Excerpts from
THE SELF IN TUNE Freedom Talks Series One by Julia Seton Sears Order in Adobe PDF eBook or printed form for $6.95 (+ printing charge) or click here to order in printed form from Amazon.com for $24.95 Book Description An explanation by the author
of New Thought. New Thought is the
consciousness of God in the human soul; higher than this no truth can
go, for it is the fullness and richness of Him who fills all. Contents:
The Resurrection of the Body; Selfness, or the Universal Selfishness;
The Power of the Spoken Word; The True Idea of Life; The Power of the I
Am; Life's Master Position; Planes or Expression; The Brother of the
Prodigal Son; and The Consciousness of Infinite Union.
FOREWORD "Truth
crushed to earth, shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers." RELIGIONS, beliefs, philosophies, and
sciences have
come up throughout all time; ever and always men have reasoned
themselves back
some way into union with the Great First Cause; their reasonings and
faiths
have lived and died with them, only to be replaced again and again by
the new
creations of a new race of minds. The new is always a bursting out of some old
thought
flame that reaches from a half-forgotten past. The beliefs and faiths
of
earlier races were but the faint prophecy of what modern thought and
science
have revealed as facts. The conscious work built by the human brain
must ever
find the same goal. One by one the beliefs and religions, and sciences
and
philosophies of today, will give way to the unfolding of a different
expression
of thought; but no matter how soon each distinct teaching sinks from
sight, no
matter what has gone in the past, what is now, or what will be, each
bears its
own relation to the period and people of its time; each has its own
potent
power in shaping and influencing the expressions of the people of its
own day. The future
always has its
origin in the past; our today is the father of our tomorrow. "Nothing
happens," but everything is by natural law, and has its part in shaping
lives and moulding thought. New Thought
is a product of
the twentieth century thought and need; it had its birth in human
experiences
and human unfoldment; it is God's answer to the now. Developed man
has ceased to
be troubled about the future or the past, believing that both are found
in the
eternal now; that time always has been and always will be the ever present,
and
all that any one has to do, is to be conscious of infinite union today,
which
is forever. New Thought
calls for no
renunciation; it conquers life, by union not through denial or
negation; it
permits perfect freedom of mind and thought and method; no one is
obliged to
submit his reason to unintelligible mysteries, nor to accept blindly
what
contradicts his common sense. Science
retains its own
normal place, so do matter and material functions. Faith and revelation
are
understood arid appreciated; physical and metaphysical laws are merged
into one
and taken at a correct valuation; peace, power, pleasure, happiness,
joy,
beauty, love, home ties, wealth, health, and comradeship with God
(good) all
become the normal possession and expression of the life which fills
itself with
the truth of this divine inspiration. New Thought
is Truth to those
who know, and to those who do not know, it must forever remain
an
opinion until, in the day of their own unfoldment, they too will behold
the
secret of its meaning. It takes its place today in
the supply that must always be found for
human need; when accepted it is meat and drink to souls astray from
consciousness
of Infinite union. It was born
on the table-land
of illumination and worked out into tangible form on the plane of human
reasoning. The calm
clearness of New
Thought; its union of profound spiritual insight with perfect
simplicity of
intellectual research, and its natural sincere expressions, almost, at
first,
disguise its wonderful illumination. It is only when we see how deep,
and full,
and complete it is in all of its conclusions, how it satisfies and
never tires,
that we begin to recognize from what a deep place in the universal
consciousness it has come. New Thought
may be read
century after century, and it will bring to each new seeker after Truth
the
same comfort that is found in it here and now. No matter who shall
follow its
teachings and interpret its meanings, they will find in it "the light
upon
the pathway of the just, that shineth more and more unto the perfect
day," It is the
consciousness of
God in the human soul; higher than this no truth can go, for it is the
fullness
and richness of Him who fills all. Chapter 1 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY "And
Why should It seem a thing Incredible
to You, that God should raise the Dead?" THESE were the words of Paul when before King
Agrippa
he was permitted to speak for himself. Like Paul the line of analysis
on which
we shall base our higher teaching must be, that the power of healing by
union
with the conscious-ness of the All-Health, is, indeed, not a thing
incredible. Jesus was the world's greatest Physician. He
healed
the sick, made the blind to see, cleansed the lepers, and handed on to
his
disciples and to those who follow in his footsteps an eternal legacy of
joy,
power and truth. Healing was
not part of his
life, it was the all. He said, "I go about my Father's
