Idea Number 40
WATCH YOUR WORDS
How careful are you in choosing your words? Let’s stop for a few moments and think about the importance of every single word we speak.
You see a word is more than a mere sign or symbol. It is a magnet! It is filled with the idea it represents. It is alive with the power of the idea it expresses. Therefore, the continued use of any word that connotes error, negation, or destructiveness, will keep error, negation and destructiveness alive in your mind. By our words we often feed and keep alive the very condition we want to overcome. Remember that you have to think if before you can say it – and the thoughts that fill your mind will fill your life with their image.
You know, nearly everyone talks too much! You can avoid a lot of unhappiness in your world if you will test the fitness of your words by making them pass through three narrow gates. First, is it needed? Second, is it true, and finally, is it kind? If you were to follow this simple method, many words will be left unspoken. Are they necessary? Are they true? Are they kind?
Speak only constructively to those around you. Speak with understanding and sincerity. Be honest. We can’t try to boost a friend’s morale with good words and at the same time be silently thinking, “you deserve just what you are getting.”
We don’t realize how far our spoken word travels or whom it reaches. To watch your words constantly may be difficult in the beginning, but
with persistence you can form the right habit of thinking and speaking. You may find a bit of help through the simple process of cancellation.
Remember when you studied arithmetic? You found cancellation a quick and easy method of solving a lot of problems. You can use this same cancellation when destructive words are spoken. Cancel unkind remarks with kind ones. Every time you catch yourself thinking a destructive thought, immediately cancel it with a constructive one. Do this over and over, a thousand times a day if necessary. In the evening it is a good feeling to be able to say, “Today I lived, thought and spoke as much good as I could.”
Your words do have power. Your word is, after all, only the garment of your thought – and the quality of your thought determines what comes into your experience. The reason for this is that the subconscious mind is a passive servant. It accepts good or evil suggestions – your subconscious mind does not care which. It works all suggestions out to their logical conclusions in your human affairs. In creative activity the first logical step is thought. The next is the spoken word. We are thinking constantly. When thoughts are put into words, their creative power in our lives becomes intensified. Therefore, we have thoughts, words, and conditions in a logical sequence. Remember: thought, word and then the condition in your life! That’s the inevitable sequence!
Material things are always in a state of flux because the law of matter is change. When we speak sincere words of Truth, positive words, constructive words, we are speaking the kind of words that will create ideal conditions. The only reason why ideal conditions are not more universally manifested is that we speak so many mutable words. Like a seesaw, our words are first up and then down- first constructive then
destructive. Resolve now to watch your spoken words – they are important to you an your life.
Idea Number 41
NOT SO EASY
Most of us have taken some sort of aptitude test at one time or other. In this day and age it seems almost everything that a person is going to do, or anyone going to be employed, is apt to have themselves measured quite considerably by the tests that they have to take.
Awhile back I read some interesting remarks made by a leader in the field of human engineering, a Dr. Johnson O’Connor of the Stevens Institute. Now Dr. O’Connor was asked one if there was ever a person who did poorly in all the battery of tests. There are so many different tests that it would seem unlikely that there would be any human being who didn’t do well in one of them. But Dr. O’Connor laughed and said, “Oh, yes, there is a type of person who does badly in all the tests we offer. About one person in 8,000 is absolutely hopeless in all of the tests.” So he was asked, “What do you do about such a person?” Dr. O’Connor said, “Do? We don’t worry about him. He never presents us with a problem. He is usually the president of his firm or is self- employed.”
Well, this didn’t make any sense to the interviewer. So he went on to question Dr. O’Connor about this. “How can it be that a man whose tests show that he has little native ability is able to go on and become the president of a corporation?” Dr. O’Connor explained it very simply. He said, “Since nothing every came easy to such a person, he learned in his youth to work hard and long.
The working hard and long provides him with much great inner strength, courage and experience which is real knowledge, and it is this which makes him a success.”
I thought about this. I thought to myself, “Goodness, shouldn’t we learn from this in our own life?” When the winds of difficulty blow around us; when we begin to feel inadequate to cope with a situation; we should learn that the winds of difficulty blow around us in order that we might get a bit stronger. Think what would happen if you planted a sapling in a greenhouse and waited until it was full grown to plant it out on a mountaintop. It wouldn’t last one winter, would it? It is the sapling that grows strong in the early winters of its life that becomes the strong tree that can live and survive in its native world.
