We emphasize that the words of the Great Master who stated you were to hold dominion over all things, "over every creeping thing, over the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea" - over all things you are to hold dominion - are ultimately true. The consciousness of manhood (the finite in its recognition of its infinite depths), the finite evolving to at-one-ment, is gaining that dominion. Surely, certainly, he is gaining it; and he is gaining that dominion by love - not by slaughter, nut by force, not by coercion, but by love.

The greater is including the lesser, the positive is ruling the negative. The larger consciousness prevails, impels, guides and controls the lesser consciousness.

As we have said before, everybody is made up of myriads of little entities, each functioning in its own way, doing its own work. You are a living, conscious entity, holding dominion over this kingdom which you have gathered out of the elements of the universe for your use. It is this instrument you are expressing with, which you use to manifest with, and which you have created in your image and likeness. In truth, these expressions in all their deficiencies are emblematic of your lack of expression of your possibilities. They are manifestations of your expression in degree as you have expressed. As you come into the greater consciousness of your power, you will govern every entity, because you, the positive, have greater positiveness than the negative entities within you. As you come into consciousness of your power you will rule every atom, you will govern every part of your environment, of your instrument, of the temple of the Living God; you will be master, you will reign supreme. You will indeed hold dominion over all things. in co-operation, in that at-one-ment with God, as you come into consciousness of your divine nature, of your supremacy (through your at-one-ment with God), of the truth of the statement that you are heirs to the kingdom. As you come into this consciousness you can stand forth and declare, "I am the center of the whole universe to myself,” while here by your side another entity, conscious in its own place, positive in its own consciousness, can stand and declare, "I am the center of the whole universe to myself.” And from this center it can radiate; the emanations of spiritual wisdom, of love, of strength, of power will radiate uninterruptedly.

So in that consciousness that each individual must from his center work out, must realize the kingdom of heaven is within, each consciousness comes into the realization that he is unfurling his scroll, that he is manifesting from the depths all of these attributes which are latent and are to be expressed. That he is concerning himself with himself, that he is working from within outward and realizing that, “If I myself be lifted up, I lift all unto me."

Think of this great truth.

If every consciousness in a great city would turn its mind within, would reflect, would strive to express its best, its highest, its noblest, its ideal of nobility; if it would strive to express what it feels to be its ideal of itself - should you need teachers, should you need laws, should you need these conditions which you have of suppression, of coercion over the city?

No; it is not this that is the necessity of this town. It is education. It is the educating of the individual. It is in appealing to the individual. It is not in making him do things because you think it right for him to do them and because he thinks it right for him to do them, believing that he does wrong knowingly. It is not this, but it is the lifted-up life, it is the lifted-up example, it is winning by this pervading, resistless, irresistible force of consciousness, of seeing the absolute possibilities in everyone and having faith in those possibilities. It is in seeing in every being that be has not yet manifested what he is capable of, and calling forth this manifestation by your faith in him, by your expectation of him to express these powers, by assisting him, by encouraging him, by manifesting your trust in him, by leaving to his honor, by leaving to him the choice of acting when he is ready to act.

I declare that this educational system is the only means by which to overcome the need of these restraints, these penitentiaries, these places of suppression, where the astral or psychological atmosphere is generating and generating so strongly. Where two or more are gathered together in His name, the Divine Name, strength and power, there will He be also, manifesting good; and where numerous ones are gathered together in the thought of inquity, in the thought of rebellion and resentment at domination, can you not see the negative ride of the great positive possibilities, through which is generated a resisting force, damaging and disintegrating and destructive, of thought which becomes perverted? If it was up-lifted, it would evolve by love; if it was led and directed by suggestion or by example it would lift them into the constructive type of mind which would build them into the enlarged joy and love of true individuals. And they should be led out and led forth into the consciousness that virtue is its own reward, that the path to heaven is the broad and boundless path, not the straight and narrow path.

