CHAPTER II

The Magic of Meekness

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Happy are the dispassionate, for they shall inherit the earth.

When abstinence from theft in mind (envy and covetousness) and act is complete in the devotee, he has power to obtain all material wealth.

WE HAVE LONG been willing to acknowledge the powerful place that mind

occupies in our affairs, that is, by virtue of its objective, not its subjective,

activity. Men point to inventions and arts, writings and buildings, business and

science as the noble fruits of man's intellect; and these outer results as the means, along with other externalized thoughts, by which mind influences the

world. But that there is a way for thought to work directly upon these outer

affairs is as difficult for some persons to believe as it once was for all of us to

believe that an electric current could be used without a conductor. But just as the

Marconi messages do have "conductors," though invisible to men's eyes, so

thought force has conductors and is transmitted though the avenues are still

unsensed by mortal man.

"THOUGHTS ARE THINGS"

Science is working with thought,experimenting

and collecting data, and certain scientists in the van

of progress can hardly restrain themselves from publishing their

conviction that thoughts can be felt and measured, analyzed and

described, as heat and electricity have been, by their effects. But

science is conservative. It is philosophy, acknowledging intuition as a

factor in acquiring knowledge, that will keep men abreast of the times

and be the handmaiden of the new thought and theology, whose

influence can no longer be denied.

Suffice it for us to know that all over the world men and women are

proving that thoughts are the greatest forces and substances upon the

whole earth; that thoughts can be read and their vibrations felt most

distinctly; that thoughts create atmospheres that are attractive or

repellent according to their character. It is a crying necessity for men

to be educated in this field so that they may not be exploited by the un

scrupulous, nor fall into the error of such exploitation themselves, but

may rather join in using the great thought forces that make for

righteousness; that is, for-the-health and happiness , wealth and

freedom -—of their neighbors as well as themselves.

THE POWER OF WORDS

The word, silent or audible, is the conductor of thought, and the trained mind knows whet words to use, and what thoughts to make

positive and what

negative; and how to keep the true thoughts free from adulteration of false notions, opinions, sentiments, and fears.

In the preceding chapter we dwelt upon the thoughts that constitute

the true positive activity of the mind, that make for success through

spirituality But not only must we know the true positive way of thinking; we must also know the right way to make denials. For in the

realm of appearances there are both the positive and the negative to be correctly manifested if things are to be rightly reflected. To try to fill

our minds with true thoughts while clinging to old false ideas is like trying to fill a bottle full of ink with milk, without emptying out the ink,

with the result that we have neither ink nor milk but a useless liquid.

Out of the many affirmations of the last lesson, let us select two: “God

is omnipresent” and “God is good.” It logically follows that “Good is

omnipresent,” the first great axiom of the true science of God. It is as

simple as two and two are four and lasting optimism.

When the mind has “a reason concerning the hope” that is in it, then

hope can pass into certainty, and even at the times when experience

and the senses would utterly sweep away a groundless optimism, one

can abide in cheerfulness until its wisdom and

its effectiveness are proved. Prosperity and cheerfulness are boon companions; one always attracts the other. “Plenty and good cheer” has passed into a

proverb.

GOOD IS OMNIPRESENT

That the realization “Good is omnipresent” may be with one continually, the mind

must be given over to the thinking of Truth night and day. “Love the Lord thy God

with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy

mind.” “The law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate

thereon day and night.” “Pray without ceasing.” “In all thy ways acknowledge

him.” These scriptural instructions can be fulfilled only by determined refusal to

entertain the opposite thoughts and feelings. Thus the mind refuses to meditate

upon evils and failures, wrongs and losses, fears and worriments.

Every time an unhappy thought arises wisdom displaces it with a silent statement

of the aliness of the good. Reason becomes the schoolmaster, and the sense

testimonies are set aside. Remember Jehovah thy God, for it is he that giveth

thee power to get wealth.” Not only do we remember this, but we learn to forget

the old ways of ascribing our riches to material sources and personal effort. In

remembering the Lord our God, we are reminding ourselves of all good, and this

means the forgetting of evil.

There are people who are suffering from conditions of poverty because their

minds are filled with memories of losses and failures. If you think about loss, you

produce what you think about. Sometimes it is not the loss of money and things

but the loss of friends, or reputation, or some good that seems to have no

connection with one’s financial welfare.

THE ERROR OF GRIEVING

Socrates says, “He that grieves much is a magnet for attracting waste of property.” Cease to grieve or entertain sad memories of any kind.

One student of Truth, Mrs. T—, had a revelation as to the cause of her failures

upon hearing these words of Socrates explained by her teacher. The psychology

of the connection between grief and loss is that grief is a deep feeling about, and

meditation upon, lack and loss; and mind being cause, these thoughts of loss are

outpictured in circumstances as loss of work, money, patronage, friends, and

other forms of deprivation.

