORGE BARTON CUTTEN, Ph.D.

1911

Promise Yourself.

Christian Daa Larson, Christian D. Larson, C.D. Larson (1874 – 1962) , beloved author of his now famous Optimist Creed[1], was born February 1, 1874. His parents were newly arrived Norwegian immigrants who settled in the prairie wilderness of North Winnebago County, Iowa.
In 1894, urged by his parents, Christian entered a Lutheran seminary. But on a train trip to the seminary in Minneapolis an event occurred that would change the course of Christians life. A book by a Unitarian minister was left on the seat next to him, and after reading it several times it became the catalyst for his break with orthodox theology. Larson completed the first year at the Lutheran seminary but knew he would enroll in a liberal theological school the following year. He attended Iowa State College and a Unitarian theological school in Meadville, Pennsylvania In his early twenties he became interested in the Mental Science teachings of Helen Wilmans, Henry Wood, Charles Brodie Patterson and others. These logical teachings suited his analytical mind and provided a point to him where theology and science could meet and combine to provide a practical and systematic philosophy of life.
He was an outstanding and highly influential early New Thought teacher and leader. A prolific writer of New Thought books, he believed that people have tremendous latent powers which can be put to use for success with the proper attitude. Christian first located in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1898. In January 1901 he organized the New Thought Temple[2] at his residence, 947 West 17th St. In September of the same year he began publishing Eternal Progress, which was for several years one of the leading New Thought periodicals with a circulation of over a quarter million. It was while he was acting as editor for Eternal Progress that his prolific writing career of over forty published books began. Among the best known are: Poise And Power(1907), The Great Within(1908), Mastery Of Fate(1910), The Ideal Made Real(1912), Thinking For Results(1912), The Hidden Secret(1912), Mastery Of Self, Your Forces And How To Use Them(1912), How To Stay Well(1912) and The Pathway of Roses(1912) which sold over over a million copies and was translated into eight languages.
[1] The Optimist Creed was authored in 1912 by Christian D. Larson, appearing in his book Your Forces and. How to Use Them. It was adopted as the Optimist Internationals Creed in 1922.

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

He was a one time honorary president of the International New Thought Alliance(INTA), along with such stalwarts as W.W. Atkinson, Horatio Dresser, Charles Brodie Patterson, and Annie Rix Militz, he was one who exercised considerable influence over Religious Science founder, Ernest Holmes. As early as 1928, C. D. Larson began to appear in Science of Mind Magazine and to be a part of the major teaching courses, becoming a member of the permanent staff.
It was the same Christian D. Larson whose book, The Ideal Made Real, nineteen years earlier introduced Ernest Holmes, founder of the Institute of Religious Science in Los Angeles, to the New Philosophy inspiring him to go forward in learning and practicing the art of mental treatment, i.e. expanding beyond physical healing to the Control of Conditions. Ernest Holmes and his brother, Fenwicke, took a correspondence course with Larson. According to Fenwicke, Ernest had been studying the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, but was so impressed with Christian Larson's New Thought writings that he abandoned the Christian Science textbook in favor of Larsons work “The Ideal Made Real”. In the biography of his brother, Ernest Holmes: His Life And Times, Fenwicke Holmes elaborates on the influence of Larson and Ralph Waldo Trine on that of his brother.
Christian D. Larson passed away at the age of 87 in 1962.
[2]The New-Thought movement in Cincinnati, Ohio, owes its origin to Christian D. Larson(Christian Dee Larson), (a great influence on Ernest Holmes), who in January, 1901, organized the New Thought Temple, at his residence, 947 West Seventeenth St. In September of that year Mr. Larson began to publish Eternal Progress, for several years one of the leading New Thought periodicals. In November, 1902, Sunday morning services were inaugurated. At this service fifteen minutes' silence was a leading feature, A little church building seating three hundred people was secured in 1904. Mr. Larson resigned in 1907, and was succeeded by Paul Tyner, in November, 1908. Harry Gaze was the next leader, and then Miss Leila Simon[1], in 1912.

