How to Master Your Thinking Patterns and Habits for Self Development [Occult Lecture]

well I'm happy to see so many of you have survived we have an interesting subject this morning that it comes down to the daily living of the things we believe I've often heard people get very eloquent discussions on principles and ideals but many of them are still in trouble themselves they are unable to escape from habit patterns and from the traditional backgrounds from which we have all come in one way or another I suppose that the present generation is one of the most complicated in the history of humanity not only is it complicated because the

rapid advancements in various fields of scientific progress but it is Complicated by a general Revolution against tradition most people are blaming tradition for the conditions that they are in today they feel that in some way we were prevented from growing in the very early years of our culture actually however most of the Traditions which have survived have some foundation in facts and facts do not change easily or readily or quickly and our general background of tradition is essentially idealistic this means that a percentage of people had strong convictions and lived by them or tried to

this does not mean that all nations were contrite and honorable it does not follow that all people have ever United in any constructive Enterprise but there was an undercurrent a foundation of integrities which are which this Foundation is at this time especially unpleasant to contemplate we do not want to re-establish the foundations of survival we do not believe any longer in the golden rule we talk about it we write about it but when it comes in conflict with personal interests we forget the traditional Integrity that is at the basis of our civilization nearly every great

teacher of the past has brought us a traditional integrity they have all done their best to call to our attention the realities of values in most instances some listen to them in many cases they were persecuted and martyred but out of it all came a lingerings stream of ideals that simply refused to die and these ideals were the integrities upon which modern life has been built but Integrity is often interfere with selfishness they interfere with being exactly as free as we want to be we were willing to fight and struggle desperately to get physical freedom

and most persons have achieved a considerable degree of it but this personal freedom has not been brought under the censorship of integrities we feel that we can do anything we want to but we do not curb integrate or educate the desire structure within ourselves so today we are confronted by a complicated situation that is disturbing and frightening millions of human beings According to some late statistics which we have received the worldest year has increased its population by 82 Millions looking forward into the future at a situation of this kind is very disturbing because every year

where populations increase sacrifices must be made in order to maintain this increased population each individual has to work a little harder gain a little less give a little more and be more patient than he ever was before he is also going to find continual encroachments upon all the materialistic values that he has become accustomed to the greater the population the more each individual must give up personal ambitions if he does not the entire structure will fall apart everyone today is a little bit disturbed some very much Disturbed by the complete collapse of our social system

as we know it the failure of a political system the disabilities of our economic structure and the continual in danger to the personal life of the individual so out of this comes anxiety a continually increasing negative approach to circumstances today there are probably more worriers than ever before in history of course this is partly due to the fact there are more people than ever before in history but the percentage of Warriors is increasing every day this hardly a day go by in which individuals do not come face to face with what to them is solid

proof of the failure of their system of life this is something that is bound to cause anxiety but we have to also realize that these happenings are not accidents the problems we Face are the problems we have caused and the fact that they were caused by our ancestors and that we may lead them to our descendants these do not alter the basic fact that man is the cause of his own trouble trying to work with this situation tells us very simply that the only cure for the problems that man causes is that man stopped causing

them he must in some way change his own approach to existence of course the first thing that comes to mind with this idea is that we must elect someone to do this for us we must appoint someone to think for us and to have the authority to help other people to see the light and at the same time leave our private interests alone these must not be disturbed so we have today a tremendous desire for some heroic personality we would like to see the Skies open and the Holy Trinity take place as this is highly

unlikely we are still other problems and ways of approaching this situation admitting that we are living in the day of the great headache the question is what are we going to do about it are we just simply going to have one headache after another as long as we live now headaches due to worry anxiety misunderstanding misinterpretation antagonisms of all kinds these headaches unfortunately do not stay in the head they come out into other areas of Our Lives this headache that we have this Grand head problem that worries us is affecting every aspect of society the

warrior is already on the way toward being sick now if worry was what was intended it would be unlikely that it would cause illness and be destructive to the human being we must therefore assume that worry is not the answer worry is only a means of complicating the difficulty so the problem of going around worrying fretting stewing fearing everything that happens mistrusting everyone and in a state of Perpetual criticism this apparently is not the answer the proof of that is that it is solving nothing and making us sick therefore we should begin to think in

terms of how to act so that we will not be sick the solution to the problem lies not only in our fears and anxieties but in the solution of the causes of these fears and anxieties it is useless to assume that the rest of humanity will agree with us on any subject in fact it's hardly worthwhile trying to convert other people for just as surely as we are trying to convert them they are determined to convert US so it just goes on and on and on the only way we can stop worrying stop fearing stop

hating is to put a discipline upon ourselves we cannot prevent the world from worrying but we can become detached from the worrying set we can become self-sufficient to our own needs this does not mean selfishness it does not mean that we are not mindful of the problems of other people it does not mean that we will not do everything possible to assist others in the solution of their problems but it means that before we help other people we must find an answer that will work for ourselves there is really no use in simply sharing the

worries there is no use in trying to find new worries in everything that happens in life no man has been given a faculty that is probably unique in the world of nature he has memory a magnificent equipment that enables him to build his own solutions by remembrances of his own life history is collective memory biography is individual memory and autobiography is the individual remembering the life he himself is living now from the most fundamental and basic experiences of his life he has been given the equipment to estimate values weigh all things and cling to that