business," and again, "I do always the things which pleaseth the
Father." And those things which he was doing seemed to be only teaching
his followers and disciples the blessed work of curing the diseased and
afflicted. He taught
everywhere the
truth of the power of healing through Faith. He said to the man sick
with the
palsy: "Believest thou that I can do this thing?" and the man said,
"Yea, Lord, I believe," and he was healed. To the woman who touched
the hem of his garment, he said, "Thy faith hath made thee whole,"
and over and over again he taught that "All that my father hath is
mine," and in following his teaching we learn to believe with all the
strength of our soul that "Every good and perfect gift is from above,
and
cometh down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no
variableness,
neither shadow of turning." Those who
have followed his
teaching and interpreted his healing come to believe in this great
metaphysical
cosmic power the understanding of which is yet only in its infancy, but
toward
which those who know are looking with eager and expectant eyes. The great day
of universal
deliverance is near at hand; we feel it and know it; and yet in many
places we
find ourselves halting, standing apparently still, almost awed into
silence
before the crowd, endeavoring, and often vainly, to picture and give
forth this
thing of our own knowledge, in a way that all mankind may know,
comprehend, and
accept. How shall we
take this great
truth of the power of the resurrection of our bodies here and now; and
project
it in words so powerful that it may be endowed with everlasting life,
yet make
it so simple that the least of earth's children may understand it, and
make it
a living fact in their lives? Wherever we
go, we are
confronted with this great argument between Faith and Reason. On the
one hand
Faith says: "Believe, and ye shall be saved," and on the other hand
Reason says: "Show me the facts." Our inner being senses an apparently
impossible truth, and hastens to telegraph it to our everyday
common-sense
faculties, and thus reduce it to a sensible basis or factor and make it
something to which we can hold and use for our advancement; but it is
often
turned back again into our inner consciousness without having been
given a
place for external expression; it could not bear the light of cold,
common
interpretation, and had to be sent back into that world of dreams where
most of
our finally great things had their origin. The mind of
man is slow to
accept new facts when they first present themselves in the guise of
Faith, and
often it is only after long and painful preparation that we finally lay
down
our doubts and objections, and look with wide-open eyes into the face
of a new truth. We find this
same condition
existing whenever we turn to this inexhaustible subject of sickness and
the
raising of a diseased body into a perfect expression of health. Many of
us have
sensed the truth of the possibility of the resurrection of our bodies,
here and
now; sensed it in the silence of our own mind and soul; many of us who
have
consecrated our lives to healing the sick, see it accomp-lished over
and over
again, day after day, before our human eyes; we see the dead bodies of
half-dead souls rebuilt and re-born into a new existence, a new
expression of
health, and we stand daily in the presence of those we have healed, or
helped
to find healing, and they, like the man of history, are ready to say:
"Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not; but one thing I know, that
once
I was blind, now I sec." Whether we can raise the dead or no, I know
not,
but one thing I know, once I was sick, now I am healed. We know the
truth of the
power of rebuilding the half-dead body, and we work it out in our own
life and
the lives of others, and then go on in hopeless endeavor to get this
truth of
resurrection through healing, accepted by many with whom we are daily
brought into
contact, yet we often fail utterly in our attempt to place it before
those who
are in the greatest need of it. It is no
small thing to
attempt to establish the probability of a truth, such as Spiritual
healing, and
prove that it is not a thing incredible that God "should raise the
dead" within us at our own bidding, and that through the commandment of
our own consciousness we may call forth the dead Lazarus from out his
sleep of
death, and "loose him of his grave-clothes and let him go." We must work
long and
earnestly, and never falter in our well-doing, if we hope to make good
to
ourselves or others the fact that "as the Father raiseth up the dead
and
quick-eneth them, so hath he given the Son the power to quicken whom he
will." We cannot
fail to see when we
look deeply into the human expression of life here and now, that it is
not more
mysterious that we should heal ourselves and
others from our infirmities, than it is
that we should build ourselves into them. When
thinking passes into a fixed power in any life, as it is fully
recognized
that it can do, and even unconsciously, almost
destroy us, then what
is more
natural than that when joined with the higher power and used
consciously for a
fixed purpose, it should become wholly constructive,
and
rescue us from any previous expression of thought building. We believe
that the end and
aim of all life is perfect health, perpetual opulence, and divine
realization
