Everyday experiences

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Everyday experiences, by F. W. Sears This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Everyday experiences Author: F. W. Sears Release Date: March 8, 2023 [eBook #70231] Language: English Produced by: Bob Taylor, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES *** Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ “THE BOOKS WITHOUT AN IF SERIES” EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES BY F. W. SEARS, M.P. AUTHOR OF “How to Attract Success,” “Concentration—Its Mentology and Psychology,” “How We Create Ourselves,” “The Law of Cause and Effect,” “Reincarnation—Why, When, Where?” “Death—Then What?” “The Unpardonable Sin,” “The Law of Abundance,” “What Creates Environment,” “Our Judgment Days,” “The Resurrection of the Body,” “The Secret of Healing,” “The Risen Self,” “What is God?” “How to Give Treatments,” etc., etc. CENTRE PUBLISHING CO. NEW YORK L. N. FOWLER & CO. LONDON, ENG. Copyright, 1916 F. W. SEARS, M.P. All rights reserved PREFACE “Everyday Experiences” are the simple relation of some of the many problems which students and patients have presented to me for solution, the remedy I have prescribed, and the results obtained. _Knowing_ the “Law of Harmony” in its application to _all_ things, and _knowing_ the constructive results which will come to those who apply it in the living out of their daily life, these actual experiences are given to the world for the benefit of those who are ready and waiting for them. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS PAGE HOW THE RENT WAS PAID 7 THE WORLD’S INJUSTICE 15 BETRAYING ONE’S CONFIDENCE 24 DEVELOPING A CONSCIOUSNESS 33 A BLESSED PRIVILEGE 40 THE TELEPHONE BELL 49 HOW THE RENT WAS PAID She was about 25, well dressed, neat in appearance, rather good looking, quite intelligent, and a teacher of art. The distressed look upon her face when she entered my office showed that she was undergoing terrible suffering of some kind. She greeted me with the inquiry, “What in the world will I do, doctor?” I told her the first thing she should do was to sit down, just get quiet a little and “let go,” then tell me all about it. I talked with her about unimportant matters for a few minutes until I saw that she had grown somewhat calm and quiet in the harmonious atmosphere of my office and then asked her what her trouble was. She said that it was money or rather the lack of it. I told her there was plenty of money in the world and a great abundance of it right here in New York. “Yes,” she said, “but I can’t get hold of it unless I pawn my diamond ring. I had to pawn one of them last month in order to pay my rent and will have to pawn my last one in order to pay my rent this month and then what shall I do?” “Why pawn your ring now?” I asked. “I haven’t pawned it yet,” she said, “but I will have to do so.” “You may not as yet have gone through the physical act of taking your ring to the pawn shop and leaving it there,” I replied, “but you have pawned it already in your consciousness, your thought world, your imagination, and unless you at once stop pawning it there you will soon take it to the pawn shop. But should it be necessary for you to go to the pawn shop, why worry about it? Why not look upon your rings as cash in the bank, to be drawn upon when necessary. We sometimes draw our bank balance down to the last dollar but that does not worry us for we know we will deposit some more right away, and when we do KNOW it we always get the money to deposit. Why not take this same attitude towards the ring you have in pawn?” “Again, this is only Friday and the first of the month does not come until next Monday,” I said. “Supposing you did not pay your rent on that day your landlord would not put you out for you have always been a good tenant and paid your rent heretofore. Even though he was to serve a dispossess notice on you you have five days in which to pay or move, so that you have at least a week from to-day, under the most unfavorable conditions, in which to get your rent money.” “Yes,” she replied, “that is all very true but from whence is the money coming? I haven’t been doing any work lately and no one is paying out any money for my kind of work these days and I haven’t a cent in sight anywhere and no place I can go to get any, except by pawning my diamond ring, even if I had two months’ time instead of only a week.” “It isn’t necessary for you to know from whence the money is coming,” I replied, “for that is the work of God—the great Universal Law. _Your_ work is to KNOW that God always attends to his part of the business and materializes things for us, both in body and environment, to accord with the vision or image we create and hold in our imagination and the harmonious or inharmonious energy we use in creating and holding it. God always does his part of the work whether we do ours consciously and intelligently or unconsciously and ignorantly. Just so long as you hold the image, thought or idea that you will have to pawn your ring, creating and holding this image, thought or idea in fear and trembling, then the only thing God can do for you is to work out