THINKING IN THE HEART

OR
EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION
BY
KATE ATKINSON BOEHME
WASHINGTON D.C.
NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
1902
Please Note: The first page of each lesson from the original book has
been displayed to give the reader access to the diagrams.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON I
In my experience with students I find that one and all ask help for
stronger realization. All seem to know that mental action is aimless and
void unless it tends toward a truer understanding of Life as it is, and not
as it seems. To get away from the seeming and into the reality is to walk
the path of realization.
Have you not seen a child reaching out to a it of flickering sunshine on
the floor, and have you not smiled indulgently at its ay efforts to
grasp the golden plaything! "our smile is orn of superior wisdom, ut
you are #ust as ignorant of that which attracts you, now, at your stage of
the game, as is that ay on the floor. There was a time when you also
cried and kicked in childish rage and disappointment ecause you could
not seize a it of sunshine in your chuy little palm. And here you are
chasing it still. $o longer, as in your ay days, do you creep after it, for
with the growth of years you have developed the power of running, and
so you follow in swift pursuit your fleck of sunshine all over the world
% and never grasp it&
Hence it follows that you are either craed and emittered or else
saddened and melancholy. 'rom start to finish the sunshine you sought
to grasp was a it of happiness, ut always and ever it turned to illusion
#ust as your hand closed upon it. "ou have reached the darkness of
night. The sun has set and there is no longer the tiniest speck of sunshine
for you to follow. (o you say and think, ut, ), child in the house of
truth, do you not know that the sun does not sink to rise no more ! To*
morrow is coming and with it the sun. +ossily the clouds may oscure
it, ut there is another day after that. There is not a weather ureau in
existence which will predict cloudy days forever, and there is a perfect
analogy etween the physical and mental world, so I am sustained y
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
science in my fair*weather prediction. (omehow, somewhen,
somewhere, your sun will rise and shine, whether you elieve it or not.
,ut you never can grasp sunshine in your hand. That has een your
mistake. -oreover, it would not do you any good if you could so grasp
it, for sunshine, y virtue of its fine, etheric nature, permeates you and
fills you with its life*giving power, which it could not do if solid enough
to e held in your hand. .o not /uarrel with the sunshine for eing #ust
what it is, ut place yourself in a certain relation to it and receive its
influx.
And now look at the diagram which heads this lesson while I explain it
to you. It is that of a radiant figure set in a dark ackground, and I have
chosen it to represent a central truth in the law of ,eing. This truth is
that 0od and -an are one. If you can get a realizing sense of this you are
on the path of realization. "ou will notice that as the rays from the centre
push outward they grow narrower, until finally they reach a point, and
#ust for the purpose of illustration I am going to suppose that this point
of the ray represents the mind of man efore it has much knowledge of
1eality. Let the dark ackground stand for negation or matter and you
will see that the mind at this stage of its unfoldment has not at its
command so much of the central light as it must possess when active in
the wider and ever*widening ray as you trace it toward the centre.
$ow, right here I wish to make an important distinction etween
consciousness and the thinking process. They seem at first to e one and
the same, ut they are not, for I can think and e conscious of myself as
thinking, or I can think and not e conscious of that thinking. 'or
instance, I may set out to give my undivided attention to a su#ect, and
after a few moments of concentrated thought, off goes my attention to
one or more extraneous su#ects, and I usy myself with them until I
pull myself together with a start and discover that I have strayed away
from my su#ect. .uring the interval of thinking I was not conscious of
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
the straying, ut now I know of it. 2ndoutedly there are mental
operations continually going on in me of which I am not conscious, for I
am a much larger eing than I formerly supposed myself to e. How
large, do you ask! 3hy, as large as Infinity itself, for I am It and It is I.
3e are interchangeale terms4 one in essence, ut dual in the sense of
eing expressed or unexpressed. If consciousness is awake only at the
point of the ray, then I seem to e ut a small eing, ut with a wider
consciousness comes a wider sense of eing4 and so on until I come to
the place where the ray #oins the centre, which is the place of All*
5onsciousness. There, you and I are one, ut all along the ray
consciousness we seem to e two, and hence arise our relations one with
another. 3e act and react upon the external side of life, impelled to it y
the sense of separation. All this is right and eautiful when ack of it lies
the knowledge of oneness of essence. 3ithout that knowledge of unity
in variety discord reigns, causing unrest of mind and disease of ody. As
a man thinketh in his heart, you know, so is he4 therefore it makes a great
difference to you what you think in your heart.
3hat does it mean to think in your heart! .oes it mean anything more
than thinking in your mind! "es, it does. To think in your heart is to
realize. A great deal of the process we call thinking has no more life in it
than the rattling of dry peas in a pod, ut thinking in the heart is live
thinking or realization.
If you therefore think of yourself as a little pigmy which has somehow
come into this world, with no more self*generative power than an
automaton, you will elieve yourself to e a weak thing indeed4 a mere
footall to e kicked aout y circumstances, a mechanical toy like the
doll which cries when you touch a spring, or the horse which walks
when you wind up its machinery and stops when it runs down.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
To know that you wind up your own machinery, or etter still, that you
are the powerhouse ehind all action, and controlling it, is to think in
your heart, from whence are the issues of life.
1ememer, there is ut one ,eing, although there are many expressions
of that ,eing, and those expressions we call human eings. Trace every
one of these eings ack to the source, and they all come from it in a
continuous flow, not separated in the least from that with which they are
one.
If you can grasp this idea, though ever so faintly, you will egin to feel a
greater sense of power. 5onsciousness will awaken at a place a little
nearer to the central ,eing, at a wider place in the ray which we will call
your human eing. It is really .ivine ,eing, ut, as it is limited or
expressed in form in the ray, it ecomes human eing.
"ou are doutless familiar with the word Introspection, ut possily do
not know what it means. Literally, it means to look into, or within. At
any place in the ray consciousness, wherever you may find yourself, if
you turn your attention inward, toward the central ,eing, you are then
introspecting.
And what will it do for you! 3hat is the good resulting from it! 3hy,
#ust this6 "our weakest endeavor in this direction calls more ,eing into
expression, so that your human eing thus ecomes enlarged,
strengthened and vitalized. Then with each accession of strength your
introspection grows stronger, and you are ale to make larger drawing
on the 7ternal (upply.
It is well worth your while to take this simple lesson and study it in
connection with the diagram, for you will then see more clearly what I
mean y finding your radiant centre. It is y getting into that centre that
you egin to think in your heart. "our thoughts then ecome live things,
and it is only when thus alive that they can heal disease in yourself or
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
others. )nly when thus alive can they create for you the peace which
passeth understanding and the prosperity which shall eautify and
enrich your life.
.o not e impatient if a great flood of illumination does not come to you
at the first. (ometimes it does so come, ut more fre/uently not.
5almness and expectancy never fail to ring the longed*for result in
time, ecause you are working with the law4 and that law is, that every
human eing shall come into the knowledge of its radiant centre. The
path is not hard. 8ust a little /uiet introspection each day, and there will
dawn within you an ever*widening light, which will at last unfold into
the perfect day.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON II
To enter into 1ealization it is necessary to get away from the
comparatively meaningless action which constitutes the greater part of
our thinking. There is nothing to realize ut Truth, and all thinking
which does not move toward the knowledge of Truth is desultory,
vague, purposeless, unreal and useless. "ou, the master workman, must
learn how to use the thought machine. "ou must also learn how to let it
rest, for you are not at the mercy of your thoughts, except as you allow
yourself to e. "ou really stand ehind all your thought action and have
the power to control and direct it. ,y developing this power you ac/uire
the mastery over environment.
7dward 5arpenter, in his 9:isit to a 0nani,9 speaks to the point. He says6
9That a man should e a prey to any thought that chances to take
possession of his mind, is commonly among us assumed as unavoidale.
It may e matter of regret that he should e kept awake all night from
anxiety as to the issue of a law*suit on the morrow, ut that he should
have the power of determining whether he e kept awake or not seems
an extravagant demand. The image of an impending calamity is no
dout odious, ut its very odiousness ;we say< makes it haunt the mind
all the more pertinaciously, and it is useless to try to expel it.
9"es, this is an asurd position for man, the heir of all the ages, to e in4
hag*ridden y the flimsy creatures of his own rain. If a pele in our
oot torments us, we expel it. 3e take off the oot and shake it out. And
once the matter is fairly understood, it is #ust as easy to expel an
intruding and onoxious thought from the mind. Aout this there ought
to e no mistake 4 no two opinions. The thing is ovious, clear and
unmistakale. It should e as easy to expel an onoxious thought from
your mind as it is to shake a stone out of your shoe4 and until a man can
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
do that, it is #ust nonsense to talk aout his ascendency over $ature, and
all the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and a prey to the at*winged
phantoms that flit through the corridors of his own rain.9
5arpenter then goes on to say that this power has long een known and
practiced in the 7ast, ut that, like other arts, it re/uires practice to attain
any degree of success, when it no longer remains a thing of difficulty, or
even mystery. He continues6
93hile at work your thought is to e asolutely concentrated in it,
undistracted y anything whatever, irrelevant to the matter in hand %
pounding away like a great engine, with giant power and perfect
economy % no wear and tear of friction, or dislocation of parts owing to
the working of different forces at the same time. Then, when the work is
finished, if there is no more occasion for the use of the machine, it must
stop e/ually, asolutely % stop entirely % no worrying ;as if a parcel of
oys were allowed to play their devilments with a locomotive as soon as
it was in the shed< % and the man must retire into that region of his
consciousness where his true self dwells.
9I say the power of the thought*machine itself is enormously increased
y this faculty of letting it alone on the one hand, and of using it singly
and with concentration on the other. It ecomes a true tool, which a
master workman lays down when done with, ut which only a ungler
carries aout with him all the time to show that he is the possessor of it.9
I /uote the foregoing ecause it ears so strongly upon my statement
that it is possile to think as you decree to think, and not as you are
apparently oliged to through heredity, hait, environment or any other
cause commonly supposed to regulate and determine thought action.
Assuming this to e true, and you can prove it in your own individual
experience, the /uestion then arises % If I can direct and control my
thinking, what shall e the manner of that direction and control!
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
0ranted the power, to what end shall I exert it! The answer is simple
enough. Let your thought move to the 5osmic Law. Let it egin with the
nucleus of an organic unity. Thought, to e alive, constructive and
powerful must e organic. It must have a central purpose and move
aout that purpose as planets aout the sun.
