Now _un-see_ it. Look at it in the right way. See only G.o.d"s child, with perfect sight. And, Padre, after a while _you will see that babe seeing things, just as we do_!
"Don"t you understand?" she exclaimed, as he sat looking fixedly at her. "Don"t you see that if you have the right thought about the babe, and hold to it, and put out every thought that says it is blind, why, your right thought will be externalized in a mental concept of a babe that sees? Don"t you know that that is exactly what Jesus did? He didn"t affect the real man at all. But he did change the mental concepts which we call human beings. And we can do the same, if we only know it, and follow him, and spiritualize our thought, as he did, by putting out and keeping out every thought that we know does not come from G.o.d, and that is, therefore, only a part of the lie about Him. Here is a case where we have got to quit thinking that two and two are seven. And I have done it. It is G.o.d"s business to make our concepts right. And He has done so--long since. And we will see these, right concepts if we will put out the wrong ones!"
"Well?" he queried lamely, wholly at a loss for any other answer.
"Well, Padre, I am not a bit afraid. I don"t see a blind babe at all, because there just can"t be any. And neither do you. The babe sees because G.o.d sees."
"In other words, you don"t intend to allow yourself to be deceived by appearances?" he suggested.
"That is just it, Padre!" she exclaimed. "Blindness is only an appearance. But it doesn"t appear to G.o.d, It appears only to the human mind--which isn"t any mind at all! And the appearance can be made to disappear, if we know the truth and stick to it. For any appearance of a human body is a mental concept, that"s all."
"A thing of thought, then?" he said.
"Yes, a thing of _wrong_ thought. But all wrong thought is subject to G.o.d"s right thought. We"ve proved that, haven"t we, lots of times? Well, this wrong thought about a babe that is blind can be changed--made to disappear--just as any lie can be made to disappear when we know the truth. And so you and I are not going to be afraid, are we? I told Anita this morning not to worry, but to just _know_ all the time that her babe did see, no matter what the appearance was. And she smiled at me, Padre, she smiled. And I know that she trusts, and is going to work with you and me."
Work with her! Heavens! had he done aught of late but work against her by his constant harboring of fears, of doubts, and his distrust of spiritual power?
"Padre," she resumed, "I want you to promise me that every day you will thank G.o.d that the babe really sees. And that you will turn right on every thought of blindness and know that it is a part of the lie about G.o.d, and put it right out of your mind. Will you?"
"But--child--if my mind tells me that the babe is blind, how can I--"
"I don"t care what your mind tells you about the babe! You are to listen to what G.o.d tells you, not your human mind! Does G.o.d tell you that the babe is blind? Does He?" she repeated, as the man hesitated.
"Why, no, _chiquita_, He--"
"Listen, Padre," she interrupted again, drawing closer to him. "Is G.o.d good, or bad, or both?"
"He is good, _chiquita_, all good."
"Infinite good, then, no?"
"Yes."
"And we have long since proved by actual reasoning and demonstration that He is mind, and so infinite mind, no?"
"It must be conceded, Carmen."
"Well, an infinite mind has all power. And an infinite, all-powerful mind that is all good could not possibly create anything bad, or sick, or discordant--now could He?"
"Utterly impossible, little girl."
"The Bible says so. Our reasoning tells us so. But--the five physical senses tell us differently. Don"t they?"
"Yes."
"And yet, we know that the five physical senses _do not tell us truth_! We know that when the human mind thinks it is receiving reports about things through the five physical senses it is doing nothing more than looking at its own thoughts. Now isn"t that so?"
"It certainly seems so, little one."
"The thoughts of an infinite and good mind must be like that mind, all good, no? Well, then, thoughts of discord, disease, blindness, and death--do they come from the infinite, good mind? No!"
"Well, _chiquita mia_, that is just the sticking point. I can see all the rest. But the mighty question is, where _do_ those thoughts come from? I am quite as ready as you to admit that discord, sin, evil, death, and all the whole list of human ills and woes come from these bad thoughts held in the human mind and so externalized. I believe that the human man really sees, feels, hears, smells, and tastes these thoughts--that the functioning of the physical senses is wholly mental--takes place in mind, in thought only. That is, that the human mind thinks it sees, feels, hears; but that the whole process is mental, and that it is but regarding its thoughts, instead of actually regarding and cognizing objects outside of itself. Do you follow me?"
"Of course," she replied with animation. "Isn"t that just what I am trying to tell you?"
"But--and here is the great obstacle--we differentiate between good and bad thoughts. We agree that a fountain can not send forth sweet and bitter waters at the same time. And so, good and bad thoughts do not come from the infinite mind that we call G.o.d. But where do the others originate? Answer that, _chiquita_, and my problems will all be solved."
She looked at him in perplexity for some time. It seemed to her that she never would understand him. But, with a little sigh of resignation, she replied:
"Padre, you answered that question yourself, long ago. You worked it all out three or four years ago. But--you haven"t stuck to it. You let the false testimony of the physical senses mesmerize you again.
Instead of sticking to the thoughts that you knew to be good, and holding to them, in spite of the pelting you got from the others, you have looked first at the good, and then at the bad, and then believed them all to be real, and all to be powerful. And so you got miserably mixed up. And the result is that you don"t know where you stand. Do you? Or, you think you don"t; for that thought, too, is a bad one, and has no power at all, excepting the power that you seem willing--and glad--to give it."