that image in material form the same as he did for you last month. You actually had to pawn your ring then, and while you paid your rent, yet you are in even worse condition to-day than you were then. You can continue to do this same thing again this month and keep it up until there is nothing left for God to do for you but to continue materializing lack and inharmony for you in every way. Or by using this same Universal Law which has brought you lack, but changing your application of it by changing the image, thought, idea, vision with which you fill your imagination, you can attract the money to you with which to pay your rent, get it in a perfectly legitimate and constructive manner and not have to pawn your ring either, and by continuing to make the new application which I will teach you you can be in a much better position this time next month instead of a worse one as you now are.” “Oh how can I do it, doctor,” she asked. “Just FILL your thought world, your imagination, with the thought, idea, image, vision, that you have your rent money NOW, and keep it FILLED. Every time the thought of lack comes to you displace it at once with the affirmative statement of ‘I have the rent money NOW,’” I replied. “How can I say ‘I have the rent money NOW,’ doctor,” she asked, “when I know it’s a lie, for I haven’t it?” “My dear girl,” I said, “as long as you know you haven’t it; as long as you know it’s a lie, just so long will you continue to be without it, for God—the Universal Law—can only materialize for you according to your vision and the energy back of it, and he cannot furnish you with supply for your needs so long as you continue to create lack, fear, worry, anxiety, etc., in your consciousness, your imagination. When you learn to affirm that you have your rent money NOW with one-tenth the energy and creative power you use in affirming its lack, God will materialize it for you.” “Well, doctor, I will try,” she said. “That will not do,” I answered. “I will do the best I can, then,” she said. “That will not do,” again I answered. “I will do it,” she said. “Now I _am sure_ you will succeed,” I replied. On the following Tuesday she came into my office with her face wreathed in smiles and, after greeting me, said, “Oh doctor, it is so wonderful. I hardly know how it was done, but it seemed as though every one in the world wanted to pay me money since I was here the other day, and I have collected enough money not only to pay my rent this month but was able to take my ring out of pawn to-day.” THE WORLD’S INJUSTICE She was of medium height and so thin she could scarcely make a respectable shadow. Her well worn but not shabby dress, and her flimsy jacket told a story of lack in environment which her peaked, bloodless face and emaciated body showed in the latter. She had been a room clerk in one of New York City’s big skyscraper hotels. Worked twelve hours, then had six hours off; worked six hours and then had twelve hours off. This was her ceaseless grind of work day after day and night after night, with never a Sunday nor holiday off. In the course of her work she was brought into contact with both guests of the hotel and the hotel employees. She was the meeting point, as it were, for the complaints, irritations and annoyances of the former and the excuses and counter-charges of the latter. Her position was not a sinecure by any means as you may well imagine. She never had been very strong and after playing the “buffer” between guests and employees for a couple of years, her nervous system was so worn out that she decided to quit her position and obtain something not so hard or trying on her. She succeeded in securing a position as demonstrator in a department store for some new invention where she worked only half of each day and received six dollars a week for her services. She found that department store customers were not made of any different material than were hotel guests and the constant irritations which came up in her dealings with the public continued to wear on her over-wrought nervous system to such an extent that night after night she would go to her room without any dinner, throw herself on her couch without removing any of her clothing, not even her hat, and lie there all night long, too exhausted to undress and go to bed. This condition had been going on for several months when she first came to see me. I saw at once that her trouble was not with her work but in the way she had been doing it—the attitude she had taken towards the people, things, and conditions with which she contacted. She had been resenting and resisting the “injustice of the world,” of people and things. The great injustice which compelled her to labor when she was not able to work, and which only enabled her to eke out the barest kind of an existence; the injustice which prevented her from having friends, going to entertainments, dances, etc., and from enjoying life as did other girls. Her whole thought world was filled with a bitter and resentful condemnation and criticism of the “world’s injustice” to people in general and to herself in particular. She never once realized, much less thought, that she herself had set all of the