FREEDOM

The way of the dictator is never the way of freedom, not even for the dictator. Forcing one's will on others by any means whatever robs one of his own independence.

The willful effort to influence or control another either by subtle hidden means or aggressive open warfare deprives that individual of his own inner freedom, rather than those he tries to dominate.

Conversely—fearing, fighting, resisting an aggressor is not the final way to protect one's freedom. It uses the same methods as the aggressor and thus individual independence disappears.

FREEDOM comes from within and therefore it is safe from violation. It is neither given nor taken from outside itself. It is the knowledge of TRUTH that constitutes freedom and that is "an inside job." No one can bestow it on you, no one can deprive you of it.

The TRUTH unfolds within each individual. The only place one ever knows or finds God is in his own consciousness, his own thought. Everything about God is hearsay until within oneself a person FEELS the divine Presence. With that Presence comes the TRUTH that makes one free.

When you have learned that the actual substance of your body is energy or force (from the physicists' standpoint) and have come to know through revelation that this energy of which your body is composed is MIND-SUBSTANCE taking form, then fear of what others can do to you vanishes. When you know yourself to be the individualized appearing of the LIFE-PRINCIPLE, universal MIND, then today's great terror, the fear of atomic warfare, can cease to touch you.

But a merely intellectual grasp of this is not enough to banish fear, not enough to establish freedom. In one's very heart must come the certitude that LOVE is the only real power, "the greatest thing in the world."

When you are able to express the unselfed fearlessness of universal love in your daily living you find this love to be the only law that governs you. Love lived in everyday affairs is the law of GOOD WILL coming back to you under all circumstances. Love lived with simplicity, humility, integrity, spells freedom of a sort that needs no protection from evil forces, for it voids these forces as surely as light dispels darkness. Love lived will teach you the meaning of freedom.

Love lived is your passport (the only one accepted) that gives safe conduct from negative to positive living.

When negative thinking is left behind it becomes impossible to experience negative living. This is the law to one's life. This is the law of the supremely loving and intelligent MIND of the universe and it sets aside the human laws of negative processes.

This is an individual experience. Your safety is not at the mercy of the world's outmoded reactionary methods ... unless you employ these methods yourself. Your life is not in the hands of negative thinking and motives ... unless you keep it there. Your worthwhile achievements, your joy of living cannot be sullied because others wallow in the mud ... unless you join them.

The measure of your response to the negative pull defines the measure of your involvement in negative conditions—hate, fear, war, deprivation, sickness, death, et cetera, et cetera.

When you go beyond a negative mentality, finding the universal MIND to be habitually your very own, it becomes an actual impossibility for you to go back into negative processes ... just as the printed picture cannot become an undeveloped film. When a negative stage has been fully and finally worked out into the positive reality one can never return to that negative. Thus one becomes no more the helpless victim of other people's willful actions than light is subject to darkness.

In a state of darkness everything is dark but the instant light appears the darkness vanishes, effortlessly, inevitably.

Non-resistance in its true sense does not mean spineless acceptance of evil. Non-resistance really means full acceptance of the presence and power of GOOD. This means accepting all that appears and accepting it as GOOD APPEARING no matter what form it seems to take. This is the method and action of light—illuming everything that comes into its presence.

And in the spiritual LIGHT which accepts all that comes as GOOD, the darkness of an evil presence or condition is gone—GOOD is seen and experienced then and there.

This divine ACCEPTANCE of everything that appears, the acceptance of GOOD as all that is going on, will define what happens; it will dispel the possibility of evil taking place. In this divine ACCEPTANCE the three trouble-makers of the human intellect, opinions, decisions and will power, have no place whatever.

REAL ACCEPTANCE BRINGS REAL FREEDOM. In this ACCEPTANCE there is no outlining of results and no judgment as to what is right or wrong. True spirituality is the fact about everything and everyone. True spirituality knows the ALLNESS of GOOD in which is no need for moral judgment. The positive fact (about which morality is the negative) is limitless goodness without a shadow of darkness, without a question of good and evil, but simply GOOD ALONE without an opposite or an oppose. freedom does not have to be protected, it has to be lived.

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The Opinions, The Decisions, The Will Power

LIFE means action.

What is it that controls our actions? Can we be governed by the intelligence that orders the universe? Can we individualize this MIND'S over-all pattern in the health of our bodies and the soundness of our living?

Is there any plumb line that will show whether or not we are acting from the positive basis? Can we learn to detect when the human intellect is impelling action and so discard this for the positive impulsion of the universal MIND? Yes, there are these plumb lines awaiting our readiness to use them.

Development from the negative to the positive way of life is a gradual process, a little here—a little there. No one steps from one stage to the other with a single dramatic stride. The lives of the greatest characters in history reveal this, as well as our own halting footsteps. Hourly we need these blueprints for action to show the standpoint from which we think and act, to indicate the source of our motives, and to help us let go of negative states and accept action straight from MIND.

There are three functions of the human intellect that we need to give up as rapidly as possible. They are usually considered desirable as well as essential for normal living. But each leads us often into trouble, makes problems for us, delays and sidetracks right activity. They perpetuate our sojourn in the acid bath as long as we indulge them.