Mrs. T--- could trace a series of failures in prosperity to a marked event in her life—when a beloved son had gone utterly out of her life.

She had been a very successful dressmaker; had built up a clientele that was rich

and increasing daily so that she was able to keep a large staff of workers very

busy in meeting the demands upon her skill, ingenuity,

taste, and good workmanship. She had been a widow with an only son when

thrown upon her own resources and had had very little of the world’s goods. But

at this time she had a goodly sum in the bank, real estate that was valuable, and

everything pointed to a life of financial independence.

But one day they brought her beautiful twelve-year-old boy, who had been the

joy of her life, to her door—he had been drowned. Although she knew that in

Truth he still lived, she was so young in it that she forgot to apply her principles

and gave herself up to paroxysms of grief and days and weeks of mourning.

Her mournful presence repelled her wealthy clients. One by one they sought

other dressmakers and tailors. Down, down went her income, and loss followed

loss. Finally she attended a course of lessons in prosperity and received that

nugget of gold which Socrates gave.

She realized how disloyal she had been to her faith. She was like one awakened

from a weird nightmare, and then and there she resolved to put away all sorrow

and to remember that her son lived throughout eternity, and no longer to deny

the presence of All-Good. From the day of that resolution her affairs revived, and

today she has a deep-seated consciousness of God’s eternal supply and

demonstrates it daily.

RIGHT SPEECH

Our thinking is assisted by our speech; so let our determination be to speak on

the bright side and refrain from talking about “hard times” and “money being

scarce” and other forms of financial straits.

Man himself decides the character of the times by his mental attitude. Man

controls the currency, he can make it free or congested at will; and sometimes

one man can be the key log of a whole situation, continuing the “jam” by his

stolidity or causing an easy flow by his freedom.

As an illustration of the difference it makes whether an individual talks “hard times” or simply refrains from such talk, a man told me the following as an actual

experience:

There were two merchants in a town in Southern Califorina, both in a flourishing

state, when there came a financial panic, which put the character of both to the

test. One talked of the bank failures and the gloomy outlook; the other was full of

assurance that it could not last, had-only cheery answers to all the pessimistic

speculations, and never indulged himself in any talk on the negative side.

About twenty miles from this town lived a young man on a ranch, which he was

developing while depending for his living upon a monthly remittance that came

from his home in England. He knew nothing

of what was taking place in the rest of the world, as he had no newspapers,

receiving his mail only when he drove to town, which was at long intervals of

time. On such visits he always laid in a good store of provisions.

In the midst of the panic he went to town, stopped at the store of the optimistic

merchant, and “stocked up” liberally. Then he went over to the other merchant’s

place, where he intended to buy just as freely. He found that merchant standing

idly at his door, and he exclaimed at the dearth of customers.

Thereupon the merchant launched forth on his tale of woe, which so affected the

young man that he ceased all further purchasing and soon started back to his

ranch, resolving to hold onto his money, although England at the time was not in

the least affected by the local stringencies of America. According to my

informant, the optimist went through the hard times with little falling away of business, while the other merchant did not recover his old status until long after

the panic had passed.

It is as foolish for men to hold back their money at a time national, financial

difficulties as for the motorist to shut down on his power when ascending a hill.

Nothing can change this natural action of self-preservation but spiritual insight

and a regard for one’s neighbor’s welfare equal to one’s regard for one’s own.

THREE GREAT DENIALS

Three dominant types of carnal thought must be emptied out of the mind, (1) the

belief in evil, (2) the belief in materiality, and (3) the belief in the mortal self;

and daily three dominant spiritual ideas must take their places, (1) the belief in

All-Good, (2) the belief in Mind as the one substance and cause, and (3) the

belief in the God self as all in all.

The power to set aside one’s human selfhood through realizing the self that is

divine is called meekness. This word is not commonly understood, being

generally associated with weakness and lack of spiritedness, whereas no one can

be truly meek who is not strong and spirited.

Moses has been cited as the most remarkable example of the meekness that

inherits the earth. Full of fire and charged with power, he did not use these for

his own personal advantage. But he wished all to stand at the same place that he

had reached.

One of his followers, Joshua, once grew very jealous for his master's glory and

power and asked permission to stop certain young men in the camp from

prophesying, because they had not been ordained to that work by the great

Moses. But the mighty man replied to his disciple in these noble words:

“Art thou jealous for my sake? would that all Jehovah’s people were prophets, and that Jehovah would put his Spirit upon them!”

