Kitabı oku: «Nuggets of the New Thought», sayfa 9

LET US HAVE FAITH

Faith necessary in every human undertaking – You have faith in man, but are afraid to trust GOD – The Universe if governed by Law – The Law is in operation everywhere – Don't be afraid – You are a part of the plan – Fall in with the Law – Have faith, have faith.

When you take a journey by rail, you step into the car, settle yourself, take out a book and read, and give little or no thought to the engine or engineer in charge of the train. You go rushing across the country at the rate of fifty miles an hour, with no thought of possible disaster or accident, and for the time forgetting that there is such a person in existence as the engineer. You have absolute faith in the careful management of the road, and in the intelligence of the man who has been placed in the engine. The lives of yourself and hundreds of fellow passengers are practically in the hands of one man, and that man is a stranger to you – you have never seen him – you know nothing of his qualifications – you only know that the management has picked him out to safely conduct you across the country.

You take a steamship to Europe and place yourselves in the hands of a few men who are total strangers to you. You stake your life on their skill, judgment and intelligence. You feel that they would not be where they are unless the management of the line considered them competent. It is all a matter of trust – of confidence. The same thing is true when you take your seat on a trolley car or on the elevated railroad, or even in a stage coach or a private carriage. In each case you place yourself in the charge of another person in whom you have a certain amount of confidence, although he may be comparatively, or wholly, unknown to you.

You place your wealth in a bank, having confidence in its management. You have business dealings with men whom you scarcely know, trusting to their honesty of purpose. In every transaction in life you are compelled to have confidence in people. Your lawyer, your physician, your grocer, your clerks are all taken on faith. One cannot get away from it. If confidence were destroyed the wheels of modern life would stop in a minute. The so-called hard-headed practical man may sneer at Faith, but it underlies every manifestation of the life of this civilization.

Man has faith and confidence in Man, but is afraid to trust GOD. He looks about him and sees millions of worlds, each in its appointed place, each revolving in its own orbit. He has faith that at a certain time each world will be in a certain position, which position may be calculated centuries in advance – but he lacks faith in the Power that created these worlds and keeps them in their places. He has faith in certain Laws – but he doubts the existence of the Law-maker. He sees the wondrous manifestation of Life in great and small. He takes advantage of the telescope and the microscope and explores new regions, and finds the Law in operation everywhere – but he doubts the existence of a great Law which governs his life – his incomings and his outgoings – his great deeds and his petty acts – he fails to realize the truth of the saying that the hairs on his head are numbered, and that not a sparrow may fall unnoticed.

He seems to think that if there is a GOD, he must have made the world and then ran away and left it to take care of itself. He fails to see that Law must govern Man's life as it governs the unfolding of the leaf, the development of the lily. He fails to see that law is in full operation within him as well as without him. He fails to see that as he opposes the operation of Law, pain comes by reason of the friction. He fails to see that the only true philosophy is that which teaches one to fall in with the operations of Law, and to let it work in him and through him.

Do you think for a moment that GOD does not know what he is about? Do you doubt the Supreme Intelligence which knows all things and is conscious of all things? Do you doubt the Supreme Power which manifests itself in all forms of power? Do you doubt the Universal Presence which is in all places at all times? Do you suppose that the manifestation is everything, and the manifestor nothing? Poor man!

Either the Universe is without Law – without meaning – without reason, or it is the manifestation of Supreme and Infinite Reason. Either it is the work of a Demon who sits somewhere and grins and gloats over our misfortunes – our trials – our troubles – our pain – our follies, or it is the work of an All-knowing – All-powerful – All-present Intelligence-Power-Presence which has taken into consideration everything within the Universe, down to the tiniest thing – down to the merest detail. And if this last be true, then everything that happens must be in accordance with Law – everything that happens to us must be the very best thing that could happen to us at that particular time and that particular place.