3hat shall e that central purpose! Let us see. )serving again the
5osmic Law, we see the evolution of the many from the one. As one is
the asis of mathematics, so is it the asis of all manifestation or
expression. )ne is the asis of form, of proportion, of symmetry, of
action, of all that goes to make up the o#ective world.
This is also true of the su#ective world, the world of thought. "ou may
e filled with thousands, yes, millions of thoughts and varying moods,
and yet you know they are all unified in you. 'rom you, the one, they
proceed. "ou easily discover this, ut here you stop. $aturally, however,
what is true of you is true of your fellow*eing, your rother, and so you
find another one. As many identities as you discover in the world, #ust so
many ones do you find.
,ut there you stop, and that is the troule with your thinking. "ou are
lost in the ,ael of multiplicity, the ,ael of the confusion of many
tongues. "ou have stopped short of the (upreme )ne, short of
3holeness, short of +erfection, short of the 2nity of ,eing.
(omewhere in your mentality there stands something which means 0od
or +erfection, ut it is shut away from you. 0od is enshrined in His own
perfection, and to identify yourself with Him seems nothing less than
sacrilege.
3hat is the matter! "ou have unified all that goes to make up your own
eing, ut when it comes to #oining yourself to all things else in a
common unity, that fails you. There seems to e a separation and you
cannot ridge over the intervening chasm.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
And yet, occult science is proving day y day that the supposed line of
demarcation, cutting off man from man, or man from animal and plant,
is really no line at all. In its place is the lost link in evolution. There it is,
holding the 5osmos as a unit, though the natural eve e not fine enough
to detect the linking.
It is not sufficient, then, to see yourself as one. "ou must go further, and
see yourself as one with the 2niverse, with 0od and Humanity.
3hen you egin to see this you are following the 5osmic method and
starting with one as the nucleus of growth. Then your thought energy,
instead of eing scattered in numerless directions, is called in and
concentrated upon an organic centre. Then you egin to unfold from
that centre as does the flower, and your growth ecomes coherent and
definite, having the characteristics of an organic unity. +revious to this, it
was like the floating protoplasm, incoherent, indefinite, aimless and
well*nigh helpless.
The world is full of these protoplasmic people who have not yet learned
the secret of organic growth, and they are ever at the mercy of time and
circumstance, ut within each one lies the germ nucleus of the higher
organism awaiting the stir of its potential life within.
A asic conception underlies the thought of each individual, and
according to the nature of that conception, is the character of the
thought. If it e true, the thought is vital4 if untrue, the thought is non*
vital. The conception to which I allude is the idea which the mind holds
regarding itself, its nature and its relation to that which it elieves to e
the cause of its existence.
To understand this etter, let us revert to the cut at the head of this
lesson. It contains two diagrams. $o. = represents the false conception4
$o. > represents the true. In the first lesson of this series I used the
diagram of a radiant figure to stand for the entirety of ,eing. I said that
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
there could e ut the one ,eing, and endeavored to show that 0od and
-an must oth e included in it, 0od eing the centre, and -an the ray
proceeding from that centre. This is the true conception of the oneness or
unity of ,eing including oth 0od and -an. .iagram > in this lesson
stands for this true conception, as I have #ust said, while .iagram =
stands for the false, or mistaken conception, which represents 0od as an
enclosed sphere, and -an as separate and apart from this sphere. In
some mysterious fashion, 0od is supposed to act through intervening
space and externally upon -an, ut there is the eternal separateness and
aloofness, not only etween 0od and -an, ut etween -an and
-an.
Is it small wonder that the mind holding such a conception should e
painfully conscious of its limitation, and feel itself cut off from a source
of supply! It would not e putting it too strongly to affirm that all the
weakness, inaility, poverty, disease and wretchedness in the world to*
day is in some way referale to this false conception of the relation of
-an to 0od which has held the human heart so long in ondage.
3hen once this is set right, the whole outlook on life changes and all
things ecome new. )ne then passes into a mental realm which is indeed
a ?ingdom of Heaven to the Hades of a former thought life.
I cannot lay too much stress upon the importance of getting this asic
conception right to egin with. (o often students write me that they have
een studying for years, seeking that highest truth which shall ring
them improved mental and physical conditions, whereas they only find
themselves floundering more and more helplessly in uncertainty, dout
and general unhappiness.
This ought not so to e. This most essential su#ect in the world should
e made so plain and direct in its rendering as to reach the needs of all.
7very mind must have its central truth aout which to uild its organic
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
unity. 3hen this is supplied, it can work to a definite purpose, and e,
), so happy in its working.
9A diagram,9 says 5lerk -axwell, 9is a figure drawn in such a manner
that the geometrical relations etween the parts of the figure help us to
understand relations etween other o#ects.9
It is with this intent that I have used, and shall go on using, in these
lessons geometrical figures as a help to elucidate my meaning. )f
course, the lank space in the centre of the radiant figure ut poorly
represents the wonderful reservoir of Life from which all things proceed,
and yet that lankness may well symolize the unexpressed.
(ymols are helps to thought and to realization, for the mind soon
learns to rise from the symol to the reality or the thing symolized, and
is thus led little y little into the understanding of Life and its ever*
revealing mystery. In the non*understanding of Life lie the mistakes and
the pain of living. 3ith its understanding comes increasing gladness.
+rofessor 7oyce, of Harvard4 .r. 5aird, of 0lasgow 2niversity, and other
thinkers of note whom I might mention, emphasize the fact that there is
ut )ne (elf in the 2niverse, and my diagram of the radiant figure will
serve to explain how this can e. ,y following each ray from its point of
expression to the centre, whence all proceed, it is evident that they are
one. This is the )ne (elf. It is you4 it is I4 it is all men4 it is all things.
Is this hard to realize ! It seems the simplest thing in the world to me
now, although, I confess, there was a time when I could not understand
it, and that was a time of weakness, of mental depression, of distrust in
my own aility, of utter hopelessness, of the darkness of despair. 3hen I
heard such affirmations as % I am all there is & or % I have all things
now & I was sim* ply stirred to an impatient contempt for the one who
uttered anything so apparently illogical, so asurd.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
I could not see, and the time had not come for my seeing, the inner
world. I had looked so long on things external that the reversion of sight
which opens to the view a new and hitherto unsuspected world, was to
me a difficult turning.
.ifficult though it was, I accomplished it4 ut here let me say that this
inner seeing is like the outer, a matter of growth. 3hen a lind man
suddenly receives his sight he has no idea of the distance etween
himself and that which he sees. (ome o#ects seem actually pressing
upon his eyes, and he instinctively attempts to rush them aside. )thers,
really near at hand, seem remote, and it re/uires time for him to see
things in their true relations to each other and to himself.
,ut he keeps on looking toward that which he desires to see, and in time
he sees it correctly4 he sees it with the understanding.
It is #ust so with the inward seeing. If you turn your eyes toward the
inner 1eality, though you may only feel it vaguely to e there, you will
in time see clearly, understanding. 3hat is it you see with, after all! Is it
the physical eye! $o, indeed& That is only a ridge over which
sensations walk into your consciousness, and so loosely put up a
structure is it that all the finest sensations fall through it efore they
reach you. Helmholtz once said that if any manufacturer sent him an
optical instrument so poorly adapted to its ends as the eye, he should
return it as practically of little use.
There is something ehind the eye which does the seeing in spite of the
physical imperfection of the eye itself. This something supplies more
than we realize in filling in the detail of every image thrown upon the
retina. This something can see independently of the eye4 asolutely
without its intervention. It can look straight to the heart of a flower and
know more aout it in one instant than it can learn from all the
sensations coming in over the ridge. Afterward, when these sensations
come trooping in, as they will, you can understand them as
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
never efore, ecause you are getting at the heart of things y this
growing power of the inner sight.
"ou do not know how good and sound this old 2niverse is at the core
until you egin to look into it. It does seem pretty miserale and crusty
and seamed on the outside, as though it were all going to pieces, ut it
isn@t going to do anything of the kind. It is as sound and rich and
eautiful at the centre as anything you can imagine. "es, etter than
anything you can now imagine. "ou will see straight into its heart
someday, and then you will know all far etter than I can tell you.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON III
It has een thought that man@s destiny is decreed y some power outside
of himself. This has led us to speak of the hand of destiny as the
outreach of this power, controlling a man in spite of his own volition.
(uch a conception reduces him to a mere automaton, and it is small
wonder that the strong spirits of the world have risen in their might
against so aritrary and soul*crushing a tyranny as destiny must e if
outside of man and coercing him.
,ut we have seen in our preceding lessons that man is inseparale from
the entirety of ,eing, and that in conse/uence of his oneness with it
there can e nothing outside of him to destinate or decree his ends since
,eing includes all there is and there can e nothing outside of it.
,eing controls itself and straight from its centre or heart to the point of
the ray, which represents its manifestation or expression, runs the line of
destiny. -an@s life starting from that centre must perforce destinate
itself.
,ut how happens it, then, you ask, that man is unconscious of his
destiny4 that he does not know himself to e acting and creating
continually4 that the events of each day are a revelation to him, and that
a screen is ever placed etween each day and its tomorrow! How can all
this e!
It happens in this way. 3e are screened in a measure from our past.
7ven the immediate yesterday cannot e wholly recalled, while the more
remote past escapes us altogether. -emory stops far short of the
primeval form of life from which we are supposed to spring. 3hat we
know of our earliest history is largely a matter of inference, and who
shall say that the outflowing of life or existence egan with a it of
protoplasmic slime! 'or my part I do not elieve it. 3hy may not life
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
have traveled down the spires of form as well as up them! As the worm
mounts, so may the 0od descend. .oes all motion egin at a given point
and go in one direction forever! That which egins must end. (how me
the point of departure and I will show you the point of arrival. )ne
presupposes and involves the other. Life is too great to e circumscried
y the amoea. 3e are forced to go eyond it in our search for a primal
source.
The 0od*Head is the fountain*head. Living things proceed from it and
to it return, for motion recurs or returns upon itself in cycles. If man
comes, in the latter instance, from the amoea, in the former he came
from 0od. That is the story of the fall. $ot a sudden declension, ut a
gradual descent. If I have een the amoea in the lower spiral I have
een the angel in the higher.
3e have forgotten oth the ascending and the descending, ut as the
awareness of psycho*logical states is dawning we ecome again
cognizant of the past. The line of destiny not only proceeds from the
heart or centre of ,eing, ut returns to it again from the ray, which in our
diagram stands for man as the expression of 0od. At the turning of the
line we egin our homeward #ourney toward that from which we came
forth4 and all along our course we come upon states of consciousness
with which we are familiar. It is only in this sense that the term
recognition can e used with reference to our evolution in
consciousness. To recognize is to re*cognize or know again, and
recognition is therefore that act of the mind y which it knows again
something previously known, ut for a time asent from thought.
