Blueprints For Living
	Opinions - Decisions - Will Power <  Previous Contents Next  >

LIFE means action.

What is it that controls our actions? Can we be governed by the intelligence that orders the universe? Can we individualize this MIND'S over-all pattern in the health of our bodies and the soundness of our living?

Is there any plumb line that will show whether or not we are acting from the positive basis? Can we learn to detect when the human intellect is impelling action and so discard this for the positive impulsion of the universal MIND? Yes, there are these plumb lines awaiting our readiness to use them.

Development from the negative to the positive way of life is a gradual process, a little here—a little there. No one steps from one stage to the other with a single dramatic stride. The lives of the greatest characters in history reveal this, as well as our own halting footsteps. Hourly we need these blueprints for action to show the standpoint from which we think and act, to indicate the source of our motives, and to help us let go of negative states and accept action straight from MIND.

There are three functions of the human intellect that we need to give up as rapidly as possible. They are usually considered desirable as well as essential for normal living. But each leads us often into trouble, makes problems for us, delays and sidetracks right activity. They perpetuate our sojourn in the acid bath as long as we indulge them.

These three trouble makers are opinions, personal decisions, will power. This seems startling at first glance. But let's keep down the walls of preconceived prejudice and look into this drastic statement with open mind. One's first reaction must be answered, for one immediately thinks: How could I go through a day without the necessity to use all three? I would be exploited by willful associates and I would find myself in a state of vacillation, weakness and lack of achievement.

How could anything at all be accomplished without one or all of these products of my intellect?

If you are mentally lazy, if you toboggan with the mob, if you don't bother to think for yourself but accept the opinions and decisions others are so ready to make for you—yes, you can avoid holding opinions, making decisions and using will power that way ... and exist in frustration and inadequacy.

But the results will become so objectionable to you that eventually you will no doubt assert yourself unpleasantly, express strong and sometimes stupid opinions and make willful decisions that often as not leave you no better off than when you supinely let others run the show... .

It is a very different matter to start out acknowledging that the MIND of the universe is in control, that it defines with clarity what you are to think and do. This MIND operates so far beyond human will that when you place yourself within its government you cannot possibly be influenced by faulty opinions nor can anyone's unsound willful decisions control you.

The MIND that is positive all-inclusive PRINCIPLE does not hold opinions. Opinions may go on in the intellect about principles but when any principle is intelligently understood opinions disappear. The very action of a principle eventually does away with opinions about it.

Take the most time-honored opinions about the substance and action of the universe. They may have been bolstered up by sense perceptions and education to look like positive facts but if they are opinions they go down before progress. Newton's basic "discoveries" were actually opinions although accepted as laws for over two hundred years. What is happening to these "laws"?

To quote again from "The Universe and Dr. Einstein": "Before the turn of the past century certain deviations from these laws became apparent; and though these deviations were slight, they were of such fundamental nature that the whole edifice of Newton's machine-like universe began to topple."

Today the physicist admits he does not as yet know the what or the why of the universe; but he has found that mathematical equations are safer than the most plausible opinions derived from sense perceptions in at least determining how things operate in the universal scheme.

Can you imagine anything in the realm of exact science having opinions? There are none in mathematics from the simple two times two is four to the highest abstract calculations conceivable. There are laws involved here, not opinions.

The scientists' present dilemmas and uncertainties exist because they still have a good many opinions about this "unknown quantity called 'mind' ... in a realm of thought with which the physicist is not concerned." And these often unconscious opinions raise barriers in the intellect so that it does not know how to still itself and so let the truth about the universe proceed directly from the MIND of the universe.

When this stillness does take place the physicist finds the intelligence of MIND revealing itself as his true consciousness or "I" and defining the universe without opinions but with calm certainty, practical proofs and scientific corroboration.

But all this is in the realm of the exact sciences and does not apply to everyday living, one says. That is where we mistake. All life is included in the MIND that is creative PRINCIPLE and that functions according to universal laws. And these laws operate in the simplest details of a man's existence.

To accept each day without opinions, living beyond the need to make personal decisions and wholly free from the pressure of human will within one's own make-up, this is a dynamic way out of the acid bath, out of negative living with its strain and struggle, its heavy problems, mistakes, failures. Inner freedom from these three phases of the intellect enables one to go forward in the power and fulfillment of his real SELFHOOD.