Things are not run by blind chance – there is Law under everything. Everything has some connection with every other thing – every person has a relationship with every other person. All is One – the manifestations are varied, but there is but One reality. There is a great plan underlying all Life, and Life itself is in accordance with that plan. Nothing ever happens. Every occurrence has a bearing on every other occurrence. Chance has no part in the plan – everything is in accord with well ordered laws. There is always an end in view in every thought, word or act. We are constantly being used for the benefit of the whole. There is no escape – and when we get to know we cease to wish to escape. He who understands not Law is constantly struggling, striving, fighting and contending against it, and, producing friction, he feels pain. He who understands something of Law ceases to contend against it – he lets it work through him, and is carried along with a mighty force, doing each day the best he knows how, expressing himself in the best possible manner, sailing to the right and to the left, with the wind and against the wind, but still being borne on by the mighty current and resisting it not. He enjoys every mile of the journey, seeing new sights and hearing new sounds – moving on ever. He who understands not, rebels at being swept along – he wishes to stay where he is, but there is no such thing as staying – life is motion – life is growth. If you prefer to pull against the tide – to row up stream – by all means do so. After a while you will grow tired and weary, and will rest on your oars. Then you will find that you are moving on just the same toward the unknown seas, and you will find that it is much easier work rowing or sailing with the current, or from one side of the river to another, than to attempt to stay in the same place or to pull up the stream.

All this fretting – all this worrying – all this contention and strife, comes from a lack of Faith. We may assert fervently that we know that All is Good, and that all is best for us, etc., etc., but have we enough faith to manifest it in our lives? See how we endeavor to tie on to things, people, and environments. How we resist the steady pressure that is tearing us loose, often with pain, from the places to which we have wished to stay fastened like a barnacle. The Life force is back of us, urging us along – pushing us along – and move we must. The process of growth, development and unfoldment is going on steadily. What's the use of attempting to resist it? You are no more than a water-bug on the surface of the river. You may dart here and there, and apparently are running things to suit yourself without reference to the current, but all the time you are moving along with it. The water-bug plan is all right, just so long as we do not attempt to stop the current or to swim right against it – when we try this we find out very quickly that the current has something to say about it, and before long we get so tired that we are willing to fall in with the law behind the current. And yet even the opposition is good, for it teaches us that the current is there – we gain by experience. The New Thought does not teach people to stem the current or to swim up stream, although some teachers and some students seem to be of that opinion. On the contrary, the real New Thought teaches us of the existence of the stream, and that it is moving steadily toward the Sea of Good. It teaches us how to fall in with it, and be borne further along, instead of attempting to hold back and become barnacles, or to try to push back up the stream. It also teaches us to live in the Now – to enjoy the darting backward and forward over the face of the waters. It also tells us of the direction in which the current is moving, that we may move along that way, without wasting our energies in trying to go the other. It teaches us co-operation with Law, instead of opposition to it.

Why do we not have Faith? Why do we not see the great Plan behind it all? Why do we not recognize Law? As we have seen, we place our confidence in the engineer of the train – the pilot – the captain – the coach-driver, and the other guiding hands and yet we hesitate to trust ourselves in the hands of the Infinite. Of course, it makes no difference to the Infinite whether or not we repose trust in it. It moves along just the same, guiding and directing – steering and regulating speed – it minds not our doubts and obstructions any more than does the great driving-wheel mind the fly who is perched upon it and who does not like the movement and attempts to stop it by spreading out its wings and buzzing. The great wheel of the Universe is moving around, steadily and mightily. Let us go with it. And while we are going let us spare ourselves the trouble and folly of the buzzing, wing-spreading business.

Let us part with Fear and Worry. Let us cease our imagining that we can run the Universe better than the engineer who has his hand on the throttle. Let us cease imagining that GOD needs advice on the subject. Let us stop this folly of saying "Poor God, with no one to help him run things." Let us trust the engineer. Let us have faith – let us have faith.

DO IT NOW

Do to-day's tasks now – Don't try to do to-morrow's work to-day, but be sure and do the day's work Now – The baneful effects of procrastination – Not fair to yourself – Demoralization attendant upon putting off things – The world looking for people who can do things Now.