for all mankind, and that there are two ways by which everyone goes in
his
search after those things; one is along the rose-colored hills of hope,
illumined
by faith and a soul vision, and made perfect by an all-abiding
conviction
"that if we will but believe we shall see the glory of God," and the
other is the dark roadway of gloom and doubt and despair, and hopeless
longings
which lead through miasma laden thought swamps of human disease and
human
effort; one is the line of least, and one the line of most resistance. If there be
no direct
evidence of these two ways, the human power of testimony alone would
define
them and be enough to set a sign-board for the traveler. Go where we
will, we
have only to look into the faces of our kind, we have only to listen
awhile,
and by the words of their own mouths we learn which way they are
traveling. And
it is here that the great question presents itself to the human mind of
how to
show them the truth, as we sec it, and make it "a thing not
incredible" to them that "God should raise the dead," and, thereby
help them to come out into the full glory of the resurrection. They are
wrapped
round about with their grave-clothes, and the napkin of old thought
binds their
faces. Sometimes we
cannot help
them, we can only look and pass on; they have chosen their own path,
and we
must let them follow it. "There is a sin unto death, and I would not
say
that ye should pray for these," we are told; so until they are ready to
turn and ask the way, we can only leave them to their own choosing,
even while
we know that every turn on the road they are walking will plunge them
into
deeper and deeper gloom. There is a
royal road to
health and healing, and an equally royal road to disease and pain; we
stand
between them, and the choosing depends upon the knowledge of our own
creative
power, and our union with the All-Health. Someone will
say, this is not
true; he will show us the holes in his hands, and the wounds in his
side, and
will say: "Did I choose my cross? would I not gladly be strong if I
could,
do you think I would be sick or unhappy a day if I could help it?" No;
of
course he would not, but the point is that he cannot help it in the
condition in
which he is expressing. After we have
set the pattern
and the threads, the work goes through to the end of that weaving with
the same
figure; but if we know the truth of the resurrection, we do not again
fill up
our loom of life with the old pattern. There is no law but the one of
our own
making, which has us go on day after day, year after year, working out
the same
old figures, in the same old colors; we can choose the hour in which to
begin a
new pattern. We cannot escape our old conditions until we have learned
from the
All-Good, the great power of our own refined thought building, and set
up a new
pattern which, when worked out, will be bound to put us into new
conditions,
and new connections. There are
many who say they
want to do things differently, and in an indefinite way, do believe in
the
raising of their dead bodies; but through the mistaken methods of their
old
thought world they have set up certain conditions within their bodies
that
hinder all attempts in the direction of new conditions. The impulses
necessary
to create or persist in establishing new lines of action are weak, and
it takes
a careful and persistent training on our part and their own, before we
can hope
to teach them how to rescue themselves from disease, and restore again
the fallen
temple of their bodies. Often too,
even though they
really do want to find health, they want more, not to be molested in
their old
thought attitude, and we often find them hugging to their hearts the
haunting
thought form of some old terror, or some great sorrow. They are
conscious in an
indefinite way, that these things separate them from wholeness; but
they hope
in time to overcome this lack, by the image of union they carry in
other
directions; they have forgotten that, "with what measure ye mete it is
meted unto you." Their faith
has spoken a
truth to them today, and their reason and doubt destroy it tomorrow;
while they
hoped in a certain dilatory fashion for the absolute, the eternal, yet
with
every breath they have sown the transitory and the fleeting. Day by
day, and at
night, unconsciously, perhaps, their heart half lives by the truth
their lips
deny, and they belong to those who find it "incredible that God should
raise the dead," for they often do not understand the frailty of their
methods. When we come
to those lives,
we have only calmly, quietly, and persistently to show them the paths
they are
following; to tell them the truth about their position; then, by
breaking down
their old thought habits with a carefully directed blow of words, pass
them,
over a new line of thinking, into the gentle, easy paths of divine
transference
of health, through union with the All-Life around them. Whenever we
look down deep
into our life, and begin to question which path we are following, we
need to
start back, away back at the very beginning of the road on which we
find
ourselves traveling. We are all born into one or the other of these
pathways;
and whether we remain there, or leave it, whether we go back to the
path of
health, if we have lost it, or whether we go on in the path of disease,
depends
on just how fully we sense this truth, first by faith, and then by our
reason.
