Chapter IV
THE AFFIRMATIVE LIFE
W. John Murray
Mental
Medicine
Divine Science Publishing Assoc.
New York, 1923.
[108] Negative
thoughts attract negative conditions, even if they do not actually
create them, and it must also be evident that there can be no real
happiness until this destructive practice is discontinued; this goes
without saying, but the question is, "What shall we do to be saved?"
Every sensible
man and woman who has suffered from negative thinking in the form of
worry, fear, suspicion or jealousy, has also suffered from insomnia,
dyspepsia, or some other form of nervous or bodily discomfort. It is
reasonable to suppose then that they have tried to overcome such
thoughts as have made such misery-producing consequences in their
bodies; but how have they tried to do it? Usually by exercising
will-power, and while they have in [109] many cases suppressed the
external manifestation of their inner emotions, it has been at the
cost, all too frequently, of setting up other negative conditions which
have been just as injurious as if they had given them free rein.
Will-power has
its limitations; hence, when the will would be something of itself, it
is like a motor car with insufficient gasoline; it can go just so far
and no farther. We cannot, for instance, will ourselves to believe in
the sphericity of the globe and thus assert the nothingness of the
sunrise, but we can learn that the globe is a
sphere, or nearly so, and by so learning we can prove to ourselves that
the sphere revolves and the sun stands still. In such a matter the will
does not enter at all, unless it is in the determination to get at the
facts in the case, but it is always this that we must get at if we
would arrive at correct conclusions. "Knowledge is Power;" therefore it
is the knowledge of our inseverable connection with the Source of all
Being that is required, [110] if we would live the affirmative life.
The affirmation of Jesus, "I and the Father are one," angered the
rabbis, but it established a truth, which, when once we grasp it, makes
for a power which nothing else in all the world can confer.
As the warmth
and light of the sun are one with the sun and inseverable from it, so
man in his true relation to the Infinite is one with the Infinite as
effect is one with the cause. This one-ness of man with his Maker is a
truth, but unless we know this truth, it will be of little real use to
us, for to be a thing and not to be aware of it, is the same as if we
were not it. The son of a king stolen in infancy by bandits and raised
as a bandit is still the son of a king, but unless he knows this he
gains no advantage from the fact. Looking at ourselves from the
standpoint of the material, merely, and knowing no other law than the
material, we are subject to it with its penalties of poverty, pain,
passion and general unhappiness. We are like men sentenced by the lower
[111] courts to imprisonment for crimes they have never committed, and
who do not realize the fact that there are higher courts to which they
may appeal.
The lower court
of human ignorance has handed down its decision through long centuries
of spiritual stupidity; that man is doomed to sin and sorrow and
sickness, and man has accepted this unjust sentence almost without a
protest. He has felt the injustice of it all but has accepted his
misfortunes as do those innocents who hear the words of a judge who,
not knowing all the facts in the case, says, "Three months at hard
labor." Not realizing that there is a higher court than that of the too
often unintelligent magistrate, men make no appeal, and in a similar
manner live lives of sorrow, and sickness, and poverty when they might
be well, and happy, and prosperous if they could be taught to appeal to
something higher than popular opinion, which is almost invariably wrong.
For centuries
this opinion declared that [112] aerial navigation would never be made
possible. It was "contrary to law" said the wise men, who never
acknowledged the possibility of a thing until it struck them in the
face and blackened their eyes. Aviation would be the abolition of the
laws of gravitation and of God alike, said certain theologians, and
therefore it could not be, since these laws, physical and metaphysical,
were opposed to it. It is, however, strange that the things that "can't
be done" are so frequently accomplished, and this without the wiseacres
admitting its possibility.
The affirmative
life requires that we admit, first of all, that anything that is really
worthwhile is possible, and secondly that we go to work to prove this
fact; for there will be no attempt to perform a feat, physical or
mental, until we make the admission to ourselves that it is possible of
performance. It is getting out of date to say of anything, "It can't be
done." The race has been made to "take it back" so often that it
hesitates to voice its gravest doubts. Despite all the [113]
imperfections of the human mind today it is more receptive to new ideas
than ever before. The New Psychology has not come before its time;
neither is it the voice of one crying in the wilderness; it is the
supply for a demand; the answer to a prayer for more light. Demand does
not create supply, it reveals it. The demand for better conditions of
mind, body and estate has not moved God to create a new supply of
peace, power and plenty; it has simply opened the door of thought
inward, so that man may see that the things he seeks are not external
to himself but rather "within" him as God-implanted potentialities, to
be worked out through intelligent affirmations of the eternal and
demonstrable Good in his own nature.
