SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS

Looking at you, each and all, it is clearly perceptible that you have a physical-body as well as soul-body which in other words is said to be life of the physical body. We wish to implant in you and want you to realise that soul-consciousness is as real as bayonet thrust but only to those who valued their lives. It is the source of wisdom and true knowledge. The soul, the spark of God, being seated in you, you have the capacity to use your higher faculties, but surprisingly you being cut off from the main source i.e. your soul you cannot use the higher faculties. The material world is so illuminating and so charming that one is totally lost into it and therefore totally ignores the soul consciousness. Without soul consciousness you will never come to know either the purpose of your creation or the purpose of your life on this planet. You may say why should I think about my incarnation, it is the will of the God which has created the Earth, and us? If we live in plenty, it is his will; if we live in dearth it is again his will. No, you are wrong if you think so. If you don’t take it that you are the doer of your deeds, your karm, then the age old saying ‘as you sow so shall you reap’ will be nullified.

Mind you, if you wish to call yourself human you must develop your soul-consciousness. People in general, roaming with one single thought to procure riches and things, are like animals who only think for food and indulge in sexual instincts. The more you are captivated by the thoughts of material gains, more you sink into the depths of worry and sorrow with the result that you are drawn away from the soul consciousness. A balanced life of spiritual and material both will raise you to the heights of super consciousness and make you joyous and peaceful. You have been told time and again that accumulation of dead material objects unproportionate to your need by hook or by crook, you sow the seed of bad Karm whose results will also be bad — disease and misery, Spirituality inculcates good Karm. If you make it a part of your life, life-long, then a day may dawn when you get up in the morning with a smile on your face. Spiritual Sadhna takes you nearer to your soul — the seat of joy. You have spiritual or soul-body and physical both. Hence you are supposed to appease both, keep up both in good spirit.

No doubt, you have been sent on this planet with a physical body and hence you have to earn to make your body comfortable. It is also needed in the spiritual Sadhna. Without the body seated in a place of silence and suitable atmosphere, you will not be able to do your Sadhna. Hence you have to earn. But don’t have to burn yourself like others who carried away by the thought of superiority over others, indulge in practices deterrent and despicable to health and character. Now it’s time to touch another point which I wish to bring out is this: How to come in touch with the Soul or higher Soul who alone can hold and change our mind, our circumstances, our health and wealth. Ancient yog practices are only refuge for you to mend your thoughts and thereby your thinking. This is the only way to have a lucidity which reveals you what you could have never known otherwise.

The practices of Yog will enable you to touch the higher or lower levels of the universal mind that knoweth all that you may desire to know but it is imperative that you break down false conventions, false restrictions in life. You are partially free to think freely if you live within the reasonable and powerful convictions laid down by our scriptures. Otherwise you will not be able to think freely and enmesh yourself in the tangle you have made of your material life. As stated above, any change in your mental make-up will be possible after going through Ancient Yog Sadhna. Our course on the Holy Order of Krishna, based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and the text on Ancient Yog which provide teachings of our scriptures.

God is Love
Progressive physiology has caught a glimpse of a great truth once preached by the great ones of India. The modern advocates of this optimistic philosophy point out to long-faced mankind the value of a hearty laugh. They tell you how it brushes off nasty cob-webs from your brain and reveals to you a new and often times a humorous side to even the ugliest experience you ever came across; how man often intensifies his pain and miseries a million times more by viewing them all too seriously; how a morose and moody, a melancholy and dry attitude of mind is like a contagious disease that not only cramps and shuts off growth and intuition in your self but darkens and defiles ever so many other lives around you; how it renders the world worse than a dark prison where you rot all your life and how it is SIN you commit against God, yourself and humanity by always pulling a long face. They also tell you that a cheerful, loving and genial attitude would, by reflex action, steady your heart-action, quicken circulation, produce an all-round bracing effect on your physical self.

By all means take a dose of this philosophy daily, morning and evenings. It will do you good, mentally, physically and morally. It will take you through life with less pain and misery. Be serene and cheerful. Of course, at times we all do pull faces 100 yards long and look as glum as we can. But this is generally due to habit and we can overcome it greatly. There is a certain stage in man’s life when he is quite strenuous, hard, stern and serious. But this is all nonsense. If you feel like it, don’t show your face to the world. You have no right to carry around that infection. Go and mope by yourself. And if you are of a brighter turn, never tolerate these human ghosts. ‘A smile is as good as a prayer.’ This universe, says the Hindu philosopher, with its various contrasts, is the ‘play’ of the Lord. Yes, no doubt, it is. Let us go through the motions of life cheerfully and, as far as possible, sweetly. Everything is, and shall be, over-ruled for final good. So, don’t be ashamed to smile through your tears and don’t be afraid to ‘smile down’ the most long-faced fellow you know. No boisterousness please, and no laziness. We all are here to work, and work is sweet. Everything is moving towards perfection. I join the procession willingly and joyously. Learn the Law of Love, O Man! There alone is real Happiness. This law is simple. Dig into yourself and find out the secrets and the bearings of this law.