It is the same with human beings. It is in the meeting and overcoming of our own problems that we grow, and isn’t this terribly important in regard to our own children? If we protect them from the growing experience; if we make it easy, too easy for them all the way, they don’t have the opportunity to learn this secret that Dr. O’Connor talks about: the secret of having to work hard and long, of having to learn, of having to gain experience instead of having it fed to them on a plate.
It is the life, which is exposed to problems; it is the person to whom everything doesn’t come easy that growth comes in firm strength. It is the tree that is exposed to the March winds that can stand the hurricane. It is the life that is allowed to experience and overcome difficulties that becomes the fulfilled life.
Idea Number 42
EARTHWORMS FOR FEATHERS
Are you aware of the importance of every single choice you make? Are you aware how far any tiny decision that you make may take you? It’s an interesting thought, you know, that every decision that we make colors our attitudes, and our attitudes color the next decision we make and so it’s sort of a spiral. It you make negative decisions, they induce a negative frame of mind, and that makes it easier to make negative decisions. If you make a positive decision, that engenders a positive state of mind, and it’s easier to make positive decisions.
Every choice has a natural result leading to further choices of a similar nature. Luther Burbank, the plant wizard, once told a marvelous fable about a young skylark that impresses the importance of the choices we make. This young skylark was out flying one day with his father and heard his father tell stories about what fine birds skylarks are. He heard that they can fly higher and sing more sweetly than any other bird and the father went on impressing upon his son the fact that to be a skylark was to come from a very fine family, to have a worthy lineage and to live a lofty and beautiful life. But all the time he was listening, the little skylark had one ear to the ground, because he could see far below a man walking along a roadway pushing a handcart and on this handcart was a tiny silver bell that was tinkling very clearly, and so overcome with curiosity, the little skylark suddenly dived towards the earth like a plummet, just as skylarks always have done; they soar upwards in graceful, sweeping spirals, singing as they mount, and then they descend. They drop straight downward, and that’s a lot like man who can climb upward only with great effort, but can plunge down very rapidly from step to step.
And so it was the little skylark flying around with his papa, hearing about his wondrous lineage – he heard also the tinkling bell on the handcart and dived down towards the ground, and he heard the man saying. “Earthworms for trade for skylark feathers, earthworms for trade for skylark feathers!” It seemed a strange thing the little man was shouting, but the little skylark thought earthworms a great delicacy so he asked, “How many worms do you give for a feather?” The man replied, “Two worms for a single feather.” So the skylark plucked a feather from his tail, made a trade and ate his two worms with great relish. Then he spiraled upward again to join his father, hoping that his father wouldn’t notice the absence of a feather from his plumage and father skylark didn’t notice. But day after day the young bird did the same thing, exchanging feathers for earthworms, until one morning, he discovered, when he lifted his wings, he couldn’t fly.
So many of his feathers were missing that his wings could no longer bear his weight up into the air. So, for long months, while his feathers were growing out again, the little skylark had ample time to repent his foolish bargain of earthworms for skylark feathers and to regret the choice he had made. So it is with us, as we make our daily choices. We either trade good experience for even better ones, or we trade earthworms for skylark feathers.
Every decision you make leads you onward and upward or downward and downward, every single choice.
Idea Number 43
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Sometimes I think that we feel completely helpless in the job of remaking this world of ours. Do you feel impotent to make your life, your home, your town, your family and your world any better? Well, if you do, let me tell you of a simple incident that changed my mind on this subject.
One time I visited a bee farm where beehives are kept and maintained. It was in the middle of the summer, and as I walked from hive to hive there was a strange swishing noise rather like the sound of the sea coming up from the shore. I asked the old beekeeper what it was about and he explained to me that these were Fanner Bees. Yes, Fanner Bees. Inside the hive were thousands of bees that stood there with their head down turned towards the center of the hive and their wings were beating as rapidly as they could. What they actually did was to draw the bad air out through one side of the entrance and draw clean air in from the other side so that the whole hive was air-conditioned by these thousands of Fanner bees. They did nothing but fan air through the hive to keep the honey beautiful and sweet smelling. I thought to myself, I wonder what the individual Fanner Bee must think? There he is fanning his wings; he isn’t making any impression – one tiny bee – what can one tiny bee do? But you see, when his effort is added to the other thousands of Fanner Bees, there we find a perfect air-conditioning system for the hive. I continued to think to myself, I can do nothing, but where two or more are gathered together, ah, there’s a difference.
