Blueprints For Living
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AT this point some definitions are needed. Not that I am coining new words or giving new meanings to old ones.

Whatever is to be said can be stated in the language of today. But many words have more than one dictionary definition and sometimes one has his own idea about the meaning of a word and this idea colors the context wherever the word is used.

Take the word God.

That word has about as many meanings as there are people who use it, running the full range from deepest reverence and devotion to an oath in anger or a mere exclamation point in conversation. To use the word in this book is questionable because if it means anything definite to a person he usually has a firmly fixed idea as to what the nature of God is and he is not inclined to change that idea.

So if he sees the word God he will interpret the context from his own concept and this may give him a wrong impression of what is meant. It is for this reason that I have used the word sparingly.

What I write about God will seem atheistic to many. But whatever one's individual concept of God may be (whether God is believed to be a Principle, a Force, or a Personality, or whether one does not believe in God at all) it can be agreed that there is a causal basis of some sort for the simple reason that there is a creation—we exist... . Without a cause there would be no effect and if there is an effect, a creation, then there must be a cause for this creation.

To understand the creation correctly one must have a correct concept of the Creator. It is this foundational CAUSE that I understand to be God and in writing of God as "it" I in no way mean to belittle the Creator.

Each one has an individual and sacred privilege to hold the concept of God that means the most to him ... so I shall take this privilege to myself and write about God in the way that means most to me. Also this will help to clarify what I am writing about the creation.

ALLNESS is one definition. Years ago the revelation came to me that God is all there is to everything everywhere. This was a wordless conviction at first, certainly not something my reason accepted for on all sides I saw the very opposite of what I understood to be the nature of God. Nevertheless this sure FEELING arose in me.

And when it was strong enough to blot out all sense of anything contrary to GOOD, to LOVE, to LIFE, discordant conditions in me and around me were transformed to goodness and loving-kindness and healthy happy living.

These experiences were often like the miracles of old. But I understood them as perfectly natural results of this FEELING, this SOURCE-CONSCIOUSNESS appearing as my consciousness. With this inner awareness came first of all a great peace, a warm assurance that God is a LOVE greater than human love (yet including it all) and wiser than human wisdom yet acting as wisdom in human affairs.

There was safety and comfort in this certitude ... and it acted on bodily conditions to bring about immediate adjustments from ill health and tension to normal physical functioning. It also began to smooth out human relations and to liberate my thought in every direction. This FEELING grew strong and sure in me with constant proofs to support it. An intelligence was developing beyond intellect and this intelligence was found to be TRUTH in action.

This divine intelligence can explain and define God without losing that clear consciousness of the warm vital Presence that is one's very own, "Closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet."

Only when the human intellect tried to rationalize and explain God and God's allness did I lose the FEELING... . I understand so well the physicists' inability to step over their imaginary line into the realm of "mind." But I have found that the "unknown quantity called 'mind'" does not have to remain unknown to man. Indeed sooner or later it must become known and well-known for it is both the source and the condition of man's being.

The mistake is to try to understand God with the human intellect. There is the age old tendency to think of God as made in the image and likeness of man—thus to define God as a sort of glorified Superman governing humanity by remote control (and very remote indeed much of the time, it would seem). This Superman concept of the creative ENTITY is no more consistent than to think that the mentality which conceived a steamboat had to be one and go chugging along the waterways.

If "by the very process of his observations" the true nature of the universe is "changed and distorted" to a human being, even the most brilliant, how can a correct concept of the CAUSE of the universe be arrived at by these same unreliable processes? No wonder that trying to do so has resulted in such fantastic variations of beliefs about God as are included in the three general classifications called atheists, agnostics and religionists, with all their countless theories and doctrines.

What is primal Causation? And what is the creation? Let us work up gradually to these tremendous answers.

We can start with the relation of cause to effect: The primal ENTITY that can be termed CAUSATION must remain forever greater than the creation, it must forever include within itself whatever it creates. In fact its creation must be ITSELF taking form within ITSELF. Infinite basic CAUSE cannot produce an effect greater than itself or outside itself... .

What is it that is greater than all else? What is it that can include within itself whatever it creates, that is limitlessly untrammeled by time or space that is not localized in any form but embraces within itself the concepts of all forms? This all-inclusive ENTITY can only be conceived of as one universal eternal MIND. THOUGHT that is without limits is the only thing that could be greater than the utter universe.

Thinking is that which cannot be confined to any place nor restricted by time measurements. Your body can be in New York and you can instantly think of Korea. As you do this you immediately include that distant land in your mind. You do not have to transport your body from New York way out there to have Korea in your thoughts. But if you went to Korea could your thinking be held there? No, even if you tried to do so your thoughts would recur to other places you have known.