Everything says “Damn” to the brute who talks high-sounding intellectual things and yet whose heart is dry as bones. Even his creator hides His face from him. Cheerfulness is the first sign of a ripened wisdom and a clean life. “Love, more love, and fuller” we need. This is the heal-all of the world’s pain and despair. Between seriousness and joyousness–look for the golden mean. Extremes must be avoided here as elsewhere. Too much laughter and levity will exercise a weakening effect upon your mind. And too much seriousness and studied reserve will build around you a wall that shall soon be your coffin. Find the golden mean. And when pain comes, be glad. It will soften your heart so that at last you will shrink from inflicting pain on another even by a word. And when you have grown so ‘soft-hearted’, know for certain, God is very near. Poor foolish father and school master! He tries to thrash his boy into goodness and fails most lamentably.

Love is the only corrective, the only true educationist. Forgive, O man! forgive. If you are one who says long prayers to his God and yet is hard upon others, I say, then, you are a brute, a living beast. Be ashamed of yourself, you religious hypocrite. The man who eats beef, commits fornification and tells lies is better far than the hard-hearted priests with all their vegetarianism, long prayers and sanctiomonious decorum; only if the former has a warm heart. And I know you all will agree with me in this. Times are changing. Narrow mindedness and bigotry, prejudice, caste and priest-craft, with all their concomitant evils, must give place to a broader and free view of life. You may crow your loudest against the ‘New Light’ but it is going to prevail. Just as you seek independence for yourself, so ought you to leave others to find it for themselves. The atheist is as much to be honoured as the theist. Dare to be a free-thinker. Let none curb the independence of your soul. To love and be loved is the Ideal at present. ***

LESSON I— Synopsis: The Lessons here are a continuation of “Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy”—Bhakti and Faith— Xian Doctrine of Faith and its base-Kant’s theory—Sradha and Bhakti—The Mantra of the lesson: “There is none other God but God.”.

We have treated in brief, rather we have touched only the fringe of the subject, in our “Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism,” when we stated that Bhakti Yoga is that branch or form of the Yogi Philosophy specially suited to those whose “religious nature” is largely developed and who prefer to grow into an understanding and union with the “Absolute” by the power of Love—by the inspiration that comes from the love of some conception of God and some form of worship that may accompany that conception of Deity. The terminology that was used was the terminology then current, and we used terms such as “Absolute” which mean nothing at all to-day in the language of pragmatism; but we had to use such terms as links between the then current translations of Hindu-Yogi ideas and the then incomplete terminology of the European intellectuals.

At the very outset we have to state that our subject is quite circumscribed by the fact that the metaphors used in the Hindu Bhakti Yogi Philosophy are untranslatable into western thought forms of expression; at every step, while using English terms, we have to state that the terms do not convey the idea of the complex Sanskrit original. Bhakti for instance has been often translated as faith and the term has been identified with the western doctrine of faith with which it has nothing to do. Bhakti signifies devotion, love, loyalty to something higher than oneself, mingled with an element of respect, reverence, and worship, says Mr. Sturdy, in translating the Narada Bhakti Sutras, and, as you can see, the definition given of Bhakti is still vague and indefinite.

Bhakti Yoga as the “Doctrine of salvation of love and devotion,” says Sturdy again, “will be found everywhere permeating Indian religious thought”. Again we can see that the idea of Bhakti Yoga is not expressed by this definition; the definition itself is based on a Semitic or Christian metaphysic where alone and not in the Hindu concept is there the idea of a something wanting to be saved; the Hindu idea of Moksha is belated and not antique thought and even then it does not imply the antithesis of anything more than a temporary Bondage (Bandha) to ignorance; never a bondage to sin as is the Christian doctrine.Great, therefore, will be the difficulty of those who want to compare Bhakti with the Christian doctrine of faith and want to account for its derivation by forced processes from the Christian doctrine or from the roots thereof in Judeo-Semitic ontology.