These three trouble makers are opinions, personal decisions, will power. This seems startling at first glance. But let's keep down the walls of preconceived prejudice and look into this drastic statement with open mind. One's first reaction must be answered, for one immediately thinks: How could I go through a day without the necessity to use all three? I would be exploited by willful associates and I would find myself in a state of vacillation, weakness and lack of achievement.

How could anything at all be accomplished without one or all of these products of my intellect?

If you are mentally lazy, if you toboggan with the mob, if you don't bother to think for yourself but accept the opinions and decisions others are so ready to make for you—yes, you can avoid holding opinions, making decisions and using will power that way ... and exist in frustration and inadequacy.

But the results will become so objectionable to you that eventually you will no doubt assert yourself unpleasantly, express strong and sometimes stupid opinions and make willful decisions that often as not leave you no better off than when you supinely let others run the show... .

It is a very different matter to start out acknowledging that the MIND of the universe is in control, that it defines with clarity what you are to think and do. This MIND operates so far beyond human will that when you place yourself within its government you cannot possibly be influenced by faulty opinions nor can anyone's unsound willful decisions control you.

The MIND that is positive all-inclusive PRINCIPLE does not hold opinions. Opinions may go on in the intellect about principles but when any principle is intelligently understood opinions disappear. The very action of a principle eventually does away with opinions about it.

Take the most time-honored opinions about the substance and action of the universe. They may have been bolstered up by sense perceptions and education to look like positive facts but if they are opinions they go down before progress. Newton's basic "discoveries" were actually opinions although accepted as laws for over two hundred years. What is happening to these "laws"?

To quote again from "The Universe and Dr. Einstein": "Before the turn of the past century certain deviations from these laws became apparent; and though these deviations were slight, they were of such fundamental nature that the whole edifice of Newton's machine-like universe began to topple."

Today the physicist admits he does not as yet know the what or the why of the universe; but he has found that mathematical equations are safer than the most plausible opinions derived from sense perceptions in at least determining how things operate in the universal scheme.

Can you imagine anything in the realm of exact science having opinions? There are none in mathematics from the simple two times two is four to the highest abstract calculations conceivable. There are laws involved here, not opinions.

The scientists' present dilemmas and uncertainties exist because they still have a good many opinions about this "unknown quantity called 'mind' ... in a realm of thought with which the physicist is not concerned." And these often unconscious opinions raise barriers in the intellect so that it does not know how to still itself and so let the truth about the universe proceed directly from the MIND of the universe.

When this stillness does take place the physicist finds the intelligence of MIND revealing itself as his true consciousness or "I" and defining the universe without opinions but with calm certainty, practical proofs and scientific corroboration.

But all this is in the realm of the exact sciences and does not apply to everyday living, one says. That is where we mistake. All life is included in the MIND that is creative PRINCIPLE and that functions according to universal laws. And these laws operate in the simplest details of a man's existence.

To accept each day without opinions, living beyond the need to make personal decisions and wholly free from the pressure of human will within one's own make-up, this is a dynamic way out of the acid bath, out of negative living with its strain and struggle, its heavy problems, mistakes, failures. Inner freedom from these three phases of the intellect enables one to go forward in the power and fulfillment of his real SELFHOOD.

If you have to wait for the coming of world peace in order to live a happy, serene life yourself, the outlook is certainly depressing. If in order to be free from the pressure of human conflict, international or local, you have to wait until everyone (or anyone else in the world) learns to give up his opinions and willful efforts, your personal freedom is a long way off. But there is a mighty fact about identity and individual life. "YOUR THUMB PRINTS TELL THE STORY." You are YOURSELF.

Your identity is distinctly YOU. You will never be anyone but YOU. There never has been and never will be anyone precisely and completely like YOU.

For this unchangeable reason your individual progression, your own everyday life as well, are not at the mercy of other people or world conditions unless you accept the negative standpoint.

If you are in bright sunlight the darkness of a closed room (no matter how black) does not reach you. Leave the light and go into the dark room and you become subject to the dark. Until the LIGHT of positive thinking draws you out into that LIGHT the "darkroom" of negative thinking and living envelops you and defines your existence. But when the LIGHT shines through within you, you step outside the "darkroom" and you no longer struggle in darkness.

The time has then come to live your true identity. You become a law to yourself when you know yourself to be the individualized appearing of the universal MIND. "KNOW THYSELF." Know yourself as effect, the effect of MIND, the Cause. Know that all there is to you remains in MIND and remains MIND. Then these mighty laws reverse and nullify the effects of negative changeable so-called laws.

Life becomes very simple when we find ourselves in the POWER that has been able to evolve and maintain creation ... . We may think that our affairs are too trivial to be noticed by the MIND that orders a universe. But No. That all-inclusive INTELLIGENCE has a right pattern of action, a satisfying purpose for everyone and everything from the smallest to the greatest. Nothing is too minute to be important, nothing too tremendous to be beyond that supreme and all-wise control.

A phase of the negative ego is to think of oneself as having a limited private mind with which to work out one's life. Let go of this and accept the MIND of the universe and out of troublous experiences come joy and order. The beneficent laws and supreme forces of the universe are at hand. They become individualized in the life of anyone who goes beyond his meager negative ego and finds himself to be the direct appearing of the MIND of the universe, in body as well as in consciousness.