Then which is the greater, the Korea that you can at any moment include in your thoughts without ever having even seen it or your thinking that includes Korea or New York as quickly as you think of them and which cannot be held in either place if your thoughts go elsewhere?

Now turn to an infinite CAUSE that can create and maintain the universe. Such a limitless source must be MIND, the universal ever-existing INTELLIGENCE that can conceive and define and perpetuate a universe by the effortless process of knowing. Creative MIND thinks and creation appears. This creation remains within MIND for otherwise there would be something outside the INFINITE—an obvious impossibility.

MIND forever exists as the greater, the ALLNESS including and maintaining all creation within ITSELF. Remember the atomic discoveries, energy and mass appearing in opposite aspects under differing conditions but remaining continuously the same substance... . Thinking out from the MIND that embraces the universe it is natural enough to recognize that the entire creation must everlastingly remain within that all-embracing MIND.

It is impossible for there to be an outside to that which includes all there is, no opportunity for a place or condition outside that ALLNESS ... Just so it is equally natural to understand that all substance must be mental because substance (like everything else) exists within MIND and is a specific aspect of MIND. Forms, objects, identities are actually ideas taking form in MIND no matter how they appear to sense perceptions.

Not one identity in the universe will ever get outside the infinite eternal all-inclusive MIND. Not one form or object will ever lose the substance of MIND nor acquire a substance unlike MIND.

As the Age of MIND advances it will become more and more natural to estimate substance as mental. One will come to think spontaneously of his own "physical" body as mental in substance. A great liberation from fear of bodily harm will follow this understanding.

As you go one step further and realize yourself to be MIND ITSELF appearing and that this direct appearing of MIND as you include your body as well as your consciousness or mentality, your whole concept of yourself will begin to be transformed... . As you see this you become increasingly free to be yourself, your real Self.

What is true for you is true for all mankind—discarding negative eyeglasses, so to speak, you begin to see the truth you have realized shown back to you in the world around you.

The recognition that the substance of man's body and man's world is mental does not do away with objects and bodies as we now know them. MIND takes form, the forms we see. What we have not comprehended is the nature of what we see. It has taken the atomic discoveries to break down humanity's conviction of a matter substance as basic. It will take time for these discoveries to become as fully accepted as our sense perceptions have been accepted throughout the long past.

The evolution of this Age of MIND will be gradual in its practical bearing on individual lives. But the Age is here and the disappearance of an outworn era will be swift—not like the slow melting away of the Ice Age. Concepts of time are changing in the Atomic Age as well as concepts of substance. This causal MIND is LOVE.

How do I know this? It is because I am able to feel love (not merely sex attraction nor love that responds to another's affection for me), love that pours itself out on everything and everyone, love that needs no person to call it forth but shines of itself as the sun shines without thought of the earth to which it gives light. From where does such love come? I did not originate it, neither did any other man. No one can say "I am the first to love this way." ...

See the tenderness of a mother bending over her baby. Is she the first to love this way? Who was the first mother to love her offspring with gentle unfailing devotion? Was there a time before there was such love? Was there a moment when this love began? Was there a place where it was first revealed? ... LOVE is a primal characteristic of the universal MIND. LOVE never began. It will never cease to be. It cannot be confined to any spot. It cannot be excluded from any place.

It is as free from time and space restrictions as thought is free.

LOVE is creative. The artist loves to paint. The writer loves to write. Great works are inspired by great love. There never was a musician who did not love to play—just liking to play is not enough to bring forth genius. Sexual intercourse is often termed love because it can bring forth life; but it did not originate life nor love. No human being created life... . LIFE and LOVE are causal.

Let us exalt GOOD—then we will have less faith in evil! Let us think of the word "good" as a noun instead of merely an adjective, because GOOD really means God.

Wherever we see GOOD we see God in action. If we understood the goodness we are witnessing to be God in action we would realize how safe is this goodness, how mighty in every situation. And we would experience this safety and power. When the SOURCE-CONSCIOUSNESS is freely unfold-ding within us, we know with a tremendous assurance that in every place under every circumstance GOOD is available, GOOD is in full charge... .

This true estimate of GOOD brings with it the consciousness of LAW in operation. GOOD is law to every condition and situation where it appears.

It is not enough to understand that God is good. Far more important is it to see that GOOD is GOD.

SOUL is an aspect of God. SOUL is that FEELING to which I refer so often. SOUL is the source of all the arts. It sings through all music, reveals itself in all works of inspiration. SOUL alone can define itself within each one of us for it is beyond words formulated in the human intellect. There is little to say about SOUL. Rather is it to be felt in one's heart and shown forth in life.

