Nuggets of the New Thought: Several Things That Have Helped PeopleAtkinson, William Walker
Philosophy
Nuggets of the New Thought: Several Things That Have Helped People
Atkinson, William Walker
New Thought
All this fretting--all this worrying--all this contention and strife,
comes from a lack of Faith. We may assert fervently that we know that
All is Good, and that all is best for us, etc., etc., but have we
enough faith to manifest it in our lives? See how we endeavor to tie
on to _things_, people, and environments. How we resist the steady
pressure that is tearing us loose, often with pain, from the places to
which we have wished to stay fastened like a barnacle. The Life force
is back of us, urging us along--pushing us along--and move we must.
The process of growth, development and unfoldment is going on
steadily. What's the use of attempting to resist it? You are no more
than a water-bug on the surface of the river. You may dart here and
there, and apparently are running things to suit yourself without
reference to the current, but all the time you are moving along with
it. The water-bug plan is all right, just so long as we do not attempt
to stop the current or to swim right against it--when we try this we
find out very quickly that the current has something to say about it,
and before long we get so tired that we are willing to fall in with
the law behind the current. And yet even the opposition is good, for
it teaches us that the current is there--we gain by experience. The
New Thought does not teach people to stem the current or to swim up
stream, although some teachers and some students seem to be of that
opinion. On the contrary, the real New Thought teaches us of the
existence of the stream, and that it is moving steadily toward the Sea
of Good. It teaches us how to fall in with it, and be borne further
along, instead of attempting to hold back and become barnacles, or to
try to push back up the stream. It also teaches us to live in the
Now--to enjoy the darting backward and forward over the face of the
waters. It also tells us of the direction in which the current is
moving, that we may move along that way, without wasting our energies
in trying to go the other. It teaches us co-operation with Law,
instead of opposition to it.
Why do we not have Faith? Why do we not see the great Plan behind it
all? Why do we not recognize Law? As we have seen, we place our
confidence in the engineer of the train--the pilot--the captain--the
coach-driver, and the other guiding hands and yet we hesitate to trust
ourselves in the hands of the Infinite. Of course, it makes no
difference to the Infinite whether or not we repose trust in it. It
moves along just the same, guiding and directing--steering and
regulating speed--it minds not our doubts and obstructions any more
than does the great driving-wheel mind the fly who is perched upon it
and who does not like the movement and attempts to stop it by
spreading out its wings and buzzing. The great wheel of the Universe
is moving around, steadily and mightily. Let us go with it. And while
we are going let us spare ourselves the trouble and folly of the
buzzing, wing-spreading business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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