Through the very mistakes and troubles that overtake us when we hold and act on opinions, finally comes the willingness to recognize that there is a safer way of thinking, a surer way to build one's life. Incredible as it seems to the intellect, when one rejects opinions and will power within himself and accepts the direct government of MIND in all his affairs, his actions are characterized by a decisiveness and authority never known from the old standpoint.

Suppose you are faced with some situation in which there is more than one possible way to act. You are not sure which is right but you have opinions about it... . There are often many nearly right things to do but there is always only one which is exactly and wholly right.

How is one to know which is the really right and not a nearly right? The opinions that confuse and mislead, the belief that you run the world to some extent because you are to make a decision one way or the other, the pressure of human will demanding what it wants, all these can be stilled... . Let go of opinions, realize that there is only one absolutely right course of action and that the all-seeing all-knowing MIND is bringing it to pass.

This may take a lot of struggling with long established patterns of action. But if you truly relax, reject all opinions, and become completely willing to let the law of MIND operate untinged by any temptation to manipulate the situation toward your own private wishes, you will begin to feel a deep inner peace, a sure quiet sense that GOOD is in control. After this the exactly right steps will come about and all concerned will be governed in the wisest and best way possible.

Letting go of opinions, of will power and of trying to make personal decisions will not turn you into a moron or a weakling. By laying off these negative thought processes you unloose in your life the immediate and powerful action of GOOD; you step straight out of the uncertainty, doubt, confusion, the fearing and fighting of the human intellect—into divinely ordered life.

In the degree that you free your own everyday thinking from the opinions and willful decisions of the intellect, you find your everyday living freed from negative impulses and actions—from other people's as surely as from your own; you find that wisdom and good judgment are governing your personal affairs; you find that clear purposeful INTELLIGENCE is directly in control... . Your life here and now can thus become the positive evidence of the nature of God.

There is a truth about everything and there are no opinions where the truth is known. The MIND that is TRUTH knows what is true and this true knowledge precludes opinions in this MIND. When the personal negative ego is developed out of itself, when the intellect has yielded to INTELLIGENCE, one comprehends the methods of this MIND, one knows that opinions are never necessary, that the overall pattern of LIFE can wisely determine our everyday actions from the smallest to the most vital.

Opinions tie in with the human will barging along with all its mistakes and inadequacy. One gets an opinion about something; based on this questionable start one decides on a course of action; and the next step is to use one's will to make this action work out. The stronger his opinions the more convinced he is that his decision is right and so the more he will try to force the issue. But the moment one employs human will himself it rises up in others to oppose and resist him.

The result will be a clash of wills and conflict—between individuals and in exactly the same way between nations ... war the inevitable result of giving free reign to these three elements of the human intellect, opinions, decisions and will power ... and their close ally, fear. THERE IS A LAW OF RIGHT ACTIVITY THAT A PERSON WILL RESPOND TO IF YOU DON'T TRY TO IMPOSE YOUR WILL ON HIM.

It makes no difference how set in a course of action he may be, how self-willed and obstinate or how righteously determined, if you go beyond will power yourself altogether (so that there is not the slightest vestige of it left in you) and you understand that the only thing that is going on is the very law of GOOD, you will see how completely this law takes over and how wisely it governs every detail of the situation.

This does not mean that you sit passively by while another's will assumes control. That you could be pushed around by anyone when you really let go to the law of the LIFE-PRINCIPLE is an utter impossibility.

The LIFE-PRINCIPLE is all inclusive, it is the law to everyone and everything that comes into your experience. You can trust it fully because it is the law of impartial and universal LOVE. It makes no difference how many or how few are involved, this law remains THE LAW. It adjusts human laws, often setting them aside or correcting them. It controls the actions of individuals and governments where they touch you.

This law reaches to the heights and depths of human living and you will see it operating in every case when you really fulfill the necessary conditions: when you can lay down your own personal opinions and will, and whole-heartedly let the law of GOOD have full course in your consciousness. No doubt, no confusion, no vacillation here but clear-cut decisive action straight out from supreme INTELLIGENCE.

Believing one has to make decisions with his intellect actually deprives him of access to the INTELLIGENCE he needs for assured right living. The intellect is a localized private possession of the negative ego. From this limited personal viewpoint how can one know the whole of a situation and so be sure his decision is right?

Giving up human opinions, acknowledging the government of the MIND that knows all there is to know about everything, realizing that this MIND defines its own progression, brings that progression directly into one's experience. The results of this divine impulsion will be right. Silencing the intellect and letting MIND'S control come to light will reveal right activity by the very logic of events.

It is wiser to wait for events to shape themselves under MIND'S direction than to think one has special private access to MIND'S plan of action and is divinely commissioned to push it through at all costs. The secret personal desires of a human being so readily assume the guise of MIND'S guidance and how tragically often people rush into utterly wrong conditions because they are convinced that "God has told them what to do."

Watch this human tendency like a hawk! This self-righteous assurance that God has told us what to do has resulted in mistakes and agonies in every department of human living. "Holy wars," horrors, tortures, have followed this egotistic perversion of MIND'S government, as well as the less sensational but not less harmful blunders in daily life.