The second step depends upon the power of our own personal application;
application made first by faith, and later, through the truth of
personal
experience, pass into knowledge in our life. We believe
that whatever our
development was in the dim and distant past is evidenced by our point
of
beginning here in our child life; in the place, the country, the race,
and the
family into which we are born, and marks our position with regard to
health or
sickness. Some lives are born into a direct line of transference for
All-Health, the line of least resistance, and the balance is kept for
them by
nature, and it always will be kept for them unless they outrage some
natural
law; for by their own line of previous building they put themselves
into
perfect equilibrium with the cosmic forces. Others are born into a line
of
transference for disease; they open their eyes in a condition of
healing, and
if they ever hope for freedom from it, they must awaken within
themselves that
latent energy which is somehow related to the universal health; they
must wake
up their faith, until it really does not seem a thing "incredible to
them
that God should raise the dead," We all start,
on our journey
of life, in one or the other of these pathways. If we begin with an
inheritance
of ill health it is all the more necessary that we learn the truth, and
the
whole truth about our position, and know that it is entirely within our
own
will whether we will continue in it, or whether we will set it aside,
cut out a
new pathway for ourselves, and stick to it until it leads us into the
one of
least resistance and physical harmony. We can accept
or decline inherited
diseases which are simply dead men's legacies, just according to the
amount of
our own awakened consciousness. When we do
not want a
diseased body, and have really sensed the truth of the universal
All-Health, we
can begin our resurrection day at once, through the power of our mind.
We
decide what we want, and that we have the strength to secure it, and
begin then
and there to pass the simple act of thinking into a fixed power in our
life; we
refuse to be made a host for a crowd of negative thoughts which we do
not
enjoy. When we by faith, or reason, sense the image of our possible
union with
the universal opulence of health, we can, with our own will, hold the
image in
our field of consciousness until we force the cells of our physical
body to receive
the picture, and begin building from it. Our thoughts
are our
creators, and they create just what we will they should create. It is
not their
fault if we do not like our own production when they nave finished
their work.
Had we known enough to direct them, they would have gladly built for
perfection, and they show us their willingness in the very hour we come
into
this knowledge, and begin an intelligent direction of our life. Our
field of
consciousness recognizes nothing less than perfection, and when our
cells
cannot build anything else, they find this new pattern always before
them, for
no matter how imperfect our work may have been in the past, our now
becomes
a beautiful constructive building, and we pass from the part to the
whole; from
the letter to the spirit; and our body becomes the expression of our
thought
world. This is the whole science by which we control our bodies, and by
which
we build from sickness to All-Health; it is an unwritten law, from
which there
is no appeal, that an interior correlation of thought-force, will, and
does, in
time, manifest corresponding external conditions. Unless
sometime, somewhere,
we had recognized disease in ourselves
and
others, and worked it out into objective expression for ourselves here
and now,
we would never have become sick or diseased, and been born into a
condition of
healing. We first recognize it in the absolute, and then differentiate
it into
local expression within our own bodies. We can only
hope to become
free from this old thought form of building, by going back to the
fountain-head, and making union again with the absolute All-Health, by
the
power of conscious imaging, and work it out through our whole being
into
physical expression. Our mind
is the great
instrument with which we bring everything into our being; we
first
recognize our power to choose what kind of thought images we wish to
entertain,
and our will power, holding our mind servant to our higher
picture, helps to keep the vital centers
alive and
active. When we
refuse to admit
into our bodies thoughts that are not the expression of health there
never can
be any room for disease or sickness. Our will can be taught to stand as
sentinel and force our mind to imbue our currents within us, with only
such
thoughts as make for wholeness and perfection of mind, soul, and body. We cannot
become sick or old,
if every cell of our body is being fed with thoughts of health. Health
thought
currents are a certain prevention and cure of every form of disease.