TOO FULL OF SELF

There are people who do not achieve prosperity because they are so full of their

earthly selfhood, all the time thinking of their rights, and seeking to exalt themselves, and demanding acknowledgment from others of their righteousness

and ability. Pride prevents them from doing work for which they are specially

adapted and which they could honor and exalt if they entered into it in the right

spirit. Egotism makes them insufferable to others, even to those who would

otherwise be glad to prosper them. Envy makes them bitter and even malicious in

their action and speech, so that men who are in a position to choose their

associates avoid them. Covetousness and greed make them overshoot the mark

in placing a value on their goods; again fear may make them run to the other

extreme to undervalue their work and cheapen themselves. Ambition blinds them

and after many failures leaves them stranded, wallowing in pessimism and

poverty. All this is because they did not know how to let go of their mortal

selfhood, the “little I,” and so to enter into the power of their mighty meekness.

Meekness is freedom from pride, envy, greed, and

egotism. It is a certain “emptiness” that has a wonderful drawing power.

THE VACUUM MEEKNESS

The principle of meekness is the same as that of the vacuum. It is this principle which keeps all good in circulation. What the vacuum is in nature, meekness is

with respect to the rich substance of God. Without a “vacuum” that continually

demands filling, many movements of nature would cease. It is the vacuum that

draws the air into the lungs, and in mechanics it is the secret of the useful pump.

Even when men have had but little of this meekness it has made them rich. It is

the key to the prosperity of many a “self-made” man. Starting from small

beginnings, letting no pride stand in his way, such a man has gone steadily

ahead, often quite free from envy of the success of others, and even at the

pinnacle of his own success being so free from vanity as to do menial things, if

exigency requires it, and not thinking himself lowered by anything he does. Yet

he may again lose this meekness; he may forget and let pride a nd egotism arrest

his development, all because his meekness is not grounded in knowledge but is

an unconscious gift from his God Being.

HONOR THROUGH MEEKNESS

When one’s God-given meekness continues through life, then one’s prosperity

includes great

honor and position, along with riches. The world loves to honor the man who loses himself in the cause for which he stands.

It was this quality in Gen. Ulysses S. Grant that made it easy for the world to

honor the United States in honoring him. His reticence, his freedom from

egotism, his modesty and freedom from all demands as U. S. Grant, opened wide

the gates for the inrush of praise and gifts. The world lay at his feet. He needed

only the Christ knowledge to have placed him forever beyond the reach of failure.

The full meekness of the Christ is established in the consciousness that makes

right valuations. In it there is ever the seeking first of the kingdom of God, and

there is perfect deliverance from the pursuit of material things. Material things

follow; they seek the person possessed of such a consciousness. He does not

need to run after them; they are drawn to him as fervently as steel to the

magnet, for he has the substance that they represent.

Those who pursue material things are always just missing and may even have forgotten their ardent desire for them, do these things come into their world. The

Talmud says:

“Who runs after greatness, greatness runs away from; but who runs away from

greatness, greatness runs after.”

OUR ONE REAL DESIRE

Turn that rich desire nature of yours toward the realization that there is nothing for you really to pursue. All that you have sought, all that is worth having, you already have, you already are. Awake! Arise! Come to yourself in realizing the great truth of the ages that the one desire of our heart is God, and always has been. And God we have, and God we are. For there is nought else to have or to

be.

Perceiving this, for very joy’s sake you fulfill the injunction of old, “Diligently

harken to the voice of Jehovah,” wherever uttered, by the lips of fools or in the

oracles of masters, in the songs of birds or of poets, in the roar of the earthquake

or in the still small voice within. And ever hearing and obeying the prophecy, you

find it is fulfilled in your life:

And all these blessings shall come upon thee, and overtake thee . . . Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field . . . Blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and

blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. . . . And Jehovah will make thee plen teous for good, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit

of thy cattle, and in the fruit of will open unto thee his good treasure the heavens, to give the rain of thy land in its season, and to bless all the work of thy

hand.

SECOND EXERCISE

In conjunction with the meditation, given at the close of the last lesson, meditate

daily upon the

following, learning the words by heart, and repeating them until there is an answering thrill within you at each repetition:

I AM THAT I AM is the rich fountain of my abundant supply.

By the power of the Spirit rich substance is now overflowing into every avenue

and expression of my life.

God’s presence and power, working all things together for good, is felt and seen

in everything I put my hand to.

I AM THAT I AM, my true self, fills my whole being and all my world.

Where I am there is only good, and therefore I declare: There is no place for evil; there never can be any failure; there is nothing to fear.

Where 1 am there is only pure Spirit, Divine Mind, the eternal rich substance of God. Therefore 1 declare the nothingness of material things. They have no power

to attract or bind me.

I know no greed for possessions. I have all that gives is real, and I covet nothing

that passes away.

Where I am there is only love that loves and gives to all, and therefore I know no envy nor jealousy, no pride nor selfishness.

“Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

" Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for

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I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke

is easy, and my burden is light.”