causes in motion which brought this condition into her life and that she was still setting the causes in motion which would continue it until she learned her lesson and her own power of creation. When I told her this she would not believe it at first, it was such a new idea to her, but it set her to thinking and she came back a few days later and said she had decided to place herself entirely in my hands and would follow my instructions to the very last letter. There was no hope for her in any other way that she could see and so she had decided that my instructions could not produce any worse conditions for her than already existed while there was a promise of the possibility of something better. I told her the first thing she was to do was to relax and “let go.” That she was so tense and resistant she repelled everything which was at all constructive and harmonious. With each breath she inhaled she was to make the following affirmation: “I am breathing in the Peace and Harmony of God’s Universe NOW.” Peace and Harmony are manifestations of the Universal energy the same as are heat, light, air, etc., and the more she could realize this Truth and so create the consciousness that she really was breathing in the Peace and Harmony, the more would she relate with and attract them to her. It was necessary for her breathing and affirming to be done without strain, effort, or tenseness, as anything which required strain, effort or tenseness lost its value the moment this was begun. Her entire trouble was not so much in the work she had been doing but rather _in the way she had been doing it_, and when she developed the habit—the consciousness—of doing her work without resentment or resistance—that is without strain, effort or tenseness—did it because she loved it and it was a “blessed privilege” for her to do it—all her tired, nervous condition would disappear entirely and she would become strong, healthy and well. This result would not be obtained in a day or two, or with only breathing and affirming a few times each day but that it would be necessary for her to “make a business” of it and breathe and affirm many times each day, do this just as often as she could possibly take the time to do it. She should devote as much time each morning and evening to the breathing and affirming as she could without getting the consciousness or feeling that it was work and that she had to do it, for that meant strain, effort and tenseness, but she should develop the _want to love to do it because it was the highest, greatest and best thing she knew how to do_; that she should keep on doing this without paying any attention to the results she obtained. When we are all the time “looking for results” it shows a consciousness of doubt and fear, and it is this state of consciousness which always delays the materialization of constructive results because it makes for destructive ones. During the day she was to take one or two deep breaths and make the affirmation as frequently as she could think of it, even when she was attending to a customer, and that in accordance with the persistency and harmony with which she followed these instructions would her old conditions disappear and more harmonious ones gradually take their place. How well she followed these instructions is evidenced by the fact that in less than a month’s time she had a good appetite, enjoyed spending her evenings in social intercourse, slept well every night, and arose each morning full of life and ambition. She began to see that what she had thought was the “world’s injustice” was only the effects of the causes which she herself had ignorantly and unconsciously set in motion through the destructive thoughts she had allowed to persist, and she learned through applying the lessons to her own life which I had taught her that there was no injustice in the Universal Law. To-day she is a well woman and has a home of her own where she cares for those who, like herself of former years, need the instruction and care I gave to her. BETRAYING ONE’S CONFIDENCE “Once I betrayed the confidence of a very dear friend, afterward doing everything in my power to regain the friendship, love, and confidence, but the injury seemed too deep for forgiveness. Now what shall I do next?” This is an inquiry which I recently received and contains a problem that affects many lives. This man said that he did “everything in my power to regain the friendship, love, and confidence.” I have no doubt but what that is true in so far as his knowledge goes as to what was in his “power to do,” but he made the same mistake that the world always makes and that is he did all of his work in attempting to influence and control the other party. Let us first understand that it is impossible for one person to either betray another’s confidence or injure him in any way. The careless and indifferent thinker will at once say that this is not true. I do not intend to argue the question, for my work is not to either proselyte or convert, but rather it is to teach, and so it does not make any difference to me as to whether any one agrees with me or not. No one is asked to blindly accept any statement I may make, but the