1unning at right angles with the doule line of destiny extending into
the ray in the diagram efore us, you will oserve cross lines. These are
intended to divide the space in the ray into sections, each representing a
state of consciousness. As the 0od*life flows out from the centre it
actualizes itself in the section nearest the centre producing the highest
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type of existence, a divine eing far aove our present conception. Then
the life passes out into the next section, and to the next, until it reaches
the end of the ray. The numer of these sections in the diagram is merely
aritrary. I do not intend to imply a definite numer. I simply wish to
show what I elieve to e a fact, that you and I and all individuals have
passed through states of consciousness on the outgoing line of destiny
through which we are again passing on the in*going line. As we
approach each state again it is like the hearing of a eautiful ut partly
forgotten song, the song of .ivinity, stirring the secret recesses of the
soul to a rememrance of its long*lost 7den.
At the heart of the universe there is perfection. 3ere it not so it must fall
to pieces like a decayed apple4 and from that heart you and I have
destinated our present and our future. It is all good and right and full of
promise, whatever may e the seeming.
Though I have forgotten that former state in which I predestined my
present action, do I not know that I am ensphered in .ivinity4 that in
perfect freedom I decreed to e what I am4 that the tendency within me
to e myself and not another is of itself good! I decreed with wisdom,
for in that past life when my home was in .eity did I not know all
things! "es, I knew all, I could see all, and the freedom of the universal
was mine. ,y that unerring law which is at once my freedom and my
security, I came forth from .eity, and so did you, my rother. Like two
corpuscles in the life lood flowing from out the human heart, we set
forth upon our way, moving with each other and yet distinct, each with a
separate and inherent tendency to act, to do, to ecome.
3e do not rememer why we started as we did, or what we wished to
accomplish on the outgoing or incoming #ourney, ut some day we shall
recall it all. Then we shall know that never for one instant have we een
lost, not one inch have we gone astray, ut always and ever moving to
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the measure of the soul@s highest law we have trodden the path of
destiny to its glorious fulfillment.
The lost opportunity is not lost forever. 3e shall meet it again and
differently through the gain of deeper and fuller experience. (ome time
and somewhere there will come to us the occasion for taking ack the
cruel word and undoing the deed of wrong, when fullest reparation will
e given in #oy rather than penance.
.o not mistake the meaning of the diagram. It is not intended to show
that man himself really travels from the centre to the circumference of
the figure, for then his states of consciousness would e something apart
from himself, through which he must pass. Instead of that the figure
stands for man himself, with .ivinity at the centre, and his o#ective life
at the circumference, while the line of destiny and the sections through
which it is drawn signify states or stages of awareness in the thought
life, accompanied, of course, y their corresponding external conditions
of the ody and its surroundings.
A word aout this wonderful thing awareness, and I have done. (pirit
has een well defined as, 9(omething which is and knows that it is.9
(pirit acts and reacts. 3hen it acts it is not of necessity conscious of its
action, ut when it reacts it knows itself as acting. Awareness of
psychological states is the reaction of spirit upon itself. As the ocean
throws itself upon the shore and gathers its waters ack in the undertow,
so does the spirit know itself in the spiral of its motion.
"ou, therefore, as a ray from the central sun of spirit, have this
awareness of yourself, ut you have it not in full. "ou see ut a small
part of your real self, and therefore do not appreciate your greatness or
your power. 3hat you seek is a fuller awareness, and you will find it,
ecause it is the law of your eing, the law of the spirit.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON IV
5onsciousness is really awareness, or seeing. I have therefore placed an
eye at the centre of our (tar of -anifestation to indicate the perceiving
principle which is at the centre of ,eing. )ut of that inner seeing grows
our physical sight, and I wish to show, if possile, in this lesson, how a
knowledge of the inner sight may e turned to practical effect in
improving the physical vision. Among my patients I have from time to
time many with failing sight. 3ith oth young and old it seems
peculiarly a disease of the present age. )ften patients ask how they can
cooperate with me so as to advance the cure as speedily as possile, and
to those patients I write in sustance what I am aout to give in this
lesson. )nly, I am now going to work out the ideas more fully than I
could possily do in a letter.
In the April issue of the 1adiant 5entre I pulished an article concerning
a 1ussian physician who is perfecting an invention y which the lind
may e made to see, no matter how adly the sight may e impaired. .r.
(tien says6
9-an does not really see with his eyes, ut with his rain. The eyes are
only an instrument for receiving images, which are conveyed to the
centre of perception in the rain y the optic nerve. The lind man who
perceives the size, shape and nature of an o#ect with his hands sees in a
limited sense. If men had evolved without eyes, ut with all their
present rain power, they would doutless e ale to see y some other
method. (ome of the lower animals have no eyes, ut perceive light with
their whole odies.
9$ow, if an image of material o#ects can e conveyed to the rain y
some other agency than that of the eyes, it follows that a lind man who
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
has a sound mind will e ale to see perfectly well. This is exactly what
my invention accomplishes.
9An image is gathered on a screen instead of on the retina of the eye and
is conveyed directly y an electrical current to the rain. (uch a use of
the electric current has already een foreshadowed in the process well
known to science as cataphoresis. ,y this it is possile to convey
medicines, anaesthetics and other sustances into the interior of a man@s
ody without his eing aware of it. ,y its aid cocaine can e sent
through the solid one, conveying insensiility to nerve and marrow.
9This instrument in a slightly varied form will also enale the deaf to
hear.
9I may point out to you that the mere fact that we can see images in our
dreams, in the dark, and with eyes closed, is proof of the possiility of
seeing without eyes as we at present understand them.9
In the concluding paragraph .r. (tien admits that we can see without
eyes, ut I think he would not e as ready to say that we could see
without the rain. I think we could, however. If one material medium
could e dispensed with, why not another!
7very system of metaphysical healing, y whatever name it is called,
uilds upon this asic fact % The externalization of a ody with its
component parts and functions from an inner, hidden, incorporeal
(omething. They are at variance aout the character of that (omething,
ut they all postulate its necessity in order to account for a physical
ody. They go farther and say % As is that inner (omething, so is the
ody.
$ow, we will not argue the possiility of there eing or not eing this
inner (omething, for that would fill the entire lesson and leave room for
nothing else. There are some things which we only know through what
is called transcendental knowledge, as for instance, I know that I am, I
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
know that I know, I know that I hope, I know that I love, I know there is
such a thing as mind, etc. These statements admit of no argument, for
they are patent, incontrovertile. They simply are so, and we know them
to e so.
-etaphysical as well as physical science must start with its hypothesis.
3hen it works we use it, when not we discard it.
3ell, to e rief, men have somehow discovered that the little eings
which they know as their separate selves are somehow all ound
together in one common unity of eing. They have also discovered that
there is an external or phenomenal side to this one eing and an internal
or noumenal side. They have discovered also that the inner, or noumenal
side, is a sort of cause*world to the outer, phenomenal side, or effect
world.
It seems a well*estalished fact, and the mental therapeutist, taking it as
a working hypo* thesis, has used it to good effect. 3hen it fails will e
time enough to discard it for another, if another and a etter there e.
,ut, taking it as the est we have at present, let us infer that external
seeing is the result or effect of internal seeing. This inner (omething sees
directly anything which is incorporeal, like itself, ut when it would
extend its sight into the corporeal world of effects it must construct for
itself a ridge of sensation y which it can touch external forms of life.
The seeing is not in the ridge itself, ut in the seeing faculty which uses
it. This seeing faculty is consciousness itself, the eye that never sleeps, or
the eye of the (pirit.
"ou, eing (pirit, have the all*seeing eye at the centre of consciousness.
There is an outer form of consciousness which does not see at all times.
It is a spurious form. It is not the real thing, and it is in a measure lind4
that is, its sight is darkened. The outer consciousness is very closely
allied to the physical sight, and acts directly upon it. This outer
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
consciousness, taking note, as it does, of the change in the external world
and seeing failure and decay written on all things and accepting that as
the ultimate of life, stamps that ultimate upon the physical eye, and it
degenerates accordingly.
,ut that is not the ultimate. There is an inner consciousness which
knows etter, and little y little, for such is the order of life, the outer
consciousness impinges on the inner, thus seeing more and more what it
sees, and knowing more and more what it knows. This is what we call
the at*one*ment, the reconciliation etween the outer and temporal life
and the inner or spiritual life.
)wing to this at*one*ment the way is opened through the outer
consciousness so that the inner or all*seeing power can act directly upon
the physical organ of sight.
To apply this practically, refer to the diagram, or (tar of -anifestation.
(ee yourself as the ray proceeding from the 5entre of Life 4 then trace
yourself steadily ack ;for there is no reak< to that 5entre. 1ealize that
you are one with it4 that ecause it has the power of sight, so have you.
Then let your thought pass outward again to the end of the ray and feel
that you are carrying the power of clear seeing with you, even to the
extreme of outward vision. In this way you will #oin your thought to that
of the healer and strengthen its effect, or if your own thought e strong
enough you will e ale to restore your sight without the aid of a healer.
It is in this sense that you can truthfully say 9I can see,9 when your eyes
have utterly failed you, for you are speaking of that inner self, the
consciousness, whose sight is perfect and unfailing, the awareness which
is the eye of the (pirit and never sleeps and never knows weariness. This
perfect vision is yours and can manifest externally.
$ow let me recapitulate. 5onsciousness is seeing or awareness4 man is
conscious eing, therefore he has the power of seeing. +hysical sight is
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
oscured ecause of a veil etween an outer imperfect form of
consciousness and the inner or real. The order of evolution or growth is
that this veil shall e swept away, allowing the real consciousness to
permeate the man from centre to circumference. The sweeping aside of
this veil, which takes place gradually, is the process of at*one*ment y
which man@s external eing comes in direct touch with his inner
consciousness, and is thus orn again, regenerated, revitalized in every
part.
And whatever you lack in odily functioning, know that the power
dwells in perfection at the centre of life, with which you are one. (ee that
power at the centre and then trace it out through the ray of your eing. It
will attend your thought and go where you will it to go, for such is the
law.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON V
"ou have now efore you a diagram y which I hope to prove to you
that it is possile to outgrow or get away from pain. It is well known
that pain has een, and still is, a factor in evolution. I do not deny that.
