Higher Powers of Mind & Spirit

We are all dwellers in two kingdoms, the inner kingdom, the kingdom of the mind and spirit, and the outer kingdom, that of the body and the physical universe about us. In the former, the kingdom of the unseen, lie the silent, subtle forces that are continually determining, and with exact precision, the conditions of the latter.

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Excerpt:

To strike the right balance in life is one of the supreme essentials of all successful living. We must work, for we must have bread. We require other things than bread. They are not only valuable, comfortable, but necessary. It is a dumb, stolid being, however, who does not realize that life consists of more than these. They spell mere existence, not abundance, fullness of life.

We can become so absorbed in making a living that we have no time for living. To be capable and efficient in one's work is a splendid thing; but efficiency can be made a great mechanical device that robs life of far more than it returns it. A nation can become so possessed, and even obsessed, with the idea of power and grandeur through efficiency and organisation, that it becomes a great machine and robs its people of the finer fruits of life that spring from a wisely subordinated and coordinated individuality. Here again it is the wise balance that determines all.

Our prevailing thoughts and emotions determine, and with absolute accuracy, the prevailing conditions of our outward, material life, and likewise the prevailing conditions of our bodily life. Would we have any conditions different in the latter we must then make the necessary changes in the former. The silent, subtle forces of mind and spirit, ceaselessly at work, are continually moulding these outward and these bodily conditions.

Our prevailing thoughts and emotions determine, and with absolute accuracy, the prevailing conditions of our outward, material life, and likewise the prevailing conditions of our bodily life. Would we have any conditions different in the latter we must then make the necessary changes in the former. The silent, subtle forces of mind and spirit, ceaselessly at work, are continually moulding these outward and these bodily conditions.

He makes a fundamental error who thinks that these are mere sentimental things in life, vague and intangible. They are, as great numbers are now realising, the great and elemental things in life, the only things that in the end really count. The normal man or woman can never find real and abiding satisfaction in the mere possessions, the mere accessories of life. There is an eternal something within that forbids it. That is the reason why, of late years, so many of our big men of affairs, so many in various public walks in life, likewise many women of splendid equipment and with large possessions, have been and are turning so eagerly to the very things we are considering. To be a mere huckster, many of our big men are finding, cannot bring satisfaction, even though his operations run into millions in the year.

And happy is the young man or the young woman who, while the bulk of life still lies ahead, realises that it is the things of the mind and the spirit-the fundamental things in life-that really count; that here lie the forces that are to be understood and to be used in moulding the everyday conditions and affairs of life; that the springs of life are all from within, that as is the inner so always and inevitably will be the outer.

To present certain facts that may be conducive to the realisation of this more abundant life is the author's purpose and plan.

A similar process, of course, is the change of situation in the strawberry dream at the exact moment when the affair begins to seem unpleasant to the dreamer. This becoming unpleasant can be beautifully followed out in the parable. The critical transition is found exactly in one of those places where the representation appears most confused. It is in this way that the weakest points of the dream surface are usually constituted. Those are the places where the outer covering is threadbare and exposes a nakedness to the view of the analyzer.

The critical phase of the parable begins in the 11th section. The elders consult over a letter from the faculty. The wanderer notices that the contents concern him and asks, "Gentlemen, does it have to do with me?" They answer, "Yes, you must marry your woman that you have recently taken." Wanderer: "That is no trouble; for I was, so to speak, born [how subtle!] with her and brought up from childhood with her." Now the secret of the incest is almost divulged. But it is at once effectually retracted. In Sec. 12 we read, "So my previous trouble and toil fell upon me and I bethought myself that from strange causes [these strange causes are the dream censor who, ruling in the unconscious, effects the displacements that follow], it cannot concern me but another that is well known to me [in truth a well-known other].

Then I see our bridegroom with his bride in the previous attire going to that place ready and prepared for copulation and I was highly delighted with it. For I was in great anxiety lest the affair should concern me." The anxiety is quite comprehensible. It is just on account of its appearance that the displacement from the wanderer to the other person takes place.