Thomas Troward - The Hidden Power And Other Papers upon Mental Science

become much simplified when we recognise that this is not the case, but

that the same power will produce opposite results as it starts from

opposite poles.

Accordingly the inverted application of the same principle which gives

rise to liberty and power constitutes the entanglement from which we

need to be delivered before power and liberty can be attained, and this

principle is expressed in the law that "as a man thinks so he is." This

is the basic law of the human mind. It is Descarte's "_cogito, ergo

sum_." If we trace consciousness to its seat we find that it is purely

subjective. Our external senses would cease to exist were it not for the

subjective consciousness which perceives what they communicate to it.

The idea conveyed to the subjective consciousness may be false, but

until some truer idea is more forcibly impressed in its stead it

remains a substantial reality to the mind which gives it objective

existence. I have seen a man speak to the stump of a tree which in the

moonlight looked like a person standing in a garden, and repeatedly ask

its name and what it wanted; and so far as the speaker's conception was

concerned the garden contained a living man who refused to answer. Thus

every mind lives in a world to which its own perceptions give objective

reality. Its perceptions may be erroneous, but they nevertheless

constitute the very reality of life for the mind that gives form to

them. No other life than the life we lead in our own mind is possible;

and hence the advance of the whole race depends on substituting the

ideas of good, of liberty, and of order for their opposites. And this

can be done only by giving some sufficient reason for accepting the new

idea in place of the old. For each one of us our beliefs constitute our

facts, and these beliefs can be changed only by discovering some ground

for a different belief.

This is briefly the rationale of the maxim that "as a man thinks so he

is"; and from the working of this principle all the issues of life

proceed. Now man's first perception of the law of cause and effect in

relation to his own conduct is that the result always partakes of the

quality of the cause; and since his argument is drawn from external

observation only, he regards external acts as the only causes he can

effectively set in operation. Hence when he attains sufficient moral

enlightenment to realise that many of his acts have been such as to

merit retribution he fears retribution as their proper result. Then by

reason of the law that "thoughts are things," the evils which he fears

take form and plunge him into adverse circumstances, which again prompt

him into further wrong acts, and from these come a fresh crop of fears

which in their turn become externalised into fresh evils, and thus

arises a circulus from which there is no escape so long as the man

recognises nothing but his external acts as a causative power in the

world of his surroundings.

This is the Law of Works, the Circle of Karma, the Wheel of Fate, from

which there appears to be no escape, because the complete fulfilment of

the law of our moral nature to-day is only sufficient for to-day and

leaves no surplus to compensate the failure of yesterday. This is the

necessary law of things as they appear from external observation only;

and, so long as this conception remains, the law of each man's

subjective consciousness makes it a reality for him. What is needed,

therefore, is to establish the conception that external acts are NOT the

only causative power, but that there is another law of causation,

namely, that of pure Thought. This is the Law of Faith, the Law of

Liberty; for it introduces us to a power which is able to inaugurate a

new sequence of causation not related to any past actions.

But this change of mental attitude cannot be brought about till we have

laid hold of some fact which is sufficient to afford a reason for the

change. We require some solid ground for our belief in this higher law.

Ultimately we find this ground in the great Truth of the eternal

relation between spirit in the universal and in the particular. When we

realise that substantially there is nothing else _but_ spirit, and that

we ourselves are reproductions in individuality of the Intelligence and

Love which rule the universe, we have reached the firm standing ground

where we find that we can send forth our Thought to produce any effect

we will. We have passed beyond the idea of two opposites requiring

reconciliation, into that of a duality in which there is no other

opposition than that of the inner and the outer of the same unity, the

polarity which is inherent in all Being, and we then realise that in

virtue of this unity our Thought is possessed of illimitable creative

power, and that it is free to range where it will, and is by no means

bound down to accept as inevitable the consequences which, if unchecked

by renovated thought, would flow from our past actions.

In its own independent creative power the mind has found the way out of

the fatal circle in which its previous ignorance of the highest law had

imprisoned it. The Unity of the Spirit is found to result in perfect

Liberty; the old sequence of Karma has been cut off, and a new and

higher order has been introduced. In the old order the line of thought

received its quality from the quality of the actions, and since they

always fell short of perfection, the development of a higher

thought-power from this root was impossible. This is the order in which

everything is seen from _without_. It is an inverted order. But in the

true order everything is seen from _within_.

It is the thought which determines the quality of the action, and not

_vice versa_, and since thought is free, it is at liberty to direct

itself to the highest principles, which thus spontaneously reproduce

themselves in the outward acts, so that both thoughts and actions are

brought into harmony with the great eternal laws and become one in

purpose with the Universal Mind. The man realises that he is no longer

bound by the consequences of his former deeds, done in the time of his

ignorance, in fact, that he never was bound by them except so far as he

himself gave them this power by false conceptions of the truth; and thus

recognising himself for what he really is--the expression of the

Infinite Spirit in individual personality--he finds that he is free,

that he is a "partaker of Divine nature," not losing his identity, but

becoming more and more fully himself with an ever-expanding perfection,

following out a line of evolution whose possibilities are inexhaustible.

But there is not in all men this knowledge. For the most part they still

look upon God as an individual Being external to themselves, and what

the more instructed man sees to be unity of mind and identity of nature

appear to the less advanced to be an external reconciliation between

opposing personalities. Hence the whole range of conceptions which may

be described as the Messianic Idea. This idea is not, as some seem to

suppose, a misconception of the truth of Being. On the contrary, when

rightly understood it will be found to imply the very widest grasp of

that truth; and it is from the platform of this supreme knowledge alone

that an idea so comprehensive in its adaptation to every class of mind

could have been evolved. It is the translation of the relations arising