One of the great axioms in the new order of ideas, of which I
have spoken, is that our Thought possesses creative power, and
since the whole superstructure depends on this foundation, it is
well to examine it carefully. Now the starting point is to see
that Thought, or purely mental action, is the only possible
source from which the existing creation could ever have come into
manifestation at all, and it is on this account that in the
preceding addresses I have laid stress on the origin of the
cosmos. It is therefore not necessary to go over this ground
again, and we will start this morning's enquiry on the assumption
that every manifestation is in essence the expression of a Divine
Thought. This being so, our own mind is the expression of a
Divine Thought. The Divine Thought has produced something which
itself is capable of thinking; but the question is whether its
thinking has the same creative quality as that of the Parent
Mind.
Now by the very hypothesis of the case the whole Creative Process
consists in the continual pressing so forward of the Universal
Spirit for expression through the individual and particular, and
Spirit in its different modes is therefore the Life and Substance
of the universe. Hence it follows that if there is to be an
expression of thinking power it can only be by expressing the
same thinking power which subsists latent in the Originating
Spirit. If it were less than this it would only be some sort of
mechanism and would not be thinking power, so that to be thinking
power at all it must be identical in kind with that of the
Originating Spirit. It is for this reason that man is said to be
created in the image and likeness of God; and if we realize that
it is impossible for him to be otherwise, we shall find a firm
foundation from which to draw many important deductions.
But if our thought possesses this creative power, why are we
hampered by adverse conditions? The answer is, because hitherto
we have used our power invertedly. We have taken the starting
point of our thought from external facts and consequently created
a repetition of facts of a similar nature, and so long as we do
this we must needs go on perpetuating the old circle of
limitation. And, owing to the sensitiveness of the subconscious
mind to suggestion--(See Edinburgh Lectures, chapter V.)--we are
subject to a very powerful negative influence from those who are
unacquainted with affirmative principles, and thus race-beliefs
and the thought-currents of our more immediate environment tend
to consolidate our own inverted thinking. It is therefore not
surprising that the creative power of our thought, thus used in a
wrong direction, has produced the limitations of which we
complain. The remedy, then, is by reversing our method of
thinking, and instead of taking external facts as our starting
point, taking the inherent nature of mental power as our starting
point. We have already gained two great steps in this direction,
first by seeing that the whole manifested cosmos could have had
its origin nowhere but in mental power, and secondly by realizing
that our own mental power must be the same in kind with that of
the Originating Mind.
Now we can go a step further and see how this power in ourselves
can be perpetuated and intensified. By the nature of the creative
process your mind is itself a thought of the Parent Mind; so, as
long as this thought of the Universal Mind subsists, you will
subsist, for you are it. But so long as you think this thought it
continues to subsist, and necessarily remains present in the
Divine Mind, thus fulfilling the logical conditions required for
the perpetuation of the individual life. A poor analogy of the
process may be found in a self-influencing dynamo where the
magnetism generates the current and the current intensifies the
magnetism with the result of producing a still stronger current
until the limit of saturation is reached; only in the substantive
infinitude of the Universal Mind and the potential infinitude of
the Individual Mind there is no limit of saturation. Or we may
compare the interaction of the two minds to two mirrors, a great
and a small one, opposite each other, with the word "Life"
engraved on the large one. Then, by the law of reflection, the
word "Life" will also appear on the image of the smaller mirror
reflected in the greater. Of course these are only very imperfect
analogies; but if you car once grasp the idea of your own
individuality as a thought in the Divine Mind which is able to
perpetuate itself by thinking of itself as the thought which it
is, you have got at the root of the whole matter, and by the same
process you will not only perpetuate your life but will also
expand it.
When we realize this on the one hand, and on the other that all
external conditions, including the body, are produced by thought,
we find ourselves standing between two infinites, the infinite of
Mind and the infinite of Substance--from both of which we can
draw what we will, and mould specific conditions out of the
Universal Substance by the Creative Power which we draw in from
the Universal Mind. But we must recollect that this is not by the
force of personal will upon the substance, which is an error that
will land us in all sorts of inversion, but by realizing our mind
as a channel through which the Universal Mind operates upon
substances in a particular way, according to the mode of thought
which we are seeking to embody. If, then, our thought is
habitually concentrated upon principles rather than on particular
things, realizing that principles are nothing else than the
Divine Mind in operation, we shall find that they will
necessarily germinate to produce their own expression in
corresponding facts, thus verifying the words of the Great
Teacher, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness
and all these things shall be added unto you."
But we must never lose sight of the reason for the creative power
of our thought, that it is because our mind is itself a thought
of the Divine Mind, and that consequently our increase in
livingness and creative power must be in exact proportion to our
perception of our relation to the Parent Mind. In such
considerations as these is to be found the philosophical basis of
the Bible doctrine of "Sonship," with its culmination in the
conception of the Christ. These are not mere fancies but the
expression of strictly scientific principles, in their
application to the deepest problems of the individual life; and
their basis is that each one's world, whether in or out of the
flesh, must necessarily be created by his own consciousness, and,
in its turn, his mode of consciousness will necessarily take its
colour front his conception of his relation to the Divine Mind--
to the exclusion of light and colour, if he realizes no Divine
Mind, and to their building up into forms of beauty in proportion
as he realizes his identity of being with that All-Originating
Spirit which is Light, Love, and Beauty in itself. Thus the great
creative work of Thought in each of us is to make us consciously
"sons and daughters of the Almighty," realizing that by our
divine origin we can never be really separated from the Parent
Mind which is continually seeking expression through us, and that
any apparent separation is due to our own misconception of the
true nature of the inherent relation between the Universal and
the Individual. This is the lesson which the Great Teacher has so
luminously out before us in the parable of the Prodigal Son.