“Take No Thought I”

 

One of the things which marks the Master’s career with extraordinary merit is the abandon with which he gave himself up to right thinking. So complete was his faith, his understanding that his attitude of mind might be typified as “take no thought.”

It is pleasant when one comes to you and says, “I have made all arrangements for a day’s outing, a vacation, an evening’s entertainment, so take no thought about it”; there is an abandon, a letting go, an I-don’t-have-to-bother attitude of mind, which is very refreshing.

There is a difference in carelessness and abandon. Abandon is that state which relaxes, lets go, and takes the promises of the Bible as true and good, as promises that will and can be fulfilled with­out much effort, physically speaking. When we are carefree, when we are joyous, we are so to speak, “taking no thought” that is, we are not worrying, or being anxious about the sense testimony.

This taking no thought attitude brings a glorious freedom. Once you come to the place where you recognize that because God is infinite Mind he will do his thinking and that your taking thought is going to avail you nothing, but that taking no thought (get­ting the mortal thought out of he way) you are tuning in with the Father within and will receive messages, instruction, guidance, protection, substance, and supply.

The proof of the “take no thought” attitude is clearly shown in the case of the widow who took very much thought of the reality of matter, and of Elisha who took no thought, but who poured the oil from the cruise into everything that was ready to receive it.

Christ took no thought of provisions when he went out into the desert with the multitudes. If he had taken thought, a special corps of officers and men, cooks and waiters would have been. necessary to attend their needs, but he took no thought of these things; he KNEW that in the precise form and at the precise moment that he needed it, would appear the thing that he wanted and the thing that he asked for. He therefore found it unnecessary to take much thought about material things.

Take no thought for the journey. “I am the Truth, the Life and the Way.” What more could you ask?

Take no thought for tomorrow; for tomorrow is only a thought in itself, a man made thought. With God life is eter­nal, without measure or limit; there is nothing to stint on or deal out sparingly, as so many days, to man.

Take no thought of time, do not measure your life by so many years. Call to mind this: that man was never born, and this being true it stands to reason that he has no age; he has not passed thru condi­tions that were infantile; he has not passed thru certain growing conditions which cumber mankind with laws of disease or fear. Man is and always has been eternally one with the Father. With this thought in mind one throws off the thought of age, and stops saying I am so many years old. One no longer checks up his age for he begins to realize that he has passed thru a series of pictures which are not unlike the changing scenes on the screen–con­stantly, altering and flickering on and off, but not affecting him (the screen) in the least.

There is a glorious something comes to you when you realize that you have cleaned out this futile and stupid thing called age.     It is only a belief of mortal mind and has nothing whatsoever to do with man. Forget all about it, or better still “take no thought.”

Taking thought is like hoarding up the manna. It becomes sour, old, and useless. Why hoard old memories and dates, thoughts of the past, comparisons, and the like, when daily the new thoughts, fresh from the Mind of God are available for your use.

Someone has aptly said that when we take thought for things_. which we say do not exist, like disease, lack, sorrow, etc., it is like saying “there is no water in this cloth, but I must wring it anyway.” Surely if you knew there was no water in a garment you would not wring it. Then if you know that there is no sickness, no sorrow, no lack, you do not have to put anything out, or wring anything out, but rather will you have to fill up the empty place with something real, the substance of God.

In truth we find that the main thing is to bring in the good and powerful thoughts and they of them­selves will crowd out the evil thoughts or perhaps what we call evil thoughts are simply a vacuum which we must fill with the God thoughts.

All this brings more and more to our mind that our business is not examining the nature of evil, but imbibing the quality called love, filling our lives with it, taking no thought about anything else; and surely when this state has been reached we will find our souls dwelling in the courts of our Lord, in the many mansions (the various stages of progress of man from sense to soul).

If you wish to stop “taking thought” of error, you will stop discussing the seeming condition of it. You often hear one admit its unreality and then set out into a discussion of its various forms, with de­tails about their difficulty in overcoming it; and all the while they do not realize that the subtle thing which they are trying to put out, is laughing at them and mocking their feeble efforts from beneath its mask of “seeming”. One might just as well try to put out consumption as to try to put out a “claim of consumption”, it is the same in either case, for “what’s in a name” ?        In either case it is wrong, for we do not have to put out something that does not exist; that has no reality, shape, or form, but we surely do have to stop taking thought of it, and when we do this we take from it the only nourish­ment that it has-the food of our thought. What we want to do is to begin affirming the truth about the condition, to fill our thought so full of the true condition that the other is just naturally eliminated, because it is only an illusion, having no real existence.

“Ye are gods, and all of you are the children of the Most High.”     If ye are gods what business have you thinking mortal thoughts?  If you are children of the Most High, why worry about what mortal man can do unto you? You have only to turn in thought to God and realize that you are at this instant in the Kingdom of Heaven to dispel the mist which is obscuring your birthright from you. There is nothing difficult about this.    It only requires a little practice to make it a very easy thing to do. Soon you will begin to see that all the material pictures about you are only different intensities of the “mist” which went up and watered the whole ground, but that it has not in any way effaced the true image, likeness, or idea of God. Just as the blood flows thru your mortal body, so divine ideas flow thru the Infinite Mind; ideas that supply richly all that is needful for man’s happy, harmonious existence.

Again, “Now are we the sons of God.” Do you still lack proof as to the type and nature of the thing called Mind which is thinking thru you, and which obviates the necessity of your taking thought? “Ye are the sons of the living God.”

The God whose son you are is a LIVING GOD and is Infinite. Then take no thought of life for LIFE, GOD will take care of Itself. Taking thought of life also brings into consideration its opposite, death, so take no thought.

Listen then what God has done for you. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love and of a sound mind.”

The gift of POWER is yours. You do not have to think or worry about a material counterfeit of this one Power which is yours, for there is nothing material that can cope with it in any way. This wonderful Power is YOURS, so take no thought of fear about material power and what it might do to you for there is no such a thing; it is only a thickened mist which presents itself in various shapes trying to persuade you into believing that it is something, but remember always, that the gift of POWER direct from God to you is yours. Then is there any need to take thought of fear? Even if you should suddenly be attacked by the mystification of fear, you can listen and hear this Power speaking to you: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dis­mayed for I am thy God.”

There you have it, you are reminded that not only the gif t of power is given you, but that the Giver is right there to back it up and to stand back of you.

Take no thought of fatigue or weariness for “They that wait upon the Lord shall, renew their strength. . . . they shall run and not be weary and they

shall walk and not faint.” Remember it says you have to wait upon the Lord, wait upon Mind to think, therefore put yourself in the “take no thought” attitude so that you can hear the instructions for overcoming the mist which has seemingly bound you.

Then it says that you have the gift of LOVE. That means that suddenly when you realize that you have this Gift you have dissolved the mist of hatred, revenge, criticism, and all evil thinking. It means that once you become conscious of the gift of Love you go about imparting LOVE.

Think then what a wonderful mission you have in life, that of IMPARTING LOVE. Practice it for one whole day, go out and impart love to everything that lives, and in the evening you will be in harmony with the whole world. You cannot help it, for all the time you are imparting love you are actually in the Kingdom of Heaven and experiencing real LOVE.

Take no thought then of anything material, but whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things.

And lastly, again I say, “take no thought.”

 

Walter C. Lanyon