Part 2

The first step to take is to _recognize_ that this is true; then _recognize_ our union with this universal energy. Our God-self has this recognition in our inner consciousness and we begin to recognize it in the human mind through constantly affirming our oneness with it. We must be just as persistent in doing this as we are when we are learning to sew or to play on the piano, and no matter how many mistakes we may make at first, nor how little we seem to accomplish, we want to keep everlastingly at it.

Many persons have the idea that it is only necessary to repeat an affirmation over a few times, or to say it in a half-hearted way and then the results they desire should manifest at once. When they are sick they seem to think that by saying “I am well,” or “I am not sick,” a few times that it ought to cure them and because it doesn’t then they get the idea that there is no power in thought.

When we are sick it is because the recognition of our oneness with health and harmony has not been well developed, and we might as well expect a poorly developed musician to correctly play the masterpieces of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Wagner, as to expect a poorly developed and inharmonious health consciousness to produce a masterpiece in the way of a perfect physical body.

A poorly developed musician can, with the aid of a good teacher and by persistent practice, learn to play everything which has ever been written by any of the great masters, and so can one who has a poorly developed and inharmonious health consciousness learn to rebuild his physical body in such perfect health and beauty that it will in truth become a fitting temple in which the living God in each life may dwell.

But before one can become either the great master musician or the perfect creator of a beautiful and harmonious physical body he must “develop a consciousness” of his _oneness_ with whichever his ideal may be, whether of music, health, or whatever else he may desire.

Whenever we really want anything our desire always is so strong, powerful and overwhelming that we are willing to pay the price of persistency and application and we go after it with all the energy we can command and work to _make_ it come to us. We strain, strive and use every effort within our power, and when we do succeed in getting it in this way we find the results very unsatisfactory. This is because the world has developed a consciousness of force and uses force (either physical or mental, or both) in obtaining what it wants.

Force creates inharmony and some day the world will learn the great lesson that there isn’t anything, no matter how valuable it may seem to be nor how much we may desire it, for which it is worth paying the price of one moment of inharmony.

We should learn then to do our work of “developing a consciousness” without worry, anxiety, strain, effort, tenseness, friction, for all these thoughts and emotions create inharmony. We should learn not to fight for anything but to build and “develop a consciousness” of our oneness with it, creating it in this manner in our thought world first, recognizing that it is ours NOW (no matter how far away its materialization may seem to be from us) and then do on the objective plane whatever we think is necessary or advisable to aid us in its materialization, but do this quietly, calmly, and with a power which KNOWS it will succeed. Do it because we love to do it, because it is a “blessed privilege” for us to do it. We should never do anything with a consciousness that it is work or drudgery, for that kind of a consciousness makes the doing of that particular thing a work or drudgery to us.

A BLESSED PRIVILEGE

She was a very motherly woman of about fifty years of age who had been coming to me for treatment on account of nervousness. She was getting along nicely, although she had only been under my care for about a week, when one day she came into the office all flustrated and in a highly excited state of mind.

In explaining the cause of her condition she said she was afraid that all the good work we had done had gone for naught and that there was no hope for her whatever. This was because her husband’s sister, who lived in one of the small up-State towns, had arrived the night before for a three weeks’ visit and that while she loved her sister-in-law very much, yet they never got on very well together and this visit meant three weeks of untold misery in trying to please her visitor. She then unloaded into my ears a tale of woe which took her half an hour to relate although she talked as fast as her tongue could rattle it off. I sat back in my chair and listened quietly until she finished her list of complaints and I do not think she omitted a single one of them.

Although my patient was a dear woman and would not intentionally hurt the feelings of any one—she would much rather suffer herself than to do that—yet I saw plainly that her attitude towards this visit of her sister-in-law had brought her to a condition where she would have an attack of hysteria did it continue. The word picture she painted of the previous visits and the miserable times she had on those occasions would have caused almost any one to believe that the sister-in-law was a demon incarnate masquerading as a human being, instead of being only an ordinary average woman living in the country and who delighted in the freedom and the fascinating sights of a large city.

When my patient had finished her story of condemnation, criticism and complaints, I said: “Is that all?”

“Well, isn’t it enough?” she answered.

I told her that I thought it was and then asked whether she wished to have the same kind of experiences again this time.

“Of course not, but how can I help it?” she replied. “My sister-in-law is here and what she has done before she will do again, and what am I to do?”

