|
When
you get out of patience with yourself,
through the aggressiveness of the
material mind, through your frequent
slips and falls into your besetting
sins through periods of petulance
or ill temper, or excess in any direction,
you do no good, and only ill in calling
or thinking for yourself hard names.
You should not call yourself "a
vile sinner" anymore than you
would call any other person a "vile
sinner," If you do, you put out
in thought the "vile sinner"
and make it temporarily a reality.
If in your mental vision you teach
yourself that you are "utterly
depraved" and a "vile sinner,"
you are unconsciously making that
your ideal, and you will unconsciously
grow up to it until the pain and evil
coming of such unhealthy growth either
makes you turn back or destroys your
body, For out of this state of mind,
which in the past has been much inculcated,
comes harshness, bigotry, lack of
charity for others, hard, stern and
gloomy and unhealthy views of life,
and these mental conditions will surely
bring physical disease.
When
the material mind is put away, or,
in other words, then we become convinced
of the existence of these spiritual
forces, both in ourselves, and outside
of ourselves, and when we learn to
use them rightly (for we are now and
always have been using them in some
way), then to use the words of Paul:
" Faith is swallowed up in victory,"
and the sting and fear of death is
removed. Life becomes then one glorious
advance forward from the pleasure
of today to the greater pleasure of
tomorrow, and the phrase "to
live" means only to enjoy.
13 |