)n the contrary, I fully elieve it. 3hat I do deny is that evolution shall
always find that factor indispensale. The time is coming when men
cannot suffer. $ature points to such a time. 7ven now she will not
permit her creatures to suffer eyond a certain limit. 3hen that limit is
reached she lulls them to unconsciousness or wakes them to liss.
3illiam 'lagg in his work on "oga writes of (aint 8ohn of the 5ross, of
whom it was said that 9through the silence of the night the sound of his
lash would reach the ears of the friars, who tremled when they heard it,
for they knew how merciless he was to himself.9 There came a time,
however, when he could devise no penance that did not yield pleasure
instead of pain, and 'lagg accounts for that fact y supposing that the
practice of penance 9thoroughly and long persisted in has power, along
with other odily modifications it effects, such as adaantine hardness,
control of reath, levitation, Herculean strength, etc., to actually reverse
the normal action of the sensory nerves and to convert pain into
pleasure, or else so completely overcome pain y pleasure that none is
felt, which last, y the way, would hardly e more strange than that a
condemned witch could tran/uilly slumer on a pile of urning fagots, a
thing that has often happened.9
I elieve that 'lagg@s supposition is correct and that a turning point can
e reached y oth an individual and the race where the action of the
sensory nerves is reversed, yielding thereafter no more pain, ut only
pleasure. A sutle sense of this must pervade the minds of those who
elieve in mental healing. If there is no ultimate escape from pain, to
what end do they work! The door of escape need not open through self*
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
inflicted penance. Life gives us pain enough unsought. If we can only
elieve it to e the passageway to liss, how changed and hopeful the
outlook. In this sense only can all e good.
And now let me refer to the diagram to still further explain my meaning.
I have shown in the previous lessons that man in his outer life ears the
same relation to a vast and unexpressed central life that the ray of the
star ears to its centre. -an, in his real essence, is the centre, ut in his
manifestation or expression he is an emanation or a ray of ,eing.
+ure light in passing into manifestation is converted into a duality4 into
the relatives light and darkness.
+ure liss passes in like manner into the relatives pain and liss.
The perfect likewise ecomes relatively oth perfect and imperfect.
0ood ecomes good and evil.
The real ecomes oth real and apparent.
7xpression or manifestation is therefore a mixture of light and darkness,
of liss and pain, of perfect and imperfect, of good and evil, of the real
and apparent.
That is, expression as we know it, is thus dual, ut we can imagine an
expression which is all light, all liss, all perfect, all good and all real.
This is the Ideal, the dream of the 3orld, and toward it the 3orld
presses.
)h, this glorious 5entre within and ack of expression in us all& 3ho
would not call it more and more out into the world of action!
)f course it is eyond our conception now, a world without pain,
darkness, evil, imperfection or unreality, ut so was our present state of
eing unknown and unimagined to the earlier forms of life in which we
functioned in past ages. I might go ack of that and say there was a time
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
when from a higher state we foresaw the worm which we should
ecome as well as our return to 0odhood, ut that is foreign to the
argument. 3hatever Ave had known was forgotten, as the worm, and
yet hidden away in that simple, tiny organism lay the nucleus of
rememrance like a sleeping seed awaiting its life.
The worm saw not its destiny, ut moved unerringly toward the man,
drawn y an ideal close at hand, ut all unconscious of the larger vision.
-an moves to*day as certainly toward the Ideal which he cannot see in
its fulness, ut none the less truly does he move toward the highest life,
the highest strength and the highest #oy.
Heaven is within, said the 5hrist of past ages. Heaven is within, echoes
the man of today. "es, within, my rother, at the radiant centre of all life,
and you are not separated from it for one instant. "ou never were, and
yon never can e. $o one can take heaven from yon ut yourself, and
that y the closing of your spiritual eye.
1ight in the midst of poverty, sickness and distress, you can find the
heaven within, and when you do, all will e transformed without.
And even now when you do not thoroughly understand the laws of
mind you can accomplish much if you will try. 3hen you feel
depression settling down upon you like a cloud of gloom instead of
sinking under the pressure, you can say % I will e happy& I will re#oice&
If you say it weakly at first, say it again with persistence, and more
strength will come. 7very atom in your mind and ody will move in
oedience to your affirmation, and soon you will e happy, even though
there e no immediate change in your surroundings. ,ut that change for
the etter will also come. 2ntil it does, rememer you can re#oice, even
though you are physically worn with the care of your house, of your
children or the many responsiilities which devolve upon you in greater
or less degree.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
3herever you are and whatever you are doing, rememer you are in the
pathway to heaven, which means only that your eyes are opening so that
heaven can e revealed to you, and when it is so revealed a radiance will
go forth from your spirit which will illumine your whole life and the
lives of those aout you.
And is it not enough to make anyone glad to know that the movement of
the world is toward greater life and greater #oy ! The passage is from
darkness to light and from pain to liss, otherwise it were a sad and
cruel world indeed.
If, as you read my words, you are filled with a sudden upliftment of the
spirit, know that it is ecause my words are true, and, eing true, they
are living words straight from the heart of eing. They are charged with
health, with life and with #oy, and you in reading them are moved to
re#oice with me, for we light our lamps not only at the central fire, ut
also one of another.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON VI
I am often asked if I elieve in prayer. I do.
,ut let me explain what I mean y prayer. I mean far more than is meant
in the orthodox interpretation, and yet I include that in my conception.
7very atom prays, reaching out tiny hands to e filled with that which it
desires. -an can do no more. All action in the universe is ased on
prayer and its fulfillment. The seed prays to the earth, to the air, to the
sun4 that is, it sends out a demand, and that demand is met and
supplied.
7merson says6 9As soon as the man is at one with 0od, he will not eg.
He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in
his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of
his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap
ends.9
The man who is not at one with 0od does not see prayer in all action. He
limits it to an entreaty from the human mind to a .ivinity transcendent,
separate and distinct from itself. His conception, so far as it goes, is true
enough, for .ivinity transcends the human consciousness. $ot until it is
merged, into the .ivine does it know itself to e not only the prayer, ut
the answer as well.
Those who have studied the foregoing lessons in this series will
understand the aove diagram to represent potential ,eing and its
expression. The rays stand for expression or ,eing passing into
manifestation. The space in the middle of the diagram we call the
radiant centre from which radiates every expression possile to ,eing,
ut in this instance we have attempted only to represent the human ray
or expression.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
The human consciousness in its progress toward .ivinity awakens
gradually along the whole length of the ray, eginning at the small end,
where it focusses in external life, in circumscried form, and widening
with the ray until it reaches the readth and asolute freedom of the
centre.
In 1ay ;=< let us suppose that we have the earliest awakening of the
human consciousness. The presence of .ivinity is not realized, and yet
its pressure or influence is felt as of something coming from afar. The
state is analogous to that of our earth as it receives the light and warmth
of the sun. It only gets this light and warmth after it has passed through
many strata of earth*enveloping ethers. The earth does not know the sun
as it really is, ut as it is when affected y the intervening media through
which it must pass. To illustrate further6 If I were a lifelong prisoner
ehind red glass windows my natural inference would e that all light is
red. Let me escape and I learn the truth. It may not e the entire secret of
the solar spectrum which stands revealed to me, ut I at least know that
the light which I had supposed to e red was only so y virtue of the
medium through which it reached me.
In like manner the human consciousness when it awakes at the end of
the ray feels .ivinity, ut has a misconception regarding it. It cannot e
otherwise in the natural order of things. It feels .ivinity and reaches out
instinctively toward it lindly and feely, and this is its prayer, the
earliest prayer of the human consciousness, weak, imperfect, ut
natural, orderly and necessary ecause it is the first numer of a
se/uence. In a se/uential order of unfoldment numer one is as essential
to that order as the numer which marks its end.
.ivinity shines as surely upon the fetich worshipper as upon the
monotheist, ut it touches oth through media, and is therefore not fully
revealed.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
The prayer of the earlier consciousness opens, the door to an inner place
in the ray of ,eing which lies nearer the centre. 'rom this place prayer
reaches forth again, another door is opened, and thus is the passage
made from the earliest dawn of the human consciousness to its at*one*
ment with the .ivine. It is a gradual awakening of life and action from
the point of the ray to its radiant centre.
I have only designated four degrees in my diagram ecause my star has
only five rays. In four of these rays I have indicated the stages in which
prayer is oth necessary and efficient. In the fifth there is no longer need
of it ecause the human is one with the .ivine and has all at its
command. It asks nothing ecause it has all. It stands at the centre and
speaks the creative word, the word of health, the word of power, and
those words are made flesh4 that is, they take on emodiment and
ecome manifest in the external world.
The whole story of creation is told in that one rief statement % The
3ord made 'lesh % taken in its esoteric significance. The soul of every
o#ect is its thought or idea, and from that thought or idea its outer eing
comes. The things which we see and touch are emodied thoughts,
every one of them.
3hen we reach the creative realm we think thoughts of health, of
eauty, of happiness and prosperity into existence for ourselves and
others. A message of pure #oy goes straight from the heart of the Infinite
through the lips of the finite and lesses all whom it touches.
2ntil this place is reached there will and must e prayer. 2ntil we come
to the fountain we must /uench our thirst at the chalice held y the
uplifted hand of appeal.
And even when we find the fountain of all life and taste its healing
waters we often stray afar from it, drawn y the rhythm of the earth life
ack into primal conditions, ack into the weakness, ack under
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
urdens, ut never to remain there, for prayer leads us again to the
centre. 3hat it has done once it can do over and over again until we are
indeed and forever one with the central life.
3hy the rhythm! 3hy the drawing away! Indeed I know not. I suppose
it to e the working of the one law r of the universe, the law of Love,
which draws us now here and now there in the fulfilment of its lessed
purpose that y many and devious paths we may attain to the fullest #oy.
Therefore I elieve in prayer, ut I also elieve that we outgrow it.
+rayer and desire oth indicate lack, and how can there e lack in
0odhood, in +erfection! At the centre we are 0od even now, and at the
circumference we are human. In many of us the 0od*consciousness is
awakened, though we do not live in it continuously. 3e live also in the
human, ut y holding close to the centre we glorify the human,
carrying to the extreme end of the ray the pure light from the central
radiance.