If you have anything to do – do it. If you have any task to perform to-day – do it Now. If the matter cannot possibly be performed to-day, stop bothering about it, and get to work doing the things of to-day. But don't get into that miserable habit of putting off things until later in the day, or later in the week – do them now. The old proverb: "Procrastination is the thief of time," is true, but it does not go far enough. Procrastination is not only the thief of time, but the thief of energy – the thief of efficiency – the thief of success.

We have had much to say about living in the Now – about not dwelling in the past or fretting about the future. And all this is true, and I will probably say it over and over again during the year, because I believe in it, and wish you to get acquainted with the idea. But living in the Now does not merely mean the thinking of the thoughts of to-day – the carrying of the burdens of to-day – the meeting of the problems of to-day. It also means the doing of the WORK of to-day.

To attempt to carry last year's burdens – or next week's burdens – to-day, is folly of the worst kind, as you well know. But it is equally foolish to put off to-day's work until to-morrow. It's not treating to-morrow right – not giving it a chance. The Self of to-morrow is not exactly the Self of to-day. That is, it has grown a little and is the Self of to-day plus the added experience of the day. And it is just as selfish for the Self of to-day to attempt to throw his burdens upon the Self of to-morrow as it would be for you to attempt to throw your burdens upon your brother or sister. It is not only selfish, but it is hurtful to you – it impedes your growth. To-day's work is set before you because of the lesson it contains, and if you refuse to accept your lesson, you are the loser. You cannot get away from the task. It will be placed before you again and again until it is performed, and you might as well do it at once, and get your lesson at the proper time, and not be compelled like the schoolboy to "catch-up" in his work. By putting off things until to-morrow, you are simply heaping up troubles for yourself to-morrow, as to-morrow's own work will have to be done as well as your leftover tasks, and the chances are that neither of them will be done properly. There's no sense whatever in this habit of procrastinating. It is folly of the worst kind.

And not only in the immediate effects is procrastination hurtful to one. One of the worst features of the case is the demoralizing effect it has upon the whole mental attitude of the man. It cultivates laziness, indecision, shiftlessness, slackness and many other undesirable habits of thought and action. It manifests itself in numberless ways in the character of the man who has allowed himself to be tangled in it. It impairs his efficiency – affects his value.

Then again, you are really unfair to yourself if you get in the way of putting off things. You never have any time to yourself if you have a number of old matters demanding your attention. The man who procrastinates is never able to spare time for mental improvement, because he always has some old loose ends to wind up – some old tangle to straighten out. And he loses all idea of the value of time – of getting the most out of every hour, every minute. The procrastinator is the veriest drudge – he has his nose to the grindstone all the time. He never has any time he can call his own. He is a slave to his own habit of "laying things aside." Poor man.

I am satisfied that half the failures of life – yes, three-quarters of them – are due to the failure of persons to do the thing Now. Not only because of what they lose directly by this habit, but because of the effect it produces upon their character. The shiftless habit of thought manifests itself in action. The thought and action, long persisted in, will lead to a demoralization of the entire character of the individual. He soon forgets how to do things right. And that is where so many people fail. The world is looking for people who can DO things – and who can Do Them Now.

If you are one of the procrastinating kind, start in at once and get over it. Put up a sign before your desk, your sewing machine, your work-bench, or wherever you spend most of your time, and have these words in big black letters on the sign: – "DO IT NOW!" By carrying the thought of this NOW way of doing things, and letting it manifest itself in action as frequently as possible, you will find that before long your entire mental attitude regarding work has changed, and you will find yourself doing things when they should be done, without any particular effort on your part. The mind can be trained and taught to do things right. It needs a little courage, a little perseverance, a little will-power, but the result will pay you for your trouble. Start in to cure yourself of this bad habit. Start in at once. Do it NOW.

