Category: Audio Books

Every normal human mind is capable of recognizing three dimensions of space; and it is by reason of this three-dimensional conception that one is able to perceive material substances, bodies. Scientific investigation reveals the fact that all material bodies are composed of inconceivably minute atoms or centers of force; that those atoms, even in the densest substances, such as flint or diamond, are not contiguous, but are so widely distributed that the intervening space exceeds by hundreds of times the space occupied by the atoms themselves; so that, were it…

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Throughout our search we have seen simply the outer aspect of something; and what is the something? No amount of analyzing brings us any nearer the reality. Definition fails to acquaint us with it. Is its essential nature, therefore, unknowable? We search in vain for life within the bud—in fact we are foiled in every attempt to find an absolute inside. Whenever we dissect any object in search of the inside we conceive it to possess, we discover nothing but other outsides. We recognize the outside of things by means…

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Whenever we attempt to define the term Self, or even to form an adequate intellectual conception of its meaning, we find it enshrouded in the deepest mystery. The reality for which it stands, evades the grasp of our understanding; the more diligently we search for it, the further we seem from finding it. It is impossible to apprehend its nature objectively; we know it solely through subjective self-contemplation. It vanishes whenever we try to locate it, and we are compelled to seek it elsewhere. We recognize its presence as we…

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4.THE OUTER WORLD. Ever since Kant revolutionized modern speculative philosophy by his “Critique of pure reason,” in which he shows that the physical senses can give us no absolutely correct information concerning the essential nature of things, but that the objective world we see, is obliged to conform in appearance to certain conditions of perception existing a priori in the mind, the chief concern of philosophy has centered around the problem of consciousness. Men are not satisfied merely to ascertain what appears to be; they want to know what is.…

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Gradually we grow to appreciate the fact that our life is a part of a whole, and that by ignoring wilful, selfish tendencies, we may experience a larger life of unlimited enjoyment and power. In losing our finite consciousness we discover the Infinite. In so far as we realize that a common life exists for all, we share the Infinite creative power and wisdom. As we come to obey the universal law habitually, and approach the center of Being, our dissipated energies concentrate. Increased intensiveness proportionately enlarges the scope of…

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Creation, which seems designed to achieve the grandest results, is yet, withal, so capricious and disorderly as continually to accomplish ruin and disaster. Beauty and sublimity seem to be everywhere at the mercy of the blighting, desolating effects of blind force or inadequacy. The arena of life is filled with contending victims, whose agonizing struggles are largely misdirected, and often destined to end in at least apparent defeat. The farther we pursue our investigation into externals, approaching all the while the outer shell of life, the more firmly convinced are…

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One of the most beautiful allegories in literature, illustrating the realization of ideals through right-thinking, is Hawthorne’s sketch, “The Great Stone Face.” That remarkable curiosity of nature became the ideal of the peasant boy, Ernest. Gradually the lineaments of his features assumed the aspect of his ideal, until one day the bystanders, to whom he was declaring its beauty, discovered in him its embodiment. As we gaze up into the heavens on a clear night, an atmosphere of serenity seems to pervade the entire creation. Worlds on worlds, infinite in…

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The higher consciousness is a never-failing source of expressive power. It is a reservoir from which one may perpetually draw fresh supplies of nervous energy and muscular strength. Spirit, unlike “will power,” is inexhaustible. When allowed free course, it permeates, energizes, and reinvigorates one’s whole system. It works like leaven through all the lower channels of expression. In its light one grows oblivious to difficulties. Power is due to poise. Doing is the result of being. Action depends on attitude. Energy proceeds from concentration, centering of attention. One cannot give…

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Effort of expression diminishes as one’s ideal becomes clearer in the light of the Absolute. The most eloquent orator is frequently unaware of the words he uses. The thought with which his mind is permeated, clothes itself spontaneously in appropriate forms of expression. Even the most ignorant person may be able, under the impulse of some mental stimulus, to express himself in language which under ordinary circumstances would be beyond his control. In all cases, forms of expression approach perfection to the degree that the mind is filled with the…

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Specters that seem very real in the dark, vanish in the light. A balloon rises because the specific gravity of the substance with which it is inflated is less than that of the medium in which it floats. Just so must one overcome the world by cultivating the quality of consciousness which renders him superior to the lower attractions of life. Paul recognized this principle when he said: “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds.” It is not by putting forth greater exertions, through titanic efforts of the…