,ut, rememer to pray in this manner. 7nter into thy closet and when
thou hast shut thy door pray to thy 'ather which is in secret, and thy
'ather which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly. I do not
know what significance these words carried when they were uttered, ut
I know what they mean to me. To go into the closet and shut the door
indicates silence, going within the consciousness and closing the door
against the external world. There you speak to the 'ather ;or source of
eing<, which is in secret, or hidden from the external eye, and that
'ather which seeth in secret ;perceiving mentally or comprehending
your needs< himself shall reward thee openly4 that is. from the internal
hidden source there shall flow forth in answer to your demand that for
which you ask. It shall come into external manifestation, and thus shall
you e rewarded openly. )ut of the potential or hidden world
something shall proceed which can e sensed openly, something which
is made manifest, externalized in the material world.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
)r, if it e a spiritual lessing which you ask, there shall come
something so vital and real into your consciousness that there is no
mistaking it4 a su#ective reality coming into the open of your mind from
a hidden inner source.
5all it 0od or the 5osmic 5onsciousness, as you will, there is (omething
to which the human heart instinctively appeals % (omething which
answers the appeal and finally (omething with which the human heart
is at last united, when it no longer has need of prayer.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON VII
As -an passes from his 0od*centre to his human circumference of
tangile and visile expression he is su#ect to certain laws which distort
that expression. To use an old simile, he is like a straight stick which
appears crooked when plunged in running water. He is living a dual
experience, that of a true and an untrue life. ,etween the two he
vacillates as a traveler who is at home in neither. The untrue life is a
necessity and a part of expression, as essential to it as the vapors which
lie etween us and the sun and e/ually illusive.
3hile consciousness may e only awake to the untrue life we are at the
same time living the true life, each and every one of us. That we do not
know it makes no difference4 it goes on #ust the same, ad#usting our
mistakes, inspiring us with new and higher ideals, guiding and
guarding us in all endeavor.
The awareness of life which we call consciousness ;the human
consciousness, I mean, which is a different thing from the 5osmic or
2niversal 5onsciousness< first manifests itself within the oundaries of
the untrue life. It sees things not as they really are, ut as they appear to
e. "ou cannot convince a child that the horizon is not the limit of the
world, and it is the limit of his world at the time, ut it spreads and
enlarges with increasing intelligence. 3hen his field of vision ecomes
the su#ective realm he is encompassed y another restrictive ut ever
widening horizon, which at last ecomes co*extensive with ,eing itself
and is one with the 5osmic 5onsciousness.
In our diagram, the star of manifestation, I have drawn an inner star to
represent the true life. ,etween it and the outer limit lies the field of the
untrue life, the ephemeral, the changeful. 3hile the consciousness
remains within this field it is su#ect to the illusions which it accepts as
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
real. Here disease riots, dout and fear prevail, fleeting pleasure is
followed swift y pain and loss, spurious love otains with its
heartaches and it #ealous pangs. This is indeed the country in which the
prodigal son found himself when, far away from the 'ather@s house, he
fed upon the husks.
3hen the human consciousness passes from this outer sphere into the
inner state of ,eing it is making the return to the 'ather@s house where
plenty aounds and where hunger is unknown, ut it will not seek that
house until hunger grows intense and the fact is orne in upon it that
the husks contain no nourishment. $ot until all things fail in the far
country does it return to its home.
3herever this spark of awareness is alight, there the 7go knows itself.
3hen it is alight in the outer field, in the space etween the inner star
and the outer, then the 7go is only conscious of a weak and lowly
conditioned self, separate from its source of existence, ut when alight in
the inner field then it knows its true life and ecomes cognizant of its
great powers.
3hen consciousness enters the inner field, and takes up its position
there, it does not lose its hold on the outer fields ut reaches forth and
commands it as an outlying territory in which it does not care to dwell,
ut into which it may make excursions at will as its lord and governor. It
has thus lost nothing and has gained much. It has found a etter country
in which there are facilities for fertilizing or carrying new life into the
old. $ow when it goes forth it is not as the +rodigal, ut as the +rince. It
finds the husk, ut the kernel is within.
As I have said efore, the true life has een operative all the while, ut
there has een no consciousness of that life % and here let me make a
distinction etween consciousness and life. I will only say that
consciousness is the knowledge of life. 3hile there can e no
consciousness without life there can e life without consciousness, or, in
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
other words, there may e life without a knowledge of itself. -ost of
you can rememer the time when as a child you had no knowledge of
yourself. I can distinctly rememer the hour when a knowledge of self
came to me. It dawned somewhat cruelly, for an angry playmate
criticised me most unpleasantly. (he told me that I had a large mouth,
and although I did not know the merit or demerit of such a possession,
something in her tone conveyed a strong suspicion of demerit. 'or the
first time I looked at myself in the glass critically. The survey gave me no
actual knowledge, ut I was a wretched child. A poor little 7ve had
tasted of the fruit growing on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
and was straightway driven from 7den.
After a time my mother noticed that whenever I was called into the
drawing*room to e presented to callers I covered my month with my
hand, and she said6 9?atie, don@t do that. It is very awkward.9 Here was a
doule grief. I not only had a large mouth, ut I was also very awkward,
ut with the larger grief came a larger consciousness of (elf. I ecame
very thoughtful, my mind eing a ground of deate as to whether it
were etter to disguise the large mouth or appear very awkward.
7vidently it was a choice of two evils and not a good in sight. The good
was to come later as the introspection grew deeper when I looked not at
the mouth or any ungraceful action, ut at that which had een hidden
and so far undiscovered.
Then introspection touched the su#ective self and went on until it
reached the inmost su#ective or the true life. I have used the personal
illustration to show in a way how the passage occurs and also to prove
that consciousness % the human consciousness of course I mean %has
its first awakening in the outer or o#ective mind, thence moving to the
inner or su#ective mind and finally to the inmost or spiritual (elf which
always moves and acts in the true life, ut is not conscious of itself as so
doing.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
3e are driven y lash and spur out of ignorance into wisdom, out of
error into truth, out of illusion into reality. (uffering and unrest are the
goads which drive us on. They cannot touch the real (elf. That sits in
motionless calm watching the apparent self that is exploiting in the outer
field of illusion, and later in that of the true life. The (elf is the riddle of
the (phinx, the riddle of the ages.
If you would solve this riddle watch your (elf. (ee how the real you
stands ack of all action. Then see how the apparent you, the one which
you know more intimately, looks to the real you for approval, for
guidance and for continued existence4 for this apparent you has no
independent life of its own. It is as dependent upon the real (elf as the
shadow upon the o#ect which casts it. 1emove the o#ect and the
shadow goes, too. ,ut the real (elf is something which cannot e
removed4 therefore its shadow lingers until the (un is at meridian. Then
is the shadow lost in sustance.
And what is the true (elf! It is .eity. It is .ivinity. Let us not e afraid to
affirm it.
I have apparently given you two contradictory statements. I have said in
one paragraph that the spiritual or true (elf moves and acts and in
another that this same (elf is motionless as the (phinx. How can oth
statements e true! How does the true (elf act!
3ell, let us see. (uppose I go to the piano and play for you ,eethoven@s
(onata Appassionata. I thus set up motion in mind and ody, ut I am
not in that motion. I cause it, I oversee it, I control it, and for those very
reasons I am not in it. The apparent I is in it, ut not the real I. $ote the
expression % -y mind, my ody, myself. 3hat does it mean! (imply
that I have a mind, I have a ody, I have a self. I, the master, cause this
mind, my ody and self to function, or act. It is thus I express myself. In
rendering the (onata my apparent self, or in other words, the self that
appears, must hold close to me, the true (elf. 'rom this (elf ,eethoven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
wrote the (onata, from this same (elf I render it, for do you not
understand, this (elf of which I speak, was not only a ,eethoven, it is
you, it is I, as well. It is ack of mind and function, ut expresses itself
through oth.
The great central (elf holds the entire (onata in the hollow of its hand. It
encompasses it round aout. It sees it in its fulness. This the functional
self cannot do, for it has not the comprehensive vision, the omniscience
which sees the end with the eginning, ut y virtue of its functioning
must pass through all the intermediate terms, cognizing each in its
passage, ut never grasping the whole.
7very artist, musician, speaker or writer who thrills us does so ecause
his functional self is in touch with the true (elf, and oedient to it. All
else is mechanical, automatic, dead and uninspiring. $othing can thrill
ut life, and life is the effluence of the true (elf.
$ow, I ask, How can anyone feel alone, helpless or uncared for with
such a (elf at hand, full of infinite resources! If you cannot elieve that
you have such a (elf, set the fact up in consciousness and give it your
attention, your criticism, your cavil, if you will. 'inally, it will prevail
and otain your sanction, ecause it is the truth. 7ntertain the stranger
and you have entertained the angel unawares, the angel who is ever
after to righten your life with its glorious presence.
And when you have found the true life, and the angel and the shrine,
you need not withdraw from the illusions in the outer court of the
temple. (eek them if you will, ut take them at their actual value. (o will
your sorrows e lighter, your #oys higher and your loves stronger and
truer.
"ou lose nothing y going into the Impersonal. )n the contrary, you
gain all.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON VIII
In the preceding lessons I have endeavored to show that man is one with
an all*comprehensive ,eing which flows from centre to circumference
and from circumference ack to centre y its own intrinsic law or mode
of motion. This law is not imposed upon it from the outside, for there is
no outside, since ,eing is all there is. ,eing, or any part of ,eing, moves
as it does ecause it is what it is and for no other reason. The reason is in
itself and nowhere else.
3e speak of ourselves as separate eings ecause we have lost sight of
the central unity of all life. 3e are not separated from it in reality any
more than the ranch is separated from the tree on which it grows, ut if
the ranch could e supposed to have a small mind peculiar to itself and
the tree a larger mind peculiar to itself, this would illustrate very well
the difference etween the state of consciousness which ecomes
functional or acts in the personal mind and that entire, whole, perfect
and complete 5onsciousness which pro#ects the personal, that 2nity
which pro#ects from Itself +lurality, the )ne making Itself the -any.
I use the star as a diagram ecause it shows in a way, so far as any
symol can express verity, how it is that the )ne ecomes -any. It does
it y radiation from its own centre.
$ow, you know +lato says6 9If )ne is, the )ne cannot e -any.9 That is
/uite true. )ur )ne does not reak itself up or ecome less Itself ecause
it ecomes -any. And now notice the difference etween eing and
ecoming. +lato does not say, 9The )ne cannot ecome -any49 he says,
9The )ne cannot e -any.9 ,eing and ecoming are not synonymous
terms, for eing stands for the 9ding an sich9 ;thing in itself<, while
ecoming stands for the acting or doing of that 9thing in itself.9
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
'or instance % I A-. That is a primary fact. I do % That is a secondary
fact. 3ere it not for the 9I A-9 there would e no 9I do.9 The 9I A-9 is
the su#ect in the sentence of Life, the 9I do9 is its predicate. The 9I A-9
is the centre of ,eing, the 9I do9 is its circumference. The 9I A-9 is
.ivinity, the 9I do9 is Humanity.