which is good in order to do these things he must shift his point of security everyone wants security insecurity is the great measure of our time it is the problem that we are all concerned with how can we find security well it's obvious that the various patterns we are now following these are not bringing security the individual today is trying to find his Securities where it is not where these Securities have no factual existence one of the most basic problems here is the emphasis upon wealth most people are still convinced that if they have enough

money they are safe of course the depend it much depends on what they do with the money if they take it to Las Vegas they're not safe also there are many Investments which are very tempting and will lead to loss but essentially the individual feels that if his income and his economic status is secure he has nothing to worry about facts are against this conclusion for I've known a great many wealthy persons and probably most of you have also known many who are more than comfortably fixed who are worrying worse than anyone else they're worrying

because their wealth has been destroying their children breaking down their homes and making themselves sick So Physical Securities are not the answer physical security is good if it's available but as a goal as an answer to the Eternal problem it is a failure in the first place there is no way in which everyone can be rich and as long as there are various levels of Finance there will be conflict so money is not the answer to our problem of security the next possibility seems to be intelligence can we by some means or other think our

way out of this dilemma can the Mind solve it well the mind has been producing Solutions since the dawn of time but these Solutions are interesting fascinating very tempting and can completely take over the life of a person but these Solutions are not Solutions all the mentality that we've had in the world up to the present time has been unable to cope with war with crime or with poverty the Mind tries to find answers but every answer the Mind finds and tries to apply comes face to face with obstacles that the Mind cannot solve the

truth of the matter is that the mind is an interesting fascinating bit of equipment but it cannot correct the present existing circumstances now the mind has given us a wide area of Sciences and philosophies with which to cope with life the mind is made possible science but science is not solving anything science gives us a cure for some minor ailment perhaps or even a major ailment but in so doing hands to the world mechanisms which could destroy the entire human race cyan says a very great weakness and that weakness is the failure of humanitarianism in

the scientific program science is concerned with knowledge it is using the mind to advance its own purposes but when it comes to taking care of the Widow and the fatherless science is not a great success other fields of learning the Arts are corrupted all of the various elements of mental activity show problems philosophy in our generation is virtually non-existent what we call philosophy is a higher intellectual materialism our modern philosophies are based not upon ideals but upon material institutions we send our young people to the universities and they have the Mind strained they come back

from the University and within a few years they're in trouble even while they're in school they may be subjected to narcotics alcoholism and other Corruptions therefore education has not been able to keep its own campus clean therefore there is some question about it being able to solve the problems of mankind so individuals looking all directions to try to find some answer to this very pressing problem there's massive problems are rising from something that must have a solution in the individual man will never be confronted with the problem he cannot solve but he may be confronted

with problems he will not solve because the solution Solutions are inconvenient therefore we can come now to the next issue in the problem what is there that the individual can cling to in this great stress of modern living the first natural answer to this is religion but religion also is at a very serious disadvantage religion presents us with abstract virtues religion provides us with a concept of an invisible causal universe beyond our perceptions it also populates this universe with beings invisible to us and the whole situation sums up in a very simple thought namely that

religion deals with things we cannot see and so-called materialism deals with things we can see perfectly possible to see the house we are building it is perfectly possible to count the shares of stock that we own but it is not possible to actually factually estimate the nature of the spiritual World in which we live this world is shut from us because we do not possess the extra sensory perceptions necessary to make an invisible spiritual cause of Life visible and tangible to our common everyday living this place is all the advantage in the hands of the

materialist whatever he is doing you can see he can see the Laboratories produce these experiments so we have facts Gatherings all the time more and more facts and truths gradually disappearing this means that there is a conflict between invisible principles and visible policies and as long as this conflict exists the individual is inevitably over influenced by the material policies because he can see them because they are working in his life because they are directly the causes of his worries they become the great entanglement whereas the solution in principles and ideals this solution remains elusive intangible

and is greatly overlooked because it does not immediately prove itself to our physical perceptions so with this situation constantly undermining our faith it is very easy to become more and more addicted to worry and less and less supported by principles which we cannot actually see the result of course has been the gradual rise of a vast materialistic culture in ancient times man looking for an answer to things found no answer in the society around him there was no safety in his own cave nor it was their safety in his relations with those in the caves

around him he was alone he was struggling against unknown factors and the material world was as yet an unsolved mystery therefore because he knew very little about the physical Universe he still was able to cling to the spiritual integrities of his tribal beliefs as he knew more and more about the material world he became increasingly involved it became a great mystery of Wonder it became a challenge and little by little attention was focused upon physical circumstances and the possibility of altering them the possibility of taking your neighbor's cave and adding it to yours the possibility

of accumulating wealth or taking it away from someone else who had accumulated it all these things came as man's knowledge of material things increased and little by little religion was we will say transformed from a simple hope a simple statement of the reality of things above material that material existence little by little religion was theologized it was theologized in order that it might have a form or a shape a dimension or a proportions that man could experience with his sensory perceptions he could not understand the Magnificent Divine Universal house the Magnificent Universe which was the

symbol of the divine power so so in order to make this invisible principle in some way tangible Mortals began to build great Cathedrals temples shrines mosques they began to create visible symbols of the invisible truths and persons who could not grasp of the invisible principles gained gradually a sense of respect regard and admiration for the symbols of these principles the systems of faith that came into the world the person who could not even for a moment experience the divine presence felt something when he entered the cathedral he found himself in the midst of a great

