Chapter 5
UNIVERSAL MIND IN
MAN
Abel Leighton
Allen
The Message
of New Thought
- "Thou Great Eternal Infinite;
Thou Great Unbounded
Whole;
- Thy Body is the Universe, Thy
Spirit is the
Soul;
- If Thou dost fill Immensity--If
thou art All in
All
- Then I'm in Thee and Thou in me,
or I'm not here at
all."
INTELLIGENCE is universal in Nature.
This might seem to be a bold statement,
were it not supported by observation,
by reason, and by the authority of the
leading scientists of the world. Every
object in Nature has its counterpart in
the unseen. External Nature is but the
expression of the invisible. We wonder
at the beauty and majesty of the
visible and forget that back of it all
is the unseen, far more beautiful and
transcendent.
Universal intelligence finds expression
in every object of Nature, reaching its
highest manifestation in man. We live
in an atmosphere of intelligence,
unconscious of its presence; the
material man knows only the material.
The man of vision rejoices in the
possession of the intangible; to him
the invisible is the real and the
permanent; the visible, the shadowy and
the unreal, the one is the cause, the
other the result; one is the ideal, the
other the expression.
Every individual may find access to the
universal intelligence, this infinite
storehouse, and draw at will from its
inexhaustible supply when he has come
into the conscious relationship of his
own soul with the divine soul. The
universal mind speaks to the mind in
touch with the universal. The trained
soul hears and understands.
We sometimes speak of an omnipresent
God, and yet pay homage and give
reverence to a distant God, a
non-resident God. If God is
omnipresent, his spirit breathes in the
clod, the leaf, the animal, and in man.
If God is omnipresent, if God is
intelligence, then intelligence is
universal and accessible to man. We
cannot well account for the existence
of thought, its mysterious origin and
power, unless it is a radiation from
the universal mind that pervades all
space and finds a dwelling place in
man. The flow of thoughts and the
existence of ideas, enveloped in
obscurity and mystery, have ever been a
constant source of speculation in
man.
"We do not make our thoughts,
They grow in us Like grain in the
wood;
The growth is of the skies, which are
of nature,
And nature is of God. "
We cannot call thoughts the soul, but
they are more properly the attributes
of the soul. They cannot be analyzed,
neither can they be measured, nor can
their wondrous powers be calculated.
They baffle the understanding, they
transcend the wonders of the
imagination.
"No scepter or throne, nor structure of
ages, nor broad empire can compare with
the wonders and grandeur of a single
thought. That alone of all things that
have been made comprehends the maker of
all. That alone is the key which
unlocks the treasure of the universe;
the power that reigns over space, time,
and eternity. That under God is the
sovereign dispenser to man of all the
blessings and glories that lie within
the compass of possession or the reign
of possibility."
Men sometimes speak of brain as the
origin and source of all thought. This
is only another way of saying that
matter produces mind; that molecular
action is the cause of the mind and not
mind the cause of molecular action. We
might as well say that the dynamo is
the origin of electricity. Electricity
exists in Nature, the dynamo only
concentrates and harnesses it for man's
uses and purposes. Thought may function
through the brain, but brain is not its
origin. A noted psychologist,
speaking on this subject, remarked that
"There is no human mind; the mind
living in the brain is simply a minute
fraction of mind universal."
Where life exists, there intelligence
also exists. Scientists tell us that
life and intelligence
existed on the planet untold ages
before the first brain appeared.
Geologists speak of the Devonian
age as the first in which a brain came
into existence. Yet animal life had
intelligence. Something told it to
reach out for food, extract that which
was nutritious, and reject that which
was un-nutritious. It suited its life
to its environment. It possessed the
instinct or intelligence of
self-preservation. It had no
brain, and yet in all its movements it
manifested intelligence. Against the
overwhelming preponderance of evidence
that a universal intelligence exists in
all Nature, which science is giving to
the world, the extreme materialist
stands alone.
We live in an atmosphere of
intelligence. We are unconscious
recipients of its wealth and beauty.
Genius has been described as nothing
more than a divine plagiarism. As the
inland bay opens out into the great
ocean, so our minds have their outlets
into the infinite ocean of intelligence
and thought. Sometimes the inland bays
of our minds are nearly closed by
jutting headlands, yet through a narrow
channel the great ocean at times sends
its currents of wisdom and
inspiration.
Thought has its origin, then, in the
reservoir of infinite intelligence and
flashes from thence to the mind of man.
To give recognition to the existence of
this infinite supply, this fathomless
storehouse, and learn to draw from it
at our will and pleasure, according to
our wants and needs, is the most
priceless secret in man's life. The
consciousness of this truth gives man
the key to all accomplishment. It
unlocks his latent powers and awakens
his slumbering possibilities. It sets
before him new ideals, creates within
him the enthusiasm and confidence
necessary for the accomplishment of all
great results. It makes man spiritual,
because he feels that he lives, moves,
and has his being in a divine
atmosphere.