TRUTH can be said to have two meanings: TRUTH as that which is true and TRUTH as the knowledge of that which is true.

There is a way to let the truth about God and man unfolds directly from the source of all truth. This is revelation.

When TRUTH appears this way it acts on human conditions and the results check with the revelation: if one is faced with hatred either in himself or from outside and becomes able to feel the presence of God as all-embracing LOVE, the hatred will melt away from him and a kindly relationship will follow; if one struggling with pain and illness comes to feel the presence of God as LIFE, the pain will vanish, the illness will be quickly healed; if one is confronted with evil and can recognize right there the presence of God as GOOD, the evil condition will be resolved into goodness that liberates and benefits all concerned.

To be of real value the struggle for TRUTH must be only to reach the ability to stop the struggle, to actually let go to the TRUTH, whatever it is. The revelation of what is true comes after the letting go, not during the struggle. We struggle up to the point where the struggling ceases. Then and only then does one know the TRUTH. Trying to know the TRUTH just gets in the way. THE UNFOLDING OF TRUTH IS AS EFFORTLESS AS IS THE DEVELOPING OF A SEED INTO A FLOWER.

The primal CAUSE must be understood as basic, as all-inclusive PRINCIPLE. Because God is LIFE, SOUL, LOVE, God as PRINCIPLE is not cold, abstract, vague. The word PRINCIPLE includes such warm and tender definitions as LOVE that is invariable, impartial, universal, and LIFE that gives itself to all creation in unbroken continuity, without penalties or destruction because of the very nature of PRINCIPLE.

The GOD-PRINCIPLE comprises all the basic principles of the universe. Understood as God in action, mathematical principles are applied toward positive constructive right living, helpful inventions and conveniences, but never for destructive or defective purposes. The GOD-MIND reveals progressive utilization of all principles—music, physics, mathematics, etc.

Negatively interpreted human application of basic principles sometimes fails, sometimes causes harm, sometimes appears to bless here and destroy there. But the GOD-PRINCIPLE identified in thought and action will never fail, cannot be manipulated, is always present and available, and operates without exceptions and without favorites. PRINCIPLE has no stepchildren!

Now why is it important to know these definitions of God? Are they just so much soothing syrup for frightened children, young or old? Are they metaphysical straws that break in pieces as one clutches them in drowning misery?

There is only one way to find out ... test them for yourself. It is an axiom that one becomes like his thoughts. Whatever constitutes your habitual thinking will be shown forth in your life both in bodily conditions and outward experiences. So the only sure test of these definitions is to keep them uppermost in thought over a long enough period to give them a thorough try-out. They must become habitual to your thought in order to have any marked effect in your health and general well-being.

You can do this by making it a daily program to become really familiar with each of these definitions. A simple way is to take one of the synonyms, LIFE for instance. Think about LIFE, any life, all life—develop this thinking about LIFE in your own way, in your own words too. Get very familiar with the idea that LIFE (wherever you see it) is God appearing. Realize that the life you see or feel is not simply an effect of God, outside God like an offshoot.

It is the LIFE-PRINCIPLE living ITSELF as the actual life that you are seeing and being. Get to looking for LIFE as you go through the day. Wherever you see life acknowledges it as God appearing right there. Keep this up as a real project until you "get the feel of it." Then take another aspect of God and get used to that one the same way.

And so on ... continue this until you are (not on speaking terms) but on FEELING TERMS with God ... not contacting a far-off Superman but something divine going on within your own consciousness.

After developing this inner familiarity with LIFE, MIND, TRUTH, SOUL, LOVE, PRINCIPLE, GOOD, you will find the word God becoming tremendous to you. It comes to include all these definitions (and many others you will discover for yourself) as one WHOLE. You may think of God as Father, as Mother (such tender comforting aspects of our SOURCE), but you won't picture a Superman or a Superwoman.

You will FEEL the tangible INTANGIBLE, the universal ESSENCE, the formless ENTITY that appears as all forms and all identities. The word God will define itself to you in a sure knowledge, a FEELING, an awareness beyond all word definitions, beyond all language, coming clear and sure, instant and mighty ... and absolutely all-inclusive.

Understanding the various aspects of God and then feeling the complete WHOLENESS is like listening to a great symphony; at times one hears a single instrument apart from the rest, now the music of the violin, then the flute, then a horn ... but again and again they all mingle in one great melody of sound, the separate instruments merged in the whole ... this is invariably the climax of the symphony.

And when the word God rings in you with the full FEELING of the ALLNESS, this is the climax of living. It brings a peace and calm joy that is never forgotten. It is our right that this divine FEELING become constant, the very theme of life that runs through all we do and all we are.