nl-Chapter 35 - The power of Thoughts, Feelings, and Will
The Sending and Receiving of Thoughts and Their Effects
1. There are forces that—invisible to the human eye and imperceptible to human science—constantly exert an influence on your lives.
2. There are good ones, and there are evil ones; some give you health, and others cause you illness; there are light ones and dark ones.
3. Where do these forces come from? From the spirit, disciple, from the mind, and from the emotions.
4. Every incarnated or disembodied soul emits vibrations when thinking; every feeling exerts an influence. You can be certain that the world is full of these vibrations.
5. Now you can easily understand that where people think and live in goodness, healing forces and influences must be present, and that where people live outside the laws and rules that characterize goodness, justice, and love, harmful forces must exist.
6. Both fill the space and battle one another; they influence people's emotional lives, and if people are able to distinguish between them, they accept the good inspirations and reject the bad influences. But if they are weak and untrained in doing good, they cannot resist these vibrations and are in danger of becoming slaves to evil and succumbing to its dominion. (40, 58–63)
7. Everything spiritual in the universe is a source of light, whether visible or invisible to you, and this light is strength, is power, is inspiration. Light also radiates from ideas, words, and deeds, in accordance with the purity and nobility they possess. The more exalted the idea or the work, the more delicate and subtle is its vibration and the inspiration it radiates, even if it is more difficult for the slaves of materialism to perceive it. Nevertheless—the spiritual impact exerted by lofty thoughts and works is great. (16, 16)
8. When an idea or a thought of light springs from your mind, it reaches its destination to fulfill its beneficent task. If, instead of thoughts of goodness, impure emanations go forth from your mind, they will cause only harm wherever you send them. I tell you, thoughts too are deeds, and as such they remain recorded in the book that exists within your soul.
9. Whether your deeds are good or evil—you will receive back many times over what you wished for your fellow human beings. It would be better for you to do something evil to yourselves than to wish it upon one of your neighbors.
10. That is why I told you in the "Second Era": "What one sows, one reaps"; for it is necessary that you recognize your experiences in this life and remember that your harvests will bring you the same seed that you have sown, but multiplied.
11. O humanity, you have not wanted to ponder, feel, or live the teachings of your Master! (24, 15-18)
12. That is why I have told you that you have not recognized the power of thought. Today I tell you that thought is voice and hearing, that it is weapon and shield. It creates just as it destroys. Thought shortens the distance between those who dwell far apart and finds those whose trail it had lost.
13. Recognize your weapons before the battle begins. Whoever knows how to prepare will be strong and invincible. It will not be necessary for you to wield weapons of murder. Your sword shall be pure and sincere thought— —and your shield, faith and love for your neighbor. Even in silence, your voice shall resound as a message of peace. (76, 34)
14. Be vigilant, taking care not to defile your mind with impure thoughts. It is creative, and if you harbor a bad idea, it will draw you down to lower planes, and your soul will be enveloped by darkness. (146, 60)
15. The united thoughts of a large group of people will be able to overcome evil influences and topple idols from their pedestals. (160, 60)
16. Today I can assure you that in the future, communication through thought will reach great heights, and through this means of communication, many barriers that still separate peoples and worlds today will disappear. If you learn to connect with your Father in thought, if you achieve spirit-to-spirit communication—what could then still cause you difficulty in connecting with your visible or invisible, present or absent, near or distant brothers and sisters? (165, 15)
17. Your thoughts always reach Me, however imperfect they may be, and I hear your prayers, even when they lack the faith you should always place in them. The reason for this is that My Spirit perceives the vibrations and feelings of all beings.
18. But people who keep their distance from one another because of their selfishness, far removed from spiritual life as a result of the materialism in which they have allowed themselves to become entangled today, are not prepared to communicate with one another through their thoughts.
19. Nevertheless, I tell you that it is necessary for you to begin training your spirit. To achieve this, "speak" to the souls, even if you do not receive a clearly perceptible response from them.
20. Tomorrow, when all have learned to give, they will receive more and more signs of spiritual communication, such as people could never have dreamed of. (238, 51)
The power of emotions, desires, or fears
21. At every moment, mental or spiritual vibrations emanate from you, but in most cases you radiate selfishness, hatred, violence, vanity, and base passions. You hurt and feel when you are hurt: but you do not love, and therefore you do not feel when you are loved, and with your morbid thoughts you saturate the environment in which you live more and more with pain and fill your existence with unease. Yet I tell you: saturate everything with peace, with harmony, with love, and then you will be happy. (16, 33)
22. Never think ill of those who do not like you, and do not be embittered toward those who do not understand you, for you yourselves mentally convey to them the innermost feelings you hold toward your neighbors. (105, 37)
23. Do you see those people who seek power through violence? Very soon you will see them proven wrong.
24. I will prove to them that one can be truly great and powerful only through goodness, which is the radiance of love. (211, 22-23)
25. You lack the faith to lift your faces and smile with hope, and to look the future in the face without fear or mistrust, for I am in the future.
26. How often are you sick simply because you think so; for at every turn you believe that misfortune pursues you and pain lies in wait. Then, through your thoughts, you attract dark forces that cast a shadow over your material life and your path of spiritual ascent.
27. Yet I am here with you to rekindle your faith in life, in truth, in the eternal, and in perfect peace, and also to teach you to attract the light. (205, 28-29)
The Lack of Self-Conquest
28. Man has made himself doubly guilty: not only because he makes no effort whatsoever to remove the blindfold that prevents him from knowing the highest teachings, but also because he has not freed himself from the bonds of matter, which—in contrast to spiritual joys—have led him astray toward physical pleasures. That is why he has enslaved himself to the rule of passions and allows his soul to resemble a lame man who does nothing to become healthy.
29. In every sphere, I see the majority of people as unstable; everywhere I encounter only the weak. And to what is this attributable? To the fact that you lack the courage and sufficient willpower to extricate yourselves from the mire in which you are stuck, to overcome the inertia that forges the chains binding you to matter, and this is the source of all vices, of all faults.
30. But man does not wish to make use of that power with which he has been endowed, which is the will—the will that is to be the unrestricted lawgiver, that is to become the supreme guide and, supported by reason, must fight—power against power, dominion against dominion: on the one hand, the passions and desires; on the other, reason and the will—until the latter win the battle and you can say that you are free.
31. Then you will be able to be the great prophets, the great enlightened ones, the "supermen." Then you will be able to live alongside wild animals and play with reptiles. For truly, I tell you, it is the transgressions weighing upon you that cause you to fear those little brothers of yours, and this is also the reason why they attack you.
32. But if you take the time to observe people, you will discover that there are people who are wilder than tigers and who have more venom than the cobra. (203, 3-6)