If you have to wait for the coming of world peace in order to live a happy, serene life yourself, the outlook is certainly depressing. If in order to be free from the pressure of human conflict, international or local, you have to wait until everyone (or anyone else in the world) learns to give up his opinions and willful efforts, your personal freedom is a long way off. But there is a mighty fact about identity and individual life. "YOUR THUMB PRINTS TELL THE STORY." You are YOURSELF.

Your identity is distinctly YOU. You will never be anyone but YOU. There never has been and never will be anyone precisely and completely like YOU.

For this unchangeable reason your individual progression, your own everyday life as well, are not at the mercy of other people or world conditions unless you accept the negative standpoint.

If you are in bright sunlight the darkness of a closed room (no matter how black) does not reach you. Leave the light and go into the dark room and you become subject to the dark. Until the LIGHT of positive thinking draws you out into that LIGHT the "darkroom" of negative thinking and living envelops you and defines your existence. But when the LIGHT shines through within you, you step outside the "darkroom" and you no longer struggle in darkness.

The time has then come to live your true identity. You become a law to yourself when you know yourself to be the individualized appearing of the universal MIND. "KNOW THYSELF." Know yourself as effect, the effect of MIND, the Cause. Know that all there is to you remains in MIND and remains MIND. Then these mighty laws reverse and nullify the effects of negative changeable so-called laws.

Life becomes very simple when we find ourselves in the POWER that has been able to evolve and maintain creation ... . We may think that our affairs are too trivial to be noticed by the MIND that orders a universe. But No. That all-inclusive INTELLIGENCE has a right pattern of action, a satisfying purpose for everyone and everything from the smallest to the greatest. Nothing is too minute to be important, nothing too tremendous to be beyond that supreme and all-wise control.

A phase of the negative ego is to think of oneself as having a limited private mind with which to work out one's life. Let go of this and accept the MIND of the universe and out of troublous experiences come joy and order. The beneficent laws and supreme forces of the universe are at hand. They become individualized in the life of anyone who goes beyond his meager negative ego and finds himself to be the direct appearing of the MIND of the universe, in body as well as in consciousness.

Through the very mistakes and troubles that overtake us when we hold and act on opinions, finally comes the willingness to recognize that there is a safer way of thinking, a surer way to build one's life. Incredible as it seems to the intellect, when one rejects opinions and will power within himself and accepts the direct government of MIND in all his affairs, his actions are characterized by a decisiveness and authority never known from the old standpoint.

Suppose you are faced with some situation in which there is more than one possible way to act. You are not sure which is right but you have opinions about it... . There are often many nearly right things to do but there is always only one which is exactly and wholly right.

How is one to know which is the really right and not a nearly right? The opinions that confuse and mislead, the belief that you run the world to some extent because you are to make a decision one way or the other, the pressure of human will demanding what it wants, all these can be stilled... . Let go of opinions, realize that there is only one absolutely right course of action and that the all-seeing all-knowing MIND is bringing it to pass.

This may take a lot of struggling with long established patterns of action. But if you truly relax, reject all opinions, and become completely willing to let the law of MIND operate untinged by any temptation to manipulate the situation toward your own private wishes, you will begin to feel a deep inner peace, a sure quiet sense that GOOD is in control. After this the exactly right steps will come about and all concerned will be governed in the wisest and best way possible.

Letting go of opinions, of will power and of trying to make personal decisions will not turn you into a moron or a weakling. By laying off these negative thought processes you unloose in your life the immediate and powerful action of GOOD; you step straight out of the uncertainty, doubt, confusion, the fearing and fighting of the human intellect—into divinely ordered life.

In the degree that you free your own everyday thinking from the opinions and willful decisions of the intellect, you find your everyday living freed from negative impulses and actions—from other people's as surely as from your own; you find that wisdom and good judgment are governing your personal affairs; you find that clear purposeful INTELLIGENCE is directly in control... . Your life here and now can thus become the positive evidence of the nature of God.