one who really wants to learn will accept “on probation” such statements as are not as yet truth to him, and then test them out for himself in every way he may wish until, through his own experience, he is able to see their truth and accept them because he has proved them for himself and not because I have made them. It is true that we often _seem_ to betray another’s confidence or _seem_ to injure some one else, but we do not do this in reality, we only _seem_ to do it simply because we have not gone deeply enough into the study of life to understand the Law of Cause and Effect and the instruments which are used by God—the great Universal Law—in working out the effects of causes man sets in motion. We can and do betray our own confidence and inflict serious injuries upon ourselves again and again, but _never_ upon another person. When we study life deeply we see the great universal Law of Cause and Effect manifesting everywhere and we come to understand that this Law prevails throughout the Universe and that back of every _effect_, no matter how trivial and unimportant it may seem to us, lies the determining _cause_ which produced it. It is true that this _cause_ is too deeply hidden for the superficial and unsuspecting student to observe it but it is always there and can be found by the soul which has the _real want_ to discover it. People and things are only instruments in the hands of God—the great Universal Law—to work out in the lives of those with whom they contact the effects of the causes they set in motion, and when we become convinced of this wonderful Truth we cease to blame others for any effect we may receive and neither do we blame ourselves for any effect which we, as the instrument, may give to others. Each life always does the best it knows how at the particular moment of the commission of any act. Many times afterward we see that we have made a mistake and are “sorry” for it, but it is another mistake to be “sorry.” When we see we have made a mistake and done what we say is the “wrong” thing, it is because we are in a different state of consciousness, one that is more harmonious and constructive and where we can see the bigger vision and larger ideal than the one we were in at the time the “wrong” act was committed. In the lesser state of consciousness we were in at the time the act was committed, that which we did was the best we knew how to do in that thought current. It can therefore be readily seen that had our “know how” been better at that particular moment—that is had we been in a more harmonious and constructive state of consciousness, or mind, or thought current at that moment—we would not have committed the act. Our work then is to so develop our human mind that we will create within ourselves such a harmonious and constructive state of consciousness as will cause our “know how” to at all times accord with our highest ideals. Had the man who wrote me the inquiry at the beginning of this letter done this he would never have “betrayed the confidence” of his friend, for his “know how” would have accorded with his highest ideals and so prevented the betrayal when the opportunity arose. He then could not have been used as the destructive instrument in the life of his friend to betray the latter’s confidence. While it is true that we are only instruments in the hands of God—the great Universal Law—to work out in the lives of those with whom we contact the effects of the causes they have set in motion, it is also true that we are not compelled to be blind, ignorant and destructive instruments, directed and propelled by a “fate” over which we have no control. It is for each life to determine whether it shall be a constructive or destructive instrument in the hands of the Universal Law. No one else can decide this question for us. We alone have the power of choice. We alone are responsible for the effect of our decision. We can make this decision consciously and intelligently or unconsciously and ignorantly. We can continue to manage our life “with eyes which do not see and ears which do not hear” as long as we may wish. We can remain both blind and ignorant of the effects of the causes we are momentarily setting in motion just as long as we desire. God—the great Universal Law—never steps in and interferes with our doing anything we may desire, no matter whether its effect on us is what we call “good” or “bad.” He always permits us to go on, knowing that “the cure of the thing is in the thing itself,” and that when we have reaped enough of the effects of the destructive causes we have set in motion we will open our eyes to the larger truth and learn that we alone were responsible for the cause. I told this man the first thing he should do was to begin work upon himself so that his “know how” would better accord with his higher ideals more of the time. He should also quit “trying to regain the friendship, love and confidence” of the other person and regain his own “friendship, love and confidence” and that until he had done this he could not expect to have it from any one else. He should not even be sorry nor regret what he had done, because energy expressed as sorrow or regret was energy used