The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science - Thomas Troward
I have dealt with this question at some length because it affords the key
to two very important subjects, the Law of Supply and the nature of
Intuition. Students often find it easier to understand how the mind can
influence the body with which it is so intimately associated, than how it
can influence circumstances. If the operation of thought-power were
confined exclusively to the individual mind this difficulty might arise;
but if there is one lesson the student of Mental Science should take to
heart more than another, it is that the action of thought-power is not
limited to a circumscribed individuality. What the individual does is to
_give direction_ to something which is unlimited, to call into action a
force infinitely greater than his own, which because it is in itself
impersonal though intelligent, will receive the impress of his personality,
and can therefore make its influence felt far beyond the limits which bound
the individual's objective perception of the circumstances with which he
has to deal. It is for this reason that I lay so much stress on the
combination of two apparent opposites in the Universal Mind, the union of
intelligence with impersonality. The intelligence not only enables it to
receive the impress of our thought, but also causes it to devise exactly
the right _means_ for bringing it into accomplishment. This is only the
logical result of the hypothesis that we are dealing with infinite
Intelligence which is also infinite Life. Life means Power, and infinite
life therefore means limitless power; and limitless power moved by
limitless intelligence cannot be conceived of as ever stopping short of the
accomplishment of its object; therefore, given the _intention_ on the part
of the Universal Mind, there can be no doubt as to its ultimate
accomplishment. Then comes the question of intention. How do we know what
the intention of the Universal Mind may be? Here comes in the element of
impersonality. It has _no intention_, because it is _impersonal_. As I have
already said, the Universal mind works by a law of averages for the
advancement of the race, and is in no way concerned with the particular
wishes of the individual. If his wishes are in line with the forward
movement of the everlasting principle, there is nowhere in Nature any power
to restrict him in their fulfilment. If they are opposed to the general
forward movement, then they will bring him into collision with it, and it
will crush him. From the relation between them it results that the same
principle which shows itself in the individual mind as Will, becomes in the
universal mind a Law of Tendency; and the direction of this tendency must
always be to life-givingness, because the universal mind is the
undifferentiated Life-spirit of the universe. Therefore in every case the
test is whether our particular intention is in this same lifeward
direction: and if it is, then we may be absolutely certain that there is no
intention on the part of the Universal Mind to thwart the intention of our
own individual mind; we are dealing with a purely impersonal force, and it
will no more oppose us by specific plans of its own than will steam or
electricity. Combining then, these two aspects of the Universal Mind, its
utter impersonality and its perfect intelligence, we find precisely the
sort of natural force we are in want of, something which will undertake
whatever we put into its hands without asking questions or bargaining for
terms, and which, having undertaken our business, will bring to bear on it
an intelligence to which the united knowledge of the whole human race is as
nothing, and a power equal to this intelligence. I may be using a rough and
ready mode of expression, but my object is to bring home to the student the
nature of the power he can employ and the method of employing it, and I may
therefore state the whole position thus:--Your object is not to run the
whole cosmos, but to draw particular benefits, physical, mental, moral, or
financial into your own or someone else's life. From this individual point
of view the universal creative power has no mind of its own, and therefore
you can make up its mind for it. When its mind is thus made up for it, it
never abrogates its place as the creative power, but at once sets to work
co carry out the purpose for which it has thus been concentrated; and
unless this concentration is dissipated by the same agency (yourself) which
first produced it, it will work on by the law of growth to complete
manifestation on the outward plane.
In dealing with this great impersonal intelligence, we are dealing with the
infinite, and we must fully realize infinitude as that which touches all
points, and if it does, there should be no difficulty in understanding that
this intelligence can draw together the means requisite for its purpose
even from the ends of the world; and therefore, realizing the Law according
to which the result can be produced, we must resolutely put aside all
questioning as to the specific means which will be employed in any case. To
question this is to sow that very seed of doubt which it is our first
object to eradicate, and our intellectual endeavour should therefore be
directed, not to the attempt to foretell the various secondary causes which
will eventually combine to produce the desired result, laying down
beforehand what particular causes should be necessary, and from what
quarter they should come; but we should direct our intellectual endeavour
to seeing more clearly the rationale of the general law by which trains of
secondary causes are set in motion. Employed in the former way our
intellect becomes the greatest hindrance to our success, for it only helps
to increase our doubts, since it is trying to grasp particulars which, at
the time are entirely outside its circle of vision; but employed in the
latter it affords the most material aid in maintaining that nucleus without
which there is no centre from which the principle of growth can assert
itself. The intellect can only deduce consequences from facts which it is
able to state, and consequently cannot deduce any assurance from facts of
whose existence it cannot yet have any knowledge through the medium of the
outward senses; but for the same reason it can realize the existence of a
_Law_ by which the as yet unmanifested circumstances may be brought into
manifestation. Thus used in its right order, the intellect becomes the
handmaid of that more interior power within us which manipulates the unseen
substance of all things, and which we may call relative first cause.