The History of The Cincinnati Temple
Excerpted from A History of the New Thought Movement, 1919
Horatio W. Dresser
1919
Chapter 11
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

On January 27, 1963, the Unity Center of Practical Christianity located on Madison Road in Oakley and the New Thought Temple merged into the New Thought Unity Center.
During the late 1890’s, two groups of “pioneers in thought” who were interested in the new science of mental healing then sweeping the country, met together in thought, feeling, and effort. These groups were called “The Company” and “The Perfectionists.” They were members and friends of what is now called the New Thought Unity Center. In 1898, one of these groups found a teacher, Christian D(aa) Larson, who invited them to hold their meetings in his residence on West Seventh Street. In addition, some interested families opened their homes in the suburbs of Cincinnati and in Covington and Newport, Kentucky. The following year the group entered into a more definite organization and rented a space in the Odd Fellows Temple. It is this group that founded and built our present facility. From the documents of that time, we find the first purpose statement from the incorporation papers of the New Thought Temple:

The purpose of the New Thought Temple is

“to provide a universal church without fixed creed, dogma, or ritual, where all people may worship God, and where they may study the Principles and Fundamentals of New Thought in all of its phases, as a Philosophy, a religion, a science and the practice of sane, sensible and spiritual living.”

The first financial report of the fledgling Temple stated that it believed the “success, prosperity, and a splendid outlook for the coming year to the new financial methods put into practice….All contributions are voluntary, neither solicited nor urged. When money is needed for the many activities, an intelligent application of God’s law of supply is the means by which money has been forthcoming. Through the law of love, harmony and intelligent cooperation with God’s law of universal substance, the New Thought Temple has demonstrated adequate supply for all its needs, with good surplus."
Christian Larson was a teacher/lecturer of progressive ideas, who had come to Cincinnati in October of 1898. He traveled a circuit throughout Cincinnati and its suburbs, including Covington, Newport, and Dayton, Ohio. In a letter to the New Thought Temple in 1925 as they researched their own history for the dedication ceremonies in 1926, he explains,

“ …We aimed in all these lectures to cover the widest field possible, giving special emphasis to the high idealism, which at the time, was the inspiring note of the New Thought Movement. We gave special attention to healing; and that work at times was very extensive."

In the fall of 1907, Dr. Larson gave up the leadership to devote all his time to writing. Recalling the beginning of New Thought in Cincinnati, Dr. Larson stated,

"All pioneer work is well supplied with problems, difficulties, dark days, misunderstandings and criticism; we had our share and more. But everyone connected with the movement continued to hold to the high vision, and I am pleased to say that some marvelous results were attained, both in healing and spiritual development."

[1]

Because of the growth her leadership generated, the society moved to the Mansion on Gilbert Avenue. A storeroom in the Provident Bank Building near Peebles Corner served as an office, a library, a reading room, and a classroom. To understand the gift this woman gave those she led, read the following quote from Horatio Dresser’s book History of New Thought (published in 1919): "My first New Thought service brought out an audience of less than twenty-five people. Two years later I spoke constantly to from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred people. From the outset, I considered the work of the New Thought Temple entirely separate from personality. It was not mine, but impelled by the Spirit of God, and it is this conviction and consecration that is the moving Power of the New Thought Temple. My first thought from the beginning of my ministry and today is, “If you believe God’s power, prove it.If you teach health, harmony, and prosperity, furnish the actual proofs.
"My first move was to refuse to recognize the poverty-stricken consciousness of the New Thought Temple actually. I firmly set aside all gratuitous invitations from members who offered their homes for classes, etc., and also refused to house the activities in cheap rooms. As we had no money, this was a radical step. My first classes were held in my own apartment, situated in the best part of Cincinnati. The Sunday services in a hall seating one hundred people. In less than three months we had outgrown this hall, and my apartment classrooms. Before the end of the first year, we had audiences of five hundred and were finally crowded out of a large auditorium and were compelled to rent hundred to accommodate the people who wished to attend the Sunday services."
So for the Temple membership, as membership increased, the idea of a Temple Building began to assume more definite form. The Thursday evening class—an experience and healing meeting—included as part of its program a silence for building the temple, using the following affirmation:
I now build the Temple of the Lord God Almighty in perfect, visible form. It is a Divine Center through which higher Spiritual Forces of Love, Peace, Wisdom, Strength, Power, Faith, Fellowship, Health, Wealth, Companionship and Joy, now come forth into the world.
The idea began to manifest and on March 17, 1916 ground was broken for the new Temple.

Thoughts on “THOUGHTS”.

