SK a hundred people if their lives had turned out to be what they wanted them to be, and probably not one in the hundred would answer affirmatively. Most people live dissatisfied lives, un-fulfilled in most aspects of their natures, but unable to decide what these aspects are or how to go about fulfilling them. They have turned out to be what they are because they have not chosen for themselves, but have allowed events and circumstances to decide for them. They have been molded by a million different sensual stimuli, and they will continue to be so molded as long as they fail to exercise their power of decision.
THE ONLY TRUE ACTION
Man’s only true action is his exercise of choice. How he grows and matures and the kind of person he becomes reside in the countless decisions he makes as he journeys through the years. The power of his choice is that it makes him what he becomes. It is the hub of a wheel of countless spokes, each spoke representing a way to be taken, and a man stands always in the center of an infinite number of possibilities. If his choice is made freely and consciously, then a man is enlightened and is consciously molding his own life. If his choice is made as a result of emotional response to the circum-stances in which he finds himself, then a man is an automaton and life is molding him. To become free of reaction and to initiate thought from within is the evolutionary goal of mankind. Once a person takes a step in this direction, no matter how small or tenta-tive, he is forever unchained. He has broken out of the reactionary prison of sensual response and has discovered the completely transforming fact that there resides within him a power to grow in any direction he chooses.
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A man can choose what he will think regardless of the circum-stances around him. He can choose whatever his consciousness will be focused upon, and thereby he can determine the direction in which he will grow. Whatever he thinks about he becomes in the end, and it is this astounding law that enables individuals to rise above their environment. A saint may emerge from the slums, a rich man from poverty, an enlightened mind out of ignorance, the leader of a nation out of an obscure log cabin. The history of man-kind is a record of the overcoming of obstacles. The person who refuses to accede to the limitations of his environment is led into such aspiration by the images that form in his mind. He wants something; wanting, visualizes; visualizing, is led into the action that will lead to materialization of his desire.
LINEAR THINKING
For the most part people are unaware of the fact that their lives are decided by the thoughts they think. They are inclined to feel that circumstances are either beyond their control or that power over them is gained only by an intrinsic knowledge of their physical workings. The ability of a man to affect his environment by the way that he feels has largely been lost sight of in the western world. Western education teaches us to be linear thinkers. We gain the overall idea of a thing by examining it piece by piece. Feeling or intuition is largely ignored. Education in the older societies of the east aimed at grasping an intuitional sense of the basic idea of a thing. The eastern athlete works at his event by feel, trying to grasp a sense of the entire motion. The western athlete is more likely to break down his event into a number of correlated small actions, a leg bent here, an arm crooked there, a hip turned here, a shoulder turned there. As a result, he tends to lose feel, and only constant repetition and practice allows proper action to seep into his sub-conscious so that eventually he can perform unthinkingly.
It is very difficult to teach someone to dance by drawing diagrams of the proper steps upon the floor, but a man who instinctively moves in rhythm to music hardly needs to be taught at all, so apt a pupil is he. The eastern musician uses only a rough notation on his sheet of music to remind him of the melody, preferring to play by feel. The more complicated method of western musicians is rep-resented by a double scale of notes and half notes, delineating completely both melody and harmony. This is not an apology for western methods of education, for the west produces its share of inspirational thinkers and instinctive athletes. This is only to say that the linear method of thinking, while proven effective in scien-tific investigation, is certainly not the only or even the best ap-proach to be used by the individual in dealing with his sur-roundings. Our contacts in our daily lives are so profuse that we never can hope to understand them by trying to understand their parts. We must rely for our perceptions on an awareness of each thing achieved by an intuitional understanding of it.
INTUITIVE THINKING
It is often said that banking is a cold-blooded, logical business, based entirely upon reason, but one of the leading bankers in the southwest recently electrified his audience when he told how his bank processed loan applications. Oh, the paper work was done, all right, a financial statement substantiated, receipts and expenditures examined, accounts receivable assessed, a record made of the ap-plicant’s background and capability in his business, but when all these factors had been considered the question that the president always asked the examining officer was this: “What kind of feeling do you get?” If the examining officer reported a favorable feeling, the loan was made; if he stated he had mixed feelings, the loan was tabled to be reconsidered later; if he said he had negative feelings, the loan was denied. So in one of our leading financial institutions ultimate decisions are being reached on the basis of intuition rather
than the reasoning power of the mind. It is interesting to note that the loss ratio of this particular bank is the lowest in the southwest.