Beauty a tremendous elevation of Concepts and Consciousness he found himself surrounded by symbols of holy living and holy thinking and gradually these symbols brought him to his knees he became a willing to accept the invisible in the symbols which it had projected from itself and which man had fashioned as a means of protecting the worship of the deity which was his hope of salvation so by degrees religion became embodied it took upon itself the shape and proportion of the world in which it functioned it was one great philosopher of the past said there is there

is but one God but he has been worshiped under 72 names now the 72 names began to get us into trouble also because people began to believe that each name represented a different belief where the differences were largely those of language and grammar and actually the same ideal abstract concept of deity was present in all religions the important point is that gradually the world was filled with sanctuaries of faith some still stand others are ruins some more will be built on and on a certain type of human being will gain the strength of worship by

beholding the houses of his deities we're holding the works of other Pious people as these works are exemplified in the stained glass windows and the mighty arches and spans of cathedrals churches and temples so we have the interesting phenomenon a man trying to make invisible things visible and achieving to a degree but this degree isn't got him into another difficulties and these various institutions which he created for the purpose of inwardly experiencing the Sublimity of God gradually became involved in various theological complications and these complications attempted to standardize men's beliefs to force them to accept

certain doctrines or policies regardless of their own internal attitudes or concepts gradually therefore religion was transformed into Theology and the priests of antiquity became the theologians of later times these were individuals who were very largely dogmatic they served dogmatic beliefs they serve certain attitudes they held certain convictions as inevitable and absolute and gradually this descended to the time of the universal Reformation so to say the relate religious Rebellion which brought an end to the Medieval World after the Reformation religions and Christendom began to break up more and more individual theologies came into existence sect after

sect rules each with its own peculiar Concepts and beliefs and these sects ever since have been locked to a great degree at least in an intense competitiveness and in the infinite belief that they are right and that therefore others must Bend to them well this goes on until another something came along and that was what we call the Age of Enlightenment the age of humanism it was then gradually obvious that the public was resenting the dogmatics of Theology and was therefore striving to liberate itself from the arbitrary doctrines which were supported only by theological institutions

these doctrines gradually came into conflict with human interests and attitudes as a result of this conflict we find finally the rise of Science and this at the definite basic antagonism that developed between science and religion in all its forms these are various changes came to the individual and in the 20th century find the individual himself without any solid psychological religious spiritual or even scientific support he comes into a world is dominated by millions of persons each with ideas of their own which cannot be reconciled with the ideas of anyone else therefore instead of having a

solid Unity upon which to build something each individual is under the pressure of a common dissimilarity everyone is trying to do his thing in his own way and very often at the expense of other people trying to do their things so here we are now in the closing years of the 20th century and we are here with practically no solid foundation under anything we are searching for various integrities and it has been obvious for a long time that science is not going to solve the problem of man's salvation if it is able to extend the

length of life as it may hope to do it is only going to give the individual more years in which to be miserable because it is not giving him any good reason for the life he has it is not making his life here useful happy Pleasant and constructive it goes on helping him to physically survive but it does nothing to make his survival important or to make his survival useful to anyone the idea that he is going to be remembered by his descendants is a vanity in itself just as certainly as we do not at

this time at least have any particular regard for our own ancestors it is all a problem of floating on the surface of a of an unsolved mystery and in this condition many persons just simply give up they just see no longer any reason for anything yet within themselves they have the faculties necessary to discover the reasons for almost everything but because of the traditional attitudes because of the limitations of our educational system and the Corruptions of our economic and political structures the individual has no moral support to try and improve himself he feels that the

only thing he can gain by going against the system is to end up unemployed he does not find any solution to the needs of his own inner life there are things he would like to do but when he is actually given an opportunity to live according to the convictions he can't claims to have these convictions don't fall apart he says he would live better under better circumstances but up to now there have never been any circumstances sufficiently good to make the individual Live Well he thinks he's going to he thinks if his worries are taken

from him he'll be happy so he has some of them taken from him and now he's worrying because he hasn't got the worries that's frightening him he thinks he must be failing in some way if he doesn't realize the seriousness of the situation all these uh problems sort of gang up on people they are not really prepared to handle them they've had no background of training the education they have is virtually useful only to make a living not to make a life actually we need a complete shakeup of the entire system but when we think

of shake up we think of Anarchy we think of some desperatism taking over destroying our freedom and forcing us into a state of discipline of some kind then we realize that this is also motivated by materialistic ambitions we are not in a position to solve most of these situations now with one thing we have to learn to do and that is to accept the complication as it is we must stop dramatizing and emotionalizing it we must simply say this is it this is the way it is and in all probabilities in most ways it is

