The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit by Ralph Waldo Trine online

X SOME METHODS OF ATTAINMENT

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His great aptitude for the things of the spirit enabled him intuitively to realise this, to understand it, to use it. And there was no mystery, no secret, no subterfuge on the part of Jesus as to the source of his power. In clear and unmistakable words he made it known--and why should he not? It was the truth, the truth of this inner kingdom that would make men free that he came to reveal. "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." "My Father worketh hitherto and I work.... For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.... I can of mine own self do nothing." As he followed the conditions whereby this higher illumination can come so must we.

The injunction that Jesus gave in regard to prayer is unquestionably the method that he found so effective and that he himself used. How many times we are told that he withdrew to the mountain for his quiet period, for communion with the Father, that the realisation of his oneness with God might be preserved intact. In this continual realisation--I and my Father are one--lay his unusual insight and power. And his distinct statement which he made in speaking of his own powers--as I am ye shall be--shows clearly the possibilities of human unfoldment and attainment, since he realised and lived and then revealed the way.

Were not this Divine source of wisdom and power the heritage of every human soul, distinctly untrue then would be Jesus' saying: "For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened." Infinitely better is it to know that one has this inner source of guidance and wisdom which as he opens himself to it becomes continually more distinct, more clear and more unerring in its guidance, than to be continually seeking advice from outside sources, and being confused in regard to the advice given. This is unquestionably the way of the natural and the normal life, made so simple and so plain by Jesus, and that was foreshadowed by Isaiah when he said: "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary? He giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint."

Not that problems and trials will not come. They will come. There never has been and there never will be a life free from them. Life isn't conceivable on any other terms. But the wonderful source of consolation and strength, the source that gives freedom from worry and freedom from fear is the realisation of the fact that the guiding force and the moulding power is within us. It becomes active and controlling in the degree that we realise and in the degree that we are able to open ourselves so that the Divine intelligence and power can speak to and can work through us.

Judicious physical exercise induces greater bodily strength and vigour. An active and alert mental life, in other words mental activity, induces greater intellectual power. And under the same general law the same is true in regard to the development and the use of spiritual power. It, however, although the most important of all because it has to do more fundamentally with the life itself, we are most apt to neglect. The losses, moreover, resulting from this neglect are almost beyond calculation.

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