Prentice Mulford, one of the pioneer
writers of New Thought, says: "A
supreme power and wisdom govern the
universe. The supreme mind is
measureless and pervades endless space.
The supreme wisdom, power, and
intelligence are in everything that
exists, from the atom to the planet. As
we grow more to recognize the sublime
and exhaustless wisdom, we shall learn
more and more to demand of wisdom, draw
it to ourselves, make it a part of
ourselves, and thereby be ever making
ourselves newer and newer. This means
ever perfecting help, greater and
greater power to enjoy all that exists,
gradual transition into a higher estate
of being, and the development of
powers which we do not now realize as
belonging to us. We are the limited yet
ever growing parts and expression of
the supreme, never ending Whole."
Thomas A. Edison says: "All scientists,
in getting nearer and nearer the first
great cause, feel that about and
through everything there is the play of
an eternal mind."
It was said by the late Lord Kelvin,
that "biologists are absolutely forced
by science to believe with absolute
confidence in a directive
power."
Emerson, in the opening paragraph of
his essay on history, most clearly
elucidates and emphasizes this
sublime truth. He there says: "There is
one mind common to all individual men.
Every man is an inlet to the same and
to all the same. He that is once
admitted to the right of reason, is
made a free man of the whole estate.
What Plato has thought, he may think;
what a saint has felt, he may
feel. What has befallen any man
at any time, he can understand. Who
hath access to this universal mind, is
a party to all that is or can be done,
for this is the only and
sovereign agent." Again we read
in his studies of Nature: "We lie in
the lap of universal intelligence,
which makes us organs of its activity
and receivers of its truth. Who can
set bounds to the possibilities
of man? Once inhale the upper air,
being admitted to behold the absolute
natures of justice and truth, we learn
that man has access to the entire mind
of the Creator, is himself the creator
in the finite."
It is of the utmost importance that we
let the full significance and spirit of
these truths sink deep into our
understanding. it is equally important
that we follow them to their logical
conclusion and consider their effects
upon the life and welfare of man. They
reveal to man new sources of power,
They set a new light on his pathway of
progress. They bring man and God
together. They open the door of the
infinite storehouse of divine wisdom.
They invite man to drink at the divine
fountain, and the water he shall there
drink shall be in him, as the Master
said, "A well of water springing up
into everlasting life."
What thought is equal to this, that
there is a universal mind, common to
all men, and every man is an inlet to
the same and that "man has access to
the entire mind of the Creator, is
himself a creator in the finite"? In
these brief statements, we find the
fundamental principles and basic ideas
of New Thought. These are the
foundation stones on which the
structure is built. It is founded
on the rock of truth, and the winds and
storms cannot prevail against
it.
The theological mists and vapors of
sixteen centuries dissolve in the
presence of these sublime thoughts.
Ecclesiastical subtleties, the dogmatic
paradoxes, fade from the mind, when man
learns he has access to the mind of the
Creator. This simple truth undermines
all the cunningly contrived structures
that separate man from God.
What are all the bulls,
excommunications, and encyclicals of
Rome, of all the potentates and
prelates of earth, to the one who has
come into the consciousness of this
sublime truth? What power have they
with their man-made theologies to
separate you from this divine source or
break your relationship with God? How
vain are ecclesiastical anathemas to
him who feels, knows, and realizes the
all-enveloping presence! Who stands
between man and God, when the Divine
Mind spans the imaginary gulf created
by the ingenuity of the
theologian?
It is not surprising that those who
claim to stand between God and man
should be concerned about the growth
and development of those ideas and
should from time to time warn their
followers of what they term their
sinister and pernicious effects. They
plainly foresee that their growth means
the enfranchisement of man, and that as
he comes into a consciousness of this
truth the vocation of the
ecclesiastical middleman will pass away
forever. They see under it a new order
of things and the constant and eternal
advancement of man.
Man is no longer a mental and spiritual
serf, but is coming into the estate God
intended he should occupy and enjoy.
What Plato thought, he may think; what
man has wrought, he may accomplish;
what a saint has felt, he may
experience, when he comes to a
conscious realization of his oneness
with God. When man can feel the rhythm
and pulsations of this divine
intelligence surging in upon his being,
and realize that infinite source of
power, he will find himself emancipated
from fetters and limitations; he will
enter a new world of limitless mental
and spiritual development.
Not since the sublime declaration of
Jesus that "I and the Father are one";
that is, the I AM, the soul which was
in Jesus and is in all men and the
Father, the universal soul, the divine
intelligence, are one, has a greater or
more universal truth been spoken to
man. It was the impassioned utterance
of the divine relationship, the oneness
of God and man. This is the essence and
meaning of the Emersonian philosophy,
the great message of the gentle seer of
Concord. His one theme was the
greatness of man, the illimitable
development of his soul, the oneness of
man and God.