IX.
CAUSES AND CONDITIONS.
The expression "_relative_ first cause" has been used in the last section
to distinguish the action of the creative principle in the _individual_
mind from Universal First Cause on the one hand and from secondary causes
on the other. As it exists in _us_, primary causation is the power to
initiate a train of causation directed to an individual purpose. As the
power of initiating a fresh sequence of cause and effect it is first cause,
and as referring to an individual purpose it is relative, and it may
therefore be spoken of as relative first cause, or the power of primary
causation manifested by the individual. The understanding and use of this
power is the whole object of Mental Science, and it is therefore necessary
that the student should clearly see the relation between causes and
conditions. A simple illustration will go further for this purpose than any
elaborate explanation. If a lighted candle is brought into a room the room
becomes illuminated, and if the candle is taken away it becomes dark again.
Now the illumination and the darkness are both conditions, the one positive
resulting from the presence of the light, and the other negative resulting
from its absence: from this simple example we therefore see that every
positive condition has an exactly opposite negative condition corresponding
to it, and that this correspondence results from their being related to the
_same cause_, the one positively and the other negatively; and hence we may
lay down the rule that all positive conditions result from the active
presence of a certain cause, and all negative conditions from the absence
of such a cause. A condition, whether positive or negative, is never
_primary_ cause, and the _primary_ cause of any series can never be
negative, for negation is the condition which arises from the absence of
active causation. This should be thoroughly understood as it is the
philosophic basis of all those "denials" which play so important a, part in
Mental Science, and which may be summed up in the statement that evil being
negative, or privation of good, has no substantive existence in itself.
Conditions, however, whether positive or negative, are no sooner called
into existence than they become causes in their turn and produce further
conditions, and so on _ad infinitum_, thus giving rise to the whole train
of secondary causes. So long as we judge only from the information conveyed
to us by the outward senses, we are working on the plane of secondary
causation and see nothing but a succession of conditions, forming part of
an endless train of antecedent conditions coming out of the past and
stretching away into the future, and from this point of view we are under
the rule of an iron destiny from which there seems no possibility of
escape. This is because the outward senses are only capable of dealing with
the relations which one mode of limitation bears to another, for they are
the instruments by which we take cognizance of the relative and the
conditioned. Now the only way of escape is by rising out of the region of
secondary causes into that of primary causation, where the originating
energy is to be found before it has yet passed into manifestation as a
condition. This region is to be found _within ourselves_; it is the region
of pure ideas; and it is for this reason that I have laid stress on the two
aspects of spirit as pure thought and manifested form. The thought-image or
ideal pattern of a thing is the _first cause_ relatively to that thing; it
is the substance of that thing untrammelled, by any antecedent conditions.
If we realize that all visible things _must_ have their origin in spirit,
then the whole creation around us is the standing evidence that the
starting-point of all things is in thought-images or ideas, for no other
action than the formation of such images can be conceived of spirit prior
to its manifestation in matter. If, then, this is spirit's modus operandi
for self-expression, we have only to transfer this conception from the
scale of cosmic spirit working on the plane of the universal to that of
individualized spirit working on the plane of the particular, to see that
the formation of an ideal image by means of our thought is setting first
cause in motion with regard to this specific object. There is no difference
in kind between the operation of first cause in the universal and in the
particular, the difference is only a difference of scale, but the power
itself is identical. We must therefore always be very clear as to whether
we are _consciously_ using first cause or not. Note the word "consciously"
because, whether consciously or unconsciously, we are always using first
cause; and it was for this reason I emphasized the fact that the Universal
Mind is purely subjective and therefore bound by the laws which apply to
subjective mind on whatever scale. Hence we are _always_ impressing some
sort of ideas upon it, whether we are aware of the fact or not, and all our
existing limitations result from our having habitually impressed upon it
that idea of limitation which we have imbibed by restricting all
possibility to the region of secondary causes. But now when investigation
has shown us that conditions are never causes in _themselves_, but only the
subsequent links of a chain started on the plane of the pure ideal, what we
have to do is to reverse our method of thinking and regard the ideal as the
real, and the outward manifestation as a mere reflection which must change
with every change of the object which casts it. For these reasons it is
essential to know whether we are consciously making use of first cause with
a definite purpose or not, and the criterion is this. If we regard the
fulfilment of our purpose as contingent upon any _circumstances_, past,
present, or future, we are not making use of first cause; we have descended
to the level of secondary causation, which is the region of doubts, fears,
and limitations, all of which we are impressing upon the universal
subjective mind with the inevitable result that it will build up
corresponding external conditions. But if we realize that the region of
secondary causes is the region of mere reflections we shall not think of
our purpose as contingent on any conditions whatever, but shall know that
by forming the idea of it in the absolute, and maintaining that idea, we
have shaped the first cause into the desired form and can await the result
with cheerful expectancy.