destructively, and it was the destructive use of energy through the thoughts and emotions we allowed to persist which made us destructive instruments in the hands of the Universal Law and so made it possible, in his case, to _seem_ to betray the confidence of his friend. It would have been impossible, however, for his friend’s confidence to have been betrayed had not such friend himself created the cause through his own inharmonious and destructive use of energy by his thoughts sometime prior to the act. That he was in no way responsible for his friend’s creation and that had he never lived his friend’s confidence would have been betrayed by some one else; his friend would not have escaped the betrayal. He was only responsible for the fact that he was such a destructive instrument that he could be used in this particular case. His work was to make his life so harmonious and constructive from now on that it would be impossible for the Universal Law to ever use him again as a destructive instrument. This was the only way in which he could ever “forgive” himself and when this was accomplished he would not need to be “forgiven” by any one else for he would only attract to himself harmonious expressions from those with whom he contacted. DEVELOPING A CONSCIOUSNESS Many times I am asked as to what is meant by “developing a consciousness.” To “develop a consciousness” of anything is to have knowledge of it; to understand it; to KNOW it, and to KNOW that one KNOWS it; to make union with it; to recognize our _oneness_ with it; to know that we and the thing desired are a part of each other. Take for instance some one who has never been taught to sew. He has no knowledge of it and is therefore very clumsy and awkward in the handling of a needle and thread. By persistent training and application the intelligence in the cells of the fingers are taught what to do and when the “consciousness” of how to sew has been developed in them the fingers lose their clumsiness and become nimble and dexterous at the work. The same is true in learning to play on the piano or other musical instrument; in using a typewriter, sewing machine, etc. In fact when we attempt to do anything for the first time we are always at a disadvantage simply because we have not “developed a consciousness” along that line and so do not recognize our oneness with it. It is true that some persons learn to do a thing much more quickly than do others and so we have called them “smarter.” But this is a mistake for no one really possesses any more ability than does every other life; some, however, have made better use of their power than have others. This is true both as regards this present life as well as in former incarnations. Should you who read this be one of those who have been discouraged in the past because you had to work so hard in order to learn how to do things, just remember that you have stored up in you all the great wonderful power of the Universe and can learn to express it harmoniously and constructively along any line you may desire. The first step to take is to _recognize_ that this is true; then _recognize_ our union with this universal energy. Our God-self has this recognition in our inner consciousness and we begin to recognize it in the human mind through constantly affirming our oneness with it. We must be just as persistent in doing this as we are when we are learning to sew or to play on the piano, and no matter how many mistakes we may make at first, nor how little we seem to accomplish, we want to keep everlastingly at it. Many persons have the idea that it is only necessary to repeat an affirmation over a few times, or to say it in a half-hearted way and then the results they desire should manifest at once. When they are sick they seem to think that by saying “I am well,” or “I am not sick,” a few times that it ought to cure them and because it doesn’t then they get the idea that there is no power in thought. When we are sick it is because the recognition of our oneness with health and harmony has not been well developed, and we might as well expect a poorly developed musician to correctly play the masterpieces of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Wagner, as to expect a poorly developed and inharmonious health consciousness to produce a masterpiece in the way of a perfect physical body. A poorly developed musician can, with the aid of a good teacher and by persistent practice, learn to play everything which has ever been written by any of the great masters, and so can one who has a poorly developed and inharmonious health consciousness learn to rebuild his physical body in such perfect health and beauty that it will in truth become a fitting temple in which the living God in each life may dwell. But before one can become either the great master musician or the perfect creator of a beautiful and harmonious physical body he must “develop a consciousness” of his _oneness_ with whichever his ideal may be, whether of music, health, or whatever else he may desire. Whenever we really want anything our desire always is so strong, powerful and overwhelming that we are willing to pay the price of persistency and application