Among all the treasures of literature,
what message to man is more priceless
than this? What utterance has awakened
in man a greater realization of the
true worth of his own nature, of the
infinite depths and riches of his own
soul, and the boundless possibilities
that stretch before him? The masters of
thought, the illumined of all the ages,
have spoken the same great truth. They
saw the divine in man, and ever strove
to lead him to the consciousness of
that truth.
More than twenty-five centuries ago
Pythagoras spoke the great truth that
"Man is a microcosm of God." In other
words, man is an epitome of the
universe, a God in embryo. Before
Abraham led his flocks and herds into
the land of Canaan, the masters of
thought of Egypt expressed the same
great truth, when they said, "He is I
and I am He." This is the utterance of
the illumined in all the past.
No great teacher ever belittled man, or
emphasized his weakness or defects. The
wise never spoke of man as weak,
helpless, or depraved. The greatness of
man was the supreme thought and theme
of Jesus. Emerson said of him: "Alone
in all history he estimated the
greatness of man. One man was true to
what is in me and you. He saw that God
incarnates Himself in man, and evermore
goes forth anew to take possession of
the world."
When we consider the limited place in
Nature accorded to man by theology, it
is not surprising that man should have
gathered imperfect ideas of Jesus's
conception of man. They have been
impressed with the thought that Jesus
looked upon man as weak and dependent,
rather than a being of strength and
power. Jesus was supreme master of
himself, his own forces and powers, and
thereby was enabled to see and
understand the latent and slumbering
greatness in all men. After performing
works which the world pronounced
miracles, did he not say to his
Disciples, "Greater things than these
shall ye do"?
In view of our enlarged conceptions of
man, and the latent powers within him,
how impressively significant was the
sublime utterance of Jesus, "Seek ye
first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all things shall be
added unto you!" Even those who heard
these words fall from his lips had
vague ideas of the kingdom about which
he spoke. Some of his followers sought
places of honor in the new kingdom.
They thought it was to be a temporal
kingdom, with a material domain, with a
distinct location, with a court
surrounded with pomp and circumstance.
Many ideas expressed in later ages
regarding Jesus's meaning about the
kingdom of God have not shown marked
advance over those first entertained by
his immediate followers. Men are still
propounding the question, Where is the
kingdom of God? Jesus left no room for
doubt. He did not fail to express his
meaning. He left no reason for
posterity to quibble over the great
message, "The kingdom of God is within
you." He spoke for all time and to all
men. His words were not meant for his
Disciples alone, but for you and for me
and for the millions yet unborn, the
kingdom of God is within us.
The most of us failed to hear these
words echoed from the pulpits in the
past. We heard more about original sin,
predestination, the necessity of
baptism, total depravity, and other
dogmas equally destructive to the
soul's progress. Theology did not have
much to say about this sublime
utterance of the Gentle Master. Perhaps
it saw the logical sequence of
emphasizing this truth. If the kingdom
of God was within man, where was the
ground for the declaration that man was
wholly depraved? If this were true, how
was it that some men were born for
eternal damnation? If the kingdom of
God is in man, where is the foundation
for the separation of God and man, the
major premise of all the orthodox
theologies ever invented?
How little has been extracted from the
great, priceless message of Jesus, in
nineteen hundred years. For about
sixteen centuries man's defects and
weaknesses have been exploited and
emphasized, when he was told by Jesus
he had the kingdom of God within him.
If man was so inherently bad as
depicted, how did the kingdom of God
find a dwelling-place within him?
The question is often asked, what is
the kingdom of God, so often spoken of
by the Gentle Master? What are we to
understand by the terminology of Jesus?
A kingdom suggests someone having the
qualities and attributes of a king or a
ruler. If we were to speak of the
kingdom of Great Britain, our meaning
would be clearly comprehended. The
listener would know we spoke of Great
Britain as an entirety; its broad
expanse of territory; its organized
government; its
Parliament; its laws; its strength; its
force; its silent, unseen power; its
character and influence; in short, we
should be understood as including under
the phrase the kingdom of Great Britain
everything sheltered and protected
beneath the folds of her flag.
What, then, is the meaning of all this
wonderful message to man--the kingdom
of God is within you? What did Jesus
mean? He laid marked emphasis on his
statement, and tried to impress his
hearers with its importance. He did not
use his language in a narrow and
restricted sense. He meant that the
same order, the same laws, the same
intelligence, the same justice, the
same powers, the same attributes, and
the same infinite and eternal soul that
exist in God and pervade the universe
also exist in man.
