many of our problems in life are due to a misapprehension of the nature of our
own power if we clearly realize that the creative power in ourselves is unlimited
then there is no reason to limit the extent of what we can enjoy by means of
this power when we are drawing from the infinite we need never be afraid of
taking more than our share that is not where the danger lies the danger is in
not sufficiently realizing our own richness and in viewing the externalized
products of our creative power as being the true riches instead of the creative
power of spirit itself if we avoid this error there is no need to limit
ourselves in taking what we will from the infinite storehouse and the way to
avoid this error is by realizing that true wealth is in identifying ourselves
with the spirit of opulence we must be opulent in our thought do not think
money as such for that is only one means of opulence but think largely generously
liberally and you will find that the means of realizing this thought will
flow to you from all quarters whether as money or as a hundred other things not
to be reckoned in cash we must not make ourselves dependent on any particular
form of wealth or insist on it coming to us through some particular channel for
that is to impose a limitation and to shut out other forms of wealth and to
close other channels instead we must enter into the spirit of wealth the
spirit is life and throughout the universe life ultimately consists in
circulation whether within the physical body of the individual or on the scale
of the entire solar system circulation means a continual flowing around and the
spirit of opulence is no exception to this universal law of all life when this
principle becomes clear to us we shall see that our attention should be
directed to the giving rather than the receiving we must look upon ourselves
not as a miser safe to be kept locked for our own benefit but as centers of
distribution and the better we fulfill our function as such centers the greater
will be the corresponding inflow if we choke the outlet the current must
slacken a full and free flow can be obtained only by keeping it open the
spirit of opulence the opulent mode of thought consists in cultivating the
feeling that we possess all sorts of riches which we can bestow upon others
and which we can bestow liberally because by this very action we open the
way for still greater supplies to flow in now you may be saying to yourself but
I am short of money I hardly know how to pay for the necessities what have I to
give the answer is that we must always start from the point where we are and if
you are wealth at the present moment is not abundant on the Material Plane you
need not trouble to start on that plane there are other sorts of wealth still
more valuable on the spiritual and intellectual planes which you can give
therefore you can start from this point and practice the spirit of opulence even
though your balance at the bank may be nil then the universal law of attraction
will begin to assert itself you will not only begin to experience an inflow on
the spiritual and intellectual planes but it will extend itself to the
Material Plane also it is not money but the love of mutton that is the root of
evil and the spirit of opulence is precisely the attitude of mind which is
furthest removed from the love of money for its own sake it does not believe in
money what it does believe in is the generous feeling which is the intuitive
recognition of the great law of circulation which does not in any
undertaking make its first question how much am I going to get by it but how
much am I going to do by it and by making this the first question the
getting will flow in with the generous perfusion and with a spontaneous and
rightness of direction that are absent when our first thought is of receiving
only we are not called upon to give what we have not yet got and to run into
death but we are to give liberally of what we have with the knowledge that by
so doing we are setting the law of circulation to work and as this law
brings us greater and greater inflows of every kind of good
so our out giving will increase not by depriving ourselves of any expansion of
our own life that we may desire but by finding that every expansion makes us
the more powerful instruments for expanding the life of others
live-and-let-live is the motto of true opulence now let us turn to beauty do we
sufficiently direct our thoughts to the subject of beauty I think not we are too
apt to regard beauty is merely a superficial thing and do not realize all
that it implies this was not the case with the great thinkers of the ancient
world for example Plato describes beauty as
the expression of all that is highest and greatest in the system of the
universe these great philosophers of old were no superficial thinkers and
therefore would never have elevated Beauty to a supreme place if it were
only superficial therefore we shall do well to ask what it is that these great
minds found in the idea of beauty which made it appeal to them as the most
perfect outward expression of all that lives deepest in the fundamental law of
being it is because rightly apprehended beauty represents the supreme living
quality of thought it is the glorious overflowing of Love's fullness and
indicates the presence of infinite reserves of power behind it it is the
joyous profusion that shows the possession of inexhaustible stores of