When we
remember that we are living hourly in an inexhaustible ocean of cosmic
health
or All-Health, and that the very atmosphere which we breathe is filled
with
pure, vital life abundant, in the very instant that our minds make a
conscious
contact for absorption, it can be seen how the raising up of our dead
becomes
not a thing incredible, but a positive, wonderful, possible truth,
which anyone
may lay hold of and demonstrate for himself. The most
important
step in this resurrection of the body is to know that
when we
are filled with Life we have no place within us for disease; disease is
death,
and life and death have absolutely no relation to each other. Disease
is a
function of the physical body, brought about by the control of the
objective
mind, and health is a function of the higher atomic
vibrations, presided
over by the divine man or the intelligence of the subjective mind; the
one who
is filled with Life, by conscious union through his physical life
center with
the All-Health, has polarized himself in the cosmic energy, and cannot
know
disease or death, until he wills it. We separate
ourselves every
day from the health center by persistently putting ourselves
under the
control of the conflicting thought currents of the external mind,
instead of
the direction of the supra-conscious mind. When we live in the control
of the
objective mind, we become diverse and unsettled, and open to ten
thousand
drifting thought currents, until after a while we lose the power to
direct, and
just pass along with everything, like a helpless leaf, drifting and
whirling
down the stream of life. There is no
escaping the
effects of this diverse building, as the hospitals, sanatoriums and
asylums
plainly show. We finally come to understand the full significance of
it, and
then we can go on with it if we choose; but we know that if we do, we
are doing
it at our own risk; "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall
give
account thereof in the day of judgment; for by thy words thou shalt be
justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Whenever we
find those who
are sick, diseased, and in the process of healing, we know that they
have sown
for the revealing of the judgment; that they are sitting by the walls
which
they built for themselves, and beneath the bondage of the kings and
rulers whom
they endowed with power to conquer them. They will never set themselves
free,
until the rulers are overthrown by some new thought king, and this king
is
found in the union of our faith and works and a steadfastness of
rebuilding. In the ages
past we have not
learned our lessons perfectly, and it is not to be wondered at that we
sometimes here and now find ourselves in bondage to some inherited or
acquired
condition of disease; but it is something to be studied over seriously,
when a
life goes on in pain and in disease after its eyes have been opened to
the
truth of the power of its own self resurrection. It is true
that we cannot
expect to see equal demonstrations of healing in every life, for
healing comes
as the result of individual application and living; some may sense the
possibility of union, and immediately laying hold of it, express it;
but it is
also true that, what is possible for one is possible for all, within
the degree
of their own power of comprehension. When once the soul has opened its
eyes to
the truth, the truth sets it free, and if it continues in its round of
pain and
wretchedness, it is because it has not yet come to that cycle m its
development
when it is ready to make the effort necessary for its redemption.