Whenever one thinks to himself "God is telling me to do this," stop right there. For this is one of the most dangerous statements the intellect ever formulated in its negative attempts at decision making. Be sure that the intellect, the human desires and fears, even religious fervor and conviction are silenced. Then wait in utter humility for the calm FEELING that is your plumb line. Let go of all the pressure to do anything in any direction for the moment.

Don't be afraid to wait on the logic of events to settle the question beyond all doubt.

Give up the duality of a conversation between yourself and God. Accept the ONENESS until that thought "God is telling me what to do" is gone entirely. God is not a Being outside ourselves telling us what to do. GOD, MIND, DOES WHAT IS RIGHT IN DIVINE EVOLUTION AND IN THE MINUTIAE OF DAILY LIVING—AND DOES NOT TELL AN OUTSIDER ABOUT IT BECAUSE THERE IS NO OUTSIDER TO MIND.

Man is not a creature outside the CREATOR governed by remote control. MIND acts—and man is the action. LIFE is—and man is the living. Man is not a separate being to whom MIND declares its divine intentions. An individual, no matter how spiritual, is not a medium through whom a distant MIND runs the world. There are not two realms, the far-off divine acting on the present human. MIND expresses itself as man and the universe. It is all ONE MIND and ONE DIRECT ACTION.

Because this is the universe of MIND, this is where positive living can take place. A person's progression beyond negative living is not at the mercy of humanity's various levels of interpretation, ranging from barbarity through so-called civilization. Permanent freedom from negative experiences can come as you or I or anyone arrives at the ability to think (and that means to live) from the positive standpoint.

Moment by moment a state of awareness can be developed in which there is no response to the negative pull.

Giving up opinions is one of the first steps toward experiencing positive living. With opinions out, it is easy to see that personal decisions are not necessary. With those two gone the human will is left without a job. Then SOURCE-MIND functioning as your own mentality becomes your normal everyday thinking and the spontaneous government of GOOD becomes your natural everyday living.

Just as there are no opinions in basic principles, there are no decisions there. Basic principles involve laws, not decisions, and not changeable human laws but universal constants. It is for this reason that until you have let go of opinions, human will and decision making, it is impossible to experience life from the positive real and intensely workable standpoint.

And also for this fundamental reason, when you fulfill the conditions, your progression beyond negative living into the joy and satisfaction of the divinely ordered life becomes assured. This is a present possibility and a final inevitability.

At this point one's intellect may agree superficially. Of course (it will say) basic principles are not influenced by the human will; of course neither opinions nor decisions control the functioning of universal constants (mathematics for instance does not decide whether three plus three shall result in six); and of course it would be beneficial if the harmonious life-sustaining laws of nature as seen in the cosmos could be made directly available in a person's living.

Then the strain and struggle for existence could be laid aside and one could live in effortless yet dynamic continuity. All this one's intellect accepts without question... . But are we willing to pay the price for such living? In every instance the price is to drop the tools that perpetuate the negative ego and its ways of thinking. And these tools are always the same: personal opinions, personal decisions and personal will.

Divine knowledge deep within us wells up in glad response to pay this cost... . But even as we read, the intellect crowds in to distract and divert us from doing so.

It takes a Gethsemane to bring us to the place where we are really ready to give up the human ego—to pray with our whole heart and mind and being "Not my will, but Thine"—not the human ego, not private personal will, not even the righteous "uncompromising stand" for what still remains a personal opinion about what is right and good. But instead an utter yielding to the divine purpose of the GOD-MIND, with no opinions as to what that purpose is or how it is to function.

Any clear night look out at the illimitable expanse above you. You know where to find each well-known planet, star and constellation. You know the vast orderly nature of the universe. You know with the restful simplicity of intelligent awareness that this universal government is completely beyond the influence of human will, operates without any opinions, and no person's decisions enter into the universal plan in even the tiniest degree.

There is no need (nor any possibility) for a human being to decide the course of any of these great bodies or their action.

All right, if this is so (and we know it is) can there be a way to live so that this harmonious ordering of the universe can come to light and into action in a person's everyday life? We are beginning to have proof that this is possible. There are no vacuums in MIND and the instant intellectual egotistic mental processes come to a halt, the intelligence of the universal MIND comes directly to light, takes over in one's daily affairs—stimulates the healthy functioning of one's body as well.

Freed from the intellect, the self-perpetuating, consistently constructive, powerful laws of the universe appear—appear in one's present living ... negative elements gradually disappear, life goes on in positive harmonious reality.

All this is not a future hope, not a religious promise for a heaven later on. This is the wonderful fact that the Age of MIND contains for each of us as our progression out of negative stages goes on and the one eternal causative MIND unfolds as our very own.

The price to pay for this freedom is to give up negative mental processes that objectify themselves in negative experiences. Let's face it... . Is the price too high? For this is probably the price: to live each day without holding to opinions—within one's own thought acknowledging that the GOD-MIND is ALL and knows all that is needful to know about everything; making no decisions prodded by the intellect with its wishing and wanting; and not using human will in any direction.

Because if you make demands upon the negative stage it will make equal demands upon you, for you have placed yourself in this area when you forcibly contact it with your demands—even when these are made in the name of GOOD. Trying to improve the negative (appearing as people or conditions) from within itself only perpetuates the negative condition.

There is no possible way to permanently eliminate a negative motive or practice in human living except by the divine awareness that is not tricked into using the intellect's attempts at negative goodness. It will claim that it is "acting for the best," for the general welfare, for personal happiness and well-being. But nevertheless suffering and problems multiply.