It is here that we find the importance of realizing spirit's independence
of time and space. An ideal, as such, cannot be formed in the future. It
must either be formed here and now or not be formed at all; and it is for
this reason that every teacher, who has ever spoken with due knowledge of
the subject, has impressed upon his followers the necessity of picturing to
themselves the fulfilment of their desires as _already accomplished_ on the
spiritual plane, as the indispensable condition of fulfilment in the
visible and concrete.
When this is properly understood, any anxious thought as to the _means_ to
be employed in the accomplishment of our purposes is seen to be quite
unnecessary. If the end is already secured, then it follows that all the
steps leading to it are secured also. The means will pass into the smaller
circle of our conscious activities day by day in due order, and then we
have to work upon them, not with fear, doubt, or feverish excitement, but
calmly and joyously, because we _know_ that the end is already secured, and
that our reasonable use of such means as present themselves in the desired
direction is, only one portion of a much larger co-ordinated movement, the
final result of which admits of no doubt. Mental Science does not offer a
premium to idleness, but it takes, all work out of the region of anxiety
and toil by assuring the worker of the success of his labour, if not in the
precise form he anticipated, then in some other still better suited to his
requirements. But suppose, when we reach a point where some momentous
decision has to be made, we happen to decide wrongly? On the hypothesis
that the end is already secured you cannot decide wrongly. Your right
decision is as much one of the necessary steps in the accomplishment of the
end as any of the other conditions leading up to it, and therefore, while
being careful to avoid rash action, we may make sure that the same Law
which is controlling the rest of the circumstances in the right direction
will influence our judgment in that direction also. To get good results we
must properly understand our relation to the great impersonal power we are
using. It is intelligent and we are intelligent, and the two intelligences
must co-operate. We must not fly in the face of the Law by expecting it to
do _for_ us what it can only do _through_ us; and we must therefore use our
intelligence with the knowledge that it is acting _as the instrument of a
greater intelligence_; and because we have this knowledge we may, and
should, cease from all anxiety as to the final result. In actual practice
we must first form the ideal conception of our object with the definite
intention of impressing it upon the universal mind--it is this intention
which takes such thought out of the region of mere casual fancies--and then
affirm that our knowledge of the Law is sufficient reason for a calm
expectation of a corresponding result, and that therefore all necessary
conditions will come to us in due order. We can then turn to the affairs of
our daily life with the calm assurance that the initial conditions are
either there already or will soon come into view. If we do not at once see
them, let us rest content with the knowledge that the spiritual prototype
is already in existence and wait till some circumstance pointing in the
desired direction begins to show itself. It may be a very small
circumstance, but it is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be
taken into consideration. As soon as we see it we should regard it as the
first sprouting of the seed we have sown in the Absolute, and do calmly,
and without excitement, whatever the circumstances may seem to require, and
then later on we shall see that this doing will in turn lead to further
circumstances in the same direction until we find ourselves conducted step
by step to the accomplishment of our object. In this way the understanding
of the great principle of the Law of Supply will, by repeated experiences,
deliver us more and more completely out of the region of anxious thought
and toilsome labour and bring us into a new world where the useful
employment of all our powers, whether mental or physical, will only be an
unfolding of our individuality upon the lines of its own nature, and
therefore a perpetual source of health and happiness; a sufficient
inducement, surely, to the careful study of the laws governing the relation
between the individual and the Universal Mind.
X.
INTUITION.
We have seen that the subjective mind is amenable to suggestion by the
objective mind; but there is also an action of the subjective mind upon the
objective. The individual's subjective mind is his own innermost self, and
its first care is the maintenance of the individuality of which it is the
foundation; and since it is pure spirit it has its continual existence in
that plane of being where all things subsist in the universal here and the
everlasting now, and consequently can, inform the lower mind of things
removed from its ken either by distance or futurity. As the absence of the
conditions of time and space must logically concentrate all things into a
present focus, we can assign no limit to the subjective mind's power of
perception, and therefore the question arises, why does it not keep the
objective mind continually informed on all points? And the answer is that
it would do so if the objective mind were sufficiently trained to recognize
the indications given, and to effect this training is one of the purposes
of Mental Science. When once we recognize the position of the subjective
mind as the supporter of the whole individuality we cannot doubt that much
of what we take to be the spontaneous movement of the objective mind has
its origin in the subjective mind prompting the objective mind in the right
direction without our being consciously aware of it. But at times when the
urgency of the case seems to demand it, or when, for some reason yet
unknown, the objective mind is for a while more closely _en rapport_ with
the subjective mind, the interior voice is heard strongly and persistently;
and when this is the case we do well to pay heed to it. Want of space
forbids me to give examples, but doubtless such will not be wanting in the
reader's experience.