In our society in the past, intuition simply has not been considered academically and philosophically respectable. Thus we have hardly begun to realize its possibilities. No doubt within its scope is the potential synthesis of all our more cumbersome calculations like mathematics, theology, metaphysics, logic. When we have learned to exercise our power of choice and to leave the working out of de-tails to a greater intelligence than is embodied in our conscious minds, we will have arrived at a position of complete psychic ef-fectiveness.
The power of choice is inseparably allied with the power to perce-ive. Things influence us according to the possibilities that we see in them, and we obviously cannot make a choice concerning that which we do not see. All possibilities are inherent in every situa-tion, but we see only those which our limited consciousness is able to perceive. The wider that consciousness, the more possibilities are apparent, and the more significant become the choices open to us. To the Supreme all possibilities are actualities. The Secret Self is engaged in creating infinite multiplicity out of its own essential oneness, and this is its delight, its inscrutable play. To the human being laid down amidst this incessant change, it is of paramount importance not to become static and to seek constant growth, so that the field of choice widens through the lifetime.
THE EXERCISE OF DIVINITY
The man who knows only one thing exercises no choice. He proceeds along a single path because he sees no other. All around him is an unknown forest, and to his limited vision it would be un-thinkable for him to veer off the pathway before him. Knowledge illuminates. The more we understand about our environment the less strange that environment appears. The more our consciousness
expands, the more likely we are to perceive the myriad pathways that lead off the road we currently are following. There are as many ways to arrive at salvation and effectiveness as there are dif-ferent people. The human soul is a direct opening into the world of things from the secret presence of universal self, incomplete, yes, partially manifested, yes, embarked upon a self-seeking journey called life, and this is the drama of existence and evolution being played out upon this mortal sphere.
To choose is to exercise divinity within. It is choice alone that is indicative of higher spiritual and mental development. By it we recognize both intellect and character. The person who is able to transcend the limitations and blandishments of the sensual world stands like a colossus on the evolutionary stage of life. He has li-kened himself to God by uncovering essential freedom within, through deciding the direction in which he will grow. Choice al-ways presupposes sacrifice, for one does not decide in favor of one thing without deciding against another. Nothing is ever achieved or gained without giving up something else. It is this law of sacrifice under which all things live, by which they grow and evolve and aspire. The acceptance and knowledge of sacrifice alleviates much pain, for when we truly understand that we can have one thing only by giving up another, we hold onto all possessions with loose hands, prepared to let them go at any time. They do not belong to us alone; they are ideas proceeding out of universal mind and therefore under the mutual ownership of everyone.
PAIN AND GROWTH
Life sometimes seems to bend us terrifically, to put us under a strain we scarcely are able to bear, to involve us in conflicts that are beyond our scope to solve; but we are what we are only be-cause we aspire to be greater, and the obstacles and the pain we meet with in life are only the result of our efforts to break out of the encysting shell of the ego and to grow outward in effectiveness
and understanding. “The Archer,” writes Kahlil Gibran, “sees the mark upon the path of the Infinite, and He bends you with His might, that His arrows may go swift and far.” The ends of things do not reveal themselves to the finite mind of man, are only par-tially available to his intuitive faculties and then only insofar as he understands that life’s goals and methods are in the hands of a greater power than he. His real vocation is to fathom his relation-ship to this power, to develop complete faith and trust in it, to real-ize that nothing rests in his own hands except the determination of the direction in which he will grow.
Choice implies freedom, and whether man is free or an automaton has long been a favorite argument of religious sects and philoso-phers. Any power capable of creating the world and overseeing the orderly process of evolution must know exactly where it is going and how it intends to get there. Its course cannot possibly be al-tered by any one of the finite minds it has created. All the events that have happened in the world must have been preordained, for only through their orderly occurrence has it been possible for life to take the direction it has taken. Yet within the absolutely rigid scope of the occurrence of these events the individual is free, be-cause he has innate within him the power to assume any of the roles that have to be played within any event; and it is he, himself, who chooses in the end the role he will play. Since the universal self creates all things from itself it is in actual truth all things, and therefore does not consider life in terms of people but only in terms of events. Events would approximate thoughts in the mind of a su-preme being, whose split into myriad manifestations would be to insure that it participated in all areas of each event in a form best suited to that participation. Thus the Secret Self permeates all events, and the countless forms it assumes, the multiplicity of masks that it dons to play its various roles, appear separate and unique only to other incompletely manifested beings, never to it-self.
FREEING PSYCHIC ENERGY
Our egoistic sense of separateness is an illusion deliberately fos-tered in our mental and psychic makeup so that we are able to per-form within the scope of the kind of people we are. Yet there is no absolute decree that we must do so, for at the same time that the il-lusion was fostered in us, power to break it was implanted also. By recognizing our ability to condition our own consciousness we can expand that consciousness to encompass any role we choose to play, and that is why we inherently are free and why each man car-ries within him power to master his own fate.
