Showing results by narrator "Jim Wentland" in All Categories

Down through the ages, men have been accustomed to call that to them was unknown, unexplained, or incomprehensible - a mystery. There has been a tendency to wrap veils of mystery around natural phenomena, around the causes of daily experience in the lives of men, and even around God.

Then the disciples of Jesus asked, “What must we do that we may work the works of God?“ all the reply that Jesus gave was, “Believe”, and this was the substance of all his instruction. Set your thoughts in a certain direction; make your mind to hold thoughts that believe in the Good as possible. That is all that is necessary for us to do to increase our belief, to extend the boundaries of what we believe to be possible. All that we are now is the result of our believing; every action and word shows forth what we have been believing, and are now holding in mind.

When anyone undertakes to study the meaning and to cultivate the habit of prayer, it is well for the person to understand, from the beginning, that he is dealing with a natural function of his life and not with an artificial addition. For instance, raising palm trees in Greenland would be an unnatural proceeding. They never were intended to grow there and never can grow there save under stress of artificial forcing.

What is truly meant by consciousness, or what is the principle back of that term? There are many ideas which cannot be expressed properly for lack of words, or lack of terms. The word consciousness is really derived from the Latin root scio, to know, and con, together; so the word consciousness from the derivative meaning would signify: to know together.

With the sole idea that, through a pleasant, or at least fascinatingly strange story, some will be brought to the threshold of realization wherein the partially explored activities and functions of the mind contain many profound mysteries and principles of considerable import, and that those so illumined may be tempted to seek for more light in the chamber of the unknown, this book is offered to those constantly asking for the unusual in fiction and the mystical in romance.

The statement of individuality that “I am here, now”, is a mighty one. It will always be “I am” with you - it will always be “here” with you. No matter what state your individuality may reach; no matter what point of space you may occupy; no matter what period of time it may be - it will always be true that “I am here, now!” May you unfold into a perception of this statement of individuality.

Blake asked the question: "Why is it that the Bible is more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding, or reason?" The one book, called the Bible, is composed of 66 books. Take this challenge. Study each book as though the depth of your soul is speaking to your surface mind. As though the ineffable Imagination is speaking to the human Imagination, and not to your immediate understanding or reasoning mind.

You will find this a very practical night, for I feel that the truth of the working of God's law should be looked upon as intensely as anything in this world. So tonight I want to show you quite clearly how God's law operates.

Now tonight let me share with you some experiences to show you that it is all your own wonderful human imagination. You might have read last Saturday's Los Angeles Times. On the front page in bold, bold type is the story of a plane. A story was told, and shown on TV, and made very, very popular by Rod Serling.

I think you are all familiar with the sixth Beatitude: "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." I daresay it would be unwise to pick and choose among the beatitudes, and yet I daresay most people look upon this beatitude as the particular star in the heavens. It really seems the most inaccessible - not only the promise, but the conditions that must be met in order for the promise to be fulfilled. We must be pure in heart to see God - and what wouldn't man give to see God!

When you find your own wonderful human imagination to be the creative power of the world, you will find it a "wild vine", where you have misused this talent and imagined every unlovely thing in the world. Now, when you find it, you must prune it, and, so, you prune it by the proper use of it, and you stop misusing the power that is Christ-in-you.

The living water means inspiration. The word inspiration comes from the Latin spiro, meaning I breathe into. We breathe air without effort, likewise we must let the divine light or the creative essence of God flow through our intellect without tension. The subjective mind in us perceives by intuition. It does not have to reason or inquire as it is all-wise, infinite intelligence.

There is a creative urge back of everything you do - an urge to express life, joy and happiness, an urge to reach out to everything that lives, as though you belong in the universe in which you live; to be one with it and have an enthusiastic zest for living. Man's nature is such that it is necessary for him to express life, to come into the fulfillment of joy and happiness and he is disconsolate until this happens.

Consciousness, or the ability to know, is the most important thing in your life. It must be this thing called life in you, acting as an individual, a person. But there is still more to it than this. For you didn't create your own consciousness. It came with you when you entered this world. Consciousness, or that thing which you really are, is the gift of life. It is God in you.

The treatments found in this book - one for each day - were written for you. But here is a wonderful caution: you must do more than merely listen to the words; you must feel them, know the truth of them and believe them. Unless the words are believed with utmost faith, no change will take place in your consciousness, and until you change your consciousness, you haven't changed a thing. Hear - feel - know. Be blessed.

Our teaching has a very great deal of mysticism in it and it should be more completely developed with the realization that mysticism is not mystery just as intuition is not psychism. Half of the world and three-fourths of the world in our field, who should know better, mistake intuition for psychism and think if a person gets a hunch they must be very spiritual so most people mistake mysticism for mystery.

When Emil Coue came to this country a number of years ago, he brought with him a piece of string with 20 knots in it, and an idea of which the string was but a symbol. His ideas that if you run your fingers over the 20 knots, repeating rapidly, "Every day, and in every way, I am becoming better and better," you will finally arrive at an affirmative realization of life. His piece of string was a method for changing the thought patterns that are more or less set within our minds.

Demonstrating the spiritual principle of life is a process of convincing the mentality of an inner and ever-present good, reality is already perfect. God is always God and good is never evil. It is only as we turn, with our whole consciousness to the light that we receive light. It is impossible, while we keep ourselves covered with darkness, for the light to shine on us.

Today I want to tell you the story of a beautiful young woman who proved in her own experience that there is one divine presence in everything and in everyone. This is the story of a young school teacher who learned how to solve her problems through meditation and prayer.

No one can doubt that Jesus was the wisest man who ever lived. Anyone who could transform other people's lives as he did must have possessed the secret of the ages. Jesus possessed a secret so profound, so powerful, and so awe-inspiring that he became the greatest figure in human history. Jesus had knowledge of a power so great that it commanded the wind and the waves. And you and I wish to discover this secret and to make use of this power.