Vade Mecum, Vol Ventibus Annis: The May Ans
Vade Mecum, Vol Ventibus Annis: The May Ans
Vade Mecum, Vol Ventibus Annis: The May Ans
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in presenting to you Number One in the new Miracle Temple Lectures. May it be
THOUGHTS ARE THINGS. They have the power to affect our health, our f or—
tunes, our friendships, our appearances. Not only can our thinking greatly
influence our own life, but the lives of those around us, our dear ones, our
friends, our fellow workers. Our thoughts and the way we express ourselves
through our thoughts even has its effect on the children with whom we come in
contact.
So let us, as we begin this important series on the journey upward toward
the attainment of the perfect life, resolve to put ourselves in line to receive.
One of our Beloved Centurions expresses our meaning quite beautifully when he
says, “Iv~r life is a solemn dedication of myself in prayer and meditation, within
the portals of the temple.”
MEDITAT ION
THE MIRACLE
Have you ever seen a miracle? Perhaps you will say that you have never
seen any such thing as the miracles recorded in the Bible. Or perhaps you will
say that you have at some time seen something of the kind. Or perhaps you will
say you do not believe the claims about times when the very processes of nature
seem to have been stopped or changed.
But that is not what is meant here by miracle. The idea here is that the
processes of nature are themselves miracles —ALL of them. Now and then, for some
special purpose, the God who ordained all these laws may have had reason to halt
or alter temporarily the operation of some of them; but that was not half so won-
derful as planning and setting them going in the first place, nor is anything that
happens to one of them nearly so wonderful as itself.
You may say that you never saw a sea parted, or a fire kindled from noth—
ing, or a person raised from the dead. Perhaps not, but what a marvelous thing
is the sea itself, or the setting ablaze of some combustible material and thus
releasing sunbeams imprisoned in it long ago by the miracle of growth, or the
Rev. 114; P4: G:H: ll.5~
Have you never thought of YOUR MIND and its processes as among the GREAT-
EST of miracles? All these years that you have been wondering what a miracle is
like, ... you have been living with a supreme miracle, your own POWER to think
Most people do not make the most of their minds and powers. They could and would
flower out into FAR GREATER POWER AND WONDER, if they were only developed and
used at the maximum. Even so, in however slipshod a way they may be used, they
are MIRACLES.
The purpose of this lesson is to help show YOU THE WAY to USE this miracle
of thought in SUCH A WAY as to bring it to and hold it at its GREATEST power and
service. Think of it with the wonder and reverence it DESERVES— a miraculous
power that belongs to YOU, of which YOU have the exclusive use, and to the work
of which YOU have always the first claim. One who possesses such a God—given
power should never be low in spirit, or be pessimistic, or think of himself as
not favored by Providence. Rather he should realize that he is made in the image
of God, that he has a mind made in the image of God’s mind, and that IT HAS THE
POWER to THINK THOUGHTS made in the image of HIS thoughts. That should put new
enthusiasm into ANYONE’S soul.
THINK
THINKING picks you up and lifts you entirely away from this world’s life,
altogether above the level of the slime and clay. It does better than set you
among the stars; it sets you in the company of the thinkers of the centuries —
among the company of the good, the wise, and the great, even before the throne of
the God of truth Himself. When you think, you are using the most amazing, deli-
cate, and complex of all mechanisms. You are tuning in on the whispering universe
with all the numberless secrets it is so willing to tell you.
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Rev. 1)4: P5: G:H: ll.5~
greatest possible forces, and that it therefore carries one of the greatest
possible responsibilities. How then can we dare not to do everything possible
to use this miracle power rightly?
Without cost you have been provided with all the apparatus you need. It
weighs only about a pound and a half, so you carry it with you wherever you go.
You do not even have to touch a button to turn it on, to open a channel from or
flash a message to anywhere at all. The use of this equipment can change your
life, the lives of others, the life of the world, or the life of the future.
How far the released energy can go no one knows. It passes beyond the range of
our knowledge, but so far as we know it does not stop.
Here, then, is something much more stupendous than most people realize,
perhaps more so than anyone realizes yet. But if you will pause and carefully
consider what has grown out of human minds since the beginning of time, you will
stand in hushed and reverent amazement before the miracles of your mind and its
power to think.
Think then. Stop once and for all from aimless mental drifting, letting
all kinds of idle and unimportant impressions blow through your mind like trash
blowing through the house on a windy day. Have done forever with anything which
does not matter whether you think it or how. Keep and cultivate your mind with
care. You are going to need to have it in good working condition all the days
of your life.