going to stay this way for a while and it's going to probably stay here this way as long as we live therefore we are going to be born into confusion we're going to struggle with it for our period of embodiment and we're going to leave the confusion behind when we go we are not going to change all these things instantly no matter how hard we try the we have our troubles in common but our Solutions must be individuals the only way we can face this complex is to gradually work out in ourselves an explanation of

it a reason for it that is sufficiently strong to enable us to live reasonably well and at the same same time have a strong living realization of spiritual integrities now this sounds very like a very difficult thing but after all this new world in which we live is an Amphitheater of natural phenomena we are here in a world in which everything is lawful or unlawful everything is cataloged classified and controlled while we cannot for the moment perhaps see the hand of God in the things that happen we do know that there are universal laws that

are immutable we also know that in nature there are principles which prove Beyond any doubt that a universal system does exist and that this system has the means the knowledge the Consciousness the reality to survive all of man's difficulties and also to transcend man's intentions to destroy the system of which he is apart this system cannot be destroyed by man this problem having been more or less sensed as we have to sense it we then can say to ourselves we're in a mess why how are we going to get out of this mess how are

we going to achieve the things that are necessary are we going to achieve it by becoming completely Disturbed discouraged and becoming alcoholics are we going to get any solution to anything by narcotics are we going to make our world better for ourselves and other people by simply walking out into the Wilderness somewhere and leaving everything else behind can we fulfill our destiny by taking holy orders and Vanishing into a religious retreat can we actually accomplish anything by walking up and down the street with a banner condemning other people we have all these attitudes but none

of them actually does anything to solve the problems of Our Lives today we have more groups that are in activistic relationship with others that are constantly parading that are constantly objecting and yet out of it all comes nothing but a great headache why because this is not the answer it is not the way we were intended to do it until we get down to facts and realize what is necessary there will be no answer and when we get to the point where we appreciate the answer we realize that all the misery we've had was well

worthwhile that it was the only way that nature could educate a wayward creation that is the only way that nature can bring back to the prodigal children that it fashioned into realization of its wisdom and its love is to allow these children to get either problems they cannot endure any longer and to discover for once and for all that they cannot solve problems that are greater than themselves if this begins to sort of trickle into our consciousness then we begin to have the foundation not a final solution but a foundation that will enable us to

live the days of our years in a comparative state of acceptance not a not a an acceptance of the way things are doubt but an acceptance of the necessity that mankind must pass through certain experiences to outgrow his own ignorance the individual therefore can reach a point in which he can live from day to day observing reflecting thinking feeling studying doing everything he possibly can to understand the reason for the situations as they are now and if he becomes more and more concerned in finding reasons he will gradually rescue his mental and emotional complex from

futility from the belief that everything is wrong that there's no solution to anything and that he was born simply to suffer and die he does not have to have these negative thoughts what he has to do instead of giving up in despair is accepting the challenge of personal change he must make certain adjustments in himself he was gradually released his energies from Despair and despondency and focused them upon the understanding of life the understanding of the way things must be in the way they should be and they will they will be regardless of what man

does if we can get to understand therefore that we are being disciplined that the individual is being encouraged to correct his own mistakes and stop making other similar mistakes he will then perhaps have more energy for a solution there's a lot of work to be done in this world there is a great need of United effort but nearly always despondency Neurosis pessimism all of these negative attitudes impoverish the resources of the person himself when he finally centers his mind upon futility he will find it everywhere he will become more and more futile in everything that

he does he will become discouraged he will believe firmly that this world is of no value and he begins despondent enough he may even contemplate suicide but with all this contemplation and all this negation nothing has been accomplished except the disintegration of a personal existence taking this point as a basis then of something to do that is at a different point of activity the individual should begin to try to observe the working of universal law in the various occurrences of his life he must begin to see reasons for things which he now regards as merely

miseries he must begin to realize that he lives in a world of lawful procedures and that he must abide by them now on some levels we're beginning to get a little wiser but up as to now it hasn't been considered a general Improvement one of the fields in which we seem to be getting a little smarter at least is nutrition we have discovered finally what we should have known always but which we didn't need to know until we broke the rules namely that nutrition is a very important factor in life that it cannot be ignored

that the individual who wishes to have better health must concentrate his attention upon learning how to have better health he will study the problems of nutrition in himself he must discover his own mistakes due to appetites he must discover why he cannot do just what he pleases and at the same time maintain bodily health so here we'll come face to face with facts and we're gradually beginning to face them with more or less conscious intelligence now our out our mental life is also in constant need of nutritional education what we take into the mind as

a phase of our nutritional problem if we take in the wrong thoughts we're going to be just as bad off mentally and physically as we would be if we eat food that is improper to our needs the individual can be allergic to attitudes and everyone more or less is allergic to negative thinking it will never help him and it will almost certainly hurt him now this doesn't mean he won't live through it he may have negative thoughts all his life and pass the century mark but he will simply have extended the period of disappointments disillusionments

and disasters for himself therefore with Nutrition a very fact factual thing the individual has a mental life that needs to be disciplined and needs to be subject to the laws of mental nutrition he breaks these laws every day in front of his television or he breaks in every day in the various activities which he considers essential he takes in a constant stream of bad food he takes in food that is not only indigestible but in many cases it is hopelessly poisonous he does the same thing mentally and physically if he takes in contaminated mental food