When the
prophet Joel cried out to the children of Israel, spent with toil,
warfare and privation, "Let the weak say, I am strong," he was
antedating Coue' by thousands of years and going him one better, for as
long as one continues to say, "Day by day in every way I am getting
better and better," [114] it will imply that he is not yet well, even
if he should continue the affirmation for centuries.
Paul's
statement, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,"
is more positive and more scientific than the modern disciple's, for it
reveals the Source from which Paul is assured of
support. Like his Master he knows that "of himself he can do nothing;"
and this is a very necessary thing for anyone to know. Without steam in
the boiler the most perfect machinery in the world would be useless;
without the underlying spiritual substance of all things words and
affirmations are like "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." The reason
why results follow affirmations, when there is no knowledge of the
underlying substance which gives them their own power, is due to the
fact that this power is employed even when there is no consciousness of
its being employed; on the same principle that one will get
illumination by merely touching a button even when he knows nothing at
all [115] about electrical science; but we must not remain content
merely to touch buttons, for some time we might be called upon to
repair a break or a blowout.
Ignorant
compliance with law is a good thing, but intelligent co-operation is
better. This is true of mental healing, as it is true of all other
things. What is called Faith-healing is based upon the belief
that prayer in its petitionary form will move God to destroy whatever
is distressing, and when this belief is
sufficiently strong, the cure may be established, not because Divine
Mind has been moved from its original position, but because the human
mind by the force of its strong belief, has appropriated through faith
a normal condition, which is lost through fear. "Thy faith hath made
thee whole," said Jesus to the woman who believed that if she could
just touch the hem of His garment she would be made whole. It was not
the hem of His garment nor the spoken word which effected the cure, but
her own mental attitude which assured her that if she could [116] do
one thing, another thing would follow as a natural consequence. It was
not necessary for her to know the Law in order to
avail herself of its beneficent potency, any more than it is necessary
for a person to understand the chemistry of food in order to be
sustained by it. However, faith-cure has its limitations, for while the
woman was healed in this remarkable manner, it does not follow that she
understood the process or could apply it scientifically to the cure of
another. "What does it matter," says one, "whether one understands the
law or not, so long as one can be benefited by it?" This is a question
prompted by selfishness, for the most natural thing under such
circumstances would be to ask, "What shall we do
that we may work the works of God?"
The New
Psychology is the answer to this question, for it tells us that not
only can we be benefited by the mental or spiritual efforts of another,
but that we can so learn the laws of Mind as to avail ourselves of them
even as we avail ourselves of the laws of mathematics [117] in the
construction of bridges, buildings, ships and railroads.
If the
parrot-like repetition of a statement like Mr.Coue's, "Day by day in
every way I am getting better and better," can set in motion a healing
energy which will reinvigorate and rebuild, what may not a higher
statement based upon an understood principle do?
If the invalid
can learn to say and to think of himself, "I am well
because God is the health of my countenance," and keep on saying it
despite slowness of results, he will reap the fruit of faith in a
radical restoration. If at times there seems to be an increase or
intensification of symptoms, let him intensify his affirmations, for
such conditions are often the indications of that change in
consciousness which precedes the complete eradication from his system
of all that has tended to make him miserable. Shakespeare says,
"Before the curing of a strong disease,
Even in the instant of repair and health, [118]
The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,
On their departure most of all show evil."
When the
epileptic boy whom the disciples could not heal was treated by Jesus,
it is written, he "wallowed foaming." We must not expect these violent
disturbances, but if they should come, we must know how to handle them.
Above all the noise of such fermentation we should still affirm that,
"In that eternal Presence all is peace; there is no confusion." This
will produce a change similar to that which is produced when oil is
poured on troubled waters.
Mental Medicine
is not limited to "trifles light as air," but, like mathematics, it
contains within itself a solution for any and every problem which may
present itself, simple or complex, functional or organic.
Chapter
5
Mental Medicine
Table
of Contents
(Formerly at Northwoods Divine
Science Resource Center)
