Showing results by narrator "Jim Wentland" in All Categories

Christianity, its rise, progress, and influence on the human race must cause the deepest interest among thinking men.

Friends, you and I are interested in learning how to use our minds and in the most effective way. We want to know how to think in such a manner that our lives will be happy and successful. And learning how to think rightly is like learning how to use any other set of tools.

You will remember the story of Aladdin and his lamp; that when he rubbed his lamp and made a wish, then the genie would appear. Jesus said, "There is a light that lighteth every man's path". But he added, "If you put your light under a bushel, then no one can see it". It is this light which is the light of God and the light of life that is your light.

The present book, Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age, is a fruit of Steiner's lecturing activity. The substance of it was contained in a series of lectures he gave in Berlin beginning just after Michaelmas in 1900, when he was thirty-nine. Steiner wrote later, “By means of the ideas of the mystics from Meister Eckhart to Jacob Boehme, I found expression for the spiritual perceptions which, in reality, I decided to set forth. I then summarized the series of lectures in the book, Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age.”

This Book may justly challenge the first place for antiquity, from all of the Books in the World, being written some hundred of years before Moses' time, as I shall endeavour to make good.

Friends, I want to talk to you about some of the secret powers hidden within each one of us, powers that are transcendent of our ordinary faculties. We are so used to thinking that we are made up of flesh and blood and bone and hair that we lose sight of the more subtle powers of the mind. Yet, throughout the ages there have been people who have had transcendent powers that go beyond the bounds of physical laws, as we understand them.

I have felt the unseen hand, been guided by it, and felt the kind but steady urge in the direction which it knew to be best, though my intellect failed to see the beauty of the road toward which the hand was directing me.

Every time I talk on this subject I begin with this. I have no gold brick to sell. This is no get-rich-quick scheme. I have nothing at all to sell to you. There are no secret doctrines that will tell you how to make a million in a month. While there is an exact science of gaining wealth, I will say in beginning that possibly none of you will ever prove it. Nevertheless, I will say that it is an exact law, a scientific and unfailing law. There is a law of perfect supply.

Demonstrating the spiritual principle of life is a process of convincing the mentality of an inner and ever-present good, reality is already perfect. God is always God and good is never evil. It is only as we turn, with our whole consciousness to the light that we receive light. It is impossible, while we keep ourselves covered with darkness, for the light to shine on us.

All things respond to the call of rejoicing; all things gather where life is a song. This is the message of the new order, the new life, and the new time. It is the golden text of the great gospel of human sunshine. It is the central truth of that sublime philosophy of existence, which declares that the greatest good is happiness, and that heaven is here and now.

The statement of individuality that “I am here, now”, is a mighty one. It will always be “I am” with you - it will always be “here” with you. No matter what state your individuality may reach; no matter what point of space you may occupy; no matter what period of time it may be - it will always be true that “I am here, now!” May you unfold into a perception of this statement of individuality.

Friends, if God is all there is, it follows that the spirit within us must be some part of the divine being. When we were born into this world we were accompanied by a spiritual presence which is the real self. But this spiritual self is pretty much an unknown guest to all of us.

In what does success consist? Many persons desire to know how to be successful. How to win success. Before this question can be answered there must be an understanding as to what they mean by success, and what success stands for in this book. I asked a correspondent what he meant by success, and his answer was, "I am in business, and I wish to make money from it!" Another wishes to win an office.

When Jesus said, "It is done unto you as you believe", he not only announced a law of faith, he explained how it works. If there is a law of faith, it is right where you are, and it will operate like any other law in nature.

Then the disciples of Jesus asked, “What must we do that we may work the works of God?“ all the reply that Jesus gave was, “Believe”, and this was the substance of all his instruction. Set your thoughts in a certain direction; make your mind to hold thoughts that believe in the Good as possible. That is all that is necessary for us to do to increase our belief, to extend the boundaries of what we believe to be possible. All that we are now is the result of our believing; every action and word shows forth what we have been believing, and are now holding in mind.

Blake asked the question: "Why is it that the Bible is more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding, or reason?" The one book, called the Bible, is composed of 66 books. Take this challenge. Study each book as though the depth of your soul is speaking to your surface mind. As though the ineffable Imagination is speaking to the human Imagination, and not to your immediate understanding or reasoning mind.

Did you know that you are a wonderful person in your own right, that life has set a unique stamp of individuality on you, and that no one else can ever take your place in the scheme of things? No two persons have identical thumb prints, no two blades of grass are alike, no two leaves of trees, no two snowflakes are ever identical.

Our teaching has a very great deal of mysticism in it and it should be more completely developed with the realization that mysticism is not mystery just as intuition is not psychism. Half of the world and three-fourths of the world in our field, who should know better, mistake intuition for psychism and think if a person gets a hunch they must be very spiritual so most people mistake mysticism for mystery.

Today I want to tell you the story of a beautiful young woman who proved in her own experience that there is one divine presence in everything and in everyone. This is the story of a young school teacher who learned how to solve her problems through meditation and prayer.

We are all on the receiving line, wishing to get the most out of life. We wouldn't be normal if we didn't wish to enjoy living, for life is made to live. How could there be a song unless someone sings it? But sometimes we fail to realize that there is an exact law of life which tells us that in the long run we shall only receive what we give.