wealth which can afford to be lavish and yet remain as exhaustless as before read
correctly Beauty is the index to the whole nature of being beauty is the
externalization of harmony and harmony is the coordinated working of all the
powers of being both in the individual and in the relation of the individual to
the infinite from which it Springs and therefore this harmony conducts us at
once into the presence of the inner most undifferentiated life beauty is most
immediately in touch with the deepest mysteries of life it is the brightness
of glory spreading itself over the sanctuary of the Divine Spirit when
viewed from without beauty is the province of the artist and the poet and
lays hold of our emotions and appeals directly to the innermost feelings of
our heart it speeds across the bridge of reason with such quick feet that we pass
from the out most to the inmost and back again in a twinkling of an eye but the
bridge is still there and retracing our steps more leisurely we shall find that
viewed from within beauty is also the province of the calm thinker and analyst
what the poet and artist seized upon intuitively they elaborate gradually but
the result is the same in both cases for no intuition is true which cannot be
expanded into a rational sequence of intelligible factors and no argument is
true which cannot be condensed into that rapid suggestion which is intuition
thus the impatient artist and the calm finger both find that it is only true
beauty which proceeds naturally from the actual construction of that which it
expresses in other words beauty is not something added on as an afterthought
but something pre-existing in the original idea something to which that
idea naturally leads up to the test of beauty asks what does it
express is it merely a veneer a coat of paint laid on from without then it is
indeed nothing but a whited Sepulcher a covering to hide the vacuity or
deformity which needs to be removed but is it the true and natural outcome of
what is beneath the surface then it is the index to super abounding life love
and intelligence wherever therefore we find beauty we may
infer an enormous reserve of power behind it in fact we may look upon it as
the invisible expression of the great truth that life power is infinite and
when the inner meaning of beauty is thus revealed to us and we learn to know it
as the very fullness and overflowing of power we shall find that we have gained
a new standard for the guidance of our own lives we must begin today to use
this wonderful process which we have learnt from nature having learned how
nature works how God works we must begin to work in like manner and never
consider any work complete until we have carried it to some final outcome of
beauty whether material intellectual or spiritual is my intention good that is
the initial question where the intention determines the nature of the essence in
everything what is the most beautiful form in which I can express the good I
intend that is the ultimate question where the true beauty which our work
expresses is the measure of its power its intelligence its love in a word of
the quantity and quality of our own life which we have put into it nothing is of
so small account that it does not have its fullest power of expression in some
form of beauty peculiarly its own beauty is the law of perfect thought be
it the subject of our thought some scheme affecting the welfare of millions
or a word spoken to a little child true beauty and true power are the
correlatives of one another kindly expression originates in kindly
thought and kindly expression is the essence of beauty which seeking to
express itself ever more and more perfectly becomes that fine touch of
sympathy which is artistic skill whether applied when working upon material
substances were upon the emotions of the heart seen thus that the beautiful is
the true expression of the good from whichever end of the scale we look we
shall find that they accurately measure each other they are the same thing in
the outermost and the innermost respectively but in our search for a
higher beauty than we have yet found we must beware of missing the beauty that
already exists perfect harmony with its environment and perfect expression of
its own inward nature are what constitute beauty and our ignorance of
the nature of the thing or its environment may shut our eyes to the
beauty it already has it takes the genius of a banjo in
painting or a Whitman in words to show us the beauty of those ordinary workaday
figures with which our world is for the most part people whose originals we pass
by as having no form or attractiveness assuredly the mission of every thinking
man and woman is to help build up forms of Greater beauty everywhere be they
spiritual intellectual or material but to do so we must enter the great
realistic school of nature and learn to recognize the beauty that already
surrounds us even though it may have a little dirt on the surface then when we
have learnt the great principles of beauty from the all-pervading spirit
which it reflects we shall know how to develop the beauty on its own proper
lines without perpetuating the dirt and grime and we shall know that all beauty
is the expression of living power and that we can measure our own power by the
degree to which we have transformed our lives and the lives of those around us
for the better