Do not fall into the habit of confusing your brain with your mind, or
either of them with thought. Some people speak of these three things as though
they were one. They are distinctly different, though they are all related to
the same process.
Your brain is a physical and material instrument, nothing else and nothing
more. Let us now think of it as an organ. Organs range from large to small,
from complex to simple. Some are kept in good condition, and some are neglected.
Some are whole and some are broken. Some are used, and some stand idle. An or-
gan is useless and dead unless it is under the command of a conscious person, so
of itself it is nothing. A poor musician can do little with a good organ, or a
good musician with a poor one.
Your brain is an organ which you possess and can play if, when, and how
you choose and are able. Being yours and in your power, it is capable of right
use, wrong use, or no use at all. You can play it as well as you know how, or
you can play it carelessly and poorly. You can use it or neglect it. You can
keep it in condition or let it deteriorate. Above all, by study and practice,
you can learn how to play it better. It is in your power.
Rev. 114: P6: G:H: ll.5~
An organ stands silent until some kind of power is turned into it. In these
days the power used is electricity, a separate impulse setting off each single
note. The power that activates the brain is mind. It is something separate and
different, coming from the outside as electric current does. But no matter what
else you do, nothing happens until this power is turned on and goes coursing
through the mechanism. Your brain is yours to carry about. Mind, like electri-
city, is something universal with which you have to connect.
When power is turned into an organ, and capable fingers touch the keyboard,
it gives forth music, the quality of which is determined by the player’s ability
and effort, and the nature of which is determined by the kind of a person doing
the playing. When you play the organ of your brain, the music you produce is
thought. It is peculiarly yours, and it becomes the influence that shapes your
actions and finally determines your destiny. Some, like children, do not like to
practice on this marvelous instrument, while others learn to do it so well that
they contribute something deathless to the thought of the ages.
What had happened, was that God had honored them for the moment by playing
His own kind of music on their brains. They had kept and used these instruments
so well that He could do so. Use this wonderful organ well, then, so well that
some time you may hear it when you have not touched it, and you will know that
God is at the keyboard of your brain.
THINK RIGHTLY
Since the brain, and mind, and thought, are the divine miracles they are;
and since the use of them is so great a privilege, and the effects of it are so
important and far—reaching, you can see how vital all this is to the right under-
standing and use of these God—given powers. Take seriously the obligation not
only to think, but to strive to think rightly. Know the patterns of right think-
ing as the composer of music knows all the signs and combinations that make his
score. Have purpose in your thinking. Realize that thought is not something
superficial and automatic. It is something planned and directed.
Suppose the stream of consciousness were like one of the heavy conveyor
belts we see carrying goods from place to place in a great factory. The belt might
run on forever, and all it could do of itself would be to wear out and stop running.
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What counts is whether anything is carried on the belt, whether it is the right
thing, and whether it gets to the desired place.
The fact that the stream of consciousness runs through your life is nothing
of itself. Alone it is like a river on which no cargo is ever floated. What you
put into that stream and for what purpose — these are the things that count.
AN EXPLORING FORCE
But in the darkness you find a star, and by it you see to lignt a candle.
In the twilight the darkness of wonder gradually gives way to the light of under-
standing as your exploration proceeds. Now you are searching space, now your own
life, now the fields of knowledge, now the wonders of nature around you, now the
depths and heights of your own experience, now the mysteries of the unseen.
There are always plenty of paths to choose from, always plenty of new
music to play. It is immortal music. If you listen, and transcribe, and stick
to the theme, you can know that it was written by the Infinite Musician Himself.
That is the way the knowledge and understanding of the world have been
built up. It is the way people have come to live great lives, and the way you may
do so. This is true because you discover that as you extend your field of experi-
ence and understanding, your life expands to fit the pattern.
If you take a trip to a new place and give it attention as you go about,
you find yourself taking on a larger life. If you have a new experience and ob—
serve as you go along in it, you find that you are learning and growing as a result.
If you will observe when you sit down to converse with friends, or meet a stranger
or take a little time to think alone, you will find that your mind is moving about
in ever enlarging boundaries.
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Many years ago the writer took an ambitious boy and helped him get enrolled
in a great technical schooL The other day he met him again for the first time
since, a gray—haired man occupying a high office in a great concern, an eminent
engineer in charge of great interests and instructing others in highly technical
work. Today his mind moves freely among the great principles of mechanics and the
wide reaches of human affairs. It was the exploring thought life that did it. One
grows with his thoughts.