So many human beings have thought that the path to highest realization is the path of restraint, of limitation. It is not true. The path on which an archangel ascends and lives is the boundless path of freedom that comes from following the inspiration of his own nature, which is Divine. And from the lowest to the highest, the soul that follows his inspiration in his ideal of himself is safe. It is our wish to tempt human beings in to contemplating and emulating their ideal of themselves. It is not our ideal of them that matters, but we would urge them to be their ideal of themselves. What they would like you to believe they were, what they would pretend they were if they could convince you, though there is ever so little manifested yet. Even this is evidence that human nature is

Divine, that the nature of every being is constructive, is beautiful; within it, at the depths of the source of its being, it is creative. Even this is evidence: the thief prefers that you believe him to be an honest man, the falsifier prefers you to believe an honest man; people pretend to be something better than they are yet able to manifest. And they are flattered and work better when you believe them more brilliant, more prosperous, more successful in ruling their kingdom than they arc. They like people to believe they are greater than they have yet manifested, because something in their very nature declares, ‘‘That is what I ought to be; and I want your help, I want your confidence and want you to believe I am, and it helps me in striving to come up to the standard.” We can get inspiration from others. We have proved it so many, many times in personal talks to individuals. I have talked to them one year, another year, years later, and I have seen the seeds take root. I have said to beings, "I find it in you, I declare it to you, and I see your possibilities. No one else believed it, you have not thought of it yourself, but I know you are capable of this thing, I see you love to be this thing, and I know if you strive for it, aim at it, keep it underlying in your consciousness as your purpose, you will attain it." And then I have talked with the m a year later and I have seen they have made strides and attained although everybody else discouraged it. They have made headway, and greater headway was yet to be made, and mastery would be attained upon this plane or upon this condition or that condition. I have seen the germ, the seed planted, of my faith in them, which bore them out, sustained them; was their crutch until they could stand alone, walk alone, until they could alone; until they could leave far behind them the fetters so heavy, the burdens so great, mastering them. They did not call forth their possibilities until they found someone whose faith in their nature was strong enough, more positive than theirs.

And so I say to you, when you love and when you register - when you cultivate the habit of seeking the divine in every respect, every condition; of believing that every situation is as you find it as the result of causes set into motion, then you see it is as good as can be according to the opportunity. If it knew better it would do better. Do you think, any one of you, if you knew the penalty was here before you for committing an ignorant act or error, do you think you would choose that penalty for the passing gratification the error could give you? For it would be cured by the consciousness that the penalty so closely followed. But it is the blindness, it is the vagueness, the slumbering of your consciousness that makes the thing close to you, the objective, manifested thing, a stronger tempter than the ideal thing that vaguely promises beyond the thing you have been functioning in, and identifying yourself with. The things about you, the objects of your environment, appeal to you more than the ethical suggestions, the spiritual promises, the ideals, the thoughts granted you by teachers. These things are vague to you because you are not functioning on that plane, you are not identifying yourself with them; you do not live your daily life back in the causes, but live down in effects. You love, measure, and esteem but your environment.

You take two souls, such as a great financier, one of your typical masters of the financial world, and take one poverty stricken soul; and when death comes, both are helpless. And you say of the one, “He was a great man," and you say the other was a man of poverty consciousness. Yet in that moment you feel that they are equals. But are they? Has that simple circumstance of the passing on to another plane changed them at all, except that the larger range of the consciousness of one may say, “I have mastered many things, I will try to master this," and may lift his consciousness in the sphere above by the thought, “I am master; I have been master and I will continue to be.” The other may leave his consciousness where he left it. helpless, dependent, doubting himself, wed ded to circumstances, to little effects that seem to him so great, of carrying him from one duty to another duty, from one scene to another scene.

I find you thus in your walk of life.

These objective circumstances do not measure you as a man. Many a soul that has striven for a higher plane of manifestation is a far greater conqueror, though perishing, than another life lived upon props from others, obtained without effort, though one is getting glory and recognition because the external manifestation appears so to you. It is because you are living in effects: you permit yourself to live on and on in effects, when you know better. for you are a quickening race. Today you do not believe that might is right above principle. Today the race is living to a degree beneath its own beliefs. beneath its own faith. It is suffering more than ever before. joying more than it ever joyed before; it is more intense. The pendulum can swing farther either way than ever before. because consciousness is larger, is more inclusive. it is mightier than ever before.

So we emphasize. again and again. that you do register causes and that you produce the effects that correspond to them.