Tree of Life Lessons
Universal Tools of Man
Level 2 Lesson 4 Part 3
THE LAW III
THE NATURE OF BEING
Man became an individual the day he discovered he could think, plan and execute. Before that time, he had been an instinctive man possessed of an Inner Something, or Life, which is God in man, or the idea of God working through man; for the substance of God is all that is.
But man, as an individual using all his powers to build up a great "civilization", felt there was something missing--something greater than what he could see or could manifest. He was unhappy, sick, lonely and afraid. Most of his endeavors failed either soon or ultimately. Death crowned his life and work, he thought. He felt he had lost.
Thinking man asked the Great Question: "Why?"--his cry appeared to go forth into an empty nothingness; but the Instinctive Voice answered: "Man, know thyself." Man's response to that Voice led him to the discovery of Mind, and later, the Light of Christ.
Man had previously believed that it was the brain which thought, and when death stilled the brain, man would cease to think. Then, man came to know that the brain was merely the organ used for thinking while one was on the earthly plane and using the vehicle which is the human body. The brain, like all parts of the body, is used by the thinker and doer within each of us--unseen but quite obviously existent.
Since no part of the body can function without the thinker, it follows that no part of the body can be sick without the thinker (with the exception of the motor nerves and the automatic functions of the organs, which functional directions come from the Soul).
When man discovered the Mind, he began to understand memory as "the storehouse of all his conscious thoughts". This led him further to the discovery of the subconscious or unconscious mind, which is the product of memory, and the conscious mind--the one he uses all the time in his Self-conscious state.
Next came the discovery that it was the subconscious mind or Soul that kept the body going by acting on the thoughts of the conscious mind. So, it follows that a strong, conscious thought will cause the subconscious mind to do what that conscious thought directs.
Out of this came the greatest discovery of all: "God made me perfect, but He also made me an individual, which means that I can do with myself as I will. Each one of the organs of my body represents a perfect idea and form. I can will to make my body uncomfortable or to keep it perfect."
Each mental attitude could be traced to its physical correspondent. Thoughts of peace produced a peaceful condition. Thoughts of fear produced a disturbed condition. Confidence made him strong, while fear made him weak.
Man thus discovered the Law of Mind which is no more mysterious than the Law of Electricity and which operates with unexceptional infallibility.
The Law of Mind works like this: Always think of your body as being perfect, and you will always feel healthy. If your body appears to be sick and you are actually suffering, turn away from the sick body. Go back into Mind and think anew of the body as being perfect, saying: "I am perfect no matter what the appearance may be."
The Law of Mind works also on sickness which one really does not recognize as disease--nervousness, for example. This is a product of certain combinations of thought developed in the subconscious or unconscious mind. These subconscious ailments would disappear as one kept expressing the knowledge that he was perfect.
Then came the discovery that one could heal, not only himself (by thinking of himself as physically perfect), but he could heal others by the same process--even if they were some distance away.
Did that mean that one could fling his own thoughts from his mind into the mind and body of another--sometimes over vast distances? No. It meant that there was a Common Mind through which one's thoughts operate. What one thinks of as his own individual subjective mind is only the personal use he makes of the Universal Mind, or the Law of God.
(Scoffers may ponder the demonstrations by thought readers usually called "mind-reader" and the scientific proof of extra-sensory perception--ESP; but real ESP is more than mind-reading.)
Everybody admits that he can be affected adversely by the negative thoughts of persons around him. Thoughts of discouragement by those around us make us feel discouraged. (Remember wartime admonitions by hard-bitten political and military leaders that "defeatism is contagious.") Why, then, would not the positive thoughts of others act beneficially upon us?
To guard against the negative thoughts of others, one must learn to build around oneself a mental wall called "Divine Protection" which cannot be breached unless one chooses to let it be. This is the shell of your atmosphere and the determining of what shall come through it.
What if a person does not believe any of this? Since the process is mental, but there is Spirit, he cannot be healed. But this must not deter the believers from healing themselves--and others do believe. In so doing, they wait for the rest of the world to catch up, or, they set a good example of the Christ Jesus.
This Law works on the body of man. It also works on the conditions and affairs of man. It can, for example, change the conditions of poverty and failure into conditions of material sufficiency and success.
Yes--one can control his affairs by right thinking. Adverse conditions were never intended to be. They resulted from man's misuse of his power--from his incorrect thinking. It is within the power of every man to change his environment completely and heal his body completely. Whether or not he will do this depends entirely upon his own conviction, his own determination and his acceptance of the teachings of Jesus.
Something cannot come from nothing. Something must come from something; for there is no such thing as nothing.
Man is something, and the something from which he comes is GOD.
Man has a three-fold nature: (1) Conscious mind, (2) Subconscious mind, or mental law, and (3) Body. God is three-fold: (1) God as Self-knowing Spirit, (2) God as Law, or the way in which the Spirit works, and (3) God as Body, or the manifestation of the Spirit--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. At the same time, there is Unity--the One Unseen Cause, the One First Cause, the One God.
Let us take this further:
1. There is the Great Creator; for in unity in the Creator, the One Unseen Cause, is the Word that He, His whole Being, responded to.
2. There is the One First Cause--the Word the Creator gave to Jesus.
3. There is the One God, the Creator.
You can also see Him as:
1. God, the Self-knowing Spirit, or that which expresses His Personality.
2. God, the manifesting Word or Law, expressing in dense matter, or, the way in which the Spirit works--the Holy Spirit.
3. God, the Son, or the Great Christos.
Man, the three-fold nature:
1. Conscious Mind which is really a part of God.
2. Subconscious Mind, or recollections of Soul or Mental Laws.
3. Body--that which manifests your actions and thinking; for you are its Master--or are you?
At the beginning of human thought, man believed in many gods; but these were just the attributes of One God, and in many devils, or evil powers. As thought progressed, man came to believe in only One God, but also, in one devil. That was the theory of duality, and duality, of course, presupposes a universe divided against itself--the kind of universe that could not possibly hold together.
Duality is a cause of untold unhappiness, teaching as it does that the devil has as much power to curse as God has to bless, that there is damnation of Souls, and that there can be a God of vengeance and hate. The Father knows no evil.
The Truth is (as recognized by the great teachers and philosophers of all the ages) that there is One Power, One God, who has told us through the lips of those great teachers that we are Divine Beings made in the image of perfection with an endless destiny.
Creation is a continuous process--infinite and eternal--a process which always was and always will be.
The universe is alive with action and power, with energy and life, "world without end", "the same yesterday, today and forever", the Word in resounding glory.
