48. HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT -- ARE WE BOUND BY THEM?

The true secret of power lies in keeping one’s connection with the God who wor-keth all things. Whatever can’t be done in the physical can be done in the spiritual. And in direct proportion as a man recognizes himself as spirit, and lives accordingIy, is he able to transcend in power the man who recognizes himself merely as material. All the sacred literature of the world is teeming with examples of what we call miracles. They are not confined to any particular times or places. There is no age of miracles in distinction from any other period that may be an age of miracles. Whatever has been done in the world’s history can be done again through the operation of the same laws and forces. These miracles were performed not by those who were more than men, but by those who through the recognition of their oneness with God became God-men, so that the higher forces and powers worked through them.

For what, let us ask, is a miracle? Is it something supernatural? Supernatural only in the sense of being above the natural, or rather, above that which is natural to man in his ordinary state. A miracle is nothing more nor less than this. One who has come into a knowledge of his true identity, of his oneness with the all-pervading Wisdom and Power, thus makes it possible for laws higher than the ordinary mind knows of to be revealed to him. These laws he makes use of; the people see the resuits, and by virtue of their own limitations, call them miracles and speak of the person who performs these apparently supernatural works as a supernatural being. But they as supernatural beings could themselves perform these supernatural works if they would open themselves to the recognition of the same laws, and consequently to the realization of the same possibilities and powers. And let us also remember that the supernatural of yesterday becomes, as in the process of evolution we advance from the lower to the higher, from the more material to the more spiritual, the common and the natural of today, and what seems to be the supernatural of today becomes in the same way the natural of tomorrow, and so on through the ages.

Yes, it is the God-man who does the things that appear supernatural, the man who by virtue of his realization of the higher powers transcends the maiority and so stands out among them. But any power that is possible to one human soul is possible to another. The same laws operate in every life. We can be men and women of power or we can be men and women of impotence. The moment one vitally grasps the fact that he can rise he will rise, and he can have absolutely no limitations other than the limitations he sets to himself. Cream always rises to the top. It rises simply because it is the nature of cream to rise.

We hear much said of “environment.” We need to realize that environment should never be allowed to make the man, but that man should always, and always can, condition the environment. When we realize this we will find that many times it is not necessary to take ourselves out of any particular environment, because we may yet have a work to do there; but by the very force we carry with us we can so affect and change matters that we will have an entirely new set of conditions in an old environment.

The same is true in regard to “hereditary” traits and influences. We sometimes hear the question asked, “Can they be overcome?” Only the one who doesn’t yet know himself can ask a question such as this. If we entertain and live in the belief that they cannot be overcome, then the chances are that they will always remain. The moment, however, that we come into a realization of our true selves, and so of the tremendous powers and forces within -- the powers and forces of the mind and spirit -- hereditary traits and influences that are harmful in nature will begin to lessen, and will disappear with a rapidity directly in proportion to the completeness of this realization.

“There is no thing we cannot overcome; Say not thy evil instinct is inherited, or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn, and calls down punishment that is not merited.

Back of thy parents and grandparents lies The Great Eternal Will!, that too is thine Inheritance, -- strong, beautiful, divine, sure lever of success for one who tries.

Earth has no claim the soul cannot contest; Know thyself part of the Eternal Source; Naught can stand before thy spirit’s force: The soul’s Divine Inheritance is best.”

(from: In Tune with the Infinite)