Writing as we do mainly for the English speaking peoples of the world, the majority of them of Europe and America, a general idea of the Christian doctrine of faith is necessary to show the correspondences, coincidences, differences with the Hindu-Yogi doctrine. Says Madame Annie Besant in her “Esoteric Christianity”: The general teaching in the early Church on the doctrine of Atonement was that Christ as the representative of humanity faced and conquered Satan the representative of the Dark powers who held humanity in bondage, wrested his captive from him and set him free. Slowly as Christian teachers lost touch with spiritual truths and they reflected their own increasing intolerance and harshness on the pure and loving Father of the teachings of the Christ they represented Him as angry with man and the Christ was made to save man from the wrath of God instead of from the bondage of evil. Then legal phrases intruded still further, materializing the once spiritual idea, and the “scheme of redemption” was forensically outlined. The seal was set on the redemption scheme by Anselm in his great work “Cur Deus Homo” and the doctrine which had been slowly growing into the theology of Christendom was thenceforward stamped with the signet of the Church. Roman Catholics and Protestants at the time of the Reformation alike believed in the vicarious and substitutionary character of the Atonement wrought by Christ. There is no dispute between on this point.

Luther teaches that Christ did truly and effectually feel for all mankind the wrath of God malediction and death. Flavel says that to the wrath of an infinite God without mixture to the very torments of hell was Christ delivered and that by the hand of his own father. The Anglican homily preaches that sin did pluck God out of heaven to make him feel the horrors and pains of death and that man being a firebrand of hell and a bondsman of the devil was ransomed by the death of His only and well beloved son. The heat of His wrath, burning wrath could only be pacified by Jesus, so pleasant was the sacrifice and oblation of His son’s death.

Edwards being logical saw that there was a gross injustice in sin being twice inflicted, first on Jesus the substitute of mankind, and then on the lost portion of mankind; so he in common with most Calvinists finds himself compelled to restrict the atonement to the elect and declared that Christ bore the sins not of the world but of the chosen of the world; he suffers not for the world but for them whom thou hast given me. But Edwards adheres firmly to the view of the belief in substitution and rejects the universal atonement for the very reason that to believe Christ died for all is the surest way of proving that he died for none in the sense Christians have hitherto believed. He declares that Christ suffereth the wrath of God for men’s sins; that God imposed his wrath due unto and Christ underwent the pains of hell for sin.

Owen regards Christ’s sufferings as a full valuable compensation to the justice of God for the sins of the elect and says that he underwent that same punishment that they were bound to undergo. Stroud makes Christ drink the cup of the wrath of God; Jenkins says He suffered as one disowned and reprobated and forsaken of God. Dwight considers that he endured God’s hatred and contempt. Bishop Jeune tells us that after man had done his worst, worse remained for Christ to bear; he had fallen into his father’s hands. Archbishop Thomson preaches that the clouds of God’s wrath gathered thick over the whole human race; they discharged themselves on Jesus only. He becomes a curse for us and a vessel of wrath. Liddon echoes the same sentiment; the apostles teach that mankind are slaves and that Christ on the cross is paying their ransom. Christ crucified is voluntarily devoted and accursed—he even speaks of the precise amount of ignominy and pain needed for the redemption and says that the divine victim paid more than was absolutely necessary.

This lengthy quotation is given for stating the basis on which Bhakti has arisen in the west; not that these ideas are in any wise correct; not that these ideas are compatible with the growing gentleness of everyday life in the world of civilization today, but because as we look backwards over the effects produced by this doctrine we find that belief in it, even in its legal and to us crude exoteric form, is connected with some of the very highest developments of Christian conduct and because of the fact that some of the noblest examples of Christian manhood and womanhood have drawn from it their strength, their inspiration and their comfort.

It would be unjust, continues Besant, not to recognize this fact. And the fact that the doctrine repellent as it is to more thoughtful minds to-day exercised over the minds and hearts of men and does exercise a compelling fascination, that it has been the root of heroic self-surrenders, of touching and pathetic examples of self-sacrifice in the service of man, is to be recognized and understood; something more there must be hidden therein, some kernel of life which has nourished those who have drawn from it their inspiration. And that something is faith, not Christian faith but its ancient Hindu equivalent, Sradha, an equivalent as antique as the Vedic literature.

