Your Problem

    I KNOW not what your individual prob­lem may be, but just the same I bring you the glorious message that YOU CAN change your present condition; YOU CAN change sickness to health; YOU CAN change poverty into wealth; YOU CAN be that which you desire to be. Further I say to you that the castle of your dreams CAN BE ATTAINED here and now by simply gathering up the loose ends of your power and centralizing your energy and force.

    Of course there are different kinds of thinking and so there are different stages, degrees and kinds of life. When a man stops thinking he is dead. Is this not so? Even a lunatic thinks, though he scatters his thought over a great field, taking on the thought of everything that passes by.

    Many people scatter thought and are in a constant state of confusion.Such people are like the chameleon placed on a highly colored oriental rug—he changes so rapidly that he represents no one color but is in a constant state of change. Nothing definite in the way of color.

     The subject which we are going to take up is so simple that it seems difficult-but since you are seeker of light, let us examine into it with unprejudiced mind and try it and see if it is not the Truth.

      Everybody realizes thought is the dynamic force of the universe. Without thought where would we be. Take your own home for instance what would happen if thought properly directed were not in use.

     Do you believe in thought and its affect on your life and body? Go into a church where it is quiet and see if the quiet thought of reverence does not immediately take possession of you. Go into a theatre where thousands of people are laughing and cheer­ing and try to weep. Go into an orphan’s home and look into the wistful eyes of half a dozen children and try to keep the love thought out of your mind. Go into a peni­tentiary and see the long lines of men marching to and fro and then try to keep the thought of compassion down.

   Your whole life is made up of thought—–what you think is what you are.

    “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he” has been “quoted over and over and the truth of it finally dawns on every one who is really thinking. Our lives are exactly what we think them to be; our position exactly what our thought has made it; your health exactly what you have held in mind regarding your bodies and other people’s bodies.

     “Nothing is either good or bad but think­ing made it so” might well be rendered. There is nothing EITHER good or bad that is not made by thinking.

There is no limit to what you can do when you get hold of the idea of right thinking. There are no walls which will not crumble before the right understanding of the power of thought. There is no mountain which will not be removed and cast into the utter­most parts of the sea if you handle your thought correctly. And again I repeat that the process of thinking rightly is so simple that it seems difficult.

     Everybody is seeking the “Kingdom of Heaven” some of us are looking one place and some another, but all, even the grossest materialist is seeking this state of happiness which he thinks of in terms of heaven. The great mistake which has always been made, and is largely made today is that we seek this Kingdom in some locality, generally quite remote to our present place, instead of seeking it in the only possible place it can be found—-i. e. “WITHIN YOU.” Now heed this-the Kingdom of your desires ful­filled, lies WITHIN YOU.

     The world or heaven within is lying there waiting the coming of the Master-you are the Master and we are going to go hand in hand into the Kingdom of your most cherished desire and find there that which. will make you happy, healthy, prosperous.

    Keep in mind that there is no mystery to this work, no hard concentration, no strained positions to be held or forced thoughts, but a natural unfolding as beautifully easy as the unfolding of a rose in June.

    That which you see about you, after all, is the result of that which was at one time hidden in the inner world. Like the seed which was dropped into the earth, when it busted through the darkness or the invisible it came out into the objective world and was seen. So with these wonderful flowers of your desire—when they receive the touch of Life which your thinking is presently going to give them you will soon see them bloom­ing everywhere. For as we have already said, thought is life. Up to this time the Kingdom of your life has been full of seeds but no urge or life was felt in them so they remained in the darkness of the, in­visible.

visible.

 The secret of Live thinking is what we are going to learn.

   All about you is the great Mind of God. The Mind, out of which all things were brought forth and from which all things will eventually be brought forth, for it is the formless substance of things hoped for. Now Thought is the creative force which acts on this formless substance and shapes it into that which it desires. Thought makes the mould into which this substance is poured before it is made manifest in the flesh.

   Before an architect can build a house he first conceives it in his mind as complete and perfect-lie works out the details of every little part and then he sets it down on paper and as he does this he keeps on reaching further until the mental mould that he made and filled full of the formless sub­stance of Mind finally becomes the picture which he first held in mind. There is nothing unnatural about this. Take it in your own life for instance, what do you do? Are you a business man or woman? Do you want to write a letter? Whether you know it or not you have the picture of it formulated in your mind and then you go to work and finally the thing which was just a thought in the beginning finally becomes a piece of paper with a message written on it. You made the mould and poured it full and finally you have the result. Perhaps you are a house-wife-and instead of a letter you think of a pie. Perhaps you are a Minister and you think of a Sermon, but no matter what line you follow, no matter what your station in life the Law works just the same.