“Quit building in your thought world for a repetition of these experiences and begin to build for what you want instead,” I answered, “for as long as you continue to take the attitude you have always heretofore taken towards these visits of your sister-in-law, and towards what she says and does; as long as you continue to set the causes in motion which will produce these inharmonious and destructive effects, just so long will you continue to be miserable and unhappy every time your visitor comes to see you. YOU, however, can change _all_ of these conditions and effects by _changing your attitude towards them_, provided you have the _real want_ to do this.”

“Oh, doctor,” she said, “I will do anything in the world that is possible for me to do, in order to get rid of all the misery which these visits have caused me in the past.”

“Then promise me,” I said, “that you will follow my instructions and I will guarantee that by the time the three weeks’ visit is up you will tell me they have been the happiest three weeks of your life.”

“Oh, could I only believe that would be possible, doctor,” she said, “I would be so happy.”

“I do not ask you to believe,” I replied, “but I do ask you to follow my instructions implicitly, for I know what the results will be even though you do not know at the present time.”

I told her the first thing she should do was to forget her own little, petty, personal self with all of its criticisms, condemnations and self-pity; take her hands off her sister-in-law’s life and permit her to enjoy herself as _she_ (the sister-in-law) wanted and that she herself was to turn in and do everything possible to make the visit a most pleasant one and to give her visitor the “time of her life.” She was to remember that her sister-in-law lived in a small town and the visit to New York once a year was a big event in her life; one which she planned for and talked about for months before she came, living in the pleasure of its anticipation and reveling in the joys of it after her return home. The theaters, churches, shops, big department stores, the crowds of people, the illuminations on Broadway were never ending objects of interest to one who only saw them occasionally. That heretofore she (my patient) had only thought of herself, the extra work, care and bother of having some one around who disturbed her home life, and that the time she had spent in entertaining her visitor had been the worst kind of drudgery to her because she had become satiated with these things and only went with her visitor because it was her “duty” to do so. She should plan to go with her visitor wherever the latter wished to go and do the things her visitor wanted to do, not as a “duty” she owed to the sister of her husband, as had been the case heretofore, but _do it as a “blessed privilege”_; do it because she herself enjoyed giving her visitor a good time; do it because she derived the greatest pleasure in doing it; do it because she got so much fun, pleasure and enjoyment out of seeing her sister-in-law have such a good time that she would rather do it than not.

I told her that when we did anything from the plane of consciousness where it was our “duty” to do it, that it lost its constructive effect, for no matter how pleasant we might seem to be on the outside there was always the inner resentment and resistance in our consciousness because we felt that we just _had_ to do it on account of its being our “duty,” but that when we changed our inner state of consciousness through changing our attitude towards a thing and made it our “blessed privilege” instead of our “duty” to do it, then the whole thing changed and what had been before drudgery and difficult to do, became in fact a joy and pleasure.

Objectively she was not necessarily to do anything different in entertaining her visitor than she had always done before but _she was to do it with an entirely different consciousness, a different thought back of it, a different purpose or motive_. She was to make it her “blessed privilege” to have her sister-in-law here with her and was to take advantage of the opportunity to give her the very best time possible, and that this change of attitude on her part would work such a transformation in her as to seem miraculous in its results.

She promised faithfully to follow my instructions and about a week later she came into the office with her face wreathed in smiles and eyes shining with joy and gladness. “Oh doctor,” she said, “I could not wait any longer to see you. I just had to come and tell you how wonderful it all is. Why last night my sister-in-law put her arms around my neck and kissed me (something she had never done before in her life) and said she never knew before how dear I was. Everything and even more than you promised has come true and I never was so happy before in all my life, and it is my ‘blessed privilege’ to tell you this. I cannot thank you for words are too inadequate to express my gratitude for what you have taught me.”

THE TELEPHONE BELL

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling went the telephone bell. I was hard at work on an abstract proposition where an interruption of my thought meant chaos for a while. My telephone had the habit of ringing a couple of dozen times a day on calls which were not for me, and when I called up central to complain about it all the satisfaction I received was “Excuse me, please.”

Already my ’phone had rung a number of times this morning, only to be met by central’s “Excuse me, please” when I answered it, and I was in a state of exasperation that almost bordered on a desire to murder some one.

Several times I had almost gotten to the point in which my abstract problem seemed to be solved. Twice, just as I was about to grasp its solution, did the telephone bell ring only for me to hear the old familiar “Excuse me, please.”