We can understand it better when we read William James in his “Varieties of Religious Experience.” “The whole force of the Christian religious Bhakti, therefore, so far as belief in the divine personages determines the prevalent attitude of the believer is in general exerted by the instrumentality of pure ideas of which nothing in the individual’s past experience directly serves as a model.” Immanuel Kant held a curious doctrine about such objects of belief as God, the design of creation, the soul, its freedom and the life here after. These things, he said, are not properly objects of knowledge at all. Our conceptions always require a sense content to work with and as the words soul, God, immortality cover no distinctive sense content whatever; it follows that theoretically speaking they are words devoid of any significance. Yet strangely enough they have a definite meaning for our practice.

We can act as if there was a God; feel as if we were free; consider nature as if she were full of special designs, lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life. Our faith that these unintelligible objects actually exist proves thus to be a full equivalent in practical insight or from the point of view of our action for a knowledge of what they might be, in case we are permitted positively to conceive them. So we have the strange phenomenon, as Kant assures us, of a mind believing with all its strength in the real presence of a set of things of no one of which it can form any notion whatever.

We are quoting largely because we cannot convey the idea of the strange eastern word Bhakti otherwise; we are only stating that in its ancient Vedic sense of Sradha, Bhakti is the “believing in order to know,” the believing not necessarily in a reality apprehend-able by the senses or the mind, or rather which does not exist at all. And curiously enough it has been admitted even by Christian mystics (Bhaktas) that the absence of definite sensible images is positively insisted on by the mystical authorities in all religions as the sine qua non of a successful orison or contemplation of the divine truths; truly it appears that Bhakti Yoga is based on what strictly speaking need not be true at all.

The crux of the whole of Bhakti Yoga is this Sradha, the belief that there is an unseen order and that our supreme good lies in adjusting our selves harmoniously thereto; rather in a belief, a creed whatever the creed may be, that things are so and so whether they are so and so or not; it is a matter of comparative indifference whether the thing believed in (to be true) is true or not; it is of the utmost importance that it is believed in as true. All our attitudes, moral, practical or emotional, as well as religious are due to the objects of our consciousness: the things which we believe to exist whether really or ideally along with our selves. Such objects may be present to our senses or they may be present to our thought; in either case they elicit from us a reaction and the reaction due to things of thought is notoriously in many cases as strong as that due to sensible presences. It may even be stronger. The memory of an insult may make us angrier than the insult did when we received it. We are frequently more ashamed of our blunders afterwards than we were at the moment of making them; and in general our whole higher prudential and moral life is based on the fact that material sensations actually present may have a weaker influence on our action than ideas of remoter facts, says William James. This is exactly what we Hindus want to convey by the idea of Sradha which by the way is derived from the very ancient root credo, cretin (slavic), a root-word found even in ancient Lithuanian.

Have then a creed; whatever it may be; believe and you shall be saved, says the Christian; and more tersely, more aptly says the Muslim: “There is none other God but Alla!” Do but realize it; let it be the slogan of this lesson.

“THERE IS NONE OTHER GOD BUT GOD!”

LESSON II— Synopsis: Sradha Bhakti—Its ancient origins, the Believing in order to know—Whether true or not— Faith is the ancient (Persian) Fire—Make up your mind definitely—Have your own creed— Sradha, Belief as valued by Martin Luther—Faith and Common sense—Mantra for the Lesson.

On Sradha-Bhakti, Pandit Bhagabhat Kumar Shastri, in his work on the “Bhakti Cult in Ancient India” would tell you that sradha-bhakti was the earliest phase of the cult of devotion and that its traces are to be found in the Rg Veda wherefrom and from elsewhere he quotes elaborately. It is Sradha or faith, the believing in order to realize, that brings on realization of the Truth; Sradha is the mother and mantra is the father of the whole world of ritual, which means that you must have faith and not dissent from the outset as to whether the ritual was to produce benefit or not; Say the ancient texts: “Sradha lits the fire, sradha pours out the oblation; it is sradha that the god takes cognizance of in our prayers; is she not then the divine spirit of the ritual? Yes, she is the embodied spirit or goddess at whom the whole devotion is aimed; she is worshipped morning, evening and noon; she is to give the reward of piety; she is to grant prosperity; let her inspire the worshipper with the spirit of faith.”

Later far than the Vedas are the Puranas, especially the Mahabharata, and its statement here-on is characteristic. In the Shanti Parva (ch. 59) the Mahabharata would tell us that whether the sun arose or not, sages provoked the fire by the spirit of the Law, Dharma, and themselves being imbued full of Faith (sraddhadhanah) and self- controlled recognized Sradha as a mighty instrument; every man was indeed as powerful as was his faith, the Sradha in him, the Sradha that according to the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient translation of the original conversation between God and earliest man, was itself Man. Yo yat sradhah sa eva sah; we quote the ancient text and translate “every one is as his faith and truly is he of that faith”—nothing more goes to the real make up of man but the Ideas that are of his creed (sradha), the ideas that he has made his own by belief therein.

