T. Troward

“ The full fruition may not yet be visible—we must allow for the Law of Growth—but the Principle is in him and has become the central, generating point of his consciousness, and is therefore bound, sooner or later, to develop into perfect manifestation by the Law of its own nature. If the Principle be accepted it will work all the same, whether we accept it by simple trust in the written Word, or whether we analyze the grounds of our trust; just as an electric bell will ring when you press the button, whether you are an electrical engineer or not. ”

“ How entirely false such an idea is—not only from the standpoint of our daily life, but also from that of the most transcendental conception of the Universal Principle—is evidenced by the mere fact that anything exists at all. If the highest ideal is that of utter apathy, then the Creative Power of the universe must be extremely low-minded; and all that we have hitherto been accustomed to look upon as the marvellous order and beauty of creation, is nothing but a display of vulgarity and ignorance of sound philosophy. ”

“ Whatever most appeals to us at any particular time or place is that mode of the universal living spirit with which at that moment we are most in touch, and realizing this, we shall draw from it streams of vital energy which will make the very sensation of livingness a joy and will radiate from us as a sphere of vibration that can deflect all injurious suggestion on whatever plane. ”

“ Here are some specimens of the way in which we limit the creative working of the Spirit. We say, I am too old now to start this or that new sort of work. This is to deny the power of the Spirit to vivify our physical or mental faculties, which is illogical if we consider that it is the same Spirit that brought us into any existence at all. It is like saying that when a lamp is beginning to burn low the same person who first filled it with oil cannot replenish it and make it burn brightly again. ”

“ Of course, I speak of the whole man, and not merely of that part of him which Walt Whitman says is contained between his hat and his boots. The whole man is an infinitude, and the visible portion of him is the instrument through which he looks out upon and enjoys all that belongs to him, his own kingdom of the infinite. And when he learns that this is the meaning of his conscious individuality, he sees how it is that he is infinite, and finds that he is one with Infinite Mind, which is the innermost core of the universe. ”

“ We are accustomed to judge only by external appearances and by certain limited significances which we attach to words; but when we begin to enquire into the real meaning of our words and to analyse the causes which give rise to the appearances, we find our old notions gradually falling off from us, until at last we wake up to the fact that we are living in an entirely different world to that we formerly recognized. The old limited mode of thought has imperceptibly slipped away, and we discover that we have stepped out into a new order of things where all is liberty and life. ”

“ It is impossible to reconcile this life-giving conception of the Bible with the idea that death at any stage or in any degree is the desire of God. Let us, therefore, start with the recognition that this negative force, whether in its minor degrees as disease or in its culmination as death, is that which it is the will of God to abolish. This also is logical; for if God be the Universal Spirit of Life finding manifestation in individual lives, how can the desire of this Spirit be to act in opposition to its own manifestation? ”

“ That is the initial question, for the intention determines the nature of the essence in everything. What is the most beautiful form in which I can express the good I intend? That is the ultimate question; for the true Beauty which our work expresses is the measure of the Power, Intelligence, Love—in a word, of the quantity and quality of our own life which we have put into it. True Beauty, mind you—that which is beautiful because it most perfectly expresses the original idea, not a mere ornamentation occupying our thoughts as a thing apart from the use intended. ”

“ Our more immediately personal recognition of the All-originating Love and Beauty will thus flow out as peace of mind, health of body, discretion in the management of our affairs, and power in the carrying out of our undertakings; and as we advance to a wider conception of the working of the Spirit of Love and Beauty in its infinite possibilities, so our intuition will find a wider scope and our field of activity will expand along with it--in a word we shall discover that our individuality is growing, and that we are becoming more truly ourselves than we ever were before. ”

“ Diversity in Unity is the necessity for any sort of expression, and if it be the case in our own bodies, as St. Paul points out, how much more so in the expressing of the Eternal Life through endless ages and limitless space! Once we grasp this idea of the unity and progressiveness of Life going on ad infinitum, what boundless vistas of possibility open before us. It would be enough to stagger the imagination were it not for our old friends, the Law and the Word. But these will always accompany us, and we may rely upon them in all worlds and under all conditions. ”