:ery few understand this aright, and therefore when they read such a
statement, they exclaim6 9)h what dreadful sacrilege&9 To their minds
.ivinity is therey dragged from its high estate down into the mire.
.ivinity cannot e dragged anywhere. It goes voluntarily. It descends
graciously, willingly into the mire every time a lily or a rose is orn. .id
you not know that! "ou can see .ivinity in the rose, you can see it in the
lily, ut you do not realize that to get to each it must go down into the
soil % the soil, mind you % and the soil, as its name would indicate, has
much in it that is far from pure and sweet. The soil is composed of the
dregs of physical sustance. It is full of putrefaction and all uncleanness,
and the fuller it is of these ase elements the etter it is and the fairer the
flower springing from it.
$otice how naturally we call putrefaction or impurity a ase element
and also notice that it is the ase of growth. It may e a fanciful
construction, ut I can fancy that the flower grows away from such a
ase ecause of its own inherent purity, carrying with it #ust enough of
the lower or asic element to enale it to express itself on the material
plane, for only thus can it relate itself to that plane. 3ithout the ase
element it would so transcend the physical as not to e visile or
tangile to the senses, and to us it would e non*existent. In other
words, a flower dwells in .ivinity as a thought of 0od, and like any
other thought it clothes itself with material sustance and ecomes a
thought expressed. 3e see and touch it and for the first time ecome
conscious of the existence of that which has lived in su#ective spheres as
a reality, ut is now visiting us on this plane as an actuality.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
It is the real life of the flower that appeals to our sense of the eautiful.
In its form, color and perfume, which constitute its language, it is telling
of its triumph over the powers of darkness, its passage from the unclean
to the holy and its apotheosis in loom.
I rememer once seeing two ex/uisite flowers that told me their story in
language never to e forgotten. They spoke to me in a foreign tongue, in
the language of angels perchance, ut I found the translation in my inner
life, and it has remained with me, and will remain with me always. The
flowers were two lossoms of the night looming cereus. As I stood
efore their wonderful translucent whiteness which seemed to radiate
delicate tremulous waves of light, they seemed to me like celestial
eings, and I understood why our atmosphere must e too heavy for
them and why their stay with us must e so rief. In an hour or two they
would return whence they came and reathe once more their pure and
native ether, ut not until they had given us their heavenly message.
It was a eautiful custom of the town in which I lived, for the owner of a
night looming cereus to invite in all the friends and neighors upon the
occasion of its looming, and I rememer well the stillness that was in
the room as we moved in line, each stopping a moment in contemplation
efore those silent flowers. (ilent to the outer ear, ut full of speech to
the inner. A hush fell upon the assemly, the room was a shrine and
within it was the Holy +resence. An indescriale longing swept over
me to fall on my knees efore those messengers from a celestial sphere
and implore a fuller revelation, for there seemed so close at hand a glory
to e revealed. ,ut convention held me and I passed on silent and
wistful, while the calm, sweet flowers seemed saying6 +eace& Have faith&
There is nothing hidden that shall not e revealed. All that thou desirest
shall come to thee in good time, only do thou e patient and faithful.
The apotheosis of the flower is also that of the 0od*man or 0od*like
human eing. He comes up out of the soil or impure life y virtue of the
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
.ivinity within him, into the freedom and purity of the air aove, the
lower life eing a necessity to the higher. It has een said that the
greatest sinners make the greatest saints, and if this e true it must e on
account of the principle here involved, #ust as the larger and more
vigorous plant must extend its roots wider and deeper into the soil to
alance the greater readth and height aove, while the smaller and less
vigorous can do with a slighter root hold on the soil.
There is no premium on the impure life in conse/uence of this principle.
It is in fact a going away from the central (un and involves an
imprisonment in darkness, ut only the going away makes possile the
return with its unfolding experiences and its #oys4 and hence the descent
of spirit into matter, with its so*called evil and attendant penalty, is
good. The things we call evil are the imperfect, unfinished, undeveloped
forms of good. There is no ase desire which may not e transmuted
into its correlative aspiration. A ase desire is an incomplete aspiration.
It is force going downward efore it goes upward. The isolated fact is an
evil, ut taken with the whole it is an un/uestioned good. -urder is an
evil, ut to the slayer and the slain there must come, through the .ivine
Alchemy, the ultimate good. 7ach will wade through deep pools of
suffering in which the lood stains will e washed away, and though the
murder is the direct cause of the suffering, it is good ecause it leads to
an ultimate good.
Take a man at the moment of crime, in the act of murder for instance,
and ecause he is what he is and the situation is what it is, there is ut
one course open to him. ,ecause of past action he is rought to a point of
culmination where nothing ut the murder is possile to him. 0iven the
provocation and he is as certain to ecome a destructive agent as
gunpowder at the touch of a urning match. It is the result of natural
law, and in the case of the gunpowder it ends in natural law, whereas in
the case of the man it does not, for spiritual law overlaps the event,
gathers it into the sphere of the .ivine and converts it into good. $ow,
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
that which can e converted into good must have in itself the elements
of good. In a word % 7vil is ut undeveloped good. A fiery new orn
planet seething upon its orit is an evil thing compared with that same
planet in its productive period, ut from the first it holds all good and
eautiful things in its osom. They are there, ut concealed. -an is #ust
the same in his process of unfoldment passing from the primal, chaotic,
urning or passionate period of his existence to his perfection of eing.
The path from evil to good is the path of penalty, of pain and suffering,
or more strictly speaking, the point of departure from evil is marked y
pain, for pain is that which fences in evil, and like a ared wire
excludes us from foridden precincts. There is nothing within those
precincts which we really desire or which is triutary to our happiness,
therefore pain is eneficent and good in the ultimate.
All states of ecoming are more or less evil, and we pass out of each
owing to a degree of pain or discomfort which we experience and from
which we would escape. This engenders restlessness, want, desire,
action, which all amount to the same thing. All are forms of a discontent
;dis*content< signifying emptiness, vacuum, a lack of contents, a state in
which the mind does not contain or hold within itself something which
it desires. It is hungry and seeks fulness, reaching out into its environs
for impression and experience. This is the secret of action, the secret of
evolution, the secret of ecoming.
There are two methods of teaching in the $ew Thought, each
repudiating the other as false. )ne usies itself with expounding the
active 9I do9 side of life and ignores the changeless 9I A-,9 while the
other recognizes only the 9I A-9 and ignores the 9I do.9 These
contending factions remind me of the old fale concerning two knights
who approached a trophy shield from opposite directions. )ne side of
this shield was gold and the other silver4 thus each knight, seeing ut
one side, was led to dispute with the other aout the metal composing it,
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
until from words they came to lows, when, luckily, #ust at this #uncture,
a third knight appeared upon the scene, to whom the dispute was
referred. This knight looked upon oth sides of the shield and then
informed the disputants that the su#ect of dissension was gold upon
one side and silver upon the other.
Let us suppose that the third knight had not looked at oth sides. Had
he looked at one side only, he must, in opinion, have taken a stand either
upon one side or the other and pronounced the shield to e either gold
or silver. Then when other knights were added to the company, each
would naturally enroll himself in one faction or the other according to
his angle of vision, and the factions would grow until the original two
disputants would swell to thousands, while the entire feud would e
founded upon a myth or a half truth, which amounts to the same thing.
All feuds in defense of truth have ever een ased upon a half truth or
the imperfect cognition of a full truth, for men are so constituted that
they come into the knowledge of truth gradually. They are not orn full
grown. If they were, there would e no growth for them either mentally
or physically.
,ut to return to our shield story and its application. It is evident that so
long as each knight was defending his own partial conception of the
shield he drew no nearer to a full conception of its entire sustance, and
it would have led to greater wisdom to have taken a look at the other
side. It is therefore etter to emulate the third knight in the story and
attain to a wholeness of thought rather than contend for an accentuation
of differences.
The 9I A-9 and the 9I do9 factions are each right so far as each goes, ut
neither is telling more than half the story, leaving the other half untold.
The 9I A-9 faction claims to e perfect now, to have all things now, and
to it there is no past or future, for all is in the eternal $ow.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
This is wholly unintelligile to the 9I do9 faction which traces its origin
ack to protoplasm and finds its whole life proceeding from that
eginning. It deals with the unfolding or evolution of form, ut says
never a word of the infolding or involution of that which produces form.
$ot only this, ut it ridicules and repudiates all knowledge concerning
such a primal cause.
The 1adiant 5entre teaching covers the entire ground held y oth
factions. 1ecognizing evolution as a fact and acknowledging the
existence of something which does grow or evolve, it also recognizes a
(omething ack of all action which is permanent and unchanging.
(omething which always is and never ecomes. (omething which
produces action ut is not involved in it.
If we see only action in life and lose sight of the calm centre of eing we
are drawn into a maelstrom and are whirled ceaselessly aout in a
round of mental activity without repose or mastery, ut when we see, in
thought, the calm, unchanging centre, the mental activity con* verges
toward it, ecomes stilled and then goes out from that centre with a new,
direct and purposeful impulse. It goes forth from the -aster and is
therefore masterful. There is an energy of position, you know, and this
sort of activity, coming as it does from the energy of position, ac/uires
an energy unknown to the motion of the maelstrom. It goes out straight
from the centre instead of eing whirled helplessly aout that centre.
The potential or unexpressed world is in the 9I A-9 of ,eing, while the
actual or expressed world is in the 9I do9 of ,eing. ,oth properly elong
to it and one cannot e divorced from the other4 ut though they cannot
e divorced in reality we can think of them separately or divide them in
thought, and this has een the error of our thinking. 'rom erroneous
thinking there can e ut one result and that is erroneous expression4
hence we manifest a lack of symmetry and eauty in face and form, for,
as a man thinketh so is he to the very limit of his circumference.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
The 9I A-9 people declare that each individual is sufficient unto himself,
that he has all within himself and that he needs nothing outside of
himself, and yet one of these very people once said to me that it was
often a great relief to him to meet others who were not metaphysical. It
was a relief, he said, and gave him a change of thought. He was really in
the camp of the 9I do9 people and did not know it. I rought the fact to
his notice, for eing one of the 9I do9 people myself, at the time, I did not
propose that he should come over into our camp for ammunition to do
his firing, and I said so promptly, somewhat to his discomfiture.
5ertainly if he needed association at any time with a non*metaphysical
person he was not sufficient unto himself, and what nonsense it is, to e
sure, to deny the necessity for communication with our fellow*creatures
and indeed with all other forms of life.
