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Ideal Suggestion Through Mental Photography

VIII. I am Not Body.

1893 original text, YOGeBooks typeset transcription; original text extent only
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I have physical expression, but am not body. I have never seen my friend, nor has he beheld me. I have never even seen myself. Matter has been seized upon by the life-forces,—or mind,—and built up into a form of sensuous expression. All potency resides in spirit, and all material organisms are the products of its orderly energy. Life sets up its own animated statues with perfect correspondence. The color and tone of mentality come out in every form and feature. Every mental picture of the past is trying to outwardly embody itself, even though years have intervened. It is infallible law that we show forth, and are, the total composite of past thinking. Let us put away pride, and admit that all primary causation is from within. We charge our ills to the weather, water, air, climate, draughts, dampness, work, cold, bacteria, malaria, and contagion. These may be occasions, but our receptivity is the primary and real cause.
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I deny the rule and tyranny of body, but affirm its utility as a servant and instrument. I will think such things as I wish embodied.

Source attribution

Ideal Suggestion Through Mental Photography, 1893. Original public-domain text only; YOGeBooks modern credits and appended bibliography excluded; PDF retained privately.

VII. “All Things are Yours.” IX. “I Will Fear No Evil.”