"The soul that is impure, sordid and selfish, is gravitating with unerring precision toward misfortune and catastrophe; the soul that is pure, unselfish, and noble, is gravitating with equal precision toward happiness and prosperity. Every soul attracts its own, and nothing can come to it that does not belong to it. To realize this is to recognize the Universality of Divine Law." ~ James Allen

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts."~ Buddha

"Your own thoughts, desires and aspirations comprise your world, and, to you, all that there is in the Universe of beauty and joy and bliss, or of ugliness and sorrow and pain, is contained within yourself. By your own thoughts you make or mar your life your world, your Universe."~ James Allen

"Thoughts, are things." ~ Prentice Mulford

"Thoughts, so far from being mere brain flashes, are, judging solely from their effects, real entities, apparently composed of spiritual substance, the nature of which is outside the range of discovery of our present faculties." ~ T. Sharper Knowlson

"Thought, is not an event which dies in a world ethereal, supersensible, imperceptible; it has continually its likeness and repercussion in our organism." ~ Levy

"Thought is not, as is many times supposed, a mere indefinite abstraction, or something of a like nature. It is, on the contrary, a vital, living force, the most vital, subtle and irresistible force in the Universe."~ Ralph Waldo Trine

"You say you are chained by circumstances; you cry out for better opportunities, for a wider scope, for improved physical conditions, and perhaps you inwardly curse the fate that binds you hand and foot. It is for you that I write: it is to you that I speak. Listen, and let my words burn themselves into your heart, for that which I say to you is the truth: You may bring about that improved condition in your outward life which you desire, if you will unswervingly resolve to improve your inner life. I know that pathway looks barren at its commencement (truth always does, it is only error and delusion which are at first inviting and fascinating), but if you undertake to walk it; if you perseveringly discipline your mind, eradicating your weaknesses, and allowing your soul-forces and spiritual powers to unfold themselves, you will be astonished at the magical changes which will be brought about in your inward life. As you proceed, golden opportunities will be strewn across your path, and the power and judgment to properly utilize them will spring up within you. Genial friends will come unbidden to you; sympathetic souls will be drawn to you as the needle is to the magnet, and books and all outward aids that you require will come to you unsought."~ James Allen

From:
DYNAMIC THOUGHT
BY
HENRY THOMAS HAMBLIN
[1923]

New Civilization Church / THE INTERNATIONAL NEW THOUGHT ALLIANCE

New Civilization Church

Healing #3

Set before you are two trees (minds), one the knowledge of good and evil (double-mindedness) is an illusion, the other – the Real – is the Tree of Life (the Mind of Christ). Choose ye this day which you will serve. Choose Life. You have the mind of Christ – why move out of the garden of all good? Why put more on your self than you can bear? Why separate your self from the Love, which is God, when the Love You are can never separate Itself from you?



There is ONLY ONE POWER, one True and Living Power – One Life, One Mind, One Heart, One Love.

There is no garden of good and evil, only the Garden of Abundant Love and Grace. Jane Woodward “Thoughts Upon Awakening [2004]”




Divine Science is revealing to us two things: first, that healing is not a physical process but, spiritual realization; and second, that health is not a condition of physical well-being only but the realization of a state of wholeness in the individual. Healing is the turning from the belief in disease to the realization of God’s Presence and Perfect Activity. God is health. Do I hear you asking, “Since God is health and God is omnipresent, what is there to be healed?” There is only one condition to be healed--our misconceptions. Nona Brooks “Mysteries [1924]”

What is healing?
Is it the changing of conditions? No.
Is it the rearrangement of thoughts? No.
Is it the adjustment of dreams? No.
Healing is one's awakening from sleep and dream.

While it is true that there are no events in a dream; nor any one in a dream; still it is true also that so long as I accept any imperfection before me, I am dreaming. If I see Imperfection, or hear imperfection, or feel imperfection, I can do so only in a dream: I cannot do so in God, my perfect state. if I believe that another is reporting sickness, discord or limitation of any kind, I am forced to admit that insofar as I am concerned, I am dreaming it; for it is certain that all I know of another is my consciousness of him; and were I functioning fully from my God-Perfection, I would not be cognizant of imperfection anywhere. Lillian DeWaters “The Practice Of Reality”

Thought is the great builder in human life: it is the determining factor. Continually think thoughts that are good, and your life will show forth in goodness, and your body in health and beauty. Continually think evil thoughts, and your life will show forth in evil, and your body in weakness and repulsiveness. Think thoughts of love, and you will love and will be loved. Think thoughts of hatred, and you will hate and will be hated. Each follows its kind. Ralph Waldo Trine “Thoughts I Met On The Highway [1919]”

There is no separation.


