The Higher Powers of Mind and SpiritTrine, Ralph Waldo
Religion
The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit
Trine, Ralph Waldo
Mind and body; New Thought
And so all aspiring, all thinking, forward-looking men and women of our
day are not interested any more in theories about, explanations of, or
dogmas about Jesus. They are being won and enthralled by the wonderful
personality and life of Jesus. They are being gripped by the power of
his teachings. They do not want theories about God--they want God--and
God is what Jesus brought--God as the moving, the predominating, the
all-embracing force in the individual life. But he who finds the Kingdom
of God, whose life becomes subject to the Divine rule and life within,
realises at once also his true relations with the whole--with his
neighbour, his fellow-men. He realises that his neighbour is not merely
the man next door, the man around the corner, or even the man in the
next town or city; but that his neighbour _is every man and every woman
in the world_--because all children of the same infinite Father, all
bound in the same direction, but over many different roads.
The man who has come under the influence and the domination of the
Divine rule, realises that his interests lie in the same direction as
the interests of all, that he cannot gain for himself any good--that is,
any essential good--at the expense of the good of all; but rather that
his interests, his Welfare, and the interests and the welfare of all
others are identical. God's rule, the Divine rule, becomes for him,
therefore, the fundamental rule in the business world, the dominating
rule in political life and action, the dominating rule in the law and
relations of nations.
Jesus did not look with much favour upon outward form, ceremony, or with
much favour upon formulated, or formal religion; and he somehow or other
seemed to avoid the company of those who did. We find him almost
continually down among the people, the poor, the needy, the outcast, the
sinner--wherever he could be of service to the Father, that is, wherever
he could be of service to the Father's children. According to the
accounts he was not always as careful in regard to those with whom he
associated as the more respectable ones, the more respectable classes of
his day thought he should be. They remarked it many times. Jesus noticed
it and remarked in turn.
We find him always where the work was to be done--friend equally of the
poor and humble, and those of station--truly friend of man, teaching,
helping, uplifting. And then we find him out on the mountain side--in
the quiet, in communion--to keep his realisation of his oneness with the
Father intact; and with this help he went down regularly to the people,
trying to lift their minds and lives up to the Divine ideal that he
revealed to them, that they in turn might realise their real relations
one with another, that the Kingdom of God and His righteousness might
grow and become the dominating law and force in the world--"Thy Kingdom
come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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