he is going to be safe and most of the mental conditions of our society lead to a problem of contaminated thinking you know the person doesn't have to take this on he can live in the midst of it but he does not have to become contaminated there's no law that says that it has been absolutely necessary inevitable or irrevocable that an individual has to become an alcoholic there is no reason given by heaven or Earth why an alcoholic has to drive a car under the influence of alcohol these are things we do ourselves and our

worries are just as futile and useless as these other habits we have no law that says we have to be frightened we now have no law that says that we have to have a world that does what we please it to do or otherwise we will be miserable there is no law that says we have to be happily married or have pleasant relatives or obedient children these factors do not exist as inevitable necessities therefore we cannot resent or reject the opposite when it comes along but every one of these relationship has lessons everything has something

to learn we are not only indebted to our families for a great deal of valuable knowledge but our children are indebted to us for inevitable truths all these things are common necessities of life we can reject them we can allow Prejudice and criticism and condemnation to destroy all of the integrities of relationships but this is not because it is necessary it is because we have chosen to do it that way we have had our personal conceits rebuked in some way and we can never forgive the person who did it our relatives do not do what

we expect them to therefore we won't speak to them again it all lies in our own situation none of the problems that face Us in in our personal lives can remain completely unchanged if we determine to change them there are responsibilities which we may not be able to dispose of but we can transmute them into opportunities we can do anything we want with the problems of the day if we will place inside of ourselves ourselves a major Rod a ruler by means of which we can measure the things that happen in daily life one of

the situations that we all have to face today is on unemployment and all of the relations to it we have to sometimes give up many luxuries that we have come to consider to be this indispensable many persons are unable to give up anything without falling apart yet these same persons when they pass on must give up everything and do nothing more than accept the fact everything in life can be understood reevaluated and accommodated to if we really wish to make the effort therefore if we are good Warriors as most people are these days we should

take some of these worries and see what we can do about them to see how we can change our own thinking our own relation to them and recognize that a problem is a challenge not a disaster now we cannot always make us all the problem but the moment we come against a problem we can't solve This is highly educational in itself the fact that we can't solve some common human problem may just be a proof of that we are not infallible which is a discouraging Discovery to make because we wish to assume that whatever is

necessary we know it whatever we should be doing we do it and he'll suddenly wake up and find that we are not getting anywhere with our own infallibility can be one of the most important lessons that we will ever learn in this world it suddenly gives us the opportunity to recognize that what we consider to be the proof of our wisdom is merely perhaps only the pressure of our own egos determining what we're going to do so we can begin to find out for instance that our advice isn't always good if our advice isn't good

why is it because we've had no opportunity to learn is it that our own lives have in so instituted that we are giving advice based entirely upon personal experience what is the reason why our advice is worthless Our advice is usually worthless because we have not actually learned any of the lessons of life that would make our advice significant the individual who has suffered much and come through it and can give advice the individual who has suffered little and is sorry for himself all his life has very little to contribute to human problems so it's

a matter of gradually gaining an integration within yourself and this integration begins with one basic conviction for the universe is right the things that happen happen because they must happen and it must happen because the law of cause and effect is immutable and yet this law never was and never will be a tyrant the law is not something that is punishing you unjustly or taking away from you things you deserve the law of cause and effect is reminding you whatever that you want in life that is worthwhile you have to deserve you have to earn

happiness you have to earn security not in the terms of a business venture but in terms of internal acceptance of value we all come into this world with really with nothing we even have a body that for a long time is much help to us we live a while four school years perhaps if we're lucky and then we leave this world and we leave it with nothing at all except what we have developed within our own consciousness if there's anything that survives it's the soul and the inner life enriched by good works and by understanding

and insight other things are useless if we die of a broken heart because we can't take physical wealth with us we are really at a very impoverished condition and if we leave great wealth to our descendants we are likely to be doing them a great harm so nature in its own quiet way can give us the Securities we need let's look around ourselves for a while and in other people try to see the consequences of attitudes try to see who among the people we know is perhaps the most happy if we know one individual or

two or three individuals who out of a good lifetime of years and experience are still strong in faith who still are able to rise above the emergencies of living for later years face the future with peace and calm of spirit what have these people that we do not have and we'll generally find out that it is a disposition that is based upon constructive reactions to circumstances these people are not the ones who never suffered but these are the persons to whom suffering was a maturing power for power not a rotting one we will also find

that most of the people who are happy in this world are satisfied with little cherish the things that they do enjoy with great quiet dudes with patience with understanding with gratitude these people are grateful for small mercies we are ungrateful with great blessings therefore our lives are not as theirs are as the years go on we can find in this world a great many persons whose conditions are no better than our own but whose attitudes are remarkably better and this gives us the realization that ours can be bettered also we are not born pessimists we

have to train ourselves to be a pessimist we have to gradually eliminate our life from our lives everything that is good and we almost always have to blame someone else for the tragedy because very few people want to accept the fact that they are wrecking their own lives so out of a little thoughtfulness comes the possibility of the person gaining a stability in this period of stress which is the thing we all want much concerned with and we will find ultimately that no change in our outward circumstances will produce this stability we can move into