There is a desperate need today for the bright GOD-LIGHT in consciousness that can look straight at a negative appearance and is not trapped into fighting it, struggling with it, trying to improve it, but is calmly and absolutely sure that GOOD (God) is present and is the actual truth about the very condition facing one in its negative garb. In this bright GOD-LIGHT one is not blinded by any subtle tricks of the intellect.

But its specious ways trap most of us into some kind of response to it, so that we try to "reveal the truth" about some situation, "show it up" for what it (negatively) is, "bring to light" the wrong or evil that is going on... . All this always in the name of GOOD, of so-called intelligent methods of dealing with human problems. Yet misery, tragedy, mistakes and failures multiply.

Again, let's face it. If God, GOOD, is power, is reality and is everywhere present, then the only truth about anything, literally anything, must be some aspect of divine GOODNESS. If any condition is truly "shown up for what it is," this must be showing up the presence and action of God. If something is to be "brought to light," the darkness (and evil) about that something must disappear in the presence of the LIGHT.

Anything wrong in one's experience must fade out in the powerful awareness that GOOD is God—and GOOD is here—and GOOD IS ALL.

Any involvement pro or con (either fighting or furthering a negative condition) will inevitably prolong that condition. If the pressure is strong enough the negative activity will disappear in one form only to later reappear in another—will "go underground" and slip from one situation or locality to another—only to reappear in one's experience. History in our present generation is teeming with such illustrations.

And yet how powerless negative projects become when universal forces come into play. Can the greatest human intellects alter the pattern of the planets—change the speed of light—even prevent one morning's dawn?

Is there any way to align oneself with the over-all pattern of the creative LIFE-PRINCIPLE ... place oneself within the kindly wisdom of the infinite divine INTELLIGENCE ... bring into one's everyday living the laws of eternal SELF-EXISTENCE ... individualize universal impartial all-inclusive LOVE—the very LIFE-FORCE of creation?

Yes, indeed yes. But never by means of the intellect. The way is so simple that it is almost incredible: Just to give over completely to the universal MIND—in everyday living to really let go to the fact that GOD IS ALL THERE IS TO ALL. And the way to do this? It is most surely to stop using the tools of the intellect—these tools we have been talking about: opinions, decisions, will power. Without these tools the intellect is stilled.

With them it comes to life—deprived of them it very simply comes to an end.

Then comes the question: Where is protection from being used by the opinions, decisions and will power of other people? This protection, this power is right within one's own mental make-up. Nowhere else at all. How simple it sounds. How easy it should be. But the weight of ages and the multitudes around us clutter our present impulses and thoughts. To live even a few moments without indulging in this intellectual trio is an outstanding victory.

If you can stay alert to do this for one full day you will have conclusive proof of the immediate power of GOOD in your life; you will find the way in which the intelligence of the cosmic MIND comes directly into being as your very own; and you will know with a mighty certitude that this is the way of freedom, safety, security.

Bringing one's will to a full stop (not by willful efforts but by letting go to God), forcing nothing, demanding nothing, pushing no one—this is the way. Realizing in each living moment that the divine pattern of LIFE is here ... controlling everyone and everything, directly operating in one's affairs with a love and a wisdom surpassing anything the intellect can contrive—this is the way.

Trusting the law of GOOD (of intelligent MIND) to govern everything that touches one's life, because one's life is the manifest appearing of the ONE LIFE—this is the way... .

It is a daily program. Beginning in the trivial everyday matters we soon become able to trust it and to practice it in the most vital, the sudden, serious, even desperate problems. When you feel its power (this way of living), see it work in your daily life experience the riches of goodness and health, joy and love it brings to light—you know the price is nominal, the profit eternal.

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Blueprints for Living

This a blueprint for living in this amazing Age ... the Age of atomic discoveries, of interplanetary possibilities, of psychophysics developing both psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine, of incredible inventions in every field that daily produce new terms and words so that dictionaries become obsolete in the printing.

This is the Age of new forms of art and architecture, of music and writing.

This is the Age of a great religious renaissance rising in humanity to stem the tide of materialistic fear; the Age of spiritual healing unsurpassed in recorded history except in the brief ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

And above all, this is an age of LIFE appearing, of everyday people living everyday lives, faced with everyday problems just as in the past ... but facing them now with today's demands for new ways of meeting these problems; and finding new boundaries for everyday experiences as the events of far-off lands, of planets even, suddenly come close, reach deep into the personal affairs of simple people and call us, one and all, to larger ways of thinking and living.

There are blueprints for building homes... . There should be blueprints for building lives, blueprints that would make our homes into places of love and peace and safety, places of rest and of strength, where contentment reigns and individual freedom of expression goes on without the blight of domination and fear.

Blueprints for living must not be set and rigid like those for mass production housing projects. They must be flexible, elastic and expansive, while based on foundations of basic truths that erect lives worth living. A life even more than a house needs a safe foundation.

Unless a person knows what his building materials are made of, how can he build a safe structure for daily living? The structure crumbles because he does not comprehend the real substance of his body and the actual source of his thinking.