There is a truth about everything and there are no opinions where the truth is known. The MIND that is TRUTH knows what is true and this true knowledge precludes opinions in this MIND. When the personal negative ego is developed out of itself, when the intellect has yielded to INTELLIGENCE, one comprehends the methods of this MIND, one knows that opinions are never necessary, that the overall pattern of LIFE can wisely determine our everyday actions from the smallest to the most vital.

Opinions tie in with the human will barging along with all its mistakes and inadequacy. One gets an opinion about something; based on this questionable start one decides on a course of action; and the next step is to use one's will to make this action work out. The stronger his opinions the more convinced he is that his decision is right and so the more he will try to force the issue. But the moment one employs human will himself it rises up in others to oppose and resist him.

The result will be a clash of wills and conflict—between individuals and in exactly the same way between nations ... war the inevitable result of giving free reign to these three elements of the human intellect, opinions, decisions and will power ... and their close ally, fear. THERE IS A LAW OF RIGHT ACTIVITY THAT A PERSON WILL RESPOND TO IF YOU DON'T TRY TO IMPOSE YOUR WILL ON HIM.

It makes no difference how set in a course of action he may be, how self-willed and obstinate or how righteously determined, if you go beyond will power yourself altogether (so that there is not the slightest vestige of it left in you) and you understand that the only thing that is going on is the very law of GOOD, you will see how completely this law takes over and how wisely it governs every detail of the situation.

This does not mean that you sit passively by while another's will assumes control. That you could be pushed around by anyone when you really let go to the law of the LIFE-PRINCIPLE is an utter impossibility.

The LIFE-PRINCIPLE is all inclusive, it is the law to everyone and everything that comes into your experience. You can trust it fully because it is the law of impartial and universal LOVE. It makes no difference how many or how few are involved, this law remains THE LAW. It adjusts human laws, often setting them aside or correcting them. It controls the actions of individuals and governments where they touch you.

This law reaches to the heights and depths of human living and you will see it operating in every case when you really fulfill the necessary conditions: when you can lay down your own personal opinions and will, and whole-heartedly let the law of GOOD have full course in your consciousness. No doubt, no confusion, no vacillation here but clear-cut decisive action straight out from supreme INTELLIGENCE.

Believing one has to make decisions with his intellect actually deprives him of access to the INTELLIGENCE he needs for assured right living. The intellect is a localized private possession of the negative ego. From this limited personal viewpoint how can one know the whole of a situation and so be sure his decision is right?

Giving up human opinions, acknowledging the government of the MIND that knows all there is to know about everything, realizing that this MIND defines its own progression, brings that progression directly into one's experience. The results of this divine impulsion will be right. Silencing the intellect and letting MIND'S control come to light will reveal right activity by the very logic of events.

It is wiser to wait for events to shape themselves under MIND'S direction than to think one has special private access to MIND'S plan of action and is divinely commissioned to push it through at all costs. The secret personal desires of a human being so readily assume the guise of MIND'S guidance and how tragically often people rush into utterly wrong conditions because they are convinced that "God has told them what to do."

Watch this human tendency like a hawk! This self-righteous assurance that God has told us what to do has resulted in mistakes and agonies in every department of human living. "Holy wars," horrors, tortures, have followed this egotistic perversion of MIND'S government, as well as the less sensational but not less harmful blunders in daily life.

Whenever one thinks to himself "God is telling me to do this," stop right there. For this is one of the most dangerous statements the intellect ever formulated in its negative attempts at decision making. Be sure that the intellect, the human desires and fears, even religious fervor and conviction are silenced. Then wait in utter humility for the calm FEELING that is your plumb line. Let go of all the pressure to do anything in any direction for the moment.

Don't be afraid to wait on the logic of events to settle the question beyond all doubt.

Give up the duality of a conversation between yourself and God. Accept the ONENESS until that thought "God is telling me what to do" is gone entirely. God is not a Being outside ourselves telling us what to do. GOD, MIND, DOES WHAT IS RIGHT IN DIVINE EVOLUTION AND IN THE MINUTIAE OF DAILY LIVING—AND DOES NOT TELL AN OUTSIDER ABOUT IT BECAUSE THERE IS NO OUTSIDER TO MIND.