God is all and God is Mind,
thus all which appears to be –
is in Mind,
and actually is Mind.


Understanding comes of Sound Mind, the True and Only Mind.
The body, as you think of it, is "in Mind" as well.
JANE WOODWARD

CHARACTER-BUILDING THOUGHT POWER.

UNCONSCIOUSLY we are forming habits every moment of our lives. Some are habits of a desirable nature; some are those of a most undesirable nature. Some, though not so bad in themselves, are exceedingly bad in their cumulative effects, and cause us at times much loss, much pain and anguish, while their opposites would, on the contrary, bring us much peace and joy, as well as a continually increasing power.

Have we it within our power to determine at all times what types of habits shall take form in our lives? In other words, is habit-forming, character-building, a matter of mere chance, or have we it within our own control? We have, entirely and absolutely. "I will be what I will to be," can be said and should be said by every human soul.

After this has been bravely and determinedly said, and not only said, but fully inwardly realized, something yet remains. Something remains to be said regarding the great law underlying habit-forming, character-building; for there is a simple, natural, and thoroughly scientific method that all should know. A method whereby old, undesirable, earth-binding habits can be broken, and new, desirable, heaven-lifting habits can be acquired,—a method whereby life in part or in its totality can be changed, provided one is sufficiently in earnest to know, and, knowing it, to apply the law.

Thought is the force underlying all. And what do we mean by this? Simply this: Your every act—every conscious act—is preceded by a thought. Your dominating thoughts determine your dominating actions. The acts repeated crystallize themselves into the habit. The aggregate of your habits is your character. Whatever, then, you would have your acts, you must look well to the character of the thought you entertain.

Whatever act you would not do,—habit you would not acquire,—you must look well to it that you do not entertain the type of thought that will give birth to this act, this habit.

It is a simple psychological law that any type of thought, if entertained for a sufficient length of time, will, by and by, reach the motor tracks of the brain, and finally burst forth into action.

The thing clearly to understand is this: That the thought is always parent to the act. Now, we have it entirely in our own hands to determine exactly what thoughts we entertain. In the realm of our own minds we have absolute control, or we should have, and if at any time we have not, then there is a method by which we can gain control, and in the realm of the mind become thorough masters. In order to get to the very foundation of the matter, let us look to this for a moment. For if thought is always parent to our acts, habits, character, life, then it is first necessary that we know fully how to control our thoughts.

===================

The one who takes sufficient time in the quiet mentally to form his ideals, sufficient time to make and to keep continually his conscious connection with the Infinite, with the Divine life and forces, is the one who is best adapted to the strenuous life. He it is who can go out and deal with sagacity and power with whatever issues may arise in the affairs of everyday life. He it is who is building not for the years, but for the centuries; not for time, but for the eternities. And he can go out knowing not whither he goes, knowing that the Divine life within him will never fail him, but will lead him on until he beholds the Father face to face.

He is building for the centuries because only that which is the highest, the truest, the noblest, and best will abide the test of the centuries. He is building for eternity because when the transition we call death takes place, life, character, self-mastery, divine self-realization,—the only things that the soul when stripped of everything else takes with it,—he has in abundance. In life, or when the time of the transition to another form of life comes, he is never afraid, never fearful, because he knows and realizes that behind him, within him, beyond him, is the Infinite wisdom and love; and in this he is eternally centred, and from it he can never be separated.

What All the World's A-Seeking by Ralph Waldo Trine [1896]

In Tune with the Infinite

"Within yourself lies the cause of whatever enters into your life.
To come into the full realization of your own awakened interior
powers is to be able to condition your life in exact accord with
what you would have it"

Ralph Waldo Trine
(from: "In Tune with the Infinite" )
1897

Ralph Waldo Trine

"The moment we fully and vitally realise who and what we are, we then begin to build our own World even as God builds his." "Within yourself lies the cause of whatever enters into your life. To come into the full realization of your own awakened interior powers is to be able to condition your life in exact accord with what you would have it"