New Year Resolutions

“NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS”

By “Dr. Lascelles” 10th January 1932

I remember when I was a boy – aye, when I was a young man, that at this particular season of the year, I always made a good resolution.  As a boy I intended to be more obedient to my tutor and to my parents.  As a young man I always made the resolution to save more money – to be more careful.  I kept to those resolutions for about a week – maybe a fortnight – but they broke down as most resolutions do.  Looking back, I tried to find the cause of these resolutions breaking down, and I do now.  Is there some psychological reason, or must we go further back and place it on the shoulders of our ancestors, blaming them for the heredity trait we have, or perhaps look upon the faults of life as being habits?  I should not say that either factor could be ruled out, but I would say this: that life is so dependent upon thought and right thinking, that immortality is dependent to a great extent on thought.  Certainly, the future of this year is dependent upon right thinking.

That brings us to this point.  Heaven is a place built up by the thought of angels, and matter, as we know it in its etheric form, can be so shaped by the thought of man that the whole of beauty can be expressed in the area that is inhabited by the spirits.

Now that holds not only for the after-life but also for your present life.    There cannot be any law in the spiritual universe that has not its counterpart in the physical universe – I want you to remember that.  You are still, all of you, spirits – the earthly body is only an instrument of expression of the dynamic force that comes as it were from the revolutions of the dynamo.  Your body is only the light, it is not the dynamic force which you call Spirit.  It is only expressing life and spirit by its light and Christ is termed THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD because the expression of His Spirit is through the hearts of human beings.  So we are faced with this problem: that the control during this coming year must be a control of thought.

Now, as you know, you cannot have action without thought, but action can be automatic; so thought also can be automatic in its control of action.  You may act automatically through habit; you may say things automatically, either a loving thing or the reverse.  Cruel words may come to your lips easily, you may feel kindness in expression is sentimentality and you dislike sentimentality – so you put on an exterior of hardness, or criticism, to hold back, to enclose the real ‘you’ that happens to be a sentimentalist.

So you see how you are affecting your life and your happiness by your thought.  Psychologists of today will tell you the condition of the physical body is affected by your thoughts and your surroundings.  Certainly it is!  Psychoanalysts will tell you that ‘complexes’ in the mind can so affect your nerves as to cause certain nervous diseases; in extreme cases ‘complexes’ can bring on insanity.

Now, if thought and its complexes can affect the human body, there you have thought in action over matter.  It would make all the difference if you could get rid of these complexes that worry you; and if from the depths of your subconscious you could get a flow of spiritual thought through the conscious brain, you could destroy these complexes - it is here that we can see the importance of prayer.

Prayer, as I have told you before, is thought in action on the spiritual plane.  If we can have thought in action on the physical plane, we can also send thought-waves over long distances, as in telepathy.  By the power of thought, one person can control a mass of people; it is through that power of thought that a great teacher can raise masses of people spiritually and leave behind, after passing to the higher planes, his influence.  It is through the power of thought that Jesus Christ made a mark on your souls, or a light in your souls, that will burn forever, either dimly or brightly, depending how you develop the Christ-thought that is in you.

None of the psychologists have really touched the main point that controls life: the basis of it all is LOVE, SPIRITUALITY AND SERVICE.  

No one can possibly have a healthy body and be selfish; they may think they are healthy, but they are not!  A selfish person sets up certain reactions in the body that causes them depressions – nerve depressions.  A selfish person CANNOT be happy, that is impossible.  A selfish person is a fool.

What are you on the earth-plane for?  What is this New Year for?  What is the aim and object of every one of you?  To gain happiness?  And do you find it in your various churches?  Would you say your ministers are the ideal of happy manhood?  Where do you find happiness?  You find it more in the East End than in Mayfair.  What is this illusive something that you want to have?  I would wish for all of you great happiness and I know that just a little think will make all the difference.  You say you cannot alter your nature – but you can!  Your nature has been what it is through HABIT and it is just as easy to be habitually happy as habitually miserable.  It is just as easy to be habitually good as to be habitually bad.  

You only need a change of thought.  It is like touching a button on an electrical control board; you have got used to touching the wrong button, yet you have only to touch the other and your whole life could be flooded with light.  A New Year!  What should your resolutions be?  That you should be a seeker for happiness.

You want happiness, but – and it is a very big but – you can only gain it by LOVE, SPIRITUALITY AND SERVICE.  It is written up on the wall.  You can only get happiness when you are prepared to alter your thoughts:  to GIVE, to give, receiving.

Service is irksome at the first beginning; the habits have been very, very strong and you begin to miss things: you are homesick, as it were, for your old life, for what you have been, for what you have had, in place of this service.

You cogitate – you think: “Shall I do it?  I do not get much enjoyment – I do not think I will go…….”  You get more and more sick about going and more and more ashamed of yourself.  Finally, you do go and give your service and during that time you feel joy, and you come back with a warm, happy feeling.  But you might have broken under the strain and not gone and instead have had your social pleasure, or whatever it might be and thinking of the service you might have given you feel worried, miserable and depressed: you have lost touch with the happiness you are seeking.

Now we have these three factors in the beauty of life:  LOVE, SERVICE AND SPIRITUALITY.  We will start our New Year with SPIRITUALITY.  By spirituality I mean contact as often as possible with the angels – that is REAL spirituality.  How do you get it?  By prayer!  Prayer is the open door to the Heavens.  If you knew a place where there were happy, smiling faces, where there was laughter and music somewhere inside, you would want to open the door.  Prayer is the key and you want to be with the angels.

The angels bring happiness in this way: if you are unhappy but meet a happy person you laugh with them – they lift you out of the depression you were in.  But how much more happiness must you glean from an angelic form than from a spirit in the body.  So, if you call the angels often to your side, you must by induction of happiness become happier; you must by the induction of spirituality become more spiritual.  So you pray and contact the angels as often as possible, and they will open up the way to SERVICE.  What is this service?  By giving a penny to a beggar?  By signing a cheque for charity?  By the many little things you can do without trouble to yourself?  No!  Service in my meaning is GIVING OF YOURSELF.

I think those colleagues of mine in the flesh are the most happy.  For doctors as a rule, though they see much suffering and touch the very dregs of life, yet they are as a profession very happy.  They give of themselves; in their service they know they must give of themselves.  To give yourself in service to others, that is so very important.

And then LOVE!  Love in its divine power leads one to keep all the commandments.  If you really love you cannot break them.  You have given service, tried to raise yourself spiritually, but without love what is it?

So we are facing this new year, loving people.  I do not mean sentimental love, but the frank camaraderie of friendship; the understanding of another – that is so important; that sinking of self in others – that is so important.  Love, and you have the keys to the door of Heaven.  How, then, can you help but be happy, and to have a happy New Year?  Friends wish it for you, but it depends on YOU, not on the wishes of others.  Wish yourselves a Happy New Year; be determined this shall be a year of happiness through SPIRITUALITY, SERVICE AND LOVE.  Times of depression will soon lift and you will find a place of sunshine to live your life in joy and hope and peace.

PRAYER

Our Father in Heaven give to those that pray Thy knowledge, Thy peace, Thy hope.                                              

Lift up their hearts in this coming year, that they may step forward; knowing that the hand of Thy Son Jesus Christ is there waiting to guide them.

Lead them along the paths of happiness, so they can enter Thy Kingdom of Heaven and may feel Thy loving touch in the coming days.

Amen

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