and we go after it with all the energy we can command and work to _make_ it come to us. We strain, strive and use every effort within our power, and when we do succeed in getting it in this way we find the results very unsatisfactory. This is because the world has developed a consciousness of force and uses force (either physical or mental, or both) in obtaining what it wants. Force creates inharmony and some day the world will learn the great lesson that there isn’t anything, no matter how valuable it may seem to be nor how much we may desire it, for which it is worth paying the price of one moment of inharmony. We should learn then to do our work of “developing a consciousness” without worry, anxiety, strain, effort, tenseness, friction, for all these thoughts and emotions create inharmony. We should learn not to fight for anything but to build and “develop a consciousness” of our oneness with it, creating it in this manner in our thought world first, recognizing that it is ours NOW (no matter how far away its materialization may seem to be from us) and then do on the objective plane whatever we think is necessary or advisable to aid us in its materialization, but do this quietly, calmly, and with a power which KNOWS it will succeed. Do it because we love to do it, because it is a “blessed privilege” for us to do it. We should never do anything with a consciousness that it is work or drudgery, for that kind of a consciousness makes the doing of that particular thing a work or drudgery to us. A BLESSED PRIVILEGE She was a very motherly woman of about fifty years of age who had been coming to me for treatment on account of nervousness. She was getting along nicely, although she had only been under my care for about a week, when one day she came into the office all flustrated and in a highly excited state of mind. In explaining the cause of her condition she said she was afraid that all the good work we had done had gone for naught and that there was no hope for her whatever. This was because her husband’s sister, who lived in one of the small up-State towns, had arrived the night before for a three weeks’ visit and that while she loved her sister-in-law very much, yet they never got on very well together and this visit meant three weeks of untold misery in trying to please her visitor. She then unloaded into my ears a tale of woe which took her half an hour to relate although she talked as fast as her tongue could rattle it off. I sat back in my chair and listened quietly until she finished her list of complaints and I do not think she omitted a single one of them. Although my patient was a dear woman and would not intentionally hurt the feelings of any one—she would much rather suffer herself than to do that—yet I saw plainly that her attitude towards this visit of her sister-in-law had brought her to a condition where she would have an attack of hysteria did it continue. The word picture she painted of the previous visits and the miserable times she had on those occasions would have caused almost any one to believe that the sister-in-law was a demon incarnate masquerading as a human being, instead of being only an ordinary average woman living in the country and who delighted in the freedom and the fascinating sights of a large city. When my patient had finished her story of condemnation, criticism and complaints, I said: “Is that all?” “Well, isn’t it enough?” she answered. I told her that I thought it was and then asked whether she wished to have the same kind of experiences again this time. “Of course not, but how can I help it?” she replied. “My sister-in-law is here and what she has done before she will do again, and what am I to do?” “Quit building in your thought world for a repetition of these experiences and begin to build for what you want instead,” I answered, “for as long as you continue to take the attitude you have always heretofore taken towards these visits of your sister-in-law, and towards what she says and does; as long as you continue to set the causes in motion which will produce these inharmonious and destructive effects, just so long will you continue to be miserable and unhappy every time your visitor comes to see you. YOU, however, can change _all_ of these conditions and effects by _changing your attitude towards them_, provided you have the _real want_ to do this.” “Oh, doctor,” she said, “I will do anything in the world that is possible for me to do, in order to get rid of all the misery which these visits have caused me in the past.” “Then promise me,” I said, “that you will follow my instructions and I will guarantee that by the time the three weeks’ visit is up you will tell me they have been the happiest three weeks of your life.” “Oh, could I only believe that would be possible, doctor,” she said, “I would be so happy.” “I do not ask you to believe,” I replied, “but I do ask you to follow my instructions implicitly, for I know what the results will be even though you do not know at the present time.” I told her the first thing she should do was to forget her own little, petty, personal self with all of its criticisms, condemnations and self-pity; take her hands off her