You are probably thinking at this moment, “Yes, wouldn’t it be good if a group of people got together to air-condition this troubled world of ours, to fan out guilt, hatred, misery, fear and doubt, but here I am, all alone,
what can I do?” You are not alone. Many people feel as you do. By joining our total consciousness, we are a tremendous force, just like that whole force of Fanner Bees.
So, don’t think how helpless you are, just think of how many people feel as you do and resolve right now that we are going to be the Fanner Bees of this day. We’re going to air-condition this world of ours by fanning out fear, doubt, dislike, discouragement and all negative thoughts. Instead, we are going to start fanning into our world love, light, laughter, joy and inquisitive wonder.
Every one of us can add the flap of our wings to the wings of angels glorifying this world and all together we are a mighty force for air- conditioning this world for good.
Idea Number 44
LISTEN FOR THE MEANING
Did you ever hear the story about the human ear that caused a war? It’s true, you know. There was a time when one human ear caused a great international war. The ear belonged to an English sea captain whose name was Jenkins and the Spaniards thought that Captain Jenkins wasn’t as honest as he might be. In fact, they were quite convinced that he was a pirate, so they captured Captain Jenkins and simply cut off his ear. Jenkins, righteously indignant, brought the rest of himself and his ear back to England and complained to the Monarch about this terrible rough handling. At that time, the English were just spoiling for a war with the Spaniards and they were able to use this incident to launch the Great War called, “THE WAR OF JENKINS’ EAR.” If you don’t believe me, go look it up, it’s absolutely true. There once was a war
between England and Spain known as “THE WAR OF JENKINS’ EAR.” Now, what I want to ask you is, will there be a war of your ear this day? I wonder how many days your ears draw you into war? You see the educated ear is a selective instrument.
It doesn’t just hear the vibrations of somebody’s larynx; it hears the feelings, the sufferings, the anguish, the difficulty, and the joy, the love and whatever lies behind the words. The educated ear avoids so many wars, which might otherwise have been caused.
Now, as you go out into your world today, ask yourself – “How educated is my ear?” If somebody comes up to you and in the middle of a conversation they say to you, “WHY DON’T YOU MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS?” what do you hear? Do you hear anger, hurt, hatred and resentment? Or do you hear somebody who is saying, ‘I AM HURT ON THE INSIDE. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM? I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT POSSIBLY BECAUSE I’M ASHAMED. HELP ME SOMEHOW TO OVERCOME
THIS PROBLEM INSIDE ME.” Is that what you hear or do you hear, “Mind your own business,” as a declaration of war? Do you then stomp off to your desk or stomp off to your own kitchen? War is declared, unspoken war and silence reigns between good friends for a long time. Or what about when you’re out today and somebody says to you, “WHY DON’T YOU GET OUT OF MY WAY?” Do you feel rejection? Do you feel hatred or are you able to sense in somebody else a deep sense of inner frustration or loneliness? Do you listen behind the words, “Get out of my way,” and see a hurt, bruised soul? Is your ear educated enough not to go to war and over the phrase “Get out of my way?”
You see, if you are going to serve your Creator and your fellowman in the truest sense, you will walk through your world with an
educated ear. When you do this, you will bring peace and harmony to the world about you and you will never have a “War of Jenkins’ Ear.”
Idea Number 45 THE LIMITED WAY
Does it seem to you that at times your life is hopelessly tangled, the threads of your life become totally enmeshed and you can’t see your way out and life becomes so complicated that you wonder if it’s even worth going on?
Well, when we become perplexed by difficulties and seeming inconsistencies of life, we should remember that at any one moment we have only a partial view of things and that a partial view of anything never shows the thing as it really is. We simply get one viewpoint. Any time that we see a particular segment as a whole, we see it in a limited fashion. We can’t hope to understand the whole pattern from our limited view.
For example, supposing you were to show an Eskimo any number of pictures of parts of a camel; the Eskimo had never seen a camel; you might show his rear legs and a hump and a long neck and a head; he could never get an overall view of what a camel really looked like.
The other illustration that I like to think of in terms of confused lives and perplexity is the comparison with a Persian rug. It is said that if you saw only the under side of a Persian rug, it would seem to be an absolute jumble of lines and colors with no beauty and no apparent pattern or logic. But this would be only because we didn’t have the key
– we couldn’t see the whole. If you then turned the rug over, you’d see
it from the right side and you would recognize the pattern, you would realize that the chaotic threads underneath were making up a beautiful and consistent whole.