After all, that is the most important part of what anyone can come to know,
especially if he remembers to think upward a great deal, for the greatest and most
important things impinge on every spot and are within reach of every mind. It is
no farther to God from where you stand than it is from anywhere else. The time may
come when your exploration will have a wider reach; but whether it does or not it
will enrich you just the same. The important thing is to explore, and to do it
carefully, honestly, and interestedly.
That last word has a very great importance. No one ever grows much who is
not interested and enthusiastic. You must care about things, people, and subjects
of thought. Unless you do you will either not explore them or you will not get
much benefit from it when you do.
A CREATTVE FORCE
Now consider your thinking as a creative force. You are still playing the
organ yourself, but you are doing so with God as a teacher as it were. It is as
though He were standing looking over your shoulder, showing you how to get the
fullest results from your effort, in other words how to think creatively.
The writer had the privilege of watching the building of the world’s longest
bridge, that across San Francisco Bay, from the beginning almost to the finish. He
knew some of the engineers and had the opportunity to know something of what was
going on, long before the structure took any visible shape. Thus he was able to
see how truly the whole process followed the established laws of creative thinking.
The work began long before any outward sign of construction appeared. Months
before the cutting edge of the first pier had pierced the mud and silt at the bot-
tom of the Bay and come to rest on solid rock the thinkers and dreamers were at
Rev. 114: P9: G:H: ll.5~
work. Men at tables and drawing boards were busy putting the plan into sketches,
then drawing it on tracing cloth, and printing it on ferro—prussiate paper into
what we call blueprints. Thus the dream began to take visible shape.
By the public, however, the work was still unseen for it was yet in the
mentally creative stage. Then the piers were set, the structural steel was swung
into place, the cables were spun from the great towers, and the floor was laid —
all the process taking years. But when it was done it was an idea energized into
reality. An army of men had thought creatively. The principles would have been
the same if it had been a cottage, a fence, or wheelbarrow. They would also be
the same if it had been a painting, a symphony, or an empire. Whether or not it
is a bridge, there is something you can contribute. Whatever it is, it must be
done the same way.
AS A RECETVING STATION
You know what it is that is taking place, because you know that you are not
driving the motor or touching the keys. You are not putting any conscious effort
into the process at all, or doing anything to direct what happens. In fact it is
important that you do not do so, for this is something beyond the reach of both
your power and control.
You know it also because what is coming from the organ is something you did
not contrive. In a dozen lifetimes you would not have thought of it. You know
it is some symphony of eternity to which you are listening. Be reverent and grate-
ful now, for Heaven itself is paying you one of its highest honors.
Listen closely, for this performance is being put on for you. It is some-
thing especially designed for you to take, and live by, and shape your life to.
It may last for a long time or a short one. It may happen again or it may not.
But drink it in while it lasts, and give thanks in both words and acts. God does
things only for those able and worthy to receive them. This is something to live
up to for the rest of your days.
As you listen you will sense and understand things you could learn from no
human source. You could never explain how they came to you. In most cases it is
just as well not to try, for few would understand. The important thing is not to
be disobedient to the heavenly vision.
Moses in the smoke of Sinai, Isaiah in the quiet of the temple, Paul caught
up into the third heaven, John in the spirit on the Lord’s Day, Jesus communing
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with eternity on the slopes of Olivet— all were listening while God played some
eternal symphony for them to pass on to mankind. The same has been true of those
who have dreamed all the worthwhile dreams and made them come true. They listened
while God sat at the keyboards of their brains.
This experience is not likely to force itself upon you; but if you are rever-
ent, thoughtful, and faithful, it is quite likely that in some unexpected hour when
your spirit is uplooking and your mind and body are relaxed, you will hear eternal
music playing, and there will be something in it that is intended to reach across
the years.
Think much, but sometimes let the Universal Mind think for you. It will be
a demonstration of the use to which your brain can be put, a revelation of what the
pattern of your life was intended to be, and a sign that God thought you were worth
talking to.
Your instructor has been deeply gratified in the quantity and quality of
the comments you returned to us as you concluded the series SEVEN KEYS TO MASTERY.
Many among you have shown great spiritual development, evolving higher and higher.
May God bless you as you proceed in your undaunted pursuit of happiness, peace, and
contentment of mind. May the miracle of a perfect life be yours.
MASTER PRAYER
Blessings,
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