Part 2

“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.