Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-17

get the better of US. our old habits may as
sert themselves now and anon. loom up out
of the past like haunting ghosts.
But only for the nonce. Our will our
supra-nature is acquiring its supremacy,
our new nature is our real nature. The old
Adam dies away and there is a new birth.
It is Easy
finished. as unalterable
We say, 1T is my nature to do thus
and So" We say, II have the habit of
it."
supra-nature. We can make our habits
We need not fall into habits; We can rise
into habits.
We are the creatures of our own handi-
work. and still are in the making and
what we can do with ourselves we perhaps
little dream.
The same sort of education that makes
out of the illiterate boy the cultivated COL
iege graduate we can supply to our char
acters. to all our habits. to all our life.
Our hearts. mayhaD. are illiterate, leaden
hearts. but they can be educated. they can
become golden. Perhaps they are swayed
by base emotions, perhaps they gov
erned by tempestuOus moods But the
moods themselves and the emotions them
selves yield to the alchemy
In Transforming the heart. in transmitting
its baseness into golden worth the supreme
agent is love.
In transforming the thought the great
agent is concentration; in Transforming the
desire the great agent is will Indeed, the
will permeates all. For without the will all
is lost. A certain fixity of purpose is essen
tial to our victory.
If We
Examine our hearts we find that the dis
comforts of our heart life. the baseness Of
our heart life. arises from lack of love in
one form another
Fear itself Is form of hate the opposite
of love: jealousy is form of hatred, in
gratitude. pride. Feasibility. rudeness-aIl
these are hatred forms. Hate simply is our
separation off from our fellows. the repul-
sive force. while love is the attractive
force. the unifying force which weds US
TO others. Whatever emotion 1t may be-
1t is an emotion that leads us away from a
loving comaraderie with others, there is
hate In It, Perfect love casteth out fear"
BY perfect love we are united to God, and
by perfect love We are united to men.
For every hate emotion there Is a corre-
spending opposite emotion of love. The op-
pos!te OF wrath is Sentleness. the opposite of
pride Is modesty and mildness. and so on
ANA Doth In ourselves and others we dis
solve the hate by substituting the opposit g
love emotion. 1t is in this way that the M
rihcation of our hearts is perfected
Uncultured Thought
Is confused. Thoughts fly hither and
thither through the mind without method
or reason. We have not o,ntrol over the
| thought. for il fits from topic to topic ere
We are aware of it. although we may pre-
fer 10 dwell on a single theme If we sit
| for moments concentration on a subject
we choose We soon find that the mind has
wandered far and awSy, and if We call
II back 1t goes away again; and instead OF
spending our thought energy on this theme
We have chosen we find that we are ex-
pending it on number of different themes
which we did not choose at all.
1t is this lack of concentration that is the
great foe 10 mental achievement. Wherever
We hnd any one that can dwell for time
concentrate upon his subject. We have a
man with mental power. He can do things
The scatterbrafns cannot achieve great
things IN the intellectual realms for the
simple reason that their tools are not de-
pendabie. If they wish TO work on a given
theme their instruments fly out of their
mental grasp.
Among the ACCOMPLISHMENTS of the Hin
docs is this of concentration They say that
all knowledge Is open to him that concen-
trates.