Now this is exactly the way it is with your life, and someday when we have all had enough of spiritual growth in this human classroom, we will come to see that the various threads that have gone to make up this human life, the seeming disjointed happenings, the jumble of events, the apparent accidents, were really a part of an orderly, beautiful and perfect pattern – the wrap of something splendid, that we are steadily weaving with and for our Creator.
If your life seems like a meaningless jumble of events, it simply means that from where you stand at this moment, your viewpoint enables you to see only a tiny segment of the whole. If we can stand back a little further, we see more of the whole, but even then, we have to wait until we achieve a high degree of Spiritual unfoldment, to recognize that within this jumble of events is woven The Creator doesn’t make mistakes. Know that whatever is happening in your life right now is part of a pattern of Perfection.
Idea Number 46
DON’T BREAK THE KEY
Did you ever break a key in a lock? I was looking at a bunch of keys on a friend’s key ring and I discovered that there was one that only had the shank on it. The key was completely broken off. I said to him, “How did that happen?” He said, “Well I had the key in the door and just kept turning.” Now I think that’s like most of us at times. We want things to work out our way even though we have the wrong key in the lock. We
want the key to turn. We insist that it comes out our way and all we succeed in doing is to break the key. You know, there was a right key for that lock that my friend was trying to open, and had he chosen the right key, it would have turned very, very easily. Most of us are like this. We want to turn the keys the way we want them in our human relationships.
Have you ever noticed how perturbed we get when other people tend to do something differently from the way that we would have done it or when other people seem to make wrong decisions, they decide differently from the way we would have decided? We become very angry when somebody else drops the ball, misses an opportunity or fails to grab onto something that we think we would have grabbed onto. We are all inclined to do our share of sideline coaching and trying for force our key into the locks of other people lives. It isn’t easy, is it, to sit by and watch somebody else do something in a manner, which you think is less efficient than the way you could do it. This is never truer than when we’re dealing with children. Children don’t do things as well as we do; their fingers are not as nimble as ours are and it’s such a great temptation to grab something out of their hands and do it for them. We try to force the key of our understanding in the lock of their minds, and this is not the way to help them grow.
Life has to be learned by everyone. If only the skillful and capable people were permitted to do things, there would be no chance for anyone else to learn those skills and capabilities. Almost anyone can learn to make their own way; and the most successful leaders are those who discover early in their lives that there’s no good reason or purpose to be served in putting square pegs into round holes, or in trying to force the wrong keys into the right keyholes. We have to take people as we find them and then help them to be useful in their own way, and in ours.
We’ll never find anyone who will do anything the way we would do it. Once we recognize that, then we stop chafing at the bit, we stop trying to force the key of our life into the lock of other people’s existence and we allow them to grow in their own way. I think it’s summed up beautifully for me in a little poem that says:
“And in self-judgment, if you find your deeds to others are superior.
To you Providence has been kind, and you should be so to those inferior.”
Examples shed a genial ray of light which men are apt to borrow, so first improve yourself today and then improve your friends tomorrow.
Do that, and you’ll be a better self and they’ll be better friends or children.
Idea Number 47
SELF-DISCIPLINE
In the Wadi Natrun in the Thevayid Desert in Egypt, right in the middle of a desert, miles and miles from any water or from any living thing, there grows an almond tree. Yes, an almond tree, right in the blankest, bleakest desert you can imagine and it got there as a result of self- discipline.
In the year 346, there was an old monk named Abba Amoy and he was in the desert praying with one of his pupils and Abba Amoy was trying to teach the pupil about he fruits of self-discipline and the pupil found it
difficult to understand the principles that the old monk was teaching him. So the monk took his stick, which was an almond branch, and stuck it on the sand. Then he said to his pupil, whose name was John, the Short:
“Water this,” he told John, the Short, “until it bears fruit and you will know what I mean.” Well, the spot was miles and miles from the nearest well, but that night, when it got cool, John, the Short, walked all the way to the well, filled his jar with water, and walked back and watered the stick. He did this every single night for three years and at the end of three years, the stick began to bear fruit. When it did, John, the Short took the kernels to the nearby monastery and said to the Monks, “Behold, the fruits of self- discipline.”
Are you at the moment living in a mental desert? Are you faced with sickness, loneliness, family problems, business problems, money worries, that make it feel as though you are living in the middle of a desert? Then let me tell you: That desert can flourish, just as the almond tree did, into everything you need, with self- discipline. By this I mean the discipline of your own mind.
Do as old John, the Short, did and constantly become aware of that which you are thinking and discipline your thoughts so as only to think of the good. Also, refuse to allow defeat or negative thoughts to enter your mind. Water your mind with thoughts of love, health, joy, peace and harmony and you will have the fruits of self-discipline blossom and flourish in the desert of your present experience, no matter what it may be.