It is interesting to note the antiquity of the concept of Sradha faith as the believing a thing to be true whether it be true or not, for the purposes of faith. This is called Rita, as different from Satya, truth; Satya is the actual; Rita is the reality; Satya is inferior, says the Scripture, to Rita; for whereas the Law sanctions occasions when the truth shall be transcended, shalt not be uttered, the law, Dharma, is but another aspect of Rita and derived from the same root. Rita always takes precedence over satya; it evolved before the truth and Rita is but the moral order that governs the world. Rita is not untruth but the truth that is greater than truth, the belief that transcends perception that transcends the truth, by idealizing itself, by objectivizing itself as Reality.

This believing in order to know, Rita, was of fiery force said the ancients (even before the Indo-Persian separation), and the Persians carried the word athar, from the roots Rita and Dharma, as the synonym of fire; their fire priest was Atharvan the angiras (son of fire) of the Indian Aryan. Such is the antique history of the concept of rita or sradha or faith. The Semitic truly relies on Sradha or faith; either in his Shaivism worship of Shiva as the lord that will deliver us from the bondage of all (pasa) nooses; or in the Islam of surrender to Alla the transcendent, unknown, not fully knowable, God whom thou shalt believe in; the Christian defines the nature of this faith, circumscribes and still leaves its nature beyond explanation.

And the Christian scriptures extend their concept of faith, aye even to Sradha: “Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do; but let thy left hand not know what thy right hand doeth.” Hindu-Yogi Philosophy insists on the utter necessity of avoiding all insincerity in the practice of religious devotion; the Bhakti Yoga must be one pointed, ekanta, never attentive to anything else, ananya; never adulterated, avyabhichari are the words used; for in the inner life the life that is a sacrifice antar-yajna, where the soul is the sacrificer, sradha, oneness, non-division, non-divergence in the Will is the helpmate of the sacrificer, the patni (wife) of the Atma-soul. Many are the verses, advices to guard against the slightest divergence in this Will, against Asradha; it is an excellent thing, as says Stilwell, to have to make up your mind definitely, it gives all your arguments a certain definiteness and sharpness when a point is reached at which they are to produce a definite result.

And look you, this is not a matter in which you can dissent from the outset; you must have faith. But faith does not mean that you must accept any of the extant creeds and subordinate yourself thereto accordingly; quite the reverse is the teaching of the Hindu-Yogi Philosophy. And note it in the admirable words of Stilwell: “One of the causes that has shortened life in the past has been the gloomy hue given to it by established religions with their creeds of predestination, foreordination, infant damnation and the belief that the earth was a vale of sorrow from which death uplifted man and liberated him. To-day religion is being lifted up, purified, clarified and man is finding religious hope and joy.

No truth can be encompassed by creeds and copyrighted; man should be free to express his own inspiration and not be held in bondage by organizations and creeds; his mind should be always open to new thought which is truth forcing itself on man and be it new thought in an established sect or a new sect with new thoughts that uplift, they are all spiritual elevators; some appeal to one and some to others; they are a part of progress and it is right to progress, to be free to perceive and accept greater enlightenment. When man is ready for a new revelation it is given him. It is always knocking at the portals of thought as the truth in these pages and as God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever; that which was accomplished in the days of old can be accomplished now.”

When we say that you need not accept any of the extant creeds and that you ought not slavishly subordinate yourself to any of them we do not mean that you should have no creed whatever or that you should be an agnostic. That is far from the theme of Hindu Bhakti Yoga; you cannot in Bhakti Yoga have an “open mind” nor colorless opinions; but on the other hand you must have a creed, your own creed—what the creed is, does not at all matter for the purposes of Bhakti Yoga. The Bhakti Yoga is not for the many; it is not for the herd, not for the majority of persons whose actions cancel each other out; for such are those who go on from day to day with a little of this and a little of that, with a few kind and a few unkind thoughts; nothing really gets done for them. They wish a dozen different careers and the force which might have raised them up to eminence in any one of them is wasted. Body and mind are changed, changed beyond recall by nightfall. And, have they, have you asked what meaning hath any, of this change?