The leading physicists of today are close to these basic answers. Atomic discoveries and the action of the whole universe as interpreted by Relativity, Quantum Physics, and The Unified Field lead to the very door of TRUTH. One step only is needed beyond the self-imposed limits where the physicists stop. To explain this, I am quoting briefly from an article called "The Universe and Dr. Einstein" by Lincoln Barnett (Harper's Magazine, April, May and June, 1948).

"In accepting a mathematical description of nature, physicists have been forced to abandon the ordinary world of our experience, the world of sense perceptions. To understand the significance of this retreat it is necessary to step across the thin line that divides physics from metaphysics. . "... by dealing in terms of statistics and probabilities it [quantum physics] abandons all idea that nature exhibits an inexorable sequence of cause and effect.

And by its admission of margins of uncertainty, it yields up the ancient hope that science, given the present condition and velocity of every material body in the universe, can forecast the history of the universe for all time ... . if physical events are indeterminate and the future is unpredictable, then perhaps the unknown quantity called 'mind' may yet guide man's destiny among the infinite uncertainties of a capricious universe.

But this notion invades a realm of thought with which the physicist is not concerned. Another conclusion of greater scientific importance is that in the evolution of quantum physics, the barrier between man, peering dimly through the clouded windows of his senses, and whatever objective reality may exist has been rendered almost impassable. For whenever he attempts to penetrate and spy on the 'real' objective world, he changes and distorts its workings by the very process of his observations.

And when he tries to divorce the 'real' world from his sense perceptions, he is left with nothing but a mathematical scheme. He is indeed somewhat in the position of a blind man trying to discern the shape and texture of a snowflake. As soon as it touches his fingers or his tongue it dissolves. A wave electron, a photon, a wave of probability, cannot be visualized; they are simply symbols useful in expressing the mathematical relationship of the microcosm.

"To the question, why does modern physics employ such abstract methods of description, the physicist answers: Because the equations of quantum physics define more accurately than any mechanical model the fundamental phenomena beyond the range of vision. In short, they work, as the calculations which hatched the atom bomb spectacularly proved... . In the abstract language of mathematics, he (the physicist) can describe how things behave though he does not know—or need to know—what they are."

These quotations are used as a sort of spring-board to propel us over the barriers erected by man's inadequate sense perceptions. There is a way whereby we can know this realm of "mind" beyond the mathematical equations which explain how things behave. It is possible to know both the what and the why of individual life and the universe. This knowledge can come when the "unknown quantity called 'mind'" not only "guides man's destiny" but is consciously individualized as a man's own understanding.

The conviction that the universe of physics (and even of the "metaphysics" of the modern physicists) is entirely separate from the realm of this "unknown quantity called 'mind'" is the mistake which has erected the barrier to this realm. This conviction comes partly from accepting sense perceptions as true and partly from the influence of the age old religious teaching that heaven and earth are two different realms, that one has to be lost if the other is to be attained.

The physicist can carry his discoveries on to their full conclusion—that the universe and that outer realm of "mind" are one realm.

The modern mystic and religionist (still believing that there is a spiritual world separate from this that they continue to call the material world) need also to take the one step, this unifying step in which it is found that heaven and earth are only different impressions about the one universe, specifically including the earth.

The substance of ALL, of everything everywhere is "MIND"—mind taking form in limitless manifestations but always remaining MIND. In physics, it has been discovered that energy and mass are the same thing appearing in different aspects under differing conditions—energy, the formless, changing into mass, the form, and back again but still remaining one and the same basic substance.

Spiritual progression finally makes the discovery that there is only one creation, this one that is right here, right now, constituted of spiritual substance and taking form as form is needed.

The step that both physicists and religionists must take before the obstructions put up by sense perceptions go down and the understanding is reached of what the universe is and why it is, as well as how it operates, can only be taken when it becomes possible to stop thinking with one's limited private mentality and to allow the MIND of the universe to come through as individual consciousness.

In other words, Creative Being, Source-Consciousness, Cosmic Mind, Primordial Entity, the universal eternal Life-Principle, sometimes termed God, has to be individualized and has to function as a man's own thinking.

Down through the ages, there have been great spiritual seers who have had more than occasional glimpses of the divine Presence, to whom the spiritual realities were more positive and sure than their sense perceptions, who embodied and showed forth a spiritual power which gave them authority over human problems. These Great Ones were able to rise above the limitations of the human intellect into a vision and a way of living that transcended the methods of those around them.

They were—and are—explorers in the infinite realm at whose threshold the physicists stop their calculations. They were—and are—habitually controlled by the "mind" of that realm. To such thinkers, Spirit is the great reality, the true and only substance.

Based on sense perceptions along with that deep conviction that Spirit is the real and eternal substance, it has been logical to assume that the substance of the world and all its formations and bodies is the exact opposite of the spiritual realm; and therefore they are separate and distinct from each other— logical, that is to say, in ages that are past and gone. From this standpoint matter has been seen as a temporary unreal substance lost to sight as the divine realities unfold.

Therefore it has been believed that this "temporary false substance," "this material world," has to be left behind in order to experience the spiritual realm; the "material body" has to be put off in order to find the eternal body.

But the Atomic Age is here and we are faced with a new kind of substance, one we hardly know what to do with.

