Chapter 6 - To Get at the Substance

All desirable and as-yet-unexpressed things are in the silence waiting to be drawn into expression through aspiration and inspiration.

Of course one can aspire and inspire anywhere and under almost any conditions. I remember one great aspiration of mine which was satisfied whilst I was sitting in a crowded street car with folks standing in front of me and others clinging to the running board.

The Things of the Silence are everywhere present, permeating solid things as the X-rays do. All creation cannot hinder a man communing with the Unseen at any time and in any place -- all creation cannot hinder him except as he lets it.

But that is the trouble -- he lets it interfere unless he is in almost agonizing earnest about the unseen things. That momentous hour on the crowded street car came after weeks of most earnest “seeking,”' after weeks of almost constant “concentrating” on this one thing I wanted to receive from the Unseen. I was so absorbed in that one subject that the crowds were as nothing to me.

In order to get anything -- wisdom, power, love -- from the silence one’s whole interest must be absorbed in the matter.

Your interest is like the plate in a camera; it receives impressions only from that upon which it is turned. And the camera must be held steadily in one position until the impression is received.

The human camera receives impressions from the unseen in exactly the same way that it receives impressions from the seen world.

But it takes a longer time to receive a complete impression from the unseen, just as it takes a longer time to get a good negative in the dark.

The unseen is the dark to us; hence the long time it often takes to get a complete impression of anything we desire to receive in the silence. It takes a longer “exposure” to get the impression.

“Concentration” is merely the steady “exposure” of the attention, the interest, to the thing we desire to realize, to make tangible.

Now the busy person, the person who is interested in a thousand things, keeps his interest so busy taking instantaneous photographs that he has no time to get impressions from the unseen. His mind is constantly flitting from one thing to another.

When it happens to turn toward the unseen it simply sweeps the dark quickly and comes back to earth again without an impression.

Instead of a steady aspiration toward the ideal there is a constant perspiration toward the real.

As there is nothing new under the sun the only progress made is around and around the same old things.

The only real relief from things as they are lies in the unseen.

The only way to get at the relief is to “concentrate” on the unseen things. In order to do this the attention must be called away from seen things. The mind must be “set on things above,” and kept set until the “renewing” is complete.

People who are not yet satisfied that the visible world does not and cannot satisfy, will see no need of going into the silence on set occasions. And there is another class who are apt to see no need of it -- the class whose “concentration” on the invisible is so constant that material things assume the subordinate relation. These are people who have “got the truth” by coming up through great tribulation; who have run the gamut of things and found the principle behind things.

And almost invariably, if not always (I have never heard of an exception), these are people who have tried nearly every method of spiritual culture extant, have practiced fasting and prayer, breath exercises, denials and affirmations, and treatments and concentrations of every conceivable kind.

Martin Luther was one of these; and at last, when he had tried everything else and was crawling up the church steps on all fours, he “found the truth.” Immediately he arose, repudiated all his good works as unavailing, and went about praising and preaching that not by works but by faith we are healed.

Eight or ten years ago I heard Paul Militz, who had worked for years at all manner of spiritual, mental and breath exercising, repudiate it all as “unnecessary.” “Not any of these things avails you,” he said. And others who have “found the truth” reiterate the same statement.

And yet every one of them has “found the truth” through those very practices.

If Martin Luther had stopped short of crawling up those church steps as his own seeking spirit bade him, he would never have “found the truth.” If Militz, Shelton, Burnell, et al., had left out one of their practices they would still be “seeking.”

The spirit in every man bids him do things and refrain from doing other things, in order to “save” him self from something or other. Is this universal urge only a lie? No. These concentration exercises are kindergarten methods by which we learn to use ourselves. When by practice we have learned how, we discard the kindergarten methods. What was gained by self-conscious effort becomes habit. We turn intuitively to the unseen, whereas we used to turn to it only by conscious effort, by special practices.

But why repudiate the practices? Why tell others who are trying to learn how, that their efforts are all useless? By practices we found the way; why discourage practice? There are people who as yet are wrapped up in the material. There are those who are wrapped up in the unseen. Neither of these are in present need of set times for “concentrating” upon the unseen, the ideal side of life.

But there is a third great “middle class” who are not absorbed in the already manifest world, and who want to be one with the unseen world of causation. To these I say, follow the example of all the “adepts” of all the ages; practice “concentration.” To all who want to accomplish something I say, Go into the silence regularly for power and wisdom to accomplish.

To those whose interests are mainly in the material world, but who want to understand and be deeply interested in the unseen world -- from whence come all things, -- to those I say, Go into the silence at regular periods every day.

To all humanity who are longing for Something, I say. All things are in the Silence; be still and know.