The importance of understanding and following the intuition cannot be
exaggerated, but I candidly admit the great practical difficulty of keeping
the happy mean between the disregard of the interior voice and allowing
ourselves to be run away with by groundless fancies. The best guide is the
knowledge that comes of personal experience which gradually leads to the
acquisition of a sort of inward sense of touch that enables us to
distinguish the true from the false, and which appears to grow with the
sincere desire for truth and with the recognition of the spirit as its
source. The only general principles the writer can deduce from his own
experience are that when, in spite of all appearances pointing in the
direction of a certain line of conduct, there is still a persistent
_feeling_ that it should not be followed, in the majority of instances it
will be found that the argument of the objective mind, however correct on
the facts objectively known, was deficient from ignorance of facts which
could not be objectively known at the time, but which were known to the
intuitive faculty. Another principle is that our _very first_ impression
of feeling on any subject is generally correct. Before the objective mind
has begun to argue on the subject it is like the surface of a smooth lake
which clearly reflects the light from above; but as soon as it begins to
argue from outside appearances these also throw their reflections upon its
surface, so that the original image becomes blurred and is no longer
recognizable. This first conception is very speedily lost, and it should
therefore be carefully observed and registered in the memory with a view to
testing the various arguments which will subsequently arise on the
objective plane. It is however impossible to reduce so interior an action
as that of the intuition to the form of hard and fast rules, and beyond
carefully noting particular cases as they occur, probably the best plan for
the student will be to include the whole subject of intuition in the
general principle of the Law of Attraction, especially if he sees how this
law interacts with that personal quality of universal spirit of which we
have already spoken.
XI.
HEALING.
The subject of healing has been elaborately treated by many writers and
fully deserves all the attention that has been given to it, but the object
of these lectures is rather to ground the student in those general
principles on which _all_ conscious use of the creative power of thought is
based, than to lay down formal rules for specific applications of it. I
will therefore examine the broad principles which appear to be common to
the various methods of mental healing which are in use, each of which
derives its efficacy, not from the peculiarity of the method, but from it
being such a method as allows the higher laws of Nature to come into play.
Now the principle universally laid down by all mental healers, in whatever
various terms they may explain it, is that the basis of all healing is a
change in belief. The sequence from which this results is as follows:--the
subjective mind is the creative faculty within us, and creates whatever the
objective mind impresses upon it; the objective mind, or intellect,
impresses its thought upon it; the thought is the expression of the belief;
hence whatever the subjective mind creates is the reproduction externally
of our beliefs. Accordingly our whole object is to change our beliefs, and
we cannot do this without some solid ground of conviction of the falsity of
our old beliefs and of the truth of our new ones, and this ground we find
in that law of causation which I have endeavoured to explain. The wrong
belief which externalizes as sickness is the belief that some secondary
cause, which is really only a condition, is a primary cause. The knowledge
of the law shows that there is only _one_ primary cause, and this is the
factor which in our own individuality we call subjective or sub-conscious
mind. For this reason I have insisted on the difference between placing an
idea in the sub-conscious mind, that is, on the plane of the absolute and
without reference to time and space, and placing the same idea in the
conscious intellectual mind which only perceives things as related to time
and space. Now the only conception you can have of_ yourself_ in the
absolute, or unconditioned, is as _purely living Spirit_, not hampered by
conditions of any sort, and therefore not subject to illness; and when this
idea is firmly impressed on the sub-conscious mind, it will externalize it.
The reason why this process is not always successful at the first attempt
is that all our life we have been holding the false belief in sickness as a
substantial entity in itself and thus being a primary cause, instead of
being merely a negative _condition_ resulting from the _obsence_ of a
primary cause; and a belief which has become ingrained from childhood
cannot be eradicated at a moment's notice. We often find, therefore, that
for some time after a treatment there is an improvement in the patient's
health, and then the old symptoms return. This is because the new belief in
his own creative faculty has not yet had time to penetrate down to the
innermost depths of the subconscious mind, but has only partially entered
it. Each succeeding treatment strengthens the sub-conscious mind in its
hold of the new belief until at last a permanent cure is effected. This is
the method of self-treatment based on the patient's own knowledge of the
law of his being.
But "there is not in all men this knowledge," or at any rate not such a
full recognition of it as will enable them to give successful treatment to
themselves, and in these cases the intervention of the healer becomes
necessary. The only difference between the healer and the patient is that
the healer has learnt how to control the less self-conscious modes of the
spirit by the more self-conscious mode, while the patient has not yet
attained to this knowledge; and what the healer does is to substitute his
own objective or conscious mentality, which is will joined to intellect,
for that of the patient, and in this way to find entrance to his
sub-conscious mind and impress upon it the suggestion of perfect health.