The fact that the most solid object can be resolved into energy that cannot be seen by human vision, the fact that energy and mass are the same thing, the same substance, the fact that this substance can be consistently explained only by mathematical formulas— this all reveals substance, even from the material standpoint, to be something very different from what sense perceptions and past education tell us.

Through this progressive analysis of the universe including our world and all that it comprises, another discovery takes place: Just as mass and energy are found to be the same substance by the physicists, to the spiritual seer, with that inner assurance of spiritual reality, comes the revelation that matter and spirit are the same substance and that this substance is SPIRIT.

Of what importance is this last discovery? How does it bear on the way we construct our lives? Will it enable us to furnish our homes with the atmosphere that builds ourselves and our children into sound, fearless, healthy, productive maturity? Will it give free reign to sanity, good judgment and spontaneous kindliness? If it is only a personal theory it is of no actual value. To be worth writing about it must be capable of very practical effects in everyday living.

It must be fundamentally sound. It must be able to give the same measure of proof that the scientists have established through their mathematical equations—the proof that "it works."

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"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is among the most influential works of psychiatric literature since Freud. The book begins with a lengthy, austere, and deeply moving personal essay about Frankl's imprisonment in Auschwitz and other concentration camps for five years, and his struggle during this time to find reasons to live.

The second part of the book, called "Logotherapy in a Nutshell," describes the psychotherapeutic method that Frankl pioneered as a result of his experiences in the concentration camps. Freud believed that sexual instincts and urges were the driving force of humanity's life; Frankl, by contrast, believes that man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. Frankl's logotherapy, therefore, is much more compatible with Western religions than Freudian psychotherapy.

This is a fascinating, sophisticated, and very human book. At times, Frankl's personal and professional discourses merge into a style of tremendous power. "Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is," Frankl writes. "After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."

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"Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath

Unabashedly inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling The Tipping Point, the brothers Heath—Chip a professor at Stanford's business school, Dan a teacher and textbook publisher—offer an entertaining, practical guide to effective communication. Drawing extensively on psychosocial studies on memory, emotion and motivation, their study is couched in terms of "stickiness"—that is, the art of making ideas unforgettable.

They start by relating the gruesome urban legend about a man who succumbs to a barroom flirtation only to wake up in a tub of ice, victim of an organ-harvesting ring. What makes such stories memorable and ensures their spread around the globe? The authors credit six key principles: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. (The initial letters spell out "success"well, almost.) They illustrate these principles with a host of stories, some familiar and others very funny. Throughout the book, sidebars show how bland messages can be made intriguing. Fun to read and solidly researched, this book deserves a wide readership.

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"Love Leadership" by John Bryant

As a student of leadership and a voracious reader of more than 100 books on the subject, I would like to compliment John Hope Bryant on writing a book that I believe ranks among the best that I have read. Love Leadership is an outstanding inaugural writing effort from an exciting new author.

This book is an easy read, but it' points of emphasis are anything but leadership lite. This is heavyweight, substantive, material. The concepts of Love Leadership apply to everyone who leads and since leadership is everyone's business this book is suitable for everyone and applies to everyone.

My particular favorite among John's leadership principles states "No storm. no rainbow." You can't have one without the other. I used that concept personally this evening when coaching a young man who was experiencing some personal struggles. This individual needed leadership, but he also needed love. John's foundational beliefs enable the reader to easily and seamlessly apply both effectively.

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The Physical Phase

The physical phase of personal magnetism depends upon two coordinated manifestations of nerve-force, as follows:

(1) the generation within the nervous system of a plenteous supply of nerve-force; and

(2) the conscious projection, by the will, of that supply of nerve-force into the personal atmosphere, and even to a greater distance under special conditions.

By "nerve-force," as used in the above paragraph, I mean that strange, mysterious form of energy, which controls all physical movements, and yet, at the same time, appears to be something higher than physical itself. It is akin to electricity or magnetism, in its real nature, and, like these forces is impossible to define. Nerve-force is something far different from the matter of which the nervous system is composed. The nervous system, from spinal cord to the most delicate nerve filament, is at the best but a system of wires, relays, etc., over which the nerve-force travels, or, else complicated reservoirs in which the nerve-force is stored.

The ordinary nerves serve as wires and cables over which the nerve-force travels to move the parts of the body, which we will to move, or which our subconscious mentality desires to move. Certain parts of the brain are great reservoirs of nerve-force, as are also the great groups of nerve-matter called the plexus, prominent among which are the solar plexus, and the sacral plexus.

The ordinary textbooks of physiology pass over the question of the real nature of nerve-force, for their writers do not possess the secret. They dispose of the question by saying: "As in the case of electricity, while we fully recognize its existence and its power, nevertheless we do not know its real nature." And, so, the student must go back to some of the old occult writers of the past ages, and their followers in the present age, in order to get the secret.

All occultists, ancient and modern, have recognized the existence of a mighty subtle force of nature – one of nature’s "finer forces" – which is most potent it its effects and activities, but which, nevertheless, defied all power of analysis or definition. The reason that science has never been able to classify nerve-force is because, like electricity, it is in a class by itself, and is different from any other form of force – so different that it cannot be classified with other forces. Science, in some cases, has endeavored to treat it as a secretion of the nervous matter, but that is a folly akin to that of the materialistic philosopher who tried to define mind as "a secretion of the brain," just as the bile is a secretion of the liver, the gall a secretion of the gall-bladder, etc. Such attempts at definition cause only a smile on the face of the wise.