sister-in-law’s life and permit her to enjoy herself as _she_ (the sister-in-law) wanted and that she herself was to turn in and do everything possible to make the visit a most pleasant one and to give her visitor the “time of her life.” She was to remember that her sister-in-law lived in a small town and the visit to New York once a year was a big event in her life; one which she planned for and talked about for months before she came, living in the pleasure of its anticipation and reveling in the joys of it after her return home. The theaters, churches, shops, big department stores, the crowds of people, the illuminations on Broadway were never ending objects of interest to one who only saw them occasionally. That heretofore she (my patient) had only thought of herself, the extra work, care and bother of having some one around who disturbed her home life, and that the time she had spent in entertaining her visitor had been the worst kind of drudgery to her because she had become satiated with these things and only went with her visitor because it was her “duty” to do so. She should plan to go with her visitor wherever the latter wished to go and do the things her visitor wanted to do, not as a “duty” she owed to the sister of her husband, as had been the case heretofore, but _do it as a “blessed privilege”_; do it because she herself enjoyed giving her visitor a good time; do it because she derived the greatest pleasure in doing it; do it because she got so much fun, pleasure and enjoyment out of seeing her sister-in-law have such a good time that she would rather do it than not. I told her that when we did anything from the plane of consciousness where it was our “duty” to do it, that it lost its constructive effect, for no matter how pleasant we might seem to be on the outside there was always the inner resentment and resistance in our consciousness because we felt that we just _had_ to do it on account of its being our “duty,” but that when we changed our inner state of consciousness through changing our attitude towards a thing and made it our “blessed privilege” instead of our “duty” to do it, then the whole thing changed and what had been before drudgery and difficult to do, became in fact a joy and pleasure. Objectively she was not necessarily to do anything different in entertaining her visitor than she had always done before but _she was to do it with an entirely different consciousness, a different thought back of it, a different purpose or motive_. She was to make it her “blessed privilege” to have her sister-in-law here with her and was to take advantage of the opportunity to give her the very best time possible, and that this change of attitude on her part would work such a transformation in her as to seem miraculous in its results. She promised faithfully to follow my instructions and about a week later she came into the office with her face wreathed in smiles and eyes shining with joy and gladness. “Oh doctor,” she said, “I could not wait any longer to see you. I just had to come and tell you how wonderful it all is. Why last night my sister-in-law put her arms around my neck and kissed me (something she had never done before in her life) and said she never knew before how dear I was. Everything and even more than you promised has come true and I never was so happy before in all my life, and it is my ‘blessed privilege’ to tell you this. I cannot thank you for words are too inadequate to express my gratitude for what you have taught me.” THE TELEPHONE BELL Ting-a-ling-ling-ling went the telephone bell. I was hard at work on an abstract proposition where an interruption of my thought meant chaos for a while. My telephone had the habit of ringing a couple of dozen times a day on calls which were not for me, and when I called up central to complain about it all the satisfaction I received was “Excuse me, please.” Already my ’phone had rung a number of times this morning, only to be met by central’s “Excuse me, please” when I answered it, and I was in a state of exasperation that almost bordered on a desire to murder some one. Several times I had almost gotten to the point in which my abstract problem seemed to be solved. Twice, just as I was about to grasp its solution, did the telephone bell ring only for me to hear the old familiar “Excuse me, please.” I had complained to the management about these mistakes, the poor service, etc. Men had been sent to inspect my ’phone and its connections; many parts of the ’phone had been changed and finally an entire new instrument had been installed, but still the irritation and annoyance of calls not for me continued. I had scolded central and given her “Hail Columbia” many times because of her alleged carelessness, but all to no avail, and the calls which were not for me still kept coming and my annoyance increased rather than diminished. Nothing I had ever said or done and nothing the Telephone Company seemed able to do appeared to have any effect in stopping these calls. Merrily my bell rang on from twenty to twenty-five times a day on calls which were mistakes. It seemed as though “Old Nick” himself was using the telephone to see how much he could irritate