Decision looses a terrific psychic energy. It frees within us poten-tialities and possibilities we are not even aware of. To make up your mind is a wondrous thing. It directs you toward your mental image, sets you on the path to its realization with an energy that springs out of subterranean recesses. Whatever you do you will do twice as well if you make up your mind what you wish to accom-plish. Even such a simple thing as trying to cross a street becomes easier once you make up your mind that you will not attempt it un-til there is a break in the traffic. You will not stamp the pavement then, apprehensively watching the approaching cars with an eye toward making a sudden spurt. You will know that such energy is wasted. You will stand patiently, serene and sure, because you have made up your mind. Every task in life can be likened to this simple illustration.
The man who enters into activity without making up his mind what he wants to do and how he wishes to accomplish it wastes his energies considering unsuitable possibilities as he proceeds. Some people say that to make up your mind gives you tunnel vision; you never alter course because you cannot see your surroundings. But all possibilities are inherent in all situations at all times. They exist in each situation before we enter it. Only those possibilities appear to us that we are able to envisage in our minds, but the picture we
have should be the result of our choice. People to whom possibili-ties appear other than the one they set out to accomplish are those who have not made definite decisions; they have allowed the im-ages in their minds to change and this changing alters the situation in which they find themselves.
DECIDE AND THE TOOLS ARE GIVEN
Decision is such an important part of everyday living. The coach before his team in the locker room attempts to inculcate in each member of that team a decision to win. Failure to make this deci-sion is almost certain to result in defeat, for without it the pictures that form in the mind are too easily changed in favor of defeat when negative circumstances develop. When you decide to accom-plish something you mentally toughen yourself to undergo the ri-gors and privations necessary to attaining the goal. This, above all, calls for tough-mindedness. The athlete who makes up his mind that he will swim the English Channel has to make up his mind at the same time that he will continue swimming, no matter how tired he gets. If he makes a decision to swim the channel and that deci-sion does not include a knowledge of the tiredness he is bound to encounter, then he has not truly made a decision at all, and the first time tiredness seeps through to his consciousness, pictures form of not swimming the channel, and he is finished.
The kind of mental picture that assures success is the kind that is set into the mind with a conviction that is unshakable, that survives all onslaughts, obstacles, detours. Such inner conviction inspires great courage and energy. It is the mental picture held by all who achieve and accomplish, who get things done. Many people think they want things, but simply do not have sufficient desire to main-tain their mental image in the face of negative circumstances. One has to want something badly in order to persevere in the face of misfortune and defeat. If we accept the sidetracking of our plans as evidence that they never will be realized, then it is a certainty that
we never will accomplish anything. No path is easy except one that leads downhill. If we aspire, we must climb, and climbing takes ef-fort and sweat and a willingness to continue in the face of all dif-ficulties. A man climbs a mountain not just because the mountain is there but because he wants to get to the top. It is this inner in-stinct to overcome obstacles, to rise above circumstance, to win out over all odds, that has carried life on its triumphal emergence from amoeba to spaceman.
MENTAL TOUGHNESS
We have to be tough with ourselves because it is easy to sink into lethargy and forget our aspirations. If we want to hitch a ride on life’s express and really go somewhere, we have to be prepared to be shaken up en route; we have to know we will undergo pain, and we have to be prepared to endure it. All of us are inclined to be too soft with ourselves. We want to be sure that we don’t work too hard, that we guard against tension, but the truth is that a man makes himself strong by lifting weights, by entering conflict. We achieve physical health by exercise, by the constant use of our bo-dies to reach some goal. We achieve mental health by the same path, by keeping our mental efforts bent on learning, by always seeking to grow. Sleep is a panacea and one of nature’s wonders, but worlds are never conquered by men who lie abed, only by
We have to be tough with ourselves because it is easy to sink into lethargy and forget our aspirations. If we want to hitch a ride on life’s express and really go somewhere, we have to be prepared to be shaken up en route; we have to know we will undergo pain, and we have to be prepared to endure it. All of us are inclined to be too soft with ourselves. We want to be sure that we don’t work too hard, that we guard against tension, but the truth is that a man makes himself strong by lifting weights, by entering conflict. We achieve physical health by exercise, by the constant use of our bo-dies to reach some goal. We achieve mental health by the same path, by keeping our mental efforts bent on learning, by always seeking to grow. Sleep is a panacea and one of nature’s wonders, but worlds are never conquered by men who lie abed, only by