The Power of Thought

The inspired thought of all nations and men agrees that God was always existent as pure Being. The loftiest thought of all the great religions of antiquity conceives of Him as living in Self contemplation, until, seeking to manifest more and more the joy of living He, by the power of His thought, presses life out into visibility, into external shapes. Thought is creative. To think constructively is to create, for the thought ever seeks to manifest itself in shape.

If we consider God first as Pure Being and then as the Creator of the Universe to manifest in Substance the Divine Thought by the spoken word, we can best apprehend God as Principle, since every created thing is an emanation from God and is informed with His life and power. Thus we speak of God as Life, Love, Wisdom, Substance, Omnipresence, Omnipotence and Omniscience.

In this light we can understand the character of the power of healing and recreating that Jesus possessed and which he promised to his followers who believed in him and had faith even as a grain of mustard seed, and it points to us the way to obtain healing and to order our affairs so as to express ourselves, in all things, in concord with the Divine harmony. It illumines the darkness that has clouded the mystery of our own consciousness. By it we can apprehend the true meaning of the declaration that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

We possess in thought the creative power inherent in thought and we can use that creative power upon ourselves through the manipulation of our own consciousness and the expression of the word. Understanding that life is health, and that as Principle, God’s creations are perfect, obeying the operation of law in every particular way, we can see that any interference with, any abridgement, impairment or extinction of, disease is due to human error and can be corrected by the application of the creative powers in us that are inherent in the Divine.

What, therefore, avails it to understand the mechanisms and operation of the subconscious mind if we do not apply correctives in consciousness in co-operation with the Divine Mind? Must we not, when contemplating the wonderful power within ourselves, realise also how immensely it is reinforced by the application of the Divine power within us? Must we not feel that his is another wonder revealed to us in order that we should “seek God”? There is but one answer to these questions and that is that if we ever needed anything to convince us of God’s tender love for us this revelation should surely bring that conviction.

For God is healing. When all is said and done about the power of the subjective mind we are yet to know that the supreme power of healing is in God, and that however much we may be able to do for ourselves the very powers we exert are God’s powers seeking manifestation through us.

Knowing God as Principle it is our business to seek the science of the operation of His laws. We use the word “science” in this connection not only as the equivalent of knowledge but as the equivalent of knowledge correctly applied. For spiritual healing is a science. It is the power of reforming and recreating applied through the knowledge of Divine causation.

God manifests Himself to the individual in His own way. And one experience of the individual with God as a directive, illuminating and sustaining influence is worth more by way of interior conviction than all the essays on the Divine ever written or sermons ever preached. “The Spirit witnesseth to our spirit that we are the children of God.”

Now this explanation of God’s nature and attributes is made necessary in order to clarify what we in Divine Science believes God to be. It has been well said that the surest way to lose God is to attempt to define Him. To those who wish to know God we say that this knowledge is not to be had from books or teachers, or sermons or pictures. The best way, the only way, to know God is to seek Him by “feeling after” Him. We must seek after Him in the very centre of our own being. All those dim gropings for expression of the divinity within us must be recognised as efforts of the Spirit to impress itself on our consciousness and must be waited on, attended upon and developed.