and annoy me, and here the ting-a-ling-ling-ling of his material representative was once more ringing in my ears and the solution of my problem again gone glimmering. Impatiently I grabbed the telephone receiver and placed it to my ear, yelling into the transmitter a “Hello” that for its acidity, irritability, impatience and petulance could not be surpassed. I resolved to give central in particular and the Telephone Company in general such a “jacking up” as they would never forget, should it be another call which was not for me, and at the same time order my ’phone taken out as it was proving to be a greater annoyance and trouble than its convenience would balance or offset. No answer came to my “Hello.” I called again and again in my impatient and irritated state of consciousness. Finally central answered saying, “What number, please?” It was a new voice on my wire; a voice that was filled with friendly feeling and good fellowship; one that unconsciously made union with the universal harmony and so felt only the “good” in everything, that all my irritation, annoyance and sarcasm at once disappeared and I replied in a voice which was new to me so filled with harmony were its tones, “You called me?” “Excuse me, please,” said central, and I hung up my receiver and sat back in my chair without another word. My ’phone did not ring any more that day, neither did I again take up the solution of the abstract problem on which I had been working, for another one filled my thought world and this is the problem and its solution. “Why did my ’phone ring so many times each day on calls which were not for me?” Back of every effect lies the cause which produces it. Back of every material thing is the energy which creates it. Nothing happens—nothing occurs by chance, accident or luck, no matter how much it may seem to do so. Looking at the matter concretely of the numerous ’phone calls I had which were not for me, the Telephone Company was to blame, but they had made every effort on their part to correct the trouble and it seemed to get worse instead of better. I asked myself the question “Where did the blame _rightly_ belong? To the Telephone Company or to myself?” I saw that the real solution to this question was in the abstract for before anything can be reduced to the concrete or material side of life it must be created first in the abstract. How then could I be to blame? Through the use I made of energy in the abstract by the kind of thoughts and emotions I allowed to persist in my imagination and field of consciousness. I had been irritable, impatient, intolerant, sarcastic, critical, condemnatory, not only with the Telephone Company but more or less with other people and things. This was using energy inharmoniously in the abstract and there could be only one result which was its materialization as inharmony in the concrete, and I had been getting that materialization in the annoyance and irritation which so many mistakes in the telephone calls had given me. I also saw that was only one of the ways in which I had been materializing concretely the energy I had been using inharmoniously in the abstract. I determined to begin work on myself at once to change the state of consciousness in me which had permitted this condition to arise and demonstrate the truth or falsity of my solution of the problem. It is quite easy to make “good” resolutions, but it is a much more difficult thing to live them out in one’s daily life. My first attempts were abject failures, but I refused to be discouraged and kept working with myself each day. No matter how many times I failed I renewed my “good” resolutions each time and became even more determined to carry them out. My idea was _not to repress_ my annoyance, impatience, irritation, and inharmony, but to _displace them with kindness and harmony_. Some of my first attempts were most ludicrous and bordered on the tragic but I kept at it. The progress seemed so slow at first that frequently I would be almost overwhelmed with the thought of the impossibility of my ever accomplishing the desired end but something inside of me would again get hold of and urge me on. In a couple of months’ time I could begin to see some improvement, as there would be some days when I would not have more than half as many calls as usual. In six months’ time I had done the work so well that days went by when I did not have one single call which was not for me. All this occurred a number of years ago and since then the calls which are not for me have disappeared entirely and it is a rare instance now for such a thing to occur. This experience and its solution taught me the lesson of “Who is to blame,” and since then when anything has come into my life which was at all inclined to be inharmonious in its effects, instead of blaming some one else for it I have at once gotten busy with myself and created more harmony in my own consciousness, and through such creation have been able to displace all inharmonious effects and transmute them into “good” effects. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES *** Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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