a smaller house it may help we can move into a larger one which will gratify certain Ambitions and bring with it more responsibilities than we can carry we can do all kinds of physical things trying to find that peace that the world is seeking but it will still be elusive because everything that is physical is transitory and the only thing that is not transitory in man is his own soul and this is the thing which he must educate he must release in the manifestation and he must serve with fullness of heart and mind so if

you finally decide to do something about it begin the cultivation of constructive living and thinking let the mind be concerned with something that is not worldly now many things have come along that people have found to be very helpful in the studying of their emotional lives service to other people is a tremendously remedying factor to forget our own needs our own wishes our own desires to help persons less fortunate than ourselves has one great virtue it takes our minds off of ourselves and it is the individual with his mind locked on himself who is in

the deepest trouble then there are all kinds of constructive attitudes the individual can begin educating his life and in most persons the education of his life will involve and must involve some religious insights now religion is a very personal thing religion is a relationship between the individual and the divine power behind and within himself when it is viewed this way it is called mysticism for mysticism is the belief in the immediate possibility of direct contact with the divine it does not require intermediaries he does not require that the individual will follow the concepts or traditions

of other persons it means that through the natural expression of internal integrities the individual penetrates into the core of himself and receives virtue and refreshment from that power which lies at the root of his own nature this means of course that uh the calming of the Mind is of the greatest importance the individual who is constantly agitating His Thoughts with negative attitudes is not going to have this calmness but quiet dudes which was of course the basic religious concept of what were called the quietest which included the friends and the Quakers and a number of

Oriental sects this quietude in an expression of the term be still and know that I am God who instead of worrying the Stillness helps Stillness is not an escape from worry it is an internal realization that there is something deeper more valuable more useful and more beneficial than worried it is worrying that is locking us away from our own inner lives all the criticism and condemnation and irritation no matter how much we believe it to be deserved is simply cutting out our own internal experience the more we fix upon outside problems the less time and

energy we have to release internal strength so the one of the simplest things that the warrior can try to do if he is of Soul minded is to take on interests that break in on the worry pattern doing things that are maybe not important physically but are very important as release of understanding and insight the studies of arts and crafts the experience of doing things with the hands is very these are very valuable to the person whose mind is troubled all the time the individual cannot divide his energies equally on two different levels simultaneously therefore

if you can't do anything better where the times get pressure full just sit back quietly and knit anything to use a power to separate the person from negative thinking if you have to keep your mind on something else this helps poetry is of a good nature is a great help in these uh Pursuits a very fine inspirational literature can help not necessarily have highly Advanced intellectual study of the universe but simply gentle quietude storms that reach into the heart of things they bring gentle messages of peace and Contrition to the tired person but whatever it

is gradually educate your mind until you are able to tell it I want you to see the good in things I want you to observe progress and seeing the good in things we do not want the mind to find good in the things that have never been any good we do not want the mind to go back to its old habits to see the good in things for the average person is to realize that an experience is Meaningful and that out of the things that happen we grow a misfortune is not a blight upon us

but a challenge Upon Our resources to accept the challenge of growth we must avoid the tendency to try to escape growth by economic means or by travel or by change which has no direct bearing upon the facts if you can achieve a certain amount of Peace within your own nature you can then begin to re-educate yourself it may take some time because you may not be able to just re-educate everything at once because you may have to re-educate your background back three or four generations to get at the root of some of it your families

have been made up of Warriors everyone has struggled for something that he either didn't get or lost afterwards or perhaps even more often got it and no longer wanted it these things you have to work out in your own life in childhood in education in marriage in relationship with life business children and everything we have been taught to be concerned in the sense of being irritated we have been taught to be critical we have been taught to dislike rather than accept the major occurrences of existence we consider change a disaster when no change can be

the worst disaster of all so with these Concepts basically working in US we must try for the beginning of security and that is a quiet perspective relationship with life when something happens that for the last 50 years has caused us to be angry it's not the best thing to do is to take a deep breath relax and keep quiet instead of answering back and starting an argument that might go far enough to break a home just say nothing very quietly let the thing die without adding anything to it try never to put salt into an

open wound never try to argue faster or better than somebody else that is how Wars are made are people out arguing each other nations out arguing each other each one certain that its ideas are the best and the other one is wrong so under doubt be still and in the being of Stillness and in the quietude of a complete detachment try to understand what is really meant what is all involved in this entire problem who is right who is wrong what is the meaning of the occurrence itself little by little if you do it this

way things become symbols of value instead of symbols of loss by degrees the individual can gain great insights from the quiet acceptance of life he can also observe the consequences come to people who are not self-controlled you can see how the argument leads to another tragedy you can see how people walk out on each other over trivia and why children leave home and get into drift difficulties and perhaps ruin their lives now each person in his own way thinks that somebody else's fault that these are ungrateful children that these are children who do not appreciate

values and securities but the person then says what securities did I give them did I give them three meals a day send them to school and start them off did I give them any moral or philosophical insight did I simply scold them when they didn't do what I expected them to or if they had a fault of some kind did I punish them was there anything in my relationship with these children to inspire them to search within themselves for greater values did I give them a spiritual Foundation of integrities did I prove to them through

