CREATIVE WORK IS A PRAYER

Harry worked as a bank clerk, and in his late twenties was aware of a gnawing dissatisfaction with life. He thought it was because he wasn’t getting ahead, and he certainly felt that he had little talent for his job. Day after day he arose at the same hour, fixed his breakfast in his small apartment, took the bus to work, sat at a small desk behind a low iron railing, ate his lunch at the same res-taurant, returned home at night to an evening of reading before going to bed. The monotony of this existence, its lack of creativity,

palled on him. He became anti-social, was irritable and resentful to those about him. Returning home from work one day, he sprinted after a departing bus, slipped, fell under the wheels. Both legs were crushed, had to be amputated. When Harry returned to full con-sciousness after weeks of hovering near death and learned how the world had tumbled about his shoulders, he exhibited a strange reaction. Instead of being overcome by despair, he actually seemed happy. When asked about it, he replied, “I don’t really know why, but for some reason I feel that now I can really be myself. I’ve lost part of my physical body, but gained something else, I think.”

After Harry was discharged from the hospital he took a cottage at the beach where he lived on a small income derived from insur-ance. He began to write. He sat all day in a chair, propped up be-fore a typewriter, and turned out reams of copy. After a while, some of it was published. Within three years, he was comfortably augmenting his income. Even more marked than his success as a writer was his transformation as an individual. He was radiant. His clear eyes focused far away as he spoke of what his creativeness meant to him.

“It’s religious,” he said. “Like praying, I think. It’s like being vi-sited each day by a supreme mind that works through you because it needs you to do a particular work. I sit here all day in my little house, apparently all alone, but I must tell you that I feel more needed now than I ever have felt before in my life.”

He gestured toward the manuscript scattered around the room. “All this has been done through me. It doesn’t matter whether people think it’s great or mediocre or even poor. It has been done by a power greater than I am, and this power works through me.” The joy on Harry’s face was testimony to the tremendous spiritual transformation that had taken place within him. “I lost everything,”

he continued, “my job, my health, my legs, but in losing them I found something of far greater importance. I learned that material

things, even limbs of the body, are unimportant. The main thing in life is that a man should awaken to his true self and serve that self all his hours. This I have been privileged to do.” He laughed then and showed his humor was still with him. “But I don’t recommend that you cut off your legs to do it.”

INDOMITABLENESS

In every conflict there are a few people who exhibit staying power, and this staying power nearly always represents the difference be-tween the champion and the also-ran. Boldness of spirit and tenaci-ty of purpose attend the man who acts in accord with his own na-ture. Confusion destroys purpose. The man who takes a stand clears away doubt and is able to act on his problem in harmony with all sides of his nature. He gets things done. His optimistic good nature survives in the face of all odds. Despair and gloom find no handholds on his soul; he casts them out of his nature by the simple psychological decision to perform at the behest of the will of the Secret Self.

Everyone cheers the underdog. A man who refuses to quit, who keeps on trying in the face of defeat, who does his best against su-perior forces, unloosens within us a sympathetic chord that is tied deep to subconscious racial memories. We all are aware that life is not easy, that the lessons it teaches are learned through pain and tension, and we recognize that the tempered stuff of which the en-lightened man is made has been subjected to fire, that he only has survived at all through courage and perseverance. Greater than courage is tenacity, the willingness to stick in there and keep try-ing. By this patient and determined positioning of ourselves in life, barred doors eventually open and stone walls dissolve. A drop of water persistently applied wears away granite. Tender flowers lift their petals to the sun through solid concrete. Nothing resists per-sistent effort, and tenacity is the sine qua non of achievement.

We must not let circumstances influence our thinking. The appear-ance of obstacles must not cause us to lose heart. We must have faith in our basic position, know that we are capable of doing any-thing and being anyany-thing we can visualize. The same animating presence is within us as is within every obstacle, and we need only understand our true relationship with each in order to perform ef-fectively. An inner knowing is necessary to effective action. We cannot even reach down and pick up a piece of paper unless we first visualize the action in our mind, with complete surety that we can perform it. This inner knowing is compounded of equal parts of faith and intuition. The image is born of intuition and faith holds it in the mind. Our development as individuals only comes when we encounter opposition. Recognizing this, we will find ourselves thankful for our times of pressure and pain, for then we are being urged to higher consciousness.