This rings me to the point I would make in this lesson. I would
emphasize the fact that while all life proceeds from the centre where it is
one, as it passes into the separateness of form there is and must e
interaction etween those forms. Thus a line of action extends from the
ray ;or form< A in the diagram to the ray , and from the ray , ack to
the ray A, so that A touches , from the exterior and , touches A also
from the exterior.
3e touch each other through impression or sensation, and that
impression or sensation is a call to the inner life to come forth and show
itself. It comes forth oedient to the call and is manifest as externalized
energy in one form or another as the case may e. )f course it is the
inner life all the while that is working out through the ray A and
touching the ray , or through the ray , and touching the ray A, ut the
exterior action coexists with the interior life and is essential to it. In fact
each is correlative to the other, and one cannot e without the other
unless one can suppose the entire field of expression to e wiped from
the vision, in which event there would e small need for any argument
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
in favor of either the 9I A-9 or the 9I do9 factions. (o long as there is
expression there must e an 9I do9 and an 9I A-9 ehind the 9I do.9
I, as the 9I A-,9 which means I, strong in the consciousness of my
oneness with the centre of existence from which all things flow, I, at this
strong centre can estalish an activity which is greater than the ordinary
activity common to man. It is a spiritual activity and it produces not a
sickly puling, white*faced ascetism falsely called spirituality, ut a
healthy, full looded, muscular, intense, warm, living and vital
spirituality which is the true thing and not its counterfeit. A glorified
Humanity with 0od in it instead of out of it comes from the all*
roundness of vision seeing the 9I A-9 in its relation to the 9I do,9 and
then living the life which is therein typified, a life strong at the centre
and free at the circumference. This is the life of the perfect human, a life
possile to you and to me.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON IX
3hy are you poor in the midst of plenty!
There must e some reason for it. "ou may think that it lies in the
existing order of things, ut I think it lies in yourself. The existing order
gets lamed more than it deserves. It has ecome a regular scape*goat
for the shortcomings of the individual. In a sense it is responsile, for it
is you and I who make up the existing order. ,ecause we are what we
are, it is what it is. ,ecause we are mentally weak*kneed, ow*legged
and cross*eyed, we twist up the existing order and get it all awry. 3hen
we straighten out ourselves, we shall straighten also the existing order,
for we produce it from day to day, from hour to hour.
8ust so long as we place power outside of us instead of within, we shall
continue in the weak*kneed state and get no hold on the 7ternal 7nergy
which lies within us and is ours to command.
'inancial independence ought to mean to the metaphysician #ust what
the word independence implies, a dependence on something within.
Instead of that the tendency is to look outside for that which we wish to
come to us.
I elieve with 7merson6 9He who knows that power is inorn, that he is
weak ecause he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so
perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly
rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his lims # works
miracles4 #ust as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man
who stands on his head.9
I tell you, friends, the existing order of things has nothing to do with our
misfortunes and our poverty. If it had we would not see individuals here
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
and there coming up in spite of it. $othing can drag us down ut
ourselves. $o circumstance can old us down if we have the will to rise.
If you have learned the truth which I have tried to inculcate through this
series of lessons, if you can see yourself as a ray proceeding from the
5entral 7nergy, if you can realize that in that 5entral 7nergy all things
that you would e lie potentially and that you can call them forth from
within, you are then standing s/uarely on your feet, with head erect,
chest well up, lungs inflated and power in your right hand, ready for
action. The existing order of things then has no power over you, for
whatever it may e, you, y your very mental attitude, have thus cleared
a space for your energies and have made a place for yourself in the
world@s activities.
+icture yourself as standing thus, and so great is the power of imagery
that efore long your image will ecome an external reality.
"ou can do this all alone, if you have only a crust to eat and your room
rent is unpaid. Ill luck and apparently insurmountale ostacles are only
the appliances in life@s gymnasium on which to increase your mental
muscle. 3ould you fall down weakly efore such an aid and eye it with
terror! "ou are foolish if you do. "ou have seen a horse tremle with fear
at sight of a newspaper caught up and swirled y the wind, and have,
no dout, smiled at its foolish fright, ut all the while you were su#ect
to terrors /uite as unsustantial.
$ow, look at the star which heads this lesson for it illustrates the truth I
am endeavoring to place firmly in your consciousness, the truth of your
in*dependence.
"ou are independent ecause the source of your dependence lies within,
and it is not a little isolated spark of eing either. It is the 3H)L7
THI$0. "ou will never understand that, unless you picture it to yourself
in the form of a radiant figure, like the star which I use in these lessons.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
It has helped me and I know it will help you. I used to e #ust as weak*
kneed as anyone possily could e. At the age of thirty*one I thought life
was all over for me. 7very ideal and every amition had failed me.
(orrow, misfortune and ill*health crowded hard upon me until I fell into
the depths of nervous prostration. 8ust as life seemed at the last and
lowest e, help came to me in the form of mental treatment and from
that time I egan to grow in health, in hope and in prosperity.
?nowing what I do, is it strange that I should try to help my suffering
friends and rothers. If I do not make the truth plain enough, tell me,
and I will try to make it plainer. The difficulty is that some of these inner
truths which we feel so strongly ourselves are difficult to give in so
many words to others. That is why mental treatments are often more
effectual than volumes of written instruction. The thought passes in a
hidden pathway from mind to mind, and translates itself to the patient
in renewed hope, in an increase of mental strength, in plans for the
improvement of conditions and in general health and well*eing.
I am often asked if the radiant centre of ,eing is a reality. It is. It is the
only reality. It is sustance. It is power.
If you come in contact with any external o#ect, you feel its presence.
3ell, #ust so do you feel this inner sustance of which all external o#ects
are the expression.
It is not found y thinking or reasoning aout it, ut y feeling for it, as
a lind man would grope for an o#ect.
8ust as I was aout to egin upon this lesson I came upon the following
passage, which I now introduce as singularly appropriate6
9The statues that adorn the ridge of (aint Angelo in 1ome are reflected
in the water elow. As you come upon the anks of the Tier, there on
the placid stream are the clear outlines of the old heroic forms4 and then
as you look up, you see the statues standing on their pedestals of stone
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
on the ridge aove. (o hope is the reflection in the soul of lessings that
are aove and eyond.9
In this way the soul dimly senses the presence of its radiant centre. It is
the reflection of its reality in the stream of consciousness. 'rom the
reflection, one is led to seek for that which is so reflected, #ust as one
looks up from the anks of the Tier to the heroic forms on the ridge of
(aint Angelo.
And how do you know when you are actually in touch with your
radiant centre! "ou know it y the change in your feeling. There comes
to you an inner warmth and life, a sense of expansion as though you
were growing wings % a delightful vision of approaching freedom, a
tendency to draw deep, full electrical reaths % and, in short, all the
sensations of a new*orn creature6 for, indeed, you are thus newly orn.
)ld things have passed away and all things are ecome new. "ou stand
in a new world of thought and feeling. "outh returns to you with all its
charm and mystery of opening life, and you egin to grow, grow, grow,
like a eautiful flower from your radiant centre.
)thers may seek y much reasoning to understand the mystery of Life.
It is enough for me to live it. I ask no greater #oy. And to live it one must
egin according to the law of Life, and unfold from a centre. 'rom the
smallest to the greatest organism, this law regulates growth and life. All
else is a dead mosaic.
"ou are a living organism, ut growth may e arrested in you and you
may need the touch of Life. 3ill it come to you! "es.
The healer can do no more than to arouse the dormant energy within
yourself, ut that is something worth doing and /uite essential. In this
lies the value of success treatment. It rouses ")2 to a '77LI$0 of the
+)371 3ITHI$ ")21(7L'. TH7 '77LI$0 is the +)371. (o there
you are& If you have the '77LI$0 of +)371 you have the +)371.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
+)371 e with you to do and to ecome all that you desire. ALL
+)371 I( ")21(.
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
LESSON X
If I were asked y what standard I #udge of any system of teaching, I
must reply that its merit is to e estimated y the amount of #oy it rings
to the world. I think there is no etter or truer test. All religions, no
matter though their central thought e self*denial, self*sacrifice and
penance hold out the hope of a future peace and happiness. 3ithout this
they would instantly and forever lose all power over the hearts of men.
The fact is, -en make their own religions and they make them in
accordance with the rain material which they have evolved. ,ack of the
minds of men stands the 0reat 1eality, ut it stands unexpressed to the
human consciousness only so far as that consciousness is ale to receive,
apprehend or interpret. As it receives, apprehends and interprets more
and more clearly the 0reat 1eality of which I speak, it is seen to e the
source of happiness and it is also seen to lay no penance, no suffering,
no sickness, no poverty, no wretchedness upon any man. It does not
even inflict present punishment as a means to future lessedness.
3hence come, then, the suffering, the sickness, the poverty and the
wretchedness! They are incidents or attendants of growth and mark the
soul@s passage toward the light. I will venture to assert on the strength of
a law running through all nature that every growing thing feels pain
and lack and oppression in the earlier stages of its growth. The little seed
says nothing of the weight of earth upon its osom or of the darkness in
which its life is enshrouded, ut I know it feels them #ust as we do, only
in lesser degree. It feels them as unhappy experiences in its growth, ut
they are happily all forgotten when it gains its freedom in the air and
light aove. (urely the apotheosis of a plant can not e more than that of
a human soul, and y virtue of compensation a happiness awaits us all
commensurate with our pain. It is written on all things as well as in our
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hearts. The hope of heaven is as universal as life itself, ut our greatest
mistake has een in placing that heaven too far away.
This only goes to show the childish elief of the race with its tendency to
live in the outer world and its inaility to look within. I can well
rememer the time, for it is not far in the past, when I was utterly
dependent on the happenings of a day for my en#oyment. -y first
thought on awaking in the morning was, I hope something pleasant will
happen to me today. I looked continually to some external stimulus for
my happiness, and need I say that I was as continually disappointed!