He winced under the poignant rebuke. He knew in his heart that she was right. He had not clung to the good, despite the roars of Satan. He had not "resisted unto blood." Far from it; he had fallen, almost invariably, at the first shower of the adversary"s darts. And now, was he not trying, desperately, to show her that Ana"s babe was blind, hopelessly so? Was he not fighting on evil"s side, and vigorously, though with shame suffusing his face, waving aloft the banner of error?
"The trouble with you, Padre," the girl resumed, after some moments of reflection, "is that you--you see everything--well, you see everything as a person, or a thing."
"You mean that I always a.s.sociate thought with personality?" he suggested.
"That"s it! But you have got to learn to deal with thoughts and ideas by themselves, apart from any person or thing. You have got to learn to deal with facts and their opposites entirely apart from places, or things, or people. Now if I say that Life is eternal, I have stated a mental thing. That is the fact. Its opposite, that is, the opposite of Life, is death. One opposes the other. But G.o.d is Life. Is G.o.d also death? He can"t be. Life is the fact. Then death must be the illusion.
That being so, Life is the reality, and death is the unreality. Very well, what makes death seem real? It is just because the false thought of death comes into the human mind, and is held there as a reality, as something that has _got_ to happen. And that strong belief becomes externalized in what mortals call death. Don"t you see? Is there a person in the whole world who doesn"t think that some time he has got to die? No, not one! But now suppose every person held the belief that death was an illusion, a part of the big lie about G.o.d, just as Jesus said it was. Well, wouldn"t we get rid of death in a hurry? I should think so! And is there a person in the whole world who wouldn"t say that Anita"s babe was blind? No, not one! They would look at the human thought of blindness, instead of G.o.d"s real idea of sight, and so they would make and keep the babe blind. Don"t you understand me, Padre dear? Don"t you? I know you do, for you really see as G.o.d sees!"
She stopped for breath. Her eyes glistened, and her whole body seemed to radiate the light of knowledge divine. Then she went hurriedly on:
"Padre, everything is mental. You know that, for you told me so, long since. Well, that being so, we have got to face the truth that every mental fact seems to have an opposite, or a lot of opposites, also seemingly mental. The opposite of a fact is an illusion. The opposite of truth is a lie. Well, G.o.d is the great fact. Infinite mind is the infinite fact. The so-called opposite of this infinite fact is the human mind, the many so-called minds of mankind--_a kind of man._ But everything is still mental. Now, an illusion, or a lie, does not _really_ exist. If I tell you that two and two are seven, that lie does not exist. Is it in what we call my mind, or yours? No. Even if you say you believe it, that doesn"t make it real. Nor does it show that it has real existence in your mind. Not a bit of it! But--if you hold it, and cling to it--allow it to stay with you and influence you--why, Padre dear, everything in your whole life will be changed!
"Let me take your pencil--and a piece of paper. Look now," drawing a line down through the paper. "On one side, Padre, is the infinite mind, G.o.d, and all His thoughts and ideas, all good, perfect and eternal. On the other side is the lie about it all. That is still mental; but it is illusion, falsity. It includes all sin, all sickness, all murder, all evil, accidents, loss, failure, bad ambitions, and death. These are all parts of the big lie about G.o.d--His unreal opposite. These are the so-called thoughts that come to the human mind. Where do they come from? From nowhere. The human mind looks at them, tastes them, feels them, holds them; and then they become its beliefs. After a while the human mind looks at nothing but these beliefs. It believes them to be real. And, finally, it comes to believe that G.o.d made them and sent them to His children. Isn"t it awful, Padre! And aren"t you glad that you know about it? And aren"t you going to learn how to keep the good on one side of that line and the illusion on the other?"
It seemed to Jose a thing incredible that these words were coming from a girl of fifteen. And yet he knew that at the same tender age he was as deeply serious as she--but with this difference: he was then tenaciously clinging to the thoughts that she was now utterly repudiating as unreal and non-existent.
"Padre dear," the girl resumed, "everything is mental. The whole universe is mental."
"Well," he replied reflectively, "at least our comprehension of it is wholly mental."
"Why--it is all inside--it is all in our thought! Padre, when Hernando plays on that old pipe of his, where is the music? Is it in the pipe?
Or is it in our thoughts?"
"But, _chiquita_, we don"t seem to have it in our thought until we seem to see him playing on the pipe, do we?"
"No, we don"t," she replied. "And do you know why? It is just because the human mind believes that everything, even music, must come from matter--must have a--"
"Must have a material origin? Is that what you mean?"
"Yes. And men even believe that life itself has a material origin; and so they have wasted centuries trying to find it in the body. They don"t seem to want to know that G.o.d is life."
"Then, _chiquita_, you do not believe that matter is real?"
"There is no matter outside of us, or around us, Padre," she said in reply. "The human mind looks at its thoughts and seems to see them out around it as things made of matter. But, after all, it only sees its thoughts."
"Then I suppose that the externalization of our thought in our consciousness const.i.tutes what we call s.p.a.ce, does it not?"