Idea Number 48
“UP” THE “DOWN” STAIRCASE
If you are like most people, you will hustle and bustle through every single moment of the day. I wonder just how much of this hustling and bustling is really necessary for maximum production.
I remember when I was a young boy; my parents would take me to a department store that had an escalator. I would always run ahead of them to the escalator, to the moving staircase, and start to run up the “down” staircase. I’m sure everyone has tried it. It’s an interesting procedure. You run like mad and stay in the same place while other people on the staircase are not running at all and yet they’re going somewhere and, you know, human life is so much like this.
Activity doesn’t always mean action. Sometimes we do the most when we appear to be doing nothing. A lot of time is wasted in fussing over nonessentials. We can ill afford this extravagant output of wasted strength. Sooner or later we simply have to decide what is important and what is not important because if we try to do everything at once we’ll end up by doing more harm than good.
This mind is a delicate and complex instrument subject to strains and stresses from within and without. Too much pressure can often result in a breakdown. Mental fatigue can be far more exhausting than bodily weariness. As I see it, there is only one way to keep going and that’s by constant communication with the Source within us, the Source of all life and vitality.
There is a point of stillness a the hub of the whirling wheel of time and it’s to that center that we must learn to withdraw if we are not to be broken on the spokes or fall off the edge. Quietness at the heart of activity is the only place where God can get to us, so if we want peace, we must put ourselves in a position to receive it. This is the secret of the renewal of mental, physical and spiritual strength.
Having found this place within you, you will experience the confidence of mind that has found its true center. A mind that has found its true center has found poise like an ant walking along a balance beam that finds the center of the beam is stationary. So it is with us.
Among your hustling and bustling take time out to be still and say, “Am I really running up the ‘down’ staircase?” All too often we are with our own will running against the tide of life. If you find yourself running up the “down” staircase, swiftly get off and stand still on the “up” staircase, and that “up” staircase is a staircase of quiet meditation.
Idea Number 49
THE SIN OF OMISSION
Here is a beautiful poem by Margaret Sangster. It’s called, “The Sin of Omission.”
“It isn’t the thing that you do, dear; it is the thing that you leave undone. That gives you a bit of heartache.
At the setting of the sun. The Tender word forgotten.
The letter you didn’t write, The flowers you didn’t send, dear. Are your ghosts haunting at night?
The stone that you might have lifted out of a brother’s way. A bit of kindly counsel.
You were too hurried to say: The loving touch of a hand, dear; the gentle winning tone; But you had no time nor thought for, with troubles enough of your own.
Those little acts of kindness, so easily out of mind
Those chances to be an angel, which we poor mortals find; They come in night and silence, each sad reproachful wraith. When hope is faint and flagging, and a chill falls on our faith; For life is all too short, dear, and sorrow is all too great
To suffer our slow compassion, that tarries until it’s too late.
And it isn’t the thing you do, dear, it’s the thing you leave undone, That will give you a bit of a heartache, at the setting of the sun.”
What is it that lies before you to do this day, to gladden somebody else’s life, that in a short while, when you no longer have the opportunity, will hang heavy on your heart, if you haven’t done it?
Perhaps it is the love you wanted to share with a present, or a child, or a loved one, or the patching up of a quarrel that’s gone on too long.
Life is too short, my friend. Spend this day catching up. Do it today. Express the love that remains unexpressed; forgive the error that remains unforgiven in your heart; patch up that quarrel that needs patching up. You have this day to repair all the ravages of time and to do that which is right and that which his loving. Why not reach out to someone today and overcome the Sin of Omission. I guarantee it will make your life so much happier.
Idea Number 50 VOICE OR ECHO?
Are you a voice or an echo? It seems to me that with the vast increases in human knowledge and with the magnificent inventions by which knowledge is disseminated and spread around, we’re all in danger of just becoming plain parrots, the echo of someone else’s opinions.
From our daily newspapers, from cinemas, from television, books and platforms come voices of other people telling us what we should think; telling us how to live or what to believe. I’m one of these. I sit here and try to share ideas with you, and as I was thinking about this, I thought, “There is a grave danger that you will allow my thinking to become your thinking.” I suddenly realize that I’m not really trying to get you to think what I think. What I am really trying to do is to get you to think for yourself. Take the ideas that I communicate, take them away and contemplate them within yourself and come to your own conclusions.