C2. The Use of Sunday.

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Rest for both mind and body is the great source of strength and recuperation. If the mind rests, the body is sure to rest. There is a science of rest. A part of that science consists in throwing off cares and the turning of our thought from objects which engross much of our time, in order to recuperate and give fresh force to long used and possibly overtaxed departments of mind.

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All things seen of physical sense have their correspondences of spiritual elements. These (the spiritual) constitute their real power.

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The sun has its spirit which affects us and our earth. There is a sun unseen of the physical eye and unfelt of physical sense which bears the same relation to the sun we see that our spirit bears to our physical body.

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The physical sun affects our physical body. But the spiritual sun, or the spirit of the sun affects our spiritual being in proportion as that being is developed to receive of that peculiar power. If you can receive this truth, or even but entertain it, you will receive from the source we speak of a power greater than can come to those whose belief is limited to the idea that the sun or any other thing in the material world has only those elements which are seen and felt of physical sense.

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Those who can believe only in material things must physically decay, because through such belief they attract to themselves only of material element. There are many more “materialists” than those who profess themselves such as atheists or “infidels.”

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Practical “materialists” often belong to the church, profess religion, live in strict conformity to all religious observance, yet really believe in nothing but the material.

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This they cannot help. Their material natures master them.

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Their bodies will decay and die. Their spirits in time will use other bodies. Their former earth life will be a blank to them. They will gain in spiritualization during their next physical life, as they have really gained during all previous physical lives. When through successive re-embodiments that gain is sufficient to have taught them the laws of their spiritual beings they will be freed from all ills now affecting the physical being. Neither fire, nor water, nor disease, nor violence can hurt them. They will not taste of death. The truth will make them free. A few such lives have been recorded in the Bible. There is reason for the belief that there were more. This is the ultimate of all human life as our planet spiritualizes.

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The sun and the element it sends our earth are not only full of life, but full of intelligence. It is a mental life or power. The sun is something more than an orb—a planet. It is a mighty mind—a spirit. What we see of that spirit is its physical covering or instrument of expression to physical sense, exactly as what we see of ourselves, of the physical body is but the covering or instrument of our spirit.

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When we put our minds in the attitude of a calm demand for receiving power from this spirit which warms our entire earth into life we shall receive of that spiritual power or force of the sun.

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A higher wisdom in ancient times, aware of this law, set apart one day out of the seven so to draw or attract through giving mind and body more rest, additional force from the sun. Hence the name Sunday.

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Traces of this law and observance came down to our own time in the sun worshipers of the East. Understand we do not inculcate all of their peculiar faith or form. But we see in theirs as in other worship expressed as it is through many creeds and faiths a golden thread of truth running through all. Whoever studies the life and practice of the sun worshipers or Parsecs, their abhorrence of taking animal life, their distaste for war, their honesty, gentleness and benevolence; cannot but acknowledge that in those lives there is much worthy of our imitation.

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The sun is, however, but one source of power to be drawn from. It is but one form or expression of the Supreme Power. There are many—very many other forms and methods. These we shall ever be finding out as our spirits unfold. There is time enough—eternity is before us.

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There is a great difference between true worship and idolatry. Worship exalts, idolatry abases. True worship admires and reverences the beauty of a flower, the force of the ocean, the life and force of the sun. Whatever it so admires and reverences it draws power from. That admiration and reverence constitute worship.

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In such spirit you worship the sun. Your worship has then an intelligent purpose. You will know that in ceasing from your usual employment one day out of the seven, and on that day giving up to the silent, warming, cheerful influence of the sun element not only as coming from the orb, but as expressed in flower, in leaf, in the verdure, in all living things which, drawing life from the sun, are expressions, belongings and parts of it, you are drawing more force to you, resting both mind and body and making yourself far better able to make effort and do business for the coming week.

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But if anyone on reading this goes ostentatiously and prays to the sun, they may commit a mockery and a farce. True worship seeks retirement and privacy. It cares not to make known its inmost feelings to the crowd. It confides but in the few—the few who feel, but do not babble.

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True worship feels the sentiment, the influence, the thought coming from every flower, every tree and sun and star. The true poet and painter so worships. Thousands of quiet natures feel and have felt as much and even more than poet or painter. But they had no power materially to express such high and pure thought.