Man is not a creature outside the CREATOR governed by remote control. MIND acts—and man is the action. LIFE is—and man is the living. Man is not a separate being to whom MIND declares its divine intentions. An individual, no matter how spiritual, is not a medium through whom a distant MIND runs the world. There are not two realms, the far-off divine acting on the present human. MIND expresses itself as man and the universe. It is all ONE MIND and ONE DIRECT ACTION.

Because this is the universe of MIND, this is where positive living can take place. A person's progression beyond negative living is not at the mercy of humanity's various levels of interpretation, ranging from barbarity through so-called civilization. Permanent freedom from negative experiences can come as you or I or anyone arrives at the ability to think (and that means to live) from the positive standpoint.

Moment by moment a state of awareness can be developed in which there is no response to the negative pull.

Giving up opinions is one of the first steps toward experiencing positive living. With opinions out, it is easy to see that personal decisions are not necessary. With those two gone the human will is left without a job. Then SOURCE-MIND functioning as your own mentality becomes your normal everyday thinking and the spontaneous government of GOOD becomes your natural everyday living.

Just as there are no opinions in basic principles, there are no decisions there. Basic principles involve laws, not decisions, and not changeable human laws but universal constants. It is for this reason that until you have let go of opinions, human will and decision making, it is impossible to experience life from the positive real and intensely workable standpoint.

And also for this fundamental reason, when you fulfill the conditions, your progression beyond negative living into the joy and satisfaction of the divinely ordered life becomes assured. This is a present possibility and a final inevitability.

At this point one's intellect may agree superficially. Of course (it will say) basic principles are not influenced by the human will; of course neither opinions nor decisions control the functioning of universal constants (mathematics for instance does not decide whether three plus three shall result in six); and of course it would be beneficial if the harmonious life-sustaining laws of nature as seen in the cosmos could be made directly available in a person's living.

Then the strain and struggle for existence could be laid aside and one could live in effortless yet dynamic continuity. All this one's intellect accepts without question... . But are we willing to pay the price for such living? In every instance the price is to drop the tools that perpetuate the negative ego and its ways of thinking. And these tools are always the same: personal opinions, personal decisions and personal will.

Divine knowledge deep within us wells up in glad response to pay this cost... . But even as we read, the intellect crowds in to distract and divert us from doing so.

It takes a Gethsemane to bring us to the place where we are really ready to give up the human ego—to pray with our whole heart and mind and being "Not my will, but Thine"—not the human ego, not private personal will, not even the righteous "uncompromising stand" for what still remains a personal opinion about what is right and good. But instead an utter yielding to the divine purpose of the GOD-MIND, with no opinions as to what that purpose is or how it is to function.

Any clear night look out at the illimitable expanse above you. You know where to find each well-known planet, star and constellation. You know the vast orderly nature of the universe. You know with the restful simplicity of intelligent awareness that this universal government is completely beyond the influence of human will, operates without any opinions, and no person's decisions enter into the universal plan in even the tiniest degree.

There is no need (nor any possibility) for a human being to decide the course of any of these great bodies or their action.

All right, if this is so (and we know it is) can there be a way to live so that this harmonious ordering of the universe can come to light and into action in a person's everyday life? We are beginning to have proof that this is possible. There are no vacuums in MIND and the instant intellectual egotistic mental processes come to a halt, the intelligence of the universal MIND comes directly to light, takes over in one's daily affairs—stimulates the healthy functioning of one's body as well.

Freed from the intellect, the self-perpetuating, consistently constructive, powerful laws of the universe appear—appear in one's present living ... negative elements gradually disappear, life goes on in positive harmonious reality.

All this is not a future hope, not a religious promise for a heaven later on. This is the wonderful fact that the Age of MIND contains for each of us as our progression out of negative stages goes on and the one eternal causative MIND unfolds as our very own.

The price to pay for this freedom is to give up negative mental processes that objectify themselves in negative experiences. Let's face it... . Is the price too high? For this is probably the price: to live each day without holding to opinions—within one's own thought acknowledging that the GOD-MIND is ALL and knows all that is needful to know about everything; making no decisions prodded by the intellect with its wishing and wanting; and not using human will in any direction.