The sense then that there is something beyond this herd life to be attained, the desire to reach out to that life is in all Beings is their Sradha. This is the second great lesson of Bhakti Yoga, which adds, as is each one’s Sradha, that much alone is He. Christians can attune themselves to this Hindu idea best by studying it along with the quotation from Luther’s commentary on the Galatians, Ch. III-19 and II-20: “God,” says Luther, “is the God of the humble, the miserable, the oppressed and the desperate and of those that are brought even to nothing; and his nature is to give sight to the blind, to comfort the broken hearted, to justify sinners, to save the very desperate and damned.

Now, that pernicious and pestilent opinion of man’s own righteousness which will not be a sinner, unclean, miserable, damnable but righteous and why suffereth not God to come to his own natural and proper work. Therefore, God must take his maul in hand (the law I mean) to beat in pieces and bring to nothing this beast with her vain confidence that she may so learn at length by her own misery that she is utterly forlorn and damned.

But here lies the difficulty that when a man is terrified and cast down he is so little able to raise himself and say: “Now I am bruised and afflicted enough; now is the time of grace; now is the time to hear Christ.” The foolishness of man’s heart is so great that then he rather seeketh to himself more laws to satisfy his conscience. “If I live,” saith he, “I will amend my life; I will do this. I will do that.” But here, except thou do quite the contrary, except thou send away Moses with his law and in these terrors and anguish lay hold on Christ who died for thy sins, look to no salvation. Thy cowl, thy shaven crown, thy chastity, thy poverty, thy works, thy merits? What shall all these do? What shall the law of Moses avail?”

What Luther says is that the more literally lost you are, the more literally you are the very being whom Christ’s sacrifice has already saved; faith that Christ has genuinely done his work was part of what Luther meant by faith which so far is faith in a fact intellectually conceived of. Something that corresponds to the Sanskrit concept of Vishvasa—but this is only one part of Luther’s faith, the other part being more vital, the some thing not intellectual but immediate and intuitive, the assurance namely that I, this individual I, just as I stand, without one plea, etc., am saved now and forever.

Faith, says the modernist Stilwell, is the road we tread when we take our prayers to the principle of life (God) to have them answered; it is sometimes the product of years; at other times it comes instantly; faith exalts us and by it we seem enabled literally to move mountains but in reality we are lifted up into the perfect expression of life and by means of our faith the mountain disappears. When we reach the heights of perfect faith, there will be no mountains in our way.

God’s universe is governed by definite laws and by Faith we are led to understand them; prayer strengthens faith; this is its inherent value; it gives to some such great faith that they are lifted to heights from which they behold the way to the desired blessing.

We cannot alter principle by prayer or bring principle to us; we live in principle; we live in abundance; we are in the midst of plenty all the time and by Faith we lift ourselves up to where we can see the bountiful supply provided for us. Faith unlocks the secret place and its manifold blessings; therefore with all thy gettings get faith — faith that you are the son of a king whose majesty created all that was created; that your Father desires you to have all the blessings of his vast storehouse, the understanding of which will bring to you all His good and perfect gifts. If in want, know that you have not understood the principle of supply and do not pray for material things, but pray for Faith to lift you up to the understanding of God’s bounty, His limitless riches, and by Faith you will enter the world of abundance where there is no lack.

There is ample material in the forests and mountains of earth to build palaces for all the sons of God, and Faith can give you everything that life can produce. Faith is the best friend and travelling companion that man can have. Faith enables you to know that God is the soul of the universe, that you are one with God and may draw from this infinite source an unlimited supply of what you need. There is nothing Faith cannot do for us; have faith in the fact that age is a mesmerism; that it is only a man-made lie. Have faith that it is not the will and pleasure of the Infinite for you to express death. Have faith in the power of the life-thought Faith that is yours to have and to hold. But with Faith use understanding and common sense. Do not eat like a madman and expect Faith to give you the existence of a saint.

Faith that death is not a part of life will rob death of its power; if you have only enough faith so that your earthly existence will be like a tallow candle-only burn so long and go out—it will be according to your faith. If you have Faith that you are connected with the principle of life, as the electric bulb with the dynamo, your life will be much longer—as your faith, so is your life. Live! Live! Have faith you can live; have faith you will live. This is thy Sradha; just before you drop to sleep, say:

“As my mortal body renews itself, so this night my subconscious mind sings to my conscious mind all night songs of youth. I am bathed in youth and all it represents.”

Do this daily as you eat and bathe, and thus you will live and grow young. ***