Unpacking the Kybalion

The Kybalion contains a series of 7 Laws. The First Law is Mentalism which states that "All is Mind." As human beings we perceive our reality through our consciousness. We do not have any other way to relate to the world. Even physical touch is felt through a relationship with our minds. It is from this vantage point that we can see the wisdom of viewing the world as stemming from our minds. No matter how hard we try to escape from our own minds we can't do it. Bruce Rawles describes this union of consciousness in the following manner:

Pure consciousness is at our center, the ineffable quintessence of life at the focus of each being. Mystical traditions inform us that all matter is permeated with consciousness, the one foundational principle that science tries in vain to localize in the context of an assumed finite material reference frame. Our prime awareness, eternal, unchanging in a Universe of change, defies definition.

Rawles goes on to say that the "lab assignment" of this Law is to be kind to ourselves. Ruben Cedeno advises us that "Once an idea has been strongly fixed in the conscious mind, it will be stored in the subconscious mind as a mental image."

Now that we have glimpsed the Power of the Mind let us move to the 2nd Law of the Kybalion which is the Law of Correspondence which states that "As above, so below." By applying this Law we can glimpse realities which would otherwise be kept hidden from us. In the natural progression of the previous Law from understanding that our perceptions form our reality we can now see that they directly correspond to what is outside of ourselves. The Kybalion tells us that we can uncover truths which otherwise would remain unknown to us because of this matching relationship with each other.

If we can learn to ask the right questions then we are immediately led to uncovering the right answers. Are you asking the right questions in your life? And do you believe that by asking these appropriate questions you will be naturally led to the answers? This is the power of your intuition and it can provide powerful guidance in your life.

In a previous post I explored some ideas around the 3rd and4th Laws (Vibration and Polarity) so to follow these concepts further I'd suggest you read that post also.

Infinite Intelligence of Cause and Effect

Continuing from where we left off on our last post attempting to begin the task of answering the question, "What is NewThought?", via online sources I return to the New Thought wiki as a jumping off point. The 3rd major term that we come across after New Thought, and Higher Thought is Infinite Intelligence. This is presented as another wordfor God.

According to Achieve Your Creative Potential (AYCP), Infinite Intelligence is "all the energy that exists in the universe being a single entity and that entity being in total communication with every aspect of itself." AYCP goes on to say that only by quieting our mind can we access Infinite Intelligence. 

At this point let us backtrack for a moment and talk about who Thomas Troward is briefly. The Bio listed on Wikipedia for him is brief so here it is in its entirety:

Troward was a divisional Judge in British-administered India. His avocation was the study of comparative religion. Influences on his thinking, as well as his later writing, included the teachings of Christ, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

After his retirement from the judiciary in 1896, Troward set out to apply logic and a judicial weighing of evidence in the study of matters of cause and effect. The philosopher William James characterized Troward’s Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science as "far and away the ablest statement of philosophy I have met, beautiful in its sustained clearness of thought and style, a really classic statement."

According to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) archivist Nell Wing, early AA members were strongly encouraged to read Thomas Troward's Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science. In the opening of the 2006 film The Secret (2006 film), introductory remarks credit Troward's philosophy with inspiring the movie and its production.

Troward was a past president of the International New Thought Alliance.

As we see here Troward studied many of the major religions and focused heavily on the topic of cause and effect. Examiner offers this short message about cause and effect along with 2 Emerson quotes:

Shallow men believe in luck.
Strong men believe in cause and effect."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit cannot be severed;
for the effect already blooms in the cause,
the end preexists in the means,
the fruit in the seed."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Remember that you have anything and everything you want. You just need to manifest it.

While thoughts are vital to manifesting desires, there’s another component which is also important - the Law of Cause and Effect, also known as karma.

As we did in the last entry let us review what we have discovered thus far. Infinite Intelligence can be seen as a synonym to God. This Infinite Intelligence is all-encompassing and we need to slow down from the tumult of our daily activities in order to contact and make use of it. If we take on this thinking exercise with our mind we can bring about direct effects which may result in manifesting a reality that we desire.

Are you keeping up with this? I will do one more entry along these lines which I dub a "follow the breadcrumbs" form of writing. From there I will do a separate review post, and then from that vantage make a decision about where I would like to take this blog series beyond that.

What is New Thought?: An Exercise in Googling

If you type this question into Google not surprisingly the first link that comes up is for the New Thought entry in Wikipedia. Once you click into the page the first thing you learn is that it is also referred to as Higher Thought. If you then take the term Higher Thought and place that into Google you will come across a page sharing oddball videos and photos of the meme variety. The 2nd link is to Chapter 24 of a Thomas Troward book called "The Hidden Power." He refers to a Kensington Higher Thought Centre and says the idea of Higher Thought is:

1. That Man controls circumstances, instead of being controlled by them
2. Whatever teaches us to rely on power borrowed from a source outside ourselves is not Higher Thought
3. Whatever explains to us the Infinite source of our own inherent power and the consequent limitless nature of that power is Higher Thought.

 According to Horatio Dressler who wrote the book, A History of the New Thought Movement, the name Higher Thought is the name originally preferred in England.

The 2nd entry that shows up in Google when you type the question "What is New Thought?", is a link to the New ThoughtAlliance page with the same question. They offer their "elevator answer" as follows:

“New Thought is an ever evolving understanding that all of life happens through us, never to us. It uses the term or word consciousness to further explain the process, often quoting Emmet Fox’s statement, ‘Life is consciousness,’ that leads one to the ever unfolding idea that in order to affect a change in our life, the realm of mind called consciousness must first change.”

According to Emmet Fox "Life is a state of consciousness. That is the beginning and the end."

In a nutshell as we pull out of the gate in an attempt to answer the question of "What is New Thought?" through an exercise in Googling, we find that it can also be referred to as Higher Thought although that term appears to have been hijacked by internetland. We see that Higher Thought at one time stood as a preferred term for at least one organization in England in the early 20th Century. According to Troward we are in control of our circumstances and this is the meaning of Higher Thought. He goes on to explain that our power relates with an infinite source which is limitless. According to the New Thought Alliance this evolving understanding happens through us meaning that we are active participants in this process. Emmet Fox refers to life as consciousness which is a state that acts as both the beginning and the end of the entire ball of wax.

Did you get all that?