GET IN TUNE

Marconi's wireless messages – Vibrations reach only the instruments attuned to the sender – The same law in operation on the mental plane – The correct pitch is the thing – Get in tune with the proper vibrations – Get the messages from the best senders.

I have just finished reading an account of Marconi's wireless telegraphy. It seems that when a message is sent from the Marconi transmitter, the vibrations travel in all directions, and not alone in the direction of the person to whom the message is sent. It would seem to the reader, at first, that any instrument, in any direction from the sender, could and would be affected by the vibrations and would take up and record them. But such is not the case, for Marconi finds that he can attune his receiving instrument to a certain pitch, and that the instrument will receive and record only vibrations emanating from a sending instrument attuned to the same pitch. This is true no matter how near the instruments may be to each other, or in what direction they may be from each other. And all instruments, irrespective of number, that may be within sending distance, will receive the message providing they are attuned to the same pitch.

Now just notice how much this corresponds to what we know of the working of Thought-force. People whose minds are attuned to a certain pitch will receive the vibrations from the minds of others whose mental keynote is the same. And if one maintains a high positive keynote, he will not be affected by the vibrations emanating from the mind of another who may have a low negative pitch. The nearer to our pitch the mind of another may be, the more we feel the sympathetic vibrations in our own mind; the greater the difference in the pitch, the less we will feel in sympathy with him. This will account for the instinctive likes or dislikes that many of us experience when coming into the presence of other people. And how soon do people of kindred vibrations seek out and find each other in a mixed assembly. Many likes, unexplainable by any theory of personal appearance, etc., arise from this cause.

And as the Marconi instruments may have their pitch changed, so are our mental keynotes changed from time to time as we adjust ourselves to new conditions – as we grow. This will explain why two people, who at one time seemed to be in perfect attunement with each other, will drift apart until at last they seem to have scarcely a thought or feeling in common, and yet both of them may be good people, really anxious to be helpful to the other.

But this is not the only way in which the working of the Marconi system resembles the workings of the mind. I have often called your attention to the fact that the holding of certain mental attitudes resulted in the attraction to oneself of thought vibrations corresponding to the general character or the thought held in the mind of the person. Let a man be filled with the spirit of Jealousy, and everything seems to feed that feeling. He hears of cases of faithlessness on the part of other persons; every circumstance seems to confirm him in his belief. The actions of the loved one seem doubly suspicious – signs of guilt are seen in every expression, every move. He draws to himself the thought-waves of other minds vibrating on the same pitch – like attracts like. Let a man drop into the Fearthought condition, and immediately he feels the rush of Fear to his mind. Let him cast aside Fear, and attune himself to the Fearless pitch, and he feels an influx of Courage, Fearlessness, Confidence, Energy and other positive thoughts.

And according to the character of your thoughts, will you draw to yourself people calculated to co-operate with you and be of assistance to you. Even things seem to shape themselves to fit in with the keynote you have sounded.

Not only do you attract to yourself people and things corresponding with your mental pitch, but you send out thought-waves affecting others creating impressions upon them. Go into the presence of an "I Can and I Will" man, and, if you are of the same kind, he will instantly perceive it and will be glad to talk to you. On the other hand, approach a man of this kind, with your mind full of "I Can't," and he will be conscious of inharmony and will want to be rid of your presence at once. Be a man with the southern exposure, such as I described to you in another article, and you will find that you will extract and draw to yourself all the sunniness in the nature of people with whom you come in contact. Be a human wet blanket, such as I have described in another article, and you will find that you will get the meanest qualities inherent in the nature of people with whom you come in contact – in fact you will be able to attract only that kind of people who are as musty and unwholesome as yourself.

Get rid of the old negative notes. Start in and cultivate the positive, joyous, active vibrations, until you reach the steady mental pitch of the "New Thought" man. Then will all the negative vibrations pass you by, finding no encouragement to enter your mentality – then will you receive the bright, cheerful, happy, fearless vibrations coming from others who have reached the same plane of thought.

Get in tune – get in tune.