The Doré Lectures: Being Sunday addresses at the Doré Gallery, London, given in connection with the Higher Thought CentreTroward, T. (Thomas)
Religion
The Doré Lectures: Being Sunday addresses at the Doré Gallery, London, given in connection with the Higher Thought Centre
Troward, T. (Thomas)
New Thought
When we see this, our line of thought will run something as
follows:--"My mind is a centre of Divine operation. The Divine
operation is always for expansion and fuller expression, and this
means the production of something beyond what has gone before,
something entirely new, not included in past experience, though
proceeding out of it by an orderly sequence of growth. Therefore,
since the Divine cannot change its inherent nature, it must
operate in the same manner in me; consequently in my own special
world, of which I am the centre, it will move forward to produce
new conditions, always in advance of any that have gone before."
This is a legitimate line of argument, from the premises
established in the recognition of the relation between the
individual and the Universal Mind; and it results in our looking
to the Divine Mind, not only as creative, but also as directive--
that is as determining the actual forms which the conditions for
its manifestation will take in our own particular world, as well
as supplying the energy for their production. We miss the point
of the relation between the individual and the universal, if we
do not see that the Originating Spirit is a FORMING power. It is
the forming power throughout nature, and if we would specialize
it we must learn to trust its formative quality when operating
from its new starting point in ourselves.
But the question naturally arises, If this is so, what part is
taken by the individual? Our part is to provide a concrete centre
round which the Divine energies can play. In the generic order of
being we exercise upon it a force of attraction in accordance
with the innate pattern of our particular individuality; and as
we begin to realize the Law of this relation, we, in our turn,
are attracted towards the Divine along the lines of least
resistance, that is on those lines which are most natural to our
special bent of mind. In this way we throw out certain
aspirations with the result that we intensify our attraction of
the Divine forces in a certain specific manner, and they then
begin to act both through us and around us in accordance with our
aspirations. This is the rationale of the reciprocal action be
tween the Universal Mind and the individual mind, and this shows
us that our desires should not be directed so much to the
acquisition of particular THINGS as to the reproduction in
ourselves of particular phases of the Spirit's activity; and
this, being in its very nature creative, is bound to externalize
as corresponding things and circumstances. Then, when these
external facts appear in the circle of our objective life, we
must work upon them from the objective stand-point. This is where
many fall short of completed work. They realize the subjective or
creative process, but do not see that it must be followed by an
objective or constructive process, and consequently they are
unpractical dreamers and never reach the stage of completed work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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