The occultists, on the contrary, while not attempting to define nerve-force (recognizing it to be in a class of its own) nevertheless have discovered the source of its origin, and have given us valuable information as to its use. They have given it many names, as for instance: "vital force," "vital energy," "life force," "vital fluid," "vital magnetism," etc., and in the case of the Orientals, the terms "prana," or "akashic energy" have been applied to it. But under all of these different names, the occultists have always meant the one and same thing, i.e., nerve-force. The name I use in describing it, ‘nerve-force," is employed simply because it is found specialized in the nervous system, and not because of any idea that it originates there. Indeed, as you shall see in a moment, it has a far higher and more elementary source of origin.

The old materialistic school of physiology has attempted to show that nerve-force, like the bodily material, is derived from the food we eat, and is created by chemical combustion of the latter. This, however, is only partly true. While it is true that there is a certain amount of nerve-force in fresh food (having been gathered there during the life of the plant of animal of which the food formed a part), and while it is true that a certain amount of this nerve-force is taken up by the system of the person eating the food, particularly if the food be fresh, nevertheless, the amount of nerve-force so absorbed is comparatively small, and is far too little to supply what is needed by the individual to run his physical organism. And, even the small part so obtained is not derived from the chemical combustion of the food. Food chemical combustion results in giving bodily heat, but never in creating nerve-force.

The true source of nerve-force is the same as the source of electricity, namely the universal ether that fills space. Like electricity, also, this force is available to human wants only when it is associated with. The atmosphere is charged with nerve-force, which is taken up and absorbed by the nervous system, and stored away in its great reservoirs, from whence, in turn, it flows over the nerves when required, by the physical or mental needs of the individual.

But, you naturally ask, how does the body absorb the universal nerve-force – through what channel does it enter the system. The answer is plain, viz.: In plant, animal, and human life, the nerve force is breathed into the system. In other words, the process of breathing, in its higher and lower forms, is not alone that of extracting oxygen or other elements from the air, but also that of extracting the universal nerve-force at the same time. When this is understood, it will be more easily understood why the living thing perishes so soon if the process of breathing be interfered with. The understanding of this secret of nature throws a much-needed light upon the important part played by breathing, in the life of all creatures.

Before proceeding to a further consideration of the process of the absorption of nerve-force from the atmosphere, especially in the case of the student of personal magnetism, I ask you to consider another important question in relation to the physical phase of personal magnetism, namely, that of the projection of nerve-force beyond the limits of the nervous system. You will remember that the average physiologist maintains that it is folly to hold that nerve-force can possibly pass beyond the limits of the nervous system containing it. He holds that, like electricity on the wires, it cannot pass except over the wires of the nerves. But, is this true even of electricity? I positively assert that it is not. The veriest novice in the study of electricity is aware that electricity will often leap from one conducting substance to another – jumping the gap in the shape of a spark – and then flying along the new channel. Again, even without the spark, electricity and magnetism will often affect other substances by what is known as "induction," without the actual contact of the two conducting materials. This is so common that it is a wonder that the question is ever raised. And, what is true of electricity and magnetism, in this respect, is likewise true of nerve-force, for it will not only often leap over the barriers of the nervous system, but will, and constantly does, affect other nervous systems by a kind of "induction."

Not only is the phenomena of personal magnetism a proof of this transmission of nerve-force, but the phenomena of ‘human magnetism" (as it has been called) in the direction of "magnetic healing" another proof – a proof, moreover, that may be obtained by any individual in his own experience.

Moreover, the experience of every individual will bear ample and generous testimony to the fact that certain persons, flowing over with vigorous nerve-force, will so radiate the energy that it is actually perceptible to those shaking hands with them, or even coming into their vicinity. These individuals fairly radiate health and vigor, and exert a positive healing and invigorating effect, on those with whom they come in contact. In a similar manner, is manifested a lack of sufficient nerve-force, by those unfortunate individuals who go around unconsciously absorbing the nerve-force of others, and, in extreme cases, becoming actual vampires sucking the vital forces from those around them. Who of you have not met this last class of persons, and have not noted how depressed and weakened one is after having been in the company of such persons for some time? The average person does not need any further proof in this case, beyond that afforded by his or her own experience.

It may be asked that if the nerve-force is inherent in the universal ether, and obtained from the atmosphere, why all persons are not equally endowed with this energy. The answer is that the life-habits of individuals differ, and just as one is physically strong and robust, and another weak and delicate, so is one individual strong in nerve-force, and another weak in it. Moreover, a change in the life habits of the person will inevitably result in a change in the amount of nerve-force absorbed and retained by him or her. In fact, one of the purposes of this book is to instruct you how you may increase the nerve-force within yourself. While the object is the increase of your personal magnetism, you will find that at the same time your general health and vigor will improve.

In addition to the amount of nerve-force being determined by the life habits of the individual, it is also true that the individual may, by the proper exercises, so "energize" his nervous system that he will largely increase the degree of activity of his nerve-force, and may render it far more available for his requirements. It isn’t only a question of securing a plenteous supply of nerve-force, but also of having the same in an active condition, and in such a form that it may be readily available for the requirements of everyday life.

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