Emmet Fox - Find and Use Your Inner Power

To
all men and women everywhere
who believe that the will of God
for man
is
freedom, health, and harmony
and that these things can be attained
by learning the laws of life and
applying them

K NOWLEDGE IS P OWER

T he Laws of Thought are the Laws of Destiny. Whatever you believe with feeling, that you bring into your life.

These little essays are intended to instruct the reader in Basic Spiritual Truth and to furnish material for short meditations. They were published once a week over a number of years.

The subjects are usually handled in a light and amusing style and often deal with familiar incidents in everyday life. The reason for this policy is as follows:

The writer has always believed that fundamental Spiritual, Philosophical, and Metaphysical Truths could be stated in the plainest and simplest language, so that any intelligent child could understand them. It is true that most writings on these great subjects have been very obscure and full of technical jargon, but the present writer believes that to be unnecessary.

Certain subjects, such as the higher mathematics, for instance, must remain out of reach of the layman, but this is not important because they do not concern his practical life. The understanding of Spiritual Truth, on the other hand, is not only the concern of Everyman but is a vital need of his life, and it must necessarily therefore be possible for him to obtain it in a form that he can use. The loftiest and the most profound spiritual knowledge alike must be capable of being understood by any reasonably intelligent person over ten years of age.

These great Truths are actually revealed to us, not in the pages of inaccessible treatises, but in the seemingly petty and unimportant details of everyday life. Such practical detailsthe problems and experiences of day to day livingpresent the questions and also furnish the answers to the great problems of human life, when one has the Spiritual Key.

The writer tries as far as possible to avoid the use of technical terminology, and never employs a word of three syllables where a word of two syllables will do.

Each of these Sparks illustrates one or more of the Laws of psychology or metaphysics. Try in each case to find out for yourself which is the particular Law involved, and then see if you are using that Law constructively in your own life. If you are not, you must change your habits of thinking without delay, for the Laws of Thought are the Laws of Destiny.

A SMALL SPARK CAN START A GREAT FIRE

D ont hurry. You are going to live foreversomewhere. In fact, you are in eternity now; so why rush?

Dont worry. What will this thing matter in twenty years time? You belong to God, and God is Love; so why fret?

Dont condemn. As you cannot get under the other fellows skin, you cannot possibly know what difficulties he has had to meethow much temptation, or misunderstanding, or stupidity within himself he has had to overcome. You are not perfect yourself and might be much worse in his shoes. Judge not!

Dont resent. If wrong has been done, the Great Law will surely take care of it Rise up in consciousness and set both yourself and the delinquent free. Forgiveness is the strongest medicine.

Dont grumble. Consume your own smoke. Your own concept is what you see; so treat and change that.

Dont grab. You cannot hold what does not belong to you by right of consciousness anyway. Grabbing postpones your good.

Dont shove. You are always in your right place at the moment. If you dont like it, change it scientifically by rising in consciousness. This will be permanent.

D ont wait for something to turn up. Dont be content to let things drift along, hoping for the best It is not spiritual to put up with inharmonious conditions. If the conditions of your life are not to your liking, you must get to work on your own consciousness and, by raising that above the outer picture, cause those conditions to become something nearer to your hearts desire. And you must keep on doing this until you find your True Place.

I had an amusing experience when I first came to America. Passing an attractive looking restaurant, I went inside, and, selecting a table, sat down and waited. Strangely, as it seemed to me then, nothing happened. I sat there and continued to waitindefinitely as it seemed. I could not understand the reason for this neglect. All around me, people were enjoying their food, and only I was left out in the cold. After a while the truth of the situation slowly dawned on meit was a cafeteria. (This system had not yet made its appearance in England in those days.)

I then quickly realized that while there was plenty of food of every kind to be obtained, one had to go forward and claim it for oneself, or go without.

The universe is run exactly on the lines of a cafeteria. Unless you claimmentally-what you want, you may sit and wait forever. Of course, you should not claim in detailthat is outliningbut you must positively claim health, harmony, and True Place, if you really want those things.

T o me the butterfly teaches the most wonderful and the most important lesson that we human beings ever have to learn. You all know his story. He is a beautiful butterfly now, but he was not always a butterfly. No, indeed. He began life, and he lived what seemed to him a very, very long time, as a wormand not a very important kind of worm eitherwhat we call the humble caterpillar.

Now the life of a caterpillar is a sadly restricted one, in fact, it could be taken as the very type and symbol of restriction. He lives on a green leaf in the forest, and that is about all he knows.

Then one day something happens. The little caterpillar finds certain strange stirrings going on within himself. The old green leaf, for some reason, no longer seems sufficient. He begins to feel dissatisfied. He becomes moody and discontented, butand this is the vital pointit is a divine discontent. He does not just grumble and complain to the other caterpillars, saying nature is all wrong. I hate this life. I can never be anything but a worm. I wish that I had never been born. No, he is discontented, but it is a divine discontent. He feels the need for a bigger, finer, and more interesting life. His instinct tells him that where there is true desire there must be fulfillment, because where theres a will, theres a way.

And so the wonderful thing happens. Gradually the worm disappears, and the butterfly emerges, beautiful, graceful, now endowed with wingsand instead of crawling about on a restricted leaf, he soars right above the trees, right above the forest itselffree, unrestricted, free to go where he likes, and see the world, and bask in the sun, and, in fact, be his own True Selfthe free and wonderful thing that God intended him to be.

Now this wonderful story is intended to be the story of every human soul. It is up to you to develop your wings by the scientific use of creative imagination so that you may fly away to your hearts desire.

W hat has your religion done for you? For years probably, you have been attending church, reading spiritual books, studying the Bible, and so forth. Now I suggest that you have a spiritual stock-taking. Ask yourselfwhat has your religion done for you? What difference has it made in your life, in your home, in your affairs? How much peace of mind has it given you? How much courage? How much understanding? How much opportunity for service? For, make no mistake, real religion does give all these things.

If your spiritual stock-taking does not turn out to be satisfactory, if your religion is not working in this wayif on examining your life you find there are a number of places at which you are not demonstrating, if certain needs are still lacking to you, if there are still negative things that refuse to goI believe that you will find the explanation to lie in the following law: