CONTAINING quotations from our replies to those writing us for help in their Spiritual problems.

Each day at 12 o’clock noon, we take the names of those asking for such help in the Silence of the Spirit, and “Speak the Word” for them. Many hundreds have testified to receiving the blessings of such ministry.

THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL

THE three enemies which are termed the world, the flesh, and the devil are really the one great enemy, self or selfishness, which is the cause of all inharmonies, sickness, sin, and death, now a part of the mortal life, and which is entitized in men’s inner consciousness as the devil, and in his body as his lower, animal nature. While the world symbolizes all those influences that come to us from our world of consciousness, attracted to it by our selfishness.

These influences, of course, are the results of the selfishness and greed of others who make up the outer world, and include also those in the astral world, as it really makes no difference whether one is in or out of the body, he is just the same selfish, greedy, sinful soul in the astral that he is in the physical.

Until one is able to rise above these forces and master them—both those in his own nature and those assailing him from without, one is pulled down to their level and influenced more or less by them.

AS you say, the main thing is to watch your emotional reactions to the words and acts of those around you. Try to realize that the things you see in them are only in your mind. By that we mean, they are what you are now thinking and believing are so. If you can change your beliefs and see them as loving you as you really are and you hold to that belief despite anything that appears, you will be surprised to see the change that comes over them. As we have so often said, we see in others only what we see in our own minds. If it were not in our minds, we could not see it in them, and then we would never be disturbed or upset by anything they could do to us.

Your dream of being on a plaza high above the ocean with the dark clouds crowding over the sea until a storm arose, but shows you what would be when emotional storms arise in your consciousness, if you would only remain calm and unconcerned in your awareness of these truths. The fact is, had you remembered this in your dream sufficiently, you would not have fallen from the high place you were in way above the storm, and nothing near you would have been touched or affected by it.

TRY to realize that meditation alone is not always good for one, and that real meditation is that accompanying action. We mean that the best results come with those who are meditating all through the day while doing the work of their hands, which they have trained in their duties sufficiently so that they can wait upon the Lord, doing such work solely to please Him, and joying in the doing of it. Many have grown very close to Him in such way.

If you feel more than anything else you need Spiritual growth, we urge, dear friend, that you try to do faithfully just what is stated on the enclosed card, and which is also on the back cover page of the Magazine. We know of nothing that will bring true spiritual growth more quickly or surely than the following of its guidance.

IN accordance with your request, we will withhold the monthly Papers until September or until we hear from you again. It is fine that you want to review and study more carefully the Lesson Papers you have, for the purpose of proving their truths in your daily life. That is the only way, dear friend, to build them into your consciousness, so that you really know them. We do not know any truth until we can use it naturally as we do the power to talk and breathe. Then we do not have to think or wonder just what to do when a problem confronts us. We do the right thing automatically—even as you are learning to do when your husband gets angry and other people hurt you.

You say you do not see Spiritually, but you mean psychically, for Spiritual seeing is intuitive knowing. Those loving thoughts that come as if someone were speaking to you to help you are really the voice of your own Higher Self.

REGARDING the trouble you mention, in a way it is undoubtedly caused by wrong thoughts you are holding in your consciousness regarding the life or sex forces. Study yourself and these thoughts and try to realize that these forces and powers of your nature are God-given and are for use in the Father’s Service; which means they should be always put to the highest use in purest love and desire to please the Father within. No wrong or condemnatory thoughts should ever be held at any time about this part of your nature; instead we urge that you study carefully all that is contained on the enclosed card, The Way to Safety, every word of it, and then try to practice its instructions in your daily life in all your thinking, speaking, and acting.

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