“THE LORD OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE” Chapter 2

DID you ever notice that the sun makes no special effort to destroy that which is not fit to live? The same steady shine which gives life to the growing plant causes fermentation, death and transmutation to everything which is cut off from the source of its life.

As soon as I learned that I am the Sun of God I knew that I need make no special effort to destroy “evil” – the “carnal mind.” I saw that I had simply to shine, like Old Sol, and the radiation from me would transmute mind and body and environment for me.

That conception afforded me infinite relief. I saw that all the good I had been so assiduously endeavoring to force into myself was already mine if I would only “let my light shine” to ripen it.

I discovered also that to let my light shine is a matter of choice, not feeling, so I chose to let the light shine out from my solar center and I abandoned myself to that radiation. No more worry for me over “evil” thoughts or acts. I just let the Sun shine upon them.

I discovered that Jesus of Nazareth had a level head – “I say unto you that ye resist not evil,” is the very acme of wisdom.

I had pondered often and long upon that injunction of His, without being able to see the philosophy of it, and I simply could not obey it.

Why? Because I AM GOOD and must, from the compulsion of my own law of being, be forever “set over against” evil. If I know no better way of getting rid of evil than to fight it, then fight I must. But the more I fight the greater the evil will grow.

At last in sheer despair, I may be still and think; when I shall see that non-resistance will conquer where resistance worse than fails.

Do you see yet why this is so? The Solar Plexus is the radiating center of life, the center from which flows the divine energy, love, that can overcome (cause to “come over”) all evil. We can overcome evil with good; we can love our enemies into friends; we can “overcome’ them; i.e., cause them to “come over.”

Please remember that love is not sentimental gush; it is not a matter of words; but it is a steady radiation of good will from the solar center, and may or may not be expressed in word or deed. But it will be expressed in either word or deed as the need of the “enemy” calls it forth. But whether expressed or not, that steady, silent radiation of Good Will, or Love, will transmute enemies into friends, “evil” into good, just as certainly as the sun rays will make pure that which was impure.

This being true, the one thing necessary is to let the solar center radiate Good Will all the time.

Until we understand and take control of ourselves, every thought that passes through the mind affects the action of the Solar Plexus. Thoughts that are pleasant to us cause the center to open and radiate Good Will or Love. Every unpleasant thought causes it to contract, thus shutting off the supply of good will, love, life, from the body, brain and environment.

Non-resistant thought expands the Solar Plexus; resistant thought contracts it. Now do you see what a good scientist Jesus was?

“And I say unto you that ye resist not evil.” If a man would have you go a mile with him, go two miles willingly; let your Good Will radiate; and by the time you have finished your second mile his Solar Plexus will be vibrating with yours, and you will both be the wiser and more loving for your journey.

But that will depend upon how you take his invitation or command. You can go under protest, asserting your own righteousness and his injustice; in which event he will conquer you, and you will have obeyed the letter, but not the spirit of Jesus’ injunction.

Or you may envelop yourself with the air of a martyr – which is mighty thin covering, by the way – and go with him because it’s your “duty” to do a lot of unpleasant things you would much rather leave undone. This is the air lots of women assume with their husbands and children – the injured air. They go a mile – oh, yes, two miles, or three – with their brows uplifted and their lips pursed up with “prunes and prisms,” and a very loud humility of manner. All of which brings the inconsiderate husband or children to time – for a time. They feel that they have committed the unpardonable sin, and hasten to humble themselves and make amends. But by and by they become hardened – and the last state is worse than the first. You see it is not so much the thing you do as the way you do it.

I said, before we understand and take command of ourselves, every thought passing through the mind either expands or contracts the solar center of being. We must learn to control the action of the Solar Plexus just as we learn to control the action of the fingers in learning to play the piano; by thought and careful exercise.

Anybody can play the piano who will, and anybody can learn self-control who really wants to. And when he really wants to he will. Until that time you might just as well let him alone. As long as a man prefers to let his Solar Plexus flop around like a weathercock on a squally day, registering all the silly, thoughtless or malicious things his neighbor may say, why just let him flop. He will get tired of such buffetings by and by, and begin to control himself and his “feelings.” Nobody can do it for him.

“Practice makes perfect.” He who puts in the most time in faith-full practice will accomplish most in the shortest time. The man who puts in an hour a day in practicing “concentration” exercises and then lives the remainder of his time on the old plane of resentment and resistance, will not make half the progress of the man who spends little or no time in “exercises,” but endeavors to put his good will into each act and thought of the day, every day in the week.

Every experience, little or big, is an “exercise” for developing concentration. You no more need special hours for the development than a cat needs two tails. Put your mind and good will into what you are doing, and re-put it every time you catch it flying the track.

Make up your mind to keep your light shining, your solar center expanded, no matter what happens or how you feel.” Of course you can’t do it at first, any more than you can play the piano by simply “making up your mind” to do it. Your hands will get out of position and your fingers will persist in being thumbs; but, nevertheless, if your mind is made up, you will keep at it until you teach your hands to keep their correct positions and your fingers to touch the keys daintily and truly, with scarcely a conscious thought.

Just so with the Solar Plexus; by practice you can teach your solar center to radiate Good Will, no matter what is happening outside of you or within, or how much your thought may be occupied with other things.

That is heaven, where I am. And the door is wide open – with “welcome” written above.

Let your light so shine that men may see your good works: -- your love-sun-shines – and glorify your I AM GOD which is heaven.