my own conduct that my security was based upon integrity if all of these or most of these things were lacking the mere fact that we supplied them with all the physical necessities of life still leaves us with a tremendous unmet responsibility and this is true in almost every Walk of Life that we in we bring people things but we do not help them to establish foundations that will endure the day we are looking perhaps isn't not for some time in the past for a better religious values all around we have finding new groups of people

and old groups also that are beginning to come back to Faith now some of these uh in some of these countries where religion is in trouble particular trouble the faith itself is a tremendous Factor even though politically these countries may not be allowed full religious freedoms they cannot be taken away from the individual's internal life there is no degree of persecution that can prevent the individual from his internal acceptance of realities he may not be able to expound them to other people if he tries to preach them he may find himself in prison or in

worse situation but there is no reason in the world and no power on Earth that can prevent the individual from living on a level of personal integrities he can do whatever is the unpleasant task but he can do it with an understanding of why and that out of persecution out of all of the difficulties they've reset him he is gaining the strength to stand about all of the problems that he has previously considered insurmountable so we know that it does work another thing that is very important in this problem is to maintain some type of

regular religious relationship with life and most of the time we attribute this to church Gathering we think that the individual should join the church should attend services and perhaps send children to the Sunday School but this is again a physical solution to a mystical problem I think every churchgoer should give great thought so how he acts on the six days a week that he doesn't go to church this is the problem is he able to gradually maintain a higher level of religious Integrity in his daily happenings is he able to live every day of his

life some principle that he has learned from his religion is he setting an example to other members of his family is he doing the things that prove the sincerity of his religious commitment the commitment that simply is fulfilled by a donation or fulfilled by attendance and public worship is not enough it is something else entirely it is the individual's own internal uh acceptance of a Divine principle now unfortunately most of our principal religions of today do not give adequate training on what constitutes the real objects of religion uh many religions simply tell us that we

should fear God others that we should love God but both of these terms are extremely abstract they're very hard to understand but we all have to understand every day is that religion all real religion of every denomination is a way of conduct and it's the conduct is inconsistent with the Creed the situation is out of order therefore religion in all matters is to have a constructive relationship with life religion is the power of the individual to see God or good in the occurrences of his daily existence it is necessary for the person if he is

truly religious to become very grateful for the Privileges that are given to him in life instead of constantly beseeching deity to take from him the proper responsibilities which are his own religion is better a veneration acceptance and service of that which is known to be superior therefore gratitude for the Divine privileges is more important than fussing over the human emergencies we are here by a wonderful rule a law that has gone on for millions of years we are the product of life that has been unfolding for con counted millennia we are here because we are

unfolding a Divine spark within ourselves every noble beautiful and wonderful deed that we perform is part of a release of the Eternal God within us every bit of complaint locks that God further into darkness the individual who does not see God in which what is happening to him will not find deity at all and deity is a presence challenging it is causing the individual to call upon his spiritual resources if he believes in peace religion calls upon him to keep the peace if he believes in integrities religion demands that he lives them every day now

of course sometimes it appears to be martyrdom but for the most part we can still do a great deal more than we have done and our first emotion in life should not be a criticism of other people or criticism of circumstances but gratitude for the privilege of learning the privilege of being here to face problems and solve them the problem and privilege to live above disasters and catastrophes and finally to recognize the divine power and the infinite love that rules all things the most most critics have just forgotten that deity is love they have forgotten

that the things they don't like are practical evidence of divine love if the if the Divine Spirit was not all loving as well as always it would permit individuals to make mistakes On and On Through the Ages until they completely eliminated themselves it would enable all that is evil to Triumph forever all that the selfishness and littleness of the human being would become the standard of all relationships this is not true actually that which loveth most is that which chastise it that which finds ways to correct mistakes before they become impossible so as you start

out in the day or in any part of your life with a negative attitude on things with a kind of a glum look and with a quite definite certainty that everything is going to the dogs it is much better to be quiet and try to say where is the lesson where is the truth in this thing what is it that I can do to make sure that my faith is stronger than the emergencies of living how can the individual prove to himself that his inner resources can carry him through any emergency that arises in his

life there are no emergencies really sickness death and not emergencies that which is an emergency is when an individual makes a bad decision this is an emergency it is because he has forgotten the principles upon which his life should be built built all the things natural and not emergencies it is not an emergency that we grow older it is not emergency that we have to give up certain Privileges and opportunities as years go by everything is that as we grow older we have the right to live according to a longer perspective of experience we can

make decisions that the young have not yet the power to make but in every part of life youth age all periods we are living within a pattern of Divine Purpose if we can get this thought sort of fixed in our minds we will not be so given to all the worries and excitements that come along we are worried today over economics we always will be and always have been as long as we worship economics as long as you make the dollar deity we are going to be out worshiping the golden calf and we will be

always in trouble if we make our life built upon achievement in the same expense of ambition and this ambition causes us to be untrue or unkind or unreasonable we may attain the ambition and at the same time have a stroke or a coronary because nature doesn't want it that way nature doesn't want the individual to live for ambition alone he won't seem to live individual to have a little ambition and a great deal of aspiration this is much better aspiration means to become more ambition means to accumulate more and the more we become the less