Because if you make demands upon the negative stage it will make equal demands upon you, for you have placed yourself in this area when you forcibly contact it with your demands—even when these are made in the name of GOOD. Trying to improve the negative (appearing as people or conditions) from within itself only perpetuates the negative condition.

There is no possible way to permanently eliminate a negative motive or practice in human living except by the divine awareness that is not tricked into using the intellect's attempts at negative goodness. It will claim that it is "acting for the best," for the general welfare, for personal happiness and well-being. But nevertheless suffering and problems multiply.

There is a desperate need today for the bright GOD-LIGHT in consciousness that can look straight at a negative appearance and is not trapped into fighting it, struggling with it, trying to improve it, but is calmly and absolutely sure that GOOD (God) is present and is the actual truth about the very condition facing one in its negative garb. In this bright GOD-LIGHT one is not blinded by any subtle tricks of the intellect.

But its specious ways trap most of us into some kind of response to it, so that we try to "reveal the truth" about some situation, "show it up" for what it (negatively) is, "bring to light" the wrong or evil that is going on... . All this always in the name of GOOD, of so-called intelligent methods of dealing with human problems. Yet misery, tragedy, mistakes and failures multiply.

Again, let's face it. If God, GOOD, is power, is reality and is everywhere present, then the only truth about anything, literally anything, must be some aspect of divine GOODNESS. If any condition is truly "shown up for what it is," this must be showing up the presence and action of God. If something is to be "brought to light," the darkness (and evil) about that something must disappear in the presence of the LIGHT.

Anything wrong in one's experience must fade out in the powerful awareness that GOOD is God—and GOOD is here—and GOOD IS ALL.

Any involvement pro or con (either fighting or furthering a negative condition) will inevitably prolong that condition. If the pressure is strong enough the negative activity will disappear in one form only to later reappear in another—will "go underground" and slip from one situation or locality to another—only to reappear in one's experience. History in our present generation is teeming with such illustrations.

And yet how powerless negative projects become when universal forces come into play. Can the greatest human intellects alter the pattern of the planets—change the speed of light—even prevent one morning's dawn?

Is there any way to align oneself with the over-all pattern of the creative LIFE-PRINCIPLE ... place oneself within the kindly wisdom of the infinite divine INTELLIGENCE ... bring into one's everyday living the laws of eternal SELF-EXISTENCE ... individualize universal impartial all-inclusive LOVE—the very LIFE-FORCE of creation?

Yes, indeed yes. But never by means of the intellect. The way is so simple that it is almost incredible: Just to give over completely to the universal MIND—in everyday living to really let go to the fact that GOD IS ALL THERE IS TO ALL. And the way to do this? It is most surely to stop using the tools of the intellect—these tools we have been talking about: opinions, decisions, will power. Without these tools the intellect is stilled.

With them it comes to life—deprived of them it very simply comes to an end.

Then comes the question: Where is protection from being used by the opinions, decisions and will power of other people? This protection, this power is right within one's own mental make-up. Nowhere else at all. How simple it sounds. How easy it should be. But the weight of ages and the multitudes around us clutter our present impulses and thoughts. To live even a few moments without indulging in this intellectual trio is an outstanding victory.

If you can stay alert to do this for one full day you will have conclusive proof of the immediate power of GOOD in your life; you will find the way in which the intelligence of the cosmic MIND comes directly into being as your very own; and you will know with a mighty certitude that this is the way of freedom, safety, security.

Bringing one's will to a full stop (not by willful efforts but by letting go to God), forcing nothing, demanding nothing, pushing no one—this is the way. Realizing in each living moment that the divine pattern of LIFE is here ... controlling everyone and everything, directly operating in one's affairs with a love and a wisdom surpassing anything the intellect can contrive—this is the way.

Trusting the law of GOOD (of intelligent MIND) to govern everything that touches one's life, because one's life is the manifest appearing of the ONE LIFE—this is the way... .

It is a daily program. Beginning in the trivial everyday matters we soon become able to trust it and to practice it in the most vital, the sudden, serious, even desperate problems. When you feel its power (this way of living), see it work in your daily life experience the riches of goodness and health, joy and love it brings to light—you know the price is nominal, the profit eternal.