“ Truth is what is. He did not say, you must wait till something becomes true which is not true now. He said: "Know what is Truth now, and you will find that the Truth concerning yourself is Liberty." If the knowledge of Truth makes us free it can only be because in truth we are free already, only we do not know it.
Our liberty consists in our reproducing on the scale of the individual the same creative power of Thought which first brought the world into existence, "so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." ”

“ My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed--" such a contemplation of the Divine Personality in Him as will cause a like receiving of the Divine Personality into individualization in ourselves--this is the great purpose of the Creative Process in the individual. It terminates the old series which began with birth after the flesh and inaugurates a New Series by birth after the Spirit, a New Life of infinite unfoldment with glorious possibilities beyond our highest conception. ”

“ Not one of favouritism: not any more than the Law can it respect one person above another, for itself is the root and support for each alike. Not one of refusal to our advances; for without individuality it can have no personal object of its own to conflict with ours; and since it is itself the origin of all individual intelligence, it cannot be shut off by inability to understand. By the very terms of its being, therefore, this infinite, underlying, all-producing Mind must be ready immediately to respond to all who realize their true relation to it. ”

“ Seek conscious union with the ultimate, the first cause, that which is the starting point of all things, whether in the universe or in yourself as the individual. That starting point is always present; it is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, and you are the world and the universe in miniature, and it is always there working in you if you will recognise it. Remember the reciprocity between yourself and this truly hidden power. The power of suggestion is a hidden power, but the power which creates all things is the hidden power which is at the back of all things. ”

“ We can never get beyond the range of cause and effect. There is no escaping from the law of punishment, except by knowledge. If we know a law of Nature and work with it, we shall find it our unfailing friend, ever ready to serve us, and never rebuking us for past failures; but if we ignorantly or wilfully transgress it, it is our implacable enemy, until we again become obedient to it; and therefore the only redemption from perpetual pain and servitude is by a self-expansion which can grasp infinitude itself. ”

“ And nothing short of this consciousness of Perfect Wholeness can satisfy us. Everything that falls short of it is in that degree an embodiment of the principle of Death, that great enemy against which the principle of Life must continue to wage unceasing war, in whatever form or measure it may show itself, until "death is swallowed up in victory." There can be no compromise. Either we are affirming Life, as a principle, or we are denying it, no matter on how great or how small a scale; and the criterion by which to determine our attitude is our realisation of our own Wholeness. ”

“ It is the innermost of ourselves, and a little common-sense thought as to how anything comes to be anything will soon convince us that the great inexhaustible life must be the very root and substance of us, permeating every fibre of our being.
Surely to be this vast infinitude of living power must be enough to satisfy all our desires, and yet this wonderful ideal is nothing else but what we already are in principio—it is all there in ourselves now, only awaiting our recognition for its manifestation. It is not the Essence-of-Life which has to grow, for that is eternally perfect in itself ”

“ Of course we must be rigidly unyielding as regards the essence of Truth—that must never be sacrificed—but as representatives, in however small a sphere, of the New Thought, we should make it our aim to show others, not that their religion is wrong, but that all they may find of life-givingness in it is life-giving because it is part of the One Truth which is always the same under whatever form expressed. As half a loaf is better than no bread, so ignorant worship is better than no worship, and ignorant faith is better than no faith. ”

“ We do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have taught that all power is in the "I AM," and to accept this teaching by faith in their bare authority rather than not accept it at all; but the more excellent way is to know why they taught thus, and to realise for ourselves this first great law which all the master-minds have realised throughout the ages. It is indeed true that the "lost word" is the one most familiar to us, ever in our hearts and on our lips. We have lost, not the word, but the realisation of its power. ”

“ As we advance in this knowledge we know ourselves to be unlimited, and that, in the miniature world, whose centre we are, we ourselves are the very same overflowing of joyous livingness that the Great Life Spirit is in the Great All. ”