I had complained to the management about these mistakes, the poor service, etc. Men had been sent to inspect my ’phone and its connections; many parts of the ’phone had been changed and finally an entire new instrument had been installed, but still the irritation and annoyance of calls not for me continued.

I had scolded central and given her “Hail Columbia” many times because of her alleged carelessness, but all to no avail, and the calls which were not for me still kept coming and my annoyance increased rather than diminished. Nothing I had ever said or done and nothing the Telephone Company seemed able to do appeared to have any effect in stopping these calls.

Merrily my bell rang on from twenty to twenty-five times a day on calls which were mistakes. It seemed as though “Old Nick” himself was using the telephone to see how much he could irritate and annoy me, and here the ting-a-ling-ling-ling of his material representative was once more ringing in my ears and the solution of my problem again gone glimmering.

Impatiently I grabbed the telephone receiver and placed it to my ear, yelling into the transmitter a “Hello” that for its acidity, irritability, impatience and petulance could not be surpassed. I resolved to give central in particular and the Telephone Company in general such a “jacking up” as they would never forget, should it be another call which was not for me, and at the same time order my ’phone taken out as it was proving to be a greater annoyance and trouble than its convenience would balance or offset.

No answer came to my “Hello.” I called again and again in my impatient and irritated state of consciousness. Finally central answered saying, “What number, please?” It was a new voice on my wire; a voice that was filled with friendly feeling and good fellowship; one that unconsciously made union with the universal harmony and so felt only the “good” in everything, that all my irritation, annoyance and sarcasm at once disappeared and I replied in a voice which was new to me so filled with harmony were its tones, “You called me?” “Excuse me, please,” said central, and I hung up my receiver and sat back in my chair without another word.

My ’phone did not ring any more that day, neither did I again take up the solution of the abstract problem on which I had been working, for another one filled my thought world and this is the problem and its solution.

“Why did my ’phone ring so many times each day on calls which were not for me?”

Back of every effect lies the cause which produces it. Back of every material thing is the energy which creates it. Nothing happens—nothing occurs by chance, accident or luck, no matter how much it may seem to do so.

Looking at the matter concretely of the numerous ’phone calls I had which were not for me, the Telephone Company was to blame, but they had made every effort on their part to correct the trouble and it seemed to get worse instead of better.

I asked myself the question “Where did the blame _rightly_ belong? To the Telephone Company or to myself?”

I saw that the real solution to this question was in the abstract for before anything can be reduced to the concrete or material side of life it must be created first in the abstract.

How then could I be to blame? Through the use I made of energy in the abstract by the kind of thoughts and emotions I allowed to persist in my imagination and field of consciousness.

I had been irritable, impatient, intolerant, sarcastic, critical, condemnatory, not only with the Telephone Company but more or less with other people and things. This was using energy inharmoniously in the abstract and there could be only one result which was its materialization as inharmony in the concrete, and I had been getting that materialization in the annoyance and irritation which so many mistakes in the telephone calls had given me. I also saw that was only one of the ways in which I had been materializing concretely the energy I had been using inharmoniously in the abstract.

I determined to begin work on myself at once to change the state of consciousness in me which had permitted this condition to arise and demonstrate the truth or falsity of my solution of the problem.

It is quite easy to make “good” resolutions, but it is a much more difficult thing to live them out in one’s daily life. My first attempts were abject failures, but I refused to be discouraged and kept working with myself each day. No matter how many times I failed I renewed my “good” resolutions each time and became even more determined to carry them out. My idea was _not to repress_ my annoyance, impatience, irritation, and inharmony, but to _displace them with kindness and harmony_. Some of my first attempts were most ludicrous and bordered on the tragic but I kept at it.

The progress seemed so slow at first that frequently I would be almost overwhelmed with the thought of the impossibility of my ever accomplishing the desired end but something inside of me would again get hold of and urge me on. In a couple of months’ time I could begin to see some improvement, as there would be some days when I would not have more than half as many calls as usual. In six months’ time I had done the work so well that days went by when I did not have one single call which was not for me.

All this occurred a number of years ago and since then the calls which are not for me have disappeared entirely and it is a rare instance now for such a thing to occur.

This experience and its solution taught me the lesson of “Who is to blame,” and since then when anything has come into my life which was at all inclined to be inharmonious in its effects, instead of blaming some one else for it I have at once gotten busy with myself and created more harmony in my own consciousness, and through such creation have been able to displace all inharmonious effects and transmute them into “good” effects.