dependent we become a fun accumulation until it is no longer a serious emergency with us then there are persons who cannot live or cannot believe they are happy unless they are dominating somebody else the anyone whom we dominate we must accept the consequences of our own domination of them we must take upon ourselves the karma that we have imposed upon other people by trying to live their lives for them and this is especially true if in trying to live our their lives we are simply demanding that they accept our mistakes little by little we have

to learn all these principles they add up to a quite kindly thoughtful relationship a relationship in which we are here to become more and more aware of the infinite good in which we exist a good which we are spoiling and dispoiling ourselves a good which we were forbidding to have happened because of the fact of our personal Ambitions and attitudes as long as the individual lives as a rugged individual he will end up as a ragged individual there is no other way as long as we put a career ahead of everything else and consider success

in terms of monopolistic achievements we are breaking the rules and if we break the rules long enough the rules will break us there is no way in which we can do right and spell there's no way in which we can do wrong and succeed in this emergency of the 20th century ultimately the thing that is going to happen has to happen is that the Tower of Babel that we ourselves have built is going to fall down but this does not mean it will carry us to Oblivion in one terrible experience it simply means that the

individual will be faced with restoring or reconstructing a world which he has has destroyed or devastated by his own false attitudes suppose you have been an alcoholic for 20 years and suddenly decide to get over it now he's going to take an awful lot of willpower to do it it is also going to take considerable personal suffering and it may be that you'll have to be hospitalized for some sometime to get rid of the pressure of this destructive habit now the world so to say is an alcoholic and that can be more literal than we

might think because alcoholism is a blight upon the whole surface of the Earth but also alcoholism is a symbol of a way of life it is a habit forming symbol of man's selfishness it is part of a grand pattern in which everything we have done everything we have thought about everything we have lived for has been dominated by self-interest it has been dominated not by the law of what we should do but the law of what we want to do and will do regardless of consequences the only part about it that's uncomfortable is the consequences

but they are there and they always will be there and no one will ever be able to get rid of them so we are if we are in a badly habit if our world for several thousand years have been doing it wrong this will never for one moment change the fact that it is wrong there's no possible way in which we can cultivate so many vices that anyone or all of them can become virtues if the trouble stays the same nothing changes no matter how much legislation we make how many rules we make or how

many of our contemporaries make the same mistakes the mistake is a mistake to Infinity it will never be changed the only way to get over the mistake is to correct it now with this type of thinking we can sort of relax a little bit I think we can do it from day to day trying to be what we were supposed to be kindly well-intentioned humanitarian persons with as much Mutual affection for each other as is possible for those who know very little about each other but to kindliness and fraternity and cooperation to a constant searching

for something that is truly better and realizing that the successful life is a life dedicated to service and not getting dedicated to accumulation as we go along like that we can smooth out a lot of this worry fear all this hatred all this uh struggle which means people come by the thousands to seek help from Physicians mentalists psychiatrists and all types of Healers simply because they cannot live with themselves they have allowed their personal feelings to make them so sick that they are on the verge of a complete psychological disintegration now there's nothing out of

those people except their own minds if they can change their attitudes and their thinking they can be just as happy as they are now miserable they can be much wiser also because they will discover that the causes of misery are their own mistakes they stop making the mistakes they will be happy not happy may be in the sense of the of riotous living not happy in a sense of going out and expending fortunes on luxuries but happy in a quiet peaceful relationship itself happiness which is the happiness of the normal person regardless of his economic

estate a happiness that comes from good work from being busy from doing our share of the world's labor for doing honest measure for whatever we are remunerated and doing everything as nearly as we can as we would like to believe that God wants it done that we will try always to keep not only the laws of man but the laws behind the laws the Eternal laws that never change if we can do this I think we can find a certain amount of strength over whatever has going to happen what we do what we are not

aware of we can't plan for exactly but if everything we know today is Swept Away we lose really nothing because actually one moment of the heart stopped and we've lost it all anyway therefore nothing of a material nature is permanent whether we lose it now or on the death day makes very little essential difference the league the thing that makes the real difference is whether while we are living we can use things without abusing them that we can have or not have and regardless of our material estate keep Faith with principles upon which the world's

survival depends it's always therefore not much use to get all worked up over things rather it is better to prove that we are good Christian people that we are good religious people that we are devouting our insights and dedications by living a quiet life and shedding and spreading around us only confidence that whatever person we meet we will not build up their negative thinking but will encourage them as far as we can to find the truth behind their own actions we may not succeed but at least we will not build up their troubles by adding

more negative thinking to theirs is they have to live only with their own negative thinking it's bad enough but if they have to live with our pile of it that we put on them it's still worse so the best thing to do is to try always to be peaceful and constructive and find the good in the thing as it is find the lesson it is teaching us find a way of superior existence which it is pointing to and that it all accompanied by the very simple fact that the more we serve the ego the worse

off we'll be but the more we serve the soul that lies within and which isn't the God within us the more we will come into the peace and happiness of realization and final infinite adjustments to the plan of which we are apart we find all by peace we find all by quietude and we find nothing but trouble by fear well I guess that's awful [Applause]