7very draught of happiness had its itter dregs which I seemed forced to
drink, and every flower of en#oyment its canker at the heart, so that it
withered and drooped in my hand. Life seemed hard and cruel while
overall a grim .eity held sway, a .eity whose purpose seemed to eat
and crush me into su#ection to his will. )f course it all seemed very
wretched, yet I saw no way out, and there was nothing left me ut to
suffer on. To say that I was reellious was to put it very lightly. The
advice of 8o@s wife, to curse 0od and die, appealed to me as good to
follow, ut what would e the outcome! There was apparently no way
of escape from that terrile will which cast a light on all innocent
en#oyment. I thought with ever increasing dis* comfort of that passage in
+salms6 93hither shall I go then from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee
from thy presence! If I ascend up into heaven thou art there4 if I make
my ed in hell, ehold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea4 even there shall thy hand
lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, (urely the darkness
shall cover me6 even the night shall e made light aout me.9
)h, that dreadful )mnipresence& How I feared and hated it as one might
a relentless, all*seeing, all*powerful tyrant with whom it was impossile
to cope and from whom there was no escape. The utter hopelessness of
my state and of a whole world at the mercy of such a ruler finally
plunged me into the depths of melancholia, ut on that I will not dwell.
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It was all right and good, though grievous at the time. ,y the unerring
law of the cosmos I was to move, as do all things, from darkness into
light.
If your path is dark, dear friend, it leads to the light. 1ememer the seed,
for its experience is yours. "ou are one in the universal process of
growth, and what is true of it is true also of you. 'rom darkness to light,
from pain to #oy. If the seed thinks, and we have yet to prove that it does
not, it may feel toward the darkness and opposing forces which
encompass and circumscrie its little life something as I once felt toward
the power which thwarted me at every turn and rought me the keenest
suffering. I feel sure that the analogy must hold good throughout, and I
know that during my time of darkness I was wholly unconscious of the
good to come.
In his eautiful ook, 9'ive 3indows of the (oul,9 +rofessor Aiken says
something of the sea*anemone which applies to the su#ect efore us and
is most suggestive. He says6
93hen you take it out of the sea to ring it home, its tentacles are all
drawn in, and it is a shapeless, slimy lump4 ut put it in a glass and pour
in water fresh from the sea, and it will presently open out like a flower
and gently wave its hundred arms. It has no knowledge of your
presence, nor of its fellow anemone near it, nor of the seaweeds and
other pretty things in the a/uarium with it, nor of the sweet tones of the
piano playing in the room, nor of the merry laughter of your children4 to
it all these things are not. The soft feel of the water, its gentle motion,
perhaps its temperature, too hot or too cold, these are the universe to
your anemone. ,ut drop a small empty shell into the water, so that in
sinking it will touch the point of one tentacle, and instantly that tentacle
closes on it. The anemone@s world has widened. It perceives the existence
of something which is not itself and not the water. And you soon find
that it perceives also some of the properties of that thing4 for after
Kate Atkinson Boehmes Thinking in the Heart Law of Attraction Haven
clutching it for a second or two it relaxes its hold and drops it, whereas if
you try the same experiment with a piece of raw meat, it will clutch
tighter and tighter and draw the morsel inward toward its mouth, which
will open and admit it. (hould a luckless shrimp come in contact with
one of the tentacles, it will e seized in the same way, ut as it struggles
to free itself, other tentacles will close in and hold it fast, and altogether
your anemone will display an energy which it did not display when it
was dealing with the shell or the meat. It perceives not matter only, this
time, ut motion. Assuming, then, that the anemone has consciousness,
we find that it has perceived the existence of matter not itself and of
some of the properties of matter % resistance, hardness or softness and
weight, also of motion. (o far it has penetrated into the mystery of
things.
$ow does it not occur to you that our position in this world is very like
that of the anemone! Is not our life a continual attempt to penetrate the
mystery of things! The anemone in its small way as it reaches out with
its tentacles and touches the things of its narrow world is realizing #ust
as truly as are we who are reaching inward after that which is unseen,
ut none the less real. And as the anemone is unconscious of the music
of the piano and the merry voices of the children, so are we in the
presence of wondrous and eautiful things which we know not. If our
senses were fine enough, we might see and know much that is now
virtually non*existent to us, for like the anemone that grasps the meat
and the shrimp, the while unconscious of the music or the children@s
voices, so do we touch ut little of the world aout us.
As the world of the anemone widens, so does ours. In oth it is a growth
in realization. It is touching more of the outer and inner world. The
anemone does not think as we think, and yet it distinguishes etween
the o#ects in its world of consciousness. It knows that the shell is not the
meat and that the meat is not the shrimp, although it cannot spell the
names we have given to each. How does it know! It realizes the thing
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itself and not its name as so many of us are in the hait of doing. To
realize is to make real, and whether we seek the inner life or the outer,
we should make our world more real through feeling, through coming
in actual touch with it.
I have seen a simple soul filled with a #oy and peace which a righter
intellect might envy and seek in vain. The simpler soul had found that
which no argument reveals and no process of reasoning rings closer to
the perception.
.oes it re/uire an argument to prove to you that you exist! 5an any
word or series of words convey to you the fact of your existence! $o&
"ou simply feel that you exist. "ou may have reached that feeling
through a long line of experiences in which thought played an important
role, still the result of it all is a feeling #ust the same, and that feeling is
realization.
(tarting with a realization of your own eing, which realization you
possess now, is it so difficult a matter to extend that realization and see
that eing of yours widen and widen until it exceeds all your past
conceptions! 5an you not imagine yourself on the inner side opening
into the deeps of infinity as a river opens into the ocean! To think aout
it will aid you in elieving it possile, ut the only thing which will
make it real is to reach out as does the anemone with the tentacles of
your spirit in order to feel or experience or touch that which you seek.
That, and that alone, is realization.
I have said again and again that thought without feeling avails nothing
in the estalishment of health and happiness. I cannot emphasize that
fact too strongly, for it is all*important in the attainment of improved
mental and physical conditions. 'eeling is of the heart, and the heart is
the centre of life. 'rom it proceed the issues of life. 3e make a
distinction etween a hearty welcome and a merely civil one. ,oth
involve thought, ut the former also involves feeling, while the latter
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does not. And why do we say hearty ;heart*y<! ,ecause it comes from
the heart and is therefore full of life.
Let me illustrate still further. $ot long ago I had a usiness transaction
with a person who claimed A>B more than I elieved to e her due. The
result was an argument in which neither was convinced.
I positively knew that I had #ustice on my side, and so one day I sat
down at my desk in a #udicial mood. I felt every fire of my nature
hardening in the interest of #ustice and I dipped my pen in ink to write
page after page in #ustification of my own position. (uddenly, without
warning and apparently without cause, my mood softened, and I wrote6
.ear CCCCCCCCCC, you are right. The A>B is yours. Here is my check for
the amount. "ours with love CCCCCCCCCC .9
$ow I never shall forget the delicious happiness that stole over me as I
enclosed the check and sealed the letter. It was as though a heavenly
enediction had descended upon my spirit and it was worth a thousand
times that paltry twenty*five dollars.
,ut why did I say 9"ou are right. The A>B is yours! (imply ecause I felt
that down somewhere in the suconscious stratum of our natures there
is registered a different account from that which shows upon the pages
of our dayooks and our ledgers, and in that suconscious account it
may e seen that some of the things which seem to elong to us really
elong to others. The heart may know more than the mind does aout
that hidden account, and in that case feeling can move us to the deepest,
truest ends of #ustice. And had I not said6 9"ou are right. 9Had I said6
9"ou are wrong, ut I will send you my check to end the discussion@ I
should have placed a canker in my note which would have eaten all the
love out of it and taken away the #oy it was to carry to another heart. I
speak of this to show the difference etween thought and feeling. I
thought the A>B was mine, ut I felt that it elonged to another.
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3ho shall say that this prompting of my heart was not a forecast of that
day of rotherhood, when we shall not draw hard and fast lines aout
ourselves, our rights and our possessions! If we desire the pulsing life
from the heart of the universe, we must ecome one with it, and we
cannot ecome one with it while we shut our rothers from our hearts.
"ou see when I made the interests of another my own and covered her
need with my supply, the (pirit of Life gave me enediction. In fulfilling
the law of Life more Life was poured out upon me. The law of Life is
Love.
The diagram at the head of this lesson is a flower. It as truly represents a
radiant centre as does the star, and it was suggested y these lines in
7dward 5arpenter@s 9Love@s 5oming of Age.9 He speaks of his elief in
9a society to which we all in our inmost selves consciously or
unconsciously elong % the 1ose of souls that .ante eheld in +aradise,
whose every petal is an individual, and an individual only through its
union with all the rest % the early 5hurch@s dream of an eternal
'ellowship in heaven and on earth4 the +rototype of all the rotherhoods
and communities that exist on this or any planet. The innumerale
selves of men, united in the one (elf, memers of it and of one another
;like the memers of the ody< stand in eternal and glorious relationship
ound indissoluly together.9
In concluding these lessons, I have changed the diagram from the star to
the figure of the flower, ecause I wished to throw a more definite and
living eauty into the conception of oneness, for while the star itself
radiates life in the form of light, this is not fully expressed in a
geometrical design upon paper. $othing appeals to the heart and stirs it
to new life like an organized form of eauty, and the thought of
unfolding like a flower from the centre of .ivinity, must e an incentive
to etter and more eautiful action. The form, the color, the aroma of a
flower delight us through the senses it is true, ut at the same time there
is a sutle and unrecognized appeal to the inner life, ecause the still
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small voice of .ivinity is saying through the flower6 9,ehold -e in this
my symol. I A- at the centre and I A- at the circumference. I A- 0od
at the centre of the rose, I A- -an in its petals, and eside -7 there is
none.9
To feel this, dear friends, is the first step in realization. It is not so
difficult a thing. 3e are accustomed to look upon the things external,
which can e seen and touched, as real, and the unseen things as unreal,
while #ust the reverse is true. 3e have developed crude senses y which
we see and touch these external things and it remains for us to develop
finer senses y which we feel the inner things. A seer once said6 9The
things which are seen are temporal, ut the things which are not seen
are eternal.9
1ealization means, to draw the externalized consciousness ack to the
centre where it touches or is conscious of the spirit of power. It means to
remain calm and serene at that centre while also reaching out in
healthful activity. To reach this place in consciousness, so peaceful, so
masterful, so creative, so lessed, is the entire end and aim of these
lessons in 1ealization. They may seem to my readers very much like a
tune that is played on one string, with ut little variation, and indeed
they are so, for I well know the devious and wandering paths y which
so many are striving to escape from the tangled layrinth of many
leadings. A definite, short cut is needed, straight out of the woods. I
came upon it and it led me out. 9$ow I would place a signoard,
pointing the way to others. 3ith my whole soul I elieve there is no
necessity for unhappiness, for failure, for poverty or disease, and I as
fully elieve that the day is at hand when every soul shall recognize its
own divinity and dwell in ma#esty at the centre of ,eing, controlling
circumstance and radiant with Life and +ower.
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