He did not mean to be understood that
all these attributes and qualities in
man had reached a perfected state, but
they were there, either as developed or
incipient powers, and their unfoldment
and development depend upon man
himself. Differ they may, but only in
degree and not in kind. For every power
and attribute in God, there is a
corresponding power and attribute in
man. Were it otherwise, were man
deprived of divine attributes and
qualities, how could he conceive of God
or comprehend the principles and
qualities of the Divine Mind? Unless
the seed of divinity is there, how
could man grow into the likeness of
God? How could he come into harmony and
communion with God, if by nature he is
sinful and depraved?
Jesus would not have appealed to the
divine in man if the divine had not
been already there. Otherwise his
precepts and messages would have been
meaningless and vain, for only the
divine can respond to the divine. That
man can rise above self and forgive his
enemies, is a declaration of his divine
nature. Jesus, above all teachers,
revealed to man the majesty of his own
soul. The most valuable thought in all
time is that man possesses these divine
characteristics and has the power to
unfold them in the great school and
discipline of life, and thus bring
himself into peace and harmony with
Divine Mind. We are told that when we
seek the kingdom of God all things
shall be added unto us. By his
incomparable parables, Jesus
illustrates the growth and development
of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of
heaven. He spoke of it as the leaven
and as the grain of mustard seed, which
was the smallest of all seeds, but when
it grew was the greatest among the
herbs and became a tree, so that the
birds of the air came and lodged in its
branches. By these parables he showed
that the kingdom of God not only grows
and expands, but to him who seeks it,
to him who has found and recognized its
power, all things shall be added.
What, then, are the things to be added?
Are they something to be enjoyed in
another state of existence, or
something to be enjoyed in this life
also?
Jesus instructed men how to live in
this life, not in the next. He taught a
religion of life, a religion of joy, a
religion of industry, a religion of
peace. When he said all things should
be added, he meant here and now; he
meant peace, power, tranquility,
plenty, and the mastery of the
individual over circumstances and
environments.
Jesus laid down one rule by which man
might find the coveted treasure,
"Except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God." He meant that
man should turn about and externalize
his changed thought into a worthy and
upright life. If he had been leading an
unclean and degrading life, he should
reverse it and live a clean and upright
life. The rule was simple, that the
spirit should dominate the material in
his life and that he should get away
from limitations, recognize
the divinity within himself, and
transmute that divinity into a
constructive and useful life.
The first step to this attainment is
for man to come into a consciousness of
his own divine nature and let the
Divine Mind find expression in the
thoughts and acts of his daily life.
When he recognizes these qualities
within himself, and turns toward the
new goal, then like the seed of mustard
the kingdom within will grow, expand,
and develop and he shall come into a
life of accomplishment and abiding
reality.
What is the great subconscious mind in
man discovered through the agencies of
modern psychology, but the kingdom of
God, as declared by the Gentle Master?
The discovery of modern psychology has
thrown new light on the mysteries of
mind and brought to light the laws by
which it is governed. in a degree it
has revealed man to himself. It has
analyzed and mentally dissected the
mind, and discovered qualities, powers,
and attributes in man, of which he was
previously ignorant. It has overturned
many pre-existing theories and opinions
long cherished, supposed to be
permanently entrenched and established.
By it man is discovering the forces and
powers of the great soul within; better
than all, it has found the law by which
man can unfold, develop, and control
these forces and make them obedient
agencies of his will.
Man is realizing that the great
subconscious mind is an infinite
storehouse of intelligence and power,
and that when he has learned the laws
by which it is reached, impressed, and
controlled, he may draw from its
inexhaustible depths at will to supply
his needs and wants. He is coming into
the consciousness that the great
subconscious, "the Great Within," his
own masterful soul, is the link that
unites him with the Great Divine Soul.
He is learning that the subconscious
controls the functions of the body, its
life, its growth, and the entire
physical organism, and that every
thought of the objective mind is a
power that will affect the subconscious
and the entire personality of
man.
Psychology reveals that the laws of
mind and thought are absolute and
changeless, that the subconscious will
respond to whatever thought is
impressed upon it. When man has come
into a realization of this truth. and
learned to control his thoughts and
impress the subconscious only with
constructive, healthful, and worthy
thoughts, he has learned the secret of
transmuting thought into power, life,
and health, and thus revolutionizing
his entire life and being. When he has
reached that understanding and has come
into possession of that secret, he has
found the kingdom of God within, which
is the kingdom of mind.
When the kingdom of mind rules man's
life, he has found his own center, he
has acquired power and poise, he is no
longer swayed and buffeted by the
caprices and whims that ever disturb
the thoughtless; he lives his own life
as nature designed it, the storms of
discontent and anxiety are stilled
within, he expresses in his life the
beauty, the harmony, and power of the
kingdom of God within.
Chapter
6
* * * * *
The Message of New Thought
Table of
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