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The ideal of Jesus was to the materialist only a wild flight of the imagination, an impracticable dream. But together with the ideal came the power of realization. If we yield ourselves unreservedly to the power of the Absolute within us, and trust It to direct the course of our lives, the realization of our ideals will be spontaneous. Our failures are due to reliance upon external supports and props. We shrink from casting ourselves loose like the worlds in space, trusting the omnipotent inner law. But if, surrendering antagonism…

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We invite impressions by rendering ourselves receptive to them. We may attune our thought to respond to the vibrations of low, coarse, material influences, or to those that are high, fine, spiritual. If to the former, a world of materiality, selfishness, sensuality, brutality, suffering and disease will dominate us and stand out as the one evident reality. But all material conditions are of comparatively short duration. The coarser vibrations that give rise to clashing discords and jarring dissensions are soon spent and neutralized; while the finer, spiritual ones continue unaffected…

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In philosophy the majority of people still hold ideas of externalism, materialism. Ever since man began to think logically, he has tried to solve the problem of an outer, objective world of phenomena—matter. Considered solely with the understanding, that world seems, in its essential nature, very far removed from the inner, subjective realm of thoughts, ideas and principles. Apparently two worlds exist, interrelated and inseparable, yet distinct in quality and essence. Formerly the natural world of forms, colors and objects, was regarded as the finished work of Deity, who summoned…

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Matter is the negative through which truth is revealed in perfect pictures. But men often err by looking for the picture on the plate itself. It is not there; we must go a step further and allow the light to shine through the negative so as to produce impressions on our highly sensitized spiritual nature. Those impressions prove to be precisely the reverse of the image registered on the material plate. As we look backward from the deck of a moving boat, the shore seems to move. The image of…

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To illustrate: Our attention is attracted by some character which seems to us a perfect expression of goodness; i. e., the Absolute Principle discerned through that character, appears to us as goodness, for that Principle, shining through it, radiates in goodness. The same Absolute Principle, discerned through some external form, appears to us as beauty; discerned through some inward thought, it appears to us as truth. In a masterpiece of music it is revealed to us as harmony. Any medium through which we see the Absolute, becomes idealized for us.…

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The doctrine of the “new birth” is founded on a universal principle. Beneath the distorted conception of conversion taught in the “old theology,” is a fact of experience that finds new emphasis in each successive epoch of the world’s unfoldment. Before any human being can appreciate his right relation to the universe, it is necessary for him to utterly forsake the viewpoint he accepted on entering this sphere of finite thought, the earthly life, to cease relying on intellectual impressions as the basis of absolute knowledge. Through the spiritual re-birth,…

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Agnosticism and skepticism have dealt some heroic blows at lingering, decaying forms from which the Spirit had departed, lopping off and pruning away the dead wood of dogmatism to make way for fresh expressions of a vital character. Honest skepticism is like fire, consuming the dross, and leaving only the genuine substance of truth unscathed. A positive, vital faith is impervious to the thrusts of such negative weapons as doubt and unbelief. They can only prevail where faith is in decadence and the dry rot of conventionality has set in.…

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Every belief is destined at some time to be outgrown and cast aside. He who pins his faith to beliefs, ancient or modern, builds on an unstable foundation. The free man is absolved even from the desire for a permanent system of thought. Just now we need to be exceedingly careful lest, in our enthusiasm for a newly discovered ideal, we establish a dogma of healing. The final word in this matter has not yet been spoken, in fact it never can be spoken in any matter with which the…

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If we are to be free, in the truest sense, we must be released from bondage to belief. We must conquer the intellect, and make it our servant, instead of permitting it to be our master. We must assume a standpoint above the plane of understanding, so as to be able to control our thinking, and not allow it to control us. The vast majority of people, knowingly or ignorantly, merely reflect the opinions of others in intellectual matters, instead of developing original tendencies of thinking. Just at present it…

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Conceptions are at best only suggestive. They cannot comprehend the Truth, for that is infinite and transcends all possibility of perfect formulation. They can only indicate the direction in which it lies, the atmosphere in which it exists. They are its ever-changing body, which the dogmatist mistakes for the soul. They are its appearance, not its reality. The forms of our conceptions must necessarily be deduced from experience. At the surface of life is manifold expression in infinite variety, apparently without unity of source, or direction of purpose. If we…

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