THE LIFE POWER AND HOW TO USE IT.
XVIII. Immortal Thought.
The “I Am” of every being is God, the only power, wisdom, will, mind;
the only actor in all action; the only creator, disintegrator and re-creator.
The I Am of you is One, the Only One.
The “I Am” or ego or spiritual being of you is a thinker. All thinking is done by the one thinker—mortal thinking or immortal thinking.
Your body is an organization within you, the real you, the “I Am”, the thinker,—an organization within you of the thoughts you (the I Am or God) are thinking. Your body is the present conclusion of all the thoughts, good, bad or indifferent, true or untrue, mortal or immortal, which you have thought, un-thought or rethought from the beginning of eternity; and hourly it is being changed by the new thoughts coming to you.
The real you does the thinking, recording conclusions in the body—which, mind you, is not you; nor does it even “contain” you; you are omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient spirit or mind, and your body is within you. In you (God) it lives and moves and has its being, and by you (God) it is held together.
You have all-power to think all kinds of thoughts; and you use that power. You know you do—you know you think good thoughts, bad ones, mortal ones and immortal ones. Why question it?
You think all kinds of thoughts. But that does not make you all kinds of a being. You are the One Being to whom all kinds of thinking are possible, just as you are a being to whom all sorts of acts are possible.
In their essence, thought and action are one. Are you a human being when you play on the piano and an animal when you sweep the floor? Are you a human being when you walk and a fish when you go swimming? Of course not. You are the One Being whatever you choose to do or think—you are God-being.
One time you think mortal thoughts and the next time you think immortal thoughts (results always recording in your body) but always you are the same God-being.
And you feel all sorts of ways; but always you are you—the same One, God-being.
Your mortal thoughts are your thoughts of mortality—of death and all that leads to death—of sin, sickness, unhappiness, all that tends to discourage you from wanting to keep on living and thinking. Your immortal thoughts are your thoughts of life, activity, love, joy—all those thoughts which make you want to live more. One thought differs from another but you go on forever, the same One God-being.
Your mystification all comes from confounding yourself with your thoughts; from thinking of your thought-built body as you—which it is not.
In its deepest analysis your body and all your thoughts are purely mortal thoughts, and only your real you, the thinker, is immortal. To be immortal is to be subject to no change—which is true of Life Principle only. To be mortal is to be subject to change and death—which is true of all thought, even thoughts of life, love, joy.
All thoughts are fleeting and therefore “mortal” applies to them. Evil disappears before good thought, and “Good doth change to better, best.”
The body is eternally changing—eternally receiving from the Self or spirit higher thought and eternally sloughing off lower thought. Body is mortal and will never be anything else. It will never cease to change; it will never cease to receive new thought and slough off back-number thought; it will never cease to “die daily.” If it could for one hour cease this daily, hourly dying, this casting off thought which is out of date, it would die altogether.
Individual hanging on to dead thought is the cause of all old age and somatic death. The body instead of throwing off its dead and dying thought through its eliminative system, allows it to continue piling up in the body until death of the entire body comes as a relief. And the God-self goes on to new generations.
All bodily energy is the energy of live thought. Death comes to the body when dead thought preponderates. “Except ye become as a little child,” whose daily dying is perfect, you shall continue to grow old and die the somatic death.
A child hangs on to nothing. Every new thing charms it completely from the old, and its intense mental and physical activities keep the old moving out and off to make room for more of the new.
Can you give any reason under the sun why human beings should not continue to live the child life and escape death of the body as a whole? There is no reason to be found in science, logic or nature; the one reason lies in our artificial living.
We stuff the mind with unused knowledge; we stuff the body with twice to ten times the food we need (all food is thought, too); we glory in “owning” more things than we can possibly need or use; we spend our time straddling our possessions to keep others from using them; is it any wonder we become literally loaded down until our bodies are too cumbersome for any life more strenuous than that of the grave?
Life to us is too real, too earnest; we want too much; and as long as we persist in living at this dying rate the grave will be our goal.
I said that in its last analysis all thought is mortal thought. This is true of formed thought, or thoughts.
Thought substance is eternal; thought substance is “matter,” without beginning or end; and matter in its original state is mind or spirit—the One Thinker and his thought material, one and indivisible.
Thought substance is immortal, unchanging; but all forms of this thought substance are mortal, ever changing. Think of the ocean—the water is ever the same, but the waves, the forms assumed by the water, eternally change; so with thought substance and thought forms. The body being an organization of thought forms, of “mortal thoughts,” must “die daily”; but that thought substance from which all its forms are made is immortal mind—is the God-self. Your body is simply a series or growing organization of fleeting eddies in your immortal God-self.
Too wonderful to grasp? Well, never mind—better not grasp it too tightly anyway—it might prove only another weight on your mind! Let the thought come and go in your consciousness, as waves come and go on the ocean; by and by you will “realize” that it is true— that you and the Father, body and soul, are all One and eternal. Just take it for granted, dearie, and love and be radiantly happy. So shall you use mortality to prove immortality.
