It has been said that the development of true personality depends largely, if not altogether, on concentration. By this is meant that the focusing of thought on a specific subject or object is the one thing needed to the understanding of the subject or the acquiring of the object.
The creative capacity in man is like the creative capacity in God, for it is and must be the result of unwavering direction. “If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light, “said the Master, and James declares that, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
A man’s eye is not single when his attention is easily drawn away from the thing he desires to be, or do. Hence the innumerable failures in the world.
Nothing successfully interferes with true and constructive concentration as the common tendency to judge after appearances. Appearances may indicate that conditions are greater tIt has been said that the development of true personality depends largely, if not altogether, on concentration. By this is meant that the focusing of thought on a specific subject or object is the one thing needed to the understanding of the subject or the acquiring of the object.
The creative capacity in man is like the creative capacity in God, for it is and must be the result of unwavering direction. “If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light, “said the Master, and James declares that, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
A man’s eye is not single when his attention is easily drawn away from the thing he desires to be, or do. Hence the innumerable failures in the world.
Nothing successfully interferes with true and constructive concentration as the common han man’s capacity to overcome them, and so long as man believes they are, they will be so to him. The believer will be conquered by his own beliefs.
When a man thinks or believes that negative conditions or limitation are larger than his power to overcome them, he is concentrating on a falsity.
Concentration is the art and the science of discrimination. It is the capacity to separate the wheat of the real from the chaff of the apparent, for it is only as we are able to do this that error can be overcome by Truth.
The tendency of an idea or mental picture is to externalise itself, unless it is inhibited by negative thinking. Those who think in the negative bring into their lives negative conditions such as sickness and failure, those who are a mixture of negative and positive thinking, swing between success and failure. Those who have discovered the wisdom of dwelling” In the secret place of the Most High” which is the art of concentrating on the real, makes it appear.
Jesus had formed the habit of concentrating on the Real or the things that are made of God, and by so doing it was easy for Him to see through appearances.
Man in ignorance regard the abnormal as real and as normal, and then wonders why man is persistently tormented by the abnormal and the unnatural. So long as man continues in this state of mind, man shall speak of the awful uncertainty of things. The awful uncertainty is not in things but in man, and it will ever continue to be so until Truth is known, and the Truth is that, only, that which is real, of which God is the Author.
“All things were made by God, and with Him was not anything made that was made”
We shall know what are the things that were made by God, when we know that God is not the author of confusion but of peace. When we can discern that whatever is confusing (i.e. sickness, anxiety and poverty) is not of God, no matter how real these seem to be, we shall have arrived at the place in our spiritual development where we can say none of these things (appearances) moves us. Then we shall know the meaning of the words, to them gave He dominion.
Concentrating on the things that are, the appearances which seem to be, will be eliminated, and being eliminated from consciousness they will cease to have power over us, for it is in consciousness that man suffers or not suffer at all.
To fill consciousness, therefore, with the things of God, is to render it empty of all else, and when consciousness is empty of all else , then God manifests Himself as Health, and Wholeness, for it is only as such He can be manifested. Just as the sun can manifest itself only in that which is of its own nature, such as light and heat, so God can manifest Himself only in that which reflects Beauty and Harmony, Perfection and Purity.
Whatever, then, we desire, only that which is good on the principle that only the good endures, we should keep on thinking it with greatest persistency, for by so doing we shall bring good into our experiences according to the eternal law of attraction.
Do we desire health, think it, and let us never allow ourselves to be diverted from thinking it.
It is because health is in us that we are able to through thinking health to bring it into manifestation. We must externalise it through the intelligent direction of the only power with which God has equipped us for this pleasant and profitable duty. This power is the power of mind, for as James Allen says,
‘Man is mind, and evermore
He takes the tool of thought
And, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand ills,
He thinks in secret and it comes to pass,
Environment is but his looking glass”
Source: W John Murray (Mental Medicine 1923)
The creative capacity in man is like the creative capacity in God, for it is and must be the result of unwavering direction. “If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light, “said the Master, and James declares that, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
A man’s eye is not single when his attention is easily drawn away from the thing he desires to be, or do. Hence the innumerable failures in the world.
Nothing successfully interferes with true and constructive concentration as the common tendency to judge after appearances. Appearances may indicate that conditions are greater tIt has been said that the development of true personality depends largely, if not altogether, on concentration. By this is meant that the focusing of thought on a specific subject or object is the one thing needed to the understanding of the subject or the acquiring of the object.
The creative capacity in man is like the creative capacity in God, for it is and must be the result of unwavering direction. “If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light, “said the Master, and James declares that, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
A man’s eye is not single when his attention is easily drawn away from the thing he desires to be, or do. Hence the innumerable failures in the world.
Nothing successfully interferes with true and constructive concentration as the common han man’s capacity to overcome them, and so long as man believes they are, they will be so to him. The believer will be conquered by his own beliefs.
When a man thinks or believes that negative conditions or limitation are larger than his power to overcome them, he is concentrating on a falsity.
Concentration is the art and the science of discrimination. It is the capacity to separate the wheat of the real from the chaff of the apparent, for it is only as we are able to do this that error can be overcome by Truth.
The tendency of an idea or mental picture is to externalise itself, unless it is inhibited by negative thinking. Those who think in the negative bring into their lives negative conditions such as sickness and failure, those who are a mixture of negative and positive thinking, swing between success and failure. Those who have discovered the wisdom of dwelling” In the secret place of the Most High” which is the art of concentrating on the real, makes it appear.
Jesus had formed the habit of concentrating on the Real or the things that are made of God, and by so doing it was easy for Him to see through appearances.
Man in ignorance regard the abnormal as real and as normal, and then wonders why man is persistently tormented by the abnormal and the unnatural. So long as man continues in this state of mind, man shall speak of the awful uncertainty of things. The awful uncertainty is not in things but in man, and it will ever continue to be so until Truth is known, and the Truth is that, only, that which is real, of which God is the Author.
“All things were made by God, and with Him was not anything made that was made”
We shall know what are the things that were made by God, when we know that God is not the author of confusion but of peace. When we can discern that whatever is confusing (i.e. sickness, anxiety and poverty) is not of God, no matter how real these seem to be, we shall have arrived at the place in our spiritual development where we can say none of these things (appearances) moves us. Then we shall know the meaning of the words, to them gave He dominion.
Concentrating on the things that are, the appearances which seem to be, will be eliminated, and being eliminated from consciousness they will cease to have power over us, for it is in consciousness that man suffers or not suffer at all.
To fill consciousness, therefore, with the things of God, is to render it empty of all else, and when consciousness is empty of all else , then God manifests Himself as Health, and Wholeness, for it is only as such He can be manifested. Just as the sun can manifest itself only in that which is of its own nature, such as light and heat, so God can manifest Himself only in that which reflects Beauty and Harmony, Perfection and Purity.
Whatever, then, we desire, only that which is good on the principle that only the good endures, we should keep on thinking it with greatest persistency, for by so doing we shall bring good into our experiences according to the eternal law of attraction.
Do we desire health, think it, and let us never allow ourselves to be diverted from thinking it.
It is because health is in us that we are able to through thinking health to bring it into manifestation. We must externalise it through the intelligent direction of the only power with which God has equipped us for this pleasant and profitable duty. This power is the power of mind, for as James Allen says,
‘Man is mind, and evermore
He takes the tool of thought
And, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand ills,
He thinks in secret and it comes to pass,
Environment is but his looking glass”
Source: W John Murray (Mental Medicine 1923)
