THE subject of our lesson will be “Ruling Our Kingdom." The race has been so heedless, so thoughtless of causes heretofore, and so psychologized and allabsorbed in effects, that it has not stopped to contemplate the cause of conditions as it finds them. The individual does not realize why he is where he is: why affairs and effects are what they are around his life. He docs not take into consideration that he is the cause, that he must be the cause that is related up to the effects that keep coming forth for him to encounter, for him to master.

The conditions of every life are set by the register of the choice, and the relation of that mind to those conditions.

You will find some human beings going along on the path of life and losing that which they have once had, and at once they will say, "I am helpless; my hands are empty; I must make a new beginning. Where shall I begin?" One disposition, one mind will say, "I shall begin digging or gleaning or toiling with the hands": on the planes of physical application purely. Another will say, “I will begin in the mental realm, I will seek a position of mental character.” Another will say, “I will mediate; I link up; I will find a way; I will find relations. I aspire, and aim at something beyond my present capacity or power to use; yet that is my aim, that my goal. I am letting appearances, seeming things, or environment or circumstances decide what I am to attain, but I will let my desires and faith relate me up to it. I will let my aspirations, my disposition, my preferences relate me up to their fulfilment, instead of letting objective environment and circumstances as I find them dictate to me what my environment shall be.”

We find some of these beings so highly vitalized that they will quickly relate up again, sometimes not as high. sometimes to conditions much higher than those which they had been related up to before and had lost. We find other beings, immediately when early crutches of circumstances and provision are taken from them falling to a much lower level.

Where some people unconsciously set in motion causes, the results of which they must meet, others consciously do these things; and the initial step in the teaching of metaphysics is to bring people into the conscious realization that it is within their power to relate themselves up to that which they wish to be.

You will find the nature of these beings which we have been describing registers upon different planes. To some it would be natural, if they were helpless, as you would say, empty-handed, to turn to a circle of associates, to comrades, to friends upon the higher mental plane for advice. It would be the disposition of others to go to their friends and ask for manual labor, for material openings. It would be the disposition of others to go to God, to go to the Inspirational source for their guidance, for their leading. You will find it is within the individual, and that the individual acts according to his evolution. Wherever he stands on the rungs of the ladder of evolution, wherever he finds his consciousness registering, from that point he can leap no chasms, but from the point where he stands he can relate himself up to that which is in accordance to the thing which is related to his state of consciousness.

The being who has evolved in consciousness and who belongs upon either the mental, spiritual, artistic or intellectual plane, necessarily links up to it, and let come what will, he will mentally hold himself related to that which he recognizes as his own. He who has no recognition of where he is or what he is, will take suggestions from others. He will hear one say to him, “Go and employ yourself there; seek employment of a lower or higher plane,” and he is Jed negatively to that point, because a stronger consciousness, a more positive suggestion is made than his own suggestion to himself. But in this lesson upon the ruling of our kingdom, we emphatically impress upon the individual the necessity of knowing himself more than the race as individuals have attempted to know themselves. We feel the great im-portance of every being turning the eye within, looking into his consciousness and saying to himself, "What am I? Who am I? How am I expressing? What would I be had I no friends, had I no provision, had I no home, had I none of this which I am environed by? What would I be, shorn of all, standing apart? Then where would I aim? What then would be my faith in myself? What then would I think I could do? What then would I believe myself capable of? Where would I turn? What would I do?"

This facing ourselves up is most profitable. Sometimes we find our weakness and strengthen it. Sometimes we find our great strength and encourage it. Sometimes we fling ourselves against effects which are our trials and tests, our actual measurement.

The human beings who can so train themselves to look into and analyze carefully and impartially their own disposition and habits (those attributes of their divine nature) to see how many of these attributes are called into activity, and are functioning, are expressing through the daily habit of faith, the daily living. The being who knows himself can trust himself; but he who has never contemplated himself, in his plane of consciousness, never rests; he falters, he is uncertain, he is insecure at all points; and he feels that insecurity.

There is nothing more strengthening than the knowing of one's self, even if you know your weaknesses. If you know yourselves - and knowing yourselves; you must necessarily know your nature is Divine - you must know that if you are not expressing great strength and great wisdom and love, these attributes are latent in you. If you know yourself you know that each is to be expressed. You know you are evolved from less to greater expression; that you are yet to have these attributes in manifestation which are not yet manifesting. And knowing yourself calls you into a conscious at-one-ment with that higher self; it relates you at once to that impelling urge from within, which moves out into expression. For life is conditioned in motion. Nature is demanding evolution for its expression and manifestation; and if you heed yourself, if you will know yourself, if you listen to your inner voice, you will find that eternal urge out to a greater mastery, to greater love, wisdom and strength, to the fulfilment of all the attributes which belong to each and every one created in the image and likened of the Infinite One. Each and every one in recognizing, in contemplating this source of his being, in contemplating the latent possibilities in-dwelling, will find himself strengthened, find himself becoming more and more qualified to hold dominion over his kingdom. He will find himself consciously deliberating, with discrimination and intelligence, selecting for himself that which he wills to be, that which he wills to master, that environment in which he wishes to live; the associates, the beings which he wishes to co-operate with. And with that conscious kingship, with that conscious mastery over environment he will grow to include a greater and greater kingdom, extending his dominion broader and farther than before.