CHAPTER VIII. LIVING IS BUT A SERIES OF STATES OF MIND Presumably having arrived at the point of view from which everything appears to us to be Mind, we must be convinced that the difference in the things we see about us is nothing but a difference in their "state of mind." They are different we know, there is but one Mind we know, and the difference then must consist entirely in the state we observe that mind to be in. The tree is in the tree state of mind, i. e., it expresses the Subconsciousness of being a tree-it thinks itself to be a tree. The horse is in a horse state of mind; it is conscious of being a horse, i. e., thinks itself a horse. The man is in the human state of mind, he knows himself to be a man; he is conscious of possessing Reason, and that it is his special Consciousness, differentiating him from other beings. The tree has various states of mind; its stem knows itself to be a stem; its roots, its branches, its leaves, its flowers, its fruit, all evince a different state of mind. Each one of these things passes through different states of mind in its progress to perfection. So in ourselves our lives are each a series of con tinually changing states of mind. Our heads, our hands, our feet, our organs, each have a state of mind continually changing as the central thought changes, and in changing makes a new expression. When our Reason decides that it is time for us to go to bed we think we will go to bed. Everything in us thinks of going to bed, and if we are in a normal state everything in us co-operates in going to bed. We decide that we will not go to bed. Everything in us decides that it will not go to bed, and remains quiescent, waiting for our Reason to decide what it will cause us to think next. We decide to have some supper, and everything in us gets ready for supper. Then we decide that we will take a little walk before retiring, and everything in us gets ready for the stroll. Then we decide that the supper has made us feel ill, and everything in us feels ill. Or we decide, the weather not being good without, to have a game of cards before going to bed, and everything in us gets ready for a game of cards. These are but simple illustrations of our continually changing states of mind, all instigated by the Reason. Perhaps we follow our first impulse and go to bed. go to sleep, but we find it impossible. In everything else Reason was in full control. Now instead of going to sleep we begin to remember all sorts of things. Something has aroused our Subcon We decide to How is this? sciousness, our Memory Consciousness. Probably we have acquired the habit of remembering before we go to sleep that is, asking ourselves if we have forgotten anything, left anything undone, left some door unlocked. If so, it is this habit asserting itself. We cannot blame our Subconsciousness, though it seems to be over-busy. We know that in the morning we would blame it, that is, ourselves, if we left the front door unlocked or the dining-room window open. However, we find this remembering business irritating because we cannot stop it. This is an undesirable state of mind, and we ask ourselves how we can change it into a sleep state of mind. We repeat the multiplication table, seeking to tire memory by making it stick to something dictated by our Reason. Or we count imaginary sheep jumping over an imaginary gate, thus seeking to change the memory state of mind to a mathematical state of mind at the direction of our Reason. Very few of us appreciate the importance of knowing why repeating the multiplication table or counting sheep, if persisted in, would produce a sleep state of mind. These things are simply efforts of our Reason mind to dominate our Memory mind. If we succeed in changing our mind from a state of memory to a state of calculation we may be annoyed by finding ourselves calculating how much money we have spent, or lost, or saved, during the day, and then we have another fight to change our calculating state of mind into the sleep state of mind. We see in this how possible it is for us to pass from one undesirable state of mind into another, and how difficult it may be to get into that state of mind we desire to be in. It is the object of this work to show how this can best be done. To do this it will be necessary to study the laws governing the transference of mind from one state into another, in order to find out how Reason-the voice of which is the Will-can control the operation. It is worth our while to make a careful study of this, for if successful in learning the operation of these laws we can at once cause our minds to pass from a diseased into a healthy state, and have our bodies perfectly express the state of mind we desire to be in. It will be impossible to learn the operations of the law governing the change of the sap into the branch or leaf of the tree, and we would study in vain the blood of a dog for signs of why and how that blood changes into hair, or bone, or teeth. There are things, however, that we appear to be able by mechanical contrivances to change into other things of a different state of mind. We cannot change a sheep into a dog, not only because we do not know how, but because there is no how-it is impossible to change one Consciousness into another. And when we appear by means of the telephone to change sounds into electricity and back again into sounds, we must decide that we only appear to do this. As it is we talk into the receptacle made to receive the sound of our voice, and we know that the sound, as sound, cannot be successfully carried over the miles of wire connecting us with the thing the listener puts to his ear, so we crudely conclude that by some hocuspocus the sound is converted into electricity on our end of the wire, and back into sound at the other end. It is not so. The vibrations of our voice strike the plate which in the telephone represents the tympanum of our ears, and it would be well to inquire here into what is the sound changed on the other side of our tympanum so as to make it audible to that most delicate of all mechanisms, our brain. Is it changed at all? What is "sound"? Sound is vibration. But then everything else is vibration. Everything we see about us is produced by vibrations of various velocities. Intelligible sounds are produced by an arrangement of the velocities of the vibrations in a manner which we are accustomed to interpret by usage, habit. In speaking into the telephone we must follow this usage to be intelligible, and we thus produce a set of vibrations which are heard and understood afar off. Do these vibrations of the atoms in the atmosphere change into the vibrations of |