    That is reasonable you say, and the next step is too.—When we come to the point that we can recognizes that Thought is the creator, then we come, to the^– matter of quality. What is the quality of your thinking.

    Perhaps you say “Well I never did think of this sickness and I have it-or I never did think of this poverty and I have it,” etc.

    Let me recall to your mind the story of the cobbler who sat working at his little bench when a camel looked in at the window. The Cobbler worked on and so the camel put his nose in and not receiving any re­sistance he pushed his head in and then his neck and then his hump and then his whole body sprawled into the room crowded the cobbler into the corner so tightly that lie could not do his ‘work. “How did you get here, I never invited you in,” and when he looked at the small open window he almost knew it; was impossible for such a large animal to get through such a small opening.But since the camel stood against the closed door it was impossible for him to get out any other way than the way he had come in so then the work began in earnest.

    Thought is something that needs atten­tion. We must watch it and see that the quality is right. If we want camels of sick­ness, unhappiness and poverty to crowd us out of our birthright, then all we have to do is to leave the window open and unguarded and presently we will becrowded over into the narrow corner of our already too narrow existence. All the light will be shut off and the air will become foul with these hateful animals which have crept in at unguarded moments.

     Now the matter of guarding your thought need not alarm you-it is not nearly so stupendous a job as it looks, it is merely re­fusing to accept the destructive thoughts that come to us.

     We have got to learn now to judge not from appearances, but to judge righteous judgment. No matter what the seeming conditions of a thing may be-we have en­listed in the army of right-thinking people and we are going to change the face of the thing and see the new fine thought mani­fested right before our eyes.

     Mind is like a great storage plant with millions of volts of static electricity waiting for an outlet. Thought is the dynamic force which connects up with this great storage house and the result is seen in what we create or what the thought pattern was that was taken to the power house.Now Mind is always and eternally good and when it is applied properly will accomplish un­dreamed of wonders, but we must not at­tempt to use this great force wrongly and expect good results. If an electric wire is left to lie on the ground and a child steps on it and is killed, you could not say that electricity was bad, for you know that same force that seemed to do the damage to the child could have been applied to carry a message thousands of miles or could have run a street car or a thousand and one other things. Look then to the quality of your thinking.

I do not have to bring to your mind the various proofs of the power of thought.

All of us have experiences, some of the optical illusions and the sense illusions which are so common they hardly need mentioning. What boy has joined a secret order or fraternity who has not been burned with an ice cold poker or felt himself bleeding to death by a small stream of lukewarm water being poured over his arm. Inversely we all know of instances where thought has carried people far into the most difficult feats. Mothers have been able to do remarkable things for their children in , time of peril. Men in battle have been- swept on to victory; every­thing is the result of thought. Thought is all there is to existence, so now let us begin with an eliminating process.

     If we want wealth we are going to begin to eliminate the poverty idea. If we want health we are going to begin to eliminate the sick thought; if we want happiness, we are going to eliminate the unhappy thought, etc.

    How shall we do this?

   Listen: All that you desire, the kingdom of Heaven, lies within. Then the way to get what we want is to go within and bring it out.

“Not so easy,” you say?

“Perfectly easy,” I reply to you.

    “Line upon line, precept upon precept,” etc.

    Today we are going to begin the journey back into the kingdom and go just as fast as we can find the way.

     Let us take an easy position, somewhere in a place as quiet as is possible and then relax. Relax and let the chair hold you up and get perfectly easy physically. Now close your eyes and rest for a moment. Think of your­self not as a body, not as a person but as the same care-free individual you are when you dream at night. Remember how easy it is for you to pass from one place to another in your dream that is because you don’t have to bother with the material body and a lot of other paraphernalia, which we do when waking. Now then you can take this In­dividuality into the innermost recesses of your mind, by declaring “I Am One with the Father within.” This was what Jesus did. He knew that the “Father within” was Right thinking which enabled him to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. If you are one with the Father within you are ‘one with Goodness, with happiness with health with wealth.

     You are one with the great Powerhouse in which is stored infinite power to accomplish that which you wish right here and now and the way is not difficult and hard to find.

 

 Walter C. Lanyon