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And all thus far in our history have lived and died in ignorance that in the feeling of this sentiment, this genuine love of nature, this going forth of our own spirit to spirit expressed in other forms, they were receiving of such spirit and of power. They received then an element not only giving health and endurance of the physical life, but one to give power in business, and power in art.

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They did not realize in many cases health and endurance of physical life, because after so receiving they did not know how to keep or expend with the best result the thing or element received.

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Of such are fine emotional natures. Of such is all true genius. Of such are those most thrilled at sight of the beauty of sky and sea, of storm and varied landscape. Nature speaks to different minds with different tongues. To the coarse she says relatively little. To the fine she may say more in one minute than they can express in a lifetime. To such many a thought cannot be put in words, or in music, or in color.

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These emotions or thoughts are all powers and sources of power. Why, then, is genius or the sentimentalist so often unsuccessful in business or weak in body?

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Because they do not know how to hold the power they gather. Because the laws affecting their beings are not those affecting the nature wholly material. Because they are more of the spiritual than of the material, yet in ignorance they are trying to live wholly in and by the material. They are like steamboats (supposing steamboats to be intelligent beings), who ignoring steam power and machinery should use only sails to compete with sailing vessels.

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Sunday is the one day of the seven especially to be used for the gathering or influx to you of spiritual force. Or, in other words, for the cultivation of repose. The reposeful mind is the mind at peace with all the world. The mind so at peace is the mind of power. That mind can accomplish greater and greater results, since in the cultivation or growth of such peace or repose, it becomes more and more as one with the divine mind or Supreme Power.

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To secure to you the greater inflowing of spiritual element there should be on Sunday cessation from the usual employments of the week and as complete a rest as you are capable of making for yourself.

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We say “as complete as you are capable of making for yourself,” because “resting” is of itself an art. Capacity for throwing off all care, all anxiety and all mental working or plans for business, is a most desirable quality, and one which can constantly be increased.

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Such peace is no myth. It is not a religious sentiment to be merely read and passed over as something very sacred, but withal very impractical and incapable of easy understanding. It is a real thing. It is possible for all to gain who will pray or demand that state of mind which learns to trust for all things to the Supreme Power—which learns so to trust more and more—to fling ourselves back on that power when we have exhausted for the present all our own resource and effort.

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It is a peace which can pervade the mind when the purse is low, when rent day is near and no funds seem ready to meet it—when we are living from “hand to month.”

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That peace will dispel gloom. It will keep our eyes turned to the bright side. It will keep off depression and discouragement. It brings health, strength and vigor of mind and body. It will bring in time such a faith in these laws that we shall be absolutely certain that when once our minds are turned in the right direction, we shall be freed from sickness and poverty and gain lasting health and prosperity.

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As the child looks and trusts to its parents for support, so is it possible in time and in the same way for us to look and trust to the Supreme Power to which we are all linked as parts. As proof on proof comes to us of its reality will our faith in its living existence be measured, and “according to the faith we have shall it be given us.”

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I do not say, however, that such faith and trust and the good coming of them can be realized so soon as you make your first effort in that direction. Time is necessary for the growth of such faith. Time is necessary to root out mental errors coming of lifelong lack of such faith. Time is necessary to actually make for us a new mind and a new spirit. Time is necessary to make a mind whose power shall draw good to us instead of drawing evil. Time is necessary to create a firm belief in the power of your spirit to effect results. Time is necessary to destroy that dangerous belief that it is only our physical power or senses by which results are accomplished. Time is necessary to prevent our minds through long habit from slipping back into old and erroneous conditions, and thereby drawing to us evil instead of good.

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Spiritual growth means literally the making for you of a new mind which not only believes differently, but whose workings will bring altogether different and better results as regards health and fortune than the old mind and the old self which must be gradually rooted out and destroyed.

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Many people through long mental habit are almost incapable of resting and reinforcing. They cannot stop their minds from working. Their thoughts on Sunday, as on any other day, will stray on their business, their plans, their cares in the house, the shop, the office—whether at church or the home. They are unable to turn their current of thought in any other direction. Their minds are as the steam engine without the “governor.” They run or work on and on until such force as they have is exhausted. When they recuperate a little the mental engine works as before, until at last the body, their physical instrument, having so little opportunity for self‑repair, tumbles to pieces as thousands do tumble to pieces all about us.