Sometimes the
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak; and the power of inhibiting
disease
thoughts must be built into the conscious brain through months of
training
before the body can begin its manifestation. No matter
where we stand in
our development, there is this blessed hope to comfort us: all life is
on its
journey Godward, and as we pass on in our cycles of development, this
condition
of suffering must end somewhere for us all, and we will some day stand
free in
the expression of perfect health, and will have been born again into
the
infinity of healing. The blessed
hope that absorbs
us, is to make that hour strike for us here and now; there is
no time after all but the eternal now; no place
but right
here, and nothing to do but to begin, and all we have to do in order to
make
our approach to union is just to lock this truth of the All-Health
within
our souls, beginning today and forever, to
live under
the law of construction to which we have taught our new body to
respond,
then taking our picture of absolute whole-ness into our field of
consciousness, walk on in our daily
life, expecting our desire to be
filled and never laying down our thought building, until it does
begin to
manifest for us. We are told
that a thousand
years is but as one day, and we may pass from death into life in just
the
instant that we make a conscious union with the All-Life, and then all
that is
left is to help our body rebuild through the law of
structural change, until it is a perfect
expression of the health our hearts have known
and
accepted. Healing
begins at any point
on the cycle that the soul awakens to its kinship with the Father, and
knows
that "All that my Father hath is mine," and it passes into perfect
health just as soon as it has proved itself a good steward for its
Father's
bounty. Healing
demands the absolute,
the eternal, and is not begun, nor health secured by "fear" nor vague
"perhaps" nor "I do hope I may get well some day." This
will never raise us from the dead, nor quicken us. Healing and
health come from
within, not from without; it is a condition that can only be brought
about by
ourselves; often by the aid of others who awaken us to our true
position, but
always in the last analysis it is our own consciousness fanning the
vital spark
within us. "Thy faith
hath made
thee whole," and this wholeness results when we join faith and works
within our being. It becomes a powerful illumination, carried with us
until we
must, by natural law, come into actualization. Perfect faith
in the
abundance of supply, and the Infinite All-Health, a perfect power of
imaging
the "Divine ideation," an unfaltering strength within our own body,
these make us one with the Infinite. When we train
our minds, day
after day, to fill our vital centers with thoughts of the life
abundant, then
harmoniz-ing our daily physical expressions into a beautiful creative
force
vibration, we will soon become the perfect expression of health that we
are
seeking and the grave-clothes of our dead endeavors will fall from us
like a
worn-out cloak, and the spoken word of health will robe itself
in living
manifestations not only for ourselves, but for all to whom we direct
it. We cannot
only heal
ourselves, but we can in truth give absent treatments, and our desire
will be
accomplished. We will be so filled with the truth of the All-Health
that
although we looked with wide open eyes into a gaping wound, we will
only see
God and his wholeness, and that will heal it. We will be deaf, and
dumb, and
blind to the absence of wholeness, and live, and move, and have being
only, in
that great thought world of peace and health and perfect realization. We must look for this center of health within our own being, and find it; we will say it is not there at first, and when we search we find only discord; but we must look deeper, and still deeper. There is a naturally obscure fount of health, and healing, within every living being, though it may be hidden and utterly obscured from their vision and knowledge; if we look for it, knowing of a certainty that it is there, we will find it, and once having found it, we will easily recognize its relation to the universal life around us. Then, holding
fast to our new position of understanding, we can rejoice in all
that we have learned in the past, even though the pathway has been hard
and
perilous; and taking this wisdom with us into a glorious future of
diviner
possibilities, we can go on with a glad heart, and in our new power
"fling
our past behind us like a robe, worn threadbare at the seams and out of
date." This, then,
is the message
that we should carry out into the world of diseased and dying humanity,
"The righteous are in the hands of their God, and their life is full of
immor-tality." We build
again a body of
health, beauty, and wholeness with the power
of our own
divine imaging, and the new expression of
the new building thus becomes so vibrant, that we
radiate the
universal God energy, so full, so free, that from far and near, the
sick and
needy lives of the multitudes will come and gather
around us, and by the very touch of our love upon their
lives
the law will be fulfilled within their own being; they will
stand face
to face with the immortal truth which their soul knows, and to
which their
lips bear witness, and it will indeed no longer be "a thing
incredible to them that God should raise the dead." Order complete book
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