Tree of Life – Level 1, Lesson 5: Mind 2
The Law of Mind is absolutely impersonal, or we might call it the way of the word which it works through the mind. Once set into motion it produces a logical result, it proceeds in the mathematical manner to create and unless that tendency set into motion is changed it will create a logical result whatever idea is given to it.
WE CANNOT DESTROY THE LAW BUT WE CAN RE-DIRECT ITS MOVEMENT. In this concept lies the possibility of freedom from bondage, not that we can change the Law of Mind, but that we can change its direction.
The spirit of man being some part of the Spirit of God has self-consciousness and self-choice. The law having neither self-consciousness or self-choice automatically reacts to the spirit, therefore, when you are treating or saying a prayer for someone else, you are really treating yourself or praying for yourself.
It is well to understand from the start that this is exactly the way the law works. You will never have to go outside of yourself to treat any person, place or thing. To think it necessary to do this would be to deny the unity of God and good and your access to the universal law of cause and effect.
WITHIN THIS ONE LAW ALL EVENTS TRANSPIRE.
Emerson rightly said that history is the record of the doings of this Mind on our planet.
We must remember that the Law of Mind has a binding force. It is intelligent—no greater mistake could be made than to think that subconscious means unconscious. It does not. Subconscious means below the threshold of conscious Mind.
As a matter of fact, the subjective laws of the universe with which we deal in giving treatments have limitless intelligence—that limitless power to proceed from cause to effect.
It is THE creative agency of this universe. When you give a treatment or pray to help someone sick or who is in need, no matter what the need may be, you must be conscious that you are making a definite statement in the Mind and that Mind is the sole and only acting agency or actor.
The principle acts upon your thought projected into the experience of the one toward whom you direct it; this whole mental-spiritual practice is what is meant in the Testament: “Be still and know that I am God.”
It is back of the illumined thought of Jesus when he said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
We explain here the trinity as God is the three-in-one, for God is the threefold in nature; God is spirit or self-knowingness, God is law or action, God is form or result. It is the trinity which runs through all the religions of the world and it is recognized in all the teachings. We might call it here the thing, the way it works, what it does.
This is creation; whatever the spirit wills or knows as a result of it, will, the law is set in motion and produces that which the spirit knows.
God knows no evil as the Testament shows: “Judge not that ye be not judged.” This will help you to have an understanding of the nature of God, which must be truth, beauty, and peace, as God is always in tune with his nature.
God cannot will evil, then we know that it will disappear from our experience in exact proportion as we cease using destructive thoughts. Evil is merely a misconception, the wrong way of using good.
It is limitation which God knows nothing of, because the nature of God is infinite and that which is infinite cannot will limitation.
Emerson expressed this beautifully and said the finite alone has wrought and suffered, the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.
The law never initiates anything; it always reacts to the spirit. Let us realize the meaning of this marvelous idea that the spirit is both the circumference and the center of everything, and that there is such a perfect completion within our own souls that we really do have access to the very soul of the universe.
The Law of Mind in action—we find when we study its reality that while there is no limit to law, there appears to be a limit to man’s use of it and I said “appears.” This means that even though the law of creating is infinite, we shall draw from it only as much good as our measure will hold—no more, no less.
This brings us back to the central theme of universal creative spirit of God creates by self-knowing or contemplation. Man being the image and copy of the creative spirit, man acts in accord with his nature, that is, he creates by contemplation or self-knowingness.
This is the explanation for the great saying of Jesus that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
It is evident that if the knowing of something can produce freedom, there must be a law which automatically reacts to our knowing. It is of great importance that the laws of man and spirit be understood.
When you treat or pray for a physical or financial betterment in some other person’s experience, you must be conscious that his good is now made manifest; in such a degree of your being aware of the good it will appear in his experience. Becoming aware of his good is an interior awareness.
It is something that the Mind does to itself and as a result of this self-recognition, self-knowing, or state of consciousness as it is often called, the law automatically reacts to this self-knowing and produces an objective form, a physical condition, that exactly balances and equals the self-knowingness just as water reaches its own level by its own weight.
The spirit and law were never created; they co-exist, they are part of the eternal reality. The law which man uses, Mind which he uses, and the spirit which he is, are all one.
Let us also consider the fact that there is no such thing as my mind, your mind, his mind, or her mind. Mind is an eternal principle in the universe and when we think we are making use of it and as we think we are individualizing it.
Just as all physical nature is made up of one ultimate stuff including our physical bodies, and just as each body is a peculiar individualization of that stuff, so all individual mentalities emerge from one universal Mind. We should think of ourselves as being in such complete unity with that Mind that there are no longer two, only one. As we think within our being, we think only of being.
MIND is the realm of causes; conditions are the realm of effects; new thoughts create new conditions.