The Power Within
Excerpts
Let us find God within ourselves and we can then
discern Him in all outer life. Let us trust our inner intuitions, and our powers
to fulfill our purpose, knowing that in these is the law of the universal
manifested to just that extent to which we open our minds for illumination, and
let the divine work through us. (The Power Within, Newcomb)
Absolute confidence in the wisdom and power of the good
within us as being a reflection of the omnipotent wisdom and power of God, is
necessary to the attainment of our purposes, and in order to make our lives
effective and worth while. God wants us to be effective, and full of
power and health and joy, -- but He requires us to grow into the power of
drawing these things to us. (The Power Within, Newcomb)
We look too far afield for God. We do not need to take
a telescope or microscope for what is closer than the nearest fellow-creature,
-- nearer than the air we breath, or the food we eat. We have only to become
receptive and ask for guidance, and God manifests Himself through our acts, and
the wisdom of our decisions. "In Him we live, and move, and have our
being." This is literally true, and the soul that ponders upon it will
receive illumination. (The Power Within, Newcomb)
A higher spiritual development discloses to us that the
tides and currents of human life move with an irresistible power and always in
the right direction. To gain the best results we have only to put ourselves
fearlessly in the stream and move in harmony with spiritual law.
We can never obstruct, but we may be, through our own
act, in such uncomfortable relations to these tides and currents that we suffer
discord in ourselves. (The Power Within, Newcomb)
No true work can ever be accomplished until purposed
and directed by the spiritual will. Such work can never fail. Its demonstration
will be prompt and thorough when we have made it possible through harmony of
thought. The spiritual will is the divine. We need only allow its powerful
currents to flow through us. When we have adjusted our lives to right purposes
every experience will be transmitted into wisdom. (The Power Within,
Newcomb)
As a man listens to the voice within, the outer chorus
of discordant noises is hushed, and then come peace and harmony. This is the
Christ principle, -- "The way, the truth, and the life." Man's way to
find God, and all God-like wholeness, is through the Christ in himself. If life
were ever inspired it should be inspired now, for the Christ spirit and quality
are as truly living as when incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. (The Power Within,
H. Wood)
... Half the battle is won when we discover our error,
and realize the possibilities of the soul. We are then at once masters of the
situation. We then discover our inner centre, and become poised, and calm in
eternal peace. (The Power Within, Dresser)
The ideal of daily conduct is to maintain this inward
repose, to keep it steadily and persistently in view, to regain it when we lose
it, to seek it when we need help, to have a calm centre within which is never
disturbed, come what may, -- a never-yielding citadel of the higher self. The
Power Within, Dresser)
... we must regain our poise by the realization of the
power that is ever within us. Find your center. Learn to know your home in God.
(The Power Within, Dresser)
To know that everything we need is within, here and
now, -- this is poise. Realization teaches through actual communion with it,
that there is an Omnipresent Spirit to whom we may turn at any moment and in any
place, of whom our being partakes, and who is so near to us that we have no
wisdom, no power, no life wholly our own. (The Power Within, Dresser)
There are as many lines of approach to the "inner
centre" as there are temperaments. The great point of starting is this: --
Have a method. Have a soul of your own. Be yourself. Think, realize, until you
have a measure of unborrowed conviction, which establishes a centre of repose,
and is a source of happiness and contentment, a centre which yields to no outer
tumult, but is receptive to the spirit, which never harbors fear or doubt, no
matter what the wavering self may say. (The Power Within, Dresser)
... Find the centre of your being, which rests at last
on the love of God. And, when you lose this poise, regain it, as though you
would say, "Sit still, my soul: thou at least must not lose thy composure
nor thy awareness of the eternal presence of God." (The Power Within,
Dresser)
To know how to rest is the great need of our hurrying
age. We are over-intense, over-active about things of little account. We have
not yet learned the power and supremacy of the spirit, nor the value of quiet,
systematic thinking. We struggle after ideas. We read this book and that, and go
from place to place in search of the latest and most popular lecturer, instead
of pausing to make our own the few great but profoundly simple laws and truths
of the spirit. We are unaware of the power of a few moments of silence. (The
Power Within, Dresser)
It is often in our periods of receptivity that we make
our greatest growth. Not while we actively pursue our ideas do we obtain the
greatest light. Often-times, if the way is dark, and we find no help, it is
better to cease striving, and let the thoughts come as they may, -- let the
power have us; for there is a divine tendency in events, a tendency in our lives
which we may fall back upon, which will guide us better than we know, if we
listen, laying aside all intensity of thought, and letting the activity settle
down to a quieter basis. (The Power Within, Dresser)
Wise silence invites the greatest power in the world,
the Supreme Power, the Omnipresent Life. Let us be still in the truest and
deepest sense of the word, and feel that Power. It is the Spirit in all things.
It surrounds us here and now, in this present life, this beautiful world of
nature, this inner world of the soul. (The Power Within, Dresser)
... discover the inner sanctuary of your being, -- the
Holy of Holies, where God speaks to the soul, and the way into the future will
open out to you. (The Power Within, Dresser)