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The mind in repose draws spiritual element and nourishment to recuperate the body. It will draw of this more and more as our capacity for repose increases.

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For those who have begun to realize these errors, Sunday, as a day of silent, earnest desire to be rid of them, and to be for that one day in a closer communion with the Infinite Spirit of Good, will be most profitable.

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It is far more profitable, if you can do so, to turn your mind on Sunday off the track of business or any planning, either in art or domestic life, for in so doing you are gaining power to carry into the business life and effort of the coming week.

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By “silent earnest desire” I do not mean irksome desire. I do not mean that you should force yourself to try and think such desire for a whole day. No good comes of any forced effort. It is enough that you commence Sunday with the simple demand or thought that you shall be taught and led how to make it a day of rest and inflowing of force. So commence the day with that thought, and that thought or force will do the rest. It will not do all, or possibly anything that you can realize for the first Sunday, or the second, or even the fortieth. But as months merge into years and years roll on, you will be sensible that you are acquiring and growing into this most desirable capacity, not merely for Sunday, but for all other days, and that such force has not only come to stay, but ever to increase.

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A “whole” spirit or mind is one educated out of all error. It is a spirit so healthy that it knows or feels any manner of evil thought and knows how to avoid it.

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If your mind on Sunday through long habit persists in dwelling on your week‑day occupations—will busy itself at the store, the office, the workshop (which for you is work the same as if your body was there), and you are sensible of the injury you are thereby doing yourself, then demand of the Infinite Spirit and source of all power the capacity to get your Sunday rest.

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Go into the fields and bask in the sun. Walk about and walk reposefully. Don’t make Sunday a day of hurry and drive for any purpose. Do not, if living in the city, hurry with crowds to picnics or Sunday resorts if thereby you are far more exhausted than if you had stayed at home. Go to the church if the service rests you and you feel thereby drawn nearer the Infinite. Amuse yourself with any light effort in any direction, so long as it rests you.

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All physical or mental effort is not “work” in the usual meaning of that word. A gentle reposeful outlay of force will often bring rest to a mind, which without it will be restless. Our forces often need some very light physical effort to concentrate themselves upon and thereby prevent them from spreading, wandering and expending themselves in an exhausting beating of the air as it were. For this reason the whittling of a stick rests a man’s mind. So does the ladies’ knitting or embroidery. So there is rest in a certain kind of reposeful effort. Many a beautiful thought, a pleasant reposeful state of mind is drawn when the material part of our being is so employed. Such employment of the material being gives our spiritual or higher self a better opportunity to act and make itself felt. Better on Sunday thus to divert and amuse our physical self than to have it restless, uneasy and roaming about in thought.

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There is in each one of us two beings: the material or physical and the spiritual. The physical being or body has a mind and reason of its own, based on what the physical senses bring to it. The spiritual being has another mind based on the use of its other senses or powers.

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On Sunday, then, so much as possible, we, want to lay aside rest or divert our material part, and through its repose allow our spiritual being the better opportunity to assert itself.

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It is very beneficial to commence putting your mind in the desirable attitude for Sunday, resting on Saturday evening. Because then, as we endeavored to express in “The Mystery of Sleep,” you are giving your spiritual self during the body’s sleep on Saturday night the proper direction to draw to itself that element of rest, which will make you the better able to rest on Sunday.

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But to pass Saturday evening even in social excitement, and defer retiring until a late hour with no desire for the morrow’s repose, may send your spirit into a similar realm of feverish excitement, will draw only similar element to you, will cause such element to act on your body all night, so that you awake in the morning unrefreshed and with all the less capacity to bring to you the spiritual nourishment and strength that otherwise Sunday can in time give you.

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Q's note:

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Poise.  I will help you learn about poise a little latter, my Love.  Right now, I'm working on studying to obtain a couple of certificates to qualify me for a job, Baby.  I've been struggled searching for meaningful work that I don't feel "miserable" and a waste of my time and energy just to "make a living" and pay for rent...

 

I found what I really love to do every day for the rest of my life but for now, I am not able to do what makes my heart sing yet because I need to work for others to get salary to pay for rent, food, and have health insurance.  

 

I'll be fine, Baby.  Don't worry about me.  You know my determination is as strong as yours ;)